Shiny shiny shiny

slowly melting

taniwha_nz — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:18:45 GMT

slowly melting, originally uploaded by Br3nda

DSC_4229.JPG

taniwha_nz — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:43:18 GMT

DSC_4229.JPG, originally uploaded by Br3nda

IMG_20110809_134615.jpg

taniwha_nz — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 02:33:37 GMT

IMG_20110809_134615.jpg, originally uploaded by Br3nda

the water really is as nice as it looks

taniwha_nz — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 07:39:14 GMT

sand volcano

taniwha_nz — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:49:43 GMT

sand volcano, originally uploaded by Mollivan Jon

Br3nda's Blog

taniwha_nz — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:20:01 GMT

This is the blog of Brenda -- who is also known as
* Shiny on http://shiny.status.net
* Br3nda on http://twitter.com/br3nda
* Br3nda on http://br3nda.dreamwidth.org <-- most of my journals are there now days.
* Shiny on http://search.cpan.org/~shiny
* Shiny on http://drupal.org/user/31033
* Taniwha on http://geekzone.co.nz/taniwha

Almost all my entries are private, but i have a public blog at http://coffee.geek.nz

linking

taniwha_nz — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:48:25 GMT

_{This was cross posted from coffee.geek.nz. You can comment in friends-only mode here, or go to coffee.geek.nz and comment publicly.}

Over in the UK - Record industry targets Google for linking to infringing songs

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/06/recording-industry-targets-g...

yup, linking.

happy

taniwha_nz — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:22:06 GMT

Casey and her fulltime daddy.

Bye bye hair

taniwha_nz — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:21:44 GMT

Baby kept pulling my hair.... solution was so obvious that it took me 4 months to think of it.

that's right, i shaved off my hair.

sorted

boots of cute stomping awesome

taniwha_nz — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:21:15 GMT

Even babies needs boots for stomping

Lake Waikaremoana

taniwha_nz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:59:57 GMT

Lake Waikaremoana, originally uploaded by RobAucklandNZ

happy casey

taniwha_nz — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:07:36 GMT

IMG_0576, originally uploaded by Br3nda

Me, long ago

taniwha_nz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:47:12 GMT

Me, long ago, originally uploaded by Br3nda

2010-02-23 07.48.56.jpg

taniwha_nz — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:54:32 GMT

2010-02-23 07.48.56.jpg, originally uploaded by Br3nda

Casey and her Nana

taniwha_nz — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:50:33 GMT

2010-02-21 17.39.14.jpg, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

gosh babies grow fast. She's doubled her birth weight in just 10 weeks.

daycare in Wellington

taniwha_nz — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:50:30 GMT

We're looking around for daycare for little Casey. I gather there's significant waiting lists for the good places, hence we're looking now.

Got anywhere to recommend? somewhere to avoid? got any tips for telling the difference?

question and answer

taniwha_nz — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:59:03 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Q: why do baby clothes have pockets, but women's clothes do not?
A: bebe can carry my cellphone for me.

wellington visionary of the year

taniwha_nz — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:11:21 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

btw, i won again.. i wouldn't mind being defeated by Jo, but couldn't let myself lose to mauricio.

my summary of the other speakers:

Miraz: apple will take over the world
Mauricio: microsoft will take over the world
Me: robots will take over the world
Jo: non-geeky people will still not take over the world
Phillip: you're all predicting the obvious

this was organised by the ppl at http://up.org.nz, who alas haven't updated their website with anysummary 2 weeks later. there was someone filming the talks, but these never seem to make it to the web either.

so, you'll have to take my word for it

Hurrah for Australia. Verdict in case against iiNet

taniwha_nz — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:08:25 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

The verdict is out in the case of numerous media/entertainment companies versus an ISP over in australia.

The entertainment companies wanted a ruling that an ISP is responsible for the actions of their customers - so they sued an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement to occur".

Now, we can't have that. If someone breaks copyright then they should be responsible for their own actions, not their ISP, not the mail service, not the maker of the fax machine, not the people who built a photo sharing website.

Commonsense prevailed, and the judge ruled in favour of the ISP. The entertainment companies now must pay the ISPs legal costs.

I've picked some of that commonsense from within the judge's ruling:

In summary, in this proceeding, the key question is: Did iiNet authorise copyright infringement? The Court answers such question in the negative for three reasons: first because the copyright infringements occurred as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the user of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.

On the incorrect use of the word "theft" to describe copyright infringment:

Read the rest of this post

these things amuse me

taniwha_nz — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:02:37 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

i was late to work today (food poisoning all night, not fun), so it was me that answered the phone at 9am.

background info: plunket is new zealand's non-government community support service for babies/infants.

them> I'm calling from plunket. we have a weekly mothers group starting up at [2 blocks from my house], for mothers with babies the same age as your Casey
me> I'm working fulltime right now, would it be at a time i'm likely to get there?
them> oh, no, it's in the middle of the afternoon. oh well, i can still add you to the mailing list.
me> well, my husband is a fulltime father, is he welcome at this group?
them> oh yes, it's for parents, even though i said mothers. we should change the name. infact i'm changing it right now. it's a parents group, not a mothers groups.

heh.

geekspeakr.com hackfest

taniwha_nz — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:55:18 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

thanks to the ninjas who migrated geekspeakr.com from Drupal5 to Drupal 6, and to a happier server during LCA2010

quote from Liz Henry, who really enjoyed the hackfest:

It was like Christmas – I hung out with kick ass open source people all day long, heard great talks, gave a talk and asked for more coding and development with other women, and then got to do that very thing with people I greatly admire!

and thanks to Catalyst for the use of their boardroom and intarwebs.

On breastfeeding

taniwha_nz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:52:22 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

I'm back at work now, and the "breastfeeding" continues - i'm pumping the boobies 3 times a day, including all the sterilizing everything in the work kitchen. This has resulted in many conversations in the kitchen, with various working fathers and mothers, on the political world of formula versus breastmilk, and some awful first hand stories of how ashamed they were of not doing 100% breastmilk.

I think it would be good to have more public statements from mothers who did less than 100% breastmilk - you do the best you can, and formula is not the evil some people think it is.

Some people can't, because of milk supply, or they have to work to pay the rent, and I'd like to see more support of those that don't achieve 100% breastfeeding.

If you post a question or statement online (like this blog post) on formula you attract comments/replies, including some reasonable and helpful ones, but also including the "you can tell my kids are breastfed because they didn't die from cot death" statements, and other loveliness. Being a new parent is full of worry, so these eat away at anyone's confidence and selfworth.

We've chosen to do as much breastmilk as possible, but there's a choice we've made to use formula. There are government funded campaigns to ensure that any mother who does that feels as much guilt as can be instilled via national advert campaign on multiple media.

For example, it's safer for Casey's dad to take sterialized warm water and a packet of powder with him out of the house, than to take a bottle of breastmilk that will slowly warm up and bacteria multiply.

I also very sure that the statistics on breastfeeding (and studies based on those statistics) are getting it wrong. The midwife, plunket and a GP all recorded Casey as 100% breastfed, and she's not. They are very quick to write that down without asking too much - that coupled with the shame and guilt instilled in parents who use formula means they're less likely to be corrected.

I want actual scientific method studies to reach my own decision. I'm still doing research on what the actual difference is. There are a few studies that show no statistically significant difference between those full breastfed, and those only partically. There are studies that show all manner of advantages to breastmilk, heralding it as the cure all of everything, and then attempts to independant verify those studies have never happened, or show different results. The only thing that appears scientifically proven is easier digestion. Please note i'm still looking for more info, and my primary source is studies published online.

The most commonly repeated claim, is that breastfeeding results in a higher IQ. A study in 2005 in the USA tried to verify these claims using siblings to try and remove other factors that influence the results. Here's a quote from that study

Despite an enormous literature demonstrating better health and cognitive outcomes among breastfed children, the effects of breastfeeding are uncertain. This is because the vast majority of studies share a common weakness: they are nonexperimental. Their Achilles heel is selection bias. If a variable influences both the decision to breastfeed and the child outcome being studied, then omitting it produces a spurious correlation between breastfeeding and the outcome. For example, worse outcomes among children of younger, less educated, lower-income, and African-American mothers may correlate with their lower breastfeeding rates but be owed partly to disadvantages that cannot be captured in the regressions.

In other words: Those mothers that don't breastfeed have many other things in common, such as low income and less education. These factors can correlate with the child's ability to perform well in an IQ test or not. (i'm unconvinced that IQ tests are good measure of intelligence, but i'll save that for another post).

There is the UN/World Health Organisation statement that "breast is best", and New Zealand has signed up to this.

There was a time, long long ago (aka before the 1980s) when breastfeeding in public was not a right, and breastfeeding in the workplace was never tolerated. It became a feminist issue to regain the right to breastfeed. That battle continues and I wholeheartedly support this, especially for those that breastfeed way beyond 6months. We need to not make mothers feel ashamed breastfeeding a 2 year old in a cafe. It's their choice so either support or butt out.

It's also important to remember this is a political and cultural campaign - at some stage it turned into pseudo-science, in which any study that shows a slight benefit in breastmilk was heralded loudly, and any study that was inconclusive or disagreed was left quiet. These selective studies are used well to lobby for the right to breastfeed - but at the cost of shame for those that don't.

We live in New Zealand, and have a some of the cleanest watersupply in the world. This is important as many studies compare breastmilk with formula made from contaminated water - or prepared with less than enough powder because of the high costs of formula.

I am not a medical professional, but i do understand both statistics and the importance of scientific method.

My own conclusion: Breast milk, according to the statistics, is probably better, but not by much.

Please note: comments on this post will be heavily moderated.

That tiara

taniwha_nz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:30:20 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Tonight i defend my claim to a sparkly pink tiara at Bloggers Predict 2010
Thursday 28 January 2010
5:30pm - 8:00pm
Where: Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce, level 28, The Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street

The 2010 lineup
Brenda Wallace (@br3nda) Current tiara-holder, Brenda was UP Visionary of the year for 2009, can she defend her title in 2010? The Capital City’s geek girl extraordinaire and queen bee of the software community, Brenda is to mobile technology and open source what honey is to brown bread, she makes it taste better! Brenda blogs on Coffee.geek.nz about coffee, gadgets, opensource, wellington, new zealand, music, and above all things: freedom.
Philip Fierlinger (@skyrize) From Silicon Valley to Silicon Welly, Philip’s web design expertise and has been eagerly sought after by online businesses and conference-goers alike. Currently design chief at Xero, blogger at Turntable Media Philip’s passion for web usability also led him to establish his own consultancy.
Mauricio Freitas (@freitasm) Geekzone head honcho and microblogging enthusiast. If there’s a new gadget being launched you can be sure Mauricio has an opinion about it. Been renovating his kitchen for last 6 months and has forgotten how to cook, however is on first name basis with all the (good) cafe owners in town. Possibly Wellington’s most avid “Tweeter”.
Miraz Jordan (@miraz) From MacTips to community I.T. and other “Oddities”, Miraz must surely be one of Wellington’s most prolific tech bloggers and professional web content authors. From Bach to Buying a Car to Battlestar Galactica Miraz shares the full gamut of cultural experiences.
Joanna McLeod (@JoannaTMcLeod) Editor of Wellintonista, THE blog about Wellington, Joanna has started calling herself the Empress of the Internet because she can. Other parts of her media empire include her beauty blog Pretty Pretty Pretty and her guide to partying You Are So Entertaining.

I'll be posting my predictions up on the blog, just as soon as i finish writing them :-)

Some post LCA press

taniwha_nz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:20:36 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Why you should go to LCA, by Selena Deckleman
http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2010/01/27/why-you-should-go-to-lca-2011/

LWN articles (subscription required while the stories are new)
An LCA 2010 overview http://lwn.net/Articles/371044/
LCA: Static analysis with GCC plugins http://lwn.net/Articles/370717/
LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing data http://lwn.net/Articles/370308/
LCA: How to destroy your community http://lwn.net/Articles/370157/

Another brilliant LCA! by Tridge http://blog.tridgell.net/?p=21

Computer World NZ http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/devt/376AB6C5B174B722CC2576B2007B7F93

75% of Linux code is written by paid devs http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17365/1/

Smarter Linux file structure aims to ease software management http://www.techworld.com.au/article/333549/smarter_linux_file_structure_...

Make Meeting Times Inconvenient To Get Better Results http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2010/01/make-meeting-times-inconvenient-to-...

That rather counter-intuitive suggestion came from Leslie Hawthorn, a program manager at Google. during a presentation at linux.conf.au on how to get involved with open source software

Illuminating the elephant in the open source room http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2010/012110-illuminating-the-elephant-in-...

Speaking at the annual Linux.conf.au event, which is being held in Wellington, New Zealand, one of the lead developers for the Samba Team and Google employee, Jeremy Allison, described Microsoft as a real threat to the open source community.

Why There is no Kernel Hacker Sell-Out by Glyn Moody http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2753

and here's a photo of Casey at her first LCA:

10 ways to destroy your community

taniwha_nz — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:13:08 GMT

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

"10 Ways to Destroy your Community" - Josh Berkus - at #lca2010

1. Insist on difficult tools
2. Maximise the impact of poisonous community members
3. Prevent documentation
4. Make attending meetings impossible
5. Use lots of legal agreements NDA licensing etc
6. Bad liaison person
7. Obfuscated governance arrangements (complex diagram)
8. Screw around with licences
9. Allow no outside code committers
10. Ignore the community - be silent

(very very much based on tweets by @colinjacksonnz)