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    The Dead Marshes…


    2017 - 03.07

    I can’t say it was a great weekend of activity, although I did help a friend out with something that’s been holding her back from getting a lot of work done. It’s good to know you can help friends and receive the simple joy and satisfaction that comes with that and the recognise the appreciation and thanks.

    Outside of doing that, the rest of the weekend has been spent examining and reorganising my plans for the coming few months. Financially things are just limping along, but it’s not the money so much as the disintegration of the faith in myself and my skill set that’s more concerning now. I know rationally I have a huge range of skills. However at the moment they’re not being used to their full potential. I can see this, but have been feeling at a loss about how to kick start the process again. The vain hope of getting a job again that will use these is solidifying into a figurative concrete wall, grey, uninteresting and unattractive.

    Coupled with that is a major lack of motivation for anything, it’s debilitating. It’s not accompanied by the profound Depression that I was feeling 18 months ago, but somehow this is more insidious. The subtleness of it is what’s most concerning. So today I’m spending time regrouping myself mentally and strategising a fresh path for the next 3 to 6 months.

    The Maelstrom…


    2017 - 02.27

    It seems I’m in a holding pattern, slowly spiralling inwards but not really reaching a destination, i.e. a goal. Financially I’ve slowed the sinking, but the lifeboat is still leaking slowly, with the threat of a major leak constantly a threat. Purposiveness is disintegrating slowly too which is as concerning if not more. I’m steeling myself for a cathartic jolt which I hope is looming.

    Intermittant Communication and Connectivity…


    2017 - 02.16

    Well I’ve been offline nearly a month now while changing over to the NBN. I won’t say it has been the smoothest of processes by a long shot. It’s been punctuated by me chasing my provider for updates of an install that has been both ignored by NBN for two weeks before even filing an order, then several cancelled (i.e. unaccepted) install dates that in turn my provider has omitted to advise me on after providing me with install dates that in turn clearly never got accepted. As is usual in utilities and services provided (and I use that term loosely) in this country, communication is extremely poor and customer satisfaction lacking a great deal of the time. As this service was from the outset defined as a business install, and having been for the most part crippled for a month by this change, I do wonder what other small businesses experiences have been. My install is “due” to take place today sometime this morning. I wait to see if such actually manifests.

    How Good is it to be Australian…


    2017 - 02.09

    This last six weeks has been extremely challenging, from an emotional, psychological and financial perspectives. All in all I’m fairly exhausted and feel like I’ve run out of steam and yet keep rolling along being pulled by a tow rope that’s taking me nowhere I want to go. Unemployment has finally taken it’s forgone conclusion as far as a financial toll goes, placing me at the edge of being homeless soon, drowning in debt with no way to pay any of them and a fairly crap outlook about the foreseeable short to medium term future.

    There’s no doubt that the middle-class in this country is under financial siege, both from government and business. State & Federal Governments in this country seem more concerned about staying elected next election than attempting to address almost ANY serious issue confront the citizens in this country. They continue to ride the waves of terrorism, anti-multiculturalism and maintain their technological stupidity with stoic shortsightedness. Politicians are presented with housing costs outstripping a significant proportion of this nation’s citizens, overburdening of our major cities infrastructure, a rapidly dropping AAA credit rating, the collapse of this country’s capacity to trade on a global scale, a continually rising cost of power in the country.

    And once again all they can do is argue like the most misbehaved of school children left out in the schoolyard too long, calling each other names, and throwing rocks at each other. Not only that, but in their complete ignorance of the deterioration of the majority of this country’s citizens lifestyle seem to continue pushing ideas that fly in the face of long-term solutions. I can only hope that as election time looms, the electorate demonstrates that it’s had enough of self-serving parasites that have no other solutions than to take more & more from those that already have little and hand it off to those that have the most.

    I’m not proud to be and Australian at this stage if the only way we can treat Australians (of all cultural backgrounds) is with contempt and disdain.

    Yes this sounds depressing, that’s because it IS depressing for me. It’s depressing for many people just struggling to maintain some semblance of what they believed this country stood for and offered it’s citizens. We do need to accept some responsibility for where we are, we let them sell us down the river by not standing up more each time they give up one of our freedoms in exchange for nothing of use to the country’s populace. But now it’s time to make them accountable for their greed, lack of empathy and integrity. We need to send them a message.

    I for one will lobby our local members, put them to task to state their allegiances, force them to make public statements about their ethical positions and hold them accountable for the decisions made my the party they belong to, and a “leader” who doesn’t stand by his or her own beliefs. What’s the point of a party having a leader when clearly the leaders do not lead; the parties dictate to the leader, not support them. What’s the point of parties that can’t agree on something obviously needed by the people of this country purely because they feel that they must “win” points against the opposing party. This country isn’t governed by it’s citizens for it’s citizens, it’s hijacked by a minority that has not a clue, nor cares, what’s being played out on the streets of this nation and can only take from it’s citizens without a thought to serving the country. It’s hijacked by businesses that care not for this country as most of them are no longer owned by citizens of this country. They care only for the “mighty dollar”, the majority of which seem to continually flow out of this country.

    There’s a need for a complete flush of the sewers of our political system, new blood with ideas and vision, and a desire to take this country into the future for all it’s people, not just a privileged few.

    Biting the Bullet…


    2016 - 11.03

    Less angry than yesterday, after nothing is going to change except my behaviour. I can’t afford to get bitter when I’m already struggling against falling down another pit of Depression.

    Breadcrumbs & Salt…


    2016 - 11.02

    Less than impressed today. Apparently my “overly generous” unemployment support has been reduced with a fine for “non compliance”, i.e. not logging onto an online course. Fine equals 10% of benefit. Hilarious.

    Wait was that SLES Slipping Out the Door…


    2015 - 04.22

    Well it’s finally time to say goodbye to SuSE. I’ve been a staunch supporter since Version 6.3 but SLES 12 has finally put me off the distro completely. After messing about for a couple of days trying to get it to do what I want I’ve decided to move over to Centos 7. So far it’s only been the Apache server that’s been migrated, but the mail server and the DNS will be done over the next week or two. I think the most annoying thing was that when I was trying to migrate the Mail Server SuSE just have in the administration documentation. There’s currently no supported configuration modules for dovecot in SLES 12. But they took out Cyrus! Argh!

    Anyway Centos all the way now. And to be honest, I can’t say I feel particularly sorry. I’ll take the bagging from a few mates for finally seeing the light, and hope I don’t have to see the SLES again.

    I’ve also configured an OS X server for the wiki at home now. This pleases me too.

    Climbing Into the Lifeboat Again…


    2014 - 11.13

    Well seems I’m not out of the woods with the depressive patches. I have been having a very down period this week; partially bought on by painting and varnishing in an enclosed area with what I thought was as much ventilation as I could manage. Clearly it wasn’t enough! Headaches & Nausea for about 36 hours afterwards.

    That in itself wasn’t the depressive trigger, but it did have me feeling sick and uncomfortable enough to let some things at work take root and bring me unstuck for a few days. Why do some people insist on trying to mess with others trying to do their best at work? Why do others seem to think that theirs is the only way to work, and that others are just procrastinating or not work?

    People have different working styles: that’s a fact. It doesn’t mean they’re any less effective, or efficient than anyone else, nor any more I suppose. However if it’s effective for them and gets results that should be what’s important provided it’s all in keeping with being respectful and helpful with regard to others in the workplace.

    Anyway it’s been eating at me for three days now, and I’ve had enough. I’ve pulled out the initial exercises from my early psychological sessions, and rereading a couple of texts I found useful early on too. Fortunately I’ve had a GP appointment already in place for today, and I’ve tried to get a last appointment with my Psychologist for the last couple of years before she retires (lucky person)! Wouldn’t mind being in that position myself. So to begin moving forward I’ve got Barb coming to stay for a couple of days for some company and she’ll be visiting others too, so still have some time to myself to work on things. I’ll be back to work tomorrow, and starting afresh next week.

    A Sad End…


    2012 - 11.04

    I’m sorry to say that the old Furabg won’t be updating any more. Unfortunately she was taken by a couple of dogs this afternoon. Thankfully it looks like she was literally caught napping and probably didn’t know what happened.

    It’s fair to say she’s been taking it tough the last seven months, clearly not taking to the new addition all that well. She was begrudgingly sharing her space and human. She is now permanently “snoozing” under her favourite Pine Tree in the back yard. It truly is a sad day, and the end of an era. I’ve had her for seventeen years now, and it’s been an interesting period of my life. I’d say I had a closer relationship with Baggins than most other cats I’ve had over the years.

    The blog will stay up as a memorial to the many years of pleasure and punishment that the Furbag gave me. No doubt Tigga will continue some of the hilarity of Human vs Feline.

    RIP Furbag

    RIP Baggsy

    RIP – Furbag

    Death of a Salesman (if ONLY)…


    2011 - 04.29

    There was a time not too long ago (1990’s & early 2000’s) when a TV series had a season to warm up. Not only that, a Season was a good 20+ episodes. A series had time to grow, find it’s feet and an audience had time to see the multi-dimensionality of characters, and the ideas the series was trying to explore.

    There’s no doubt these days that’s not the case. It’s all about Lowest Common Denominator – LCD (and not the screen). Series with any real intellectual and creative stimulation are ruthlessly “euthanised” because audiences in general clearly can’t deal well with show’s that don’t spoon feed them every thought and emotion. Couple that with a medium rigidly unresponsive to the way a large number of viewer wish to absorb the media (i.e. WHEN AND WHERE they desire. Instead of embracing new opportunities to let viewers enjoy shows, studios continue to try to tie their viewers down to schedules that don’t mesh with their daily lives.

    It seems we’re in the decade of no imagination or creativity at all. A significant number of movies are poor remakes of classics or cult favourites. Even series are beginning to follow suite. Is it that Studios believe that there is no one alive that remembers the originals? There are some that clearly attempt to ride the fame of their antecedents, and then make a mockery of them. Effects don’t make up for creativity and challenging your audience. Clearly the Electronic Games Industry is following in it’s cousin’s footsteps with many pretenders and few rebels.

    My TV has been nothing but a “display for more than fifteen years. I don’t even think about what’s on TV, don’t use it for “news” or any other type of information. In fact I find a TV on and displaying a transmitted show invariably annoying to the extreme. Not only is the content utterly appalling for the most part, but insulting. Certainly I watch products generated by the industry, but for so long I’ve chosen a “removed” mode like many others. Pay TV went that 15 odd years ago when they started advertising. The only possible thing that could persuade me to engage that service is if I could literally pay for the 4 or 5 stations I might likely watch on a regular basis. I don’t want 20 channels of rubbish, just so I can have 3 or 4 reasonable ones to try and pick some content from that I can choose to watch at a time of my choosing.

    Equally I’ve tired to a large degree of buying many PC games. Copy Protection has become so annoying that I can’t be bothered taking chances on many games I’ve not researched and clearly have a strong pedigree or some outstanding feature. And just because I’m not buying a lot of games doesn’t mean I’m pirating them. I honestly can’t even remember the last time I “evaluated” in any form other than a demo.