Well, it's official. I'm leaving Swansea.
I move out on August 16th back up to Lancashire where I'm going to spend a year living at home and saving cash. Yes, I've decided to take a gap year.
Why? Lots of reasons. Firstly, I really want to go travelling for a month so I'll need to save for that. Secondly, I fancy a change of pace and some real-world experience to balance my perspective with respect to postgraduate edumacation. Thirdly, I'm rather broke and fancy actually having some cash in my savings account.
So, all in all, a year out seems a good idea. I'm going to miss Swansea lots and all of the most excellent friends I've made here over the years. So long, everyone. And thanks for all the fish.
I expect we shall meet again very soon. Be excellent to each other!
After spending 5 minutes browsing the computing section in the Waterstones on Oxford Street in Swansea, I was shocked to see 14 different titles on Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system(!), just 4 on Apple's Mac OS and zero titles on Linux.
How do Waterstones choose which computing books to stock? Open source software is having a profound effect on the IT industry and I didn't see a single title covering an open source topic. Every title seemed to be a "How to do X for dummies" or some other basic step-by-step guide.
Where are the broader books covering concepts and fundamental computing principles? The Waterstones on campus is stocked with such titles. Why not the outlet on the high street? Doesn't John Everyman need to know anything about computers beyond how to turn them on?
Wow. I haven't blogged in ages!
Let's recap, shall we?
I've finally finished my dissertation. w00t. I'm going to do a MRes in the FIT lab next year. Awesome. I'm in the process of applying to Google for an internship. Sweet.
In the Google vein, the pizza efforts are proceeding slowly. Here's a section from the last e-mail:
"To give a full update on the reason why, we began working with a Card Provider who made and failed to keep to several promised deadlines (these were the dates I was providing). We have now canceled the agreement with this company and will not be doing businesses with them."
They should be doing a direct transfer to current accounts and then the ball will be rolling. But with only a few weeks of term left, it looks like the proper start of it will be September. Oh, well...
In terms of other things, it's been a hectic term with lots of craziness, both in and out of the lecture hall. I'm very much looking forward to graduating - after such a long hard uphill slog, I can't wait to stand, smile and pose for a photo at the summit of my degree.
An update on the Google Pizza efforts...
It's been a frustrating two and half months of waiting and there's still no sign of pizza yet. Here's an extract from the latest communication from the organiser at Google's London office:
"We have been let down now on a number of occasions by the card provider and so I am looking at other options (joking aside, cash in an envelope is an option!!) Western Union money transfer (this is my preferred option) etc...
I am looking at ways to provide more goodies than we would have done and also I see no reason why for everyone that will still be in study we can't just carry over to next academic year.
Again I realise its hard to believe but this is hugely frustrating for me, I very much wanted to have this launched in January.
Any suggestions for goodies around $100 in value will be taken on board and included as a thank you for your patience."
Any suggestions?
Happiness is an odd concept. I suppose it can come about as a result of many circumstances but it seems clear that a loose definition would describe it as reaching a mutually agreeable state of affairs, for whatever reason. Happiness is about finding that sweet spot. That's the easy part. Staying in the sweet spot, rather like keeping your balance on a skateboard, can be very tricky. I shan't labour the metaphor any further because it puts a rather frivolous face upon the deepest of human needs.
I was always raised to believe that the ultimate goal in life is happiness. Money, position, power and prosperity are all rather nice luxuries, but the real target should be an inner peace and sense of wellbeing. At a time in my life when the overpowering directive is very much based on very singular ends, I can't help but be drawn to consider the means themselves. A degree and a career seem rather like holy grails which, until recently, seemed very far away on the horizon. But, as Lennon put it, "life is what happens while you're busy making plans."
All these cerebral motives, derived from higher thought, make a lot of sense on paper. We put aside our instinctive ideas of happiness in favour of long term plans because the short term satisfaction gain from those instincts don't add up to much in the long run in our society. I think this may be the root of a lot of unhappiness. We know why we need the routine, the qualifications, the career and the money. We know that long term security matters. But there's still that deep seated desire to live for the moment and the deep satisfaction that only a primitive brain is capable of appreciating.
Such matters have been on my mind very much of late. There's a monkey in my brain and he's not going anywhere. He wants to play when I need to work. He won't sleep when I do. He inteferes with my plans and wrenches the controls from my hands with every oppurtunity he gets. And the trouble is - in the style of a particular green, muscular man - when the monkey takes control... I like it.
But back to original notion of happiness being a sweet spot. Recently, I've been removed from a warm comfort zone and placed into unfamiliar territory. I don't think I even realised how comfortable I was until I was uprooted. And, suddenly, the world was cold and alien and I hadn't a clue where to put myself. My security was compromised and it opened my eyes to some truths I was unprepared to face.
Change can be very stressful, but it's a relentless force of nature that can't be avoided. Sooner or later, you'll have to fight to hang on to your sweet spot. And, sometimes, you will lose. But, then again, it's not about the destination. It's the journey. Life is full of abstract goals that will always dance upon the horizon, forever out of reach.
I don't know if I'll ever get where I'm meant to be going. I don't know if I'm supposed to know. But it's evidently time to pack up and move on to another sweet spot. Like a nomad, in search of a new home, the horizon beckons me.
I'll be sure to let you know what I find when I get there.
[ Entry posted at: Thu 15 Feb 2007 00:24:04 GMT | Comments: 0 | Cat: Philosophical ]
Hoorah! I now own one of the finest toys imaginable - a Lego Mindstorms kit!
Mindstorms NXT is a lego robotics kit which revolves around a 32-bit ARM7 microprocessor, known as the NXT Intelligent Brick. This receives input via 4 input sensors: a touch sensor, a sound sensor, a light sensor and an ultrasonic sensor. In turn, the brick can output to 3 servo motors, as well as its own screen and speaker.
You program it via a graphical interface on a PC (which is actually quite intuitive) but, since the firmware for the brick is open-source, there is a plethora of other languages which have been ported to NXT.
It's lots of fun :-) Here's a short demo of a basic robot I built in the beginners' tutorial.
The robot waits until its ultrasonic sensor detects an object within 20 inches. If one appears, it moves forward until it touches it. It then waits for me to clap before picking up the ball and returning to the start. On the way back, it uses its light sensor (which can detect differences in light intensities and, consequently, distinguish colours) to sense when it reaches the black line. Then it drops it.
It's all still rather linear at the moment but I can soon knock together some programs that use loops and conditionals to vary the behaviour. I'll experiment with a few languages, too. Java seems a popular one but something like Prolog should be rather more interesting... If I can get it playing games intelligently then that'll be quite something.
Overall, I'm thrilled to bits with it :-D It's been a long time since I played with Lego - there were nowt like this when I were a lad! I think £180 is perhaps a little expensive but it is extremely well designed, making it a joy to use. With everything being Lego, all the pieces are modular so creating your own designs is straighforward. The brick, sensors and servos can't all be worth £180 but the general niftiness of the whole concept makes the whole become greater than the sum of its parts.
A must for all those closet robotics geeks out there!
Of late, I've noticed that the typist in my brain has phased out typos in favor of what I believe is referred to as a thinko. This is where, instead of a simple out-of-place character, you type entirely the wrong word instead of the one you were intending, perhaps even in an amusingly Freudian fashion.
Perhaps it's workload stress or just a side-effect of getting older but, quite recently, my brain has been making thinkos left, right, and centre like some demented Microsoft helper program. Oh, well. If my mind is breaking then I may as well enjoy the ride. At least I haven't put mayonnaise in my coffee yet...
Say hello to Bagpuss! Or "Baggy" to his friends ;-)
He's a rescued Tom-cat and he's lovely. He's currently sniffing around the house, exploring his new territory.
Well, if you can believe it, it gets even better!
Thanks to the nifty Python control software written by Scott Weston, the awesome Motion Project, and a few handy sound effects (cunningly borrowed from Robocop) we now have the ultimate in automated PC protection.
Who needs to bother locking their screens these days when you can have an automated missile launcher on your desk to do the work for you?!
The way it all works is nice and simple. The Python missile controller sits happily in server mode. We hack up the motion config script to call methods in the missile software when it detects motion. The software performs a few diffs on incoming images and deduces the direction it needs to move the launcher in. Combine this with a small response script which plays Robocop sound files at varying levels of threat, and you have a mighty machine.
See footage of a narrow escape here.
...and it is :-)
I'm off to spend the weekend in Rotterdam, huzzah! Better polish up my Dutch - it's been a while. I think I can still say "Hottentottententententoonstelling"...