Blogospheric Refraction

Yep… now almost 3 years into my double degree… it’s comming high time that I actually got out there, and did some Electrical Engineering work for people. Needless to say, I had a crash course today in writing CVs, cover letters, and using LaTex. That said, I’m happy with the results so far, and having submitted an application to 3 companies, it’s now a case of waiting for a response, and looking around for other companies to pester.

Employers in the Brisbane area: If you’re after an extra pair of hands for the upcomming summer break, let me know. As part of my university studies, I need to do 60 hours work experience in the Electrical Engineering field. Ideally, I’m after some work doing telecommunications, digital design, embedded systems development or control systems, as these are the areas I’m most comfortable with. My CV is here … if I look like a good candidate to fill a position, shoot me an email, and we’ll negotiate.

Ohh yes… Bewarned of the danger that is the drop bear, if you ever decide to go camping in Australia’s wilderness.

The following, is a discussion from #gentoo-dev where the topic came up.

23:10 < @mark_alec> christel: the IRC meeting times look good to me, as I shall
be on school holidays during that time, so provided I don't
go camping I will definately be turning up
23:10 < @christel> excellent mark_alec
23:10 < @christel> <3
23:10 < @beu> CAMPING
23:10 < @mark_alec> YES
23:10 < @mark_alec> in the bush with kangaroos
23:10 < @beu> mmmbush
23:11 < @christel> haha
23:11 < @christel> kangaroos 
23:11 < @mark_alec> they taste good ya know, very red and very low in fat
23:11 < @beu> 
23:11  * beu prefers sheeps
23:11 < @christel> i r go shower
23:11 < @mark_alec> speak english good u
23:11 < @Redhatter-O2> Emu tastes good too
23:11 < @mark_alec> haven't ever had emu
23:11 < @Redhatter-O2> But it's bloody fast food.
23:12 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: ostrich too 
23:12 < @beu> astral projection goes well with sheep
23:12 < @mark_alec> i had crocodile once, but it was in a sausage so i couldn't
tell what it was like
23:12 < @mark_alec> astral projection++
23:12 < @beu> hah
23:12 < @Redhatter-O2> (Think, the kyote running after the road runner, knife
and fork in hand)
23:12 < @phreak``> beu: you like sheep pretty much eh ? 
23:12  * beu nods 
23:12 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: heh
23:13 < @Redhatter-O2> Only thing about camping in the bush... you've gotta
watch out for the bloody drop bears.
23:13 < @mark_alec> lol
23:14  * mark_alec remembers ad on TV for that
23:14 < @Redhatter-O2> You'll set your tent up, camp nice and comfortable...
then a flaming bear will drop out of the tree, crush your
tent... then chase you out of the campsite.
23:14 < @mark_alec> how many chicks have you picked up with that story?
23:14 < @beu> haha
23:15 < @Redhatter-O2> It's true!
23:16  * mark_alec has rescued many a damsel in distress from the bears
23:18 < @Redhatter-O2> I've seen many near misses on my camping trips.
23:18 < @Redhatter-O2> Never managed to get a shot of one though... they're
quite camera shy.
23:19 < @ian> riiiight
23:19 < @ian> 
23:20 < @Redhatter-O2> ian: You don't believe me?
23:20 < @mark_alec> http://www.bloggerheads.com/images/dropbear.jpg
23:20 < @mark_alec> ^ that is what i save people camping from
23:22 < @ian> silly bears
23:22 < @phreak``> mark_alec: err, that beast has some pretty longish teeth
23:22 < @Redhatter-O2> phreak``: They're nasty... you don't want to cross one.
23:23 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: imagined that .. looks like a crossing between
tiger and koala
23:25 < @mark_alec> good night, double maths in the morning at school tomorrow
23:25 < @antarus> "A drop bear (or dropbear) is a fictitious Australian
marsupial supposedly related to the koala"
23:26 < @mark_alec> s/fictitious/real
23:26 < @lu_zero> dropbear?
23:26 < @lu_zero> as in userfriendly?
23:26 < @mark_alec> scroll up, they are very scary
23:27 < @antarus> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_snake
23:27 < @lu_zero> it's just a koala smiling
23:31 < @Redhatter-O2> antarus: Don't believe everything Wikipedia says.
23:35 < @antarus> Redhatter-O2: heh  

I’ll see if I can dig up the particular podcast from Spoonman’s talkback show where they’re mentioned. But they are a very real danger. Travellers bewarned.

Update: I finally got around to looking at my archives… it seems it was mentioned Tuesday the 8th of August, however, it didn’t make it into the podcast. Due to legal reasons, I don’t think I can publish the recording I have.

Hi All…

A few days ago I mentioned I’d be uploading the new stage 3 tarball for Gentoo/MIPS… I’ve now done this, and for now, you can find it in my devspace. Cobalt users… please give this stageball a try and report back… I’d like to get things checked out early before I get it pushed out to the mirrors.

Also needing attention, is the handbook. My draft version has been updated with the new profiles I mentioned in my last post, as well as other corrections. Any typos, mistakes, ommissions… please let me know.

Regards,
Stuart Longland

I’ve finally completed the Gentoo 2006.1 stage 3 tarball… I’ll hopefully be uploading this on Tuesday when I’m next at uni.

Over the next week, I’ll be updating the handbook, and putting together some new netboot images. Things to look out for — the profiles have moved somewhat since the last release.

The profiles are now arranged as follows (Comments mine):

stuartl@beast /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/mips $ find . -type f -name make.defaults -exec dirname {} \;

Outdated 2006.0 profiles
./cobalt/2006.0
./mips64/ip28/2006.0
./mips64/multilib/2005.1
./mips64/multilib
./mips64/multilib/2006.0
./mips64/n32/2006.0
./mips64/2006.0
./2006.0

New profiles
./2006.1/cobalt/o32/nptl Cobalt with NPTL (not ready for production use)
./2006.1/cobalt/o32 Cobalt (using linuxthreads, recommended for Cobalt users)

Generic Big Endian profiles (including SGI Indy, Indigo2 R4x00, O2)
./2006.1/generic-be/n32/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/n32
./2006.1/generic-be/n64/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/n64
./2006.1/generic-be/o32/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/o32

Profile for SGI Origin 200/2000
./2006.1/ip27/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip27/n32
./2006.1/ip27/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip27/o32

Profile for SGI Indigo2 Impact R10000
./2006.1/ip28/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip28/n32
./2006.1/ip28/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip28/o32

Profiles for SGI Octane/Octane2
./2006.1/ip30/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip30/n32
./2006.1/ip30/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip30/o32

You’ll also notice… we’re working on NPTL support on MIPS. The new glibc-2.4 no-longer includes support for linuxthreads, and thus all architectures are migrating across. NPTL support requires gcc-4.1, kernel 2.6.17, and use of the NPTL profiles. This is a work in progress and is not recommended unless you know what you’re doing. It is recommended people stick to using linuxthreads until things are stable using NPTL.

As mentioned earlier… this will be going into the handbook. If people have any questions… feel free to drop in, we lurk in #gentoo-mips on irc.freenode.net.