sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
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email: sjh@svana.org

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Thu, 25 Sep 2008

Doing it backwards or unlink returning ENOSPC - 16:28
So this is not directly Linux related, however it is kind of entertaining/strange. I have been mucking about with Solaris Logical Domains a bit this week at work, as part of this I was reading up on how ZFS works. This may well apply with LVM snap shots in Linux now also. However when reading about out of space behaviour on ZFS with snapshots I was somewhat entertained to see one specific point.

Due to the way snapshots work on ZFS there is a possibility you will get an ENOSPC returned when trying to unlink (rm) a file. This is of course completely reversed from the intuition most people will have, to free up space remove some files. Out of curiosity I looked in the unlink man page on Linux and in the rm source code on Linux, at a cursory glance neither of them will deal with ENOSPC (unlink does not mention it as an error).

Without testing my guess is that in such a case unlink (2) would return EIO.

[/comp] link

Mon, 22 Sep 2008

Dark Knight, good - 13:26
Yesterday I finally had time to go along to see The Dark Knight (wikipedia) which I have been looking forward to for a long time, since the previous Batman movie, Batman Begins, was IMO the best super hero movie ever and really a fantastic movie to see this new one promised to be good. It was, however I still think the Batman Begins movie is significantly better.

Yes Heath Ledger's Joker was incredible, redefining the character on screen (though to learn why this is not exactly new for the character in comics, have a look at this good post about why The Joker is The Batman's arch enemy to get a good understanding of the character and how it has developed) and the humour in some of the characters (notably the superbly cast Alfred and Lucius Fox) was still evident as it was in the first movie. However though this was a great super hero movie, it did not I think bring enough of a new look into the primary characters that we did not already see in the previous film.

Maybe I feel let down a bit as some comments online I have seen since the movie was released suggested we got a fantastic look into Batman's internal battle with his psyche and his wish to break his own rules, however I just did not really see that come up in the movie that much. Sure it appeared, but not in a defining or challenging way to the audience. We also did not get to see the extension of the Batman myth by his own behaviour to the same extent as we did even in the half of the first movie we saw Batman in Batman Begins.

I should clarify this by saying I still think this was a great movie, and the second best super hero movie ever, however I think it is possible it could have been better, though I do not quite know how.

[/leisure/screen] link

Pygmalion and Annie in one day - 12:40
On Saturday I had been intending to go along to see the play Pygmalion at Canberra Rep (play link), I like Canberra rep, a friend (Jess) is playing Eliza, and the matinee at 2pm seemed like a good time to see it. So along I went, it was a good production, came off seeming rather professional and definitely got the story out well. The actor playing Freddy did a good job of appearing to be an annoying idiotic fop. I liked this, not as much as I enjoyed Arcadia, however mostly because I found that story fascinating and the presentation with the dual times acting at once really cool and I had never seen or read the play previously. Still a good play and I recommend it.

While at theatre 3 I saw the ad for Annie playing at the Erindale Theatre performed by the Canberra Philharmonic Society, however the last night of the season was Saturday, so if I wanted to see it that was the only night to do so. I have not seen Annie live before, and though I remember watching the movie when I was young I do not remember much about it. About all I remembered was it was about a red head orphan girl and adoption or something by someone rich. Oh and a scene with her on a bridge with cables and lights and stuff all around in the dark.

It was interesting to see both the shows in one day, the performance of Annie was good, even though it was a more expensive show it seemed less professional and practised than the Pygmalion play. Maybe I do not go to enough musicals to really get the feel for them. They also had to deal with kids and animals (yes they had a live dog on stage, happily sniffing crotches (its own and an actor's)) and a rather large cast. I still think both were worth seeing and both were indeed entertaining so fun was had.

[/leisure/theatre] link

Fri, 19 Sep 2008

I had a health scare - 13:33
So I have been thinking whether I should write about this here or not, however I largely keep this diary as a way of reminding me about stuff or looking up things that have happened (a web search-able interface to my memory) and what happened was significant.

I have been a diagnosed Insulin Dependant Diabetic (Type 1) since October 4th 1995. In my case I have 4 or 5 injections of insulin a day and have to monitor my health and sugar levels and my diet and exercise regime to a greater extent than most people.

In the last 13 years I have never had a hypo (not enough sugar/too much insulin) or hyper (too much sugar not enough insulin) that required medical intervention. When I have my sugar levels go low, say overnight, I have always previously woken up with some of the symptoms (sweating, shaking) and have been able to go and get some food.

On Wednesday night this changed, at around 4am I became aware of my surroundings, with my light on, paramedics all around me, a big needle in my right arm and my partner off to one side dressed in work clothes. I had a diabetic hypo that I did not wake up to and was unable to handle myself. I have no memory of any of the goings on (even though I apparently was sort of responding and pointing and sat up for the paramedics and had a needle put in my arm). My partner said I was coughing and she asked if I was alright, I did not respond in a sensible manner and she worked out there was something very wrong with my behaviour and I guess realised I was not aware of myself properly.

Fortunately the paramedics were able to get my sugar level back to normal and I was able to stand up and then go and get some real food to keep the sugar levels up until breakfast time. I was also very fortunate my partner was there and noticed the problem and acted upon it effectively. Yesterday morning I saw my GP, got a referral to see the endocronologist I have always seen, some forms for all the blood tests and other related tests I do at least once a year and I bought myself a new Blood Glucose Meter which is a lot faster to use and requires less blood than my old one.

As for why it happened, and why I did not wake up or respond as I always have previously to my body displaying the symptoms of low blood sugar. It is a combination of things and a mistake I made before bed on Wednesday night. After two tough runs on Tuesday I had been feeling fairly flat and did the medium road bunch ride on Wednesday morning, at the end of what would normally be an easy ride for me I felt absolutely wasted, I felt more run down and unable to ride than I have for many many years. I think I felt worse than I have after 24 hour solo mountain bike races or 2 days of non stop adventure racing.

So I suspect my body was very depleted in its energy stores and needed some time to recover before things functioned normally. I did not head out for a paddle on Wednesday night, however we had dinner as normal and I had baked some yummy chai latte cupcakes. I was feeling bloated and my tummy felt somewhat expanded or sore for most of Wednesday evening, thus although I had a cupcake not long before bed I did not feel like eating more. I should have stopped and done a blood test, however simply skipped my supper, had my night time injection and went to sleep.

The problem there is skipping my supper which is generally a necessary part of my diet to balance the long term insulin I have before bed to last through the night. I do not know why I felt so bloated, maybe it was part of my body reaction to feeling so run down and sore from the exercise strain, maybe it was unrelated. However the combination of my body not being in its normal state and thus probably needing rest and thus not responding as per normal to low blood sugar and forcing me awake so I can get food into myself to counter act a low and the fact I did not eat my supper so I was far more likely to run out of sugar in my body overnight before the insulin ran out combined to make this a problem.

This was definitely quite a nasty experience and also a kick in the pants to make me pay a lot more attention to my diabetes again and work to keep it stable and ensure I stick to my proper eating plan.

[/various] link

Tempting fate - 09:38
So I know this is unfortunate news for the North Lyneham shops, and I really hope the organic farmers market shop has come through unscathed, however this news item I noticed from ABC makes me wonder if maybe the owners of the fitness centre that burnt down last night were not tempting fate a bit when they named their business "Flames Fitness".

[/various] link

Thu, 18 Sep 2008

Pip... - 18:41
So I am not sure this should be in a leisure category, however it is about food. Recently the mandarins available changed, where before the loose skinned, seed free, or close to seed free and tasty mandarins were readily available everywhere. In the last few weeks these have disappeared at most fruit shops, or where they are still available have been bordering on being bad (ripe, or rotten, or something else wrong).

In their place is a larger variety of mandarins, however most of them seem sour. There are large mandarins, small mandarins most of them seem to have tight fitting skin and they all seem to contain a lot of seeds. Today 2 of the 7 pieces of fruit/veg I had on my desk at work to eat during the day were mandarins of the sour, small, tight skinned and many seeded variety. I was amazed to find there were 20 seeds in a piece of fruit so small when I ate my first, so it was even more surprising to find there were 30 seeds in the second mandarin today. How can there be so many seeds in such a small piece of fruit and still have any fruit surrounding them.

[/leisure/food] link

Tue, 16 Sep 2008

Completely missed the blorthday this year - 12:15
Though I already have a habit of missing the blorthday by a few days, this year I really put in a good performance and missed it by a few weeks. However back in late August this diary turned 4. Previous blorthday posts exist of course. And in another continuing trend I have been posting less in the past year than previously.

Stats are 

[11:37:42] 7 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>find -name '*.text' | wc -l
832
[12:18:41] 8 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>wc `find -name '*.text'`
...
28950  221341 1378957 total
[12:19:10] 9 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>

Only 136 posts since the last look and only another 4000 words or so, not prolific, not even approaching that. I do however still like having this place to write stuff when I want so for now it is staying around.

[/various] link

Thu, 11 Sep 2008

Fairly unobservant - 15:26
When I broke my collar bone in April, the road bike (well cyclocross bike) I was riding that day suffered some damage also. The front wheel was scalloped and broken in many places. The Saddle was broken and there was a nasty case of road rash on the STI shifters, everything else appeared fine however.

When I first started riding the road bike again, around 5 weeks after the accident, I thought at the time the right pedal was somehow rotating strangely or off in some way. However I put it down to getting back on the road bike with my collar bone in a state and ignored it. I also obviously got used to the sensation while ignoring it.

A few weeks ago I was doing some commutes on the cross bike with chunky tyres and was using 2 bottles in the cages often. Watching my legs rotate I noticed the right leg was hitting the frame and bottle a bit and yet the left leg was a huge distance out from the frame and anything else. Intrigued I then analysed my riding on some of my other bikes, I happily found the other bikes did not show off this trait also thus I was fairly sure my entire body had not somehow become unbalanced toward one side on the bike.

This did however mean something was obviously wrong with the cyclocross bike. Today I finally bothered taking it in to the bike shop and they measured some stuff, at first they were also flummoxed, until someone thought to measure the distance of the cranks from the frame. It turns out I bent my right crank inwards by 11mm in the crash, it was not hitting the frame and is not obvious unless you know to look at it for it being bent in compared with the other crank.

So I sort of suspected all along something was wrong, however made myself ignore it and get used to it. I am probably fairly lucky I have not been doing much riding this year so I have not changed my pedalling or muscle action or anything to accommodate the problem with the bike. Now I really do have to seriously consider buying a new groupset for this bike with a triple on it in order to enable it to climb in mountainous country more easily.

[/mtb/gear] link

Mon, 08 Sep 2008

Another Angry Doctor Done - 16:49
Last year I headed down to Mogo on the south coast to race in the Netti 100 KM Enduro known as the Angry Doctor. Tom and Alina of AROC Sport run this event and do a damn fine job of it. I headed back to ride again this year, with even less riding in my legs than last year I was in cruise mode to a much greater extent than last year.

Thanks to Dave and Helen for letting us stay with them down there again this year. Thanks to Tom and Alina for putting on another fantastic 100 KM race. This year the first 50 KM was a lot more interesting and I thought somewhat more fun than last year. However due to access issues, land clearing and some other issues the second 50 KM had less single track and some other changes, though it was still good it was not quite as much fun as last year.

A bonus from the weekend was I again had Matilda my Pink Mirage Double Kayak with me and we headed out for a little paddle in the inlet just north of Mossy Pt on Saturday afternoon and we found a dolphin playing around in the water between Mossy Pt and Tomakin. Lots of fun, chasing the dolphin, watching it swim under Matilda, and moving all around us for a while.

The Angry Doctor itself was good fun, I knew I would be on cruise mode as I had not ridden my bike much since March (Broken collar bone and sick through a lot of winter), I think the last time I did more than 70 KM in one go, even on a road bike was back in February or March. So I headed out for the first 50 KM taking it easy, not pushing the pace. Stopped to help one person with a mechanical, stopped for food and drink for a bit at the Aid station, chatted away with people near me on the course had fun in general. By the time I got to the end of the first 50 back in Mogo I realised I was actually going faster than expected as I arrived spot on 3 hours back into Mogo.

So I hung around the half way point chatting away for a while and hanging out, then with cruise mode engaged even more I headed out to do the last 50. I stopped a few times to eat and watch people ride past, I kept on being far more cheerful and laid back than people around me probably wanted to hear and stopped for a while at the aid station too. Eventually I rolled back into Mogo in around 6h 56m with no soreness anywhere and having had a really enjoyable and fun cruise around a really fun and interesting course in a lovely part of the country.

[/mtb/events] link

Fri, 05 Sep 2008

Broken Forerunner 305 - 11:33
When I broke my collar bone in April I was wearing my Garmin Forerunner 305. It got a crack in the case at the time. It kept working fine however, well except that water could get inside. This tended to be a problem when paddling as bit of water would get in. However the problem would be worse if the watch was submerged. The watch was submerged for a bit earlier this week and got a lot of water inside.

Strangely it still worked for the rest of that session and the data was downloaded to the computer. However when I went to turn it on the following morning for a ride it no longer worked, I have discovered that it seems to be unable to hold onto a charge and does not seem to get a satellite lock. It will turn on when plugged in to the computer, however after trying to get a lock for a few minutes when away from a computer it will then turn off and not turn on again until I plug it into a computer.

Unfortunately I bought this in the US and will now have to try sending it back to Garmin in the US rather than deal with someone local. When I bought it the price difference to buy in the US compared to buying locally was over $200. If I was buying one today I would buy it locally as the price is now better in Australia than it is to buy in the US and get it shipped over. This is all due to a huge price drop in Australia about a month ago on all Garmin stuff.

It is kind of strange after becoming so used to having speed, distance and HR data for all my sports to no longer have it on my wrist for my last few sessions (paddles and rides).

[/mtb] link

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