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PyLucene and Java to Python Doc hacking

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 7 months ago

Have been playing around with PyLucene which is a native-compiled Python version of Lucene, a Java text indexing and searching package.

Grief and celebration

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, views 19 years, 7 months ago

The last two months have been full of emotions of all shades...
Maurits and Kirsten's wedding on December the 18th. Fantastic celebration. Came out to discover that one of our friends from antenatal class's gorgeous baby Justin had died the night before, apparently of SIDS. Danielle used to meet up with his mum Kathy and some other mums. Heartbreaking grief.
Then Christmas celebrations with lots of family and friends (was great having MJ and then Brett and Jo to stay) and Jonny and Debbie's wedding.
Danielle's parents came to stay as well for about 10 days in early January, great for us all to enjoy James developing together...
Then on Saturday 16th of January received a tragic phone call from my brother Andrew telling us that Simon Pettit had died suddenly of a heart attack in New Zealand. Simon led Jubilee Community Church for 14 years and was a great-hearted man. He ran to the end, always pointing upwards. Danielle and I were so privileged to have been on a trip with him to India in 2002. Almost every discussion I had with him made me see the issue in a totally different light. So full of life, it seems impossible.
The afternoon after his funeral, a young man in our church who has been suffering from a brain tumour died. His parents have been absolutely courageous.
Then on the 28th of January, one of my dad's oldest friends, Brian Hahn was attacked on the university campus and critically wounded. He eventually suffered a stroke and became unconscious the following wednesday, and died on Saturday the 5th of February. This has been really tough for my dad - they founded a Christian newspaper on campus while they were still students. He spoke at the memorial service today.
And in the midst of all this, I'm thoroughly enjoying being married to Danielle and a father to James. "Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief" (Proverbs 14:3) has come to mind repeatedly. The New Testament seems to have a much deeper understanding of suffering than we tend to as well, been pondering these things. And praying for family members whose loss is profoundly deeper than mine.

Pootle ideas

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 8 months ago

Have managed to fix up the Pootle registration process, and set up a Pootle mailing list for any discussion.

Free Software Magazine

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 8 months ago

It's really worth taking a look through the Free Software Magazine

Simplifying RedHat Enterprise testing

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 8 months ago

Today packaging some stuff up for a client who runs RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.0

Debbie and Jonny's Wedding

Posted by: david in family-news, old-invention-blog 19 years, 8 months ago

My sister Debbie got married yesterday! What a fantastic wedding, on Oudekraal beach in Cape Town, with the mountains and the sea ... the wedding just seemed to reflect Debbie and Jonny so well. Celebration, Worship, Community, Joy.

they danced by the light of the moon

Christmas

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 9 months ago

Having had many deadlines with my St James Software work, I haven't had a chance to respond to many Pootle / translate enquiries as I would have liked to. (Fortunately I've been making progress there, it's been nice to get things finished off). Anyway I leave them all marked unread until I do - now have exactly 100 unread messages in my translate list mail folder.

Pootle Test Installation Live

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 9 months ago

We've put up a live version of Pootle at pootle.wordforge.org, kindly hosted by my employer, St James Software

The Free Software Platform

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, tech 19 years, 9 months ago

Aaron J. Siego thinks that porting too much open source software to Windows will kill open source on the desktop.

Preached at Jubilee on Building the Church with Gold, Silver and Precious Stones

Posted by: david in old-invention-blog, views 19 years, 9 months ago

Preached at Jubilee last Sunday night on building with gold, silver and precious stones - how we build the church.
Included this great version of the three little pigs ("Wolf-Side story"?) and a picture of the Taj Mahal, contrasted with the Cardboard House mentioned last week on Slashdot.
What kind of church are we after? Something temporary or something permanent, something functional, or something of beauty? We need to build Love, Obedience, Passion for spreading God's glory (Jim Elliot quotes) as well as Persistent Prayer, Faithfulness and Commitment, Sacrifice and Suffering and Discipleship. We need to avoid building mere structure. Building on the precious foundation of Christ, building for eternity means we cannot settle for less. And God supplies the materials by his grace (v10) so we don't ever have to settle for less.
Felt like it was delivered OK, people encouraging afterwards. Presentation here [dead link] and low-quality MP3 here.

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