Pentankh Eternal’s Blog

Saturday morning Sienna and I went to her swimming lessons. She had a fabulous time and I watched Battlestar Galactica on my iPhone.

After that we went to the Post Office and picked up her present from Nonna and Poppy.. A Golden Circle book. I remember reading that when I was her age.  Well.. sorta remember. My remembery isn’t always that good.

We headed back home for lunch and my cousin Jo (on mum’s side) sent me an SMS to visit and see her new home.  She had just moved in recently and we hadn’t visited yet.  She had something on so we had lunch and headed on out.

We got there and she was still out so Kirky let us in.  We set up the Wii and started playing games.  Sienna discovered they now have a sandpit out in the backyard so she spent ages there making a sandcastle. I helped out.

After Jo got home with Tahlia the girls played the Wii and I helped Jo drink her new bottle of Vodka We relaxed for the afternoon while the girls played the Wii with their friends they invited over.  One of Jo’s friends came over and we had drinks, ate pasta and chatted the night away.  Was nice.

Saturday morning when we managed to get out of bed we headed down to the local park and the girls had fun while we had more talking.  Sienna and I took the dogs for a run around the park which wore out Sienna for about 10 mins then she went back with the other kids on the swings.

When it was nearing 1pm we had to go back to Jo’s place as she was having friends over for painting and socialising.  Sienna and I watched the house while she went out in case anyone turned up.  They didn’t until shortly after we left.  We came home and I played some Mario Party 8 with Sienna until it was time for her to go home.  I think Sienna likes my new iPhone. She was playing games on it while we were driving.

Today I bought the iPhone Texas Hold ‘Em game by Apple which I mentioned previously. I also bought the Koi Fish Pond game. I think Sienna will love that one a lot.

 Today I listened to Podcasts for most of the day at work. From 7:30am on the train until 5:30pm when I got home. It was on most of that time.

I also used the Telstra free WiFi connection in the Queen Street Mall for 50 minutes and played with a couple of games.  

When I got home and plugged in the iPhone into my USB port the screen shows I’ve used not even 1/3rd of the power of the battery. Sweet!

That’s gotta be a good result.  Tonight I’m going to test more free applications. I will wait until next pay to get an iTunes card from Coles and rent a movie or two. Jo says Chris liked the original Hellboy so I can rent that for $3.99 and watch it on my iPhone. Should be a good test.  I also want a Texas Hold’em Poker game and Apple themselves wrote a really great looking one called Texas Hold ‘Em for iPhone.

There’s a review on the Ars Technica website. "The other cool feature is a multiplayer option that lets you play against up to eight other actual, live iPhone or iPod touch users over a Wi-Fi network."

Yesterday I went to the local Telstra shop and bought my 16Gb black iPhone. Last night I updated it to the latest firmware and software. The first attempt failed so I had to do a restore and it worked. Then I spent the evening downloading free applications from the iTunes applications store and Googling hints and tips.
Right now I am typing this on my iphone in the Queen at mall on my iphone using the funky free WordPress client using the free Telstra Wifi access. This is nuts and totally fun!!!

 I’ve just got back from a long trip down to the Mid North Coast in New South Wales to catch up with my parents. I also went further down to Newcastle to catch up with a huge amount of my family at a big family gathering.

Last Wednesday Sienna and I left at 5:30am. We stopped at Grafton for McDonalds for breakfast. Yeh I know it’s not great but the breakfast is okay. I had a Deluxe roll with Bacon and Egg and a Hash Brown with a coffee. Sienna had 3 Hash Browns. Now, I had bought FOUR all up so I could have two and she’d have two, but she had other ideas.  She had a quick play on the playground equipment while I got breakfast then we ate and jumped back in the car.  We drove to my parents’ place and got there around 2pm.  We stopped a couple of times for coffee and petrol or a loo break.

Thursday we drove to Forster to do some shopping. I picked up some socks for myself and Sienna was spoiled with some books and things.  We also picked up some sparklers which has become a family habit due to Sienna remembering it from last time we were there. Every time we visit now we have to have sparklers every night.  We also got a new pair of school shoes for Sienna since she goes through hers rather quickly.

Friday afternoon Sienna and I drove to Newcastle and stayed overnight with our cousins.  Saturday morning we drove to the Blackbutt Wildlife park in Lambton Heights and met up with Chris and Jo and their daughter.  Sienna and Caitie had a fantastic time running around and playing on the slides and swings and stuff.  We headed back to my cousins’ at about lunch time and got there just in time for the family cricket match.  Sienna had a bat (with my help) and did well.  I had a go and had some good runs.  We also later played soccer.  Our team won 5-4.  I was the goalie for our team and fended off quite a few goals from the younger ones on the other team, so once we got to 4 I let Sienna take over as goal keeper and I went in to actually play.  My cousin’s daughter is about 6 or so and every time she got the ball I’d run up to her going "RAAWWRRRRR!!!". She got a fit of giggles and I stole the ball.  After we’d had enough of that, we had a BBQ lunch and a chat with everyone. Sienna played with her cousins Caitie and Jessie and Ivani and so many others I can’t remember all the names.  Another cousin’s daughter whom is about 2yo came over to talk to Michael and I and was telling us not to go near the Billy Goat because he will bite us.  She was very entertaining.  Michael and I wanted to have dessert, but could not be bothered walking all the way over to the table from our spot on a grassy knoll so when Sienna came over I sent her over to pick up a couple slices of cheesecake for us.  Kids are really handy for that sort of thing haha.  We left about 3:30pm and headed back to my parents’ place and picked up some chicken and chips to eat.

This morning we got up about 7:30am. Well.. I did. Sienna says she was up at 5am and it was still dark. Her poppy got up about 6am and she was already in the lounge playing my Pocket PC games I put on there for her.  We left about 9:30am and came back home.  We stopped a few times for rests and food and loo breaks.  I was getting over driving by the time we got to Ballina so we stopped yet again and Sienna had a go on a swing in a park for 15 mins while I took a break before we hopped back in again.  We also stopped at Nerang so I could use the Laserwash high-pressure jet gun to rinse my car. I can’t wash it properly due to having Paint Protection, but a blast of water never goes astray.  I also filled up the petrol tank and put water in my windscreen washer reservoir due to it being empty.  I dropped Sienna off home about 6:30pm and came home. I put on some food and had a shower then put my clothes in the washing machine and watched Dr Who and Rove then next is Dexter.

We had a fantastic 5 days of holiday away from home and work.  Mum and dad are coming for a visit in September so there should be more fun then.  In October, Michael (Mouse) is coming to visit for a few days as well.

Had a fantastic weekend. Saturday morning I took my daughter to her swimming lessons then into the city. We traded in two Wii games (The Simpsons Game and Catz 2) for Super Smash Bros Brawl. She kicks my ass in SSB:B quite a bit. Even taunts me. The little so-and-so.

We grabbed some Krispy Kreme donuts. I had told her we were going to get a surprise and as soon as she saw us walking past my old office she said "I know what the surprise is… DONUTS!". Too damn smart for her own good! hehe.

We picked up my costume from the shop and headed home to play SSB:B and Mario Party 8. We had lots of fun. I dropped her home and put on my vampire costume to wear to Mil & Jason’s party. It was Jason’s birthday so they combined it with a Hallowe’en Party.

I got there on time and walked around the back and straight past Mil. She had a red wig on and I didn’t recognise her at all! She said "You look lost!" and then I realised who it was. I chatted for a bit then sat down and her friend Dwayne and his girlfriend turned up. I had met Dwayne before so chatted with them for a while until my friend Raphael turned up. Raph and I drank our beers and talked with Dwayne and his girlfriend, Tina. We huddled around a big concrete fireplace Mil and Jason had set up in the backyard. The shape of it reminded me more of a giant BONG than anything else. I pretended to take a hit from it and inhaled some of the smoke. Yuk! My mouth tasted like burning wood so I got another beer (well.. that’s my excuse to do so anyway!). We stayed until midnight and I drove Raph home.. same as I did last year.. then I came back home and dropped into bed.

This morning I was talking to my friend Katherine on MSN and she asked what I was going to do today. I said I was going to clean the house and do some ironing and vacuuming. She said that was ‘boring!’ and she was going to the movies with friends. Well.. I took the idea and I already had a free movie ticket stuck to the fridge so drove to the local BCC cinema and got a free ticket to see The Dark Knight. I wandered around the shops for a while since I was 40 mins early then went back at 1pm for the 1:10pm show and got some popcorn and a coke. I got out about 4pm and came home to do my chores. I watched another episode of Battlestar Galactica Season 4 and then Dr Who on the ABC.

Before going with these, check the call prices and included extras, etc.  The following are for the 8Gb iPhone.  They are also for 24 month contracts.  Note that Optus offers a 12 month contract.

I’ve sorted out current low-cost plans from the 4 iPhone carriers in Australia, for comparison:

• Telstra’s costs

$279 upfront = $11.65pm : $30pm phone + $10pm internet = $51.65 pm = $1239.60 Total

160mb per month internet.

• Vodafone’s costs

$242 upfront = $10.08pm : $49pm phone + $11.95pm internet = $71 pm = $1704.72 Total

100mb per month internet

• Optus’s costs

$19 pm cap : $21pm phone + $0pm internet = $40pm = $960 Total

100mb per month internet.

$49 pm cap : $7pm phone + $0 pm internet = $56pm = $1344 Total

250mb per month internet

• Virgin Mobile’s costs

$0 pm plan + $70 pm phone = $1680 Total

1Gb per month internet

Well, it turns out I was correct when I said Microsoft should write a new No-Legacy operating system and use Virtualisation to support old applications, because that is exactly what they are doing!

Without even knowing it, I practically described the exact operating system they are code-naming "Midori". Here’s some info:

http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=32646

Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

One of Microsoft’s goals is to provide options for Midori applications to co-exist with and interoperate with existing Windows applications, as well as to provide a migration path.

Building Midori from the ground up to be connected underscores how much computing has changed since Microsoft’s engineers first designed Windows; there was no Internet as we understand it today, the PC was the user’s sole device and concurrency was a research topic.

Today, users move across multiple devices, consume and share resources remotely, and the applications that they use are a composite of local and remote components and services. To that end, Midori will focus on concurrency, both for distributed applications and local ones.

Midori will have provisions for distributed concurrency—or cloud computing—where application components exist in data centers. Doing so will require work in three areas: execution techniques, a platform stack and a programming model that can tolerate cancellation, intermittent connectivity and latency.

In that scenario, operating system services, such as storage, would either be provided to the applications by the OS or be discovered across a trusted distributed environment.

Programming with Midori
The Midori programming model will tackle state management, which Microsoft admits in its documentation is a challenge in Windows, by migrating APIs, applications and developers to a constrained model.

Other objectives are eliminating dynamic loading and in-process extensions; developing a failure model based on reliable transactions, so the system understands exactly which processes are impacted by a cascading failure and how to restart the computation; and having a standard way of dealing with latency, asynchronous behavior and cancellation, throughout the stack.

The Midori documents indicate that the proposed OS would have a non-blocking object-oriented framework API. This would have strong notions of immutability—in the sense of objects that cannot be modified once created—and strive to foster application correctness through deep verifiability by using .NET programming languages.

Midori’s applications would be created using .NET languages that will be compiled to native code using the Bartok compiler and runtime system, which is presently a Microsoft Search project. The Bartok compiler can typecheck machine code programs for programming errors thanks to its use of an intermediate typed language, according to the company.

The fundamentals
Unlike Windows, Microsoft intends for Midori to be componentized from the beginning to achieve performance and security benefits. It will have strong isolation boundaries and enforced contracts between components, to ensure that servicing one component will not cause others to fail, while keeping overhead minimal.

At its lowest level, Midori has two separate kernel layers: a microkernel comprised of unmanaged code that controls hardware and environment abstracts, and higher-level managed kernel services that provide the full set of operating system functionality.

According to the documents, the company plans to create Midori’s “legacy-free bubble,” both at the programming model and at the user level. The models differ in the degree to which Midori and Windows coexist, and virtualization could wind up in the mix.

Microsoft’s desire for legacy support has twin roots: It needs to establish a migration path that offers comfort to its customers, while avoiding the pitfall of users implementing virtualization to run other operating systems that would perform tasks better than Windows can. Such a future runs the risk of relegating Windows to the role of a co-resident installation that executes legacy applications.

Virtualization creates a motivation and need for Microsoft to do something to take back the initiative—and none too soon, said Jeffrey Hammond, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. “It may just be the developer crowd I run with these days … but I see more Macs in developers’ hands [today] than at any time in the last 18 years,” he added.

The documents describe the legacy-free objective as being a preemptive strike against non-Microsoft operating systems, enabling the company to compete head-on by enticing customers to replace Windows with Midori instead of a non-Microsoft OS.

As first reported by SD Times, Midori is being designed as a componentized OS and can run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

Read more in the above linked article. A very interesting set of articles.

Well. I finally got a fantastic night’s sleep.

People who have no sleeping issues don’t know how good they have it. I have sleep apnoea which means I often don’t breathe properly during the night and I actually stop breathing. My brain wakes me enough to start breathing again, after a bit, but not enough to actually wake me (well.. most times). So I wake most days feeling exhausted as if I’ve never slept at all.

Sunday night I didn’t seem to sleep until about 3am. Monday night I was lying in bed and saw it was 2am. Awake again.. still.

No!.. Wait! I did fall asleep. Now I’m awake and I think it’s because I haven’t been breathing at all. You see, what was happening is I did actually fall asleep, but then I’d stop breathing as my sinuses closed and my brain would wake me again. Not being aware of falling asleep, it seemed as if I’d been awake the whole time.

I hooked up my CPAP breathing machine, put the mask on and finally drifted to sleep after 3am.

Yesterday I went to the chemist and talked to him. He suggested I try a nasal wash and a spray. Last night, I tried them out and also had a Demezin with antihistamine. I put my mask on again and had the best night’s sleep in the last 10 years.

Today I felt so alive and energetic. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that!

 Last weekend I took Sienna to the racetrack. They had a Family Day.

We got there about 10:15am but found out they don’t start until midday so we went to find a train into the city.  It turns out there are no trains to Ascot on weekends and you need to find a bus.  The train station is unmanned and they don’t have a map to the nearest bus stop, just a timetable saying to get a rail bus at whatever street.  We walked around for a bit until we found a bus stop, but it wasn’t the right one. Then we found a major road with bus stops. Just after we got there a bus came and we got on and headed for the big city.

I took Sienna to the Krispy Kreme shop and we picked up a donut each. They also gave us free donuts to eat while they served us so we had two donuts each. I also had a coffee and Sienna had some of a boysenberry icecream in a cup.

When we finished we checked out Harvey Norman and the Rocking Horse record shop. I showed vinyls and a record player to Sienna and we headed back to the bus stop as it was nearing time for our ride back.  We caught the bus within about 10 minutes and got to the racetrack just after they opened.

They had fairy floss so we got some of that and found a big wind tunnel for kids to run through so she did that a few times then she went on a swinging boat and saw Shrek walking around.

We bought some lunch and sat down to listen to the races and watch one race.  I wanted Sienna to get her face painted so we lined up and she sat next to some kids sitting opposite the face painter. After some time it became apparent the kids were not in line so we found the line and lined up behind some kids. Unfortunately, some women in their 20s said the line was further down behind them because they were there to get their faces painted like fairy kids too. What the hell? I said "You are getting your faces painted too? What??" They said yes and that we needed to line up behind them as well. Since there was about 10 women lined up revisiting their childhood I said there was no point waiting. At 6-7 minutes per person and about 20 people (including kids) lined up before us there was no way we were waiting over an hour in line. I could not believe that grown women would make 5yo kids wait an hour behind them so they could look immature.

We left and headed home for some rest.

Sunday we got up and went to the local Bowling Alley.  Sienna had never bowled before so it was a treat for her.  We played a couple of games and had lunch there.  We also played on the arcade games in the alley and won some tickets which SIenna cashed in on a candy bracelet. She’d never had one before so I had to show her it’s okay to eat the candy on the bracelet.  As she ate it, we drove home.  On the way I passed a paddock with a windmill and saw a big sign out the front FREE FAMILY SHOW!  I turned around and came back.  We drove in and walked around to see what was there. They had a guy demonstrating sand sculpting.  I helped Sienna make a big castle. The sand had clay in it so it was easy to sculpt.  After we did that we lined up with the face painter there.  We were lucky to be the second last people to be served as they were near closing.  We lined up for about 45 mins and Sienna started races with the girl behind us, running back and forth.  She got a flower painted on her face which she was very proud of and we headed home again.

A week or so ago Mil suggested I try out a Facebook application called "Human Pets". She said you meet people there and make friends and it’s a lot of fun.  You can also go to HumanPets.com and sign up and link it to your Facebook HumanPets account.  I paid the USD$15 and it came to about AUD$15.71  Gotta love it when the American dollar tanks!  I’m on HumanPets quite often now. I am on every morning and every afternoon until about 11pm or so depending on if my friend in Western Australia is on or not. She usually is

It’s about time I got ready for work so now I’m off!

I’ve discovered I’m either allergic to GLUTEN or WHEAT (or, possibly, both).  The other day I had some Coles band Oats which has a label "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GLUTEN" on it. My face went bright red and all the skin on my forehead went dry and flakey.  This has happened often over about the last ten years (the symptoms) but this is the first time I’ve actually linked it to something. I went to see a skin specialist many years ago and they just gave me expensive cream which did help, but required me to go back often for visits to buy more of the same. 

I recently went on a Detox Diet and found that my forehead went back to it’s natural oily state for the first time in 10 years. I was surprised by this, so figured it must have something to do with whatever I eat which causes it.  The above suggests wheat or gluten. The reason is, with Oats purchased from shops, they are produced on the same equipment which makes Wheat and other products. They cannot guarentee no wheat whatsoever in the oats.  This was confirmed when I wrote a letter to Carman’s foods (an Australian company which exports to other countries as well) and they said due to Australian manufacturing practises even they cannot guarentee no gluten. Their Oats do, however, say "NO WHEAT". I ate their oats the next day with no noticable big problem.  They did say, however, that they have a new meusli breakfast cereal out now which contains no wheat and no gluten. They offered to send me a free pack to try out if I gave them my address.. which I did.  This company is fantastic! Who would think you’d be given an offer like this? I already eat their meusli bars for morning tea daily.

So, I’ve given up things with wheat and gluten in them for a few days to test the theory.  One thing I have also noticed is both brands of shampoo I have at home contain WHEAT! Even an Organic Shampoo, so I have stopped using them for now as well. You can imagine if I *am* allergic to wheat and it makes my forehead react then I have shampoo which mainly goes on the head area .. what would happen!  Stay tuned for more updates.

I hear a lot of talk how Microsoft can be excused from producing ‘bloated’ software which runs slow on PCs and fills the hard drive and memory because they have so many legacy applications written since the early 1990s.

I don’t really understand this reasoning simply because of the existing virtualisation applications available.
Microsoft have their Hypervisor. There’s also VMWare.  These easily run concurrent versions of different Operating Systems, including Windows XP and Windows NT.

Microsoft can easily write a totally new Operating System based on new technologies and programming paradigms.  There are much better and newer ways of writing Operating Systems (and other languages) than when Windows first came out. You could even say since the combined Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Vista system which now exists, each based on the original Windows NT.

Microsoft could completely throw out the old programming designs and backwards compatibility of it’s current Windows Operating Systems quite easily because the old ones can still be run easily and happily using Virtualisation.  The old ones can either run at the same time from boot with a system like Hypervisor or inside the new Operating System using a VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC -style system.