taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

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Originally uploaded by jmason.

The view from Sorrell Hill, Co. Wicklow, facing north.

Looks lovely, doesn’t it! Well, here’s the view in the opposite direction. ;) We got a great reminder of the mercurial nature of an Irish April. This panorama captures the whole story.

Tags: countryside, hiking, ireland, photos, rain, soggy, storms, weather, wicklow

Well, I’m back… it appears that Google Maps link I posted wasn’t too much use in deciphering where I was going; sorry about that. Myself and C spent a fun week and a bit, driving up to Kings Canyon and Yosemite, backpacking around for a few days, then driving back down via the 395 via Bishop, Mammoth Lakes, Lone Pine and so on.

Kings Canyon: Unfortunately, not so much fun; we had the bad luck of encountering what must be the tail end of the mosquito season, and spent most of our 2 days there running up and down the Woods Creek trail without a break, entirely surrounded by clouds of mozzies. Possibly this headlong dashing explains how we ran into so much other wildlife — including a (harmless) California Mountain King Snake and, less enjoyably — and despite wearing bear bells on our packs to avoid this – a black bear…

We rounded a corner on the trail, and there it was, munching on elderberries. Once we all spotted each other, there were some audible sounds of surprise from both bear and humans, and the bear ran off in the opposite direction; the humans, however, did not. We were about 500 feet from our camp for the night, so we needed to get past where the bear had been, or face a long walk back.

Despite some fear (hey, this was our first bear encounter!), we stuck around, shouted, waved things, and took the various actions you take. It all went smoothly, the bear had probably long since departed, but we took it slow regardless, and had a very jittery night in our tent afterwards. After that, and the unceasing mozzie onslaught, we were in little hurry to carry on around the planned loop, so we cut short our Kings Canyon trip by a day and just returned down the trail to its base.

Yosemite: a much more successful trip. There were many reasons, primarily that the mosquito population was much, much lower, and discovering that the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge – comfortable tent cabins, excellent food, and fantastic company — provided a truly excellent base camp.

But I’d have to say that the incredible beauty of Tuolumne Meadows and the Vogelsang Pass really blew me away. I don’t think I’ve seen any landscape quite like that, since trekking to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal. I’m with John Muir — Yosemite and its surrounds are a wonder of the world.

Lee Vining: had to pick up a sarnie at the world-famous Whoa Nellie Deli. Yum! After all the camping, we stayed in a hotel with TV, got some washing done, and watched scenes from a J.G. Ballard novel play out on NBC and CNN. Mind-boggling.

Mammoth Lakes: A quick kvetch. Mammoth is possibly the most pedestrian-hostile town I’ve ever visited. They have a hilarious section of 100 feet of sidewalk, where I encountered a fellow pedestrian using those ski-pole-style hiking walking sticks, and entirely in seriousness. Was the concept of walking so foreign in that town that long-distance walking accessories were required? I don’t know, but it didn’t make up for the other 90% of the streets where peds were shoved off onto the shoulder, in full-on ’sidewalk users aren’t welcome here’ Orange County style.

On top of that, the single pedestrian crossing in the main street spans five lanes of traffic, with no lighting, warning signs, or indeed any effective way for drivers to know whether peds were crossing or not. Unsurprisingly we nearly got run over when we tried using the damn thing. Best avoided.

I’m amazed — it’s like they designed the town to be ped-hostile. Surely allowing peds to get around your town is a bonus when you’re a ski resort for half of the year? Meh.

Anyway, back again, a little refreshed. Once more into the fray…

Tags: backpacking, bears, california, camping, fun, hiking, kings-canyon, lee-vining, mammoth-lakes, national-parks, tuolomne-meadows, vacation, wildlife, yosemite

I’m taking a week off to go hiking in some of the amazing back country that California has to offer. Assuming I don’t get eaten by a bear, I’ll see you all around Sep 6….

Tags: bear, country, hiking, sep, week

Patents: I’m just back from a fantastic holiday weekend, totally offline, hiking through Catalina Island. I’m a little bit sunburnt, my nose is peeling, but it was great fun. I got a fantastic picture of the sun setting over hundreds of boats bobbing at their moorings in Two Harbors, which I must upload at some stage.

Anyway, it seems that over the weekend, the EU software-patents debate has swung back heavily towards the anti-swpat side. Fingers crossed — the vote is this week.

Also, today, EUpolitix.com has an interview with Charlie McCreevy, quoting him as saying:

‘The theme, or the background music, to both of these particular directives (the CII and Services Directives) you could see as part of, anti-globalisation, anti-Americanism, anti-big business protests – in lots of senses, anti-the opening up of markets’

This is standard practice for the Irish government — they did exactly the same thing with the e-voting issue, painting the ICTE as ‘linked to the anti-globalisation movement’. (I have a feeling they think that any group organised online must be ‘anti-globalisation’, at this stage.)

Of course, with these accusations of being anti-free-market, it’s important to remember that a patent is a government-issued monopoly on an invention (or in the software field, on an idea), in a particular local jurisdiction. If anything, being against software patenting is a pro-free-market position, one shared by prominent US libertarians; and nothing gets more pro-free-market than those guys. ;)

Tags: bit, fun, hiking, holiday, nose, offline, patents, software, stage, sunburnt, weekend

Life: so myself and C took a one-night-only trip up to Idyllwild this weekend, hiking up to that rock formation and camping overnight. Great fun.

The rock is called ‘Suicide Rock’. It’s good to see morbid naming is international, but I should note that the prize for best placenames has to go to Victoria, Australia’s Mount Buggery, though.

(I drove past Mt. Buggery last year, and, disappointingly, it seems they’ve renamed it on the official maps. But the other ‘I can’t believe we’re still crossing this bloody mountain range and haven’t made it to Melbourne yet’ placenames still exist.)

Language: Riverbend blog notes interesting trivia in passing: Winnie the Pooh, in Arabic, is ‘Winnie Dabdoob’.

Open Source: GROKLAW on the WSIS fiasco earlier this summer. Briefly, the WSIS — the World Summit on the Information Society — came out with a position pro-open-source, and quite a few large companies seemed to say ‘eek!’ and promptly lobbied as hard as they could to give that line a vasectomy.

Interestingly, they did the same to the spam-related positions, cutting ‘a number of proposals, including prosecution of spammers’ down to a watery ‘take appropriate action on spam at national and international levels’. Snore. Fantastic work, guys.

Weblogs: When did Boing Boing stop taking comments? (looks) seems to be around about this entry of Sep 10. As far as I can see, this is the last comments page.

Shame — I’m with Jeremy on this one.

Dublin: is this entry, by London’s 3W the real winner of the competition to design the new U2 studio in Dublin’s Sir John Rogerson’s Quay?

Tags: boing, entry, formation, fun, hiking, idyllwild, life, rock, trip, weekend, wsis