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Random observations

2003-04-30 13:31:38

Easter has come and gone for another year. The lead up to Easter was very, very busy for me. This semester I’ve been charged with creating and preparing two assignments for the fourth year distributed computing subject. On top of that comes marking and lab supervision. I also have to prepare samples for the two assignments.

We left for Caloundra and Fraser Island on Easter Sunday, and that meant I was struggling to get a sample solution finished. So I spent Good Friday and Saturday and a part of Easter Sunday coding. The students had a month to do a solution and I had two and a bit days! It got finished in the end!

Fraser Island was great, but it rained for two out of the three days that we were there. We did the Kingfisher Wilderness tour, and the ranger that took us around the island was fantastic. But next time I do Fraser it will be a proper camping trip I think. We saw a few dingos, but not too much other wildlife while we were there. I think the rain had a bit to do with this.

Ph.D work has been going slow since returning from the Easter break. I’m not feeling very motivated at the moment. Neither is Karen. As such, we’ve been having some strange conversations in the office to fill in time. Without divulging too much detail, the topics ranged from drugs and alcohol to relationships to crazy things we’ve done. Ryan also took part in these conversations. Why were they strange conversations? Well, we don’t talk about this kind of stuff very often in my office, but I hope we continue to do so, while getting some Ph.D work done at the same time. For some reason, I find it difficult to articulate myself to some people, and Karen is one of them. I don’t know why on Earth this should be the case, because I otherwise feel completely relaxed around her. But when I try to explain something to her, whether it be of an academic nature or otherwise, words tend to fail me. It’s stupid, and I often feel like an idiot. I have a feeling this used to happen with Ian at one stage a few years ago, but it doesn’t happen so much now, thankfully. This must be a psychological thing, I think.

Yesterday I participated in an experiment for some HCI students. The students gave me a number of tasks, one at a time, which involved navigating around the UQ library web site. I didn’t realise how badly the library site sucks. It really does. The main problem it suffers from is inconsistency. On some pages the link to go back to the library home page is on the left, and on others it’s at the top near the middle. It was a fun experiment. Netscape crashed midway through, which was amusing. I got two Freddo Frogs for my efforts. Thanks guys :).

Real knocked Man U out of the Champions League, but only just. Having won the first leg 3-1, Real lost the second leg 4-3. It was an absolutely brilliant game. I wish Real and Man U could play each other every week. That leaves only Real Madrid, Inter, AC Milan and Juventus in the competition. Real play Juve in one of the semi-finals and the two Milans battle it out in the other one. The Italian clubs have done well this year, but I don’t think any of them will be able to match it with Real. If they do, it will be a gross injustice. In my opinion the real final was played between Real Madrid and Manchester United, because I’m sure Manchester United would have accounted for all the Italian teams as well. But Madrid do deserve to win it again. Sometimes, it’s hard to turn a team full of stars into a star team, but Real Madrid is playing some really beautiful football, and del Bosque has got all the star players playing for each other. They could so easily have been an expensive flop. Instead they are amazing to watch and are, without doubt, the best club team in the world at the moment.

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-13 10:27:13

I need to start keeping a list of stuff I have to/want to read. I might also start keeping a list of stuff I have read. This should probably go on my Other Stuff page, but for now I’ll just dump a list here.

To Read

  • The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams (currently sitting on desk)
  • The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (currently sitting on floor next to bed)
  • The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (currently sitting on floor underneath The Communist Manifesto)
  • Tao te Ching authorship attributed to Lao Tzu, translated by D. C. Lau
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
  • A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

They’re the ones I can think of at the moment. Undoubtedly there are many more that I have to read, including the rest of the Discworld series.

Recently Read

  • The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (currently reading but almost finished)
  • Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-László Barabási (My Amazon review)
  • Sourcery by Terry Pratchet
  • How to Make Movies by Sidney Lumet

That’s a list of stuff I’ve read since February or so. I’m sure there’s some more fiction that should’ve been included in that list. Can’t have been very good then.

I feel like watching a sappy movie tonight, so may watch Addicted to Love with Meg Ryan on Channel 9.

Nigel just pulled into the driveway after driving from Caloundra.

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-09 23:33:02

It appears my fears of a long street battle in Iraq are unfounded. The US has captured much of Baghdad, and most of the Iraqi civilians are celebrating the fall of Saddam Hussein. All I can say is "thank goodness for this!&quot A statue of Saddam has been felled and its head dragged around the streets. Although it’s possible the war for Baghdad could be protracted, at the moment this seems unlikely. The faster Baghdad is secured, the faster the search for chemical and biological weapons can begin, afterall this was the stated reason and the trigger for this war, so they’d better find some. Now that this war has been fought against the wishes of much of the world (including my wishes), it would be disastrous if chemical or biological weapons are not found.

So far I have marked one COMP4301 assignment. Hopefully I can mark a few more today.

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-04 15:17:23

Tennis got rained out today, so Boggo and I went to the Pig ‘n’ Whistle instead. There was a half decent band doing covers, and quite enjoyed the music.

We’ve settled on a house mate. She will move into the room in two weeks, because she has to give two week’s notice to her current house mate/landlord. Her name is Sylvie Elsa and she’s from France. She speaks Spanish and she’s vegetarian, which is excellent for me! I’m sure I’ll get along with her, and I hope Nigel and Riko can get along with her as well.

Riko suggested we have a BBQ at South Bank last night. It was very pleasant, and we should make more use of the facilities at South Bank because it is so close. The BBQs are electric. You just push a button and let it go. However, the first BBQ we tried wasn’t heating up properly, so it took us rather longer than it should have to cook our dinner! The second BBQ we tried heated up straight away, and cooked our food in a matter of a few minutes.

The allies have started using cluster bombs against the Iraqis. It was only a matter of time before they resorted to horrible weapons like these. It is such a strange situation: the allies are using banned weapons in an illegal war that has as its objective to rid Iraq of banned weapons.

Turkey looks to have accepted $US1 billion in bribes from the US. Turkey have agreed not to get involved in northern Iraq. I suppose bribing Turkey is a outcome than the possible mess that could have eventuated if Turkey had decided to cross Iraq’s northern border. I wonder whether Saddam Hussein would have accepted $US1 billion in bribes to step down as President of Iraq. I don’t suppose so, since he lived in luxury anyway. I don’t suppose more money would have meant much to him.

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-01 15:00:47

I have instituted a backup system for my blog database. It consists of a cron entry that runs every Sunday and dumps all the data in the database to a gzipped file. This will protect my blogging system from my stupidity, but it won’t protect it from a crashed hard disk or a fire etc. I’ll need to backup the backup somewhere. Hmm…

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-01 13:27:38

I just watched a documentary spoof on SBS called Dark Side of the Moon. It was one of the most elaborate April Fools’ Day jokes I’ve ever seen. I also can’t believe the number of really famous people they managed to convince to participate in the joke: Donald Rumsfeld, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, one or two ex-Directors of the CIA and many others. It was very well done, but it had me cracking up a little prematurely.

Riko is helping Sebastian to find accomodation. I still feel like a bastard.

Categories
Random observations

2003-04-01 01:37:34

I feel like a complete arsehole. Riko and I went to meet Sebastian, the guy who thought we’d given him the room, at the Youth Hostel he was staying in. He was ready to leave. Riko tried to explain that we had not agree to him moving in. He couldn’t see why he was not allowed to move in, as there was a room available, and he wanted it. We explained to him that there had been a total misunderstanding and lack of communication on our part. I explained that when he introduced himself to me as ‘your new housemate’, I understood that Riko and Nigel had already agreed that he could move in, and that I was going along with this. Then I explained that subsequent discussions revealed this not to be the case at all. I feel really, really bad for him. I can’t explain how bad. I think I would have gotten on quite well with Sebastian.

We have now instituted a strict house mate vetting policy. It will be made clear to all potential room mates from the beginning that before accepting them, we all need to have a chat together first. The documents need to be signed, and only then can the person move in. For some reason, both the potentials that Riko has brought to our house have automatically assumed that they can take the room on the spot. Riko says that it must be because of the way he is telling them about the room.