All is welcome here – Mitten and Diva Premal

[Download live performance]

Broken hearts and broken wings
Bring it all and everything
And bring the song you fear to sing
All is welcome here

Even if you broke your vow
a thousand times, Come anyhow
We’re stepping into the power of now
And all is welcome here

La la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la la

See the father and the son
Reunited here they come
Dancing to the sacred drum
They know they’re welcome here

I see the shaman
And the mighty Priest
See the beauty and the beast
Singing I have been released
And I am welcome here

La la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la la

I stood alone at the gateless gate
Too drunk on love to hesitate
To the winds I cast my fate
And the remnants of my fear

I took a deep breath and I lept
And I woke as if I had never slept
Tears of gratitude I wept
I was welcome here

La la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la la

So bring your laughter
And bring your tears
Your busy lives and your careers
And bring the pain
you carried for years
All is welcome here

Freedom is not so far away
And there’s only one price
We have to pay
Live our dreams till they fade away
And let them go.

Live our dreams and let them go.

La la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la la

On friday, Leonie and I said goodbye to a very special friend of ours. He’d been with us, on and off, for about 5 years, and with Leonie for closer to 8. He became sick last year, and was on thrice-daily medication. Last week, we decided it was time to stop. Leonie has more to say here.

He will always be welcome here. Namaste my friend.

Sun has done a data center in a shipping container. Not really “new” – Google did it a while back, but only internally – but it’s a great idea. Add in a big generator and a wireless mesh network……

The current prototype could support the following capacities:

• A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 Sun Fire T1000 servers with the CoolThreads technology with 2000 cores and 8000 simultaneous threads.

• A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 x64-based servers with 1000 cores.

• A single Project Blackbox could provide as much as 1.5 petabytes of disk storage or 2 petabytes of energy-efficient tape storage.

• A single Project Blackbox could provide 7 terabytes of memory.

• A single Project Blackbox could handle up to 10,000 simultaneous desktop users.

• A single Project Blackbox currently has sufficient power and cooling to support 200 kilowatts of rackmounted equipment.

Thats a lot of power in a very small space….

Sandi has all the info on her site:

Before installing IE7

Best practice is to:

1. The first thing to do is READ THE RELEASE NOTES. There are known issues and you may save yourself hours of grief if you make sure you are informed before you install IE7.

2. Set a restore point (just in case)

3. Turn off Automatic Updates (believe me, you’ll thank me later if you’ve already installed an IE7 beta or RC build)

4. Disable protect software such as antivirus, antispyware and crash guards.

5. DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR FIREWALL!!!

6. Shut down all running programmes – that includes Messenger, Windows Defender, and OneCare – don’t forget to check the systray icons as well.

7. If you are running ZoneAlarm 6.5, disconnect from the internet, uninstall ZoneAlarm, make sure Windows Firewall is enabled, reconnect to the internet then install IE7.

8. Install Internet Explorer 7. Reboot twice before running your new Web browser for the first time.

9. Don’t forget to re-enable your antivirus and other protective software now that you’re finished.

10. . Do not reinstall any version of Microsoft Windows in any way after you install Internet Explorer 7. Do not upgrade Windows in place or upgrade to a new edition.

Bottom line: uninstall zonealarm, install IE7, reinstall zonealarm. Otherwise, you MAY end up with a broken IE7 install.

General comments/rants after 2 weeks in St Petersburg (via Osaka / Frankfurt / LA):

• Jetlag is unavoidable – work WITH it, not against it. Get as much sleep as you can on the plane, chemically if needed. Drink lots of water (if you can get it on the plane ), avoid eating the airline sludge/food. Use earplugs, in-ear noise-reducing headphones, or if you have them, noise cancelling headphones. The attendants will provide earplugs on request :)

• Auckland to Osaka to Frankfurt is a good way to get to Europe, with the exception that all the flights are during the day (which isn’t too bad….). The Auckland to Osaka leg for me was only 30% full (read: really good seats, lots of space) and the Osaka to Frankfurt has inflight internet…. And best yet, you dont get an anal probe to get on the plane. I can now see why AKL-HongKong-UK is so popular.

• Hotels are still just a room. I can’t tell the difference between a 5 star, 180-300 euro’s a night one and 4 or 3 star, a-lot-less one. It still hurts paying THAT much for laundry.

• The AirNZ lounge in LAX, after 11 hours in a plane and with 11 hours before the next one (and another 11 hours to go) is an absolute GODSEND. Showers. Food. Internet. Drinks. Friendly people. Fantastic. Now I need to get to gold to get another pass (or a perminant one). I think I’m only going to be about 50 air dollars short :(

• Premium Economy on AirNZ is so worth the extra $300. It’s not business class, but it’s a big step up from economy, for not a lot of money. Next time I’m going to the US, I think it’s going to be essential (and for Quest people coming here). $300 is the difference between getting off a plane exhausted and getting off fairly fresh. Given the cost of our 2 week trip to St Petersburg, this is peanuts. Good use of my free upgrade, or 220 air dollars :)

• Wireless internet in airports is overrated – all of them charge for it, and there is seldom enough time or seats to use it. Handy, but not essential. GPRS data roaming, however, IS essential (think Crackberry or Windows Mobile syncing).

• Security to and in the US is a FREAKING JOKE. In Frankfurt, I had to take off my belt, shoes, get patted down (no metal detector, this was seriously “anything more and I want a dinner and a movie” stuff), including, get this: they checked the BOTTOM OF MY FEET. Not being able to take a water bottle on the plane was also a joke – the airlines need to be providing these, or they need to have the attendants giving water out ever 15 mins (which is a waste of their time). I can’t see how this adds to security in any way. I’m already getting metal detected, xrayed, sniffed and watched, why is a pat down and the removal of things which are basic comfort items needed? Oh, and once in the US, their border controls are so pathetic (“hello sir. finger prints. photo. next!”) they appear to be non existant. Atleast Russia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada were interested in why I was going there. Sort your shit out, USA. You are a superficial police state of the order of 1984. If I go to Europe again, I’m NOT going to be going via the US if I can avoid it. Ofcourse, maybe thats what they want. I wonder what security on cruse liners is like, ‘cos I’m sure one of those, sailed up the river(s) in New York, taking out the Brooklyn Bridge etc, would do a lot of damage…. and I’m sure the security on there is pretty low.

• On the US thing, hats off to the actual PEOPLE in the US – border security, people in LAX etc. Every US person I’ve met traveling – both Quest people and others – are wonderful, lovely, warm folks (ok, a few of them aren’t, but I dont expect customs and immigration to be THAT friendly!). I wonder if this will all change if the Neo-Con’s get the boot next time around.

The t-shirts from this place – edoc laundry – were on CSI: NY this week (in the US – episode #4 I think)

What it is, is a t-shirt (or set of them) which contain various codes, which when entered into the website, allow you to get clues to solve a murder mystery. It worked really well into the storyline in CSI, and the shirts, even without the codes, are really quite cool. Pity I’ve just got a load of new t-shirts [one, two, three]

Speaking of, if you want REALLY cool pop-art t-shirts, Oddica is a really good place. The whole experience – packaging, artwork, “free prize inside” etc is all TOTALLY top-notch. Dave5, if you are listening…. I think this is right up your alley :)

Yup, I’m on my way back from lovely St Petersburg. We got up at 3am (GMT+3), flew out at 6:30am (GMT+3), flew to Frankfurt (got there 7am GMT+1), waited three hours (10:30am GMT+1), few to LA (1200; GMT-8), and now I’m waiting for NZ5 to take me back home, which leave 2300 (GMT-8). So at the moment, I’ve been up for 23 hours on about 4 of sleep.

My head is spinning. I have no concept of what day it is, what time it is (even tho my phone tells me) etc. I’m very glad I didn’t do with my original plan to rent a car and drive around LA for the day. That could have gone SO wrong.

I’ve been awake for more than 24 hours, and once I get to 36, past experience has shown that I basicly just crash. With any luck, that will be AFTER I get on the plane :)

St Petersburg was fantastic. Lovely city, lovely people, lovely vodka ;–). No bears walking down the street (pity, I would have maybe liked to see one ;–)). When we got there, it was quite warm (about the same as wellington at the moment). By the time we left, it was mid-winter-in-wellington temperature. No surprise it gets to -25C there in the middle of winter. I got to see stuff I’ve never seen before (eg, original picaso/DaVinci/Michaelangelo stuff, massive historical buildings, huge churches, etc), and hear a language I’ve only heard when learning it, spoken by native speakers. That makes SO much of a difference.

On that, for most of the two weeks, 90% of people around me were not speaking English, which is an interesting thing for my brain to adjust to. Both the spoken and written language is totally foreign. By then end of the two weeks, my brain had switched into thinking on both Russian (which my conscious brain can’t understand) and German (which it mostly can). It was an interesting situation. It’s still messing with me, in a mostly good way. The little Russian I learned at school WAS actually handy – mostly in reading the alphabet, some basic works, and pronunciation – I had quite a few comments from the locals that I didn’t have an accent when I was saying Russian words (ie, I sounded Russian), and that I could say some words which non-Russian’s just can’t get right. Nice. Thanks Peter Paterson for the good grounding :)

The local people – taxi’s, shops etc – were very accommodating. A lot of people there speak at least basic English, and hand signals and a little patience gets us the rest of the way – even enough to work out the taxi was going to charge us more because of the traffic. All good.

[Picasso, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci (all in the Hermitage); part of the 7000sqm of mosaic’s in the Church of the Spilt Blood]

[Hermitage; one of the rivers next to the church; Fountain River]

[Nevskij Prospect at night; one of the big churches; the elevator down to the subway, which is about 40m below ground]

[Panoramic view of the city from the gym in the hotel]

In the continuation of Leonie and my “experiments” (more observations) in abundance, I’ve been trying it out here – eg giving up my (4 person) table in the resteraunt in LAX to a couple with a baby (I ended up on a 2 seat table, which was fine), as well as pointing out to a bored kid that the people in the lounge loan out PSP’s on demand….. and what do you know? My day has gotten a WHOLE lot better. I’m attracting good things and nice people. The headache I’ve had for the last 12 hours or so is on it’s way out, I’ve managed to get some work/research done, and I’m about to watch Lost….. Call it karma, call it abundance, law of attraction, “pay it forward” – whatever. It’s working for me – and I guess those who I “touch”…. All good.

Now, about that upgrade…… :) 5 more hours here, then 12 + 1.5 + 1 and I’m home. Yay!

I’m in St Petersburg, Russia at the moment, for work.

It’s quite a pretty city, in a very differnet way to any other city I’ve seen or been in. Aside from it being quite dark and dreary (it IS late autumn after all, and it does get to -30 or so in Winter with 2-3 hours of sun!), it’s quite an interesting place. The architecture is interesting – lots of very big, “heavy” feeling building, friendly people (once it’s established that I dont understand Russian! Hand signals are working quite well), etc. A lot of the time has been spent in the office tho – we get up around 9am, work from around 11:30am until 9:00pm, then head back to the hotel and hunt some dinner. Having two local speakers (Kirill, one of our PM’s (Leonie is the other one), and Julia, our Tech Writer and translator) is a great help, especially when ordering food.

There are a few things that have really hit me – outside of the total foreign-ness of not speaking, or being able to read, the language. Everyone here smokes (well, almost everyone – about 70%), and they smoke inside quite a lot. Coming from a country without indoor smoking, going to a pub is an interesting experience – clothes stink, and I feel like I’ve had a smoke myself (lightheaded etc), Not a lot of fun, but worth it anyway. We also used the subway to get back to the hotel last night. It’s around 40-50m below ground (New York is maybe 5-10m) and sometimes floods. The trains move at about 50km/h, which in a tunnel feels very quick. The subways are REALLY clean and safe, and we got back in maybe 10 mins, where as driving takes 15. Very cool. Around 40% of people here use the subway, which is a massive uptake for any city.

As it was Julia’s first week, we had their traditional celebration, where the new person puts on some food and drink. By drink I mean Vodka, Brandy, Whiskey, Coniac. They dont mess around with beer or wine much here. That was quite an experience – they know how to drink here – slowly, and over time, not the NZ-style mass consumption.

On the weekend, we are planning on looking around, given they have places of the size and quality of the Luvre (sp? in Paris) and similar here (the Hermatige). I’m just hoping that the weather clears up a bit :)

More photos’ on flickr.

… all on a 12 hour flight from Osaka to Frankfurt

• I can still understand quite a lot of German

• I can still READ quite a bit of German (keep in mind, I havn’t used it since around 1990)

• Having a bear with you, keeps you quiet. If you are around 4 years old (see photo)

• Internet on long haul flights should be essential. Power plugs would be good, too. GTALKing to Leonie at 35000 feet, are seeing her for 10 mins in Auckland airport after 2 weeks away (and when I was heading off for 2.5 weeks), is a REALLY good thing.

• half a sleeping pill == 2 hours of shut eye. Good to know :)

• Osaka –> Frankfurt goes, literally, over St Petersburg, which is quite depressing after 11 hours, when we have to fly BACK 2.5 hours :)

• Chicken Soup for the Soul should be essential, recommended reading for, well, everyone. Fantastic book.

• I can also read a lot quicker than I thought – when the content is good, and I’m otherwise stuck on a plane :)

Righto. Next stop, St Petersburg!

Ah yes. CJ started it here.

As I write this I am seat 23F on flight SQL 286 from Auckland, New Zealand to Singapore & am connected up to the Connexion wireless internet service. I did a speed test and got ~400kbps.

This is an amazing service. Being able to catch up on work and email will in the air.

Sad thing is that Boeing is pulling the service :( According the Connexion web site, it will all be gone by the end of the year. There are rumours that someone else will take over the service.

I certainly hope so. With net access it at least gives you something else to do once you have seen all the movies :)

I totally agree. I’m on a flight from Osaka to Frankfurt (Lufthansa), and it’s really nice to be able to get hold of Leonie in-time-zone – by the time I get to St Petersburg, it’ll be about 3am in NZ, so it’d be a good day or 2 before we can get in sync. It really rocks to at least be able to gtalk her :)

The guts are, basicly, they have a wifi hotspot (802.11G and B). You connect to it, and you can surf to 1 or 2 places without signing in. Once you create an account – and buy 1,2,3 hours or the whole flight ($10/15/18/25 US resp), you’re on. It’s a LITTLE laggy, but mail, RSS, gtalk etc work really well. If you really wanted to, I imagine you can also setup a small wifi network and play games…. :)

Now, can we get the for the 12 hours between auckland and Osaka / LA / other places? I hope it’s on Frankfurt –> LA, which is my next 12 hour flight……

All up, I can’t see how this could be a losing option – so many laptops, so much dead time….. :) Now, where’s the power plug!!

Yeah, ok…. enough with the !’s :)

TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo! has released BBAuth – allowing 3rd party apps to use the Yahoo! login/user/identity database as authentication – with consent from the user, obviously.

As Dave Winer points out, this is FREAKING HUGE. If I’m building a public website, it makes sense for me to NOT write my own auth system, and to use someone elses – eg, Yahoo!. Integration with Yahoo! content is a total bonus. Allowing users to have and use a single sign-on system is, well, massive.

Microsoft had this, with Passport, but the cost – I think it was around $30K US PER SITE – killed it dead in the water. The result: only Microsoft uses passport (or whatever it’s called these days). Hell, passport was even built into .NET! Dropping the ball doesn’t even come close to explaining it. Like so many things, they could have 0wn3d the space, but marketing got in the way .

Anyway. I don’t much like Yahoo!’s identity system from a user standpoint, but it’s worth a look, and a lot of people use it. If Google and MS do something similar, then it’s ALL on! Hell, I doubt it would be too hard to allow people to select which one they wanted to use at sign up, and use which ever one they selected :)

Bravo Yahoo. Google and MS (and AOL? Amazon? TradeMe?) wherefor art thou?.

[Update: Google have also done it. Issue with Yahoo (and maybe Google): how do I use it in DEV? I dont have a public domain to auth against! It’s behind a firewall!]