Work

Ok here is the "office" at work. It is actually a workshop and we have everything inside here. This is a view of my truck parked in its normal place next to the dishes.


These are the feedhorns that we use. Tthey go in the front of the dish and send and receive the signal. The little thing on top is the LNB or receiver, and the bigger thing at the back is the BUC or the transmitter.


Here are some of the satellite dishes. These are 1.2m dishes, the standard ones we use here for internet. Further north you will need bigger dishes, of which we have a few outside.


This has been the day's work. We are sending a 1.8m dish of to Calgary so I had to protect it for transport. A bit of time with powertools and this is what we have.


Here is another shelf. Old TV satellite dishes on top, with enough cable to reach Edmonton below! Under that we have some small linksys routers and some connect modems, with old portable racks on the floor. Lots of electronic goodies!

Linux update

It has been a while since I have given an update on my constant battle with software. For work and Google earth reasons I have been using a lot of windows recently. My attempts to use Linux for all my work stuff failed when I could not get iSite (modem configuration software) to work under Wine. Google earth also sadly does not work under Linux either and we use it a lot here.

On a more positive note, I did get 360E software (different modem configuration software) to run under Wine. I have also been playing with Digikam recently and have been well impressed with version 0.8 I have played with lots of different photo organising software over the years and have yet to find the perfect programme. I use Picasa on windows but have a good few gripes with it. For one, it is crap at importing photos, as it insists on creating a folder for every import. Windows importing insists on renumbering the photos. Under windows I end up just drag and dropping my photos into a folder I want them in. I prefer to actually organise my photos into real different folders, not in the virtual collections like Picasa does. The tools given by Picasa are also not very configurable. They are nice, and do some good work, but they don't allow the sort of configuration operations I like to see.

Digikam on the other hand is getting better all the time and now has a really meaningful set of tools in the box. It also arranges photos in a meaningful way to me. Sadly I still have version 0.7.x on this laptop as the Ubuntu binary of 0.8 is not in the repositories yet. I have debian working on my home computer, which has version 0.8 and is working really nicely. The only issue with my home computer is the DVD burner does not work under Linux. Given I have no other OS on the box, I do need to get it working somehow. This is a real hassle, as it work pretty much flawlessly otherwise and keeps me happy. It runs fast and smooth and, aside from a real noisy fan, is a perfect machine. Another killer App that I love in Linux is Gnucash. It does a great job of getting your accounts in order and keeping them balanced. It takes only a couple minutes to understand and has great tutorials. Version 1.8.12 also has online banking ability, but has yet to appear in the Ubuntu repositories.

Some Pictures

Xmas is almost here and I have been rather busy, and a little on the ill side. Some sort of Flu/cold has struck me down and I have been recovering the past few days. Last week I was up in Northern Alberta doing a week long install of a gas plant's network. We worked hard and put in an 84 hour week. But enough of that, here are a few more photos of the wilderness in Canada These are the sort of roads that I travel on each day. Good winter tires, caution and a complete indifference to sliding are recommended. In fact I came close to an accident yesterday, overtaking a truck on a downhill. I was not been reckless, as he asked me to overtake (we use radios up here, see a previous post) Still, I came past just before a sharp corner on a 10% downhill. I had to put the truck completely sidewards and pray for traction on the icy road. Breaking in such circumstances puts you deep in the forest and well off the road. Fortunately the tires got some bite before I wrapped the truck around some innocent Xmas tree. Just a nice looking shot of some odd ice on a river with a rock embedded in it Some more of the Canadian Rockies, in the north. I have been taking my tripod with recently and liked the colour of this bridge in the otherwise frosted wilderness. The use of a tripod makes a big difference to the quality of the shots and I must use it more

Winter was great!

Well, not much of a winter here. I mean there was a bit, but it hasd warmed up again. Since coming to Canada I have become weather obsessed. In the past I really didn't care very much. Living in Thailand I never even looked at the weather forecast. Tomorrow was always fine and warm, even when it rained. But now things change so much and so quickly. The tempature has swung 30 degrees in the past 3 days. From -28 to 4. Thats insane. I am beginning to feel Canadian, walking around in a t-shirt in 4 degrees, enjoying the warm weather.

I must admit -28 is pretty brutal. Sure I can work in it, but it is hard on the hands and the nose. I have good heavy winter clothes, so my core tempature is fine, even standing outside in the snow. I have awesome boots, which keep the toes toasty at the stupid tempatures we get here. But no gloves that are useable can keep your hands warm. We need to work with nuts and bolts and tape in the freeezing cold and thus thin gloves that allow real use of the fingers are essential. So after 15min work it is time to sit in the truck and warm the hands. I have 2 sets of gloves, one of which I leave warming so I can change to them as the others warm up. My nose gets it the worst though. Wen-shu had a smart idea, to use those old SARS masks which I have yet to try out, but hope high hopes it might be good. As long as it keeps warm air around the face, I think it will work.

And no, the image above is not form here, but it is a cold place, even if it is in Patagonia. And I am in it, so it counts. Unlike the last one below, which I stole from the web.

Politics

I guess that for many people a blog is a politic voice, a chance to vent to the ether and campaign your causes. Or complain, as most do. I have thus far been steering clear of such rants, but given the recent happenings here, guess its time to add my little byte.

The Canadian government fell this week due to a no confidence vote brought about by the coalition in power falling apart. That has started the political process and such news dominates the airwaves. Airwaves I listen to a lot as I cruise control my way around the country. 2000km this week so far, but that is another story.

As an outsider it has not always been easy to work out the issues here and where the parties stand. Too often I hear one party slander another's point of view without placing their own beliefs squarely on the table. One thing I have worked out is that the conservatives are typical right wing retards and best avoided. Difficult in a provience so dominated by them, but then again Wen-shu and I are clearly not built from the same lumber as the locals.

Alberta is ruled by a rather Charasmatic and thoughltess man called Ralph Klien. As far a I can work out he is something of a popularist sitting firmly in the back pocket of industry and the mighty corporations. Clearly he would rather be American (and republican at that) but has made do with what he has and just behaves like an American.

Today on CBC there was a discussion about banning junk food from the halls of Alberta's school. Ralph Klien went on record as mocking the initiative and calling it the "chip cops". no doubt this appeals to his redneck, fat and uneducated electorate, but certainly every single soul who called in to the hour long show was in favour of the notion. After all what possible good comes from children eating junk food during the school day? The bad things will take a couple of hands to list, including obesity, diabetes, bad teeth, hyperactivity, ADHD etc etc. All things I very much doubt the average mother is happy to see in her children.
The fact that not a single person called in to defend their preimerie to me shows a number of things. Firstly, all those in favour of the Klienator are almost certainly tuned in to the local country radio channel and not something a bit more stimulating. Secondly dear old Ralph certainly has no idea what his electorate think, but stays around by handing out bribes in the form of "prosperity" cheques, despite the underbudgeted health care and education needs.
Lastly the whole issue of parenting comes up. Ask anyone who works with children (and I did for a number of years) the number one challenge you have in educating the kids is educating the parents. Clearly this is a case of the a clueless parent (I assume Ralph has spawned something) sprouting off about something he knows nothing about. Happens everyday in every place on the planet. Fortunately in most cases the parents don't have a public voice and their nonsense goes unheard by the world at large. Sadly not so with Ralph.
If all the parents out there were perfect parents (like our good friends Daniel and Lorida) there would be no need to ban junk food from schools. But most parents here in Alberta seem to be too young, too uneducated and too self centered to care about their childrens diet, so there is a need for the government to actually catch up the slack and educate the kids about proper choices and nutrition. Not easy to do when the most powerful public figure in the provience is ranting on about "chip cops"

Nett result of this rant. Looks like I will never vote conservative. Of course i could be wrong about this junk food thing, feel free to correct me.