miffy

hestia @ 10:42am: A Classic

hestia @ 11:41pm: Crocheted Frames

What a beautiful idea. I'm such a sucker for whimsy.

reddragdiva @ 11:44am: Apache proxy configuration question.

A question for work. We can ssh into our intranet via a particular host (call it foo). I'm using the Lotus Notes webmail (which is 1000% nicer than the software client, and I now use it all the time by preference) and can easily access our internal IRC, source control and intranet websites via ssh tunnelling.

The intranet website access requires foo to be running a proxy. This is of course easy in Apache 2.0:

ProxyRequests On
ProxyVia On
ProxyDomain .internal.example.com

<Proxy *>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 172.26 10.1 localhost
</Proxy>

172.26.*.* and 10.1.*.* are intranet IPs. (Yes, we have multiple RFC-1918 ranges.)

All well and good. However, foo can thus be used as a proxy to access outside websites, in a manner that bypasses our WebSense filter (which is running as a transparent proxy). WebSense is inherently patronising and braindead rubbish that is not fit for purpose, but we don't want to upset the IT department unduly, and outside access is not after all what the proxy is there for. Also, not all intranet sites are in .internal.example.com — I need access control based on IP range.

So — how do I tell the proxy to only allow itself to be used for access to intranet IP ranges? What manual page did I miss?

(I could carefully construct a ProxyBlock entry to block everything except our ranges, but that's more than a little laborious. I could do it server-by-server using ProxyPass, but that's way too much like work and I can't be sure my whitelist would ever be complete — I just want to allow it to proxy to intranet IP ranges but not to other IPs.)

Has anyone done this? How did you do it?

hestia @ 9:52pm: Benign Objects: Bergdorf Holiday Windows

Benign Objects

I suppose the whole "less is more" thing passed them by.

hestia @ 5:38pm: New Memory Board

I finished making the memory board for Shaeleigh's room today. I didn't really expect her to notice it but showed it to her anyway. To my surprise she was fascinated. When I took this photo she had just been kissing the little faces on the green apple buttons, and then she turned when she heard the cameraphone beep. See how she still has her kissy face on?

hestia @ 1:28pm: Australia bakes through warmest decade on record - ABC News

"What we are finding for Australia is that the inland areas are warming most quickly as the planet heats up," he said.

"So areas such as western New South Wales, northern South Australia and so on are tending to warm about twice as fast as some of the coastal regions."

Australia bakes through warmest decade on record - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

hestia @ 12:12am: Laptop Sleeves and Bags

The zipper on the backpack I used to carry my laptop around has busted completely now, so I've been thinking it's time to at least make myself a padded laptop sleeve. Here's some of what I've found while looking through flickr for inspiration.

1. Laptop bag - Tote - * Back, 2. Notebook Covers, 3. Laptop sleeve in linen and with folk embroidery, 4. Felted Laptop Sleeve, 5. oct_2, 6. ROME COLOSSEUM Black French Soft Corduroy Pleated Messenger Double Straps, 7. Laptop Sleeve - Scooters!, 8. MacBook Pro Envelope - 13", 9. MacBook Pro Envelope - 13", 10. ...., 11. owlcover, 12. bunnybag, 13. Laptop Sleeve14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

hestia @ 12:20pm: New Baby.....

reddragdiva @ 10:14pm: Like a prayer.

• Rowland S. Howard is dead. Dammit.

• Quite possibly the most bloody stupid email in history.

• Firefox DOMINATES the Web in Antarctica.

• Geeks! Remember the spectacular fail of Samizdat by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute? Now you can read it. Oh dear me.

• Wikimedia blog: Dear museums, help me to help you. They still haven't answered. V&A FAIL.

• Rocknerd: So how was your haul?; The occult symbolism of the Video Music Awards.

• NewsTechnica 2010! Polanski thanks supporters of drug rape as extradition wait continues; Britain: 5,394 arrested in Internet song crackdown; Twitter users urged to stay calm during Fry drought; Vendors: Netbooks "dying, honest".

Are there any Boston-based overpaid geeks who have a spare laptop or netbook for the poor? I have a friend in need who couldn't even afford $100, but rather $0. They'll use it lovingly and geekily. Please email me.

Geek question: what's a good self-hostable app for a photo/picture blog? Wordpress is not quite there IME. I want something that really does make it all but automatic.

Thank you to all those noting The Register. I suspect this pissed off Rat-Faced Freddy way more than he let on at the time.

I got a pile of nice stuff for Christmas. Survived the day. The following Monday was arkady's birthday and we went to the V&A. That week I had to work, but did the work-from-home thing on Wednesday ... at which point my poor mugged laptop's screen finally cracked under the strain of the bent case and died horribly. (The Toshiba Portégé R600 is shiny, powerful, expensive and STUPIDLY flimsy and fragile.) I had a replacement by Thursday. Must work out a good place to put the Vista sticker.

Tabs peed copiously on the couch a few days ago. What finally worked to clean the smell out: baking soda and peroxide on the couch itself (make paste, scrub in with brush, leave to dry, vacuum off) and washing the feathery cushions with a sizable whack of baking soda.

Posting NewsTechnica at a fantastic rate. Still aiming for one a day, but doing lots of extras.

Liz has decided she's quite definitely staying in Australia, which is a bit poo all round. We remain on good terms, though.

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 06:23 Muslim-Hindu Punk Rock Bands Part of New Movement - NYTimes.com ping.fm/OUcGz #
• 10:10 I subscribed to BONKx4's channel on YouTube www.youtube.com/user/BONKx4?feature=autoshare_twitter #
• 17:36 Have got OH to agree to check in with the doc tomorrow to see if his zombie feet are making good progress or not. #
• 23:43 Exhausted from wrestling with baby all the way through the double episode Dr Who Christmas special. Now she falls asleep. Ugh! #
• 23:55 Glad today is over. I've been totally tired, grumpy and
  frustrated and it all came out of nowhere. Must sleep now. G'night. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

reddragdiva @ 9:51pm: Goodbye today.com, you are too stupid to live.

You will not MAKE MONEY FAST from blogging. No, you will not. I strongly suggest the time-honoured MAKE MONEY SLOW scheme where you show up to a place of business and do something of economic value for fortyish hours a week.

( Whiny little bitch rant about why today.com are goat-felching paedophiles. )

It was fine while it was fine, then it wasn't and it wasn't. So, NewsTechnica for the win! If you're on DreamWidth, the syndicated feed is newstechnica_feed. If you're on LiveJournal, the syndicated feed is newstechnica. So you don't have to wait for me to bother posting something to see when there's a new story.

NewsTechnica is currently running about 200-300 UVs (unique views) a day, rather than the 1000 or so the old site was. I expect this will pick up with time. TELL YOUR FRIENDS.

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 17:18 I have a strawberry coated baby and a man with zombie legs. #
• 17:19 Severely sunburnt zombie legs: www.flickr.com/photos/hestia/4235553917/ #
• 17:22 Bugger this. I'm off to do some sewing. #
• 21:08 Watching Henry Rollins rant about Walmart people. #
• 22:26 I'm now actually fairly worried that OH's "sunburn" is turning into something more serious. www.flickr.com/photos/hestia/4235553917/ #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

1a @ 2:01am: From Twitter 01-01-2010

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

hestia @ 5:13pm: Washed right zombie foot

Today's photo is of Heath's sunburn, speciically of his right ankle which is by far worse than the left. This is the sanitised version. His feet got horribly sunburnt 10 days ago on Christmas eve. He can still barely walk. The photos I took of his legs just before he washed look a lot worse than this. William's too scared to look directly at them because he said "you look undead!" We're now referring to them as Heath's zombie legs.

hestia @ 12:22pm: Anna's Dollhouse | Willow Tree Toys

Anna's Dollhouse | Willow Tree Toys

Oh dear. This is the dollhouse I want for my kids. It's a wee bit outside of our budget though. The terrace house looks pretty good too and not as expensive.

hestia @ 11:58am: Presents for Grandmas

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

1. Shoe bag front, 2. Shoe bag back, 3. picnic bag lining, 4. Clutch bag lining, 5. shoe bag, 6. Clutch bag front, 7. Picnic set present a, 8. Picnic set present b, 9. 4 coasters

These are the Christmas presents I made for the kids' grandmothers this year using instructions from the Bend The Rules Sewing book. I found lining the clutch and other bag very difficult and couldn't work out how to put the straps on the tote bag at all so I left them off. The shoe bag in the top right hand corner was stamped with help from William using inks from Japan that do not wash out. To see larger photos and read descriptions, click on the corresponding link below the mozaic.

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 12:06 Baby is taking an interest in catfood. I suppose I should get up and stop her #
• 12:15 I really hope this is the end of the Decade of Dumb. #NYE #
• 14:26 I've been so irate. Was catching up on sleep when startled awake by screaming children. #
• 14:29 China says 5,394 arrested in Internet porn crackdown | Reuters ping.fm/hi34s #
• 14:40 The SSD Project | EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project ssd.eff.org/ #
• 15:39 It's just that she does it too much and there are a
  lot of people who do... (YouTube youtu.be/HdFO3t0lGRE?a) #
• 23:53 Ten great movies of 2009 you haven't seen. - By Grady Hendrix - Slate Magazine ping.fm/44BX2 #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

hestia @ 12:55am: The cool change

I had given up on doing a photo a day what with hospital and what-not going on but I'd like to take it up again.

New year's eve had been a stinking hot day in Melbourne with lots of bushfires across the state. The cool change came along sometime after 8.30pm but first there were strong winds which brought the strong smell of bushfires with them. Moments later fat drops of water fell and the storm put on a good thunder and lightning show. I wonder how it went with the fireworks in the city for NYE.

hestia @ 11:53pm: Ten great movies of 2009 you haven't seen.

Read any "Best Of" lists, lately? Were they a soporific mix of Inglourious Basterds, Push, and Up in the Air? With more than 300 movies released in 2009, many direct-to-DVD or video-on-demand, aren't there any worthwhile films beyond the publicist-approved 25 that will appear on almost every single list? Yes! So here's my own highly subjective list of the Top 10 movies (plus two extras) that were overlooked in 2009.

Ten great movies of 2009 you haven't seen. - By Grady Hendrix - Slate Magazine

hestia @ 11:02am: Happy New Decade
This is the decade I gave up making a fuss about new years. I'm more into the fact that this is a new decade rather than new year. I've always been interested in the alternating of conservative and progressive forces in culture and how the media and the rest of us try to squash that into the zeitguist of a nice round 10 years. In truth it seems to me that the spirit of the decade usually starts a year or two either side of the turn of the decade.

In social sciences it's often said that boom times are conservative and recessions are less so which is a little counter intuitive to me as I would have thought that boom times would make experimenting with alternatives less risky to people's standard of living. Instead it's when people have already lost a lot despite their best conservative efforts, that they are free to try alternatives. (Yep, just like Tyler says in Fight Club.)

My personal feeling about the end of the "noughties" is relief that it is over. That decade truly sucked ass. War, terrorism, scapegoating, Bush, Howard, reality TV, shame TV, American/Australian/British Idol, religious fundamentalism, Work Choices and enterprise bargaining, climate change and climate change denial, the widespread use of antidepressants which tripled in Australia, the war on "white trash" i.e. the poor, the housing crisis, and just about everything to do with how sex was handled by the mainstream media... it wasn't just a regression to the 50s it was a new Dickensian madness that inevitably sent America broke and may still take the rest of the world down with it. I only wish the Decade of Dumb really was already over.

On a personal level we've skirted being evicted multiple times in the past year. I don't like talking about it but my partner has health problems and hasn't been able to find appropriate work since the global financial clusterfuck of 2008. I'm sick of being at home all the time and am very much looking forward to gettng back to uni in 2010. I'm hoping for a smart decade (even if the signs aren't all that good) and want to be a part of it.

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 09:51 OH's legs are still in a horrific state. Blisters the size of the palm of my hand are rising up under old blisters that have already broken. #
• 10:08 Victorian Bushfires Map ping.fm/bXTF5 #
• 10:53 Secret plan to save Earth from asteroid ping.fm/BcJRk #
• 12:58 I love that even our humble frock shops up here in Rezza are having post-Xmas sales. 3 new tops for me! :) #
• 14:49 RT @theburgerman Results of last poll: 'Do you support mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering?' Yes - 499, No - 3,146, Indifferent - 128. #
• 17:43 When the hell is the rain going to get here? I'm sick of holding my macbook infront of the fan to cool it down. #
• 20:01 Feeling a bit queasy and don't know if it's dehydration or because I had a big slug of Pepsi right after a bowl of frozen yoghurt. #
• 20:07 The wind today has give a gentle feeling of foreboding and then I saw the map of forecast for lightning on weather channel. Not good... #
• 20:09 RT @geehall1: Currently 16 active fires in the state of Victoria - 2 listed as wildfires #vicfires, #bushfires #
• 20:15 RT @geehall1: RT @echoshack Strong wind . 60km/hr about to hit Melbourne city
  ahead of Rain & Lightning #bushfires #
• 20:43 Australian Bushfires Map - with Victoria looking a bit familiar unfortunately. ping.fm/AvVnj #
• 20:49 Yay! One kid down and one more to go. Bugger it. I'm cracking open the cask now. #
• 20:54 The wind just hit Reservoir. Hello cool change! #
• 21:01 Oh yeah baby - feel that temperature drop and watch the clouds do funky swirly business. #
• 21:07 twitpic.com/w0dxf - Taken about 5 minutes ago in Reservoir. #
• 21:08 ... and here's the rain. ABOUT FKN TIME! #
• 21:14 Glad to see only lightening sheets out there so far. #vicfires #
• 21:24 The baby's asleep, the rain is here and my first glass of riesling is in my hand at last. Happy nude rear everybody! #
• 22:54 Bloody fireworks woke the baby. Who the hell does that? It happens very year but I never know where. #NYE #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

hestia @ 5:39pm: BBC News - 2009: the year on Twitter
 One of my tweets got quoted by the BBC!

FEBRUARY

Throughout February bushfires raged in south-eastern Australia, destroying entire towns and devastating communities.

The fires were the deadliest in history, claiming more than 200 lives.

On 09 February maenad_au wrote: "Whoa. Just found out that friends who moved to Kinglake lost their home but were among the 'lucky ones' who got out alive."

BBC News - 2009: the year on Twitter

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 07:39 I have the PC! ha! Now I can upload holiday pics to flickr #
• 08:06 Wondering why I'm having trouble with playing my cameraphone vids. Either the vid gets played without the sound or there's sound but no vid. #
• 10:45 Editing photos on flickr. #
• 15:49 I iz a crazy person for grocery shopping and dragging it home on foot in this weather. #
• 17:40 being taken down by a nanna nap... #
• 18:46 Green ink - What you need to know ping.fm/bMrhi
  #
• 20:30 Brickvention - The Australian Lego Convention. 24-25 Jan in Melbourne! ping.fm/FJWm9 #
• 21:13 Unless OH's legs heal extremely fast, I think we'll be having another NYE at home. We haven't had a NYE out in years. Meh. *shrug* #
• 21:16 According to @Klout, @_Soliloquy_ is a Twitter connector. What kind of Twitter user are you? bit.ly/8q1gyk #
• 21:17 Hating the hot hot weather when there's no beach across the road. :[ #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

hestia @ 8:28pm: Brickvention

Brickvention is Australia’s premier LEGO® convention

Brickvention is an Australian based convention for LEGO® fans. It’s a two-day event that brings together LEGO® fans from all over Australia to view original and unusual creations. The next Brickvention will be held over the weekend of 23^rd- 24^th January 2010.

Saturday 23^rd January 2010 is devoted to Adult Fans of LEGO® and features competitions, games and activities involving LEGO®. Sunday 24^th January is the Public Open Day part of Brickvention where anyone can come along and view the amazing creations made out of LEGO®.

LEGO® fans of all ages are welcome on the Sunday from 11am – 4pm. Entry is $5 for adults, $2.50 for kids, $15 for a family with 2 adults and up to 4 children.

If you love LEGO®, why not join us on the Public Open Day at Level 12, Victoria University Building, 300 Flinders Street, Melbourne.

Brickventures - Home

hestia @ 6:00am: Tweets
Experiments in brevity

• 15:01 I haz returned safely from Sydney excursion. OH however is hobbling up to the doctor to have his horribly red and blistering feet seen to. #
• 18:59 OH's Three Degree Sunburn on Xmas Eve on Flickr - Photo Sharing! ping.fm/cJpeS #
• 23:28 Demi Moore's lawyers threaten Boing Boing over photo analysis blog post. IMHO it's absurd to call it slander. ping.fm/fozE4 #
• 23:36 Family fed. Tap is fixed. Some photos are up on flickr. Nothing's unpacked. Tired and going to sleep. Good night. :) #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter