Arcoarena

Arco Arena

Oh, and while I think about it

Look at this
http://chrispederick.myacen.com/photos/albums/fullsize.php?album=62&photo=0

This is the other Arco Arena home to the Sacremento Knights or Kings or something.
I’m quite surprised that this site comes up second on Yahoo with a search for arcoarena

See my last 2 blogs

A hah hahahahahahahahahah!!!!!

I’ve got an interview for Xyratex the job looks cool. I hope I get it. I doubt I will, though, you never know

See my last blog

Bloody hell! Somebody’s actually invited me for a preliminary interview. Next week! Oh well it should be fun. I’ll have to see how it goes.

Scarey

Catch Up

Well I’m now just trying to settle back into work after a pleasant (extended) weekend with Andrea. I’ve got quite a bit to do now.

This term is dedicated to work after last terms efforts. I’ve got my final year project to do along with other bits of coursework. Hopefully once the bugdets / inventories are out of the way Dramsoc shouldn’t be too time consuming, although I doubt it. I’m not involved in any plays but I’ve got a few events to do.

It’s not long now until the AGM and I will pass on my responsibilities to someone else. I can’t say that I’ll be devestated to not do the work but hey, it was worth doing. Certain people don’t appear to be too keen to do jobs others want them to do, I personally would like people to stand if they want to rather than because they feel they have to.

On an entirly separate matter - it was so cold this morning that the water that’s normally on my bike seat was replaced by ice this morning (possible the word ‘ice’ should be said in the same style as Sanka in Cool Runnings, but then again maybe not.

It appears that these people aren’t interested in employing me. I only have a day or two to fill in some more applications and write about the last time I demontrated initiative or some other vague attribute the HR department of Network Rail, or whom ever, decide they want in their graduates. Damn them all, I shall get a job on a luxury liner, discover some new and interesting way to even more money out of rich people and then retire at the age of 27 to some far-flug island somewhere in the middle of the pacific. -Sounds like a plan to me

Oh, and while I think about it, I’ve also passed the union minibus driving test - doh! I’ll have to carry more Steeldeck now.

Interim Report

Well, I’ve handed in my interim report, which can be found here and the Gantt chart is here (it’s a post-script file, you could try the ghost viewer).

It’s not going too badly. As long as my slowness in the first term doesn’t return it should turn out ok. It’s worth 40% of the year so if I can do it well I’m well on the way to a comfortable 2:1 (having given up any hope of a 1st about 2 months into the course). I guess since I should only need 55% I should be ok. I just need to sit down and work and ignore any other distractions.

Ed is the standard text editor

I was reading through an old magazine yesterday and I found this. Quite funny, not really related to anything though. Unless you count laughing at Andy Allan’s comments on GUI design (which rather amusingly comes up as a second hit on google with the search “virgin trains london glasgow”.

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like ‘C-h for help’ and ‘”foo” File is read only’. So I use the editor that doesn’t waste my VALUABLE time.
Ed, man!

!man ed 

ED(1) Unix Programmer's Manual
ED(1)

NAME
ed-text editor

SYNOPSIS
 ed [-][-x][name]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
---

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it’s the standard. Everyone else loves ed becaue it’s ED!
“Ed is the standard text editor.”
And ed doesn’t waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root          24 Oct 29
1929 /bin/ed

-rwxr-xr-t 4 root     1310720 Jan 1
1970 /usr/ucb/vi

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22
1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on my system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which

1. Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG;
2. Reduces the user’s disk quota by 100k;
   and
3. RUNS ED!!!!!!

“Ed is the standard text editor.”

Let’s look at a typical novice’s session with the mighty ed:

golem > ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

-----

Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

“Ed is the standard text editor.”

Ed, the greatest WYSIWYG editor of all.

ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN TEH CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT AALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CURRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

When I use an editor, I don’t want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want and EDitor!! Not a “viitor”. Not an “emacsitor”. Those aren’t even WORDS!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!

When IBM, in it’s ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their “edlin” on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

Ed is for those who can “remember” what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED “VISUAL” EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

?

eXene

To get eXene to run with the calculator example (< ML-Directory > /src/eXene/exampes/calc) do the following:

1. Navigate to the directory (see above) and run sml-cm
2. Type “CM.make();”
3. Then run the tester (from the main.sml file and the function doit unit -> unit in the structure CalcTest (i.e. type “CalcTest.doit();”)

The CM.make() command uses the file sources.cm which appear to contain all the files required to run the project. All I have to do now is find something that will tell me how to use the stupid system……

This only appears to work on the Unix machines in the department which is wierd as I’m sure the linux version will be exactly the same, it appear to be. I’ll have to try it at home later.

Blair ‘likely to win fees vote’

Blair ‘likely to win fees vote’ - Tony Blair will probably win the crunch vote on controversial plans for student top-up fees, the Tories say.

“But the annual Mori poll for student accommodation company UNITE suggests 79% of students would have rethought their choice of university “to some extent” if it had charged fees of £3,000.”

“>BBC News]

I was actually asked by somebody from MORI about this, oooohhhh. I always wondered who they asked when they did those. I was late for my final year project because it took for ever. The researcher (or what ever they’re called got to card PPP or something after starting at A getting through the alphabet 2 before that)

On a more serious note, I’m not convinced that giving Graduates £25,000 worth of debt is a good thing. How is one expected to buy a house when your still massively in debt. My basic problem with the whole thing is, why do we need 50% in higher education anyway, I don’t think university degrees are suitable for some of the jobs people do after university anyway.

Joke?

Tee hee hee, I thought I might die of laughter, Gary. end{sarcasm}

A Dangerous Thing

I’ve got the feeling broadcasting ones feelings across the ether may be a very dangerous thing indeed. After all you never know who may be listening. Worse still, you may not know who is arrogant enough to search for themselves on google and find a rant about how stupid and pathetic they are. Not quite sure why I’m saying this as it sounds like I’m supressing the urge to rant about somebody - but I’m not. Odd