RickyRobinson.id.au

Category: Random observations

If it doesn’t fit elsewhere, it goes here.

  • Complete Lies: the answer

    I can sense that the tension out there on the web is near breaking point: the whole world is just dying to know which of my lies is actually a truth. Well, it’s number 5. I have never smoked tobacco.

    Biology was my preferred degree up until the last few days prior to making my final choices at the end of high school

    Actually, I almost ended up doing psychology. The switch to computer science was pretty much last-minute.

    I made my debut for the Northstar XXXX League U-19 team at the age of 15

    This one is almost true. I was 16 when I first played for the under 19 team.

    In 2002, I caused a two-car accident while riding a moped around a Greek Island

    While I did ride around a Greek Island in 2002, I did not cause any accidents as far as I know. Rhys can vouch for this one.

    With respect to US politics, I believe the Democrats are, in general, a worthier party than the Republicans

    In general, I do not believe the Democrats would be worthier of my vote if I happened to be an American citizen. While I don’t think that George Bush is much of a President (yes, that’s a gross understatement), the Republicans have done some pretty admirable things in their history, such as abolishing slavery. One can only hope that the GOP can produce a President with Lincoln’s conscience and eloquence again. I wonder what Abe would have thought of “nucular” weapons? It’s not necessarily that I think the Democrats are crap, just that they are not more worthy than the Republicans in general. Why do I even care about all this stuff, given that I’m an Australian? These days it’s impossible to have an interest in global affairs without having an interest in US politics. That’s just the world we live in at the moment.

    In 2003, I was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at Gilhooley’s in the city while partying with my cousins

    As previously explained, I’ve never been arrested for anything.

    So now you know.

  • Complete lies: follow up

    No, I’m not giving away the answer just yet (I’m not giving away the answer directly, anyway). But it seems certain quarters of the world have formed a rather dim view of my character, and I’ll be sure not to ask them to stand as a reference for me in the future. ;-)

  • Complete lies

    So Tinni has invited me to participate in a meme in which I need to list five complete and utter lies, and one truth. The first person to guess which is the true thing wins (the meme rules do not stipulate the nature of the prize, but I reckon another blog entry identifying the winner should suffice). So here goes:

      1. Biology was my preferred degree up until the last few days prior to making my final choices at the end of high school
      2. I made my debut for the Northstar XXXX League U-19 team at the age of 15
      3. In 2002, I caused a two-car accident while riding a moped around a Greek Island
      4. With respect to US politics, I believe the Democrats are, in general, a worthier party than the Republicans
      5. I have never smoked tobacco
      6. In 2003, I was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at Gilhooley’s in the city while partying with my cousins

        I tag the following people:

      • Strong AI by 2029

        Earlier this month, Ray Kurzweil presented a paper at the Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference which proclaimed that strong AI will be possible within the next 25 years: 2029, specifically, is the year he’s suggested a machine will first pass the Turing Test. If he’s right, what a time to be alive! Even if he’s wrong by a few decades, centuries or millennia, we’ve still got a lot to look forward to in our lifetimes. Techniques pioneered by AI researchers have been finding their way into mainstream applications for years, and this trend will continue as computing power increases and researchers invent ever-smarter algorithms.

        While I’m not sure strong AI will arrive quite as quickly as Kurzweil thinks it will, I’m firmly in the camp that thinks it will arrive one day. I see no reason to believe that the human brain (or any kind of “brain” for that matter) is endowed with some mystical property that provides its intelligence. Although Kurzweil’s timeframe seems a bit on the optimistic side, it will take only one or two propitious findings in the fields of computer science or neuroscience to catalyse AI research and bring the goal of strong AI much closer.

        Can’t wait!

      • A drive in the countryside

        It was nice to finally get a day where Karen and I could do whatever we felt like; we haven’t had one of those for a several months. We decided to just jump in the car and go for a drive. As it turned out, we headed down the Ipswich Motorway/Warrego Highway and turned onto the Brisbane Valley Highway towards Fernvale and Esk. We drove up past Fernvale and the Wivenhoe Dam, through Esk and turned off towards the Somerset Dam and Kilcoy. The countryside out there is absolutely bone dry, though it did drizzle a bit while we were driving through. We stopped at the Caboonbah Homestead: not much to see there. Cattle were grazing in the mostly dry bed of the Brisbane River. We were hoping to catch another glimpse of the Wivenhoe Dam, so we turned down the Wivenhoe-Somerset Road and headed back towards Fernvale. Remarkably, neither of us had ever been to Mount Glorious, so instead of going all the way back to Fernvale, we got onto the Northbrook Creek Road which took us up into the D’Aguilar Range. We stopped in Mount Glorious for lunch, at a little place called Coffee in the Forest. Coffee in the Forest is owned by Ken and Shirley Olley, who are better known for the production of organic honey, and there are numerous honey-based products for sale in their cafe. I can highly recommend the Ambrosia (honey mead). We bought a bottle of it after eating our meal of spring rolls, garlic rice, salad and sweet and sour sauce (the sweet component, of course, being provided by a honey base). Then we headed back to Brisbane via Samford. We stopped at the Eden Bistro in Bardon, having been recommended by Clinton, for coffee and cake. Very nice. Lovely view, too. Not yet satisfied that our day’s journey was circuitous enough, we explored various parts of Fig Tree Pocket and Chapel Hill, before finally returning home. A great day.

      • Classic look returns

        I had always intended to reinstate the original “Shades of Grey” look for The Thin Line after moving it to WordPress from my DIY blogging solution. Well, yesterday I finally found a bit of time to create a WordPress theme that comes fairly close to the look I originally created. Some people don’t care for it much, but I have this thing for grey. There will still be some bugs here and there, and the sidebar doesn’t look all that crash hot. Hopefully I’ll resolve these issues in the near future.

      • I guessed right

        After Zidane’s assult on Materazzi during the World Cup final, I was thinking to myself "either Materazzi insulted Zidane’s mother or he insinuated that Zidane was a terrorist because of his Algerian/Islamic background". Well it turns out that Materazzi did both of these things, although he denies it. Zidane has always had somewhat of a vindictive streak in him, but I’ve never seen him react to anything quite like that before, and never in such an important game. Slurs against his mother and his ethnicity are the surely the only things that could have provoked him to such violence.

      • Italy wins it

        Australia can have the satisfaction that it was knocked out by the eventual winners of the World Cup. Italy and France played out a 1-1 draw in the final, so it was decided by penalties. Italy, for once, managed to keep their nerve during the shoot out. Trezeguet was the only player to miss his penalty, with the ball striking the underside of the crossbar and coming back into the field of play. Amazingly, Zidane had scored from a very cheeky penalty in normal time, also striking the underside of the crossbar, but the ball crossed the goal line before bouncing back into the field of play.

        Italy had the better of the first half, but France completely dominated the second half and extra time with some brilliant moments provided by Malouda, Ribbery, Henry and Zidane. Italy had a goal disallowed for offside in one of their rare attacking moments of the second period. Zidane could have sealed victory in extra time with an unopposed header, but Buffon kept Italy in the game with an excellent save.

        Zidane was sent off in extra time for a blatant head-butt to Materazzi’s chest. Why, oh why oh why did you have to end your career like that Zizou? Nobody wants to remember Zinedine Zidane, surely one of the greatest players ever to have graced a football field, for that one moment of sheer stupidity.

      • Painful End to a Brilliant Journey

        Australia’s World Cup run has been halted by Italy, with the referee again a central figure to the drama. Totti scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot with the very last kick of the game, to send Italy through to the quarter finals. Kewell was absent from the biggest match in Australia’s history with a touch of gout. How we needed him. Italy had most chances to score in the first half, with Schwarzer pulling off some fine saves. At the beginning of the second half, the referee quite unbelievably sent off Materazzi for what was at worst a yellow card offence: he clumsily brought down Bresciano on the edge of the area. Italy were down to ten men. As was to be expected, Australia dominated the rest of the match. However, we were very unimaginative in attack. There were no incisive passes. Nobody was prepared to run at the Italian defence until Aloisi came on towards the end. He caused the Italians a few nervous moments, but we still had nothing to show for it. If it had gone to extra time, we might well have had something to show for it. Then, in the 94th minute, Grosso made his way into the Australian penalty area. Lucas Neill went to ground in an effort to dispell the danger. The challenge was mistimed, but Neill didn’t collect Grosso. Instead, Grosso made the most of the situation by stepping into the prone figure of Neill and went down. Penalty. Totti gave Schwarzer no chance with the kick. A truly awful way to be knocked out of the tournament, but Italy deserve credit for surviving so long with ten men.

        The Australian team have done the nation proud. It was a wonderful ride while it lasted. Revenge in four years.

      • We’re through!

        Australia came back twice from being a goal down to earn a draw with Croatia, which was enough to take us through to the round of sixteen. It was one of the hairiest ninety minutes of football I’ve ever sat through, and one of the weirdest as well. The referee again had an absolute shocker, failing to send one of the Croatians (Simunic) from the field after he’d received two yellow cards. The same player was later shown another yellow card and then a red card after the full-time whistle was blown. The ref also missed a clear handball and an obvious foul on Viduka, thereby denying Australia two cut-and-dry penalties. Finally, he appeared to blow the final whistle just as Tim Cahill stuck what would have been a winning goal in the back of the net! I won’t say anything about Zeljko Kalac except that he shouldn’t play another game for Australia at the World Cup. I shrieked with horror when I saw him in the starting lineup when the national anthem was played. My hotel room TV was lucky to survive after he made that absolute howler. Anyway, the 2-2 draw was enough to take us through, and that’s all that matters. Kewell’s goal was magic. He’s finally showing glimpses of the way he played for Leeds United when he was at the peak of his powers. He deserved a goal for the way he played, and I’m glad he got it. Lucas Neill has been absolutely top class for all three matches so far. He ought to be playing for a better team than Blackburn, and it wouldn’t surprise me if bigger clubs were interested in buying him. He’s composed under pressure and plays the ball intelligently out of defence instead of just whacking it upfield. For me he’s been the best performer for Australia at this World Cup.

        On Wednesday I was told that I’d have to fly to Sydney on Friday to attend a couple of seminars on behalf of NICTA Queensland. If I’d flown down on Friday morning, I’d have missed the TV coverage of the game because I’d have been in a taxi at the time. So I decided, screw it, I’m going a day early so I could watch the coverage. There was no way in the wide world I was going to miss that match. It turns out that if I’d flown down on Friday morning my plane would have been diverted due to fog anyway, and I wouldn’t have been able to attend the seminars anyway. The second seminar was cancelled because the Boeing guy who was giving the seminar got diverted to Melbourne because of the fog. So all-in-all it worked out really well.

        The way football has suddenly captured the imagination of this country is absolutely unbelievable. The flight attendants were saying they couldn’t wait for the match against Italy on Tuesday morning. The major free to air channels have had extended coverage of the Australian team. A Current Affair is doing interviews with footballers’ wives. Ken Sutcliffe has said that the Australia v Croatia game was the best moment of his career as a sports presenter. The country has gone football crazy. It feels kind of weird that everyone is suddenly embracing the sport, but I guess that’s what we always wanted. I also get the feeling that this support won’t be fickle. I think the A-League can expect a very good season in terms of attendances. Qualifying for the round of sixteen means that the FFA receives more money than they expected to get from this World Cup. So the game is finally on a strong financial footing in this country. What’s scary is that Australia hasn’t yet won the World Cup, but the celebrations sparked by qualifying for the next round are bigger than anything this country has seen in sport. It’s wonderful!