In my four most recent posts, I went over the memoirs and biographies, the non-fiction, the fiction and the 'classic' fiction I enjoyed reading in 2022. But in the very last of my roundup posts and in relatively less detail I'll be quickly sketching out the favourite movies that were new to me in 2022:

La Ronde (1950) An all-knowing narrator (Adolf Wohlbr ck) guides us through a series of vignettes in 1900s Vienna a soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening, and later he has an affair with a young lady who becomes a maid and who then does similarly with the young man of the house. On and on it goes, spinning on the carousel of life. A wonderfully beguiling movie, and a reminder that 'innocent' and 'charming' doesn't always imply 'childish'.

A Man Escaped (1956) A Man Escaped is the story of a WW2 resistance fighter who wishes to escape from a prison. Filmed in Robert Bresson's quasi-minimalistic style (and touching on his usual themes of Christian redemption), this deceptively simple-looking film rewards deeper analysis.

The Music Room (1958) In The Music Room, Satyajit Ray (best known for his Apu Trilogy) tells the story of a wealthy landlord who lives a decadent life with his wife and son. His passion is for music, however, and he spends a significant portion of his fortune on concerts held for the locals in his magnificent music room (or 'jalsaghar). However, his obsession for music (and its attendant quest for respect from his peers) is his eventual undoing, as he sacrifices both his family and wealth whilst trying to retain it. Indeed, The Music Room is less of an examination of a single rich man (or of the hypnotic sitar music by Vilayat Khan) than of the dying Bengali landowning class, which I read as symbolic of what was about to vanish from Indian culture in the post-Independence drive toward modernity. Still, this is a multi-layered and textured film, as this is also an intensely moving portrait of a highly-detached man as well.

The Hustler (1961) 'Fast Eddie' Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match. The stakes are always much bigger than just money though, as Fast Eddie's ego is on the line. Despite not caring so much about the game, I was completely gripped by Paul Newman's superb performance. Almost certainly the best film about pool ever made, and probably the best sports film as well.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) One Valentine's Day in early-1900s Australia, an upper-class school takes its girls on a field trip to a scenic volcanic formation in the middle of the brush. Despite all the rules against it, however, several of the girls venture off onto the rock, and it's not until the end of the day that the group realises some of the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared without a trace. A mesmerising film about colonialism, sexual repression and Antonioni-esque alienation, Picnic at Hanging Rock's dreamlike aesthetic is haunting.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976) Jeanne Dielman is a three-and-a-half-hour film that shows a widowed housewife doing her daily chores and taking care of her apartment. Yet in its uncompromising nature, it raises the tedium of her life to the level of profundity. I watched this radically political film a few months before it was recently voted as the 'greatest of all time'), but despite its relentless rigorous nature (and long running time), the conclusion when it comes is shattering.

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Set in China during the 1920s, Raise the Red Lantern tells the story of a young woman who has become the new concubine of a wealthy man. However, as he has three wives already (each living in a separate house within his castle) she becomes are engaged in an extremely complicated competition attention and the privileges that come with it. Richly colourful, both in its visuals and symbolism, this is film both specifically about China at the time and human universals.

Moonlight (2016) A heartbreaking story of a young man's struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the pain and beauty of falling in love, whilst grappling with his own sexuality within the ambient weather of race and class in the United States. Absolutely spellbinding and visually stunning.

Drive My Car (2021) Yusuke Kafuku is a stage director who is unable to cope with the loss of his wife, and has therefore accepted an invitation to direct Anton Chekhov's [Uncle Vanya][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Vanya] at a festival in Hiroshima, Japan. Yet whilst many reviewers have focused on the compelling relationship between Yusuke and Misaki (the introverted young woman who has been appointed to drive his car), what I found devastating was the embedded meditation on language, communication, understanding and empathy, especially concerning what happens when these break down or are no longer possible. Drive My Car touches on the limits of each of these phenomena connecting to the next: being able to speak the same language as another doesn't mean you can communicate with them; and being able to communicate doesn't mean you can understand someone, let alone empathise with them. All of this through the near-ungraspable emotion of grief as well, and the portion of this film where the actress was silently employing Korean Sign Language was the most moving thing I saw this year.

Some of you might have noticed that I m into keyboards since a few years ago into mechanical keyboards to be precise. Preface It basically started with the Swiss Mechanical Keyboard Meetup (whose website I started later on) was held in the hackerspace of the CCCZH. I mostly used TKL keyboards (i.e. keyboards with just the for me useless number block missing) and tried to get my hands on more keyboards with Trackpoints (but failed so far). At some point a year or two ago, I looking into smaller keyboards for having a mechanical keyboard with me when travelling. I first bought a Vortex Core at Candykeys. The size was nice and especially having all layers labelled on the keys was helpful, but nevertheless I soon noticed that the smaller the keyboards get, the more important is, that they re properly programmable. The Vortex Core is programmable, but not the keys in the bottom right corner which are exactly the keys I wanted to change to get a cursor block down there. (Later I found out that there are possibilities to get this done, either with an alternative firmware and a hack of it or desoldering all switches and mounting an alternative PCB called Atom47.) 40% Keyboards So at some point I ordered a MiniVan keyboard from The Van Keyboards (MiniVan keyboards will soon be available again at The Key Dot Company), here shown with GMK Paperwork (also bought from and designed by The Van Keyboards): The MiniVan PCBs are fully programmable with the free and open source firmware QMK and started to use that more and more instead of bigger keyboards. Layers With the MiniVan I learned the concepts of layers. Layers are similar to what many laptop keyboards do with the Fn key and to some extent also what the German standard layout does with the AltGr key: Layers are basically alternative key maps you can switch with a special key (often called Fn , Fn1 , Fn2 , etc., or especially if there are two additional layers Raise and Lower ). There are several concepts how these layers can be reached with these keys:

• By keeping the Fn key pressed, i.e. the alternative layer is active as long as you hold the Fn key down.
• One-shot layer switch: After having pressed and released the Fn key, all keys are on the alternative layer for a single key press and then you are back to the default layer.
• Layer toggle: Pressing the Fn key once switches to the alternative layer and pressing it a second time switches back to the default layer.
• There are also a lot of variants of the latter variant, e.g. rotating between layers upon every key press of the Fn key. In that case it seems common to have a second special key which always switches back to the default layer, kinda Escape key for layer switching.

My MiniVan Layout For the MiniVan, two additional layers suffice easily, but since I have a few characters on multiple layers and also have mouse control and media keys crammed in there, I have three additional layers on my MiniVan keyboards: I also use a feature that allows me to mind different actions to a key depending if I just tap the key or if I hold it. Some also call this tap dance . This is especially very popular on the usually rather huge spacebar. There, the term SpaceFn has been coined, probably after this discussion on Geekhack. I use this for all my layer switching keys:

• The left spacebar is space on tap and switches to layer 1 if hold. The right spacebar is a real spacebar, i.e. already triggers a space on key press, not only on key release. Layer 1 has numbers on the top row and the special characters of the number row in the second row. It also has Home/End and Page Up/Down on the cursor keys.
• The key between the Enter key and the cursor-right key (medium grey with a light grey caret in the picture) is actually the Slash and Question Mark key, but if hold, it switches me to layer 2. Layer 2 has function keys on the top row and also the special characters of the number row in the second row. On the cursor keys it has volume up and down as well as the media keys previous and next .
• The green key in the picture is actually the Backslash and Pipe key, but if hold, it switches me to layer 3. On layer 3 I have mouse control.

With this layout I can type English texts as fast as I can type them on a standard or TKL layout. German umlauts are a bit more difficult because it requires 4 to 6 key presses per umlaut as I use the Compose key functionality (mapped to the Menu key between the spacebars and the cursor block. So to type an on my MiniVan, I have to:

1. press and release Menu (i.e. Compose); then
2. press and hold either Shift-Spacebar (i.e. Shift-Fn1) or Slash (i.e. Fn2), then
3. press N for a double quote (i.e. Shift-Fn1-N or Fn2-N) and then release all keys, and finally
4. press and release the base character for the umlaut, in this case Shift-A.

And now just use these concepts and reduce the amount of keys to 28: 30% and Sub-30% Keyboards In late 2019 I stumbled upon a nice little keyboard kit shop on Etsy which I (and probably most other people in the mechanical keyboard scene) didn t take into account for looking for keyboards called WorldspawnsKeebs. They offer mostly kits for keyboards of 40% size and below, most of them rather simple and not expensive. For about 30 you get a complete sub-30% keyboard kit (without switches and keycaps though, but that very common for keyboard kits as it leaves the choice of switches and key caps to you) named Alpha28 consisting of a minimal Acrylic case and a PCB and electronics set. This Alpha28 keyboard is btw. fully open source as the source code, (i.e. design files) for the hardware are published under a free license (MIT license) on GitHub. And here s how my Alpha28 looks like with GMK Mitolet (part of the GMK Pulse group-buy) key caps: So we only have character keys, Enter (labelled Data as there was no 1u Enter key with that row profile in that key cap set; I ll also call it Data for the rest of this posting) and a small spacebar, not even modifier keys. The Default Alpha28 Layout The original key layout by the developer of the Alpha28 used the spacbar as Shift on hold and as space if just tapped, and the Data key switches always to the next layer, i.e. it switches the layer permanently on tap and not just on hold. This way that key rotates through all layers. In all other layers, V switches back to the default layer. I assume that the modifiers on the second layer are also on tap and apply to the next other normal key. This has the advantage that you don t have to bend your fingers for some key combos, but you have to remember on which layer you are at the moment. (IIRC QMK allows you to show that via LEDs or similar.) Kinda just like vi. My Alpha28 Layout But maybe because I m more an Emacs person, I dislike remembering states myself and don t bind bending my fingers. So I decided to develop my own layout using tap-or-hold and only doing layer switches by holding down keys: It might not be very obvious, but on the default layer, all keys in the bottom row and most keys on the row ends have tap-or-hold configurations. Basic ideas

• Use all keys on tap as labelled by default. (Data = Enter as mentioned above)
• Use different meanings on hold for the whole bottom row and some edge column keys.
• Have all classic modifiers (Shift, Control, OS/Sys/Win, Alt/Meta) on the first layer twice (always only on hold), so that any key, even those with a modifier on hold, can be used with any modifier. (Example: Shift is on A hold and L hold so that Shift-A is holding L and then pressing A and Shift-L is holding A and then pressing L.)

Bottom row if hold

• Z = Control
• X = OS/Sys/Win
• C = Alt/Meta
• V = Layer 3 (aka Fn3)
• Space = Layer 1 (aka Fn1)
• B = Alt/Meta
• N = OS/Sys/Win
• M = Ctrl

Other rows if hold

• A = Shift
• L = Shift
• Data (Enter) = Layer 2 (aka Fn2)
• P = Layer 4 (aka Fn4)

How the keys are divided into layers

• Layer 0 (Default): alphabetic keys, Space, Enter, and (on hold) standard modifiers
• Layer 1: numbers, special characters (most need Shift, too), and some more common other keys, e.g.
  • Space-Enter = Backspace
  • Space-S = Esc
  • Space-D = Tab
  • Space-F = Menu/Compose
  • Space-K = :
  • Space-L = '
  • Space-B = ,
  • Space-N = .
  • Space-M = /, etc.
• Layer 2: F-keys and less common other keys, e.g.
  • Enter-K = -
  • Enter-L = =
  • Enter-B = [
  • Enter-N = ]
  • Enter-M = \, etc.)
• Layer 3: Cursor movement, e.g.
  • scrolling
  • and mouse movement.
  • Cursor cross is on V-IJKL (with V-I for Up)
  • V-U and V-O are Home and End
  • V-P and V-Enter are Page Up/Down.
  • Mouse movement is on V-WASD
  • V-Q
  • V-E and V-X being mouse buttons
  • V-F and V-R is the scroll wheel up down
  • V-Z and V-C left and right.
• Layer 4: Configuring the RGB bling-bling and the QMK reset key:
  • P-Q (the both top corner keys) are QMK reset to be able to reflash the firmware.
  • The keys on the right half of the keyboard control the modes of the RGB LED strip on the bottom side of the PCB, with the upper two rows usually having keys with some Plus and Minus semantics, e.g. P-I and P-K is brightness up and down.
  • The remaining left half is unused and has no function at all on layer 4.

Using the Alpha28 This layout works surprisingly well for me. Only for Minus, Equal, Single Quote and Semicolon I still often have to think or try if they re on Layer 1 or 2 as on my 40%s (MiniVan, Zlant, etc.) I have them all on layer 1 (and in general one layer less over all). And for really seldom used keys like Insert, PrintScreen, ScrollLock or Pause, I might have to consult my own documentation. They re somewhere in the middle of the keyboard, either on layer 1, 2, or 3. ;-) And of course, typing umlauts takes even two keys more per umlaut as on the MiniVan since on the one hand Menu is not on the default layer and on the other hand, I don t have this nice shifted number row and actually have to also press Shift to get a double quote. So to type an on my Alpha, I have to:

1. press and release Space-F (i.e. Fn1-F) for Menu (i.e. Compose); then
2. press and hold A-Spacebar-L (i.e. Shift-Fn1-L) for getting a double quote, then
3. press and release the base character for the umlaut, in this case L-A for Shift-A (because we can t use A for Shift as I can t hold a key and then press it again :-).

Conclusion If the characters on upper layers are not labelled like on the Vortex Core, i.e. especially on all self-made layouts, typing is a bit like playing that old children s game Memory: as soon as you remember (or your muscle memory knows) where some special characters are, typing gets faster. Otherwise, you start with trial and error or look the documentation. Or give up. ;-) Nevertheless, typing on a sub-30% keyboard like the Alpha28 is much more difficult and slower than on a 40% keyboard like the MiniVan. So the Alpha28 very likely won t become my daily driver while the MiniVan defacto is my already my daily driver. But I like these kind of challenges as others like the game Memory . So I ordered three more 30% and sub-30% keyboard kits and WorldspawnsKeebs for soldering on the upcoming weekend during the COVID19 lockdown:

• A Reviung39 to start a new try on ortholinear layouts.
• A Jerkin (sold out, waitlist available) to try an Alice-style keyboard layout.
• A Pain27 (which btw. is also open source under the CC0 license) to try typing with even one key less than the Alpha28 has. ;-)

And if I at some point want to try to type with even fewer keys, I ll try a Butterstick keyboard with just 20 keys. It s a chorded keyboard where you have to press multiple keys at the same time to get one charcter: So to get an A from the missing middle row, you have to press Q and Z simultaneously, to get Escape, press Q and W simultaneously, to get Control, press Q, W, Z and X simultaneously, etc. And if that s not even enough, I already bought a keyboard kit named Ginny (or Ginni, the developer can t seem to decide) with just 10 keys from an acquaintance. Couldn t resist when offered his surplus kits. :-) It uses the ASETNIOP layout which was initially developed for on-screen keyboards on tablets.

Disclaimer This is an attempt at humor and hence entirely fictional in nature. While some incidents depicted are true, the context and the story woven around them are by yours truly. None of the Mascots of Debian were hurt during the blog post. I also disavow any responsibility for any hurt (real or imagined) to any past, current and future mascots. The attempt should not be looked upon as demeaning people who are accused of false crimes, tortured and confessions eked out of them as this happens quite a lot (In India for sure, but guess it s the same world over in various degrees). The idea is loosely inspired by Chocolate:Deep Dark Secrets. (2005) On a more positive note, let s start Being a Sunday morning woke up late to find incessant knocking on the door, incidentally mum was not at home. Opening the door, found two official looking gentleman. They asked my name, asked my credentials, tortured and arrested me for Group conspiracy of Malicious Mischief in second and third degrees . The torture was done by means of making me forcefully watch endless reruns of Norbit . While I do love Eddie Murphy, this was one of his movies he could have done without. I guess for many people watching it once was torture enough. I *think* they were nominated for razzie awards dunno if they won it or not, but this is beside the point. Unlike the 20 years it takes for a typical case to reach to its conclusion even in the smallest court in India, due to the torture, I was made to confess (due to endless torture) and was given summary judgement. The judgement was/is as follows a. Do 100 hours of Community service in Debian in 2017. This could be done via blog posts, raising tickets in the Debian BTS or in whichever way I could be helpful to Debian. b. Write a confessional with some photographic evidence sharing/detailing some of the other members who were part of the conspiracy in view of the reduced sentence. So now, have been forced to write this confession As you all know, I won a bursary this year for debconf16. What is not known by most people is that I also got an innocuous looking e-mail titled Pollito for DPL . While I can t name all the names as investigation is still ongoing about how far-reaching the conspiracy is . The email was purportedly written by members of cabal within cabal which are in Debian. I looked at the email header to see if this was genuine and I could trace the origin but was left none the wiser, as obviously these people are far more technically advanced than to fall in simple tricks like this Anyways, secretly happy that I have been invited to be part of these elites, I did the visa thing, packed my bags and came to Debconf16. At this point in juncture, I had no idea whether it was real or I had imagined the whole thing. Then to my surprise saw this Just like the Illuminati the conspiracy was for all to see those who knew about it. Most people were thinking of it as a joke, but those like me who had got e-mails knew better. I knew that the thing is real, now I only needed to bide my time and knew that the opportunity would present itself. And few days later, sure enough, there was a trip planned for Table Mountain, Cape Town . Few people planned to hike to the mountain, while few chose to take the cable car till up the mountain. Quite a few people came along with us and bought tickets for the to and fro to the mountain and back. Incidentally, I was thinking if the South African Govt. were getting the tax or not. If you look at the ticket, there is just a bar-code. In India as well as the U.S. there is TIN Tax Identification Number Few links to share what it is all about . While these should be on all invoices, need to specially check when taking high-value items. In India as shared in the article the awareness, knowledge leaves a bit to be desired. While I m drifting from the incident, it would be nice if somebody from SA could share how things work there. Moving on, we boarded the cable car. It was quite spacious cable car with I guess around 30-40 people or some more who were able to see everything along with the controller. It was a pleasant cacophony of almost two dozen or more nationalities on this 360 degrees moving chamber. I was a little worried though as it essentially is a bucket and there is always a possibility that a severe wind could damage it. Later somebody did share that some frightful incidents had occurred not too long ago on the cable car. It took about 20-25 odd minutes to get to the top of table mountain and we were presented with views such as below The picture I am sharing is actually when we were going down as all the pictures of going up via the cable car were over-exposed. Also, it was pretty crowded on the way up then on the way down so handling the mobile camera was not so comfortable. Once we reached up, the wind was blowing at incredible speeds. Even with my jacket and everything I was feeling cold. Most of the group around 10-12 people looked around if we could find a place to have some refreshments and get some of the energy in the body. So we all ventured to a place and placed our orders I was introduced to Irish Coffee few years back and have had some incredible Irish Coffees in Pune and elsewhere. I do hope to be able to make Irish Coffee at home if and when I have my own house. This is hotter than brandy and is perfect if you are suffering from cold etc if done right, really needs some skills. This is the only drink which I wanted in SA which I never got right . As South Africa was freezing for me, this would have been the perfect antidote but the one there as well as elsewhere were all bleh. What was interesting though, was the coffee caller besides it. It looked like a simple circuit mounted on a PCB board with lights, vibrations and RFID and it worked exactly like that. I am guessing as and when the order is ready, there is an interrupt signal sent via radio waves which causes the buzzer to light and vibrate. Here s the back panel if somebody wants to take inspiration and try it as a fun project Once we were somewhat strengthened by the snacks, chai, coffee etc. we made our move to seeing the mountain. The only way to describe it is that it s similar to Raigad Fort but the plateau seemed to be bigger. The wikipedia page of Table Mountain attempts to share but I guess it s more clearly envisioned by one of the pictures shared therein. I have to say while Table Mountain is beautiful and haunting as it has scenes like these There is something there which pulls you, which reminds you of a long lost past. I could have simply sat there for hours together but as was part of the group had to keep with them. Not that I minded. The moment I was watching this, I was transported to some memories of the Himalayas about 20 odd years or so. In that previous life, I had the opportunity to be with some of the most beautiful women and also been in the most happening places, the Himalayas. I had shared years before some of my experiences I had in the Himalayas. I discontinued it as I didn t have a decent camera at that point in time. While I don t wanna digress, I would challenge anybody to experience the Himalayas and then compare. It is just something inexplicable. The beauty and the rawness that Himalayas shows makes you feel insignificant and yet part of the whole cosmos. What Paulo Cohello expressed in The Valkyries is something that could be felt in the Himalayas. Leh, Ladakh, Himachal , Garwhal, Kumaon. The list will go on forever as there are so many places, each more beautiful than the other. Most places are also extremely backpacker-friendly so if you ask around you can get some awesome deals if you want to spend more than a few days in one place. Moving on, while making small talk @olasd or Nicolas Dandrimont , the headmaster of our trip made small talk to each of us and eked out from all of us that we wanted to have Pollito as our DPL (Debian Project Leader) for 2017. Few pictures being shared below as supporting evidence as well While I do not know who further up than Nicolas was on the coup which would take place. The idea was this If the current DPL steps down, we would take all and any necessary actions to make Pollito our DPL. This has been taken from Pollito s adventure Being a responsible journalist, I also enquired about Pollito s true history as it would not have been complete without one. This is the e-mail I got from Gunnar Wolf, a friend and DD from Mexico

Turns out, Valessio has just spent a week staying at my house And
in any case, if somebody in Debian knows about Pollito s
childhood That is me. Pollito came to our lives when we went to Congreso Internacional de
Software Libre (CISOL) in Zacatecas city. I was strolling around the
very beautiful city with my wife Regina and our friend Alejandro
Miranda, and at a shop at either Ram n L pez Velarde or Vicente
Guerrero, we found a flock of pollitos. http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/22.77111/-102.57145 Even if this was comparable to a slave market, we bought one from
them, and adopted it as our own. Back then, we were a young couple Well, we were not that young
anymore. I mean, we didn t have children. Anyway, we took Pollito with
us on several road trips, such as the only time I have crossed an
international border driving: We went to Encuentro Centroamericano de
Software Libre at Guatemala city in 2012 (again with Alejandro), and
you can see several Pollito pics at: http://gwolf.org/album/road-trip-ecsl-2012-guatemala-0 Pollito likes travelling. Of course, when we were to Nicaragua for
DebConf, Pollito tagged along. It was his first flight as a passenger
(we never asked about his previous life in slavery; remember, Pollito
trust no one). Pollito felt much welcome with the DebConf crowd. Of course, as
Pollito is a free spirit, we never even thought about forcing him to
come back with us. Pollito went to Switzerland, and we agreed to meet
again every year or two. It s always nice to have a chat with him. Hugs!

So with that backdrop I would urge fellow Debianities to take up the slogans LONG LIVE THE DPL ! LONG LIVE POLLITO ! LONG LIVE POLLITO THE DPL ! The first step to make Pollito the DPL is to ensure he has a @debian.org (pollito@debian.org) We also need him to be made a DD because only then can he become a DPL. In solidarity and in peace
Filed under: Miscellenous Tagged: #caller, #confession, #Debconf16, #debian, #Fiction, #history, #Pollito, #Pollito as DPL, #Table Mountain, Cabal, memories, south africa

So how much wind energy can we realistically use? A paper (Earth System Dynamics, DOI: 10.5194/esd-2-1-2011) by Miller,Gans and Kleidon (MGK10) has generated a lot of controversy courtesy of a New Scientist review (See Climate Progress for a good rebuttal). They argue that the effective limit we can safely extract without (bad) climatic consequences is around 18--68 TW (we currently use 0.2 TW of wind power). This paper is a follow-on to Kleidons work on the thermodynamics of the climate, where he points out that the free energy is the important measure of what energy can be generated by renewables. The free energy of the atmosphere is on the scale of hundreds of TW, he argues, much less than the heat energy of ~10^5 TW that comes from the sun. He argues that not enough attention is paid to the free energy budget, and argues that from MEP theory that free energy flows through different geophysical processes are more important than people currently think: such energy and momentum flows then lead to faster depletion of gradients than people currently use in their models. Frequently we use "diffusive-like" approximations to stuff we can't explicitly handle,such as convection and eddies below the resolution of our computer models. That the free energy budget, and small-scale processes need more detailed study (such as the transfer of momentum and energy from wind to water), I agree. But paradoxically, MGK10's estimates based on diffusive processes are what gets it into trouble. The critiques (e.g. Jacobsen and Archer) seem to concentrate on the estimates for diffusive and other energy losses (eg. wake fields) and climatic consequences are very loose, and out by factors of 50-100. They also ignore the fact that using wind as a substitute for more destructive energy sources produces a net gain, climate-wise. Based on these numbers, the real limits on wind power are more limited by where we can realistically place turbines, and the use and availability of rare earth metals in turbine magnets (MW sized turbines use over a ton of neodynium each in magnets!) One of the focuses of research at ICHEC and Met Eireann is wind for wind power: this becomes increasingly important for Ireland as we have more energy production by wind. I've been recently involved in a European project Weather Intelligence for Renewable Energies on investigating weather and climate forecasting needs of wind energy. In our weather models, we are getting to finer and finer resolutions (down to 2-5 km operationally, but working on 1 km in research), but as yet do not take account of wind energy changes. Modelling the wake turbulence, etc. and other effects of turbines is a 'fluid dynamics' problem done by the wind turbine manufacturers, mostly, in order to lay out turbines in a farm efficiently; this is done on the timescale of metres and seconds, while on the other end of the spectrum work is done in climate research on the changes in potential winds to see if wind energy will change in a few decades. But little is done on 'weather' scales of kilometres, minutes and hours: it turns out there are wind patterns that we don't predict in our models (vortices, etc.; especially for offshore turbines) that affect wind energy production, but would be very useful for wind farm and electrical grid operators to know about. So we should think about adapting our weather models for these. Either way, it looks like more detailed work on the interactions between atmospheric dynamics and wind farms would be a good thing. Incidentally, whatever about the alarmist nature of the article, kudos to New Scientist for their linking to papers: they quoted the names of the journals (Earth System Dynamics,Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society), but where the article was not yet published (or behind a paywall), linked to the Arxiv.org version. More could do this. Tags climate, energy, thermodynamics, science, wind, renewables

Computing time offsets between EXIF and GPS I like the idea of matching photos to GPS traces. In Debian there is gpscorrelate but it's almost unusable to me because of bug #473362 and it has an awkward way of specifying time offsets. Here at SoTM10 someone told me that exiftool gained -geosync and -geotag options. So it's just a matter of creating a little tool that shows a photo and asks you to type the GPS time you see in it. Apparently there are no bindings or GIR files for gtkimageview in Debian, so I'll have to use C. Here is a C prototype:

/*
 * gpsoffset - Compute EXIF time offset from a photo of a gps display
 *
 * Use with exiftool -geosync=... -geotag trace.gpx DIR
 *
 * Copyright (C) 2009--2010  Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 */
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE /* glibc2 needs this */
#include <time.h>
#include <gtkimageview/gtkimageview.h>
#include <libexif/exif-data.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
static int load_time(const char* fname, struct tm* tm)
 
    ExifData* exif_data = exif_data_new_from_file(fname);
    ExifEntry* exif_time = exif_data_get_entry(exif_data, EXIF_TAG_DATE_TIME);
    if (exif_time == NULL)
     
        fprintf(stderr, "Cannot find EXIF timetamp\n");
        return -1;
     
    char buf[1024];
    exif_entry_get_value(exif_time, buf, 1024);
    //printf("val2: %s\n", exif_entry_get_value(t2, buf, 1024));
    if (strptime(buf, "%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S", tm) == NULL)
     
        fprintf(stderr, "Cannot match EXIF timetamp\n");
        return -1;
     
    return 0;
 
static time_t exif_ts;
static GtkWidget* res_lbl;
void date_entry_changed(GtkEditable *editable, gpointer user_data)
 
    const gchar* text = gtk_entry_get_text(GTK_ENTRY(editable));
    struct tm parsed;
    if (strptime(text, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", &parsed) == NULL)
     
        gtk_label_set_text(GTK_LABEL(res_lbl), "Please enter a date as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS");
      else  
        time_t img_ts = mktime(&parsed);
        int c;
        int res;
        if (exif_ts < img_ts)
         
            c = '+';
            res = img_ts - exif_ts;
         
        else
         
            c = '-';
            res = exif_ts - img_ts;
         
        char buf[1024];
        if (res > 3600)
            snprintf(buf, 1024, "Result: %c%ds -geosync=%c%d:%02d:%02d",
                    c, res, c, res / 3600, (res / 60) % 60, res % 60);
        else if (res > 60)
            snprintf(buf, 1024, "Result: %c%ds -geosync=%c%02d:%02d",
                    c, res, c, (res / 60) % 60, res % 60);
        else
            snprintf(buf, 1024, "Result: %c%ds -geosync=%c%d",
                    c, res, c, res);
        gtk_label_set_text(GTK_LABEL(res_lbl), buf);
     
 
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
 
    // Work in UTC to avoid mktime applying DST or timezones
    setenv("TZ", "UTC");
    const char* filename = "/home/enrico/web-eddie/galleries/2010/04-05-Uppermill/P1080932.jpg";
    gtk_init (&argc, &argv);
    struct tm exif_time;
    if (load_time(filename, &exif_time) != 0)
        return 1;
    printf("EXIF time: %s\n", asctime(&exif_time));
    exif_ts = mktime(&exif_time);
    GtkWidget* window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
    GtkWidget* vb = gtk_vbox_new(FALSE, 0);
    GtkWidget* hb = gtk_hbox_new(FALSE, 0);
    GtkWidget* lbl = gtk_label_new("Timestamp:");
    GtkWidget* exif_lbl;
     
        char buf[1024];
        strftime(buf, 1024, "EXIF time: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", &exif_time);
        exif_lbl = gtk_label_new(buf);
     
    GtkWidget* date_ent = gtk_entry_new();
    res_lbl = gtk_label_new("Result:");
    GtkWidget* view = gtk_image_view_new();
    GdkPixbuf* pixbuf = gdk_pixbuf_new_from_file(filename, NULL);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(hb), lbl, FALSE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(hb), date_ent, TRUE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_signal_connect(GTK_OBJECT(date_ent), "changed", (GCallback)date_entry_changed, NULL);
     
        char buf[1024];
        strftime(buf, 1024, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", &exif_time);
        gtk_entry_set_text(GTK_ENTRY(date_ent), buf);
     
    gtk_widget_set_size_request(view, 500, 400);
    gtk_image_view_set_pixbuf(GTK_IMAGE_VIEW(view), pixbuf, TRUE);
    gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), vb);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(vb), view, TRUE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(vb), hb, FALSE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(vb), exif_lbl, FALSE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(vb), res_lbl, FALSE, TRUE, 0);
    gtk_widget_show_all(window);
    gtk_main ();
    return 0;
 

And here is its simple makefile:

CFLAGS=$(shell pkg-config --cflags gtkimageview libexif)
LDFLAGS=$(shell pkg-config --libs gtkimageview libexif)
gpsoffset: gpsoffset.c

It's a simple prototype but it's a working prototype and seems to do the job for me. I currently cannot find out why after I click on the text box, there seems to be no way to give the focus back to the image viewer so I can control it with keys. There is another nice algorithm to compute time offsets to be implemented: you choose a photo taken from a known place and drag it on that place on a map: you can then look for the nearest point on your GPX trace and compute the time offset from that. I have seen that there are programs for geotagging photos that implement all such algorithms, and have a nice UI, but I haven't seen any in Debian. Are there any such softwares that can be packaged? If not, the interpolation and annotation tasks can now already be performed by exiftool, so it's just a matter of building a good UI, and I would love to see someone picking up the task.

Was attempting to merge a branch in one of my projects and upon committing the merge, I kept getting this error:

mojo-jojo david% svn commit -m "merge in the maven branch"
Sending        trunk
Sending        trunk/.classpath
Sending        trunk/.project
Adding         trunk/.settings
svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: Server sent unexpected return value (502 Bad Gateway) in response
to COPY request for '/svn/eddie/!svn/bc/314/branches/maven/.settings'

A quick search found several other people having the same problem. Seems it only happens for https repositories using mod_dav_svn. The solution is to make sure that your virtual host in apache has explicit SSL config options, even if you are using an SSL config from a default virtual host. For example, I added the following to my subversion vhost, which was just copied from my default vhost:

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/catnip.org.uk.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/catnip.org.uk.key

Several weeks ago, the people in charge of maintaining the Windows machines in my institute were desperate because of a series of virus outbreaks - Specially, as expected, in the public lab - but the whole network smell virulent. After seeing their desperation, I asked Rolman to help me come up with a solution. He suggested me to try replacing the Windows workstations by substituting local installations by a server having several virtual machines, all regenerated from a clean image every day, and exporting rdesktop sessions. He suggested using Xen for this, as it is the virtualization/paravirtualization solution until now best offered and supported by most Linux distributions (including, of course, RedHat, towards which he is biased, and Debian, towards I am... more than biased, even bent). So far, no hassle, right?
Of course, I could just stay clear of this mess, as everything related to Windows is off my hands... But in October, we will be renewing ~150 antivirus licences. I want to save that money by giving a better solution, even if part of that money gets translated to a big server.
Get the hardware
But problems soon arose. The first issue was hardware. Xen can act in its paravirtualization mode on basically any x86 machine - but it requires a patched guest kernel. That means, I can paravitualize many several different free OSs on just any computer I lay my hands on here, but Windows requires full- or hardware-assisted- virtualization. And, of course, only one of the over 300 computers we have (around 100 of which are recent enough for me to expect to be usable as a proof-of-concept for this) has a CPU with VT extensions - And I'm not going to de-comission my firewall to become a test server! ;-)
When software gets confused for hardware
So, I requested a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 CPU, which I could just drop in any box with a fitting motherboard. But, of course, I'm not the only person requiring computer-related stuff. So, after pestering the people in charge for buying stuff on a daily basis for three weeks, the head of acquisitions came smiling to my office with a little box in his hands.
But no, it was not my Core 2 Quad CPU.
It was a box containing... Microsoft Visio. Yes, they spent their effort looking for the wrong computer-related thingy :-/ And meanwhile, Debconf 8 is getting nearer and nearer. Why does that matter? Because I have a deadline: By October, I want the institute to decide not to buy 150 antivirus licenses! Debconf will take some time off that target from me.
Anyway... The university vacations started on July 5. The first week of vacations I went to sweat my ass off at Monterrey, by Monday 14 I came back to my office, and that same day I finally got the box, together with two 2GB DIMMs.
Experiences with a nice looking potential disaster
Anyway, by Tuesday I got the CPU running, and a regular Debian install in place. A very nice workhorse: 5GB RAM, quad core CPU at 2.5GHz, 6MB cache (which seems to be split in two 3MB banks, each for two cores - but that's pure speculation from me). I installed Lenny (Debian testing), which is very soon going to freeze and by the time this becomes a production server will be very close to being a stable release, and I wanted to take advantage of the newest Xen administration tools. Of course, the installation was for AMD64 - Because 64 bitness is a terrible thing to waste.
But I started playing with Xen - And all kind of disasters stroke. First, although there is a Xen-enabled 2.6.25 Linux kernel, it is -686 only (i.e. no 64 bit support). Ok, install a second system on a second partition. Oh, but this kernel is only domU-able (this is, it will correctly run in a Xen paravirtualized host), but not dom0-able (it cannot act as a root domain). Grmbl.
So, get Etch's 2.6.18 AMD64 Xen-enabled kernel, and hope for the best. After all, up to this point, I was basically aware of many of the facts I mentioned (i.e. up to this point I did reinstall once, but not three times)... And I hoped the kernel team would have good news regarding a forward-port of the Xen dom0 patches to 2.6.25 - because losing dom0 support was IMO a big regression.
But quite on time, this revealing thread came up on the debian-devel mailing list. In short: Xen is a disaster. The Xen developers have done their work quite far away from the kernel developers, and the last decent synchronization that was made was in 2.6.18, over two years ago. Not surprisingly, enterprise-editions of other Linux distributions also ship that kernel version. There are some forward-patches, but current support in Xen is... Lacking, to say the least. From my POV, Xen's future in the Linux kernel looks bleakish.
Now, on the lightweight side...
Xen is also a bit too complicated - Of course, its role is also complicated as well, and it has a great deal of tunability. But I decided to keep a clean Lenny AMD64 install, and give KVM, the Kernel Virtual Machine a go. My first gripe? What a bad choice of name. Not only Google searches for KVM gives completely unrelated answers (to a name that's already well known, even in the same context, even in the same community).
KVM takes a much, much simpler approach to virtualization (both para- and full-): We don't need no stinkin' hypervisors. The kernel can just do that task. And then, kvm becomes just another almost-regular process. How nice!
In fact, KVM borrows so very much from qemu that it even refers to qemu's manpage for everything but two command-line switches.
Qemu is a completely different project, which gets to a very similar place but from the other extreme - Qemu started off as Bochs, a very slow but very useful multi-architecture emulator. Qemu started adding all kinds of optimizations, and it is nearly useful (i.e. I use it in my desktop whenever I need a W2K machine).
Instead of a heavyweight framework... KVM is just a modprobe away - Just ask Linux to modprobe kvm, and kvm -hda /path/to/your/hd/image gets you a working machine.
Anyway - I was immediatly happy with KVM. It took me a week to get a whole "lab" of 15 virtual computers (256MB RAM works surprisingly well for a regular XP install!) configured to start at boot time off a single master image over qcow images.
KVM's shortcomings
Xen has already been a long time in the enterprise, and has a nice suite of administrative tools. While Xen depends on having a configuration file for each host, KVM expects them to be passed at the command line. To get a bird-eye view of the system, xen has a load of utilities - KVM does not. And although RedHat's virt-manager is said to support KVM and qemu virtualization (besides its native Xen, of course), it falls short of what I need (i.e. it relies on a configuration file... which lacks expresivity to specify a snapshot-based HD image).
To my surprise, KVM has attained much of Xen's most amazing capabilities, such as the live migration. And although it's easier to just use fully virtualized devices (i.e. to use an emulation of the RTL8139 network card), as they require no drivers extraneous to the operating system, performance can be greatly enhanced by using the VirtIO devices. KVM is quickly evolving, and I predict it will largely overtake Xen's (and of course, vmware and others) places.
Where I am now
So... Well, those of us that adopt KVM and want to get it into production now will have some work of building the tools to gracefully manage and report it, it seems. I won't be touching much my setup until after Debconf, but so far I've done some work over Freddie Cash's kvmctl script. I'm submitting him some patches to make his script (IMHO) more reliable and automatizable (if you are interested, you can get my current version of the script as well). And... Starting September, I expect to start working on a control interface able to cover my other needs (such as distributing configuration to the terminals-to-be, or centrally managing the configurations).

(Note: this post had been sitting in my drafts folder for some time so some of these are not so recent. I thought I'd mention them anyway.)

• No Country For Old Men: 5/5. Masterpiece.
• Into The Wild: 5/5. Beautiful story, great performances, breathtaking landscapes, and the Eddie Vedder soundtrack is really, really good.
• Blade Runner (Final Cut): 5/5. My favorite movie got even better, and the bonus material on the DVD is great!
• Ratatouille: 4/5. Cute and fun, with amazing CG animation, probably the best Pixar release to date.
• Zodiac: 4/5. Pretty good in its genre.

The last day of each year sees one of the strangest traditions I've ever noticed. A 40-year-old English-language film of an 80-year-old music hall comedy is played repeatedly on various stations in Germany - and in Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Australia too. There's not only the film, but edited versions, localised versions, spoofs and other shows based around it too. The film still isn't shown on any English stations, as far as I can tell. I'd never heard of it before getting satellite TV. So, to see what the fuss is about, grab your Dinner for One times (may contain annoying ads if you switch Javascript on) and sit down with the satellite TV (best), or enjoy this description and script from analoguesat, a German-language description or this BBC report which includes this snippet:-

"To the end of his life, Freddie Frinton heartily disliked Germany and the Germans, thanks to his own wartime experience. He refused to allow a German-language version to be made. That is what has led to the extraordinary fact that today the Germans as a nation have embraced a trifling one-act play in English as their all-time favourite entertainment."

Anyway, the last joke is on we English. It's much better than the aging boy bands on our TV at New Year, isn't it? (Updated 2008-01-03 with 1 comment)

This has been delayed for a few days, for reasons I explain in another post, so my remaining debconf posts will be published quite quickly, every few hours. Monday started with me nearly asleep in the back of the Debian-Med session. Interesting stuff and I'm starting to get involved in supplying web apps to the health sector, but I must watch the session back. Then bureado's excellent debian in venezuela talk and a big shock for me when I got called out. The afternoon and evening were mentioned in the last post. Tuesday opened with me confused in the Xen session and then I went to a good-looking session on combining the debian-installer, ubuntu OEM bits, backuppc and openvpn but lkcl didn't show. (His diary suggests he was around. Wonder what happened.) I kicked the session along a bit and learned stuff from others about preseeding, FAI, backuppc, bacula, amanda and so on, but it didn't seem like anyone had plugged these together in quite the same way. At the end of the session, I bumped into Eddie Bleasdale who it seems is working with Phil Hands and lkcl on a very interesting project. He spoke more about it in a meeting the afternoon, hoping that Phil would arrive to handle the technical side. Phil timed his entry to perfection, about 30 minutes after the end of the talk. In between the hijacked talks, I went for a walk up to the top of Arthur's Seat and back with jumpula and someone else whose name I've forgotten - sorry! Oh, and what is it with all the loldebian posts this week?

Following a previous thread on Planet Debian (allowing for kids delaying projects, as usual), I borrowed a power meter to see what the consumption of various computers and electronics around the house was. An interesting and worthwhile exercise. Computers My main gateway system (hosting this blog, mail, etc. on a static IP) is a Pegasos PowerPC; it is on 24 x 7, and pulls approx. 60W. Other computers around the house include a Dell 2.5 GHz P4, which is my main development machine (with multiple disks, etc. onboard) pulling 72W. Downstairs, for family use we have an Intel MacMini pulling approx. 30W. Peripherals add up: on the Pegasos there is an ADSL router and a Linksys Wifi router, pulling approx. 5 W each continuously, and a UPS which consumes around 10W (I'm not sure if this is continuous, or high because its recharging a battery which was drained by pulling power plugs to measure the power usage ...). The LCD monitor upstairs (used by Pegasos and Dell) draws 20W. If I was purchasing again, I'd get a MacMini for the gateway. The current setup costs, I estimate, 7.50 Euro /month, which is probably worth it to have a 24x7 server (I'm not sure if moving to a hosting facility would be worth it, as it has advantages for running bittorrent, etc. that a remote server wouldn't, as well as being able to host content without the legal threat that a hosted server would have: with the current setup, if anyone challenges the content of stuff on my server, my ISP is not legally involved (as I host it), and hence won't (or shouldn't) pull the plug. This is worth something to me, even if I don't spend my days in court defending libel actions). One surprise was the CRT monitor used with the MacMini draws 10W when powered off, not on standby. Turn it off at the mains switch rather than the monitor button. Wall warts (chargers, etc.) draw around 1-2W due to eddies when nothing is connected. Conclusions: Swapping the Pegasos and MacMini are not an option as the family prefer the convenience of the fast start-up OS X. (This has made me think fast booting and suspend-to-disk are good priority goals for Debian.) I might however replace the Pegasos with an old pentium-class laptop, which would, at 25W, drop 40-50W as I would no longer need the UPS for 24x7 use. Put all peripherals, wall warts, etc. on a separate power strip that can be easily turned off together when not in use. TV We have a TV with the growing set of set-top-boxes: a DVD Player, Satellite unit and VCR, along with a SCART switch to connect them all together. Between them, they pull 86W. With the TV turned off, the boxes draw 20W. (TV pulls 10W on standby). I've been looking at getting an "Intelligent" mains lead, which cuts the power to the peripherals when the main item (e.g. the TV) is powered down, either totally or on standby. At nearly 40 Euro, however, it will take over a year to pay for itself. The alternative is just turning them off by hand, but of course as in most houses, the main switch is buried behind the TV cabinet out of reach. I'll swap the power strip with one with a single main switch that can be reached easily at the end of the evening instead. Other Big Users The house was designed with energy-efficiency in mind, and theres not much scope for savings elsewhere. The main users are underfloor electric heating, water heating, washing machine and dryer (condensor type). The water heating we hope to replace / augment with Solar over the summer; ditto the drier, with an outdoor shed /gazebo for drying clothes in the rainy Galway days. While the drier consumes a lot of electricity, at least the hot air is recycled via a heat-exchanger to heat the house in winter when its most used. Its worth keeping an eye on the drier and washing machine, though. We mostly use these at night, using cheaper Night-rate electricity, so while our usage patterns may not change, keep an eye on the energy consumption of these devices: as they grow old the bearings, motor, etc. begin to wear and energy consumption goes up. Look out for when to replace them. The other big niggle I have is a light fitting in the main living room. This is expensive, with 3 x 60 W spotlight bulbs in it. The kitchen, which is approx. half the size of the living room, gets lit by a single 20 W CFL. Swapping the spotlights with CFLs is not an option, and replacing it means replacing a ceiling mounted fitting: as the wires are embedded in the ceiling, moving it is not trivial. Any recommendations ?

[RV Heraclitus SE Asia voyage: blog photos] The past few weeks, we changed our route to visit an uninhabited island (aka Ko Pulau Island) said to be "National Geographic, man" by some Americans we met in Kupang. On the way to Ko Pulau Island we saw a large school of pilot whales and dolphins, a humpback or other whale close to shore, a blue starfish and hot water vents nearby on the same mostly dead reef, a flock of birds feasting on a dense school of fish, a manta ray, a bonfire on the beach shared with the kids of Rote (who we swapped roast banannas and coconuts with), a clean hull and renewed sea-sickness. At Ko Pulau Island, we saw a long white beach made of small bead things instead of sand, with surf at either end and reef in between, a green lagoon with islands being eaten away at the base, a monkey-head rock, pink coral, reef fish, sea urchins, various pieces of flotsam washed up on the beach (flip-flops, a light-bulb, bottles, wood, burnie-beans, nautilus shells, a seabird egg, a dead seabird and other crap), sunset over the ocean with golden cirrus in the sky, turtle nests, tracks and hatchlings scurrying off into the water, Indonesian fishermen in need of water and turtle eggs, tidal pools with the occasional crab, ghost crabs darting towards the water, a pandanus stand, a small cave surrounded by discarded turtle eggshells, spinifex, hermit crabs, scrambling lizards, sunburn and other things. Later in our voyage, we saw a big lone flying fish, land looming mountainous on starboard, TNI, gratis reef fish, water buffalo and threatening rain clouds. The next major stop was a bay on the south side of Sumba, black cliffs to port and an eroded hillside to starboard. There, we enjoyed the excellent snorkeling against the cliffs and off the beach, birds calling from the forest, wasps - shiny blue and otherwise, meeting roaming cows in the forest, forest fungi and other sights. We met some fishermen and drove through the forested slopes toward a nearby city. On the way, we visited an Indonesian village and saw their traditional animist temple, ample baby pigs & dogs, tons of kids trying to get in photos, satellite dishes and graves in front of houses. Unfortunately, I crashed once we reached the hotel, missing eating and night life, but I did enjoy the sights from the windows of the cramped 4WD we were in. We headed for the 9.8 knot passage of Selat Sape, complete with eddies, currents, a barracuda and the steep slopes of a silent volcano. Since there, we saw an increasing number of interesting and curious Indonesian vessels, fish traps, the grey shapes of dolphins swimming in the aqua water under the bow, a floating sandal, a school of mahi-mahi jumping out of the water, a misty night, numerous schools of feeding fish, entangled luminescent trails left by dolphins swimming in the phosphorescent water beneath the bow, flashes of lightning in the distance, our first rain since Cairns, the associated storm, Jack the fisherman (a mast hallucination) and other things. Our next stop was Kalimunjava (north of Java, Indonesia), more than half way to Phuket. We spent a week there, watched lightning, collected rain, visited the local school, dived and snorkelled on the magnificant reef with some really nice university students (hi Lely, Dudu, Jaos and others) from Java who were doing a study on the corals and hiked up the steep slopes of the island. From there we ambled past Borneo, towards Bintan, near Singapore, experiencing the first non-calm seas in ages, dolphins in the storm, floating lines of debris, big barges, container ships and megatankers, a fancy, shiny yacht, fishing vessels with 50,000 lights, Rain Drop and it's egg (child of Rain the gecko), amazing cloudscapes at sunrise, throughout the day and at sunset on the way. Amazingly, we met the 8 (Infinity, the new PCRF vessel) one find day in the South China Sea on their way to Bali. Eddie saw them from 5 miles away and knew almost straight away it was them. Michelle came on board and a lone daytime cumi (squid) swam between us as we parted. Before we arrived at Pulau Bintan (near Singapore), we saw seasnakes and a palm tree floating and lots of wind and rain. We will probably arrive in Thailand by January and I'm thinking of passing thru Sydney on the way home, so let so please mail me if you want to meet up.