EVs and Coding upstream/downstream

Prime example of using data/paper references to deliberately misconstrue understanding:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/10/why-electric-vehicles-have-stalled.html
Sure petrol releases half as much CO2 than the electric grid, (direct energy - e.g. burning petrol or coal) not including the LCA stuff for mining, obtaining and transporting the fuels or energy (transmission grids).
But petrol engines are around 20% efficient but with electric transmission and electric motors like Tesla's car, they have an efficiency of about 90% - that's around 4* as much, meaning even with coal-burning electricity generation, you're only releasing half as much CO2 per energy to the wheels with electricity than petrol. And with green power or nuclear, you can drastically reduce CO2 output, so transferring the fuel into energy is best done en-masse, instead of inside everyone's individual car 'generators' =P

Also nice link about dependencies, which relates to last post's project release: Ubuntu chapter 8 on dependences! =)
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/how-code-flows-about-upstream-and-downstream/

Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




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Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

Inclusive Hackathon - attracting larger audiences for STEM, hacker/maker/geek events

Here's an interesting post about attracting larger audience for a hackathon

So I didn't know I wasn't using Kubuntu's repositories for 1.5 years

That moment you realise for your entire 12.04 LTS usage life of 1.5 years, you've never pinged the Kubuntu repositories because you thought Canonical and Canonical Partners included them.

And I only found out when I saw the process "kio_file" take up massive CPU time when my Dolphin had preview on. So I googled it, and sure enough, it's in the KDE bugtracker, and they say the issue is resolved - after 4.9.3.
I check and I've got KDE 4.8.x. So I finally add ppa:kubuntu-backports and update, dist-upgrade, and bam, 4.11.

Well not really, because when KDM was configuring, I had to go through this wizard. I accidentally checked 'shutdown kdm' then clicked next, and sure enough, my X session died. After a reboot, I needed to
sudo apt-get -f install or sudo apt-get -f dist-upgrade
and dpkg -i --force-overwrite
and sudo dpkg --force-depends -r kde-workspace-data
giving me:

    dpkg: kde-workspace-data: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:

At least now everything is over thanks to APT, apt-get and dpkg. That said, I should be releasing something from one of my projects relating to APT soon. But don't anticipate a tech project, haha.

Interestingly enough I tried out i3 while fixing my KDE desktop environment and it was pretty nice to use.
Also, I'm still getting that error sometimes when my KDE session starts, and then restarts after like 10-30 seconds after splash image and you can see the actual desktop. It might have to do with Akondi crashing. [Edit: It was actually Skype using XFS.]
I've also lost the window decoration I normally use in 4.8, I forgot its name but it was a nice blue bar at the top with white text and minimal/compact buttons. I can't find it in the default window decorations where it was. At least the 4.11 oxygen looks pretty nice and is compact =)

Australian Space Agency - why

Came across a good article here about why Australia needs a space agency, and how we can create our own solutions instead of piggybacking off others and be able to build a new industry which benefits us.


The ACSER seems pretty cool.
I wonder if the GPS module could be used for other Australian spacecraft ...

Also, if you read my Mt Stromlo (AIAA tour) post back in early August when AIAA Sydney Section toured Canberra, here are some projects that the AITC are looking at at the moment. Hope I get to participate soon =)