2023-10-28 | Reading, Sci-Fi
My lovely friend Nick recommended this Andy Weir novel to me. I’d read The Martian previously, so jumped PHM immediately. I was in the depths of being frustrated with Shantaram at the time, so jumping onto something fun and interesting was an easy decision to make.
I loved the premise of the book, and the unlikely-hero trope. I found Grace frustrating as a character, but I get the feeling that I was meant to.
I enjoyed the thought that Weir put into the alien non-humanoid design and language, and their scientific limitations.
Largely an enjoyable book, and I look forward to the film.
2023-10-28 | Reading
I couldn’t do it. I don’t give up on many books. But with Shantaram I just couldn’t make it all the way through. I’ve never read a more unbelievable self-aggrandising autobiography. I got to when he’s in Afghanistan, and I completely lost interest.
I think there are things that you can learn about the world from reading Shantaram, but you need to filter out so much trash. The signal to noise ratio is not high enough.
One star. Maybe 2.
2023-06-21 | Tech
I recently spun up a Rocket.Chat server using Linode/Akamai’s pre-rolled scripts, and it mostly worked well. The main issue being that the URI included in all the emails was stuck as the host name of the server rather than the site-url as set in the settings.
The fix is as follows
First of all connect to the server console (be it via LISH or SSH or however). Install the Mongo database client
sudo apt install mongodb-clients
Connect to the database by running
mongo
Select the parties database
use parties
Run a query to find the Site_Url setting and confirm that the correct URI is set in “value” and the incorrect URI is set in “packageValue”
db.rocketchat_settings.find({"_id" : "Site_Url"}).pretty()
Run a query to update “packageValue” to the correct URI (replace <correct URI> with your URI)
db.rocketchat_settings.update({"_id" : "SiteUrl"},{$set:{packageValue:"<correct URI>"}})
Repeat the find query to make sure the change was made. Reboot the server and the problem should be solved.
2023-05-17 | Reading
I’m about a third of the way through Shantaram. Lots of people have told me that I need to read it, and that it’ll change my life. I’m always sceptical about bold claims. Especially life-changing ones. But now that I’m a third of the way through, I think that it will have a profound impact on my life. We’ll see. Stand by.
The thing I feel most confident about at the moment about Shantaram is that it’s an exercise in embellishment.
2023-05-06 | Family, Food
No, not like that.
6 years (and 4 days) ago, my eldest son went into the operating theatre, where the doctors were going to extract about a pint (imperial pint, not a fake South Australian pint) of bone-marrow. They do this with individual five millilitre syringes, one at a time. 120 of them. Anyway – let’s not dwell on that bit. This bone-marrow was for my other son who was 7 days into conditioning chemo as part of treatment for leukaemia.
It was terrible and difficult and shit, but also incredible. Because it worked, and I think we even had a pretty “easy” run compared to others. He’s here on the couch in the living room watching Survivor. Which is apt, now that I think about it.
Because he didn’t have any immune system until the bone-marrow took hold and started growing and producing cells, he was isolated in hospital. Triple doors. Positive pressure room. Two non-parent, non-medical, non-hospital-staff visitors. Total, for the whole time he was in there.
That whole time was tipped to be about 60-100 days.
And this is why I think we had an “easy” run. Because 34 days later he was out of the hospital and we were living in an apartment near the hospital while we finalised a few things before travelling back to Adelaide. Semi-isolation.
The hospital food was, by all reports, drab. So the first dinner out of hospital with “real” food had to be special, but still had to be home-cooked and fresh because of infection risks.
I was asked to make Massaman curry, and seeing that food disappear without any negotiating was incredibly special.
On that day Massaman became the most emotional and meaningful meal I can cook for my family, and I often have a quiet little moment with myself when I do.
Recipe has been requested. Here goes. If an ingredient doesn’t have a quantity listed, it calls for “some” of it where where “some” is what feels right.
1/4 cup peanuts
2 shallots (or half an onion)
5 cloves of garlic
inch-cube of ginger (ish)
1-2 chillies
lemongrass
ground cumin
ground coriander
small amount of nutmeg
cinnamon
cloves (1 or 2)
cardamom (black stuff, not with the pods)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 teaspoon shrimp paste
Potatoes
Peas (this is purely optional, but is how I cooked it on that night 6 years ago, so….that’s how it remains)
Put everything (except the potatoes, peas) in a blender with a bit of coconut milk and blend into a smooth paste.
Brown some meat, then add the paste and the remainder of the tin of coconut milk.
Cook until tender, adding water as required. Dice the potatoes and chuck them in and cook until it’s all done. Some more peanuts and the peas at the end.
Serve on rice.
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