Scott T: The Blog
6-month Round-up
Posted Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:46pm by ScottTagged: fires, spam, this-site, water
2 comments
It's now nearly 6 months since I got started with this blog, and although I though I would give it up after a month or so, I've stuck at it and come to enjoy it :) As such, I've decided to do a bit of a round-up on how things have progressed since that rather blunt "first post" in last September.
How things change! I started off with comments on changes to SSC where I had the time and other programming things but before long, uni started to creep in and that's where things really started to grow. Things progressed (both on and off-line) and before long the effects of the lake being cut off were becoming evident and just a few weeks later, a bushfire started not too far from home although it was contained a few days later. Into 2008, the water levels continued to drop (some pretty good photos are available here if you haven't seen them yet) and a fair bit of work was done on V3 of SSC before finally deploying it (with some teething issues - some still visible) last week.
Now for some interesting tid-bits:
- March (last month) has been the busiest
- Yahoo! indexes far more often than Google, yet Google is the dominant search engine from visitors
- The most popular search terms (by far) have contained "7th guest" and "vista" - Unfortunately I won't have my solution ready for quite a while so I recommend you try DosBox or just set an old computer up (That's what I've done :) )
- I've had about 15 spam comments and Akismet stopped them all
- I've had about 11 non-spam comments - thanks a lot! :D These have been from
- Ryan Leach
- Katie
- spookypeanut
- Larry "Liontamer" Oj
Looking forward for the next 6 months :)
I'm Home!
Posted Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 12:24pm by ScottTagged: fires, sailing, uni, water
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It's been a little while since the last post so time for an update. Firstly, exams are over! Hopefully everything went well. I'm also home again after leaving my uni accommodation after the final exam last Friday. I also picked up a new computer on the way :D
The fires were put out towards the end of last week and I got to see all the burnt out areas on the way home. A lot of the weed area that was there is now bare (and black) land. The Australian election was held on the Saturday with a reasonably one-sided victory to the Labor Party.
Finally, we also had state titles over the weekend so I spent a bit of time down at the yacht club, which also allowed me to see how the water has dropped.
I know the photo may not show a lot for those unaware of the area, but the water used to be some 10cm or more above that ledge on the log not too long ago so that gives ~20-30cm drop in the last few months. The lake also now has a beach approximately three times as wide as it used to be.
It's Here!
Posted Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 10:11pm by ScottTagged: fires, programming
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For all the budding programmers out there, I've found out that Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 has been released. While that may seem expensive, Microsoft has done the same thing as the 2005 versions and released an Express Edition, which although is slightly stripped down, is also available for free!
In other news, I've now only got one exam left this Friday. Also, the fire at home has now been officially contained. Here are some photos from a few days ago.
Off to a Good Start
Posted Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 10:07pm by ScottTagged: fires, uni
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This summer is off to a good start - and it's not even summer yet! The weather the past few days has been quite warm although it should cool down from the middle of this week.
Last Fridays exam was fairly good, nothing too unexpected. I think I'm pretty well prepared for tomorrow as well. Hopefully I can be just as happy after the one on Tuesday.
What's That Falling from the Sky?
Posted Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 8:14pm by ScottTagged: fires, uni, water
5 comments
I went home for a weekend of attempting to ignore the pending exams - I enjoyed it but all good things come to an end and here I am back at uni for another 3 until exams are over. Tea each night was better than I get down here through my accommodation and I can't wait to get back after exams are over :)
The trip down was fairly uneventful although most of the way was spent with rain falling - quite a refreshing change although in the end there wasn't enough of it! The rest of the weekend was also winter-ish weather with a cold wind blowing both days (not that it stopped us from sailing).
Probably the most surprising thing was to find the that the lake level had fallen about 10cm since being blocked off some 7 weeks ago. Yes - our lake (photo on right taken October 05) was blocked off in order to help save the rest of the River Murray, predicted to save some 30 gigalitres of water per year from evaporation losses. As much as I didn't want it to occur, I see why it had to be done. Hopefully the water situation soon improves and the rain continues, especially upstream.
We have unfortunately been in a drought like stage for quite some years now. And I can't see it likely to improve dramatically any time soon - although El Niņo effects have officially ceased, and the opposite (La Niņa) is now in place, it has come too late, hence the rains associated are somewhat less likely to form. Great.
The lack of rain and water crisis also continue to remind me of a verse from "The Wine Song" by The Cat Empire:
In summer the bushfires rage and rage-And rage-On such beautiful days-And we fight them with water that runs through the cracks-Water we're desperately trying to save --- The Cat Empire, Wine Song
Rather appropriate given the precedent set last summer.
@hjsb As I said - not my video, so I wouldn't know. Doesn't work on my Desire either, so possibly?