Way back at the start of November, Mum, Dad, Ange and I headed out for a hike. The plan was two “easy” days of 10km, starting at the Wyanbee caves, walking down to the Deua river, and then back again.

We did look at the map, but it’s fair to say we probably should have looked a bit closer at the map. From the car park we had to climb a good 100-200m vertically to get through the caves, the track no where to be found, and then 800m drop to the river. 800m drop isn’t so bad, but the 800m up on the Sunday was pretty killer.

A slight navigational error in the car, meant we didn’t start walking until about 1pm, which was a little late. That had us arriving at the camping spot just before dark, only to find that the nice patch of grassy river bank we’d eyed-off was just outside the National Park boundary, and sported a lovely “No Trespassing” sign. A little bush bashing got us to a spot just inside the park boundary, but still on the river bank, finally we could sit down.

It was a gorgeous campsite, although we were all a bit too tired to really enjoy it. It’d be a great spot to spend a few days in summer, just sitting by the river, reading books and swimming.

Sunday was the main event – the 800m of climbing took us most of the day, it was pretty hot climbing the ridge, although it could have been worse. Later in the day the wind came up and it looked like it might storm for a little while, but faded away.

Although we couldn’t find the track up through the caves, we figured on the way back we might have more luck, but no. So to end our long hot day we had a few more kms of bush bashing – with all the off-track walking we did I was suprised we didn’t meet any long slim natives.

In hindsight a great walk, just be wary of the hills!

Update: I’ve created a GoogleEarth overlay with the route of the hike.
You can view it in GoogleEarth here, or in Google maps here.

And here’s a graph of elevation vs distance:

ps. Half the photos are from Ange’s camera, and half from Mum and Dad’s, so they’re out of order – all of Mum and Dad’s first, then all of Ange’s.

View the photos »

I thought seeing as I’m heading to the next Woodford in less than a week, it’s about time I posted my photos from the last Woodford.

This is just the highlights really, a svelte collection, to whet the appetite of those of you who are coming, and serve as a jab in the ribs for those of you who are big fat pikers.

Enjoy

View the photos »

On Tuesday the ACT government announced the opening of “stage one” of the GDE, that’s the 2.3 km section between the Barton Highway and Ginnindera Drive. The total cost of the 9km GDE is projected to be $116.05 million, which puts the price for those 2.3 km at approximately $29.6 million.

On Wednesday the ACT government announced the closure of 23 schools, estimated to effect 1367 students, and projected to save the government $21.3 million over four years.

Perhaps we do need the road, perhaps we don’t need those schools, but we sure as hell can’t have both.

It seems a pack of Wikipedia goons have set their sights on the OzLabs page, and have marked it as up for deletion, in fact it’s already been deleted and resurrected once.

Apparently OzLabs isn’t notable or interesting.

I guess I’m biased, but as an Aussie I think it’s pretty remarkable that we’ve produced so many well respected Open Source hackers, and to have several of them colocated in my home town is pretty awesome.

Anyway, in case the page is deleted I thought I’d archive the important bits here:

OzLabs was a Free Software research and development group started by US-based Linuxcare in Canberra, Australia. The group was formed around Andrew Tridgell, and grew to a dozen Free Software developers, drawing members from the Australian National University and around the country.

OzLabs is notable for being one of the first commercial labs setup to work on Linux and Linux support, and also as being the largest and most respected collection of Free Software developers in Australia.

Several members of OzLabs appeared as guest lecturers at the Australian National University over the years, adding weight to the ANUs already strong UNIX and Linux curriculum.

Prior to the widespread uptake of broadband internet in Canberra, OzLabs provided a Linux CD downloading and burning service, which gave students and members of the public access to Linux distributions such as Debian, Mandrake and Red Hat, without the tedium of sneaker netting thousands of floppy disks. The CDs were provided in exchange for biscuits, Tim Tams were generally favoured and were sometimes used in late night Tim Tam Slam binges.

Upon Linuxcare’s withdrawal from Australia, the group splintered among several employers. The majority began working for IBM at a newly setup lab in Canberra, also known as OzLabs. The members of IBM OzLabs mostly turned to developing Linux on PowerPC and related areas, in conjunction with other IBM developers in Austin, Texas and Rochester, Minnesota.

Text licensed under the GFDL, © Wikipedia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

John Howard to be deported after failing citizenship test.

Canberra, ACT, January 26th 2017: Former Prime Minister John Howard is set to be deported after failing his citizenship renewal test, a test which has its origins in a policy established by his own government in 2006.

The test was first established in 2006 as an effort to promote “cohesion and integration”, and in the beginning only applied to people applying for citizenship. Members of some political parties criticised it from the beginning, calling it a cheap political stunt, and accusing the government of promoting fear and division for their own ends. However the test came into existence regardless, thanks to the Senate majority John Howard’s government enjoyed.

The government of Tony Abbott and Brian Houston later expanded the reach of the test, requiring all citizens to take the test every 10 years, as part of their citizenship renewal application. They also changed the content of the test, giving it a much more overtly white, conservative, and christian flavour, which the then former PM John Howard was publically supportive of.

With the election in 2015 of the Garrett government the test was changed again. During his election campaign Garrett stated his intention to abolish the test entirely, but facing a hostile senate he was forced to compromise. The result was a significantly smaller test, seen by many as merely a step on the road to the full abolition of the test.

In a cruel twist of history, anonymous sources at the Department of Immigration have revealed that John Howard has failed the test. Some have suggested the Garrett government may grant him an amnesty, however no official comment has been made. If standard procedure is followed, Howard will be transferred to the island of Nauru and stripped of his citizenship, awaiting appeal.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Howard failed the multiple choice question, “Which of the following are UnAustralian?”, the possible answers being:

1. Violating UN sanctions in order to sell products to a murderous dictator, in the full knowledge that those funds will be used to further oppress his peoples, followed by going to war with said dictator in order to “free” his people, only to spark a civil war which any historian could have predicted – resulting in hundreds of thousands of recently “freed” but dead civilians.
2. Deploying the military to prevent survivors of a ship wreck being brought to safety on Christmas Island, a breach of international law, sending commandos onto the ship instead of medical assistance for the injured survivors and later shipping the survivors to a small pacific nation in exchange for lots of cash.
3. Accusing refugees on a sinking ship of “throwing their children overboard”, when it is clear they are simply trying to get off the ship to safety. Implying that all such refugees are murderous child killers, and that many are terrorists, and all should be locked up indefinitely because if they’re not we’ll all be killed.
4. Enacting legislation which removes the rights of workers to the advantage of big business, leading to longer hours and lower pay for the most disadvantaged members of society – then harping on about how it’s better to have a job that requires you to work ridiculous hours for low pay in bad conditions than not have a job at all.
5. Ignoring all the scientific advice which suggests climate change is a real threat, promoting the position that there is no scientific consensus, and supporting the U.S. in not signing Kyoto, undermining the only international effort to combat what could become the greatest threat to humanity ever.
6. Pandering to big business and especially big media, while simultaneously trying to gut the ABC, in an attempt to establish a Fox News style media propaganda culture.
7. Not watching the Boxing Day test match.
8. All of the above.

Apparently Howard answered “7″, whereas the correct answer is “8″.

He will not be missed.

-AP

“Because doing what you’re told is a sort of choice.”

So the word on the streets is that a certain large hardware retailer has embraced WorkChoices whole heartedly. Apparently they now have people working 11 hour shifts by default, because they can, expect some excellent service from the happy staff!

But as our fearless leader says, “fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job” … which is totally freakin meaningless!

I think what he means to say is “fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job .. and ends with working ridiculously long hours for jack pay with no right to complain“.

Less than a year ’til we get to kick these pricks in the teeth, fingers crossed.

The f##wits over at the Liberal party seem to have discovered the internet, and have come up with this little gem – which I guess they’re thinking will be a huge viral internet hit .. yeah perhaps. If only it was funny, or witty, or … anything other than boring and stupid and scared.

Dear Liberal Party of Australia, I hate you. Get off my computer.

Update: Simon Rumble has beaten me to it. His post actually
contains a bit more useful commentary and less vitriol than mine, what can
I say .. 10 (or is it 11?) years of these bastards has made me angry.