December 7th, 2009
I couldn’t find any info on this on the internet, and the French version of the user manual doesn’t have any info on this simple task either, so once I worked it out I figured I might as well post a howto here.
First, you need to remove the small plastic cover directly below the instrument panel (just below the speedo/tacho). It is held in place by two plastic lugs on either side. Unscrew these and remove the cover. Things are annoyingly tight and fiddly in here. You need to pull back the circular rubber cover over whichever side you need to get at. It should have a tab that you can grab to pull it back. Once you do that, you will be able to see the back of the headlight assembly. Grab the black plastic part and rotate it, on mine it’s in an anti-clockwise direction (you might need to push the handlebars to the other side in order to have space to get your hand in). It will rotate about 45 degrees and be released from its restraints. You can then pull it out, remove the wires. On mine, looking from the back, I have green, white, blue in a clockwise direction. These are just slide-on, so you can just pull them off to better get at the assembly.
To remove the bulb you need to push it in, and rotate it, I think anti-clockwise. Replace the bulb and reverse the above instructions to get everything back together. Hope this saves someone some time.
Tags: 125cc, bulb, headlamp, headlight, honda, varadero, xl125v
Posted in HOWTOs | No Comments »
June 9th, 2009
Our day at Monet’s garden was interesting. Up as early as we could from the beautiful Gîte, and an hours’ walk from Vernon over to Giverny. On our walk though, seven coaches full of tourists sailed past, so we knew what we were going to be in for.
Once we got to Giverny we just wandered around until we found the tourists. Lots of Americans (they talk loudly) and Germans (who tend to push). Once inside the gardens, however, a strange relaxation came over me, despite the crowds, and despite the men in boats in the lilly pond chopping up weed with a lawnmower-like contraption.
The garden is always changing; if you’re expecting to see exactly what Monet painted, you’ll be disappointed unless you’re there at the right time of year. But there’s a kind of magic in just seeing what inspired him, and imagining him there in the garden with his canvas, paint and brushes, looking out over his quiet, secluded garden, without the slightest idea that decades later it would be so thoroughly invaded by hordes of rubberneckers.
I was quickly drawn in to my photography, and Ris wandered off to spend her own time in the garden, so I was free to play. The challenge became to find a vista without thousands of people in it. Another was to not be too amused by all of the other photographers in the garden, hundreds of them, some snapping photos of every flower in their path as if the memory of Monet could imbue them with some miraculous artistic worth. However, the power of the garden is such that it still seems to be such a peaceful place, despite the heaving throng within it. Monet’s gift wasn’t just as a painter, but as a gardener and a lover of plants.
Posted in Europe | 1 Comment »
October 23rd, 2008
For some time now, I’ve been working on bits of OpenStreetMap. For those who don’t know, it’s like a fusion of Wikipedia and Google Maps, where all the of the map data is intended to be freely available (currently under a CC attribution sharealike license). I’ve decided to compile a list of links to the major bits that I’ve worked on.
- Anglesea (mapped over a few days on motorbike/foot)
- North Melbourne (lots of back alleys)
- Thornbury
- Lake Pedder impoundment
More minor bits that I have worked or am working on:
- Mentone Grammar and its Playing Fields
- Cathedral Range State Park
- Great Otway National Park
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October 14th, 2008
I just got a query based on my earlier FridgeMate HOWTO. Adam asks how to wire up one of these TempMates from CraftBrewer, so I worked up a wiring diagram based on that from the FridgeMate. If you have any questions about wiring this up, refer the the FridgeMate howto first, as chances are you question will be answered there.
To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that they’re selling these things without an adequate wiring diagram, there’s definite potential for someone to kill themselves with this stuff.
Usual warnings apply, I’m not responsible if you kill yourself or burn your house down or anything, I’m just trying to help, and I’m not an electrician.
Posted in HOWTOs | No Comments »
August 21st, 2008
Recently I bought myself an OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner phone. It’s a lovely little smartphone that runs Linux, and it is special in that the manufacturer (FIC) has gone to extreme lengths to ensure that all the hardware is open (that is, it has either an open source driver or open documentation (prefeably under a CC license to prevent them disappearing).
Anyway, the application that has got me most excited about the phone (apart from the terminal 
) is TangoGPS. In combination with OpenStreetMap (wiki meets maps), it’s great fun (in a creative/geeky kind of way I suppose… I’m wondering why it’s got me so interested, but that might have to be the subject of another post). The trouble is that the phone has to be on the whole time so that it can recieve GPS signals. TangoGPS appears to use a lot of CPU as well, so it tends to eat the battery, giving a battery life as bad as four hours.
I bought an iRiver music player a few years ago. It came with a AA battery pack which I never used because the player had a 12 hour battery life anyway. But it got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be really easy to adapt it for the OpenMoko Freerunner? Turns out it was.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in OpenMoko | 3 Comments »
July 29th, 2008
Pinched off Gemma!
The Basics
Hair Color: brown
Eye Color: brown
Height: 178cm, 5’11″
Profession: Information Technology Officer
Relationship Status: steady partner
Religious Views: atheist
My Favorites
Favourite Colour: red
Favourite Movie: Blade Runner, the Director’s Cut
Favourite Hobby: Brewing beer
Favourite School Subject: There are two: Software Development, Principles and Tools and first year Biology.
Favourite Vacation Destination: Snow/Beach
Favourite Food: Indian
This or That
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate
Big Mac or Whopper: Whopper
Coke or Pepsi : Coke
Beer or Wine: Beer
Coffee or Tea: Coffee
Apple Juice or O.J.: O.J., tho juice has too much sugar in it for me to drink it much.
Facebook or MySpace: Facebook
Summer or Winter: Winter
Windows or Mac: Linux
Cats or Dogs: Dogs
Boxers or Briefs: Boxers
Movie or Play: Movie
Do You?
Have Any Pets: No
Have Any Children: No
Smoke: No
Drink: Yes
Exercise: Irregularly
Spend Your Life On Facebook: No
Play On A Sports Team: No
Belong To Any Organizations: EMS
Love Your Job: Nah, but it’s OK
Play An Instrument: Yep
Sing: In tune but crappy otherwise.
Have You Ever
Stolen Anything: Not really.
Been Drunk Before Noon: Probably, but not that I remember.
Had Sex In A Public Place: Yes
Got Caught Telling A Lie: Probably.
Got A Speeding Ticket: Nup
Been Arrested: No
Cheated In A Relationship: No
Cried During A Movie: All the time.
Had A One Night Stand: Yes
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
August 16th, 2007
Xray Day 0:
Xray Day 13:
Xray Day 26:
Comminuted mid clavicular fracture with superior angulation. There is no evidence of significant callus formation and the fracture line is still clearly visible.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
April 4th, 2007
OK, if you’re like me, you’re used to coding on UNIX. So when, as is pretty much inevitable (unless you’re living in a university or somewhere unrealistic like that), you have to code on Windows, it can be a bit of a shock. Which is to be expected… proprietary binaries everywhere… argh.
But I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this painful. Connecting to MYOB using their ODBC connector is akin to standing on one leg, touching your nose just so, and trying to piss into a specific well in an ice-tray. Put that one in your freezer and freeze it! To make matters worse, we want to use PHP for all of this, and MYOB provides examples only in Microsoft’s favorite languages like C# and *gasp* ASP. AND, before version 6, you couldn’t even insert stuff into their database identified by the primary key. Read that again. You have to insert it based on last name. LAST FRIGGIN NAME. So if you have two Smiths, well… it assigns it to the first one. Gah. Anyway, it seems that with MYOB Premier version 10 and ODBC version 6, you can actually do these fundamental things.
So y’all don’t have to go through the same pain we did, here is our example code. One in Perl, the other in PHP.
Read the rest of this entry »
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April 4th, 2007
Whilst listening to an interview with Richard Stallman today, he succinctly articulated something that I have believed for a long time:
The purpose of democracy is to make sure that wealthy people cannot have influence proportional to their wealth. And if they do have more influence than you or I, that means democracy is failing. The laws that they obtain in this way have no moral authority, but they have the capability of doing harm.
By being party to certain treaties, we in Australia are directly affected by the USA’s flawed political system. Unless we learn to stand up to it a little better, like France and Canada for example, we are really going to start to feel the pain. More than we currently do from their unsupportable foreign policy…
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 24th, 2007
| You Sometimes Don’t Get Enough Sleep |
 You’re often more tired than you’d like, and you’re probably not getting enough quality sleep.
Sleeping a little more could make you a lot more energetic and happy.
Try having a bedtime, keep your bedroom cool, and only eat fruit before bed. |
Posted in Blogthings | 1 Comment »
