The end of an era

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Despite it apparently having been public knowledge for some months now I only came to find out today that MSN Messenger (which became Windows Live Messenger) is being discontinued today. If I had been more aware from the first announcement last November I may have had enough time to mentally prepare for this, but right now I am in a bit of shock from the sudden nature of the news. I became aware of it when I saw this image posted on facebook from Ruslan Kogan:

I was originally just going to post an “RIP MSN” status on facebook but given what a central aspect it was of my teenage years I think it deserves a proper obituary.

I first started using MSN around 2001 to communicate with a friend of mine, Ali, and I was so in awe of the technology the first time I used it I ended up staying up into the early hours of the morning exploring its features, like the games it used to have, and the different emoticons. As time went on I added more friends from school and occasionally used it as a means to setting up games of Age of Empires II or in some cases Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.

Later on when I was in MHS I lost many nights in high school playing minesweeper and also being engaged in semi-heated conversations with my peers about the issues of the day, none of which I can remember at this point. When MSN added the handwrite feature it became a useful tool for getting and giving out help in maths. MSN was also the first platform I used to spread my blog by pasting the URL into the by-line of the status (can’t remember what it was called).

So given all these fond memories how did I come to abandon it? There were a number of factors in play.

The first thing was probably my adoption of Gmail some time in late 2005. I liked the interface better than what hotmail had to offer, and it had significantly less spam. However I still continued to use MSN as my main IM client since it was more fully featured than google talk.

The next two things sort of happened simultaneously to me. The first was adopting Ubuntu in 2007. Microsoft hadn’t put out a client for linux so I was left using third party clients like Pidgin, and while it did a good job handling the basics it couldn’t handle things like nudges and drawings, the latter of which was important as I was in an engineering course.

The other thing that happened was the rise of Facebook. At that point facebook’s message system was more akin to email than IM, but by around 2008 people seemed to be using it as the primary means to contact each other and when they introduced Facebook chat that year is was pretty much a hard blow on MSN, if not the death-blow itself.

Personally I was still using MSN well into 2010, and when meeting new people I would still exchange usernames. But somehow I dropped this habit towards the end of that year and facebook became my primary means of social networking.

Another factor that made facebook more attractive than MSN was the fact that conctacts’ MSN accounts were becoming infested with bots posing. I last logged into it sometime last year and it was quite sad being greeted by handles that belonged to my friends, but which were using obvious bot-speak and attempting to make me visit suspicious websites. It allowed me to more strongly relate to the living characters in zombie movies who see their friends’ bodies being replaced by mindless entities. Mindless entities which can no longer engage me in a game of minesweeper or tic-tac-toe, and which can no longer appreciate my witty status updates.

From the archives, here is a post I made when MSN first introduced the “Appear offline” feature

Nexus 7 Impressions

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I got a Nexus 7 two days ago. It was the 32Gb 3G model from Dick Smith.

From a UI perspective it seems a pretty nifty tab, with a tabletised-version of the Jellybean system that was running on my Nexus S, with easy to access settings and some minor but significant improvements in interface. However so far I have encountered two issues that pretty much make this a worthless purchase for me;

  1. USB connectivity only works through either the MTP or PTP protocols, which are not linux-friendly. “No matter,” I said to myself. “I can simply use a portable hotspot, a widely known feature of Android, to transfer files to/from my laptop when the need arises.”
  2. Portable wifi hotspot is disabled; there is no option for it on the usual menu. Word on the internet is that you can have it with a custom ROM, but not with the standard OS.

There is also an issue I had with some apps being disabled, like Whatsapp and Adobe Flash Player 11. I am not sure if this is because of the developers or because of Google, but if I wanted a crippled device I would have gone for an iPad.

All in all, I regret this purchase. “But why didn’t you do your research?” I hear you asking me. Well basically having run a phone with Jellybean, I assumed those features that I needed would be available on a tablet with the same system and the necessary hardware. That coupled with some positive reviews on the Internet lead to a rash decision. Lesson learnt.

——–

This is an update from the future, when I have better learned to make use of this device. I am now running CyanogenMod 10.1 which has enabled the tethering/hotspot feature. I installed Whatsapp directly from their website and and abandoned Viber due to its Israeli origins, so everything is well now.

Happy Australia Day

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Let us take a moment to recount a brief debate that took place between two of our politicians on Wednesday the 22nd of May 1901.

Senator [Alexander] Matheson: To my mind, the immigration of Africans is just as objectionable as – even more objectionable than – the immigration of Asiatics. On that subject I cannot help alluding to the expression of opinion that fell from Senator Walker, in reference to Asiatics and black labour generally. I think, for an honorable gentleman who says that he advocates a white Australia, he certainly has the most peculiar views I have ever heard expressed. While, on the one hand, he says distinctly that Australia should be white, on the other hand he says – consider that the black people have to live. We all admit that the black people have to live. What we say is that the black people should live in their own country.

Senator [James] Walker: This was a blackfellows country before it was a white man’s country.

Senator Matheson: The honourable gentleman said that to me privately yesterday, and he seemed to think that that settled the question. He fails to recognise that we have taken this country from the blacks, and made it a white man’s country, so that there is no earthly use in the honourable gentleman saying that 100 years ago this was a black man’s country.

Senator Walker: There are still 100,000 aborigines in Australia.

Senator Matheson: We are aware of that fact, and it is very regrettable, and the only consolation we have is that they are gradually dying out.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, May 22, 1901, vol. 1, p152.

Online

The idea of commemorating this day came from people who held a similar mentality to that displayed above. Just as we would now reject their racist assumptions, we should also reject the celebration of our predecessors having “taken this country from the blacks.”

Just my thoughts. Belal out.

 

“Meawhile in Canada” on Canadian gun control

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There is a page that I follow on facebook titled “Meanwhile in Canada“, a page which usually posts up humorous items related to Canada, but occasionally also political messages with a left-wing slant. Recently they put up a post which I have included below. For anyone reading this in the future, this was posted a few days after the Sandy Hook Elementary school shootings.

Please share so others are aware. Too many people are not paying attention to what’s happening in Ottawa. “Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is mulling a sweeping set of proposals from the pro-gun camp that would further water down federal controls. In future, gun owners’ licences would run for 10 years or longer without renewal, up from five now. Paperwork now required to transport weapons would be waived. And certain prohibited firearms — ranging from small, easily concealed handguns to full-bore assault weapons—would be reclassified as restricted, making them easier to sell or transfer.” Read more here: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1298808–canada-s-gun-lobby-is-pushing-for-looser-laws

This is about more profits for billionaire gun manufacturers. Period. At the high cost of public safety and even our very culture. If anyone bleets out the NRA’s, “guns don’t kill people” slogan on this thread in order to justify this kind of reckless deregulation, just know that it makes you look like a sad, easily manipulated fool.

The post has almost 600 shares and over 500 comments, so I decided to send them a message with my thoughts on the matter, which I have included below.

Hi, I’m just writing in response to one of your recent posts regarding gun laws; the one with the image of a bullet-riddled stop sign. You, and the article you linked, seem to claim that increasing the licence issue period will lead to a decrease in public safety. I’d like to point out that in the USA there is no effective licensing system for owning firearms, so there is no way of knowing the mental state of a gun owner or what they intend. In Canada you do have licensing and people who possess legal firearms have already been through safety training and background checks.

Furthermore, the process of licence renewal in Canada doesn’t involve any serious extra checking, the licence holder pretty much hands in a renewal form with a renewal fee, and they will have their licence renewed. If the period was doubled then the RCMP would either double the initial application fee, or they may leave it the same.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/renew-renouv-eng.htm

People who possess these licences are already known to police, so there is no reason the RCMP cannot conduct a background check at a 5-year period, or at any other period, without waiting for a renewal form to be sent in.

You also seem to talk about the evils of not being able to track firearm sales. I am from Australia and in the late 80′s, early 90′s we had some mass shootings, and the (conservative) government brought in sweeping changes that prohibited the public from owning many types of guns, including air pistols and replica pistols, and restricted the ownership of many previously unrestricted guns, like paintball guns and air rifles. The four types of guns I mentioned above are obviously not designed to kill people, so the argument that “guns are designed to kill people” cannot really be used to justify their restriction. Our cousins in New Zealand also had some shootings and brought in restrictions, however their restrictions did not include gun registration (ie they do not track sales), and they still allow their citizens to own semi-automatic rifles. New Zealand licences are issued for 10 years, and air rifles are unrestricted for adults, as are airsoft toys.

Gun control advocates in Australia often point out that the new restrictions have reduced the mass shootings, and on those grounds will oppose any relaxation. They ignore the fact that less restrictive rules in NZ have also brought about the same result without restricting to the same extent what legitimate gun owners can do.

I share many opinions with political liberals, but it saddens me how some of you will demonise gun owners based on sensationalist claims. Now that Australians have lost their semi-automatics the gun control groups here want us to no longer be allowed to keep our guns in our homes, and for juniors to not be allowed to hunt. The more restrictions that are brought in, the more they want, which is why gun owners are wary of any new restriction. I can agree that some of the demands of the American gun lobby are unreasonable but I implore you to please do some research on what you are advocating for Canada because it will have an impact on how people can practice the hobby without actually improving public safety. If you have any questions or comments on what I have said I would be interested in reading them.

Regards,

Belal

Their response was

Try living next to the USA. You might have a different perspective.

Belal goes to Frankston

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Last night I went to Frankston for the first time. The purpose of this journey was to fill out some paperwork for a pizza outlet so I could be hired as a driver for my short vacation. I went in quite late, past 2300. Prior to my departure I checked the satellite images on Google maps to look for a fishing pier, and there was one. I took some of my gear and headed off.

My cousin was working late and after his shift we headed out to the Frankston pier. There were a few people fishing (it was about 0100 Monday at this point). I had always thought of Frankston as a white suburb but among people that were present on the pier, Polynesians and East Asians were over-represented. I went to the far end of the pier and cast to the southern side. There were some little fish visible in the water, and a bigger one which was nibbling the bait off my hook, but not biting the hook itself. I tried a few times and they never got hooked. I was using Berkeley’s artificial sandworms.

Anyway it was a pretty uneventful night. There are only 4 points I have to make.

1 – I kept seeing police cars driving around

2 – Frankston looks like a nice place, at least at night when nobody is about.

3 – I overheard a woman on the pier saying “It can’t be incest if I’m pregnant.”

4 – After doing some looking-up on the internet I found out that the tall “Hotel” on Eastlink is fake

 

WACH OSCEs

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Today we had our OSCEs for the women and children’s health unit. I left Taree around 9pm with some of my fellow classmates. When we got to the John Hunter we were put in quarantine to prevent us contacting the morning-session people who would be leaving soon. We then got called in and eventually started.

For me the stations in order were

  1. Lobar pneumonia in 6(?) year old boy- interpreting a chest X-ray, ordering investigations and treatment, and answering parents questions
  2. Developmental delay – a video of a 12 month old girl with what looked like Downs’ syndrome, assessing what milestones she had reached and in what areas of development she was impaired.
  3. UTI – a 3 year old boy with a UTI. Had to give reasons why he might have got it (renal tract abnormality), what investigations and treatment.
  4. Meningococcal – a girl with respiratory distress and shock, and a widespread non-blanching rash. Had to suggest management and write out a fluid order, both acute and ongoing.
  5. Infertility – a 32 year old lady unable to conceive after 12 months of trying. Had a previous termination of pregnancy a few yeards prior. No other significant gynae issues I was able to elicit. Was asked by patient if previous termination could be affecting her fertility.
  6. Antenatal card – had to discuss various aspects of the antenatal history of a woman, eg what is the significance of her usually irregular periods (cannot date by LMP), what do we do if she has had Hepatitis C (PCR), and some other issues. I didn’t finish this station.
  7. Interpret tests and suggest urgency and follow-up – There were three tests to interpret. The first was a woman who had a D&C after an incomplete miscarriage but had no fetal parts in the curettings. Diagnosis was of possible ectopic or misdiagnosed complete miscarriage. Had to talk about how urgent it was and who should see her and any tests (also had to talk about this for the next two. The next test was some serum hormones showing slightly raised day 22 (or 23 or something) LH and also raised testosterone, suggesting PCOS. Had to also suggest another test to confirm this. The next test was a 75g Oral glucose tolerance test in a pregnant lady with 2 out of 3 values raised, indicating gestational diabetes, had to indicate who should see her next.
  8. The next station was management of a post-partum haemorrhage. There was very little prompting from the examiner, who spent a lot of the time dozing off.

Dream

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I just woke up from a dream where my family and I were working to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment. Winter was approaching and I had built a modular shelter that could be moved from place to place as we moved. There was also a dog. It was a bit on the disobedient side but it was useful for warning us of intruders and for sniffing out prey. There was also a kid who lived near our shelter, I thought he was my friend but for some reason he got into conflict with us and our dog lost a leg, though he lived.

Then we got news of some other survivors who were trying to get to us and avoid aliens. I had to go out into the wilderness to send our location in an encrypted radio transmission. I couldn’t do it from where I was because they could trace the signal back to us. I was having issues programming the algorithm for encryption.

Overall it was a very intense dream, when I woke up I had difficulty accepting the fact that none of it had been true.

WACH camp – Tiona NSW

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On Monday the 5th of November we departed for WACH (Women and Children’s Health) camp. I had some issues packing because were were being sent in a minibus and I only had two bags which I could choose to back my things. One was a large Samsonite suitcase which would be too large for the minibus, the other was an 85L backpack which had my post-apocalyptic survival supplies. I initially packed everything into the suitcase because I did not want to have to unpack and repack my survival bag, but after seeing how ridiculously big it was compared to everyone else’s I decided that maybe the backpack was best.

There were 4 of us waiting to be picked up from Taree; two of us had already gone in a car with the staff.

The bus got about an hour late due to the Tamworth crew having taken a stop in Gloucester. Once it did arrive I was glad I made the decision to switch cases as there was no way the Samsonite would have fit on the mini-bus.

I also brought my fishing rod, as one of our educators had said it would be an appropriate thing to bring for the location.

The bus trip was fairly uneventful. I had to sit in the front passenger seat, which made me feel a little important, but it meant I would not be able to socialise as easily with my peers or the Tamworth crew.

We got there (Sundowner Tourist Park) and were given our keys. Most of us were 4-to-a-cabin in 2 bedroom cabins, but I was just with Dean so we got a room each.

The University had left a lot of smallgoods for us, things like Muesli bars, tea, and also a lot of alcohol, though my share seemed to have been replaced with various types of Coca-Cola.

I accompanied the rest of the Taree crew as they took an exploratory walk, first to the beach and then along the lakeside. There were some small fish visible in the lake, and it was very shallow, perhaps less than 40cm for around the first 10-20m from the shore.

Walking by the edge of Wallis lake

We didn’t have any classes scheduled that day, but we were given dinner, and it was very good. I don’t mean to sound racist but after living in college for two years I developed a very low opinion of the food that white people eat, but this meal alone was enough to redeem all that; and I only had the vegetarian items. The food was provided by a local caterer.

We didn’t do much else that night.

Day 2

I woke up at about 0515 to pray Fajr. Afterwards I went out to the beach. If you look up Tiona on Google maps you will see that there is a lake on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the right, separated by around 200m.

The Sun was rising around this time but there was a cloud on the horizon so I couldn’t quite see it, but here are some pictures.

The sun pokes above the horizon

I took a few other photos and walked towards a rocky outcrop on the south side of the beach. As I approached the rocks I noticed an eagle take off, but with the Sun to my east I would not have been able to see nor get a good exposure of it.

I looked around the rocks and pools to find any signs of advanced life but there were only some barnacle-like creatures which did not display any notion of sentience.

I started heading back to the direction of my motel when I noticed the eagle (or possibly some other bird of prey) flying towards me. I took out my camera, switched lenses and got ready to take the shot. In reality I took many shots, but here is one that is probably most suitable for upload.

A bird of prey of some sort

I also noticed an old man in a red shirt waiting by the walkway that lead into the beach, but I didn’t pay him much notice, but as I walked back I realised he was one of my lecturers. I avoided him, and it was awkward.

We had some lectures that morning beginning at around 0845. They kept the lectures to about 30 minutes each which I thought was good, I wish the university adopted that policy for all their lectures.

We had morning tea at 11 for which were given muffins and slices of various melons. As I was enjoying my muffin I noticed what looked like the carapace of an isopod. I showed it to a friend who declared it to be a cockroach. Word rapidly spread throughout the students that a muffin had been found with a “cockroach” in it. I didn’t bother to correct them, but most of them didn’t touch the muffins after that.

An isopod in a muffin.

After that day of lectures we had some practical worshops on things like managing acute asthma and delivering a normal birth.

After the workshops most people went for the surfing lessons. I hung back.

I went to the beach and took some photographs of this raptor.

An eagle gliding with the wind along the beach

There was also a white-bellied sea eagle

White bellied sea eagle

After that I headed back to the resort

The night before we had been socialising with the Tamworth crew. They had given word that there were goannas about the place, so I had been checking the trees and other suitable basking spots to see if I could find any, but with no luck.

As I walked back into the resort site I heard a snap from a tree and went to check it. There was a lace monitor climbing it, about 1.5m long including tail.

Lace monitor in the tree

I followed it around for a while but eventually it tired of my company and retreated into the dense foliage.

Lace monitor prowling back to the dense vegetation.

Day 3
The next day we had more lectures and workshops and things, covering things like shoulder dystocia, breech presentation and managing acute seizures. When the others went for their surfing classes I walked around the resort a bit, and saw this Kookaburra.

A kookaburra

One of the workers at the site saw me photographing it and told me there were three “dragons” around the corner. I asked him if he meant bearded dragons, and he said “No, big ones.” I understood he meant goannas, so I went to have a look. Sure enough, there were three lace monitors basking next to a clothesline.

Lace monitor basking

A lace monitor

After taking those pictures I decided to try go swimming in the beach. I entered the water alone, but it was quite rough, and there was a steep change in gradient a few metres in, so I decided to exit the water and head for the resort pool instead. While swimming in the pool I noticed a magpie feasting off some of the leftovers from our afternoon tea, so I got out of the water and ate as much of it as I could out of spite.

We were taken to the Pacific Palms bowling club that night. I had salt-and-pepper squid as an entree and Thai garlic prawns with rice for the main. UDRH (University department of rural health) paid for everything, as they had for everything else in the camp.

Day 4

The next day we still had some class but no workshops. After lunch we packed up and headed off.

All in all it was a pretty useful camp, probably more useful for the OSCEs than the MCQs. I’m not sure if it was a net gain in terms of knowledge compared to 3 days of self-study, as it is pretty close to exams, but a lot of the practical things we learned were quite useful. Even if those situations aren’t in our exams the experience gained would still be good for knowing how to manage obstetric emergencies, especially in a post-apocalyptic environment (though I question the wisdom of bringing a child into such a world).

The saga of the freshwater eels

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On the 21st September 2012 I was in Melbourne for my holidays. On that day after Jumu’ah I went to my uncle’s place, and while there was browsing facebook on my mobile phone.

I noticed a post from Amazing Amazon, a pet shop in Glen Waverly, advertising a giveaway of three long-finned eels that they keep in their main display tank. The post was about an hour old, so I assumed they would have been gone by then. Nevertheless, I for some reason decided to give them a call, and the worker who answered said they were still available. I asked if I could have one, and whether I could reserve it in any way, given that it was free. He told me I could have all three, and to give him my number in case anything changed.

The facebook post advertising the freshwater eels

So I went to Amazing Amazon and introduced myself as the guy who called. They said the catch was that despite them being free, I may need to help them catch them out of the tank. The tank was quite massive, maybe 2.4m x 1.2m x 90cm high. It must have taken about 40 minutes for us to get them out of the tank. One of them slipped into the filter weir, and they were all pretty slippery to grab. It didn’t help that for the first half of our attempts we were using a net that was far too small, until eventually someone found a net that was large enough.

They put the eels in two foam boxes and I put them in my car and went back home. They were over a metre long so probably too large for my 5x2x2 (turtle tank) so I had planned to release them into a friend’s pond. I had asked the shop beforehand if they could survive in an unheated outdoor pond and they had said it would be fine, except that it would need to be secured against escape.

That night I had a family dinner in Hallam again, but I planned to meet Naz at around 2300 to rehome the eels. We were delayed somewhat and Omar, Naz and myself ended up leaving at around midnight to his place.

————-

This post was saved as a draft, and I have come back to it about a month later but I forgot the major details of what happened. In short, we released it into Naz’s parents’ water feature. Here is a youtube video

Unfortunately these guys will not be able to breed in the pond, as they are one of those species that migrates to the ocean to spawn. The particular species goes to a spot somewhere near New Caledonia and spends the first few years of its life in the sea before.

The three eels in the back of Naz’s car

Omar with one of the eels before being taken to the pond

Day 5

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I am down to my last two mangoes. I am uncertain as to whether they will still be sold at 6 for $6 tomorrow, or whether prices will have risen with the new cycle of sales. If the latter is the case it may mean that I will not be able to savour the sweet flesh of Kensington pride for at least another month til I return to Melbourne. I know that if I eat these two now I will regret not having mangoes later in the week, but the temptation is too great. Nobody said this was going to be easy. Belal out.