• OMFGZWTFBBQPONIEZ! I’M A FATHER !!!

    24Nov
    Categories: Family, Life, Suki Comments: 4
    Our first child and daughter, Suki Mae

    Our first child and daughter, Suki Mae

    At 3:22pm on the 23rd of November 2008, Joanna gave birth via emergency caesarean to a miraculous baby girl, Suki Mae, weighing in at a tiny 795 grams (1lb 12 oz) and measuring just under 30 centimeters.

    The pregnancy was a long and troubled journey of emotion for all of us due to many complications. Jo’s water broke at around 12 weeks which is called PPROM, or Pre-viable Premature Rupture Of Membranes. This resulted in a condition known as Oligohydramnios (also read here) which means that there was no amniotic fluid around Suki to cushion her and for her to breathe and help her lungs develop.

    After this she grew much slower than normal, maintaining a growth rate about two weeks behind her actual fetal age. Lacking this amniotic cushion, Suki faced a high risk of Pulmonary Hypoplasia (Incomplete lung development), Potter’s Syndrome (where the kidneys do not develop) and Fetal Compression Syndrome, which was likely to result in muscular, skeletal, digital or facial deformity due to the lack of space.

    Then at around 25 weeks, Jo suffered Placenta Previa which caused her to begin bleeding. She was immediately rushed to the Mater Mothers’ Hospital in Brisbane for observation and precautionary measures because Toowoomba was not equipped to handle such a premature complicated birth and Suki’s only hope for survival was to be close to the Mater’s NICU if infection got into the uterus causing Chorioamnionitis and necessitating an immediate caesarean. Jo was treated as an inpatient for a couple of weeks before being discharged on the understanding that she stay as close to the hospital as possible.

    She underwent twice-weekly blood tests and twice-weekly observation at the Mater’s Centre for Fetal Medicine. She passed several clots during that time which required her to spend more time as an inpatient, and then at 27 weeks she began getting a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) and was again admitted as an inpatient for treatment with IV antibiotics. At 27 weeks and 4 days, the doctors decided that the UTI was masking the existence of Chorioamnionitis and that the only option was for an emergency Caesarean Section (as Jo cannot give birth naturally due to a Spinal Fusion). We were warned that she may require a Classical Caesarean which involves a vertical incision into the uterus instead of a horizontal one and would greatly increase the chance of PROM in the future. There was also some very scary talk of the need for a Hysterectomy if the bleeding could not be controlled or if the placenta could not be separated from the uterus, which would have been totally devastating as it would mean that we could have no children in the future.

    We were given widely varying predictions on Suki’s survival that ranged from “single figure percentages” up to a 75% chance of survival based on anecdotal statistics provided by the Mater. Fortunately we didn’t have too long to dwell on this as the entire procedure took less than half an hour from preparation to delivery.

    AND SHE WAS PERFECT !!!!

    Suki Mae in her humidi-crib in the NICU

    Suki Mae in her humidi-crib in the NICU

    Suki was born just 20 minutes after Jo entered theatre by regular lower uterine cesarean, and immediately placed on a respirator. I went to the NICU and saw her while Jo was waking up from the general anaesthetic and she was absolutely perfectly formed and more beautiful than I could have imagined. Less than 48 hours later, her breathing tube was removed and she was put onto Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) which means that she is that much closer to being able to breathe on her own. After the surgery, one of the doctors said to me “All those things we warned you about. None of them happened”.

    While there’s still a long road ahread and her breathing will be assisted for some time to come, Suki has beaten the odds time and time again and we’re sure that she’s going to come through this with flying colours.

    I’d like to give my sincerest thanks to all the amazing staff at the Mater Mothers’ Hospital, without whom we would not be blessed with our tiny precious child. Especially Dr Gardener who treated Jo during her pregnancy and Christian and the other two doctors (names forthcoming I hope) who brought Suki into the world. You are all angels and we cannot possibly express our gratitude enough. You changed our lives last Sunday and Suki has you all to thank for her very existence.

  • The iPhone ? What about the App Store ?

    19Nov
    Categories: Apple, iPhone, Open Source, Technology Comments Off

    I’ve read plenty iPhone success stories recently. Forgive me if I don’t cite references for these, but they’re very current stories, I’m lazy, and not many people read this blog right now.

    The iPhone is the number #2 business smartphone.

    *cough*honeymooneffect*cough*

    The iPhone is #1 in business smartphone reliability.

    Well, we all know this is based purely on hardware defect statistics. It doesn’t reflect the fact that the iPhone is probably the WORST phone for software reliability.

    You’ve got to give Apple credit. They grabbed the whole world by the balls with the iPod, and everyone said “Wow. Apple did something right for a change. What an amazing fluke”. Then there was murmurings about a phone. But in the Apple world, most rumours turn out to be just that – rumours, so noone took too much notice. Besides, they couldn’t pull it off again, surely ? Oh, what’s that, they did, and they are now the most successful product in another field ? Damn, that’s lucky.

    Ok, putting the humour aside for the moment. There’s one aspect of the iPhone that noone seems to be talking about. It’s not the elegance, the simplicity, the ease of use. No, the thing that noone is talking about is the fact that Apple have turned software distribution on its head, with the App Store.

    It used to be that when you wanted a piece of software for a device, you went to a shop and paid $100 for it. Or, if it was from a smaller development company, then you went to their web site, and you downloaded a limited feature trial version that worked for a month, and then if you were able to evaluate it properly within that time (presuming it didn’t do something really lame like preventing you from saving your document) you would contact the developer, give them your credit card, pay about $50 and get a long key via email to unlock your software.

    Sometimes this process worked well, sometimes it didn’t. I tried to register PDA-Net (not an AppStore application) for my iPhone this week when it expired suddenly. The link they provided was a fake one pointing to localhost to perform some ridiculous trickery that they thought was cute. Maybe it was part of an anti-piracy measure, I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know was that I tried for three hours, and I got two mates on the phone (since I had no net) to try and find the phone number for the company to register it. Unfortunately what I found was many reports about the company never responding to email, have an unlisted phone number, and serial numbers often failing to work at all.

    I thought “If this was on the App Store, I wouldn’t have this problem”. Why ? Because the App Store is BEAUTIFUL. It works ! It’s cheap ! Most applications are less than $3 Australian, and you always get what you pay for, simply, easily, without hassle.

    See Apple have mastered two concepts here. One is the centralised distribution of software. Anyone could do this, it’s not rocket science. Linux has been doing it for years in the form of APT. The real genius comes when you pair that concept with another one that economists have been bandying about since the 90′s – Micropayments.

    To be fair to the true vision of the word, micropayments are more about paying mere cents to access content. Not dollars to make purchases. But what Apple have done is ask “Could a micropayment-style model work for the inexpensive distribution of user-contributed software ?”.

    Well, yes it can, and it’s glorious to behold. Thousands of applications submitted within the first couple of months alone. Millions of purchases. In the first few months of release, purchases of applications vastly outpaced purchases of music on iTunes. While Apple keep their figures pretty close to their chest, only announcing them when they reach a new milestone, I think it’s safe to say that not only is the iPhone a runaway success, but that the App Store is possibly an even bigger success.

    So here’s a thought. What if the App Store came to your PC ? The concept is simple, it’s (arguably) better for a developer to sell an application a thousand times at $10 than to sell it a hundred times at $100. While the cost of managing support for a thousand customers is higher, those customers are not going to be as demanding over a $10 application as a $100 one. You’ve made a lot more people a lot more happier. So what if instead of having to register X-chat via the makers, for $25, if instead, you could just buy it from the App Store for $5, and download it immediately ?

    The developer gets more sales and more recognition for their work, the customer gets their applications cheaper, and the lower costs reduce the appeal of piracy. Quite simply, when I only have to pay lunch money to buy an application easily and reliably from a trusted distribution source – why in the hell would I want to pirate it ?

    Make things easier and cheaper, and you stamp out piracy, and make more money as well ! What could possibly be better ? As the underpants gnomes would say:

    1. Create inexpensive, centralised distribution and micropayment model.
    2. ???
    3. PROFIT !!!

  • iPhone loses it’s legal shackles

    16Nov
    Categories: Apple, iPhone, Open Source, Technology Comments Off

    If you were to ask me a couple of months after the iPhone’s launch, what the worst things were about the device, I would have told you very quickly and honestly:

    1) The official applications (Maps, Mail, Safari) are riddled with bugs and crash constantly.
    …and…
    2) Apple are insanely, unreasonably, unfathomably strict with their developer restrictions – the SDK and NDA.

    Not only could a developer not ask another developer a simple question about the SDK, but it was even forbidden to share your own code. Yes, on a platform based on open source software – it was forbidden to share your source. So, I put my love/hate relationship with Apple on hold, and put up with the iPhone while I waited for Android with bated breath. Because Android is open right, it’s gonna be innovative and new right ?

    Well, early signs show Android is just a cheap iPhone knock off, and so is the hardware it runs on, but time will tell. More importantly, Apple have actually STOPPED being bastards. What’s that, you say ? Impossible ?

    No, really. Back in October, they lifted the NDA. Instantly the ban on talking about fight club, err, I mean iPhone development was gone, at least among registered developers (which anyone can become for free incidentally) and within Apple’s little walled garden. But it looks like the lawyers haven’t finished being beaten into the ground, burned, drowned, chopped up into little bits, and then burned again just yet. There may be more joy on the horizon.

    Look I predicted this. Ok, not here, in writing, but I swear I did predict it. Mainly as a last desperate hope for change that I thought was never likely to happen, but nevertheless, I hoped, and it seems it was not in vain. The shackles are coming off. Infoworld’s Yager covers some of the changes in a vague nonspecific way here.

    Apple are setting up Open Source Code Repositories. They are providing more places to talk about development. They are even allowing distribution of apps outside the AppStore now. How we will install these apps remains to be seen, maybe developers can simply host an .ipa on their web site and that’s it. What was know is that now just because it can’t go on the App Store, doesn’t mean it’s not allowed to exist.

    You write it, you host it, you take responsibility for it. That’s basically what Apple are saying and we must take this for what it is – the closest thing to true unrestricted freedom of development so far. Once developers all share the arcane secrets of background apps, PUSH, and system hooks – there might one day be no need to jailbreak at all ! And that’s a future that we should all look forward to.

  • Raving and Drooling ?

    15Nov
    Categories: Uncategorized Comments Off

    Many of my readers, both the unwitting masses on IRC and the lost souls who have found their way here through deliberate action might think that Raving and Drooling is the way I probably act when I am ranting passionately about something. You all have no idea that at the other end of this wire, I sit perfectly calm, with a low heart rate, and a glint of humor in my eye. No, to explain the origin of the current incarnation of my inner literary expression, I must steal from the Wikipedia article on the Pink Floyd song “Sheep”, which was in early forms known as “Raving and Drooling”.

    Sheep in Animals are not so different from the ones in George Orwell’s 1945 novel Animal Farm. The sheep represent the lowest class of the social system, the proletariat. They are oblivious and exploited, “only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air”. In the first verse they are described to be peacefully grazing – unaware that they are soon to be brought to a slaughterhouse. They are warned of the presence of dogs, the iron-handed guardians of the system. It is also described in the first few lines that the artist had “looked over Jordan and I have seen / Things are not what they seem,” which is a reference to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and has become an idiom for having an ecstatic vision, especially one involving death, particularly one’s own. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites must cross the river Jordan to get to the “Promised Land” after their escape from Egyptian Slavery.

    In the second verse the awful truth suddenly dawns on them and with “terminal shock in (their) eyes” they realize that they are being led into the “valley of steel”, which is a metaphorical phrase, because it also represents the high-rise buildings (hence the steel framework), home of the corporate world as well as the slaughterhouse. The song continues into a mock biblical verse in which the sheep describe their dedicated belief in their master with “great power and great hunger.” But in a humorous turnabout the sheep, “through quiet reflection and great dedication” master the art of karate and rebel against the dogs.

    The third verse describes the sheep’s revolt, as “Raving and drooling they fell on his neck with a scream.” They might have had enough but they are still undereducated and uncivilized as they are described as “demented avengers.” The song is completed with a cheerful announcement: “Have you heard the news? / The dogs are dead!” The sheep, because of their strength in numbers, overpower and kill the dogs.

    Sheep, Dog or Pig; identifying with any is uncomfortable and compromising, but I do know one thing – I would love to see the sheep set on the dogs… set on them Raving and Drooling.

  • The iPhone’s OS is much like 10.1/10.2, stability-wise

    10Nov
    Categories: Apple, Technology Comments Off

    As i was saying, if you happened to be a mac user during the years um, about 89-93, when steve was away being busy at NeXT, which is what we call “the early torment of system 9″ or the early years after he got back and brought with him the joy of a BSD kernel and postscript rendering engine in the form of “the early horror that was system 10″, you would know that Mac OS has not always been an awesomely stable beast.

    OS 9.0 was an utter piece of shit. It was shit, piled on shit. I mean, it wasn’t Windows ME… but it wasn’t much better. As far as Apple’s history goes… it was Apple’s ME. Crashes were frequent and the dreaded “bomb” was feared above all things.

    Then we got OS X. 10.1 and thereabouts was sorta like Windows NT. It was rock solid fucking stable. But there was one problem. The applications were SHIT. The widgets and toolkits in the OS had not been developed long enough, and applications would just CRASH.

    The system itself ? It’d never crash, but the apps were as good as the early win32 apps… or worse.

    The iPhone, or ARM port of Darwin is at about the same stage as OS X 10.1 or 10.2 – the foundation is AWESOME – but the apps are just fucking broken. Also the hardware isn’t yet equipped to take on a full Unix OS. If you owned a mac around 2005, you’d know that even if you had a really fucking fast one.. and Photoshop would fly… the system itself… was a cow. The problem was that systems just did not come with enough ram. I had my powerbook in 2005 maxed out with the most ram i could get – 1gb, and it was a fucking COW.

    1 GB is and was, not nearly enough to ever run OS X. Not even the early versions. And don’t even think about 512 MB … because the system would run like TREACLE. Yet, until just 1 year ago.. systems STILL CAME WITH ONLY 512 MB standard ! Even some Pro systems !

    Only the dumbest fuck on the planet would buy a mac… and use the default amount of ram. because it would … SUCK at that particular point in time. Nowadays, 2 GB is standard in low-end and 4 GB in high-end, which is absolutely fucking PERFECT and osx runs – brilliant – on it.

    But for years… the hardware was simply not up to the weight of the software, and OS X is, and always has been, a very graphically intensive, multi-layered, Unix system. And systems like that, while they don’t need a lot of cpu… need a lot of ram.

    People coming into the market now have no idea.. they see OS X as this awesome, fully developed OS. But it wasn’t always like that. Well, it was good and well developed, but the programming toolkits and the amount of ram required to run the system severely hampered it’s use. Or maybe developers sucked back then.

    See, Photoshop never crashed. Wasn’t possible. Adobe apps just don’t crash on a mac. Especially Photoshop. Seeing photoshop crash on a mac is something that mac techs would all crowd around to see. It’d be a WTF-a-thon.

    But during those formative years, other apps, and i’m talking especially about the app mac users have loved to hate since the very first macintosh – FINDER – were utter garbage. Fuck the blue screen of death. During those early OS X years, we had our own thing to hate – THE SPINNING BEACHBALL OF COMPLETE DOOM !

    Oh mac users today know the beachball still, but it is not the bringer of doom anymore. It’s a brief “please hold on one moment, I’m -really- busy”. But back then… it meant DOOM.

    Which brings me to the iPhone.

    It doesn’t do anything when it fucks up…. your app just disappears into thin air. And that’s PRECISELY what used to happen on Jaguar ! 10.2 was all about the “omg didn’t i have an app running a second ago ?” moments. You would click on the wrong spot in a window and your app disappeared. You opened a menu that you’ve opened a thousand times before, and your app disappeared.

    “Poof, gone. Sorry you were busy working.. I’m GONE now !”

    And that’s the iPhone today. “Oh what, did you want to use google maps ? TOO FUCKING BAD”. I entered one particular address into google maps yesterday… 5 times. “Forest Lake Shopping Centre”, and every single time… it crashed.

    It just didn’t want to go there. “No forest lake village for YOU pawz. If you want to go there.. you can find your OWN way.. coz I’m NOT FUCKING GOING !”

    So I had to get out of my car, and i had to ASK someone how to get there. Like.. a HUMAN BEING. Can you believe it ? My connection to the internet was SEVERED. It was like Fallout 3. I was in the WASTELAND. iPhone was NOT my friend anymore. So i found my own way to Forest Lake Village.

    It was happy enough to work all the way home and do everything else i wanted, but it was NOT gonna take me to Forest Lake Village.

    And you know what else ? JO’S WOULDN’T EITHER !!!

    Two iPhones… REFUSED… to take us.. to Forest Lake Village. Maybe it’s on the iPhone’s secret blacklist. “PLACES NOT TO GO: Forest Lake”. I mean, Darwin on the iphone.. could survive a nuclear holocaust. But the apps running on it ? Well…

    Safari should be called “Lost in the fucking jungle”.

    Google Maps should be called “Google… might maybe take you there.. or might not”, and

    Mobile Mail should be called “Mobile carrier pidgeon that can only carry a short bit of text or a single photo, but not anything heavy like a zip file”.

    Amirite ?

    Anyway, it will undoubtedly improve. Worth noting is that Apple recently rescinded the unpopular and unfriendly iPhone Developer NDA, making many people much happier, and I wonder if in the future they might actually open up the OS to certain third party features (push, background apps, copy paste) without the need to Jailbreak. Could it be that they were just testing the waters and introducing it slowly with lots of restrictions, and then as it develops, loosen them ? It’s happened before in the Darwin XNU kernel scene, it could happen again. Who knows what Apple might do in the future. We can only speculate and hope they stop being such spoiled brats.

  • The move to wordpress – a sell out ?

    10Nov
    Categories: Uncategorized Comments: 77

    Ok, through a combination of laziness and a desire to get thoughts up online quickly, and in particular, to be able to do that via multiple submission types; web, application or iPhone, I decided to migrate my primary outlet of expression to a WordPress environment. This will provide me convenience and power, perhaps at the expense of my lovely custom HTML reviews. But I will do my best to bring them across in as much of their original glory as possible. No doubt the daily snapshot I installed will become a horribly bastardised piece of spaghetti code, and who knows, maybe some of it will be useful. We will see how this new environment progresses, and if I do not like it, I will shape it until I do ! Now that I have a threaded comments system, please, comment. Good only, negative commenters and trolls can totally GTFO my site.

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