stuff 'n other stuff

If you’ve been following my main, technical, blog, you’ll know that its not all computers, history and possible anglo saxon travellers chez Moncur, but that there’s a bit of relaxation as well, even if it’s predictably geeky and involves reading detective novels set in classical times.

Well I did enjoy the Pericles Commission. A lot.

And if you did so, like me, you’re probably wondering when the sequel is coming out.  Wonder no longer – it’s out on November 08 in the States, and what’s more, if you’re really desperate  both Amazon.co.uk and BookDepository are accepting pre orders …

Universities:

QUT, UQ and Griffith all have working webservers and are posting updates, as is JCU’s Brisbane campus. Anyone seeking information on these institutions should check their websites directly.

USQ in Toowoomba is back up and running

Cultural Institutions

The State Library and Art Gallery web servers remain offline. According to an article in the Art Newspaper, there has been no damage to the gallery collections.

Not surprisingly, the various institutions websites are very slow –  here is a summary of what I have been able to glean (updated 13/01/2011)

Museums and Libraries

• Queensland state library – ground floors emptied. Picture at http://twitpic.com/3p7zbs : Closed today 13/01/2011
• Queensland gallery of modern art. Closed until 14/01/2011. Updates at www.twitter.com/QAGGOMA
• Queensland museum – server offline but google cached copy states museum closed until 14/01/2011
• ABC news report on closure of South bank arts precinct

Universities

• Griffith University – South bank campus closed until further notice
• QUT – All facilities closed today 13/01. Full details at http://www.qut.edu.au/floodnews.html. Garden Point and Caboolture closed until the end of the week, all exams cancelled.
• University of Queensland – St Lucia campus closed today 13/01. Full details at http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=22490
• James Cook University (Brisbane) closed until 17/01/2011 – updates at http://www.jcub.edu.au/

last updated 11:31 13/01/2011 AEST

My mother, who died a couple of years ago just short of her ninetieth birthday would sometimes mention Basque refugees.

This always seemed unlikely, as she was living in Montrose in Scotland, far away from the civil war in Spain. However, as my grandmother was C M Grieve’s ( aka Hugh McDermid’s) landlady at the time I’m sure she would have known what was happening.

Now, I just happened to be looking for photographs of the old nineteenth century wooden train station in Montrose – the North British railway station, not the Caledonian one. (I always thought the old wooden station should have been heritage listed, but it has since been replaced in the late eighties with a minamalist modern one.)

Anyway I came across a site recording the history of Basque refugee children, which included a picture of them arriving at Montrose station in 1937, and yes there was indeed a Basque refugee children’s colony in Mall Park house in Montrose …

Normally, I track a few student newspapers, Varsity (Cambridge), Cherwell (Oxford) and the Stanford daily (Stanford) as every so often they pick up on something that I would otherwise have missed, and would possibly have tweeted.

Well I’ve been a bit remiss in following the Stanford Daily recently, so here’s three things that I should have picked up on

• Americans in Paris: BOSP students report on country-wide strikes
• Google to beta-test its fiber network on Stanford homes
• Technology goes viral, literally