Arcoarena

Looking in Both Directions

Much like Mike I too am looking to the future. I’ve finished my course (I find out the class of my degree on Friday and it had better be a 2:1 or I’ll cry - I’m probably not joking there). Not that the class of my degree affects anything other than my pride. In September (the 6th at 9am to be precise) I start my new job at Xyratex in Havant, I’ve got that whatever my degree turns out to be. At some point before that I’m moving to Portsmouth/Southsea with Andrea (and my god aren’t flats expensive to rent down south, talk about North/South divide - you can buy a 3 bedroom semi in my village for 130K).

In between now and moving to Southsea I’ve still got loads to do. I’m hopefully helping out with the Guildford festival thanks to Surrey Union Crew and then I shall be attending about a week of MT Soc tour. I am then heading off on holiday. It’s all booked now so I’m taking flights from Heathrow (via Amsterdam - KLM do cheap flights) to Shanghia. The tour takes us round what appears to be the big things to see (the terracotta warriors and all that kind of stuff). We end up in Beijing and fly back again via Amsterdam. Should be cool. Following that I have about a week to find a flat before my Cousin’s wedding. I’m sure it’s not meant to be quite so busy. Added to which all of this is disguising the fact I’m actually moving out of my parents home for good in around 7 weeks time.

Based on my moving out status I’m currently unpacking from University (it was very odd to leave London for the last time - I shall visit but never live there again). As I’m unpacking I’m also chucking the random junk I left behind at home out. Anyone want a very old set of rock boots (I’m shoe size 10), or some old Linux Distro CDs (go on Gary you know you do)…?

All this thinking is making me nostalgic so I shall go now before I get too soppy (and start professing my undying love for everyone I ever knew). This is all in marked contrast to the reports I hear from my old school which appears to be going down the pan (I blame the new Head Teacher - well head-somthing anyway).

Time to Relax?

Well, I’ve finished my course but haven’t had a moment spare since then. I’ve done quite a lot, a quick trip to Portsmouth (to see where I’m going to live), I booked a holiday for August (Shanghai to Beijing), been to Alton Towers and done a Fashion show.

I’ve just returned a hired van to the company after a slightly nervous wait to see if they were going to complain about anything and take my £250 deposit away from me. They shouldn’t have as I didn’t get anywhere near scratching or hitting anything but you never know.

The past day has confirmed that all Mercedes drivers are arrogant idoits. I’ve had about 5 cut me up or push in front of me in the past day. And it’s always Mercedes (except the one taxi). Anyway, in honour of this and all my other posts about my final year project I have decided to create a ‘Bitterness’ catagory for you to be able to browse my posts and find only those containing me whinging about one thing or another.

I might get round to writing about all the stuff that’s happened recently at some point. But that’s all for now

Project Writeup

I think I’m going to have to stop writing the “Disadvantages of ML” section of my report now as it’s about 4 times longer than the “Advantages of ML” and given that my project supervisor is in love with ML I don’t think it’s a good idead to slate it too much. He was quite dismissive of Python for reasons he didn’t go into. Probably lack of “elegance”. Now call me unromantic but….I don’t give a damn whether my code is “elegant” or not. It’s code I’m not going to frame it and hang it on the wall. If it works, does what it’s meant to and wasn’t too hard to write then it’s good code. (Stompts off muttering something about stupid functional programming)

Actually, while I think about it. The documentation is crap. If anyone trying to write in ML actually reads this. Ignore most online tutorials as they were all written before 1996 and so don’t actually bear any resemblance to the language nowadays. Nobody tells you this. That took me ages to find out

I promise that in a few days I’ll stop moaning about SML and get on with my life. I may however write up some thoughts and tips just incase some other poor sap being forced to use it finds it and makes use of it.

Gmail

It seems quite good. However I don’t really use it. If I could send emails with the only email being my arcoarena one then I’d use it as it’s one of the best webmail clients I’ve seen. But you can’t. So I dont’ really use it. Except for file storage. Anyone want an invite as the invite buttons are starting to annoy me.

Gallery

I haven’t quite got round to integrating my gallery into the rest of the site but for now you can find it at http://www.arcoarena.co.uk/gallery.

More Progress

Well lots more progress really. I have a GUI that is half working now which is distinctly better that not working at all. It was all quite simple once I worked out what I had to do and that it wasn’t hard to do. The annoying thing is they never tell you this. At some point I might try writing up stuff I’ve found for the next helpless sap that has to do a project in SML with a GUI.

I have a few more things to code up and I’ve got a report to write. It’ll all be ok as long as I work like a maniac. Two things concern me however. Firstly I’m a little concerned whether the project is complicated enough. It hardly seems like a work of genius at the moment but maybe I’m being pessimistic. Secondly, and the less abstract of the two is I have visions of getting into college printing it out and it looking completely different to the way it’s meant to. It all comes of not owning a printer I guess.

Oh well, to distract me today I have the Physics Ball to help with.

Progress

Well my project is slowly coming along. I’ve worked out how to use functions in the GUI (finally) all I need to do now is work out how to interface with my external modules. They don’t want to make anything simple though. I spent most of the day not achieving much and generally having a crap day. I have however eventually got round to adding support for “don’t cares” in my code which is nice because I would have looked quite stupid if anyone noticed it was missing. Fortunatly I haven’t finished the simulation bit of my code so I didn’t have to change much. I’ve only got two really important bits to do now (excluding the GUI) so it’s coming along. Bring on the end!

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
By Milan Kundera

Set for the most part in what is now the Czech Republic the book is formed of several separate sections, each telling their own story with their own characters and very few links between the sections. Very few links except the main theme. The book itself talks about what it is in a very oblique way. In one of the later sections the author talks about his father and a Beethoven’s compositions and the variations on a theme, much like the book itself.

This seven-stories-in-one technique has the effect of creating something that is both dis-jointed and perfectly linked. There isn’t any character development but the themes and ideas grow and develop. This book is half novel and half exposition of philosophy. Whether this is an effective method is another matter. Sometimes the author’s ideas seem a little strange or at odds with each other.

It was quite a cool book but I’m still quite glad most books aren’t written that way. Not one to read for the plot but an interesting read interesting if only for some of the social background

The March of Open Source

I’ve just seen a PC (admittedly one of those Hi-Fi come PC things) on Scan.co.uk with the following:

MS Windows XP Home Edition (CD Provided)
OpenOffice Software - Full Office Software
(Wordprocessing, Spreadsheet, Presentation and more - MS File Compatible!)

Interesting choice. Obviously they can’t supply Linux as it isn’t quite that usable and no-one would buy it but OOo is an interesting addition. Free and almost as good as MS Office (notice the almost it isn’t quite there yet)

Project Presentation

Well I’ve just done my final year project presentation. I think it went ok. I could answer their questions quite well afterwards and it wasn’t too short, they didn’t fall asleep. All I’ve got to do now is worry about whether there was too much background, is my project is complex enough, blah, blah.

As long as I get a 2:1 I don’t care (to a certain extent)