Irregular Verbiage » Life

RHEL5 and ext4

Jon — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:17:24 +0000

Using RHEL5.5 in order to upgrade an ext3 volume to ext4:

yum install e4fsprogs
umount
tune4fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index
e4fsck
mount -t ext4

Mackerel Fishing and Politics

Jon — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:51:44 +0000

It’s possible that politics is like fishing; without experience (or a good guide) it can have a steep learning curve. Hence my plan at today’s meeting of the Winchester local Liberal Democrat Conference was to listen much more than I talked. I have been to very few overtly political events and I have much to learn.

Four mackerel I caught this evening spinning in the Solent

The event was not at all what I expected; it was well attended but the average age was higher than I envisaged. Approaching my mid-thirties, my young daughter often makes me feel old – today however I felt young! Also the format was not what I imagined. Instead of a mini version of the national conference with impassioned debate and voting on controversial motions it was a cosy chat with councillors discussing their plans and general agreement (mostly via post-it note) on motions to be voted on at the national conference.

There were issues raised that tempted me to talk – in particular the cost of housing in Winchester but, at least on this occasion, I kept quiet. Firstly because I wasn’t keen for most of the membership’s first sight of me to be disagreement in a very consensual atmosphere. I would very much have liked Barton Farm to have been built on but the Liberal Democrat council opposed it. Given I own a flat about 500m from the proposed site, my support might be slightly unexpected but I am (by most standards) fairly well paid and struggled to buy a house in Winchester – most people are less fortunate!

I was slightly sad that a motion at the national conference in support of equal marriage rights was not discussed. It seems self-evident to me that the discrimination in our current laws should be changed but maybe it was not discussed because it would have been unanimously supported.

This was all new territory for me and I hope to attend more party meetings in the future (Em’s shift patterns allowing) so hopefully I’ll feel like one of the natives soon – it wasn’t what I expected but everyone was very welcoming.

So from being a fish out of water to hauling fish out of water… After the politics I went fishing. We hadn’t arranged it in advance but I met my Dad at the coast. It was a warm summer’s evening perfect for mackerel and there were shoals of them teeming along the shore. We could have caught as many as we liked. I stopped at four, plenty for my (small) family – Dad (unusually) chose to go up to double figures as he wanted some for neighbours. It’s not always as easy as this evening but the fish combined with the weather and the views made everything seem perfect. I’m even starting to feel like I know what I’m doing – at least with a mackerel rod!

At Wembley!

Jon — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:52:01 +0000

At Wembley to watch the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy between Southampton and Carlisle. The new Wembley stadium is very impressive (it’s my first visit).

Update: We won 4-1! I was there when the Saints went marching in! Great atmosphere. Loved it!

Spring is here.

Jon — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:43:56 +0000

There is a warmth in the air. About a week ago I had a few days off and we went to Oxford and Long Down farm. It was clear but cold. This weekend, when the sun is shining it feels much warmer.

Katie can now happily play in the sunshine in the garden.

P.S. If it wasn’t clear – this entry is really to test the Wordpress plugin that I mentioned in my last entry

The Alphabet Game

Jon — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:26:13 +0000

I’ve been working on a little web-app that I call the “Alphabet Game”. It’s a simple little game where you drag letters on to objects that begin with that letter. It’s at a fairly early stage at the moment – it’ll be much more child-friendly when we add some sound with some HTML5 audio tags.

Eventually I’ll use it with my daughter, Katie. At the moment, she’s a bit young for it though we have had fun pointing out the names of the objects she already knows.

Let me know if you have comments or suggestions.

Some Links

Jon — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:17:57 +0000

Effortless Good: If you’re buying things from Amazon, then installing a little Firefox extension will cause Amazon to pay the referrer fee to charity.
I’m having a play with Komodo Edit (which recent changed its license to GPL/MPL/LGPL), I’ve been looking for a replacement for the venerable NEdit for some time but this is the best candidate I’ve found. In particular the features i really want:
- Search/Replace with regular expressions
- easy to use block select mode (ideally using the ctrl key)
- keyboard record/replay
- tabbed interface
- Easy to use keyboard shortcuts (i.e. not emacs/vi)
all seem to be present in a simple UI with syntax highlighting, code folding and everything else you’d expect
Best Sellers: I’m very pleased with our eeeps

American Elections

Jon — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:27:31 +0000

Things are busy here, both at work (I’m doing overtime) and at home (getting Katie to sleep is a intricate art), when I do get a chance, I seem to be reading a surprising amount about the American primaries given that it’s only the build up to an election in a foreign country. Listening to Obama speak is inspiring, it seems that if he wins, the US will have one of the good guys in charge.

On the subject of good guys, given that Lessig has decided not to run for congress in the States, maybe we could get him to run for the UK parliament, though maybe Change Congress has a better ring to it than Change Parliament.

In other news, I’ve been watching quite a bit (much less than Em!) of the excellent West Wing on DVD.

EeePC or Food?….Hmm

Jon — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:22:57 +0000

Em and I were in Toys R Us yesterday evening (for baby things) and we saw a huge display for the EeePC sub-notebook. Later, that night the following conversation took place.

Em: I’d like one of those Eee PCs, I don’t have a laptop at the moment.

Me: Hmm I consciously haven’t been suggesting getting one, I’m not sure a laptop fits into our budget at the moment. (With Em on maternity leave, we have a slightly more well-defined budget than usual)

Em: Maybe we can trim the food budget?

Me: We probably shouldn’t starve the baby for a laptop.

Em: I wasn’t thinking of starving the baby; I was thinking of starving you.

Further discussions ensued. We’ll probably get one sooner or later (woo!).

In other news the baby swing that we went out to buy is already proving its use as an automated dad. Previously one of the best ways to get Katie to sleep was to swing her gently in a car seat. The swing removes all the sweating from the process.

Holding Katie

Jon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:45:38 +0000

In the hospital, when I was handed my daughter, I was incredibly tired. I was full of adrenalin and I was very concerned about the large amounts of blood continuing to pour out of my wife; I’d be lying if I said that I felt a joyous epiphany at that moment.

Days later and things have changed, there is something indescribable about holding your baby girl as she sleeps in your arms or, even more endearing, looks up at you with her big blue eyes. Katie is so vulnerable and trusting, she can sleep in positions that look amazingly uncomfortable. Sometimes, at the slightest disturbance, she will wake and strenuously demand to be fed. Other times, she seems to sleep through anything. As well as the joy and (surprising to me) calming influence holding Katie causes, in the background there is the knowledge that her existence charges me (and Em!) with a huge responsibility – but it’s a challenge that I’m looking forward to.

I’m sure that there will be tough times ahead but for the moment, while I’m spending my paternity leave with my nuclear family, everything is great in the world.

Katherine Megan Levell

Jon — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:35:43 +0000

Our baby girl was born on Sunday (7lb 10oz). The birth was fairly complicated but Katie (as she’s known to her friends) is fit and well. At night she’s sleeping for about 45mins at a time which means our sleep is rather disturbed but, as we’re both on leave, that isn’t too serious. (Em’s mum is here looking after us which makes things easier)

There has been a veritable slew of congratulations and status updates – most of which I haven’t replied to (really sorry!) but I’ve (sometimes literally) had my hands full.

There are now baby photos on my Flickr page and I suspect there will be a number of baby-related Twitter updates (so count that as fair warning if you want to unsubscribe).