My older affairs

This is where the older affairs can be found when they don't fit on the other page.

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2009-08-09 - Le grand feu d'artifice

Nous avons regardé le grand feu d'artifice depuis chez Marc et Christine hier soir. Chaque année, pour les Fêtes de Genève, il y a un grand feu d'artifice qui dur presque une heure et qui est synchronisé à la musique à la radio. À mon avis, les photos de feu d'artifice ne sont pas de tout intéressant, donc je vous laisse avec une de Marc, Jenevieve, et Christine.

We watched the fireworks from Marc and Christine's apartment yesterday evening. Each year, for the Fêtes de Genève, there is a giant fireworks show that lasts nearly an hour and is synchronised to music on the radio. I think photos of actual fireworks are quite boring, so I leave you with one of Marc, Jenevieve, and Christine.

I think my English is getting worse.

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2009-08-08 - Geneva from the Salève

We watched the fireworks of the Fête nationale Suisse last weekend from atop le Salève (this was taken about an hour before they started). We then attempted to sleep in a grassy field without tents but were chased off of the mount at 4am by a rainy thunderstorm.

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2009-07-22 - Scrabble in Parc des Cropettes

An afternoon game of Scrabble in the Parc des Cropettes behind Gare Cornavin. Ben was the victor.

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2009-05-13 - Route du Val d'Arve

I took this photo during a night walk with Jenny to see some bizarre chickens. It's taken from the footbridge above Route du Val d'Arve, Carouge.

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2009-05-07 - Camping au Salève

I spent the night camping on the Salève, a "hill" in France just oustide of Geneva. I met Eniko and her friend up top. They went by foot and I took my mountain bike. It was quite a deadly climb, especially with the weight of sleeping supplies. But it was worth it. I went from Le Coin, which is the starting point most easily accessed from Geneva, but may be steeper than the climb from the back through Monnetier.

It pays to check what you've got packed when you need to save on weight. I just discovered I carried along a pen! It was nearly out of ink, but I sure felt the extra weight.

We started a little fire and took photos until we became too tired and went to bed.

The above photo is the view of Geneva from near the téléphérique (the cable car you can take to the top).

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2009-04-27 - Pinhole orchid

Sunday was International Pinhole Photography Day, but I didn't get around to making a pinhole adapter for my D70S until today.

I took this from a tripod with a 15 second exposure, ISO 800, and a few bursts at 1/2 power from my SB-600. The result was pretty blurry so I applied an unsharp mask in the GIMP.

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2009-04-14 - Wall lizard

A wall lizard catching some sun in Cevio, Maggia Valley, Ticino.

Jen and I just returned from 4 days in Italy and Ticino testing out the van for camping.

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2009-03-26 - Arrêt Armes, Carouge

Tram stop Armes in Carouge, taken in the evening on the walk home from my office.

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2009-03-18 - Kitty graffiti

Kitty graffiti on a garage door in Carouge.

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2009-03-13 - In the van

Jenny at the wheel, Romaric on tongue duty, and me documenting. Excuse the nasty lens shadow, I was using my 11-16mm wide angle.

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2009-03-12 - Micro plow

A small snowplow clearing the bike lane in Plainpalais, Geneva.

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2009-03-11 - Carouge

I often walk to work with my camera. I took this photo just after I bought my latest lens, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. I converted it to black and white in the GIMP.

I'm going to start posting single photographs more frequently, so check back from time to time. I'll still post albums for documentation purposes, but my hope is that I will have the energy to update this more regularly.

This is also a test of a shell script content publisher I just threw together. It's all based on Quiver's very handy External Tools functionality.

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2009-02-03 - Le nouveau mini-bus

(Apologies to my English readers. The gist of it is that we bought this little red Subaru van.)

Le week-end dernier, après quelques semaines cherchant, Jenevieve et moi avons acheté un petit mini-bus ! Il est un Subaru E12 4x4, assez vide à l'interieur, avec que deux sièges. Il est né en 1993 et il a que 70,000 km ! Il y a un très peu de rouille en dessous, mais pour un prix de 2,800 CHF, ca va pour nous.

Voilà :

Il y a de travaux à faire afin que nous pouvons dormir dedans, et il n'est pas très propre pour l'instant.

De plus, les sièges se tournent facer à la derière ! Pour les petites fêtes dedans !

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2009-01-15 - Getting an extra meal while flying

Having just returned from Canada where I spent the Christmas holidays, I was reminded of a trick that I take advantage from time to time while flying on those long haul flights.

Sometimes the meager meals they serve you just aren't enough. Sometimes if you are still hungry and politely ask a attendant, they'll give you a second one. However, sometimes they won't, and you're stuck being hungry. Suppose there were a way to painlessly have them simply give you a second one, without even asking! I discovered this, quite by mistake, some years ago. The trick is to order a special meal when you book your ticket. The special meals are for people who are vegetarian (like me), vegan, or have other special dietary needs. It doesn't cost any more to order a special meal, but it's usually not as good as the regular meals (vegetarian options often have "fresh" fruit in place of the dessert, and the Asian-vegetarian option is usually pretty nasty).

So there you are, on the plane, and the attendants begin stirring, preparing to feed the passengers. You may have noticed this, and you may have also noticed that some people get their meals before everyone else. These are the people who ordered a special meal when they booked their ticket. Depending on how many other passengers there are, there can be quite a gap between the time they give out the special meals and the time they begin serving everyone else. So, the trick is to use this time gap to your advantage.

When you get your special meal, don't wait around politely for your neighbour to be served before you start eating. You'll want to finish off that special meal as quickly as possible, before they start serving everyone else. Once you've finished the special meal, you're going to need to make yourself look like all the other eager passengers waiting to be served. That means you have to get rid of your tray and the accompanying unruly packaging that is so difficult to managed while you're eating. There are two ways you can do this. One, you can get up and take it to the kitchen area and give it to an attendant. Or two, you can set it on the floor by your feet.

The attendants will come by, likely not having remembered that you were served, and offer you the choice of your meal. Your neighbour will probably take notice, since he or she just finished enviously watching you eat. But if you tuck away your dignity and think about your hunger, you'll quickly forget the brief humility. On top of that, you can act all suprised that you got another meal, or tired and weary, and unable to act fast enough to decline. Of course, you'll usually be asked to make a decision on which meal you want, so the tired and weary act may seem contrived, not to mention you've just finished eating!

Now, there are a couple of potential problems with this scheme. First, some people might say that it's dishonest. But just how dishonest is it to accept a second meal offered to you? (Recall that I first discovered this by accident, having put my tray at my feet to read after eating.) Second, you might be vegetarian (or whatever else) and so you might not have a meat-less (or whatever else) choice during the second dinner. This is a risk, but what are you risking? Surely there will be something edible in the second dinner, and often there is a vegetarian option. On the other hand, if you aren't really vegetarian (or whatever else), you risk eating that special meal and not enjoying it, and you may not even succeed in getting the second meal. In this case, you're slightly less well off, but you've still eaten.

Another problem is the timing of the arrival of the drink trolly. Often the drink trolly is timed to arrive just after the main meals have been served, which means you'll be without your drink preference (at least for the special meal)^[1]. But perhaps the biggest problem is that you risk embarrassment that would last the remainder of the flight when your plans are foiled by an attendant (or even one of your jealous neighbours).

So there you go, give it a try some time. It's worked for me the majority of the time I've attempted it. The biggest challenge is eating and disposing of the meal tray in time.

^[1] First one to finish their airline meal is a vegetarian! The Independent. June 23, 2001.

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2008-12-12 - What's new?

It's been a long time since I posted something, save for some sparse photo albums. Let's have a little recap.

Activity-wise, I have been swimming regularly. Thursday nights are killer swims, because it's two Masters practices in a row. The first practice is an hour and we normally do between 2.5 and 3km. It is often hard, and at times I find myself hurting trying to breathe. The second workout is usually much easier, but we still manage to do up to 3km. I use the second practice as an extended warm-down and don't go very fast because I'm so spent.

I didn't get as much mountain biking in this summer as I had hoped because I broke my pinky finger on the North Shore riding with Geoff and Logain in June. For that reason climbing has been put on hold, too. Jen and I did a lot of hiking though. Camping in the Alps is incredible. What is amazing is that not many people camp up there, they all eat and sleep in the expensive alpine huts!

Jenny Jean and I have been going to quite a few concerts recently. Sometimes she likes them, like Roots Manuva, and others she isn't so impressed with, like The Notwist. We saw Fat Freddy's Drop, a group from New Zealand, in Strasbourg at the end of November along with Romaric, Caroline, Arne and Anna. They were ok, but I think they were missing the sound I was familiar with (and the female vocalist). The Dandy Warhols were quite good, in my opinion, and I was surprised at the small venue and audience. That is a good thing about seeing concerts in Switzerland. In general the venues are smaller (at least for what I'm interested in) and Swiss people are a pretty calm audience - not too much crazy dancing. In other music-related news, we watched David play with his orchestra and Saideh took us to an evening of tars (the musician played both the tar and the setar).

Romaric moved to Fribourg, Switzerland in October! We have had several joint adventures, such as rock climbing in southern France, reciprocal visits to Geneva and Fribourg, a weekend in Strasbourg, some mushroom hunting, and some concerts too! I am looking forward to the summer when the fishing and climbing is in full swing, but first we have to do some snowboarding in the Alps.

Regarding my PhD, well, it is quite an interesting roller coaster of self-confidence. Periods go by where things seem to progress, and then you realise that you've been wasting months and months on something that doesn't really work, or worse yet, you don't even realise it! Or even worse, you appear to be going backwards! But overall I am finding it very interesting and challenging and am definitely not regretting spending this time living in Switzerland. I'm already well into my third year, and my provisional schedule has me starting the writing of my thesis towards the end of next year, although I suspect it may take longer.

I'm in Canada now for the holidays. I'm in Victoria at the moment having some visits with Bikemike and Jodybird. We're off to Comox next weekend to see the rest of the Morrisons.

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2008-08-23 - Night photos

Playing with the speedlight in a park next to the Arve River in Plainpalais, Geneva.

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2008-06-16 - Jen passes her PhD defense and some other things too

Jen had her PhD defense last Thursday at midnight (10am NZ time). It was a success! Yaaay Jenny!!

Other news

Apart from this momentous event, we spent the weekend in Bordeaux with Cher David a couple of weeks ago tasting wines, eating, discovering beautiful monuments (like the one Jen stands next to pictured below - I believe it to be a contemporary work by an unknown artist).

The weekend was great, except this Asian guy kept following us around spoiling all of the pictures with his grouchy face. We even got in a few geocaches! David's favourite!

Free chips put to good use

And regarding the free chips mentioned in the previous post, I've put some of them to good use. I built two different DC-DC step-up converters both with the MAX756 and the LM1302 (pictured above) for charging USB devices à la Ladyada's MintyBoost project. The MAX756-based charger works well with 2 AA batteries, and the LM1302-based charger works best with a single 3.7V Li-ion cell but puts out a higher current. More development is required...

I also built the TV-B-Gone (Atmel Attiny85-based, pictured above) and am in the process of modifying it slightly to trigger the shutter release on Nikon and Canon digital SLR cameras. I've got it working with the Nikon but the Canon needs some fiddling with the frequency modulation...

I've been sourcing most of my electronic components from street finds. I recently brought home an old CRT screen that had many great inductors inside! Plenty of resistors too, not to mention capacitors and other interesting things. This is all much to the chagrin of Jenny Jean, who laments that our apartment is quickly becoming furnished with boxes of old PCBs and other unsightly junk. I'll clean it all up soon, Jenny, I promise.

Well, that's all for now. I'm leaving for London tomorrow for the CBMI conference and then I will spend two weeks in Canada with the family. Beaver, how are the fishing plans coming along?

PS, there is a problem with the comments here, but they work if you click on the permalink and then write them. I'll get around to fixing it some time...

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2008-04-29 - Free chips!

Free chips! Free sample chips that is. I ordered a new batch of samples from Microchip, Maxim, and Texas Instruments. The Microchip PICs are the 18F1220, 18F2455 (which I've used before), and the glorious 18F4550 with a multitude of I/O pins! Amazing!

The Maxim ICs I received a couple of weeks ago are MAX756 and MAX1676, both are DC-DC step-up converters. I got these to make variations on the Minty Boost. It's a MAX756-based gadget charger, meaning you can output 5V from any power source from 0.7V to 5V. Useful when you lack a charger but have some spare batteries around. I already have one in testing, and for most devices it seems to work. I'm going to try to make a solar cell-based charger next.

For people who are thinking to themselves "Donn is such a dork, I don't care about his free chips," here are some pictures from when Jen and I went to the movies the other night.

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2008-04-09 - Rebuilding a 18650-based laptop battery

I just finished rebuilding and testing a laptop battery for my old Dell 600m. Despite some imperfections in putting it back together, the experiment was a success. Hooray for soldering irons!

Read the article here.

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2008-02-25 - Interdiction de fumer dans les lieux publics à Genève

Enfin il sera interdit de fumer dans les lieux publics à Genève. C'est les bonnes nouvelles, parce que chaque fois on sort pour boire un verre, on retourner tout dégueulasse et très puant de la fumée.

This will be very good, I am happy, especially since I like to go to concerts here. It's funny though that Geneva took so long, and especially that they followed the French, who banned smoking in stations and museums last year, and all public places (bars and restaraunts) this past January.

In the end nearly 80% supported the ban. The only counterargument the opposition had was that smokers' freedom to smoke where they pleased was being infringed upon! Finally some sanity.

Oh yeah, and I should add, Jen came on Saturday. hehe.

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2008-02-17 - Variation on the Stolmen bike rack

This is my variation on the Stolmen bike rack. It is an excellent way to save some floor space if you need to keep your bikes inside your apartment.

I drove out to the Ikea in Aubonne to get the parts. That was my first ever visit to Ikea. What an unpleasant experience. I bought some aluminum hooks instead of the Stolmen hooks and covered them with inner tube to protect the bikes. I also added some bike lights for accent.

It feels pretty sturdy, so hopefully my Torrent wont't fall ontop of me one time when I walk past.

Here are the rest of the photos.

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2008-01-28 - New Zealand

I've just returned from a three week visit to New Zealand. After almost two years of being away, it was really cool to be back there. I left Geneva on the 31st of December and arrived in Wellington on the 2nd of January. Miss Jen retrieved me from the airport, and after a few hours of protocol negotiation and handshaking we were comfortable again. The last time I had the privilege was back in April 2007, 8 months! Phew.

Nicola of the Nicoladion was so very kind as to lend her flat to us for a couple of days in Wellington and after that we took the ferry to the South Island to meet the Nicoladion and Jen's friends Chris and Kelly in Arthur's Pass National Park for some tramping into the Otehaki Hotsprings, a series of hot pools on somewhat of an island in the Taramakau River. The tramp in took about 4 hours or so and involved several crossings of the river before we made it to the little island. A small clearing on the island permits room for several tents. There were a few sandflies, but we were to discover later that their populations were very, very mild.

Next up was a drive through Christchurch to Mt Somers where we met my long lost French lover Romaric with Caroline and Romaric's friend Etienne. We hiked into Pinnacles Hut from the Sharplin Falls carparck and did two short days of sport and trad climbing on the Pinnacles before summiting Mt Somers and returning to the carpark. We left the Frenchies after a beer in the Mt Somers township and headed towards the Fiordlands that evening.

For our final activity in the South Island, Jen had outlined a plan to tramp the Dusky Track in the Fiordlands. We made somewhat of a b-line for the Fiordlands via Gore after aborting our plan to drive through Invercargil at the advice of the helpful dude at the Evinsdale cheesery. Arriving in Te Anau in the evening of the 10th, we hastily organised transport to and from the Dusky Track and camped in Manapouri. The next morning we took the boat across Lake Manapouri to the West Arm where the track starts. From here, we'd tramp about 65 kilometres over 6 days to the north end of Lake Hauroko.

Day 1: The first day the weather was beautiful. Walking along the Upper Spey River towards Upper Spey Hut, we spotted several large rainbow trout, however, thinking that we'd see many more and having just started walking we didn't want to stop and fish. Despite the hot and sunny weather, we encountered many muddy, swampy areas where, if you weren't careful, you could be swallowed whole, never to be seen again. The sandflies were few and far between that day, but when we reached Upper Spey Hut we realised what we were in for. It seems most of the sandflies congregate and breed where they can feed, and that is around the huts. As we were falling asleep, the sound of hiking boots being clunked around could be heard on the hut porch. When I got up to investigate, I discovered a pesky Kea eating our boots! When we moved them inside he started working on the hiking poles.

It's a good thing we bought some gators before we started this track. Check out that mud.

The above photo shows Jen outside Upper Spey Hut in her bug outfit.

Day 2: The second day involved hiking from Upper Spey Hut, over a saddle to Kintail Hut. The weather had turned bad but we set out anyway, not having much room for spare days as our transport out from Lake Hauroko was organised and missing it meant spending four more days waiting for the next boat. The saddle was very windy, and at some times blew us right down onto our knees. My big pack felt like a sail, but luckily the wind was behind us and as soon as we started descending the wind became more manageable.

Here is Jen trying not to be blown off of the saddle.

There were at least two or three of these three-wire bridges to cross each day. Most of them were pretty short, but some like this one were long and pretty high. Watch your step!

The descent to Kintail Hut was steep in sections but then levelled off as we approached the hut. I still had trout on my mind so I went out into the rain to fish but didn't end up seeing anything. Farther down the river we found several waterfalls which may explain the lack of trout up there. Back at the hut the sandflies were streaming in through cracks in the door, so repellent and full length clothing were a must inside! Sandflies like to sleep at night, unlike mosquitoes, so once it gets dark you don't have to worry again until the morning.

Day 3: From Kintail Hut to Loch Maeree Hut we had pretty decent weather. This was probably the longest leg of the track at 14.5 kilometres. We stopped for lunch along the river and I had a fish. Finally I hooked a small brown trout, but he got away. Lucky him, because we were beginning to tire of rice and pasta. The track follows the Seaforth River which exits into Loch Maeree, a lake created by a landslide. There are hundreds of dead tree stumps in this lake and it has an eerie look in the fog. It rained a great deal all night and the next morning the rivers were very swollen.

The view of Loch Maeree from inside the hut. This hut was well sealed (no sandflies inside) and we had it all to ourselves that night.

Day 4: Loch Maeree Hut to Lake Roe Hut. This was one of the harder days, mainly due to the weather. Just as we were about to leave, I thought I'd take one last photo. I ran outside towards the loo and immediately slipped on the slippery boardwalk, falling down hard on my Nikon. I just remember seeing pieces of lens flying everywhere, including my polarising filter! Tail between my legs, I went back inside to investigate. It was a mess. The lens internals were broken and my polarising filter had separated from it's swivel. Sadly, I only had my telephoto lens for this day, which is why there are no wide angle shots of the lakes and fog above the treeline. After a quick cleanup (I cut my leg during the fall as well), we left Loch Maeree Hut. The rain was not letting up. One of the first things you have to do on this leg is cross the bottom of the Seaforth River. There is a long three-wire bridge, so it generally isn't a problem, but the river was so high that the opposite bank of the river was flooded. The ladder coming down from the walkwire sat in almost a metre of water! So much for being dry. In any case, we were rained on so hard for the steep climb up to the subalpine lakes that we were thoroughly drenched. The wind was strong above the treeline as well, so we had to keep up a brisk walk to keep from getting cold.

Normally this leg of the track yields spectacular views of Dusky sound and the surrounding mountains, but the clouds were low and thick so we were lucky when we could see the next track marker. It began to clear somewhat as we reached Lake Roe Hut, which was a very welcome sight. On the way we were followed by some Keas for a short time. They looked pretty wet and sorry too.

(Above) Lake Roe Hut off in the distance.

We reached the hut and were soon joined by three Israelis who were walking in the opposite direction. The nice thing about huts at a higher elevation is the noticeable lack of sandflies. Finally, you could wash your dishes outside without losing a pint of blood.

Day 5: Lake Roe Hut to Halfway Hut. We had much better weather for this leg. All of the streams and rivers were back at their normal levels and we only had spits of rain. We walked this section quite quickly and we had heard the sandfly problem at Halfway Hut was horrible, so we waited until the afternoon to leave. We had a lunch of grilled cheese and sundried tomato sandwiches (toasties) in Lake Roe Hut and then set out. It took us less than three hours to get to Halfway Hut. Here we met three older trampers who had tried twice the day before to make it up to Lake Roe Hut but had to turn back because of swollen streams. They were pretty surprised to hear that we hadn't even remembered crossing the river they had had to turn back at.

It was true, what we'd heard about the sandfly problem. The hut was full of them. It was an all-body-parts-covered situation in there. They were even biting us through our clothes! I was very liberal with the repellent here.

(Above) Halfway Hut.

Day 6: Halfway Hut to Hauroko Burn Hut. This turned out to be one of the days with the nicest weather. It was warm and sunny and the track was far easier to walk. You still had to take care around the boggy parts, but for the most part the track was flat and followed the river. It should have been a successful fishing day, but we didn't see any browns. I stopped several times to fish, nothing. We had a nice long lunch break near the Gardnerburn Crossing and continued on. Due to our pace, it took us almost 9 hours to walk to Hauroko Burn Hut.

This is the view of Lake Hauroko from Hauroko Burn Hut.

Upon reaching the hut, we encountered four Kiwi hunters who were up for the night to hunt deer in the park. They were very generous and offered us large pieces of meat, beer, and fresh vegetables. We scooped the veggies and beer and made a big stir fry in the hut. The next morning they came in and fried up a hearty breakfast of chops, bacon, and beans on toast. We had the last of our oatmeal and brown sugar.

We were surprised at how well planned we had planned our food, down to the last muesli bar. It was good to feel our packs lightening day after day, as the rice and noodles dwindled away.

Our pickup boat arrived at around 10h30 and we started the fairly rough boat ride back to Tuatapere. Lake Hauroko runs north to south, so the water is usually quite rough when the wind picks up. Arriving in Tuatapere at around 13h00, we waited until nearly 16h00 for the connecting shuttle, a bus full of Kiwi Experiencers on a tour of the Fiordlands. I'm pretty sure we stunk up that bus, because we hadn't had showers for a week (except of course due to weather). When we got back to our car at Manapouri, we basically had to drive straight to Picton by the following afternoon. We stopped for some Ferg burgers in Queenstown and drove until 4h00 the next morning, nearly reaching Kaikoura before finally requiring sleep. This time we slept in Jen's car on a nature reserve after being chased inside from sleeping in the field by the rain. Onto the ferry and back to Wellington, arriving in Palmerston North, which I hadn't seen for quite some time, by about 20h00 that evening. We hopped on Jen's bikes and rode up to Atawhai for a potluck/dual birthday party for Dion of Nicoladion and Auralie.

Here is Jennifer Jean in her office after the party. I remarked that it did indeed look like an office of an almost-finished-PhD-candidate. I wish mine looked like that.

Without more than a few breaths of the windy Palmy air, Romaric whisked us away on a two day fishing adventure. We picked him up from Whanganui Bay where they were climbing, and headed over to a favourite fishing spot: the Whakapapa River. I landed a feisty two pounder which we promptly ate for dinner that evening at our campsite. The next day we headed off for the upper reaches of the Whanganui River and got into a lot of fish that evening in some beautiful pools. We took them back to Dion's and smoked them the next day in his smoker.

A rainbow out of the Whakapapa River.

Sunset over the Whakapapa.

Me with a little guy on the go in the upper Whanganui River. You can actually see the fish if you zoom in and follow the line down to the river.

The next day was filled with errands, packing and a birthday dinner for David where we brought the smoked trout.

And that was the end of my New Zealand adventures. Here is a sunset photo from the plane over Oz. I was tracking the flight path until my GPS ran out of batteries. Darn it all.

The rest of the photos can be found here.

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2007-11-20 - CocoRosie in Fribourg

Alas, 'tis been a while. David and I returned this morning from Fribourg where we saw CocoRosie play at Fri-son. We drove up yesterday evening in the Blue Spooge, or Mighty Mouse, our car (as David has corrected me, upon seeing an earlier entry where I referred to it as MY car). Arriving in good time, despite a detour through country roads due to my miscalculating (and Maemo-mapper's inability to download the route properly!), we downed a couple beers, some chips (not frites) to replace skipped dinner, and sorted ourselves up to the front of the stage where I could get a better angle for taking pictures (I smuggled in my D70). It was a great show. Those crazy girls, they can play anything. And they had Tez, the beatbox genius guy who replaced all forms of percussion throughout the whole set. When the concert finished they offered haircuts. We stood around there wondering if we should try to talk to them, but chickened out.

At the end of the night we couch surfed at my friend Katherine's. She has a cute black kitty that attacked my feet in my sleeping bag in the night, so I got my cat fix too. Sorry, didn't get any pictures of that.

The only thing I missed was that they didn't play Bear Hides and Buffalo which has to be the eeriest song, complete with horse, rooster, and cat samples from some electronic children's game. Next time...

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2007-09-05 - Vélo Militaire Suisse

Je viens d'acheter un vélo militaire Suisse! Enfin! C'est vraiment cool. Il y a trois freins, des outils, une belle selle (très confortable pour mon cul), des lumières, et c'est tout noir. C'était fabriqué en 1962, j'aurais préféré un vélo plus ancien (comme 1940), mais c'est pas grave.

Il n'est pas léger, il pèse quelque chose comme 23 kg et il y a seulement une vitesse, mais je crois il sera très bien d'utiliser en ville. Genève est plus ou moins plat.

Normalement j'aime bien à trouver les vélos qui sont cassés et les reparer, mais c'est difficile à trouver ces vélos militaires. C'était seulement 290 CHF, pas mal...

Voila:

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2007-08-18 - Adding auxiliary input to your car stereo

I just hacked in a line-in to the cheap stereo in my car. It worked, so I wrote a little thing about it here.

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2007-08-12 - Alley cats

I love cats. I love the elusive Genèvois alley cats. When they do make an appearance, in the quiet of the early morning hours, they are very friendly. We were having some drinks at a squat in Les Grottes when these kitties began to emerge from first floor windows, from underneath fences, stirring, socialising in their quiet cat ways.

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2007-07-02 - USB powered cat repeller

I have, for many years, been a fan of Afrotech Mods. There is something unique about his ghetto style, his vision, and the unmatched usefulness of each and every project. I encourage you to take a few minutes to peruse the site. But, to the point, I recently discovered one of his more recent projects: the USB powered ultrasonic cat repeller. At first glance I was horrified. Repel cats? Who could envision such a horrible thought! Being in constant search of cats, I would have attempted to build a USB powered ultrasonic cat attractor. But be calm, fair hippies*, because upon closer inspection, it is revealed that his intension is to save the cats from electrocution.

In the end, the device seemed to have the opposite effect.

* - in his own words

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2007-06-06 - Fly tying with the CERN Fly Fishing Club and some other things, too

Fly tying

This Wednesday night, as I have been doing more and more, I undertook the 11km bike ride out to CERN (basically on the other side of Geneva from Carouge) to meet "les mecs vieux" at the CERN Fly Fishing Club. One of them agreed to show me some dry fly tying techniques. They're a lively bunch of guys with highly varied French accents (trying my rather delicate comprehension skills). Natalie, a Canadian friend of mine, met me there and we proceeded to test our tying skills. First up was a dry fly, of which I heard the French name but have since forgotten. Then it was time for a "crevette" (shrimp). I've tied some crevettes before while in Canada. I think they're a fun fly to create. I especially like putting on the shell.

Here's Natalie putting a tail "le cul!!" on her crevette.

Ekman

Yesterday I went to a lecture by Paul Ekman (he is visiting to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva) where he basically summarised his work over the past 40 years. I heard about the lecture during our weekly lab meeting (some of the students in our lab are working on modelling emotion). I was interested because my master's thesis was on automatic recognition of emotions, mind you not facial expression but vocal. Nevertheless I did learn a lot from reading his work and in many ways it carries across to vocal expression of emotion. Among other things, he talked about the rift between psychologists and anthropologists, which was new to me. Being a computer scientist I never suspected such a dichotomy. Ekman said anthropologists protect their territory, which he argued can lead to subjectivity in the findings. When I was talking with Jenny Infanti afterwards (my very own anthropologist), she remarked that psychologists always mess everything up with their quantitative studies, probing, and lists upon lists (don't quote her on that, I'm recalling from memory).

There's Ekman with a young Charles Darwin in the background.

Another thing he talked extensively on was how when he started his research everyone thought facial expressions were culturally dependent and therefore socially learned. After several trips to remote villages he discovered that people who had never seen any "Western" expression of emotion had the same facial expressions for the same underlying emotions, effectively disproving popular belief at the time. Now it is widely accepted that facial expressions have a biological foundation and evolutionary purpose.

Paul Ekman now contracts for the Department of Homeland Security in the United States working on things such as lie detection and security screening. I was glad to hear someone ask a question at the end about whether he thought his findings were being put to good use. He responded that DHS is a huge mess of a bureaucracy where when it was created, all other agencies sent their "incompetent and obnoxious." I thought that was funny. Essentially he said DHS was generally poorly trained (compared to the security services of Israel) on how to observe others. He went on to talk about percentages of people in airports who are observed and questioned, but apart from stating that all of his research is unclassified, he didn't really address the question directly.

Anyway, I enjoyed seeing him speak. You can read more about his work on the internet. I did record most of his talk. You can find it here. Sorry, the beginning is cut off because I only thought about recording it about 20 minutes after he started.

Ma nouvelle voiture

I bought a car this week from my friend Francois. It will be great to be able to take my bike out this summer (it's a bit of a lug to get to any decent trails), not to mention rock climbing sorties, expeditions into France, Germany, and I-taly. So Geoffy, when you get here we'll have transport for our Ticino fishing and climbing adventure!

C'est tout pour maintenant...

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2007-05-26 - Look Around You

I found this cool science series from the BBC. Take a look. Around you. This first episode is about Maths. I think my favourite episode so far is #3, Germs.

I found this on Dan's Data in his latest Letters.

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2007-05-23 - First geocache hidden has been found

I set my first geocache, named Battelle (after the name of the research facility where I work), near my office yesterday in an attempt to procure some excitement during the day watching the odd cacher wander about with a GPS and pad of paper. I didn't think it would take long for someone to find it, but as I was leaving the office on my bike this evening I noticed a man wandering around in the field. I stopped and waited until I saw him pull the little jar of joy out of the tree in which I stashed it. Cool! A little voyeuristic but hey, that's part of the fun.

I was a bit worried that my coordinates would be way off because of all the buildings and trees in the area. But I guess it's fine, or close enough. Thanks to Romaric for grammar checking my French on the geocaching page.

On my way home I picked up another deserted bike frame. A while back I'd noticed it and subsequently forced open the lock. Today I decided to retrieve it since my bike building hobby has begun to spread by word of mouth, and now I have a queue of people who want junky city bikes.

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2007-04-27 - Jen's visit, Paris, Prague, and some other things, too

Yam imports

Switzerland experienced a peculiar sudden drop in produce prices this spring, most notably with sweet yams dropping to an all-time low. Economists from the KOF Swiss Economic Institute in Zurich stated that the price drop began on April 3rd around 13:00 when the yam market was flooded by imports from Canada and only began to rise again three weeks later on April 25th 09:55 when buyers in New Zealand narrowly overtook the Canadian supply by slashing import tariffs.

Paris

After Jenny arrived we spent the remainder of the week in Geneva and then took the train to Paris. Well actually we took the next train to Paris since we missed the first one while pussy-farting around in the station trying to think of elegant gifts with which we could impress our Parisian friends. The canard au chocolat turned out to cost us just over 250 CHF. Caroline, I suspect you enjoyed it?

We were met in Paris by Amelie and Xavier, who would later tell us "You are very crazy my poor friends," "It is not your fault," and "You are not guilty." We met Dion and Nicola and Caroline shortly after and went for a shockingly expensive beer in an Irish pub somewhere in Paris...the exact GPS coordinates escape my memory, although I am sure I recorded the entire weekend.

We spent our days in Paris doing such French things as geocaching, going to an amusement park, eating a raclette, and visiting the Louvre. Wait, I'm not sure how French the Louvre actually is...Alright maybe it's the only French thing in that sentence. I believe the raclette to be patently Swiss.

Amelie and Caroline had our whole weekend planned to the minute. Unfortunately, some unforseen events caused our plans to shift. First, Caroline sleeps in too long (she says she was baking a cake...yeah right). Second, I had special gadgets. These gadgets caused us to search for geocaches wherever we were, and even where we weren't supposed to be, and for much longer than we all wanted to. But it was fun, we managed to enjoy most of it, except maybe for the 4 hours in the Jardin des Plantes.

We became experts at the intricate Parisian metro system. We dined at the finest restaurants (chez Amelie and chez Caroline). We strolled the (enormous) palace grounds in Versailles. It all went so quickly, and suddenly we were on the train back to Geneva. It was fun, and I will go back to Paris. I mean, I have to, because we couldn't find that geocache near the Zoo!

Back in Geneva, we saw the Skatalites in concert at l'Usine. They were fantastic. Malheureusement we were a bit fatigué so we left a bit early.

Prague

The next morning we flew to Prague to see what all the fuss was about. I can now say that all the fuss is about the density of geocaches there! The city is littered with them. Every where you go there is something to be found. So we didn't really even have to deviate from our plans to include geocaching in the schedule. We'd get somewhere, like the Lennon wall, and I'd glance at my Nokia only to find a treasure.

Prague is a very beautiful city. Apparently it lacked the bombing the rest of Europe had during WWII. The buildings are very gothic, with pointy black roofs and chuchtowers and castles. The city saddles a river so there are many bridges to get lost on.

We mastered the subways in Prague too, and I think they're more interesting than those of Paris. Where else can you walk in circles looking for the "Smér" ("exit"; we pronounced it "smear," as in "we need to smear"). They have extremely long escalators too, which makes you wonder just how deep you are.

We found some nice vegetarian restaurants, tea and shisha (flavoured tobacco bong) houses, and tried some Czech beer which, maybe because we went to the wrong place, wasn't nearly as good as the cheap Coop-brand beer you can get in Geneva.

Back in Geneva

But all adventures have to end, and after a narrow escape from the transit authority (you need a valid ticket to be in the "zone") we flew back to Geneva. On the way back, I accidentally left all of my gadgets on, and we were able to see our flight path on the Nokia with the GPS. Very cool.

Back in Geneva, we had a few dinner parties. The first was a dinner of crepes with Natalie, Lisa, David, and Dominico. Jen made some very tasty cheesy asparagus crepes and then we had the usual crepes with a large assortment of toppings...including maple syrup, which was smuggled into Switzerland among the yams. The next dinner was Indian with Atish and Naira. Atish brought some daal and Jen directed the cooking of some eggs, the name of the dish escapes me. The third dinner wasn't really a dinner, rather a painting extravaganza. We made some delicious brownies and David and François came over with some wine. We then let our artistic talents ooze. Mine oozed a little too much. I think Jen's oozed just right. David just oozed comments all night. François oozed things he shouldn't have.

Bikes

Jen helped me scrounge Geneva for old bicycles. You can tell the deserted old bicycles by their dilapidated state: flat tires, registration decals from 1998, bent wheels, missing seats, rusted chains. My goal was to find some bicycles for free so I wouldn't have to ride my expensive ones around and leave them vulnerable to the infamous Genevan bicycle hounds. I only hope, now that I've acquired 5 free bicycles, that I have not become one of those hounds. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience walking through the city eyeing up bikes here and there. I found the best approach was to look for flat tires. They're easy to spot.

One of the bikes I found was a beat up Raleigh Sports. It was the first one I fixed up. I soaked the rusty chain in WD40 and eventually got all the links working again. It was missing a rear wheel so I put on some 28" rims which seem to fit alright.

Here we are with our treasure. The Nutella was used as nourishment during the journey.

Alors...à prochaine!

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2007-03-28 - Riding with music

Behold, my latest creation: The Headphone Helmet. This amazing merger of "safe and sound" will allow me to snowboard with a slight wiggle in my hips...although I must admit I do wear my snowboarding helmet in the apartment a lot now...

In other news, I am porting the good old webcam_server to the Nokia N800. Here's one of my first successful "screen captures":

That's the N800 just to the left of my laptop screen, and on the left side of the N800 you can see the tiny camera protruding. What you see on my laptop screen is what webcam_server sends to the browser window (me!).

When I get as organised as Mike I'll set up a Maemo repository so you can install it easily. In case you didn't know, webcam_server is now in Ubuntu Feisty. Currently that version only supports video4linux, but with the completion of the N800 version v4l2 will be fully supported (it's about time...).

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2007-03-15 - Cycling with GPS and our new lab at Battelle

The past two weekends I've been cycling onto the Salève, a bluff in France just outside of Geneva. The altitude is about 1285m, so coming from Geneva it means a change of +900m or so...quite a push on a downhill bike. The second time I did it it was much easier. The weather was stunning and I took my new GPS and mounted my Nokia N800 on the handlebar for a display. The bluetooth worked nicely and the GPS receiver, an I-Blue 757 Pro, seemed pretty accurate even from within my backpack. The total trip was about 30km, and on the way down I took some hiking/downhill trails and got nice and muddy.

Below is a screen capture from Maemo Mapper of my tracked route. You can see the shadow cast by the Salève and the snow on top. The maps there are Google's satellite imagery and when you zoom in far enough it is apparent that the maps are off by about 20 metres or so. The Google street data is much more accurate.

There was snow up there from a few days before, so it made it all the more strange that I found a lizard skirting along a rock wall. He may be a bit early, especially at that altitude, but the winter in Switzerland is all but over. I've given up on any hope of snowboarding this year unless we get a freak snowstorm.

The other news from over here is that our lab, the CVML (Computer Vision and Multimedia Lab), moved from Dufour in Plainpalais to Battelle in Carouge. This is a bit closer to my appartment and the campus is much quieter than in the city, but I will miss being close to down town. The offices are really big here, and they've put us on the sunny side of the building, which is good for now, but in the summer I imagine it will get really hot. So hot we will probably have to leave early and swim in the lake!

Here is a photo of my new work digs. I installed my hammock for those times when I get a little sleepy or want to read a paper comfortably. The concrete ceiling has an embedded metal track which is perfect for size 4 nuts! I'll let you know when one of them pops out and I crash to the floor.

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2007-01-24 - Il neige en Genève...enfin

Maybe Europe's warmest winter in 1300 years has come to an end. Today it began snowing. I went out for a late night walk with my camera to take some pictures. There were cars slipping around (I think intentionally) and I saw the aftermath of a small accident. All of the bicycles and motos were covered in snow. The tram lines were well plowed but seeing as it's 3:44 am and it's still snowing, they are going to have to plow all night to keep the rails clear.

I don't normally post-process my photos, but this time I decided to try to compensate for the horrible orange streetlamps by reducing the red/yellow saturation. I even turned some completely gray.

An update on new furniture: Eniko found a stove near our apartment and I found a beautiful lounge chair that I wheeled back on my skateboard. We moved the stove in with my skateboard too, it sure is handy. The stove works fine, plus, it was pretty clean. It is an improvement over our previous stove because of two things: 1) it has a window on the oven door and 2) it was free and our other stove was borrowed.

Above said chair (it has a drawer under the seat!):

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2006-12-18 - Dumpster diving in Geneva

For the last week I've had a kind of obsession with dumpster diving in Geneva. The thing is, it's not even dumpster diving. You just have to be walking down the street and you'll see treasures everywhere! The amount of useful things people leave on the street when they have to move is amazing. Here's what I've accumulated to date:

• A washing machine
• Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse
• 2x standing halogen lamps
• Vacuum cleaner
• USRobitics 33.6kbps external modem (sweet score!)
• Subwoofer and speakers
• Several ceiling mounted halogen lights
• Baking pan (okay it might be a bit gross but I haven't used it yet)
• Various electronics junk (switches, cables, etc)
• Picture frame
• MPiO 128MB MP3 player
• Full length mirror

This list does not include the countless treasures I either a) could not carry or b) did not really have a use for. I've seen stoves, fridges, washing machines, beds, desks, table and chair sets, shelves, couches, televisions, computers and monitors, VCRs (with remote), and even an uninterruptable power supply...all free!

The retrieval of the washing machine is a good story because it was quite a mission. I had been riding my bike around various suburbs looking for things to populate the apartment with, since we moved in with nothing. After finding some halogen lamps and computer junk I spotted a washing machine just at the edge of Carouge, maybe 1km from my flat. I inspected it and it looked okay, but you can never really tell. The power cord had been severed, presumably to stop people like me from scavanging. I hereby proclaimed it gold and rode home for my skateboard. I skated back and mounted it on the board, a long board that my brother Todd made. It was nice and long and thick so it supported the washing machine perfectly. I pushed it all the way back and huffed it up the two flights of stairs by myself. It had to be the heaviest thing I've ever lifted in my life. Anyway, this was at about 4:30 am, so I was too tired to test it.

When I got around to testing it, I had to first solder a new electrical cord onto it. This was pretty easy, especially since I found one on a separate mission. Now, testing a washing machine that's in an unknown state can have many obvious negative implications. It could catch on fire, leak and flood, ruin clothes, explode, who knows. So I turned it on with great hesitation, but to my amazement it seemed to cycle through the different wash stages appropriately. Next I put an actual load of laundry in and babysat it by taking a bath while it chugged along. After an hour or so, it stopped and my clothes were clean, and not ruined, and there was no fire, or explosion, or flood (I just realised that is really bad boolean logic). Success!

But all of this does not come without hidden costs. For example, just this evening I was electrocuted when I touched one of the halogen lamps and our stove at the same time. It was quite a shock, I estimate around 80 V, but I cannot say for sure as I did not have my multimetre handy.

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2006-11-22 - Le mot du jour: l'échelle

Hier j'ai appris un nouveau mot: l'échelle. Ce raison est parce que quand j'ai fini d'emménager, j'ai oublié mes clés dans l'appartement! Zut alors! J'ai parlé avec un homme, et après quelque français très mauvais, il a me pris à la concierge et je lui ai demandé d'utiliser son échelle, parce que j'ai lassé la fenêtre ouverte. Donc, j'ai monté l'échelle et entré m'appartement par la fenêtre...

Alors, je reste dans la nouvelle appartement maintenant, et je pense qu'il est très jolie! En fait, ce matin, j'ai dormi jusqu'à neuf heure et demi car la bruit est pas beaucoup! Normalement je me leve à huit heure parce que la bruit dans l'appartement en Servette.

Je suis désolé pour les lecteurs anglais, mais, si vous voulez lire ceci, utilisez Google Translate.

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2006-11-20 - Horse page plagiarised by student newspaper

It seems that my horse page has been picked up by the staff at The Strand, some sort of student newspaper at U of T. Here is their story (beware of copius adverts, and try here if the first link tries to make you subscribe).

I don't mind at all that they copied my horse page. It gives my poem some more readership. I do, however, regret the structure of their article. It goes something like this:

[ HORSE SAFETY ]

[ LITERATURE ABOUT HORSES (my poem) ]

[ HOW TO COOK HORSES ]

As you can see, the topics are quite random; they don't flow together well. I can see combining horse safety with literature about horses, but to throw in a recipe for horse and pepper pie at the end of the article, that is just poor journalism. But what can you expect from a newspaper that was founded in 1953, the same year Egypt was declared a republic. (Do you see how confusing it is to read things that aren't related?)

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2006-11-01 - Climbing in Traversella, Italy

We spent the last weekend climbing in Traversella, Italy. It was Henning, Marc, Tobi and myself. We took Marc's car for the 2.5 hour drive from Geneva, which included driving through the Tunnel du Mont Blanc (and several others), paying numerous highway tolls, and smelling the strange smells of Italy, or maybe it was Henning's sandwiches. We will never know for sure.

We arrived Friday night and set up in a really cool campsite nestled in the valley right next to a beautiful river, which, much to my dismay, had trout in it. Not big New Zealand style trout, but tiny 15cm European trout. Nevertheless, I didn't bring my fishing rod, so they were safe.

We climbed for three days. The first two days were mainly multipitch, and the third day we pumped ourselves out on a lot of short, overhanging climbs with big holds. On Saturday night we dined at a restaurant in Traversella called Albergo Miniere. It was quite nice, although I don't think that we needed to have so much grappa...on top of the three bottles of wine. Anyhow, it was a really good meal and we were completely stuffed when we left. Luckily we had to walk 3km back to the campsite so our stomachs had time to settle.

<-- What a dork!

Above (left to right): Me, Henning, Marc, and Tobi.

The weather was very nice. It was so hot that we were able to climb without shirts, not to mention the camping...at the end of October. There were many, many lizards around too. After doddling behind taking photos of them, I often had to be collected by Henning, who explained that we should hurry up because we had lots of climbing to do. I guess he thought we were on a climbing trip or something. We even found some cats. Some nice Italian mountain cats, which were a bit wild, but lived at the refuge close to the climbing. I fed them some cheese in a futile attempt to get some free snuggles, but they managed to keep their distance. If I only had a few more days to work on them...

Marc, who is Swiss, doesn't speak much English, so the lowest common denomiator was by default French. This meant that for the majority of the weekend, I was able to practice my French. I climbed with Marc on Saturday, so I learned how to say things like:

• bloque - take up slack (je vais tomber!)
• mou - give slack
• la corde - the rope
• moulinette - toprope
• relais - safe, or belay station
• merde - shit! (Okay I already knew this word)
• douloureux - painful, sore (mes pieds sont douloureux)

Since we were camping, I brought my Siam Hammock and slept in it for two of the nights. The first night I tied it a little tight so I was kind of squished, and the second night when I loosened it I left one side too low so I kept slipping down towards the end during the night. But I was nice and warm. Ahhh.

That's about it for the summary. It was fun. C'était joli!

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2006-10-06 - French presentation

This is mostly intended for my French friends. Today I gave a presentation for the French class I am taking (well, the class finished today). I talked about some fly fishing I did during the summer in Canada. I recorded it so you can hear how funny I sound stumbling around trying to talk about fish and eagles.

The audio: french_presentation.mp3
The slides and text: here

Critiques? How can I improve my accent? Or is it so great that it can't be improved?

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2006-10-03 - Gnu Image-Finding Tool

For your perusal, for your enjoyment, I've installed the Gnu Image-Finding Tool on my site. My entire picture collection has been indexed. That's almost 6 years of Nnod, totaling 17,793 images, at an average of almost 3,000 pictures per year (and this year isn't even over).

You can get to it here, or by browsing images and clicking on the "Find similar images" button. Try it out below:

I also wrote a little help page just in case you need some.

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2006-09-29 - Canadian yams

The yam just came to visit. She was at a conference in Oxford (it sounds so uppity), and she flew to Genève when she was done. Just for a week.

What did we do? I'll tell you! We explored some places around Genève (I realised I haven't really done that yet on my own). We expected to make a quick journey to France to take the gondola up onto the Salève (a bluff just outside of the city), but the weather wasn't nice enough so we didn't go. She came to my French class a couple of times, and complained that she couldn't understand anything. I know she could though, she knows much more French than I do. Just listen to her talk about reading all the French labels on food and shampoo bottles when she was a smaller yam. The only French words I remember from reading product labels are "gagner!" and "gratuit!" and "fromage." I wonder if that says something about my consumer habits...

We drank some wine at the river, took some pictures. We drank beer, and more wine, and ate some cheese and bread. We went to Lausanne for the day on Saturday. It's a nice city. I hadn't been there yet. There are a lot of hills! I think it would be great for longboarding. It's only 30 minutes from Genève by train, which costs 20 CHF. We did a lot of walking around. We practiced our French with a helpful bus driver, went to a few museums and an old church (we are such cheeky athiests), and later met Jana (who works with me at my lab) and her friend Kai from Germany for some pizza and beer. After a tour of some cafés and pubs, we all took the train back to Genève.

On Sunday we visited Handicap International's landmine photo exhibit along Quai Wilson. So many lost limbs! Tsk, tsk, shame on you, USA, Israel, Iran, China, Finland, Myanmar, etc who refuse to sign the landmine treaty. I mean, are they really so useful any more? Anyway, after that it began to rain. We purchased some pizza ingredients and watched a French film in the theatre. It was President, and we kind of understood some parts of it, but not much: it was in French. So much French! It's as if I'm living in a French-speaking country!

Then on Monday Jana and Julien hosted a fondue party. It was my first Swiss fondue, and it was soooooo good. We had two huge bowls of cheesy goodness, soaked into bread, potato chunks, broccoli and even some apples and grapes. The meal was sprinkled with a variety of alcoholic beverages including some rarities from Julien's home region, the Jura. That stuff is very flammable!

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2006-09-29 - Apprendre le Francias et un petit accident sur mon vélo

French girl: Vous parlez francais?
Donn: Un peu...
French girl: Vous comprenez francais?
Donn: Pas très bien...si vous parlez moins vite.
Donn: Pardon, madamoiselle, mais, je voudrais te bouff...

I've been in my French class for two weeks. It's kinda fun! But it's umm...challenging. It may have something to do with my skipping French 9 in highschool. Nah... But man, here is my typical French day: I wake up at 8, pretty tired from doing French homework until 2am (I was a bit behind after Jen's visit...there were more important things to do than do my French homework), get to the class by 9. Class goes from 9 until 11 or 12 and consists of oral probes (under the guise of questions in French), new verb tenses each day, grammar, and the seemingly obligatory dictation of "Le Petit Prince." I still don't know what that story is about. Fairies and foxes and crashed airplanes?? I don't get it!

We also listen to French songs. Today it was "Foule Sentimentale" by Alain Souchon. We analysed it for it's meaning. This is hard to do in French! It seemed like a nice song, I've never heard it before. Later, I looked up Alain Souchon and found his website. I hate flash websites, but they did a good job on this one. It's pretty funny.

Last week we listened to "Comme d'habitude" by Claude Francois. In my opinion, not such a great song, but it led to a discussion with my officemate about a film called Podium about a guy who impersonates Claude Francois. It was a good movie, even if you don't know anything about the guy. But if you don't understand French well, you'll want to download the subtitled version because they speak really fast.

Anyway, at 12 you either get to choose between some Swiss history, literature, or an early lunch. I usually pick the latter because 1) I'm not too interested in the peculiarities of the Protestants and Catholics in the 17th century, and 2) it's really hard to understand what the hell is going on. After lunch, there are more choices. Some days there is "lecture de presse" (reading newspapers), which is almost as hard as the history. Not because the newspapers are hard to read, but because of something else I'm not quite sure of. Let me tell you, I can read a newspaper article. Well at least I think I can. I mean, I get the jist of it...and it takes me a while, but I can do it. Other days there is grammar, which I actually really enjoy. I get to learn where to stick all those weird articles and things like de, que, auquelle, y, eux, etc etc.

After grammar or newspapers comes the fun part: phonétique! I usually go to the lab for this. You sit at a computer and speak into a headset reading different childrens phrases and sounding like...well, someone butchering the gracious French language. The idea is to hear yourself making mispronounciations to get better at speaking. The first time I went I was totally weirded out. I didn't realise the tutor could "big brother" your whole computing session! So there I was, looking at porn, practicing my special French phrases...no, just kidding. Actually, I was happily reading along, practicing something mundane like how to not pronounce certain letters, when the tutor lady takes over my computer and speaks into my headphones from her desk. At first I didn't know who was talking to me, a fairy? A French fairy? What is she trying to say? After a few seconds you figure out that she's talking to you about what you said a few minutes ago. I guess she has some remote desktop with audio support, because she nailed me on a few mispronounciations and spotted my aimless browsing for French videos.

So that's it. After an hour and a half of phonetics I'm ready to have a good long nap and dream French dreams. I usually wander back to my office in an attempt to do some reading for my research, but it never goes well. I'm usually hungry, my head hurts, and I think about a nice cold beer. So I go home.

Here's another story. I crashed on my road bike last Monday. It was rainy, and there are these nice tram tracks on many of the streets on the route I take to my office (and French). When it's rainy, the tracks are amazingly slippery. I'm always careful crossing them, but sometimes you have to cross them on an angle, so your track to tire surface area ratio is pretty high. So there I was (alors, y j'étais...), cycling along. I came across a pair of tram tracks, I imagine at about 10 km/h. I crossed them easily, but I was careful. Then, just a couple of metres later, another pair of tracks, this time at a smaller angle. As soon as I hit them, I felt my bike slipping out. I remember seeing a businessman, perhaps a banker, on the sidewalk waiting to cross, watching me, wide-eyed, stepping backwards slightly as I veered towards him. Next I saw my front tire crossing onto the sidewalk, and soon after I saw a tree. I hit this tree, mostly with my hand (which was on my brake), and then I remember being in some contorted position with my bike, perhaps a straddling, at this point, completely out of control, flying through the air, not necessarily in an upright position. I remember some bushes or small branches hitting me, possibly some shrubbery around the tree, and then some sort of a roll-with-my-bike-tangle onto the sidewalk, soonly after which I came free of my bike, and fell out onto the street. Somewhere in there I hit my helmet on something, perhaps the sidewalk or my bike, because for a second I was seeing stars. My hand was already bloody, I scraped a good amount of skin from my knuckles. But otherwise I was completely unscathed! A car had stopped quickly, just behind me. I gathered my bike and got back onto the sidewalk. Now, I learned a bit of French vocabulary with the following encounter with the aforementioned businessman. He said "Ohhh, le rail!" I said, "Oui, c'est d'accord," Which in hindsight doesn't really mean anything.

I had a flat front tire, and I'm surprised that was the only damage to my bike, so I walked the last 500m to my office. I patched my hand up and went off to my French class, where, using my new vocabulary (le rail), I described the events to a fellow classmate.

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2006-09-09 My new sewing machine

I got myself a new sewing machine. I got it from a lady who was moving for only 50 CHF. I can fix my pants now. My pants with a hole in the crotch. It's very strange why I wear out my pants in this area. I suppose it's from cycling.

I don't know what to do today. I wanted to go mountain biking at Les Gets in France, because it's only open until the 10th, but I'd either have to find someone with a car or take a train to Cluses and then ride my big ol' beast the rest of the way (22 km and 1172 m eleveation)...I don't think it's going to happen. So I'm left here listening to Dr. Octagon singing about Gorillas.

I tried to go dirt jumping near Carouge in Genève, but the BMXers I talked to at the dirt jumps said they didn't want mountain bikes on their precious mounds. So the only excitement my bike has had recently is a photo shoot near the bouldering wall:

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2006-08-23 J'arrive en Genève et les aventures

I've been in Switzerland for almost a week but I've only spent a few days in Genève so far. I've been climbing in France and adventuring with Andy and Chucky, friends I met in New Zealand through the alpine club.

My apartment is quite nice and my flatmate is nice too. The first thing I did when I arrived was put my bike together so I could check out some other flats. They weren't as good as the current one, so I'm staying here for a while.

Andy emailed and said he and Chucky were going to do a klettersteig (via ferrata) in Kandersteg. I'd never done a klettersteig before, but basically it's mountaineering using cables and ladders for protection. Andy said they are all over Europe from the first world war when it was advantageous to be in the mountains shooting down on your foes. A lot of them are still maintained for mountaineering purposes. I took the train to Bern where I met Andy and Chucky on a connecting train to Kandersteg. When we arrived in Kandersteg it was raining and ugly. After a short wait the weather cleared up and we geared up for the climb.

It took us about three hours to climb the klettersteig and about 5 minutes to return by the gondola. We hurried to the train and took off back to Andy's parent's place in Zetzwil, near Zurich, to get ready for the next adventure, a hike to Schönbielhütte, near the Matterhorn.

This hike starts in Zermatt and follows the glacial valley to the base of the Matterhorn, a famous peak situated on the border of Italy and Switzerland. The hike was pretty easy, only about 4-5 hours. There were wild raspberries, strawberries, lizards along the way. We dined and slept at the hut that night and left early the next morning. We were on the 12:30 train back to Zetzwil.

We were supposed to do some rock climbing but the weather looked bad so I headed back to Genève to get organised for my PhD.

In other news, I've eaten about a month's worth of bread and cheese in the last week alone. C'est la vie!

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August 9, 2006 - Je cherche pour une chambre en Genéve (I am looking for a room in Geneva)

I'm packing up all my precious worldly items into bags and boxes for the upcoming move to Geneva. I leave on the 16th, just in one week! So if you haven't seen me while I've been back and you still want to, you'd better do it soon (we're having drinks at the Sticky Wicket on Saturday at 7pm). I'm also looking for a place to live. It's been entertaining trying to write emails in French to people I don't know. I thought I might share a few. Some of my French friends might find them funny.

This is one of the first I wrote. When I initially composed it, I wrote at the end "Je m'excuse pour mon Francais malade," which, when I ran it through the Google Translator tool came to be "I excuse myself for my sick French." I decided to make some modifications before I sent it.

From: 	Donn Morrison 
Subject: 	Louer une chambre
Date: 	Sat, 29 Jul 2006 18:19:19 -0700


Bonjour,

Je cherche une apartment quand j'arrive à Genève le 17th August. Je suis
Canadien et j'étudierai un PhD à l'universite de Genève pour trois ans.
Je voudrai louer pour quatre mois, ou plus, si possible.

Est la chambre près assez l'universite pour cycle?

Je m'excuse pour mon Francais pauvre! Repondez en anglais si vous
voulez.

Merci,
Donn

Eventually the guy told me the room had been rented. Failure. I didn't do much searching for a while after that because I was away. But when I came back I got right back into it. I figured why practice my French with unique emails to each person when I should just send each one the same thing. This is what I came up with:

From: 	Donn Morrison 
Subject: 	louer a chambre
Date: 	Fri, 4 Aug 2006 08:56:08 -0700


Bonjour,

Je suis Canadien, homme, 29 ans, parle l'anlais. J'arrive en Geneve 17
Aout et j'etudierai un phd a UniGe. Je cherche pour une chambre.

Est ce chambre pres de l'universite?

Merci,
Donn

I don't really know why I changed the subject from "Louer une chambre" to "Louer a chambre", but I think I meant "Louer à chambre" and I might have been following some convention I saw on the rental announcement website I was on.

I emailed a lot of people and got a lot of replies. I wrote one guy back (I changed his name to Georges to protect his identity).

From: 	Donn Morrison 
Subject: 	Re: louer a chambre
Date: 	Fri, 4 Aug 2006 16:24:23 -0700


Salut Georges,

Je resterai en Genève pour trois ans, alors, j'occuperai la chambre
pour un ans, puet-etre plus.

Pouvez-vous me dire au sujet la chambre et les compagnons ou les autre
personnes de la maison?

Combien du temps depuis l'universite de Genève par l'autobus ou bicyclette?

Je suis au Canada maintenant.

Merci,
Donn

If your curious and can't read French well, just put it through a translator. The jist was that I wanted a room for one year, maybe more. I asked about the other flatmates, and then I asked how close the flat was to the university by bus or bicycle. At that time I didn't know the university was spread all over the city. Different schools in different areas. Then I said that "I am in Canada now," to get the point across that I couldn't visit the flat for a look.

Here is another one, with some of the other side of the conversation:

From: 	Donn Morrison 
Subject: 	Re: Loue a chambre
Date: 	Wed, 09 Aug 2006 02:08:24 -0700


Salut, 

Oh, je m'excuse, j'ai oublié cette question. Je besoin le studio pour 1
an ou plus, mais je suis flexible. Plus ou moins. Je habiterai en Genéve
pour trois ou quatre ans.

Donn

On Wed, 2006-09-08 at 01:44 -0700, XXX wrote:
> Salut Donn,
>  
> Je pourrais t'envoyer les photos aujourd'hui vers 8 p.m. CET. Tu auras
> besoin le studio pour combien de mois?
>  
> XXX
> 
> Donn Morrison  wrote:
>         Bonjour XXX,
>         
>         Oui, je suis intéressé. Tu peut m'envoyer les photos?
>         
>         Merci,
>         Donn
>         
>         On Tue, 2006-08-08 at 23:40 -0700, XXX wrote:
>         > Bonjour Donn,
>         > 
>         > Dans l'annonce j'ai proposé un studio avec kitchenette et
>         salle de
>         > bains. Il se situe à proximité des bâtiments universitaires
>         10 min à
>         > pied d' Unimail et de l'Unidoufour, à 15 minutes ( à pied)
>         de Sciences
>         > et à 5 minutes de la Médecine. 
>         > 
>         > Il y a déja quelques personnes qui sont intéressés donc j'
>         ai organisé
>         > une visite pour aujourd'hui. J'aimerais prendre une décision
>         assez
>         > rapidement (d'ici à la fin de la semaine) donc je pourrais
>         te proposer
>         > d'envoyer des photos.
>         > 
>         > T'en aura besoin pour combien de mois?
>         > 
>         > Le studio sera libre à partir du 1er septembre mais il
>         serait déja
>         > possible d'emménager le 31 août. Il a environ 20m2 et un
>         balcon. Il
>         > est proche aux commerces et aux complexes sportifs. Le loyer
>         de
>         > 1045/mois comprend les charges, unlimited ADSL connection,
>         abonnement
>         > mensuel du téléphone fixe etc. Il y aussi une bouanderie
>         dans le
>         > bâtiment.
>         > 
>         > Aimeras-tu que je t'envoie des photos, ou ça ne jouera pas
>         pour toi
>         > dans ces conditions?
>         > 
>         > J'attends ta réponse.
>         > Bonne journée,
>         > 
>         > XXX
>         > 
>         > Donn Morrison wrote:
>         > Bonjour,
>         > 
>         > Je suis Canadien, homme, 29 ans, parle l'anlais. J'arrive en
>         > Geneve 17
>         > Aout et j'etudierai un phd a UniGe. Je cherche pour une
>         > chambre.
>         > 
>         > Est ce chambre pres de l'universite?
>         > 
>         > Je suis au Canada maintenant.
>         > 
>         > Merci,
>         > Donn
>         > 
>

So I've been staying up really late conversing in French with all these people because at 3 or 4am in Canada seems to be when they are most active in Switzerland.

Je suis trés fatigue!!

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2006-05-26 - Update

I'm overdue for an update. I'll start way back...We took the ol' van, Consuela (she's since been sold to a lovely couple from Himitangi), down to Castle Hill for a bouldering trip from the 21st to the 25th of April.

The bouldering party included the following clowns:

That's me with the wig. The handsome fellow in the pink shirt making love to the rock is Francis. The Frenchman sleeping with his finger in his mouth is Romaric. Ahh, la petite enfant! And the chick with the dreads and the jar of Jif is Alicia, The Queen of Peanut Butter.

We made like people smugglers across the Cook Strait and slept in a park outside of Springfield in Canterbury. The following morning had nice bouldering weather and we bouldered all day. Next day was a bit rainy so we only bouldered for the afternoon, and the third and fourth days were pure rain so we ended up fishing and just driving back to Christchurch and climbing at the Roxx Indoor Climbing Wall.

So in the end we only had a day and a half out of four for bouldering but it was lots of fun anyhow.

The next couple of weeks were spent trying to fly fish in too much rain. Then MUAC ran a bouldering trip up to the Airstrip in the Waikato (Waitomo Caves). Again the rain kept us off the rocks, but had one good day out of two to boulder.

Last weekend we went up to Turangi to try to fish the famous Tongariro River. It's a lovely river but it sure is popular - lots of guys in almost every pool. Out of about seven of us, only one guy caught all the fish, 6 in total! That would be Steve, the guy in hte middle in the pic on the right.

In academic-related news, I accepted a PhD position at the University of Geneva with the Viper group which should start in September. This means I'm moving to Switzerland...probably for at least 3 years. So I've quit my PhD at Massey and am moving back to Canada for a couple months to enjoy some summer. I've been spending the last few weeks getting ready to leave...selling my van, bike, etc. Oh but I will miss you, New Zealand. I will be back.

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2006-03-02 USB LCD project

Mark and I have resumed work on the USB LCD project that I started almost a year ago. We've made a lot of progress. Check it out.

Oh yeah, and I still like horses. And Francis calls for the removal of my moustache.

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2006-02-24 Movember came a bit late for me

I grew a moustache. Well, rather, I grew a beard and then shaved all but the 'stache. It's my first real stache, so please go easy on me. I think I'd look pretty good in an RCMP uniform. Maybe I should apply...

In other news, I've finally finished my four month siesta. Now that my Master's thesis has been submitted and marked, I've decided to start a PhD. I'm not sure about the topic just yet, but it looks to be something relating to computer vision and image processing. Hooray for three more years in New Zealand!

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2006-01-27 R.I.P. Mrs. Huck and Muffins

This is to announce the sudden passing of Mrs. Huck and Muffins, two beloved hens which met their end tragically, some time on Monday, January 16, 2006. The following description of events is interpolated, based on some speculation and heresay, and may not be accurate.

After escaping from their enclosure where they were being looked after while their owners were on vacation, the chickens may have ventured too far into unknown territory. They may have met a kind possum, who warned them of the dangers ahead. They may have disregarded the advice of this possum, and continued in search of fatter worms and taller grass. Next, the beloved chickens may have met a squirrel, who invited them to it's nest for tea and nuts. After the tea and nuts, the chickens may have been weary from having eaten too much, and may have rested in some tall grasses. Sleeping soundly from the relaxant properties of the squirrel's tea and nuts, the beloved chickens may have been unaware that a city lawn mower was fast approaching, cutting the tall grasses along the riverbank. At the last second, the chickens awoke to the whirring of the blades and the flinging of cut grasses. But it was too late, Mrs. Huck may have witnessed the decapitation of her long time friend, Muffins. While Muffins' head was falling to the ground, still conscious, it may or may not have witnessed Mrs. Huck's decapitation and further dismemberment.

Left behind are Donn Morrison and Jen Infanti, who will remember them for a time before perhaps getting some new chickens.

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2005-11-21 Rock climbing in Whanganui Bay

I spent last week climbing at Whanganui Bay on Lake Taupo with five other intrepid rock engineers: Andy "Banana" G, Eva The Leader, Alicia Giggles, Beck Becks Becky, and Michael "The Face" Bullock. We left Tuesday night and climbed until Friday evening.

Here are some sample pictures for your perusal:

But wait, there's more. I took these on a free disposable and they were nice enough to put them on a CD.

The highlights: climbing Tibia, finding spare parts for Consuelo (my van) from an old van "down by the river" (well, down by the lake), the swim after climbing on Friday, and of course the good company.

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2005-11-21 Thesis update

I submitted my thesis on October 31st. That was three weeks ago. Since then I've been...how you say...walking the dog. Well...I've actually been busy building a chicken house, fiddling, drinking...

Anyhow, please be beholding of my pretty book:

Now I'm waiting for the examiners to finish marking. I imagine it should be done in a couple of weeks.

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2005-10-06 - Palmy LUG

Well last Thursday was the monthly meeting for Palmy LUG (Palmy Linux User Group). I've been attending most of these meetings. Sometimes they have some pretty good topics. Last night was an install fest. Normally I'd go alone, and if lucky I could convince someone else to come along. But this time was different.

First I convinced Jen to come. Francis didn't want to go, but once he heard Jen was coming, he couldn't resist. Then I asked Michael if he wanted to come. He wasn't too enthusiastic, but when he heard Francis was coming, he was in too. Usually we go climbing on Thursday nights with Eva, and Francis managed to bribe Eva into coming along. So in all five of us went off to the install fest. I guess it pays to prepare these nerdly invitations in order to achieve maximum turnout. Øyvind was there too.

At the meeting Jen started installing Ubuntu, I was played with ramdisks for a Debian-based router, Francis touted the benefits of running Windows Vista (it really wasn't the right crowd), Eva looked bored, Øyvind resized his partitions (I tried to encourage him to lose that pesky NTFS partition), and Michael played with Knoppix. It was fun.

Pictures are here.

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2005-10-02 - Taupo Day Night Thriller mountain bike race

This weekend we (Alexa, Heather, Tom, Eva (riding for Jen), and myself) were in the Taupo Day Night Thriller. It's a popular 12 hour mountain bike relay race. Our team name was "Northern Lights," which accounts for our teams' North American roots.

The race started at 10:30am and riders circled an 8km loop through forested singletrack. The course itself was pretty basic so riders with minimal skills could easily finish.

Our team came 13th out of 100 teams in the Mixed 4/5 category. Sweet as, bro. Eva started us off, followed by me, Alexa, Tom, and then Heather. We managed to get 28 full laps in, so about 6 rides each.

Pictures are here.

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2005-09-06 - Chickens

We acquired two hens on the weekend. We've wanted to get some chickens ("chooks" in Kiwi-speak) for a while. By chance some friends didn't want theirs, so we adopted them. So far they've popped out three eggs.

The white egg is a fake egg that apparently gets the chickens to lay eggs next to it. That brown and white blob is just some poo.

Above is a video (2.8 MB) of the chickens following me.

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2005-08-30 - Utherwurld-ly surprise! I checked the mail on the way out today and what do I find? An Utherwurld waterproof camera enclosure! Thanks Utherwurld. Perhaps I'll experiment with it in the bathtub.

Hdiggity.

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2005-08-09 Okay, I'm sorry about teasing you all about getting a new camera the last time. It was such a crappy camera I had to return it. But today, I announce some fantastic news. I got a real camera. Now you can enjoy my adventures and cat pictures once again!

I put up a quick tour of my office.

I'll post some cat pictures soon, as well as some other pictures, such as pictures of yams, hairy bums, ants, drunk people, nerdy things, sunsets, sheep, French people, strange cloud formations, bicycling injuries.

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2005-07-15 I got my friend Francis to buy me a new camera. He found one at the grocery store near his house. It was only $30. You can see some sample pictures I just took with it here. Just look at how good the outdoor pictures look. And the indoor pictures. Oh and the picture of my monitor. Wait, don't look at that one. If you do you'll see I'm using Windows! I swear it's only because my laptop broke down. I don't like using Windows, seriously.

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2005-05-23 Last weekend was the first time in about two months that I've stayed home. It was very relaxing. I actually made something that works, too. I made my own CompactFlash to IDE adaptor.

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2005-05-02 We went rock climbing again this past weekend. The weather wasn't so great so we were only able to climb on Saturday. On sunday we stopped at some thermal pools on the way home.

I have started trying to build my own USB device. Details will be posted there as things progress.

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2005-04-19 We spent the last weekend rock climbing with the Massey University Alpine Club. We went up to the Waikato region which is about a 5 hour drive from Palmerston North. Jen took some pictures. There's another climbing trip in two weeks. That one will be at Whanganui Bay on Lake Taupo.

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2005-04-05 I spent the weekend fixing up my Risk game, donnrisk. I rewrote the server and it's now available as an applet.

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2005-03-31 Duffs hacked! World renowned pseudo-news affiliate duffs.dyndns.org was the victim of a malicious band of eBay impersonating persons! A source close to the scoop was quoted as saying "they got my page being used as a fake ebay server to get peoples bank account info." Apparently, to further the discontent, Duffs's'es' ISP, Shaw Cable, unplugged his 'unit' for a few days to let things simmer down. Our source stated "my brothers serveer got hacked and is down by order of shaw for a couple of days."

It is not known how the anal(ytic) intruders gained access, but speculators have been speculating and let me assure you those speculations are very speculatory. Hopefully, pending a full investigation, Duffs himself can help us explain this mystery. Let's all hope he gets the server back online in a timely fashion.

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2005-03-22 I made a cable to charge my Archos Gmini XS200 via USB. Now I don't have to worry about carrying the bulky charger around.

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2005-03-15 Today I found a bicycle lock up at the university. I picked it and wrote a guide on how to do it yourself.

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2005-03-11 I have fantastic news to report! I just increased the subsection header tags in this document from H4 to H3! That means they're now easier to look at! I also removed the photo from the top as I was getting a lot of complaints about page loading times as well as criticism regarding my hair style. If you want to recall the photo, you can view it at donn.jpg. I added some links down below too.

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2005-02-23 Many things to report. I just returned from a two week excursion to the south island of New Zealand with my friend, Brio. We did a two day tramp in Abel Tasman National Park from Wainui Bay to Totaranui and back to Wainui Bay via the Inland Track. Then we checked out Greytown and met some French girls (Mara & Camille) who came tramping with us around Frans Josef Glacier and to Mt. Aspiring National Park where we did the 4-day Rees-Dart track. We had a lot of fun driving around, taking pictures, and sleeping and eating in the van. See the pictures for more.

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