StevePavlina.com - Personal Development for Smart People

It isn't very often I get the urge to link out to someone's website, especially someone that I don't even know, but tonight I have that urge.

After being on a bit of a mission to find more time in my day for myself as well as for others, I came across Steve Pavlina's website. Steve has written a whole bunch of articles on the topic of self-improvment, and they are all of a very high quality.

I won't say too much more about the site here, except that he has a lot of wonderful therories to make many aspects of your life more stable/organised/better. And these theories make sense, and just might be the answers I was after.

If you feel like you could use some information of this type, please check out Steve's website at http://www.stevepavlina.com/index.htm

-dopefish

Tropical Cyclone Larry - Bunnings Townsville helps out with Disaster Relief

As most of our forum / blog readers are probably well aware, there are a few reputable charities and organisations accepting donations for the people affected by Tropical Cyclone Larry.

Add another well known organisation to that list.

Almost every day, Bunnings Hardware Townsville have a sausage sizzle running for lunch. Pricing is really quite good. Today and tomorrow however, all money made from their sausage sizzle is being sent to the victims of TC Larry, instead of going to Bunnings' pockets! :o)

Tropical Ice will also be at the event tomorrow doing their part. I am not exactly sure of how big their involvement with things is, but they are definitely stepping up to help out.

SO! If you are in Garbutt tomorrow with some spare time or if you are on your lunch break, stop in at Bunnings Hardware and hit the sausage sizzle. I hit it today, and my stomach was totally satisfied, and it was good knowing my money was going to help out the people affected by TC Larry.

Out for now.

-dopefish

Tropical Cyclone Larry - Damage Reports

Townsville's damage from what I can tell is minimal. In saying that, I have not been further than the balcony today, but people are casually wandering around the pub, which by the way is open for business.

Click Here for the forum thread with
on-location cyclone reports,
posted when possible.

Townsvillian's checking out the weir overflowing.

A solitary palm leaf blown away from it's home.

The weir overflowing. A rare occurance.

I have spoken to Iori in Cairns and he speaks of plenty of flattened trees and some serious damage to property, although nothing compared to what has been experienced in Innisfail. Iori's parents stayed in contact with him throughout the storm and have basically informed us that Innisfail city is not what it used to be. All of the "cyclone proof" buildings in the area had been designed to take on winds of up to 160Km/H or so, and they received almost double that figure. Hence, those houses are no more. We are still yet to have any sort of photos or imagery come through, but from what has been said, damage is huge. Will report more when it becomes available.

There are damage reports and stories from people in the affected areas in the forum thread. Click here to view the thread.

Out for now.

Tropical Cyclone Larry

As I am sure you are all aware, there is a large, powerful cyclone off the coast of North Queensland (category 4 at time of writing).

Click Here for the forum thread with
on-location cyclone reports,
posted when possible.

UPDATE @ 7.41AM 2006/03/20
I have spoken to Iori via SMS. Iori is currently residing in Cairns. The power in Cairns has been unstable but now it is completley out. He has had a chance to make a coffee thismorning while watching all the trees bending like "a fucking Russian gymnast!". His words, not mine. :o)
Cairns is also apparently getting "pounded like a bitch in a porno". Again, not my words...

His parents in South Johnstone are reporting that they have had a beating too, and are currently in the eye of the cyclone at the time of this entry. Keeping fingers crossed that the main damage has been done and there is not too much more that will be destroyed.

There are more reports from locations up the coast in the relavant forum thread, found at the link on top of this page.

Out for now...

UPDATE @ 2.29AM 2006/03/20
For a slightly lighter read, threeseven has posted a modified version of our front page cyclone tips at http://www.threeseven.org. Check it out!


UPDATE @ 12.47AM 2006/03/20
BoM have issued a new Tropical Cyclone warning and it can be found here.

A quick reminder to all, please don't be complacent. Make sure you have done all of the important things.

• Bring in loose items from around your yard.
  
• Secure boats and trailers.
  
• Fill up plenty of water bottles as water treatment plant can break down under these types of extremes, and if this is the case the town water can be shut off. You cannot have too much water.
  
• Have tinned food on hand. The rule is, have something to eat, something to cook on, and something to eat with. Remember the can opener!
  
• Have spare batteries and battery powered radio and torch.
• Cell phones charged, keep charger handy all the time we have power.
• Fuel up all vehicles and make sure all oil and water levels are ok.
• Fill up gas bottles and make sure you have a good supply of matches.
• Make sure you have a good pair of shoes handy in case you need to walk through cloudy/dirty water.
• Make sure you have all prescription medicines with you if you decided to leave home.
• Turn off gas and hot water heaters in the home.
• Don't forget your toothbrush.
• Get money out from an ATM. If comms links are cut, you may be without access to your accounts for several days (or more).
  

That is a very basic list of essentials. Just do whatever you need to do to be safe. If you think your house may not be safe for a big cyclone and your neighbour has a nice big brick house, don't be shy to ask your neighbour to sit out the storm in their house.

Following is a top priority cyclone advice from the BOM, issued at 4.51pm Sunday March 19, 2006.

(Please check the BOM website or listen to the radio for updated information as this may be out of date by the time you read it.)

IDQP0005
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Queensland
Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre

Media: For immediate broadcast. Transmitters in the area Cape Tribulation to
Mackay are requested to use the Standard Emergency Warning Signal.


TOP PRIORITY
TROPICAL CYCLONE ADVICE NUMBER 11
Issued by the Bureau of Meteorology, Brisbane
Issued at 4:51pm on Sunday the 19th of March 2006

A Tropical Cyclone WARNING is now current for coastal and island communities
from Cape Tribulation to Mackay, and extending to inland areas about Croydon, Greenvale and Charters Towers.

A Tropical Cyclone Watch extends inland to near the Normanton area.

At 4 pm AEST Sunday, Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry, category 4 with central
pressure 935 hectopascals, was centred in the Coral Sea near latitude 17.6 south
and longitude 149.7 east, about 390 km east of Innisfail. The cyclone is
expected to intensify further, and move in a general westerly direction at about
25 km/h over the next 24 hours. The centre of Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry is
likely to be near the Queensland coast early Monday morning.

Damaging winds with gusts to 120 km/h are expected to develop about the
Whitsunday Islands late this afternoon, and extend to the coast between Cape
Tribulation and Mackay tonight.

Very destructive winds may develop on the coast between Cairns and Bowen on
Monday morning, with maximum wind gusts reaching 280 km/h near the centre of the cyclone.

Coastal residents between Cairns and Townsville are specifically warned of the
dangerous storm tide as the cyclone crosses the coast. The sea is likely to
steadily rise up to a level which will be significantly above the normal tide,
with damaging waves, strong currents and flooding of low-lying areas extending
some way inland. People living in areas should be prepared to evacuate if
advised by authorities.

A preliminary flood warning has been issued for coastal rivers and streams
between Innisfail and Mackay.

Details of Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry, Category 4, for 4 pm AEST Sunday
Central Pressure : 935 Hectopascals
Location of Centre : within 20 kilometres of
latitude 17.6 degrees south
longitude 149.7 degrees east
about 390 kilometres east of Innisfail
Recent Movement : West at 25 kilometres per hour
Destructive winds : out to 120 kilometres from the centre
Maximum wind gusts : 240 kilometres per hour, intensifying

People between Cape Tribulation and Mackay and the adjacent inland should
complete preparations before nightfall, especially the protection of boats and other property.

People over inland areas around Normanton and Croydon should consider what
action they will need to take if the cyclone threat increases.

The next advice will be issued at 8 pm AEST Sunday.

This warning is also available through TV and Radio Broadcasts; the Bureau's
website at www.bom.gov.au or call 1300 659 212. The Bureau and the State
Emergency Service would appreciate this warning being broadcast regularly.

If anyone can think of anything important left off of the prep list, don't hesitate to leave suggestions in the comments.

2006/03/19 UPDATE: There is a thread on the forums related to TC Larry. Click Here for the thread.

Once again. Everyone do your bit, be alert, be safe, and I'll see everyone after the storm.

-dopefish

Server relocation.

Hey everyone. A server relocation is about to occur for Accidental-Discharge and a few other sites hosted on the same server. Please see the email attached from the server administrators for more information. We may lose a couple of recent forum posts during the changeover, as described below.

If you have any more questions, leave a comment to this post. (It will not be affected as comments are on an external server.)

Hi,
Our tests on the new servers have gone well, and we're now ready to start moving accounts across. We'll be starting the process off late tonight (should only take a couple of hours for the actual accounts to be transferred across) and we'll then switch our dns records across once that's done. There should be minimal to no actual downtime of your website, however for database driven sites, you may lose a small amount of data during the period between the account being moved across to the new server, and when the new dns kicks in (probably around 12-1am for about 30 mins). If you run batch jobs etc late at night then we advise that you either run the batch early in the night (before 11pm), or in the morning to save any problems. The old servers will remain up for the rest of this month as well as having our remote backup server should anything go wrong, but it's always a good idea to get an up to date backup of any important files anyway. We've extended the maintenance window to tomorrow to ensure that any loose ends can be corrected however we expect there to be no problems.

Once all the accounts are across and everything is smooth sailing, we'll have another update with a couple of additional services (possibly an upgrade to 1000mbit connections :) ).

FYI, if you're account is on amun server (current IP 67.19.218.250) the new IP will be 66.228.120.162
If you're on isis server (current IP 67.19.219.2) the new IP will be 66.228.10.163
If you're on another server, we'll contact you individually with your new IP.

Regards,
Demon-Host Administration
www.demon-host.com