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Why You Probably Support Electoral Reform
There has been a recent groundswell of support for electoral reform in the UK. This piece describes why you are probably in favour of it – even if you don’t think you are.
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Using Multiple Start and End Keys for CouchDB Views
Describing how to patch CouchDB 0.10.1 to query views with multiple start and end key ranges in one request.
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Handling JSON Objects in CouchDB Native Erlang Views
Using CouchDB Erlang views can be confusing when your documents contain JSON objects. Understanding how Couch processes JSON internally and making use of Erlang pattern matching smoothes the way.
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CSS Technique: Morning Sunset
A novel CSS+Javascript effect that allows a site to blend from one full-page image to another as the visitor scrolls down the page.
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CouchDB For A Real-Time Monitoring System
CouchDB is a promising young technology offering an alternative to Postgres and other SQL-based datastores for fast retrieval and aggregation of data. Here, I discuss findings on its suitability for a real-time monitoring system.
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Modelling Recurring Events in PHP
In a previous article, I described how set operations could be modelled in PHP. With that foundation, we can begin to generate complex date criteria suitable for modelling recurring events. There are a number of different kinds of date condition, which Martin Fowler terms “Temporal Expressions”. Typical temporal expressions include “Last Day in the Month”, […]
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Fixing Mystique for Backtype Connect
Using the Mystique WordPress theme with the Backtype Connect plugin causes posts to stop rendering halfway through. Luckily, the fix is relatively straightforward.
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Grow Up Australia
Finally, there seems to be some momentum behind the drive to create an R18+ classification for videogames, which would bring Australia inline with the rest of the developed world. Hopefully with the support of major stores like EBGames and a large grassroots campaign, this anachronism will be corrected soon. Sign the petition and have your […]
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Set Operations in PHP
Modelling Set operations in PHP using object oriented classes to represent Union, Intersection and Difference.
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Automatically Mounting WebDAV in Ubuntu with a FuseDAV Init Script
How to automatically mount a WebDAV share in Ubuntu using FuseDAV, an init script and a simple configuration file.
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Making A List, Checking It Twice
Since I decided to stay here and my company agreed to sponsor an application for a business visa, I’ve become reacquainted with the many and varied joys of trying to gather disparate items from various authorities. The requirements for a 457 visa application aren’t unreasonable, but there certainly are a lot of hoops to jump […]
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A Crazy Wii Day
In which I am nearly misunderstood to be holding a little old lady hostage on Australia Day, and take a virtual beating on Wii Boxing.
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Vote Lamb
Buying into the advertising campaign, I lend my voice in support of lamb on Australia Day.
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Just Not Cricket
Yesterday was another day, another cricket defeat. I can hardly wait for the inevitable ironic cheers on Monday at work. I was out last night for a friend’s birthday at a local bar, when who should walk in but our fallen heroes. Freddie Flintoff, Ian Bell, Mal Loye and a couple of others were out, […]
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All Change
In which I muse on the paradox of money in Australia, with its brilliant notes and ridiculous coins.
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Slip Slide Ride
I infamously failed to climb Mt. Fuji last year, so what possessed me to climb a glacier I don’t know. I would have felt reassured seeing the elderly and children also attempting it, were it not for the fact that a bunch of primary schoolkids climbed Fuji a couple of days before I did. Luckily, […]
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Jade And Ice
In Manchester, you have the curry mile, a semi-misnomered kilometer stretch of curry houses and jewelery shops. In the same vein, Hokatika could be the Jade Square Mile. From the quaint little clocktower in the town centre, all you can see down each road are jade workshops interspersed with craftstores, glassblowing centres and, yes, jewelery […]
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Planes, Trains and Automobiles
I only decided to come on this trip relatively recently, so all my flights are different to Amy’s the friend I’m travelling with. Somehow, the cheapest flight to Christchurch I could find was with Emirates, whose service and entertainment was so good that for the first time ever, I wished my flight was longer. And […]
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Tourism By The Numbers
On Manly Beach, and being on Manly Beach, and the disappointment of being on Manly Beach.
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Fresh Start
One of my New Year’s Resolutions, (along with 30 million lapsed bloggers, I imagine), is to start writing here again. In Japan, I felt like I had lots to write about, but in Australia not so much, especially since I began working full-time in Brisbane. There are already thousands of people writing about what their […]
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Taipei Ramblings
Rambling from a hotel room at an ungodly hour in Taipei, en route to England.
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Homeward Bound
Two and a half years is a long time to be away from home, no matter how many awesome experiences you have. It’s hard to describe the feeling – I don’t really miss England per se, but I do miss the great times I had with friends and family while I was there. Having said […]
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I’m Back And I Have A Virtual Twin
So it’s been three months since my last entry and enough of you have emailed me about it that I’ve finally gotten round to writing something. At first it was because I didn’t have Internet access and was having too much fun to try and find it (it seems there’s hope for me yet!) and […]
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Broome Town
Broome, lovely Broome, which reminds me of that (awful) Simply Red song, “Beautiful But Oh So Boring”
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Broome Time
Making plans to head up to Broome in northern Western Australia
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Cup Success
Having watched the semi-final in Singapore, I was looking forward to what I thought would be an easy enough FA Cup Final against West Ham, who we’d hammered on the last day of the season. Though he hasn’t really done too much on the pitch, I was especially glad of having Harry Kewell in the […]
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Pinnacles United
One of the guys, Ian, had a meeting up in Jurien Bay today, so I hopped in the car to go with him and get a taste of the Australian road. Jurien Bay is pretty close as things go in Australia, being ‘only’ 3 hours north of Perth, up the coast. So far, if I […]
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Getting Sorted
I got myself a mobile phone today which means you can go back to emailing my phone from the about page again and I also opened a bank account so I can get paid if and when I finally get a job. I’ve been looking at finding work in Perth, though to be honest, I […]
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Come Home Chris Hand
Always happy to help out a good cause! Get that man home!
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Swanning About Town
A pleasant day in Perth, Western Australia, a lovely city which is a little sleepy but easy to relax in.
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King Of Navigation
My friend Steve once told me while drunk about his keen sense of navigation. “I get it from my mum”, he said. “She had a really bad sense of direction, but she could run really fast. So basically, I just keep running until I see somewhere I recognise.” That same night he ran halfway to […]
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Knocking On Oz’s Door
My time in Singapore couldn’t have finished in much a better way. As a special treat, Alan took me over to the Penny Black, a Victorian-style English pub, with real ale from the tap which was bested only by the plasma screens showing Liverpool and Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final live. The pub turns into the […]
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Singaporean Surprises
I’ve got a joke for you: Q) What do you call a guy who injures his back playing tennis during a short vacation, subsequently spending 2 of his 5 days in bed barely able to move? A) Lots of things. None of them polite. Yes, I am that idiot. I played a few sets with […]
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Curries And Slings
Continuing the theme of appreciating food, lunch today was at a fantastic Indian place called Samy’s. Five types of gorgeous and hot, genuine Indian curry, with fresh-squeezed lime juice to wash it down. Brilliantly, it was all served on banana leaves instead of plates, just like some miso dishes are served on leaves in Japan. […]
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Goodbye Nihon, Hello Singapore
And so, to leaving. It’s still hard to believe I don’t live in Japan anymore. I’m writing this from Singapore, where I’m staying for a few days with my cousin Alan, his wife Aneta and his kids Sarah and Stephanie. I was lucky enough to be seen off at the airport today by three of […]
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Shou Ga Nai
Despite my various recent excursions around the local area, I’ve still somehow found time to do the important things too. Cancelling things is always a pain, but it hits new heights, bordering on excruciating, when trying to do it in Japan. What with gas, electricity, phone, bank transfers and posting stuff, it’s a wonder that […]
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Mountain Town
Magome is a small town in the mountains on the border of Gifu and Nagano prefectures that sits on the old Tokaido route which was heavily used in the Edo period. It was originally built as one of a number of rest posts for weary travellers making the long and dangerous journey from Kyoto to […]
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Out And About
Despite my best intentions, I was worried that I wouldn’t get round to seeing much of the country in the last few weeks before I left because I’d been in kind of a rut lately, doing not much other than working and sleeping. Luckily, there’s nothing like leaving a country to create a list of […]
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Done And Dusted
And just like that, my two year teaching ‘career’ has come to an end. It’s hard to put my feelings into words as they alternate rapidly between the joy of revelling in new-found free time and a kind of emptiness, which I didn’t really expect. I guess suddenly stopping anything after a long time is […]
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Over-Efficient
Japan is known, often erroneously, as being a very efficient country. But today I realised that sometimes things can be too efficient. Having settled on checking out Australia, I’d originally booked my flight to go to Melbourne after staying for a few days with my cousin Alan in Singapore. But, on the advice of a […]
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Downtime
If you hadn’t noticed, this site’s been unavailable for the last few days and it’s pretty much my fault. Though nobody probably really noticed, I transferred hosts last year and I was naive enough to think that it would all go smoothly. It did, actually, until last week, when suddenly my site became unavailable and […]
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The End Is In Sight
Seeing as the cat’s already out of the bag after the comment someone left on my last post a few days ago, I suppose it’s time I mentioned my big news. In a few weeks I’m leaving Japan and I’m going to Australia. My contract expires at the end of March and I decided I […]
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The Case For Feeds As Classes
If you were expecting something on life in Japan here, sorry to bore you! Normal service will resume shortly, I promise). A few days ago, I made a suggestion to the WordPress Hackers lists to restructure WP’s feed handling into a class-based system. There has been a lot of discussion recently on the list of […]
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Fit For A King
Munching on king crab’s legs in Sapporo, which are bigger than my hand!
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Biting The Snow
It couldn’t last really, could it? With 13 days of riding under my belt and no injuries beyond feeling a bit sore, it was probably high time that I got something a bit more lasting. Luckily for me, it was only small, practically nothing really, but it could have been a lot worse; one of […]
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Hot Srar?
Looks like a hasty fix to avoid a lawsuit to me, but maybe they are just rebranding…
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Happo-One Ijiruna
The day dawned bright and sunny as expected and so we headed for Happo. I’d almost forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve, but was quickly reminded when I saw the hundreds of people queueing for the gondola. Apparently this is just about the busiest day in the Japanese Snow Calendar and you could tell. […]
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Snow Time Like The Present
Working at the weekend, combined with a natural laziness imbued during my days of general lethargy at university, has conspired to turn me from the county hockey player I was into the unfit programmer that I am. My shape hasn’t changed, but I still feel out of shape. I’m thankful, therefore, that I found snowboarding […]
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White And Blue Christmas
I was sitting in McDonalds before listening to a weird techno and drum and bass Christmas medley and couldn’t help thinking Christmas isn’t going to be much fun this year. There’s 100x more snow and cold and generally wintry weather than England here (I found myself in the novel position of having to de-ice my […]
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Holler At Me
Continuing the conversion of site components that’s been going on, I just finished up another new plugin for WordPress called Holler. It’s a contact form, one or two of which already exist, but is pretty flexible in what it allows you to do. I much prefer a contact form to having my email address publicly […]
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Howdy!
Technology and travel stories from a global roaming, kangaroo loving, sake drinking gaijin pom.
Check out my projects and my resume, take a look at some code on Github and feel free to contact me.