Thoughts of a CodeMonkey

Comment Away!

2012-01-21T22:59:00.000+11:00

For those who hadn't heard, Blogger recently launched the feature I'd been working on for the last few months - threaded commenting: http://buzz.blogger.com/2012/01/engage-with-your-readers-through.html

This post is mostly just a call to everyone reading to comment more on blogs - Blog authors like it when they get (non-spam) comments, and commenters get to engage with the author and hopefully discuss with someone who shares an interest. More on this later, but first I have to say, a big thankyou to our users; for both their patience in getting this feature, and the positive reaction to it. What do I mean by the latter? I was a bit of a social-network junkie after launch, searching for reactions, and so throughout this post the images I'm using will be screen-shots of a choice few (click to enlarge):

*Squeee* I love reading feedback like this, and just want to keep doing stuff people will like! My hope all along was to give people what they wanted - including me! As a long-time Blogger user, it was obvious that comments were under-utilised. As a Blogger developer though, I not only could see how much potential better commenting could have, but also how to fix it. After my time with Wave conversations, the first thing was obviously the most demanded - threading:

An artistic entry - believe me, I have a dorky smile too :D

You see, people like related sections of discussions to be next to eachother, in particular, if an author responds to a comment a few days later, ideally it'll appear right under that comment. Alternatively, if a second commenter has a particular agreement/disagreement with something said before, it's best to attach their reply to the right location. Note that we also now indicate which comments come from the author, helping their opinions stand out; additionally, comment previews and loading more comments will no longer reload the entire page - two more barriers to posting.

So, I hope you all comment more, which can then lead to posting more and overall improved content creation and discussion on the net. Many things I know are very talk-based with not much listening, which I think is a shame. While doing the twitter searches above, I was impressed at how it's moving towards conversing with others online, not just consuming their status - especially when it's people you wouldn't have met normally, but who write about what interests you. I hope to continue improving things, but while that's happening, remember to add comments on blogs you read, and for authors, reply when people share their thoughts!

An existence conundrum...

2012-01-10T19:45:00.001+11:00

(Sydney, looking at the CBD and bridge, with some effects added to the image).

I've been using Google+ more recently - e.g. see my profile here; which may explain why the already-slow output of posts has gotten even slower. Then I was looking through various sections of our Blog UI and realised that (a) I'm getting enough views of the posts here to make it worth posting stuff, and (b) There are enough readers / followers that might not read G+ that I feel I should add things here too. So I've added the followers widget to my blog ( check over on the right there >> ) and decided to cross-post interesting G+ posts, starting with this:

Here's a thought puzzle....where's the error?

1) There are many many species in the universe, some much more advanced than us, some less.

2) It's possible for an advanced enough species to make a technology that destroys all species in the universe.

3) Any technology will eventually be used for a malicious purpose.

If they're all true, we'd no longer be around, so there's a flaw somewhere...my guess is #2: that species would destroy themselves (and those around them) first. Apologies, not very cheery I know, but an interesting thought experiment still. What do you think?

Some discussion is already available on the original post, but some things to consider are the speed at which the destruction will reach us, the theory that the Universe is accelerating away, the concepts that have arisen around theoretic technologies like Grey goo, and a cover-all explanation of existance, the Anthropic principle.

Stay tuned, I have a few updates planned soon too :)

More Round-the-World: Tokyo

2011-12-11T21:55:00.001+11:00

My job certainly lets me work on interesting things, but also as part of being on a globally distributed team I get to visit a lot of places too - most recently was a visit to the Google office in Tokyo to catch up with some engineers over there; and while not part of my earlier trip around the globe, I figure it's best to keep this Round-the-World series of city summaries going for as long as I'm able to travel to them!

Firstly, Tokyo is certainly a Megaopolis (well, part of one); and of the previously mentioned cities, I'd place it between London and New York in terms of style and population density. That said, due to the size it covers, and the height of most of the buildings, it didn't feel quite as tighly packed as New York - certainly there were lots of smaller back areas where the roads weren't as busy, and plenty of parks / palaces to look at.

On the left is an example of one spot much closer to the Barcelona feel of quiet, small one-way streets, of which there were a number - I imagine not the worst spot to live if you had to be in the middle of such a large city. Parking is at a premium (not surprisingly), and the personal car usage seemed much closer to e.g. London than New York - on the right is an example of how they managed to fit that many cars - there's a road (complete with carpark median strip), and two more roads stack vertically above it - certainly not something I'm used to seeing in Australia...

But enough of the city analysis - a had a productive week with the Tokyo folks, but once work was over I had organised myself two days of free time to look at all the sights around Tokyo. Above you can see a shot from Hibiya park, an amazingly picturesque nature area just south of the imperial palace in Chiyoda. At this time of year in particular it was a great mix of green, yellow and red on all the trees - as proven by the number of photographers standing around this pond!

The other day was spent walking around Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku, partially for the shopping/atmosphere, but also to visit the place that stuck out most from the one other time I'd visited - the Meiji shrine. It's a Shinto shrine plus related buildings opened in 1920 to honour Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken - and is essentially a fully open giant forest with around 200,000 trees, right in the middle of an otherwise busy area. I definitely recommend it to anyone visiting, it had the feel of an even more enclosed/private central park.

Overall, I think the language barrier is enough for me to not want to live in Tokyo (even if it's close to good ski slopes!) although visiting the smaller cities further out would be interesting, and Japanese architecture is certainly impressive - both what has been built, but also plans for what cities could look like in the future. Plus, I got the chance to walk around Tokyo R246, a street circuit that I've 'driven' around loads in Gran Turismo games, but might save for a later blog post. Instead, I leave you with recent attempts to art-up some pictures from my trip - the first from inside the Meiji shrine forest, the later of a parking area on my walk home from the office (click to enlarge)

Growing up in Barcelona

2011-11-03T20:42:00.000+11:00

So for those wondering where I'd got to, I'd been rather busy involved in a couple of launches at work - the blogger.com redesign and dynamic views visualisations; I'd recommend checking them out if you haven't already, e.g. my blog can alternatively look like this! This is actually my first time writing a proper post in the redesign, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

But enough of the product placement - this post is mostly to summarise something I noticed in Barcelona - mostly, how much it looked like an awesome place to be a kid.
So, not only does it guarantee you'll be good at soccer, flamenco guitar, and tanned, but there were a few photos I took of evidence:
[For some context, see this early post about my visit there.]

This first one is a school - it looked more like an old cathedral that had maybe been converted into a museum, and overlooked a large park and more fancy looking buildings, but yes, it's a school. It might be a top-range school, or look terrible inside, but hey, I think I'd be more willing to go to school if it looked that fancy.

Next up, this shot might look oddly shrunk - that's a normal sized fence, but just tiny roads and signs - because it appears to be a traffic school, i.e. a place children go to learn road rules. Traffic schools are pretty standard, but what surprised me about this one was its location: the wall you see is one of the outer walls of Castell de Monjuic. This means that to get to your training lesson, you drive for about 20 minutes through botanic gardens, then head inside an ancient fort that used to protect Barcelona and has a magnificent view over the city and into the Mediterranean. So you can imagine my surprise at seeing one of these inside the walls... however, that wasn't the most suprising location - losing out to:

You may have noticed the small red soccer goals in the middle - I believe this was another school, as a large group of children were playing there a few minutes earlier. What makes it one of the best soccer pitches in the world was that it was located inside Park Guell. This results in being surrounded by Gaudi architecture and mosaics while you play, meanwhile the view to the side of the pitch is this:

So in summary, it doesn't seem to be a bad place to grow up (providing you learn to avoid pick-pockets...). I've found out recently that I get to travel to Tokyo this month for a week for work, so hopefully can continue this series of travel posts :) And until then, more work, music jamming, trivia and now an 'indoor'* soccer team to play with.

(*matches played outside on a roof - shall have a photo at some point. Not like the view of Barcelona/Guell above, but not a bad Sydney skyline at night).

Round the world - city #3: London

2011-09-12T21:40:00.000+10:00

London was interesting on this trip as, unlike New York and Barcelona, I'd actually been there before (in this millenium, even), although I didn't remember too much of it. The main reason was to visit a friend who I know from Sydney but had been doing research in Southampton for many months, so my itenerary was: arrive very late at night, train to Waterloo (catching the Heathrow express was pretty nice, even at 11pm at night after a flight. thankfully, everyone speaking english helped, plus free Wifi on train!) then walk to my hotel and finally check in at 1am.

I managed to find a fairly reasonably priced place called the Mad Hatter, which felt very British-y including the pub downstairs (always busy, a good sign) and tea everywhere in my room. The type of place I was pretty sure noone would bother trying to steal my stuff, a welcome change given the events in Barcelona.

Early morning checkout the next day, then carrying a backpack of stuff back to Waterloo (for I'd be back at the Hatter in two nights) for another train all the way south to Southampton. Tip which I learnt on this trip: Southampton only has one h. The Ampton is south, I guess...

Sadly I didn't get any pictures from the train, but I was (expectedly) impressed as always at how green everywhere in England seems to be most of the time. Growing up in Australia, I kind of expect that if you travel long enough, you get to desert or at least brown outback, whereas this trip was habitable greenery after habitable greenery. Above is some of the aforementioned greenery, this time from Romsey, a small town my friend (hey Jen!) had been visiting as part of her research. In particular, this is part of the Romsey memorial park, just off The Meads (in fact, here), near other impressively British sounding roads like Brewery Lane, Portersbridge Street and Landsdowne Gardens. Not a hugely busy location, but english town suburbia does strike me as a relaxing and scenic, family-friendly place.

The next day was my train return back to London and the Mad Hatter, arriving late and ambling up north to the Thames before finally finding a nearby pub which was still serving foods (many seemed to stop serving before dinner, unfortunately) - pretty single-foreigner-friendly with a good view of the neighbouring bridge (Blackfriar's, which conveniently is nicely lit at night) and they even brought me the wrong pie at first, so replaced it and gave me a free Guinness, in british glass sizes too so I was glad it was in walking distance...

The next day I had much of the time free to walk up north of the bridge and do the standard touristy stuff - including taking the photo of the cheeky roadsign above, located just opposite the Savoy which I'd watch being furnished on the english apprentice the night before (sadly, streetview doesn't have the decoration yet...).

I hadn't planned anything, so as with the latter part of Barcenlona, just meandered around where interesting stuff seemed to be - Buckingham Palace (below, in the wedding fever aftermath), Hyde park, Picadilly Circus, Saville Row, the Royal Academy of Arts (which is the source of Leibnitz and the red phone booths in my album) plus, as you can see above, the Eye and Parliament to round out my trip. My return was then about 20hr of premium economy, of which I was awake for about 3, so nothing there to report (other than iced-coffee in Singapore airport was nice...).

All in all, England was the least novel, but therefore also the most comfortable. Having lived in Sydney, if I was told tomorrow that I had to move to London, I wouldn't be worried - in fact, the subway and soccer-crazy culture, and convenient day trips are probably good upgrades, though the balanced by the huge population (both packed in the city and spreading out) and all that it entails.

Thanks again to Jen and her two housemates who were my host in Southampton, and for you readers who waited all this time for the conclusion!

P.S: apologies for the very long delay. You seen, I've been on 4 trips since then (California for 2 weeks, skiing at Perisher for one, hiking south of Wollongong for one weekend and a few days during one week up north of Sydney for work) and involved in launching a few projects - plus more to come! But never fear, I'll have another post because of the current work, and hopefully before then, one more revisit of Barcelona.

Round the world - city #2: Barcelona

2011-06-19T16:20:00.001+10:00

Between meeting friends in NY and London I had two spare days, and having never been to Spain before, and making feeble attempts in the past to pick up some of the language, I thought I'd spend those two in the seaside city of Barcelona - home to the Spanish F1 and the current #1 soccer club in the world.

I was staying at a hotel up Montjuic, a very green hill just south of the main town area, and so could look down over the densely packed flat city flowing from neighboring hills down to what seemed an active Mediterranean port (both for tourists and shipping).

One thing that others had told me to check out, and that really struck me in Barce was the Gaudi architecture, including the most famous Sagrada Familiar pictured above (click to enlarge) - the unfinished cathedral with thousands of little building details everywhere to be seen (and is nearly complete now it's being worked on again!). So my first day was a 5-hr walk to see it and various other interesting sites, including Park Guell, Casa Batllo (both Gaudi), and the popular walkway La Rambla.

The following day I headed in the opposite direction, further up the hill towards the site of the 1992 Olympics plus Barcelona's botanic gardens, and the impressive Castell de Monjuic (above), a Catalan fortification and execution site for Lluis Companys, a leader in the Spanish civil war.

Probably the most interesting thing I found walking around the city itself was the huge difference between the small, personal city layout common in Europe (~6 story buildings, very narrow roads, mostly foot/scooter traffic, lots of small shops) compared to that of New York. It's hard to know what it'd be like to live in, but externally it was really nice to walk around - and I can certainly say the Spanish have mastered the art of the architectural facade - everywhere you looked was impressive building fronts.

Overall, despite having much of my stuff stolen from my hotel room (but nothing required to travel!), I'd definitely be keen to revisit for a little while longer to see further away from the city - maybe before heading out on a ship into the Mediterranean... Next city up: London.

Round the world - city #1: New York

2011-06-05T15:07:00.001+10:00

Some of you may already know, but a few weeks ago was Google IO, a big developer conference run by my employer, and this year I happened to be working on something which I could talk about. The other nice thing was that it was held it San Francisco, and as I had a few people to talk to in NY, I ended up taking an entire round-the-world tour also through Spain and England. I'll be covering each city in turn, but today's post is about my first trip to New York, the big apple.

My first day was mostly work-filled, meeting up with coworkers in the Google office but I had organised a visit at night to the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn where they were holding a 'geek nite', including quiz and some interesting talks on perception, diet & lifespan, and a powerpoint karaoke on pearls. After the talks, I took a bit of a walk around a park on the southern side of the Hudson, with a nice night view of Manhattan including the shot above of the Brooklyn bridge.

Saturday was the most sight-seeing-y day, starting with a visit to Dag Hammarskjold place due to the references in the Dark Tower Series. I was impressed by how well it worked in with the story (esp. the Turtle Bay protection society outside), and also the feel of Katharine Hepburn park next door. Later that day was the final of Eurovision 2011, so I headed down to a nice Irish pub who were showing the live stream. Really good atmosphere, completely packed, with most of the supporters cheering on Ireland and England (both of whom had actually OK songs this year...).

Having also gone up the Rockerfeller building (the scene for the first picture in this post) plus taking in a night comedy/art show including Reggie Watts, the Sunday (also my last day) was more for taking in the city aesthetics - mixing the subways (live music at most stations) with times square, cheesecake, bagels and roadside hotdogs, and most impressive of all, Central Park. Having seen it on maps, and in plenty of cutural TV/movie references, I must say that the sheer size, layout and trees/greenery blew me away - to think that it lies in the middle of one of the largest, most densely populated cities in the world (and that New Yorkers have easy access to this place). My impression of the city itself changed quite a bit depending on area, but although it smelt a bit and was quite messy / american in places, there were lots of good things. For one, just so much stuff happening everywhere, I think I'd need more than 3 days next time to take everything - but also the subway was really nice for getting around, random people I bumped into in the hotel/shops were friendly, and there's something about New York architecture that makes parts of it feel very... accommodating and live-able. I know it's just a person bias, but I love places that look like this:

But alas, 3 days is a short time - next on the trip...stay tuned for Barcelona!

Blogger news!

2011-04-01T00:26:00.001+11:00

Really short update to say: my team just launched something you might be interested in :)
The blog post describing it is here: http://goo.gl/oExpn

In short - it's a new way of viewing blogs! For instance, you can view this blog at:
http://padsterprogramming.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

That's not all! For a look at some of the new stuff, and what's coming, you can check out
http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/03/whats-new-with-blogger.html

Message complete, back to normal about-me post next time, have fun viewing!

Hiking

2011-02-14T21:09:00.001+11:00

It's amusing, as part of my work for Blogger I've been learning about what it takes to make a good blog; lots of posts, lots of linking, lots of pictures, lots of communicating with comments, etc... and other than the pictures, I'm pretty far behind on all of them. Anyhoo, here's my (rather late) update for January:

On the whole, most of it was same as usual - work, quiz on Wednesdays, miscellaneous on weekends including some guitar playing, some coding, etc... Both my housemates were away for a week at the national computer science school (NCSS), if you're a coding student I'd recommend checking it out. So there's a link, time for pictures:

Probably the most interesting thing I did was a weekend hiking trip up to Mt. Kosciusko, the highest peak in Australia! The image above is from some of the rocks near the top - you can probably tell it was the middle of summer, so not much snow up there.

Recently (I think a year or so ago) the area was hit by some bush-fires, their effect is still really visible in the area leaving an interesting and spooky feel, with leaf-less parts of the forest. The whole area though was really sedate and relaxed, and with cool but sunny weather it was great for the 10hr or so of hiking over the weekend. And of course, the scenery inside the denser parts of the woods was pretty too, plus I was hiking with people who knew much more about the native vegetation than me, so I learnt a lot:

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the herd of Kangaroos living around the lodge I was staying at (including mother with joey in pouch) nor of the Jazz festival on at Thredbo that weekend (meaning the valley was occasionally filled with loud electric bass echoing off the mountains), but the rest of my small album can be found at https://picasaweb.google.com/padsterpat/Hiking?authkey=Gv1sRgCJO4t_veoZrLygE&feat=directlink

As for february? Not much, I might post another summary in early March. But needless to say, last weekend was quite enjoyable, with a friend deciding to dig up their entire floor to renovate, with the help of myself and a few others to paint a room and attack their floorboards, moving a tonne or two of dirt from their floor into a truck outside :) Quite enjoyable, though I'm still feeling the effects two days after...

Seoul visit

2010-12-05T17:45:00.000+11:00

Last week we had the problem setting weekend for the next few AIOC high-school algorithms contests (fun & productive, the contests are looking good) so there wasn't much spare time to blog about my Seoul trip, but as this weekend has been much more relaxing (lots of Rock Band and Gran Turismo games...) without further ado, and mostly with pictures...

SEOUL (서울)

As I'm now working closely with a number of blogger teammates in Seoul, it was decided I should spend two weeks with them in person in the Korean office and meet them in person.
The overall experience was great (it's certainly much easier to work with all these people now that I know who they are and how they work) - though this post will mostly cover some thoughts of the city itself.

I was staying and working in Gangnam-gu, a financial district South-East of the center of town and overall not too populated. Other than the dozens of US chain coffee places, the local main had lots of greenery and provided a nice view of the sunset on the day I landed:

The city itself was on its best behaviour, in the middle of G20 preparations which meant that there were plenty of festivals and touristy exhibitions on throughout the city center;

During the weekdays, my main views of the city were walking along the main street to and from work, and for that part it felt just like walking around the more relaxed, spread-out parts of Sydney or Adelaide - not too many people, lots of trees, feasible traffic and a spread of small retailers within the surrounding commercial offices. That said, partially due to the G20, and partially due to the ongoing tensions with North Korea (this was before any shots were fired), there was definitely a military undercurrent to things:

The weekends gave me the best chance to explore the city - and while there seemed to be a large supply of things to do within 1-2hrs of town (the peninsula isn't very wide), the first weekend saw me navigating the Japan-ish useful subway system to attend a K-League match, where over 40,000 fans saw the local Seoul team victorious over Daejeon. That said, the most interesting weekend sight-seeing-wise was the second, where I went into downtown Seoul and looked around the Palaces:

Some of these were destroyed in previous occupations from Japan, but even the rebuilt buildings are hundreds of years old - I've always liked that style of architecture these palaces were full of intricate details, including these amusing statues (paved ground, area separating walls and mountain in the background all visible):

But most impressive were the structure of the fancy rooms themselves, and how they were scattered around the large cultured lands; lots of water, lots of coloured trees, pathways, really serene:

On the whole, Seoul (and in general, more of South Korea) is somewhere which'd be nice to visit again - mostly to see areas further away from town, but also maybe to see the DMZ if the situation with North Korea gets more stable. Also, for those interested, the entire album is available here: http://picasaweb.google.com/padsterpat/Seoul2010?feat=directlink

For those of you in Adelaide over Xmas, I shall be too! See you then :)

Blogging about Blogging about Blogging

2010-10-12T13:09:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since my last update, mostly because nothing much has happened over here, but I thought I'd post to let everyone know that I'm now migrated and settled in my new project:

That's right, it's Blogger, the Google product that you're currently looking at! As a long-time Blogger user, I'm aware there are a number of places where it can improve, and hopefully I can bring my website-building experience from Wave into improving the experience using one of the top-10 visited sites on the net.

So, watch this space. Also, if you're a Blogger user or frequent reader, do let me know if anything you think can be improved. Meanwhile, Google's also announced it's working on a self-driving car. Fun times

Ski '10

2010-09-06T19:26:00.003+10:00

It's Winter! Well...the end of it, and being neither school nor Uni holidays it seemed the perfect time to go to Mt. Perisher for some skiing - although technically I was going Snow boarding, as I find it much more natural feeling and fun. So, myself and a number of friends - both Googlers and not - drove down one weekend with the intention of staying for the week. As it turns out, the weekend we arrived was apparently the best conditions of the season, with loads of snow falling yet clear skies during the day. The conditions were indeed great, with this view from a black-run on the second day: (somewhere off to the right is Kosciuszko)

Sadly, it clouded over on the Tuesday and things got a bit icy, with the forecast of bad weather on the Wednesday so I decided to head to the two runs up to the Perisher peak while others did lessons in the morning. On the bottom of the first run I found out how icy it was the (literal) hard way, falling near the lift and landing rather badly for what was an otherwise normal stack. I made it to the end of the run with a slightly sore arm, and had decided to wait til my arm regained full movement before slowly return to the central village. This never eventuated, and here's why:
It's hard to see, but essentially my collarbone broke right through just above the AC joint (first broken bone for me). As the X-ray guy at Perisher medical centre put it: "it looks just like what happens when you break a branch off a tree.". Thankfully two of the other guys with me on the trip were headed back that night, so I cut my trip short and made it back on Tuesday night, falling asleep sitting up in my sling. I'd already had an appointment made in Sydney early the next morning where I heard the good news: no surgery needed, the softer Periosteum layer around the bone was still in tact so bascially (to my continued amazement) I just had to wear the sling for four weeks and it'd grow back, fixing itself.

So now I have no driving for the next month, reduced mobility having to learn to do stuff left-handed but my right shoulder is getting better every day and the only permanent damage is getting a small bump on my right shoulder where the bone fuses back in an odd shape. Otherwise, all good! (stop worrying, I'm fine :)

The 7th Continent part 2: Cape Town

2010-08-26T21:42:00.004+10:00

Now for the second half of my South Africa tour - after JoBurg, we migrated south to the warmer weather of Cape Town for the third match and a few days of relaxation. After arriving at the lodge we were staying (the very friendly Afton Grove) they helped set us up with a rental car, and following a small bit of local walking we made our way down the scenic motorways towards Simon's Town and Boulders beach. The latter is a popular tourist spot due to the friendly and large penguin colony, and it did not disappoint:
Note that after my Antarctica trip, this was the third continent fo the year I've seen penguin's on - the only one left in the southern hemisphere is, stragely enough, Australia! Hopefully a trip to SA at the end of the year can fix that... One other great thing in the timing of the visit to Boulders beach was that we saw not only penguins, but also a pack of about 50 dolphins swimming past in the distance, plus a pod of three Whales (apparently very uncommon that time of year at the beach).

The next day in Cape Town was match day - North Korea against the favoured Portugal, and there was no upset result, with the majority Portuguese supporters celebrating regularly in the 7-0 drubbing. Lots of scenes like this:
One unexpected extra joy of the match was the trip there, driving along the famous Chapman's Peak Drive. Considered one of the most spectacular marine drives, it was easy to see why - endless winding along the coast, with stunning water views one side and green mountains on the other, in some cases even above me as I wound my way around and through the rock. Cape Town in general was just spectacular in terms of views, I really like sharp mountain lines so the constant view of Table Mountain had me impressed:
The final flight home had been scheduled late at night so we made the most of the final day by heading all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. It kept up the theme of very pretty countryside, green everywhere and wildlife scattered randomly around the place - Ostriches (I kid you not, standing wild near the carpark), loads of birds, and oddly enough, baboons literally stealing food from plates at lunch. There was a path up the rocks at the very southern point, from where I tried my camera's inbuilt panorama to savour about 180degrees of the amazing views: (note, click on this to make it much bigger...)
So there you have it - my summary of the 7th continent I've visited. Would I go back? To Cape Town, definitely - two days wasn't enough to drive around many of the places, we didn't seem much of the main city (missed out on going up Table Mountain) and I didn't get to experience its famous wine industry, so I'd be keen to return not during a major tourism event. Johannesburg less so - maybe the knowledge of car hire would help, but I think I'd be more keen to depart further from my comfort zone and visit Victoria falls or Kilimanjaro.

P.S: one unrelated thing to add; now that my old project (Google Wave) is being run down, after some final extra work on it, it now looks like my new project will be on Blogger! Yep, improving this very website and the ones used to post and manage blogs. Should be fun, I'm looking forwards to it :)

The 7th Continent part #1: JBurg

2010-07-29T21:38:00.005+10:00

To start: this was my first trip to Africa, the only continent I hadn't been too. In the time between this trip (July '10) and Athens for the IOI (2004) I've walked on every continent, not even including family trips, something not many 23-year-olds (nor diabetics) can say! I'm very grateful for the position I'm in, here's hoping for many more travels. Now that small tidbit of info is complete, on with the Africa trip,

After a long wait, finally an update on my South Africa World Cup trip! This update is the first of two, covering the Johannesburg half - the schedule was for 5 days in JBurg, including two football matches and two days of exploring before the flights to Cape Town. Having just returned from 3 weeks work in New York, Katie was experienced at (read: sick of) airports by this stage, and we had no trouble on the way over, even grabbing a lot of sleep on the long leg and managing to pick up all our game tickets in the airport on arrival.

Unfortunately, we made the mistake of leaving the airport without hiring a car - you see, JBurg is a very sparse, widespread city - it has lots of people, but equally lots of room and no high apartment blocks, so getting around takes some time. Add to that the constant warnings of walking on our own, plus the added expense of taking safe transport (e.g. the 15 minute taxi trip from the airport was $40), plus the cheap cost of car rental, and you get the advice: If you travel to Johannesburg, rent a car.

On with the trip - after some jetlag and exploring our surrounding area, our first venture the next day was to Soccer City Stadium - JBurg's showcase football pitch built specially for the World Cup - to see the favoured Argentinians take on South Korea:

It had been a long time since I'd seen a live soccer match, and I must say, Soccer City was a great place to watch one from. The whole process of getting in, seated, getting food, the view etc. were all obviously done knowing that a lot of people would be watching, and despite our match having over 80,000 attendees, and us having tier 3 (the lowest of the 3) seats for this match, it still was a great spectacle.

The next day we visited a wildlife park around an hour or so out of town - it was famous for raising families of lions, and particularly, for the cubs abandoned by their mothers, they raised them by hand and opened the pens up for visitors to pat the cubs! As demonstrated:

The park also included zebras, full-sized lions, springbok and hyenas visible from a jeep tour, plus close-up access to less dangerous creatures like giraffes and meerkats. While it still felt a bit zoo-ish, it was nice to get closer to them and see them in conditions slightly closer to their natural environment.

The next day was taken up in seeing the second match, Australia v Ghana. It was held in Rustenburg, a much smaller city we reached by a 2hr organised bus trip with fellow Australia and Ghana supporters. The atmosphere in the stadium was great, there were a number of local supporters for Ghana getting really into it, vuvuzelas and all.

It might not look it on the pictures, but the further inland you got (e.g. Rustenburg in particular), the colder it got during the day - so while it seems sunny and clear (and was, we had no rain in JBurg), the temperature was about 10 degrees in all these shots - it even reached -5 when we arrived.

It's probably because my impression was altered slightly due to being there during the world cup, and not having a car, but most of what I wanted to do in JBurg I managed to see in the few days being there (with the exception of seeing Soweto and the Apartheid museum), so I don't think I'm likely to go back any time soon, but getting the JBurg view on life was certainly a different way of looking at things.

Part 2 will hopefully be coming up within the next week, Cape Town! stay tuned...

Antarctica photos!

2010-04-25T17:13:00.005+10:00

The photos from Antarctica (A8A) are [mostly] ready! Big thanks to the photographers in our group who took the pictures and edited them, but below are some of the sights we saw (with as little text as possible):

1) Welcome to Antarctica - the land of snow, ice and water...

2) ...and mountains and clouds...

3) ...and penguins!...

4) ...and seals!...

5) ...and whales!...

6) ...and blue sky and kayaks...

7) ...and snow mixed with black volcanic ash, plus abandon wooden boats.

8) The path I took...

4) ...and the people I travelled with...

That's it! Until next post, Penguin Pat

(note: for those wanting them who I will see in person at some point, I have bigger and more photos too, but they're too big and numerous for this blog).

Falling for Iguazu

2010-03-07T23:16:00.004+11:00

It was about a month ago that I returned from a two-week vacation to Antarctica with 4 friends from work. I know I said I'd write that up (and I still will!) but to but myself some more time, I thought I'd start with a summary of the first part, Argentina.

After checking in early, we managed to enjoy premium economy seats on the way over (ah, comfortable qantas) and in no time I was practicing the very few words of Spanish that I know. Si! Buenos Aires had a definite South American feel to it - football-crazy, lots of open market-like shops, vivid signage, spatterings of park greenery, busy streets - I think it reminded me most of Athens, perhaps a Mediterranean thing. There were also an amazing number of French cars, don't ask me why... Buenos Aires included the famous La Recoleta Cemetery and, on the way back, a visit to the colourful La Boca district. Here I encountered probably the most impressive guitarist statue I have seen:

Then, for two days in the middle, we visited an amazing place that goes by the name of Iguazu falls (or Iguassu, depending on which side you're on). It's located right up the top of Argentina, so we caught a flight up and were picked up by our hotel at the airport. Soon, between the miles and miles of bright green jungle bordered by a picturesque blue sky, the paved road turned into orange dust in one of the most bumpy rides I've experienced. After dropping bags off at Rio Tropic (a very relaxed, open, small rural place) and a hefty dose of communication in what could barely be described as Spanish, the same driver took us all the way to our main destination, the Falls themselves.First off, if you are ever in the area and have the chance to visit Iguassu, I strongly recommend you take it. While you can't see much from where you enter, soon we were spectating an open-topped truck through the jungle, learning about the area while ducking under giant spiderwebs. Following this we boarded a boat up the river, and were soon confronted by some inspiring views of the cascading streams, falling a booming 62 metres.

This sight was certainly enjoyable, and we continued around to capture photo opportunities, but the fun really began soon after they pointed the boat into the falls and hit the engine. We had been warned of the water strength, all those on the boat were given dry-packs to protect our gear, but it was an amazing feeling just how quickly the air turned to mist, then felt like light rain, then a full-on shower, and finally as though a water cannon was pointed at us. The experience was entirely overwhelming, as all senses succumed to the chaotic power of the water.

After a few turns through, we were all entirely soaked (rest assured, with video and photographic evidence) and walked alternate routes through sections of the falls, with views from both below and above. The sights were truly amazing, unlike anywhere I've seen in Australia, and the environment only added to the experience - in particular, the butterflies so numerous you end up swatting them away like flies.

The final city in Argentina was Ushuaia, a small port town right down the bottom where the ship was leaving for Antarctica. It was surrounded by wonderful snow-capped mountains, full of hotels, tourist shops, ski places and chocolatiers. And penguins. See below.

Next update...Antarctica!

Xmas / New Years

2010-01-02T20:55:00.003+11:00

Firstly, a very happy 2010 to all readers. Not really a technical update this time, more just some pics from my first new years in Sydney. As some of you know, I was in SA over Xmas (shout-out to all those in Adelaide, especially those I didn't have time to catch up with) - which included two days away from phone & internet, a definite change from the usual Google life but a welcome relaxation nonetheless.

Then, back to NSW for two days of work and fireworks! This was my first ever NYE in Sydney, I've never seen the fireworks before so that's where I was headed. After finishing work around 6, I was headed to Rushcutter's Bay where some friends had camped out at a nice spot (Thanks Sophia et al!), as you can see in the picture, it included a view of the bridge, lots of grass to sit on, and not too far away from a few other fireworks sources too.

Some pics! Not too great because I only had a phone cam, but still, this is kinda what it's like: (second one is a test of Camera Tossing)

So that's about it, really short update this time. I'll leave you with the two most interesting drunk-stranger moments:

On the train home (always a good start...) a group of about 8 folks get on - I'd say probably late 20s, looking like they've had a few too many. They're talking loudly to each other but generally causing no-one any harm. Near the end of the trip, one of the more blokey looking guys turns to me & Katie and asks: "Hey...it's ok for guys to hug eachother, right? Guy's can do that, yeah?". After taking a little while to process the question and answer with a safe "...uh, yeah, sure" the guy then shouts down the other end of the train: "See Brian*, it's fine. Come on, give me a hug!". *I can't recall the guy's name, substituting with Brian instead.
About 30 mins after the midnight fireworks, we're in the middle of cleaning up and waiting for a large part of the crowd to leave. While sitting on a rug, Katie leaning next to me, some random drunk girl hugs me from behind, proclaiming: "Ooooh, you look lonely. Cheer up, Happy New Year!...." at this point is distracted by noticing Katie, and suddenly changes to "....ooh, you have a girlfriend...not so lonely then...have a great 2010!"
Bonus points to the courageous pair I passed on the walk home, who in response to any loud random drunken shouts of "woooo" or similar, would reply with "woooo....Binge drinking" in a really unenthusiastic voice.

Details, part 2

2009-12-12T20:07:00.003+11:00

Editing

As promised, this is part 2 of the details of what I do at Google, on Wave - and that is working on the editor.

That is, the part that you type in / interact with when you're entering information on the page. When you compose an email, you're using an editor, when you modify a Word Document or write an SMS, you're using an editor. Likewise, when you create a wave and start typing, you're using an editor I help write (there are a few of us who work on it). So, what does someone working on the editor actually do?

Editing concern #1: Features

Wave uses a rich-text editor, which means we support font styles (e.g. bold, italic, coloured, sized, ..) plus allowing links, indentation, bullets, videos, images, ...etc. There are a few missing (tables, numbered lists, ...) so one thing we do is keep adding features as the are needed or seem useful.

Editing concern #2: Usability

Which leads nicely to another big part, getting the editor to work how people think it will. A simple example is things like shortcuts - if you select text and hit Ctrl-B, most people expect this to make the text bold. If you type in a right-aligned paragraph, and hit enter, you expect the next line to also be right-aligned by default. If you put your cursor inside a yellow word, and type, you want the letters you add to also be yellow.

Note that a lot of this is determined by researchers, for the coders it's often more the task of making it easy to customise - for example, if it's decided that, if you type at the end of link the new characters aren't linked (compared to typing at the end of a bold word and wanting bold characters), then we should be able to implement this without spending lots of effort.

Editing concern #3: Realtime

One of the strong points with Wave is that messages update as they type, so editing has to be able to take care of any situations that occur from these - for instance, what if you're typing and someone else deletes the line you're on, where should your selection go?

More importantly, if someone types a paragraph, say, 50 letters long, then the document you're viewing will update up to 50 times. If processing then displaying an update was slow, concurrent editing would be a huge pain - so there's quite a bit of complexity in our code to make sure that for each update, as little work as possible is done. By only updating the parts that have changed, the editing experience becomes much faster and smoother.

Editing concern #4: Internationalisation (a.k.a. I18N)

We're hoping that everyone around the world can use Wave - this means not just English speakers from US/UK/Oz/... but also those who use non-standard letters (e.g. the German ß character), non-roman characters (e.g. Cyrillic) right-to-left languages (e.g. Hebrew) and character-based (e.g. Chinese).

For at least the last case, it has added complexity due to the way the characters are usually written in editors - as you cannot get a keyboard big enough to have each character, they are entered as longer combinations of text, which needs to work in Wave. It just so happens that each computer type (Windows, Mac, Linux, ...) and browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, ...) do things in their own way for these, which brings me to my last point...

Editing concern #5: Getting it working for everyone

Websites like Wave are viewed on web browsers - you currently are using one to view this blog, it could be Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, or one of many others. Unfortunately, they all have their own separate quirks in how things work inside them, and we need to get our editor working in as many as possible (we currently support Chrome, Safari and Firefox). To add to this, the browsers themselves are programs, so they are changed or upgraded every so often, which occasionally break the way our editor interacts with them.

Thankfully it's becoming more standardised, but for now it means, when adding or changing behaviour, we sometimes must test all the different combinations, or add workarounds that are different for each browser type used. Fun...

But it's an interesting challenge which has and will keep me occupied. As my team recently blogged, we have now sent out more than a million invitations. Because editing is a part users spend a lot of time on when using Wave, it's possible that a million people have now used my code. Even if only 0.1% of those use a certain editor feature each day, that's still 1000 people per day whose editing experience I have helped, always a good feeling :)

For now, time to get adjusted to not having a long uni end-of-year break...

It looks like I'll be back in SA for Xmas then NSW for New Year's, see you then!

Details

2009-11-08T16:08:00.004+11:00

I've realised that I've never actually said exactly what I'm doing here in Sydney, so thought I'd spend a few blog updates explaining it. So far, I've probably explained to the point of "I work for Google, coding for Google Wave", time to elaborate. Since I've started, my job in the team comprises mainly of two sections - Client and Editor - so I'll describe them both, starting this post with Client.

What is a Client?

In the Wave world, a 'Wave client' is something you use to view waves. For example, if you use Outlook or Gmail to view emails, these are both mail clients. As Google develops Google Wave, with it we have wave.google.com which, if you have an account, you can visit to log in and view/edit all you waves. This is our wave client - a website that shows waves.

What is involved in making the Google web client?

Websites are becoming more and more complex these days, building of a number of technologies - in particular:

- HTML is a language for specifying the content of a page. This includes things like text content, panels, images, ...

- CSS is a language for setting the styles of a page - stuff like colours, borders, layouts and fonts.

These two together are enough for static (i.e. non-changing) websites and many older sites were made of these two. As more dynamic content was desired, and extra functionality needed in sites, a third part became more widespread:

- JavaScript can be thought of as the programming language for websites - it allows you to define mini programs to change the html/css of a page, to grab information from elsewhere without reloading the site, to define complex actions on button clicks, etc..

I deal with all of JavaScript, HTML and CSS in my job, however they are not the most friendly of languages to use to develop large projects - thankfully, Google has a tool for making that easier:

- Java is a programming language growing in popularity for developing projects.

- GWT is a google toolkit for converting a Java project into a website made of JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

This is very useful as there are many tools that make writing and fixing Java code very simple, plus many useful libraries available in Java that others have written and can be reused. This combination (Java + GWT) is what I spend most of my time doing.

What do I do in the Client?

I am in no way the only Client developer - there are a number in my team, as our client is rather complex, does a lot of interesting stuff and in some ways is pushing the boundaries of what a website can do inside a browser. Other than editing (which I'll talk about next post), the main chunk of what I do in the client is the project that I was assigned when first starting at Google - the toolbar (see below). Along with this I help with some generic stuff (mostly hooking up behaviour in the right-most wave panel, but also some misc. behaviour, css/html, speed profiling, bug fixes etc..).

How come you're so slow at making a Toolbar?!

So, when I started, I was tasked with making the 'Edit toolbar'. Pretty simple - whenever in edit mode, we needed a bar of buttons to allow bold, italic, underline and a few other things. Within a week I got a really basic thing hooked up, and we started using that. Unfortunately, our need for buttons grew to proper customisable ones with configurable icons and possibly text, plus fancy overlapping separators, so the HTML and CSS grew more complex to accomodate. Eventually we needed users to add their own buttons, plus dropdowns for fonts, alignment, popups for links, etc... plus features like bold buttons displaying whether the current selection was bold, and the toolbar became close to what it is today:

Along the way, the requirement grew to add a normal 'view'-mode toolbar with buttons for actions you can perform on waves, complete with both icons and text, plus adding a toolbar to the search panel (in the middle) as well as a dropdown (the '...' below) that will show the buttons that are not visible if the panels are too narrow, plus later any options or buttons that aren't supposed to be displayed normally. And so, the edit toolbar and buttons were altered and the generic Toolbar was born, plus the More button:
The last toolbar that is currently in operation is the Playback toolbar - including normal icon-only buttons for navigation, plus the fun addition of a slider which again required updating button code to allow controllers on the toolbar. All the while, making sure it works properly in all supported browsers (Safari, Firefox, Chrome) plus looks fine in the small dropdown mode (as shown below) plus on mobile devices (iPhone and Androids).

And that's the current state the toolbar is in - most of the time is spent either coming up with nice generic ways of doing the actions across all browsers (e.g. when clicking buttons while editing, you want the editor to keep its selection, even though by default browsers all get rid of the selection on clicks), or adding in behavioural aspects (still to do is to display which font family/size/colour is selected, displaying menus when you click-and-hold, etc...)

Having said all that, despite the toolbar being a bit of a time sink for the behavioural aspects, it is nice to be working on such a visible and used aspect (plus pretty! Although I do none of that, it's all thanks to our talented UI designer), especially when Stephen Fry uses it!!!

Next week, I'll get into editing, and the miscellaneous other parts of the job (this week I've been primary oncall, which has meant two 2am and two 5am wakeups so far...). Til next time, happy Waving!

Launch!

2009-10-09T22:49:00.003+11:00

So, it definitely has been a while since the last update, although I had always expected that due to the last bullet point in this list. In brief, what I've been occupying myself with includes:

Mid September was mostly filled with work, mainly just increasing the stability of what I've been working on so people can use it for longer without it breaking...
Near the end of September, everyone from Google visited the Hunter Valley for three days! They put us up at some vineyard/golf-course/retreat type place, some of the time was having meetings and mingling with the rest of the office, but there was also time for a pub trivia night, a wine blending & cooking classes lunch, a poker tournament (2nd place out of 30 or so!) and even laser clay pigeon shooting. An enjoyable 3 days, for sure. Driving up was also interesting, as it was on the day of the massive dust storm, so the entire way was red and dusty...
Even closer to the end of September, I was lucky enough to visit Adelaide again for my Grandmother's birthday (special thanks to D-and-J of D-and-J Higgins for flying me over!). It was great to catch up with almost all of my closest relatives (including those normally in Victoria!), although that resulted in a very packed, albeit satisfying weekend.
Then, right at the end of September (I guess technically 1st Oct here, but Sep 30 in the US) wave launched its "Consumer Preview". While still not a full open launch, we decided that we were basically stable enough, and with enough features, that we could open up to move to around 100,000 regular users. Users are coming in through an invite system designed to get collaborative groups on together, so currently we're growing at quite an amazing rate (and having all the fun related to getting many many more users :p).

So that's about it, mainly the launch has been what's kept me amazingly busy for the last month or so. It should be able to slow down for a little bit now (e.g. tonight I've just come back from a cruise around Sydney harbour with some Anita Borg finalists) and so I've had the chance to get my tax return in (first tax return the goverment has ever had to pay me! hurrah) plus boring stuff like car service and dentist/specialist stuff.

Awesome week & Lombard pics

2009-08-16T21:54:00.003+10:00

I figured I just had to update this week after realising on thursday that I have it pretty nicely here in Sydney currently. What happened thursday, you ask? well..it started the day before with all Googlers receiving an army camo shirt and cap, and Thursday was paintball day! All of the engineers had an off-site, which included six games of paintball against the others in the office - including my boss! This resulted in lots of paint, spent paintballs, and even a shot to the neck from my new gf of a month, Katie - impressive bruises all around (which I still have!).

No, the more fun part came walking back into work AFTER paintball. Yes, I walked to work at 5:30 pm, in sneakers, a tshirt and tracksuit pants, listening to my mpp3 player and wearing a scarf so my welt was hidden. Why, you ask? Well, I had some stuff I wanted to finish early, but thursday is also they day where they have free beer and wine, plus free food after, and during which a few people from the office play board-games. So that was enjoyable, and after which I then also walked into timezone in town to practice some guitar hero arcade - because today (Sunday) there was a contest - came 5th, winning a free shirt and a $30 voucher (plus a figurine, meh, and soccer ball, for some reason...). So, all in all, a pretty cool week, hard to top any time soon!

Miscellaneous update 1, is that work is still going very well, and we now have a new target to aim at - 100,000 users by the end of september! eek...at least it's a bit quiet for now, but that'll change mid-september.
Update #2 is that my other lease on my old house has finally finished, which means bond back (once fridge is removed) and no more double rent! Which goes nicely into...
Update #3: long overdue pictures of my new Lombard St apartment! No, not the Lombard st in San Fransisco, but one in Sydney. My two new housemates are the afore-mentioned Katie Bell, a fellow Googler, as well as Greg Darke, a PhD student in IT at Sydney Uni. pics!
The first is taken in a park just outside - we're up on level two on one of those balconies. As you can see, it's part of a much large estate, so all the gardens (including weird tropical-themed walkway) are taken care of, and both Greg & I get our own car-park :)

Next picture is the view over the balcony! As you can see, another place I can see the centre of town from, which is nice - though this time much closer, and from the western side, so a short walk into work. And finally -

A picture of inside, notice Greg on the guitar and Katie on the drums. That's it from me, another update hopefully around late september early october after our work hunter valley visit, and 100k launch!

Picture-view

2009-06-21T22:40:00.005+10:00

As promised, some pictures from my recent trip to Mountain View (MtV), California.
First off, a picture of what most of MtV looks like - I went for a long walk the second weekend I was there, and for about 2 or 3 hours, the entire trip looked like this:

Why would I walk for 3 hours, you say? Well, I needed the exercise (you don't get much in California, and with the food they serve, I feel I must have gained some weight...), but also guitars are much cheaper over there, I managed to pick up this! (A seven-string Ibanez 7321, have meant to get one for such a long time, finally I have one, and a coffin-shaped case to keep it in, which was fun getting through customs...)

Next up, what better to do with a group of programmers in the hub of Silicon Valley than visit all the geeky tech places, starting with NASA Ames:
As well as Apple headquarters:
and nVidia (plus yahoo, Xerox, facebook and a few others not pictured):
Nearby to work is also a tech museum, with a bunch things important in the history of computers (e.g. early Google machines, a Babbage difference engine, a Cray supercomputer,..) as well as an Enigma machine:
and the famous deep blue! (and before you asked, no, I did not play it...)
And finally, the non-tech part of San Fransicso; the drive to & from was fun (scenic, but also I ended up driving about 120kmph on the 'wrong' (=right) side of the road in an automatic Mazda 6), and in the city itself we managed to find this famous bridge:
And in case you were curious at the view up one of those really large spire pylon things: (for those playing at home, we ended up going exactly half way, then back again, so effectively walked accross it...)

But wait, there's more! Well...not on the trip-related subject, but I also recently found out that I won a University Medal for graduated students (I think maybe for honours students). 18 were given out this year, so it seems I might be able to be back in SA for one or two days to collect it, even if that means wearing academic dress again...

Next update will hopefully be soon, and about this house, after our house-warming this upcoming friday. Adios!

Text-only view

2009-06-07T15:43:00.003+10:00

Firstly, I apologise for the lack of images - I've been unable to get my photos from my phone onto the work laptop I'm using here in the states, so the images will have to wait until I get back to Sydney before appearing here (but rest assured, they'll get here!)

Secondly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Emily, Gran and Dad for their respective birthdays on the 3rd, 7th and 9th this month - I'm sorry that I couldn't be in Adelaide for the weekend, but I hope it was fun!

Now, to update you all on how the last few weeks have gone - it's been crazy but amazing! So, I arrived in the US on Friday 22nd, and by that afternoon (US time, so effectively saturday morning) I was at the Googleplex! But not just at the Googleplex, I was actually setting up a machine, and within a few hours, writing code at the Googleplex. This trend continued into friday night, then started again for most of Saturday, Sunday and Monday - it was rather surreal, a bunch of us in a small visitors' area, making the finishing touches and bugfixes before our big thursday demo.

Finally, after the 5 or 6 days of changes, some press training, and numerous demo runthroughs, we were ready! Our team of about 50 or so developers (mostly from the Sydney office) all travelled down to San Fransico's Moscone centre, the location for this year's Google Developer conference, 'IO'. The Wave demo was the keynote on the thursday day 2, so we headed in our secret back entrance early, and what really struck me and a few other guys was the sight of attendees literally running to get seats up the front to see what we were announcing. You can check the video at the link in the post below, and I'll have a post all about it once I'm back in Syd, but in summary, it went really well! The reception has been amazing, just walking around IO and getting random people talking to me and the rest of the team - our youtube video is up to almost 2 million views in a little over a week, quite astounding.

That's about all for now, this week and next week are all just attending google training sessions, exploring around the HUGE campus we have here, and, of course, enjoying the Wave aftermath while trying to get our product stable, feature-laden and ready for a large consumer launch!

More soon, with pictures - Pat, Wave developer :)

Oooh, and for those that care about these sort of things, the Google share price is currently $444.32. On the morning of our keynote, it was $405.56, which means close to a 10% increase in stock price in the last week, and it's nice to think that at least some of that is hopefully due to my team - especially considering it was also a week where Microsoft announced the new upgrade of their competing search engine. And, for reference, the price on Feb 2 when I started was $340.57 ;)

Wave

2009-05-29T04:11:00.004+10:00

Really quick update - the project I'm on at work has just been announced, so I can talk about it now! And hopefully will also be free more to enjoy and update you about my trip here to California, more shortly!

Update

2009-04-29T22:08:00.002+10:00

It's official! My workplace has just been declared the #1 place to work in Australia!
Now, it's hard to say whether this is true, as I've really only worked at one place (well..maybe two if you count SAAB), but it is rather nice. The food is still excellent, we now have a new pool table, and I'm starting to enjoy the flexible working hours - recently I picked up some flu going around (NOT swine flu) and have been able to take a few days off, doing some work from home.

In the meantime, I've found out I get a three week trip to the US (providing the aforementioned flu thing doesn't get out of control)! All new fulltimers get to visit the homebase in mountain view for some training. Which means I'm out of sydney from 22nd May - 12th June, but also that I get to check out the famed Googleplex, complete with numerous cafes and even ball pit! I'll try to remember to take plenty of pictures. Apologies in advance to all those with birthdays in early June that I'm going to miss =(

Everything else going fine in syd - had diabetes and dentist checkups, everything looking good (except...yay! root canal. but only one), I might be relocating house shortly after returning from training, mostly due to cheaper & closer to work, just trying to arrange things this end.

I've been lazy and not taken any pictures this week, but instead, here's a video from a guy at work of what showed up over the harbour at work today:

Happy Easter!

2009-04-15T22:14:00.002+10:00

Just a really quick update to say thanks to all those people I met up with in Adelaide over the easter weekend, twas a good (albeit busy) weekend. And to those I didn't see, apologies - the four days filled up faster than I had thought. I hope you all had a great weekend, and I might be back in Adelaide next long weekend (early June).

Until then, the next while will probably be rather busy again, so just a warning that responses from me may be a bit slow, but I'm still here! It'll all make sense eventually, I swear, but I can't tell you when :p

new Office()

2009-03-22T22:18:00.003+11:00

(Apologies for the bad programmer joke in the title)

So, as promised, news this week from Sydney is all about the move to the new office in Pyrmont. It's a bit longer walk in every morning, but I don't mind it mainly because this is what it looks like - Firstly, our actual office. I'm on the sixth floor...that's right, there seem to be only five. Because mine is the small one up the very top, complete with balcony outside and large actual cafe, and the best views in the place!

If you're wondering what the view is like, here's one taken from just outside the building, with a view similar to that out the window near my desk or out the balcony at the cafe. Notice the nice coat-hangery thing:
Now, it's true that I've been working quite late recently, apologies for being hard to get in contact with. After this week things should settle down a bit, but even now, working late isn't all that bad due to actual dinners served at work, plus the following view while eating dinner:

and this view on the walk home across darling harbour:

And that's about it for this update - not much else is happening, except maybe making another pumpkin pie (mmmmyum) and playing more soccer against ebay, now that we have a grassy area very close by. I've also booked flights for the easter long weekend, so anyone in Adelaide, I'll catch up with you then!

Moving (and shaking?)

2009-03-15T22:18:00.002+11:00

To start with, just letting everyone know that yes, I did go hypoglycemic at work, but received some glucagon quickly and am now back to normal, and have arranged a slight insulin adjustment with a local specialist who I'm seeing again in a month.

But on to happier things - firstly, Kensington. It just so happens that my place here is within walking (and hearing) distance of the SCG, which was rather fortunate as on saturday the Sound Relief concert was held there, so saturday involved waking up at noon with Coldplay coming through the window, and having dinner to the sounds of Jet. Then sunday came complete with amazing sunset:
We also move Google office this weekend, to the new location on the pyrmont side of Darling Harbour - but with views of the bridge, I am told. I haven't seen it yet, but things to look forwards to include a huge cafe kitchen (as in, actual chefs on staff i believe), themed rooms like the treehouse library (although, the theme near me is apparently 'dunny and algae', not sure why...) plus having an actual desk next to the people I'm working with. Pictures of the surrounding area shall hopefully be added to this blog in the next few weeks.

Having said that, I have a feeling the next two weeks will be hurrendously busy for me due to some pending deadlines, so apologies if I am hard to contact. Preempting this, I decided to try something recommended by an American friend...pumpkin pie:
And after the amazing success, it's my new #1 thing to make (maybe I'll prepare one over Easter if I'm in Adelaide and have some victims to try it on) - so it appears vegetables can be used in desserts.

The last picture is just a small aside as to what happens when you try to copy Ikea and have instruction manuals with no words. You get cute little steps like this one, I'll let you decipher what step 4 does...

Merch!

2009-03-01T20:58:00.004+11:00

Really short update, just to say something excellent arrived in the mail:

Pegasi merchandise! Not bad quality if I may say so myself :) Nothing else too interesting happening over here, more from me when it does. I hope all is well for the two or three people reading this :p

Another day at the office...

2009-02-26T21:51:00.003+11:00

Ok, firstly:

I was not responsible for Gmail going down worldwide
I was also nowhere near Castlereagh street when it started falling apart

Just thought I'd clear those two up :)

Thanks to everyone who's emailed/chatted/sms'd/commented/facebooked etc. to me over the last few weeks! I apologise if I've been slow replying, things are still a bit busy around here but thankfully that's starting to ease.
So much so that I even made Jam scones and pancakes last sunday:
As you can see, unfortunately I only realised after making the batter that the frypan wasn't non-stick, so instead had to improvise a bit with a pan.

But the food here is certainly going well - lunch at Google monday to friday, and dinner around town or in my large kitchen. All I need now is some sort of exercise or I might come back from sydney a bit bigger :(

It must be said, the sydney-cbd lifestyle certainly does take a bit of adjusting too. If I had to sum it up in one word, I'd say: corporate. People in suits everywhere - some days I walk into work going down Martin Place, and it's amazing the number of office workers in suits that continually are commuting up and down there (I haven't yet stood outside the seven office and looked in to see Kochie just yet though...). To see the big head offices of so many large businesses is kinda cool - some are styled in a really old-fashioned way, probably because the buildings have been there for ages (it's amusing to see the old sandstone banks just like they appear in movies), but more impressive are the new ones - especially fashion places (e.g. Prada, Armani) and also Apple: Another thing I learned quickly was that Sydney drivers like using their horns (a LOT - I was honked at twice at an intersection while the light was red, simply because the driver behind me wanted to turn left on a green left-turn arrow while I was going straight...) and that pedestrian crossing lights are completely superfluous - the average commuter won't pay any attention to them at all, and simply cross when there's no cars close by (or even when they are close by, in some cases).

Finally, I have to say that I'm rather glad I'm working where I am. Despite the number of people who come to work at 11am and seem to not leave until 11pm or even 1am, it's amazing to come to work and feel like you're seeing the future of the internet - not only all these things about how the world is operating (e.g. search query statistics, how maps or gmail work) but also what it could be like in a few weeks or months time, chatting to people about future Google projects that haven't yet made it into the public, or in some cases, haven't even made it to more than one or two googlers yet. It's also nice to know that, if you do improve something, then based on the number of google users, whatever you do will (hopefully) be of some use - albeit also picked apart and commented about on blogs, but hey, hopefully they say nice stuff. Then there's also stuff like this:

The new place

2009-02-14T20:24:00.004+11:00

Ok, so here goes, a brief pictorial overview of my situation in Sydney, starting with my new place (appearing mood-lit at night). My place is the window above the one with the light on:Next up is the view from the kitchen window. Just to the right of centre in the picture you can see Sydney's centrepoint tower, and between here and there is trees:
From the back balcony, you can see a local golf-course. There is also a nice view out my bedroom window...I'm not sure what town that is, but again, lots of green in the view:
Next up is where I'm working - the Google office I'm in is 11 floors up in this building, on the corner of Market st and Sussex st. Right now, I also sit at a desk right at the corner of the two side visible in this shot, so I get a pretty good view:
As it happens, just to the right of my screen, I can see pretty much this (just a bit smaller due to being 11 floors in the air...) - which happens to be the sydney aquarium to the right, the national maritime museum on the left, and some of its fancy boats in the middle, parked in Darling Harbour:
As I said, I'm on the corner of the office for now, so if I stand up and crane my neck a bit, I can look down to also see something like this - more of darling harbour:
I should add, on my first few days I was staying at a motel in Randwick, and as all the realestate agencies were closed on Australia day, I decided to take a walk - I think this one is Gordon's bay:
And this, of course, is Bondi! It was a bit overcast that day, but at least there were no sharks...:
That's it for the picture guide, but expect more info to come soon!

It's back!

2009-02-13T20:35:00.001+11:00

After a long thesis-finishing hiatus, including a relocation to NSW, the codemonkey blog is back!

Now that I have net access, and am starting to settle down into the working-life routine, I hope to keep this updated with what's happening here in sydneyland. Stay tuned!

Ambidexterity

2008-09-22T00:16:00.002+10:00

Recently, I've decided to upgrade my old Squier Strat for a 7-string Ibanez 7321. The strat is about 4 years old, so decided to give it a clean, which included a complete restring.

Now, a bit more background - I'm an avid Guitar Hero player, quite good, but can't really bring myself to play it often enough to be among the top league of players. Plus, it's not really very popular here in Aus, so while I've won beer and an IPod from T, I doubt i'd be able to earn much more. It's still fun though, so I figured I'd use the opportunity to learn a new skill - ambidexterity. You see, there's this option to play 'lefty-flipped' = everything reversed, where you strum with your left hand, and fret with your right.

I'd never noticed until I tried, how hard it was at first. You see, while it was easy to think what you should do, muscle memory inevitable took over. When playing normally, you always fret (left-hand) slightly before strumming (right-hand) so you're holding notes down before you hit them. Your left hand naturally learns to move a bit before right, so when you flip, suddently you're strumming before notes are held (= bad). Similarly, transitions between chords with the right hand, or simple strumming patterns with the left, would suddenly be much harder.

Which leads me to think that hand preference is more a thing of repeated action, than actually being better at one. You see, I began practicing in such a way that mistakes weren't tolerated (that is, starting by just finishing expert careers, but now aiming at 100% for expert songs, so far acheived on two of them! :D) and my progress isn't too dissimilar from playing normal-handed.

Now back to my original story - I decided to restring it flipped, with the strings in reversed order, to try to learn to play normal guitar flipped. I already know all the theory, tis just a matter of muscle coordination, so hopefully by next year I should have it at a reasonable stage :) At the moment, strumming still feels kinda odd, and my right hand feels strangely inflexible, but Wonderwall is starting to sound ok :) But yeah, in short - ambidexterity is a weird thing, it'd be nice to be able to use either side equally, and although it seems hard at first, practice does seem to help a lot...maybe it'll come in useful one day.

Note also that it can be quite odd - if you try to write left-handed, it's much easier writing the letters correctly than writing them as mirror imaged, I'm guessing in this case we remember the visuals more than the muscle movements. However, some things are easier to do wrong-handed when outright flipped.

In other cool news, my indoor soccer team won our grand final! That's two seasons in a row, especially good this season as we only just made it into the finals themselves, never expected to do that well, and it's also my last full season here in SA (...for a while, at least). Secondly, a Melbourne uni team of coders recently won our ACM regional - I was hoping these three would win, they've all been taught in the high-school program I help with, and what is more, check their team name! :)

Holidays on now, which means honours talk soon, and lots of thesis writing....fun....adios for now!

myTunes

2008-09-01T12:08:00.004+10:00

So, happy September everyone! The following is the usage stats of my site for August, each bar representing how much data was downloaded from it per day by visitors:
The lowest horizontal (i.e. about day 1's total) is roughly 80Mb/day, which I used to be happy to hit - that translated into about 50-75 listens per day on mp3 sites. Then it kinda slowed down, and I thought I was in for a slow month...then August 24 happened, and BOOM. I mean, some rise was to be expected due to the end of the Olympics, especially as my listeners mostly seem to come via a chinese-language site, but still - almost 250Mb/day. Strangely, the # listens doesn't seem to gave grown much, people are just listening to songs for longer it seems. I've also had a number of odd referrers (= sites people get to mine from) include a few spam, one that looks like a ringtone site, and another apparently from ninemsn :S Maybe it was after the 20th = Pegasi's first gig, but either way, hopefully it'll keep up!

On the topic of music, and gigging, we received feedback on the performance. Most was good suggestions, stuff expected to be said about a band at their first gig after being formed for 3 weeks. However, a few things said - although not surprising comments - did kinda annoy me. They were - (1) The guitar playing was 'too complex', (2) Not enough hooks, (3) Stick to one genre, and (4) The song structures were too unusual.

Those who know my music tastes will know my #1 band to listen to, almost exclusively, is Dream Theater (with Fastball high up for their composing skills). Lets see some of the reasons I listen to DT and shun most other music:
(1) They're skillful - most parts are amazingly complex, yet still appealing to the ear (e.g Overture 1928)
(2) Most songs don't have catchy hooks, instead almost all notes and lyrics are important (e.g The Great Debate)
(3) Their range of songs is diverse, newer ones especially are not repetative (e.g. Constant Motion vs. Wait For Sleep vs. Endless Sacrifice vs. I Walk Beside You vs. Never Enough)
(4) Structures are rarely simple, with guitar/keyboard/drum fills and unusual time signatures added yet still sounding great (e.g. Honor Thy Father, Forsaken)

Not that I don't think the judges are bad for putting that feedback down, but it certainly is the way of the industry now to have repetative songs, whether inside the same song - i.e. lyrics repeated over and over again, the same riffs played CCVCCV, e.g. The Veronicas new 'hit' - or between songs by the same group [e.g. i have to say it - Dragonforce], or worse, songs that sound like songs already out there [*cough* I'm looking at you, Rogue Traders and Kid Rock].

And that's not to say that the artists themselves are to blame for this, it's just business. Instead, for me it's the consumer who wants 15 seconds of catchy song, either for their ringtone, or to appear on an ad, or simply because a four-minute song is too long to listen to...(*points at DT's Album/Song, Metropolis pt. 2*). So once you write your catchy, yet musically vacuous 15 seconds of hook, the next step is to play it over and over and over and OVER again, add some drum track, and dance around a bit. If you're already famous, you get some radio play, and because your hook is played 12 times per song, it'll get stuck in everyone's head! Meanwhile the musical intellect of the average listening is in a skydive.

Revolt against the dumbing down of our musical culture! It's time for a new style, where songs have over 1 minute of non-repeating sections, where lyrics and verses ACTUALLY MATTER, and where minor 7ths, suspended 4ths or added 13ths can roam free, safe from the threat of power chords!

Time's a curious thing

2008-08-17T13:01:00.002+10:00

Ever look back on yourself five years ago and think how silly you were back then?
Whether it's a memory of screwing up a question at a quiz night, or finding a guitar song easy that I remember having trouble with, or looking back at old forum posts thinking "uhh...I actually said that? What a fool!", it's amazing to think of the changes over the last five years. And even more scary, wondering whether, five years (and probably 4 blog posts) from now, I'll think the same thing looking back '08. If so, I'll be one odd fellow in '13.

Anyhow, onto non-me topic: Time.

I'm not sure whether I've written it here before, but it is still my idea that, as we are all still here, if time travel were possible, it'd only be used by socities who can utilise it safely without any paradoxical activities. This also means that they don't travel to any societites for which this is not the case - including us. And as it seems to me we're a long way from maturing enough, it will be a long time before we can hope for time travel (if it is at all possible, maybe not), so don't hold your breath. I mention it now because I recently heard it was a theory that travel might be possible, but would require the correct technology at both ends of the trip, which has a strange parallel to my earlier idea.

And a second brief point:
Question 1: Do you think that time can go on forever? [e.g. there's no point where time will just stop]
If no: Q2) How will it stop, and what will cause it? { 'Time travel paradox' would be a cool answer :D }
If yes: Q2) Can time extend backwards forever?
My initial reaction to Q1 is "yes", and so now i'm thinking my reaction to Q2 is also "yes". It's often wondered how time began - Big Bang, Creation, etc... but it's not often considered *whether* time began. I can't think of any reason why it really needed to? Sure, if you keep going backwards, then entropy keeps decreasing, but it's easy to be bounded yet always decrease. Maybe there was no start of time. something to think about :)

Communication Breakdown

2008-07-26T01:11:00.002+10:00

Kudos to anyone who got the Led Zeppelin reference in the title.
Anyway, this is a semi-rant over something that has started to bother me recently, but looking back I realise it's actually been happening for a while, just has increased over the last while so is more noticible.
You see, verbal communication (i.e. speaking) is great for getting whatever is in your head into someone else's, for sharing your thoughts with others. Thus it intrigues me whenever people say something vocally, yet then act in a way which completely contradicts their sentiments. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and I tend to trust body language/actions as how someone truly feels, moreso than what they're saying, for this exact reason. Is it truly that hard to say what you mean, to mean what you say?
The first question from this is: Is the contradiction intentional? Or are people just so unaware of themselves that they don't realise they don't agree with what they're saying? My guess would be the last one, just that if people really are that unaware of how they're feeling, and vocalise the opposite, then it truly is worrying. One thing that keeps a society functioning is accurate communication between people, so it'd be nice if you could trust what people said - while that is far off, it'd certainly be nice (and should be possible) to trust what people said about themselves...
Second question - Why is this happening? The first thing that comes to mind is the same cause as many problems nowadays: thought laziness. People are getting away with less and less deep thought, that reflecting on how you feel is apparently too hard, it's simpler to say the cliche that comes to mind first, which fits best, and others will be happy with, even when it's not true =(
The other reason which strikes me is egotism. Why? Well, verbal communication sends messages to others, and usually they act on these messages. If you actually worried about others reacting to what you say, then you'd try not to mislead (I would have thought...I guess I'm wrong). Instead, what happens is communication breakdown, people react but to the wrong thing, and that's when problems begin...
One final reason, which would be awesome, is that everyone is aware of what they feel, say and do, and the differences are to make things more interesting. Though based on how complex interaction is, I seriously doubt it.
Final question - Is it a problem, and if so, what can we do about it? My answer so far is: Yes, and I don't know. Personally, all I can do is try best to mean what I say, and try to get really good at body language :p
Mindless thoughts, thoughtless minds, to the heroes it's obvious, it's time to be leaving town...

On random non-sequiturs:
National Campus Bands Concert is on at Uni soon, maybe the first gig for the Pegasi?
And skiing (well, more snowboarding) was cold, expensive, but awesome!
Coming back was confusing however, when I found my supermarket had weird discounts:
-) 2L iced coffee cheaper than 2L plain milk
-) Packet of 20 chips cheaper than packet of 15
-) Softdrink cheaper per litre if bought in 1.25L than 2L bottles
Oh discordia...

This is not a blog post

2008-06-28T20:05:00.003+10:00

Recently, an early painting by Monet was sold for $80 million, not bad for something that was bought in 1971 for $320,000 and hasn't been seen much since. The worth apparently comes from it being an example of what he'd later work on, so the moral of the story seems to be: If you think you're going to become famous, don't throw anything out...

Anyway, thinking about art and walking through uni, I noticed Magritte had come to Adelaide:
(for those who don't get the reference, check out The Treachery of Images)

Otherwise, no new music due to exams, and skiing for 2 weeks soon, but afterwards I'll start some predictions posts - and maybe, due to being very un-impressed with what is playing on the radio these days, actually do the song-in-a-day/week project to see what comes out of it.

More Beans

2008-05-21T00:20:00.002+10:00

First up, I recently found out that my second-last blog entry 'Beans' did rather well in the contest it was written for, in fact coming in the top 10! So many thanks to Bodie for helping with the eloquence, and to all the folks running the NetBeans contest.
This is only a short entry to let readers know that I've managed to get myself a job at a little-known website company who have an office in Sydney. Which means moving at the start of next year, and making the most of Adelaide until then (hopefully I'll be able to come back on some weekends too).
Speaking of which, my band should soon have a name, and once a permanent drummer is found, the next step is finding gigs (probably some time after ski-trip in the mid-year break) so I'll keep you posted.
Oooh, and the most recent TCO just finished, congrats to the winners and JD on his 4th place (competing in style wearing sunglasses). Until next time, adios!

Black Parade

2008-05-01T23:20:00.003+10:00

I'm starting to really love the walk home at night - so peaceful, so scenic, I'd strongly recommend it, you're welcome to come along some time but the most creativity comes from doing it alone while tuning out the rest of the world.
On the way home today, the result was this, influenced by My Chemical Romance's Black Parade:

To those who stand alone tonight -
beaten,
broken,
unseen by the eyes of others,
with unheard voice projected from unappreciated lips;
undervalued,
overlooked
yet still running the gauntlet -
Know that we're standing here with you,
beaten together,
broken together,
united by this humble existance.
We'll carry on.

In other news, due to 88Mb on the last day, plus new recordings, padster.gyronet.org managed to serve 1 Gb last month. As I write this, it is 3 hours into gyronet's March, and the old 'Final Goodbye' mp3 has had 39 hits already, and the new 'less ordinary' is on 17. Kinda makes me wish I could play full time once uni has finished, but this is unlikely.

Beans!

2008-04-08T20:46:00.020+10:00

Amazing news in from Microsoft:
That's right, a P2P chat application with NO code written by the user at all. I was struck by two thoughts - (a) Is Microsoft just telling a big fib, and (b) is it a good thing that P2P apps can be written with no code? Having recently downloaded the NetBeans 6.1 Beta IDE to help with some Java GUI, I decided to test this out...so channeling the reviewing style of Jeremy Clarkson and simile generation of Zero Punctuation, welcome to my first ever IDE roadtest:

Can NetBeans create a code-less P2P app?

Armed with only NetBeans 6.1 Beta, a little plastic ball of mouse in my right hand I can start this java experiment ‐ while my left hand is free to go off and make itself some coffee, play golf with Donald Trump, or really do whatever it wants now that it's not required to write any code. I foresee it could soon become quite the socialite.

The first step is upgrading my old NetBeans 6.0 to the new 6.1 version. Unfortunately, 'upgrade' here is a euphemism for complete reinstall, or 105Mb download for the J2EE users. While this isn't a major problem, the long wait does put the new version under as much pressure to impress as a Rock band releasing their second album.

Anyhow, with the download over, install complete, it's time to start the ~~coding~~ drag-and-dropping for our chat program.

Step 1) Database
Needing somewhere to store our chat data, I decide to take the Schwarzenegger-Humvee approach and get out the big guns, creating a codeless database. Thankfully, this is pretty painless in NetBeans, it's all there under the "Services" tab. After starting the Apache Derby DB server, I can "Create Database...", then expanding the tree allows me to "Create Table..." to store my messages:
and with that, the table is created with as little effort as it takes to find a Starbucks in New York.

Step 2) GUI
Now, creating the actual app project goes something like:
File -> New Project -> Java Desktop Application -> rename to "P2P" and select "Database Application" -> Select the newly created database table -> Include the both columns -> Finish!
Step 2.5) Bling
I must admit, that was easy and quick - and so is a Concorde, but they're both kinda ugly at first, although this GUI isn't French. Thankfully, changing colours and rearranging forms is still a codeless, right-hand-only job, but as a programmer, I decided to bring the art to the code, and make something Piet Mondrian would be proud of:

Step 3) Running!
So, having reached this far only requiring the coding knowledge of the average Big Brother contestant (no Java, no SQL, and not really English required) it's time to test it out chatting to myself. It's the standard click-the-giant-green-triangle trick two bring up two versions of the app (both of which are happy to compile & run no problems). And Voila! - a functioning P2P java app, about as useable as credit-card-cutlery, but it involved writing no code at all.
The only thing that was missing was needing to manually refresh to see new messages - it'd be cool if you could drag a timer onto the form that you can set up to call an action every K milliseconds, however I still consider this mission successful! No picture here, see above for the running app.

Step 4) Line-of-Code metric
A few quick asides: programmers often get paid by lines-of-code. In this project, I wrote zero lines, but inside the project folder running: cat `find . -name "*.java"` wc --lines tells me this app is 804 lines long! That translates into an impresive 500 words-per-minute...
Actually, let's boost that a bit by generating the javadocs too. In NetBeans, that's as simple as Right-Click P2P -> Generate Javadoc and after some thought, it spits out a pretty website:
To find out how many lines of html are generated:cat `find . -name "*.html"` wc --lines gives 5720.
This little Worker Bee has generated 6524 LOC, which is more lines than even the Rolling Stones did in their peak. 267684 html and java characters in 30 minutes is a staggering 1750 wpm, time to brew some real java beans I think.

Step 5) Conclusion
So there we have it, a brief demonstration of the current state of code-free coding. I must admit, I'm more of a DIY coder who'd prefer setting up the butterfly effect to write my code, over having it fed to me one Java Bean at a time, but I'm also aware (and thankful) that not everyone feels the same way. With the learning curve for Java GUIs about as steep as petrol price rises before a long weekend, I guess it's kind nice to think that P2P applications can now be written with little programming experience. Which oddly reminds me of MSN messenger again...

Edit: font sizes fixed, apologies - hopefully blogger won't overwrite them again this time.

Quotes

2008-04-06T23:30:00.002+10:00

Random update....
My indoor team The Blues (now Team Judas) just won our division indoor grand final, in sudden death extra time :)
Twas much fun, and now we have 570ml glass steins :)

Anyway, I shall have an update soon for the net-beans blogging contest, but until then, here's some awards:

Maths lecture quote of the week - split between:

"Let a and b be in A"
"F is algebraically closed if F is algebraically closed over F"
"It shouldn't surprise you that the number 2 features prominently in this, as there are circles happening"

F1 commentary quote of the week:

"You can see the tyre mark there on the top of the wing"

Randomly overheard quote of the week:

"So that's when I decided to never again wear a backless dress cut that low"

SMS of the week:

"Hey Pat, do you have Andrew's number? My phone fell into a toilet"

Reaction of the week:

"aaaaaaaahahahahahaaLOOKheheheheIT'S LEGShahahahahahahahaARE TINYaaahahahahahaha"

And that's it for now until the netbeans blog. There's also a Guitar Hero contest at uni soon (fingers crossed) and some of my songs now have bass parts and getting very close to recording, so stay tuned!
P.S. I shall be out of SA from 14th - 24th of april, but in sydney so should usually be in Email+Phone contact.

Creativity

2008-02-03T23:12:00.000+11:00

First post for '08 - before rant, quick summary: Music / Reading = going well, Work/Coding = not so fun, but earning enough to take a long break soon :D Uni's looking like it'll be good.

Anyhow, I'm up to book VI in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and just attended a (very awesome) Dream Theater concert, so enjoying the creativity in this world when I noticed something odd. At work, I was looking at how to add multi-language support into an installer (as you do), so googled "I18N Setup Project". Here's a summary of what I found:
1) A thread on a forum eggheadcafe by Norman Diamond: "My C# code is I18N'ed by appropriately naming and editing .resx files. At execution time, it works. ...(snip)", with a response by "Johannes Passing" and a final comment by Norman again.
2) A thread on google groups with the same question by Norman, answered on a different page
3) A thread on microsoft.com from a discussion in 'microsoft.public.dotnet.internationalization', with Norman's identical question, answered by Johannes and replied to by Norman.
4) A thread on thescripts.com with Norman's identical question, answered by Johannes and replied to by Norman.
5) A thread on developersdex.com with Norman's identical question, answered by Johannes and replied to by Norman.
6) A thread on techtalkz.com with Norman's identical question, answered by Johannes and replied to by Norman.
7) A thread at pcreview.co.uk with Norman's identical question, answered by Johannes and replied to by Norman.
etc...
If it only the question was identical, maybe it could be just Norman really wanting an answer quickly, but as the responses are identical too, they must come from the same source.
Sure, there are some other results, but as you can see above, it's by far mostly the same 3 posts.
The internet is a global community, with the potential to assist unknown creativity and collaboration, where search engines are making information easier to find, do we really need such blatant redundancy? What is worse is that most of the sites make it appear as though the information was posted on their site. grrrr.
Time to make up for it by reading a few creative webcomics and composing more, adios!

Plans

2007-12-09T23:15:00.000+11:00

Ok, so I've just officially passed Uni, only getting under an HD in one subject throughout the last 3 years (missed by one single solitary percent in 2nd year computer systems. Oh how it mocks me), admittedly putting not much effort into most subjects or even attending more than about 10hrs per week, so now I figure it's time to put some of this knowledge of the last three or so years to good use.
Starting with this summer - I have to do an internship at SAAB systems (army stuff, not car stuff) for the next 3 months. While the coding is boring, the 1-hr commute twice a day is a pain, and being stuck 30mins from anywhere for 40hrs a week is inconvenient, it's ok - the ppl are nice (mostly, even if my supervisor doesn't thinks I'm a bit of a slow worker :S), there's free diet coke, and the work is pretty easy so no pressure. I guess it's something for the resume, if little else.
It's just weird, having so much stuff I want to do, but never enough time to do it. Things on the the to-do list for next year (in no particular order):

Recording Asturias on my 12-string neck of the new guitar. It sounds awesome on 6 strings, but twice-as-fast on 12-string could be magnificent if played correctly. Much practice to do on that first though.
More composition, either writing new songs or improving (and, hopefully recording) the ones I currently have written. Might need to organise a band at some point...
Finishing reading the Dark Tower series. This is a great epic tale, which I have 2.5 books left to finish, so it could take a while but shall be worth it.
Come up with a music search engine algorithm. There isn't a good one yet, and there should be. Unfortunately, this is more the level of 3 years PhD study rather than 3 months working 'for fun' at night, but I'm sure it's doable, just with time...
Keep up designing / reviewing for TopCoder. This weekend I've had one design, two reviews, and one design-related project, so while the pay is good, it leaves very little time for anything else. Might have to slow down on this front :(
Go out more. Pretty self-explanatory really.
Upgrade some of the websites I've written. One in particular I have many ideas that will fix many design flaws and make it much more usable, though there's a lot of implementation behind it required.
Oh, and of course, do honours. Looks like something in Category Theory, though not really sure what yet, I'll find out next year.

So that's what's on my mind currently. I have this bad habit of doing waaay to much, and hoping my abilities can help me get it done well and quickly, and being disappointed if I don't get something done (because, I mean, I can, and some things not everyone can, so I'm letting myself or others down if I don't at least give it a shot....right? I believe that's my reasoning). Maybe I should try to fix that, or stress/work levels will build too high.
Looking at the list above, my guesses at what will happen is:

I'll try a bit but won't practice enough to get good, though hopefully will at least get it you-tube-able.
Nothing will happen on this front, as usual :(. Maybe a bit during pre-exam procrastination, but that's about it.
Definitely will happen, once uni goes back and I take buses
In line to get dropped first. It'd be awesome, I have many ideas, but the time commitment is just waaaay too big :(.
Might do some stuff for tournaments. Every time I think I've earned enough to take a break, another tournament comes up, so I might sit the next one out, although usually some good reason not to also comes up (this time they're inviting 12 rather than 8 people, the time after that is my last collegiate one, and could be my 5th onsite in a row...). Plus might need some more money for other reasons, see below
Hopefully this happens. Not too much, of course, I'm not a party person, but at least more than currently. If I plan on moving away from SA at the end of 2008, I want to enjoy my last year here.
It'd be cool if this happens sooner rather than later - I'm hoping to free some time up over the Xmas break and during the slower times at work for this, but it does require a lot of coding, so maybe will be pushed until honours starts, if at all.
This is definite, can't wait - as above, I'm really hoping I can find something new and useful to prove, as otherwise I'd kinda feel I could've been spending my time doing something else more useful.

The other news that affects a number of the things above is I might be moving out into a rental place with my sister early next year. Just figuring out the financials, logistics etc... but being able to have ppl over, not having parents who complain when I return after midnight, and being closer to uni & work would all be nice. So I'm still thinking about it, I should have decided by Xmas...
Other than that, current mood is contemplative and content :) Pat out.

Mr Thomspon's Problem

2007-10-07T00:06:00.000+10:00

Problem I - Mr Thomspon's Problem

Ok, so think of the numbers as nodes on a graph. Put an edge between two numbers if they sum to one of the possible sum numbers. Your answer is then the maximum matching of the graph.

Not suprisingly, and (in the interests of creativity in the problems and their solutions),= unfortunately, there already exists a standard algorithm for finding the max. matching. Jack Edmonds detailed this algorithm in a paper in 1965 called 'Paths, Trees and Flowers' which does exactly what is required in the problem. Rather than writing about it again here, I'll redirect you to a lecture by one of his colleagues which describes it better than I could.

Personally, having this in seems too hard for an ACM regional, as noone is expected to know of this algorithm, and the only other way to solve it is an optimised brute force, yet these would no doubt still be too slow if custom test-cases could be prepared [a la TopCoder challenge phase].

Instead, it would have been excellent if all sum numbers were odd. Why? Well, if two numbers sum to an odd number, one must be odd and the other even. This means every edge in your graph is between an odd number and an even number, making it a bipartite graph. The maximum-matching algorithm for bipartite graphs is simpler and more known, so probably more appropriate for this level of contest.

Apologies that I don't have code for this one, as it's too much of a standard algorithm to re-write. If you're interested in an implementation, funnily enough it is inbuilt into the popular 'boost' C++ libraries [which you can't use in the ACM :p] - for details, see this which further illustrates how standard this algorithm is.

And that's all 9 problems, hope you enjoyed it!

A Fitting Advertisement

2007-10-06T23:49:00.000+10:00

Problem E - A Fitting Advertisement

It wouldn't be an SPP ACM Regional without its fair share of bugs, and this problem provided them for us. Given a histogram (i.e. heights across X value), find whether rectangles fit inside it.
Sounds simple, with small catches - the heights can be zero, though that changes not much, and it doesn't matter which orientation you have for the rectangle, though again, you can just treat it as two different rectangles, and OR the results together, not too bad.

Ok, so as submissions come in, people whose code looks right are failing. A bit of testing by the judges leads to the discovery that some of the rectangles you are placing have their width (or height) zero, which is explicitly disallowed in the problem specification. What's more, it's hard to know when a zero-sized rectangle fits within the histogram - the most 'logical' to me would be that it always fits, as it has zero area, yet the official judgement was different.

Here's where problem 2 lies - Rather than removing zero-area rectangles from the input, so that contestants would only have to solve the problem they were given, it was for some reason decided that the problematic input would be kept, and instead the question changed, the changes then had to be broadcast to all contestants. weird :S

Oh, and to make it a bit worse, no limits were placed on how many rectangle queries there were. This does make a difference, as if there are many per histogram, it's best to pre-process the grid in O(400*1000) then solve each query in O(1). However, I'm guessing the number of queries is low, so instead, an algorithm that should work (though is as yet un-judged) is:
For each X-by-Y rectangle, see if it fits either normally or rotated as a Y-by-X rectangle

To check if an A-by-B rectangle fits under the histogram -
find the longest section with height >= A, and the longest section with height >= B in linear time.
If the former is >= B, or the latter is >= A, the rectangle fits.
This gives a complexity of O(#queries * width of histogram) and quite small to code - implementation can be found here.

Automatic Marking

2007-10-06T23:21:00.000+10:00

Question H - Automatic Marking

I usually like tree problems, they often have ncie recursive solutions using little code - a good example is Paths from the regional in 2005. This still was good in that sense, however the extra parsing/validation was a bit of a paint.

Because of the fiddly-ness of the input, this again is one where it's more profitable to spend much time planning, rather than coding. In this case, I found it simplest to write my own tree structure, then separate it into sections which:

Parse the input into a tree, returning null for an invalid tree
Find where the single '?' is in the tree - returning a pointer, so you can....
Replace the '?' with each letter, and validate the tree using the rules they give.

The use of a pointer here makes it easy to change the '?', and while the re-validation might be a bit slow compared to figuring out the valid range in one pass of the tree, it seems like it should still be fast enough, and results in less thinking and code.

Also, as the tree validation is given in the problem statement, the only new 'algorithm' that must be devised to solve this is how to parse the tree itself - as with many parsers, a good approach is similar to state-based, where the input is read as a stream (character-by-character). In this case, the 'interesting' characters are the brackets, between each pair you can parse a node and add it to a queue. Once the stream is finished, you work through the queue, linking up parent nodes with their required number of children. [Note that what they call 'level-order traversal' isn't really the nicest way of representing trees, pre- or post-order is much easier to parse, yet I guess it was used to make this harder]

Another gotcha with this question was how the children's values could be less-than-or-equal-to their upper bound, which makes things a bit more fiddly again.

Implementation of the idea described above can be found here.

Challenging "Butts"

2007-09-29T20:28:00.000+10:00

Problem D - Challenging "Butts"

Despite the interesting name, and somewhat tedious flavourtext, the actual underlying question was, to me, the best of the set (close to problem C).

So, ignoring the darts stuff, we're given a circular track which is split radially into N >= 3 sectors, and also halved along the centre of the track, giving us 2N zones in total. We then are given numbers, and have to place them one per zone, such that the sum of differences across all zones sharing a border is a maximum.

It turns out that one greedy assignment will work - start in one sector, place the highest on the outside and the lowest on the inside, move to the next sector, place the next highest on the inside and the next lowest on the outside, etc...

However, why this works is not immediately obvious. From what I've heard many groups submitted this without proof of correctness - while it's an ok strategy if the proof would take some time, doing this could be costly, and extremely so if you're doing a contest where you don't get immediate feedback (like the IOI or TopCoder).

The proof itself is quite nice, and has the added benefit of making the code very short. It comes in two parts.
1) If the number of sectors is even:

Because it's even, you can add a checkerboard pattern to the zones as seen above, and always you will get a purple next to a pink at each border. Now, say we assign the highest values to the pink sections and the lowest to the purple, all of our border differences will look like |high_i - low_j| - i.e. adding the absolute difference will always result in a high number being added, and a low number subtracted. Because each zone is adjacent to 3 more, the overall affect is that each high number is added 3 times, and each lower is subtracted 3 times.
Two things about this configuration:

Maybe surprisingly, it doesn't matter at all where you place the high or low numbers, so long as you alternate them! this means that most greedy solutions will work for these boards.
This is THE best solution - anything else will result in at least one high - high and low - low border, which would be worse than that solution above. If there are 3N absolute differences, then 3N numbers must be added, and 3N must be subtracted, so you can do no better than adding the highest and subtracting the lowest.

This solves the even case optimally, we can use the observations to now solve it if:
2) The number of sectors is odd:

The interesting part happens now in the hilighted zones, where we are forced to have high-high and low-low. If you think how this changes our original answer, it means that the lower of the two highs has changed from being added, to being subtracted from the total, and the higher of the two lows is now being added.
That is, we've gone from (higha - lowa) + (highb - lowb) to (higha - highb) + (lowa - lowb), in other words, previousAnswer - 2 * highb + 2 * lowA. As this is the only difference, it's clear that the high value to 'demote' (i.e. highb) should be the lowest high value, and the low value being 'promoted' (i.e. lowa) is the highest low value.

Implementing this small fiddle then completes the formula for both even and odd sectors, and using some inbuilt C++ functions, we get an implementation that looks like this. If this question had a moral, it would be that it often pays to think more, allowing you to code less [which is why I liked it]

DNA Chopper

2007-09-29T19:44:00.000+10:00

Problem G - DNA Chopper

Ok, getting past the added flavourtext, what it turns out you have to do is this:
Given a list of n numbers, continuously remove two numbers from the list and put their sum back into the list, and add the sum to your total cost - stopping once you only have one number in the list. Find the minimum cost of doing this.

[Unfortunately?] It just so happens that this is a well-known and solved problem, helping in the area of compression (to see how, I'd recommend reading about Huffman Coding). It also so happens that it's used in numerous contests (e.g. TopCoder problem 'DiskCut' and various other ACM contests) so anyone who's done many matches is likely to have seen this.

The algorithm for solving it is pretty much the greedy approach to that mentioned above - in the 'remove two numbers step', you simply remove the two lowest numbers. This can be done quickly, and in very little code, using a priority queue (set up to remove the lowest number in the queue) - code that implements this can be read here, and is a reminder that even hard ACM questions can often be solved in very little code, even without obfuscation.

It seems this was not the most common way to solve the problem however, and judging by the input bounds of 15 numbers, it seems it was not the inteded solution either - I'd be interested to know if the problem writer knew of this approach.
Anyway, with 15 numbers, another method is to perform a DP solution, where your state is a bitmask with a 1 for numbers you can use, and a 0 for those you can't. cost(mask) is then the sum of the numbers you can use, plus the minimum value of cost(submask) + cost(mask - submask), where submask is a subset of the values you can use - e.g. submask | mask == mask.

If you memoize the values for each mask, you get a complexity of about O(2^15 states * time-per-state) where time-per-state is between 2^14 and 1, but on average small, and apparently with optimisations this passes (just) under the timelimit - although much slower compared to the O(n log n) queue solution.

Self-divisible Numbers

2007-09-22T23:03:00.000+10:00

Problem C - Self-divisible Numbers

Personally, I'd rate this as the 2nd best problem of the set [and not just because I know who wrote it =p] - why? Well, firstly, it's original, approacable, easy to understand, and not heavy on textbook algorithms. Secondly, because it seems so easy.....

You're given two numbers (call them lower and upper), and instructions on how to tell if a number has a certain property ('self-divisible'), and have to output the number of self-divisible numbers between lower and upper [inclusive]. The property is easy to test, so all you do is read in lower, upper, do a for-loop between them, count the self-divisible numbers and you're done - ...
Except this is the first question where bounds are important. Each of the numbers 'consists of K digits, 0 <> - so your numbers are as big as 10⁴⁰⁰. This means:

You cannot read them as ints. No, you can't even read them in as long long (or long in Java). Yes, you can use a BigInteger in Java if you really want, but parseInt is not going to work.
You cannot loop from lower to upper. If lower is 3399... and upper is 3500..., then even though there are no self-divisible numbers in that range, you're going to have to count over all the 34... numbers, of which there could be 10³⁹⁸. Waaay too many.

So, if you can't loop from lower to upper, what can you do? The hint again is in the bounds - the number of self-divisible numbers in the range is at most 1 million. All that's left is to go from an O(#numbers in range) algorithm, to one that's roughly O(#self-divisible numbers in the rage).

Here's where the example above comes in handy - any number that starts with 34... can't be self-divisible. Say you're looping from lower to upper, and currently looking at the number X. If it is self-divisible, you add one and look at X+1. If it's not, rather than going to X+2, you find the first digit which makes it not self-divisible, and increment THIS by one. You've then skipped a lot of bad numbers - in fact, it's possible now to show this new algorithm mostly only looks at self-divisible numbers, and is as fast as we want.

The next step is implementing it - I found the best way was to do a simple DFS, where you look at a single digit, using only values that make the current prefix self-divisible [this can be achieved by keeping running totals of the prefix mod 1, mod 2, etc....]. Once you reach the last digit, you have a self-divisible number, and you increment your counter by one. One fiddly bit that remains is to only count numbers within the range lower-upper - but for this, there's a nice trick in storing in your DFS whether your prefix is bounded from below by your lower bound, or from above by your upper bound, and using this to limit the range digits you look at.

(Unjudged) code implementing this idea can be found here.

Rating Points Exchange

2007-09-22T22:51:00.000+10:00

Problem B - Rating Points Exchange

Apologies in advance to anyone new to programming contests, who just happened to have this problem as the second ever programming problem they see. Not that it's a bad problem - every contest seems to need at least one messy, fiddly, floating-point-error-prone problem to show that not everything is nice and discrete. Like many other of its type, the problem was basically: using floating point ratings, apply a formula we give you to them, and output the result after doing it many times. Oh, and the formula has about 10 rules. Don't worry, even the World finals has questions like this (although slightly more tricky), in a way it's a good test to see how familiar you are with your language, and pedantic you can be testing.

As the algorithm is given in the problem statement, I can't say much, except re-iterate the important point: Don't use floating point numbers when you can avoid them. You'll notice that all calculations in this problem are done in two decimal places - this means you can scale everything up by 100 and deal only in integers. A number of teams no doubt were only off because errors accumulated to get higher than 0.01 (e.g. writing xx.14 instead of xx.15 in the output)

Secondly, when the output instruction is to sort, sort. And if it's to sort equal scores with names descending, then sort descending. While it may seem odd, my guess is the official solution does it similar my final code - that is, sort everything ascending, then print it out in reverse. Also, this is where good library knowledge comes in - in this case, in C++, if you sort pair<>'s, it first sorts them by their first element (in this case, score) using second element as a tiebreaker (in this case, name), exactly what we want.

Code (again, as yet unjudged) can be found here.

The Zits Code

2007-09-19T23:11:00.000+10:00

Problem F - The Zits Code

Kudos to the writer for merging a comic reference [even including a pic of Jeremy at the start] - with a dig at Dan Brown.

Anyway, after question A this seemed the second most popular question, possibly as it tells you exactly what to do, the difficulty lies in finding a nice code-able way of doing it. The exact encryption scheme is given to you - use a square grid, spiral the message through it, pad the rest with '$', and return the grid read one row at a time.
Finding the size of the grid is simple - ceil(sqrt(size of input)) for those mathematically inclined, however it's safer and easier to calculate that with a loop - as is passing with '$' and forming the output, the tricky part left then is spiralling.

To see how it's done, look at the the sample 6x6 grid they give, and the path we take around it:
[using (0, 0) as the top left, and (5, 5) as the bottom right, as this is where they'd go in an array)

At (0, 0), facing east, take 6 steps.
At (0, 5), facing south, take 5 steps.
At (5, 5), facing west, take 5 steps.
At (5, 0), facing north, take 4 steps.
At (1, 0), facing east, take 4 steps.
At (1, 4), facing south, take 3 steps.
At (4, 4), facing west, take 3 steps.
At (4, 1), facing north, take 2 steps......etc.

The directions cycle east/south/west/north then back to east, etc.
The number of steps to take in that direction goes 6,5,5,4,4,3,3,2,...
Combining these together, we can spiral by keeping how many steps we are to take, and which direction we are going, then changing them in the patterns observed above.

(Untested) code that implements this can be found here.

Text Formatting

2007-09-19T23:00:00.000+10:00

Question A - Text Formatting

The first question of the ACM is usually the warmup, and it was no exception this year. The problem's title pretty much sums up what it's about - given lots of lines, tokenize, word wrap, output the number of lines.
Which also describes how to solve it:

Parse the input cases, one at a time, by reading each line and splitting into tokens (good for this is Scanner in Java or stringstream in C++).
Count the number of lines and the #characters on the current line. For each word, either add it to the current line (plus the two spaces) if it fits, or put it at the start of the next line.

And that's it - (untested) code can be found here.

Personally, I had thought more teams should have been able to solve this, however it's possibly due to some of the tricks (e.g. not adding extra two spaces at the start of a new line) and maybe because string input is usually seen as nastier to handle than numbers [it seems, anyway]. Still, an ok warmup nonetheless.

ACM Regional Analysis

2007-09-16T21:29:00.000+10:00

This weekend the South Pacific ACM regional contest was held - this is a yearly programming contest for university teams of three throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Unfortunately, my having come top of Australia for the last two years, there was a rule saying we couldn't compete this year (or ever again) however instead we helped out with the submission judging. There were many teams competing, though the number of successes per team was low (as expected - this is a hard contest!), partially due to a number of regretable errors in the testing data given to us [*sigh*, it always happens, don't ask].
Also, no official solutions or data is ever made public, so instead I thought I'd present an analysis of solutions here over the next week, with explanation and code for each question starting tomorrow.
For now, the problems aren't yet up, but eventually will be available here.

Democracy

2007-08-15T00:36:00.000+10:00

Election time is slowly approaching - which means voting. Democratic voting seems an ok way to do things, but it does have a few side-effects. While I know there's no perfect voting system, and I'm not suggesting any changes, my thoughts on why elections aren't that interesting:
My vote counts for too much: I'm a debt-less uni student, not renting, working for a US company, and most likely will be not in this country in a few years, it'd be nice if I could somehow optionally weight my vote downwards, but that's not (legally) allowed.
Actually, my vote doesn't matter: My local MP is Alexander Downer - it's not like he's not going to win by many votes, so who I vote for doesn't really make much difference at all. Now, the usual response from people when I say this is: "But what if everyone thought this way?". To which my response is always that they'll think that way whether I do or not, it still doesn't make any difference. The other reaction is "But what if the margin is just one vote?". That's the funny thing about our elections - the number of votes is so big, that if some poll actually came down to a single vote [I'm not sure if it's ever happened], that's within the margin of error, so most likely both sides will get in a legal battle, and maybe even a re-vote called. So no, so long as I don't personally campaign for someone, it doesn't matter - but I don't mind :)
So now there's just the big question left:
And it seems almost certain the answer is: "the guy who sells shirts on his website and has many facebook friends" [i.e. on the right]

Idea

2007-07-24T23:22:00.000+10:00

Challenge: Next time you're waiting, listening to music, near someone doing the same
- set both your players to random, then swap headphones.

Share the fun; do the iPod Shuffle Shuffle.

Back

2007-07-15T23:59:00.001+10:00

Las Vegas was Hot, Hotham was Cool! {gotta love the english language}. Anyway, something worth watching:

Away!

2007-06-25T23:10:00.000+10:00

I'll be in LV for the next week (competing, see here for info, and there'll even be a live webcast of the final here) then Skiing for the week after. If you want to reach me (for some strange reason) I should be checking phone / email occasionally, but apologies in advance for any delays. I'm taking a camera (odd for me, I know) so hopefully will have some pictures to put here later. Adios, until then.

Give me credit!

2007-06-23T21:38:00.000+10:00

Vocabulary changes with the each generation. Credit used to be something given when it was due - a reward, bestowed on those who worked hard for it. Inventors were given credit for their findings, artists recognised 'to their credit'. Times have changed however - the age of Credit is upon us, though this is not nearly as appealing as its previous meaning.
No, this Credit is the opposite - 'money borrowed with the understanding that it will be repaid'. Often value given before it has been earned, the popularity behind credit cards has led to a generation who spends before earning. While making sense for once-offs (single payments with a definite deadline, slightly before the payer is guaranteed to have enough), a more common practice is to use these cards to buy everything in advance. For some reason, Credit is often treated as 'free money' - a card with $5000 limit is seen as free $5000 that can be spent at will. Never mind the ludicrously high interest rate (15%+ is not unheard of) that can come if payment is not met.
Is the urge to get today's-furniture-you-can't-afford with tomorrow's-money-you-haven't-yet-made really that strong? "Children born into debt" is often a tagline associated with third world countries - yet the average credit debt due in australia is over $2000! That's almost $40 billion spent, none of which actually exists yet, some of which may never.
"But I want it nooooooooow" you may say...
Think about it this way - most credit cards work by getting the user to pay the balance once per month. So say you currently have a card, with the average $2000 in debt per month. Within a year, assume you are still at $2000 debt - this means your spending has equalled your earning. If you instead waited until the end of the month before starting your buying, your spending will equal your earning, but now you are paying for items after you can afford them - meaning no credit debt, and no interest. While you still end up with the same gear, your one month patience has resulted in a saving of $200 (assuming 10% interest).
Give me $200 (with the bonus of reduced risk) for waiting a month any time. Credit where credit is due.

Religion

2007-06-11T20:00:00.001+10:00

Do you follow this religion? - Followers meet up often, many groups who follow it meet once per week, usually Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Devotees sometimes confirm their faith before sleeping each night. Friends can meet for whole weekends, wanting to practise this religion. It has spawned many songs, even dances. If your parents follow it, you're more likely to. When it's introduced into new cultures, it's believed to usually have a negative impact, and sometimes warps the minds of younger followers until they're fanatic believers.
No, this isn't Christianity, or any standard belief system. It's followers are also more likely to crash a car, smoke, and take illegal drugs. It's often tied to aggressive behaviour, mindless behaviour, loss of control, yet it's still widely popular.
Welcome to being drunk, the new religion. It's your choice to believe, just don't try to convert me.

Perspective

2007-06-07T21:25:00.000+10:00

Originally, I was skeptical about cameras in phones. Now I'm still skeptical, just slightly less:

Hilton Sydney does everything, even swipe-card instructions

From the same elevator, but a much nicer usage of physics

Big Brother game - each word is an anagram of the one above, plus one letter, apparently....

Look familiar? 'tis Adelaide Uni's unique seating arrangements

Finally, can you guess the animal? "Cute" doesn't count

Buggy MSN

2007-04-30T19:48:00.000+10:00

So, recently I've been doing some work reviewing program designs, i.e. finding bugs, recommending areas for improvement. I think someone should do that to MSN:

I must admit, at least they have the irony of putting them for the thinking smiley and the eyes-rolling smiley.

Inverse Darwinism

2007-04-19T22:05:00.000+10:00

One of the ideas behind Survival of the fittest is that the 'stronger' members of a species will reproduce more, so their stronger genes will appear more and help assist the survival of a species. The problem is however, what happens when you reach a point that the 'strong' properties aren't useful any more. Who needs a spear thrower these days? The importance of a fit, baby-carrying body is reduced substantially when modern medicine helps you stay alive. Either way, one would think that this could then lead to development of mental, rather than physical, abilities. Unfortunately, this is not the case - while it is socially expected that people will try to look their best (c.f: Shows like the Biggest Loser), it is not expected that people will think their best. In fact - thanks to our friends drugs and alcohol, it is socially expected that people will become LESS intelligent when interacting with others. Anyway, here's a maths interpretation of some possible reasons of this, including why it's not going to get any better:

1) Bottom-tier democracy

Consider the image above; it's a typical job hierarchy tree - each circle down the bottom is an employee, above that their immediate bosses, responsible for their two workers. Above that, the boss's bosses, etc, up the hierarchy tree, each layer usually with more dependencies and salary than the one below. Now, count the employees - you should get 8. Everyone else can be considered an employer, count them. 7, right? So, say there's a ficticious vote: "should more Y be given to layer X of the tree?" {e.g. should the CEO get more power? should the employees get more money?...}. If everyone above layer X votes one way, everyone below votes another, who will win? As you can see, 8 > 7, so whatever is decided, the bottom tier will always win in a democratic vote. No matter how high the hierarchy grows, if each employer has two or more people under them, the lowest level will always hold an outright majority. True, this isn't a complete flaw, as votes will benefit the majority. However, it does lead to many benefits being granted to the bottom level, reducing any incentive to try to work your way up the tree. This is leading into the second point:

2) Negative Positive-skew

Many things in life follow what's called a normal distribution - however, some things have natural bounds at zero - i.e. ages, incomes, ... which can't go zero, and cause the distribution to have what's called "positive skew". The values cluster more to the left as they can't go any lower, and to the right it flattens with some really high values. The result of this? Mode (most frequent) < Median (50% marker) < Mean (average) - so over 50% of people are below average...why is this a factor? Take industrial unions, for example. Workers group together, and as a group they collectively bargain, with the results going to everyone in the group. The result is that those above average get the same benefits as those in the middle, a disincentive for working hard. Moreover, the people at the bottom end of the distribution also get the same benefits of those in the middle - anyone maximising their work:outcomes ratio would then aim to BE below average.
Not much left except to relax and laugh while watching the Hilton generation reverse natural selection. /rant over

Sign of the times

2007-04-02T00:38:00.000+10:00

Google adsense banner at blogwatcher ::

Python

2007-03-03T23:35:00.000+11:00

And now for something completely different:
We bring you to the apartment of Rob Stongetti, a man who claims to have created the world's first good looking myspace profile. To tell us about his acheivement, we__

Hold on a second! That's not completely different.

I BEG your pardon?!

You just then said that something completely different would appear.

Yes? You've just witnessed a segue from a lady attacking a Starbucks with a novelty pencil, to you, a man with a command of web-page constitution, I'm sorry if my non-sequitur meter is broken.

Can't you see? Both plot the tale of an eccentric protagonist, relying on the viewer's humour to provide a strange commentary on modern day capitalsim....and neither featured a red porcupine named Roger.

...Who are you? The King of comparative literature?

*whooosh* DID SOMEONE CALL????

What noooooooow?

You shall bow in my presence, for I, Hunter Codswallop, am the King of comparative literature.

Oh my, I don't believe this. You can't be serious?

I'm as serious as that time in The Taming of The Shrew when__

Comparative Literature isn't a Monarchy, anyone can do it these days! You take an Orwellian masterpiece, the latest episode of Veronica Mars, and then claim the creators of both were fighting the world's oppression against left-handers.

I'm......I'm an oppressed left-hander. I've never confessed it before, but I first knew it at church one Sund'y when I was a lad, Father McKinnon showed me he was a left-hander. I've always tried to hide it by using my right, but I know I can't deny it for ever - I even vote for the left!

Thankyou for that....charming confession. And now for something completely different.

Not again...

Such is life

2007-02-21T20:36:00.000+11:00

It has happened - proof of the world's slump into mediocrity. Our university's concert has its own myspace. That's right, a concert is "in my extended network". Unfortunately, in a web like that there is no room for this blog - Sayōnara, Adios, Cya! The codemonkey will keep thinking, but no longer blog.
...and, somewhere in the distance, one of the three readers of this blog said "oh".

Edit: I'll still might occasionally post poems/lyrics/short stories, as CS isn't the best subject in terms of creative output....

TToT, tfWDtetth, Prologue

2007-02-01T23:34:00.000+11:00

In the unlikely event that an observer to this blog has remained a reader after the last few entries, and the long gaps between them, I present to you the blogvella "The Tale of Thuc, the first Wraith Dragon to ever talk to herself".

Prologue:
In a time not unlike our own, in a land not unlike present day earth, there lived a colony much unlike our own kind. Their kind flew. Their kind are exceptionally skilled in martial warfare and live by sucking the life from their prey. Their kind are Wraith Dragons, much feared for their telepathic communication and abilities in regeneration.
Among this settlement however, there is one who has recently distinguished themselves from the others - one who has a talent unknown to the others, and who because of this evades their elders, instead spending time training themselves for battles among assassins, sourcerer and other rogues in far off lands. All of this because this Wraith Dragon - born to the name Thuc but feared by her enemies as Rawnblade, was the first dragon with the power of self-communication. While giving the perception of insanity, this ability gave her talents unknown to the other Wraith Dragons, and at this stage, unknown to Rawnblade herself.

(stay tuned for chapter 1, if it is ever written)

Federbear!

2007-01-21T01:23:00.000+11:00

OMG - Federbear! If you haven't seen any tennis recently, here he is checking out chicago:
And here's one of Federbear blogging!:
Ok, I have a feeling that I just lost my last few readers. Next blog topic, by special request -
The Tale of Thuc, the first Dragon to ever talk to herself.

js / css / php .... TCX!

2007-01-13T00:01:00.000+11:00

So, what does a programmer do when taking a week off? Program a website, of course!
Well...I have been contracted to help out the Debating SA website, so figured I'd do some practice with a website of my own. A while ago, someone had come up with the idea of a fantasy stock market where 'companies' were TopCoder members, and their 'prices' were related to their rating. So here it is: http://padster.gyronet.org/tc/TCX/
With over 110 members, and averaging 2000 hits a day, seems like it's doing well :D The test will come just after the next SRM, the first time when share prices actually change.
Back on designing - I've managed to somehow get 4 1sts in a row, so car insurance is covered! :D
and soccer is back!! cool -have a good week all

Resolutions

2007-01-03T22:21:00.000+11:00

Happy Bond Year ('007) to all!
I'm not really one for resolutions - I figure, if something's good enough to do, you should not need the last digit of the date to change before you do it - but I have set a few aims for the year. E.g. getting a medal in the ACM finals, reaching a TopCoder onsite again, getting HDs for all my uni subjects {still not sure if the 84 will stand from last semester}.
Another is related to my most recent aim - eventually getting a car. Currently aiming at one of these:
Unfortunately, when getting an insurance quote, I get hit with a few additional costs due to being young, male, and not having driven for long (yes, that's on top of being young...). Anyway, the hope is to cover insurance from TopCoder designs over the summer - 22% done so far, still a bit of a way to go. The final resolution is to learn as much of Octavarium as possible - still a long way to go there too :p
Ooh, and thanks to those helping bug-fix padster::gyronet tools {tag board should work for IE users now, and some share bugs are corrected after the change of price sources}.

Picblog

2006-12-29T01:10:00.000+11:00

Ok, so now I'm sort of on holidays, I thought i'd update with a pictorial blog. Just to kill time while watching 5 series of 24 :p - here's a few annotated screen shots of AOE3:
"But not this day, this day, we fight! I bid you stand; MEN. OF. MIDDLE-EARTH...oi, where are you three going?"

The spanish armies were shocked as a being from another planet arrived on a meteor...

The explorer wondered the true effectiveness of their wall in keeping people out.

Boo! ok, there is no real caption for this, I just really like the picture.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok....now, what do I do with this HUGE saw.
The sermon on the mount...in the middle of the US. Maybe those Mormons are onto something....

Merry Christmas!!

2006-12-25T00:31:00.000+11:00

^^ see title ^^
tis a pity xmas tv is so shocking...at least the cricket is on soon :)
Did you know...the average US citizen now spends more than they earn? *sigh*
funfunfun, only a week left of 2006

Back from ACT

2006-12-22T01:53:00.000+11:00

Those who have read this for a year ... should find somethign better to do!
Anyway, you might remember from a year ago when I last came back from tutoring at one of these informatics training camps, that I was full of praise for the people who attended - fortunately, this year was no exception, and even surpassed my expectations. Seriously, spending 10 days with the type of people who are at that camp {both students and staff} is always a good way to spend time - despite the much lower average age, the conversations seem interesting, there is very little anger and plenty of respect for eachother. Then coming back to the rest of the world...lets just say, it's a pity the 10 days couldn't have been longer, and it doesn't look like I'll be tutoring again until next december either :(
On other things - Australia have the ashes back, and my TC rating is improving again :D - Xmas is here for another few days, but will still probably be designing for much of the time until tuesday. I look forwards to the next indoor match, too :D Hopefully my sleeping patterns will soon find some timezone to match.

State of mind

2006-12-10T02:26:00.000+11:00

Supp exams over! {seemed to go ok, not sure when results are out}
During which I also got two weeks of designing done - 1st in week 1, then the only submitter in week 2 so if I pass, another guarenteed 1st. Nice $$, and it improves my Las Vegas chances :)
However, for the next 10 days, I'll be in ACT tutoring ppl programming, so probably won't update or be on MSN much over the next while {email or phone still ok if contact is needed}
Enjoy the next week, survive the heat / onslaught of christmas carols, and see you soon!

Googlerific

2006-12-02T20:32:00.000+11:00

Looks like empty tags work in blogwatcher (...finally :p)
Anyway, a few things google-related happened this week:
1) When looking up words containing 'pat' (like..PAThetic) I noticed that 'patness' was a word. Cool. Then to find what it meant I typed it into google, and got this. First thing of note is that 'patness' is *nowhere near* 'features', no idea how it's matching...second is the coincidence - the first result for patness is from "Jenkins online", at the url of "stupidevilbastard" :p
2) Just when I was thinking google suggestors may be taking the day off, I was asked who the director of crouching tiger hidden dragon was. I thought it was Ang Lee, but just to check, I searched google. To my suprise, the first result wasn't a real page link, but actually the answer to my question, with references for proof. I can't get it to work for acting cast or any part of the crew, but still, tis impressive.
3) Went into town to look at why i got 84% for one subject - turns out I wrote code that did something in different way to their (what I would call not-as-good) reference solution, so they took 5% off, including correcting one line with code that did literally exactly the same thing. Hopefully it'll be fixed...anyway, leaving borders, people starting pointing at me, talking about my shirt, and saying they wanted a google shirt. very odd....
Cat Empire concert was great! Vocals were excellent, I was a bit worried at the start that it'd be full of loud trumpet solos, but then some good Indian Sitar guy came on and did a long solo in the middle of what sounded like an old-school jive piece, was my guitar fix for the night. Less than a week now until exams are finally over! :D

2006-11-30T17:23:00.000+11:00

Some of you may have noticed that blogwatcher doesn't like title-less blog posts :p
So, in trying to implement a fix, I needed a post without a title to test on - that's what this is for ;)
I'll fill it with some other random stuff though, like:
1) XMI design done :D was happy with this one, just gotta hope noone else submits
2) Cat Empire concert tonight! They should be good live, thanks to my aunt for the ticket
3) The Ashes are coming to Adelaide! I'll be going later hopefully, but can't be there tomorrow because...
4) HD for maths subject but 84 for my computer science one :S - i was going in on 30% already from pracs, so need to check at exam viewing tomorrow to see what went wrong. tis my first D :p
hopefully the title-less blog post will be fixed, until then, PatTag is available for those who want it - there's even an rss feed so you can add your tag to your normal blogwatcher listing :)
Song of the moment: Tears (Rush / Dream Theater)

Edit: ok, looks like it worked :D - please tag if you find the change has caused any bugs I havent' found. Oh, and I forgot to add - I suggest you don't ever uninstall all your graphics card drivers. I did this accidentally yesterday when trying to watch TV on my laptop. Lets just say it took 50 mins of surfing the net in 640 x 480 x 8bit resolution to find the right replacements to install. fun fun fun. And I thought 1024x768 was small...

3 - It's a magic Number

2006-11-24T17:07:00.000+11:00

The TCCC is over and results are in - 3rd! :D
Nicka81, who everyone thought would come 1st, did in each of the 3 components - maone then came 2nd in each (just passing me in appeals for the 3rd) and then I came 5th-3rd-3rd, enough to put me 3rd overall! However, as expected, the actual contest part was a bit of an anticlimax, most of the fun comes from meeting all the other coders who, until now, I've only known by their tiny little member photos. San Diego itself was ok, a bit foggy & rainy, but I imagine during summer it would be a nice place. Especially if there's a programming contest on ;)
This is just a quick message to say thanks for the birthday wishes, hope exams went well for all, my 'supps' are in 2 weeks :p - oh, and Pat Tag is being upgraded, you may have to post comments instead until it is finished, but you can watch the progress on the right =)

Off to the land of the terminator

2006-11-13T22:56:00.000+11:00

I'm off! To San Diego, 14th->20th Novemeber. Two of those days will be spent flying in the air :S
However, I don't mind flights too much - I can sleep, and now I even got myself some noise-cancelling headphones to help out :p
For those interested, the site for the contest is: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tournaments&d2=tccc06&d3=about
and general news may appear frequently at TopCoder's home site:
http://www.topcoder.com/tc
And there'll be a live telecast of the last day of competition! (though, probably at 3am or so here)
While I'm gone - best of luck to everyone with exams/essays left, enjoy the post-exam freedom, good luck with soccer on sunday, etc...! Not sure how much time or availability I'll have over there.
A few thoughts to leave you with, that have stumped me
1) When Nappy companies claim that their new products are more comfortable than their last...*how do they know*?? Are there professional nappy testers?
2) Are interest rate rises really that bad? If you don't want your home loan rate to rise, surely you should get a fixed rate! It seems to be mainly because inflation is so high as so many people are spending more than they can afford...
3) Why, in the Microsoft logo, is some of the first 'o' missing a chunk? Is it really pacman?
4) How on earth did Mr. Thorn (former chess guy, worse than Peter Lewis) manage to get elected? My faith in democratic votes was slowly being restored, thanks to the new US results + the Senate's stem-cell clonic result, but it's all back to zero again.
And with that, farewell! (for a little while)

5/11

2006-11-05T20:51:00.000+11:00

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
And today's date is....November 5! 401 years ago, Guy Fawkes attempted to carry out the Gunpowder plot. To celebrate the occasion, time to blow stuff up!...or maybe watch V for Vendetta, I think I'll go with the latter. Again, good luck to all those with exams / essays in the upcoming week - the most recent week of designs is out, so I'll be disappearing again until next friday, enjoy! 3 months of 'holidays' are coming soon...

S.W.A.T week

2006-10-30T23:19:00.000+11:00

It's that time of year again - when uni world is turned on its head, as the arts students hit the keyboards and the eng students hit the books (metaphorically, but quite possibly physically too). Good luck for all those with essays due over the next few days, and for all those who have exams starting soon. Due to going away to San Diego (14th->20th) I miss the 2nd week of exams, so my schedule looks like: swat week 1 - exam week 1 (2 exams) - USA week - holiday week - swat week 2 - exam week 2 (3 exams). So I get 3 weeks between exams, but I also am not finished until early december :(
Oh, and that's an intentional typo - it really *should* be called s.w.a.t week. Just because.
No word from Google, but they just had their big tournament last weekend (congrats to the winner, Petr) so hopefully will hear soon. This week is just about coding assignments, improving my tag board stuff, and hopefully writing/recording music. Then starting friday is final-design-week!
A few interesting observations from this week. First up is stats from a news article:
10 years ago, 75% of women with tertiary education had children.
over 90% of women without year 12 education had children.
Assuming that the education qualification level of parents has some bearing on the education level of their children, and the stats above are right, it doesn't take much maths to work out where those proportions are leading us. *sigh*
Anothing thing came from a ninemsn poll. I often try to guess the results, but this was a bit of a surprise:
Should companies be banned from moving jobs overseas?
Yes 183522
No 19411
that's right, 90% of people think it should be banned...90%! I knew it'd be over 50% (on the side of the little aussie battler patriots, as usual) but 90%? Why impose a legal ban on something that could be of benefit? If jobs are being moved overseas, maybe people should think why the local choices are not being used, not just put a flat ban 'to save jobs'. I think I may have said it before, but "We'll create jobs" is one of my most hated politics slogans, especially when the reason is "because it'll create jobs"...
And finally, I *still* don't understand the ARIAs. The winner of the 'best breakthrough single' was Youth Group's 'Forever Young'. I use that adjective loosely though - It was on their 3rd album (breakthrough?) and a cover of an older song. Happy Halloween!

Day 7 - Thursday 12th, submission day

2006-10-19T21:42:00.000+10:00

Week 2 of design contest is about to start, so if anyone reads this, to keep you from boredom I'll post the last day's report from the previous design, the interesting night it was:
"Well...that was interesting, not a day I'll soon forget. Anyway, I shall start at the start - due to CS tutoring of students at Uni, I have to start at 11am, which means walking to the busstop at 9. It's also going to be a 35 degree day, and I'm bringing my laptop in so I can do some more XMI documenting from within the CS labs. By 2pm, I've got a software design lecture (ironic?), and as I've documented virtually everything except the new SQL stuff that I haven't added in poseidon yet, there's not much to do until after I finish at 5. At this time I also start up my list of tiny one-point things that need to be fixed, like incorrect names, missing attributes, extra things to add to documentation, etc...
Get home, finish dinner by 6:30, pull out the Iced-Coffee and peanuts {my staple design fuel}, turn on the Dream Theater {the official soundtrack to UML} and fire up Poseidon. I modify the SQL to accomodate what I had wanted to change, and finish the documentation for it. That pretty much finishes the zuml completely, it's now a matter of writing up the component specification (CS), adding any sample doc. files that will help the reviewers, and finally, submit :D. I never really like the CS, but much of it is copy-paste from documentation, and some other standard things. The only 'hard' parts are the initial writeup (like a prose description, kinda fun), the algorithm section (exact details about trickier sections, means you need to know what you're doing), the configuration section (easy, but you need to be careful) and the demo. The writeup bit is ok, and for the demo I can luckily copy the AJAX code I'd been testing.
So, 9pm thursday night, 90 minutes until submission time. It's been a long, hot day (over 100F), when suddenly....BOOM - power outage! Laptop saves me at first, as not all my work is lost, and I can still save all the documents and work while battery lasts. But that's not the worrying bit - to submit I required internet connection, and that requires a working modem, which needs power! There's 90 minutes left, I have about 60 minutes of work, and no power! What's more, power is out in the suburb thing I'm in, so I can't go to a neighbour. I could risk hoping the power comes back on, but instead, I end up ringing my friend, asking to leech off his power and net connection. I cram everything I need into a bag (laptop, cord, USB stick, license, ...) and after a 15 minute drive, I get to his house, complete my design on the floor in his bedroom while he's finishing off some homework. I get the sample config finished (not perfectly, but close enough) - I manage to find a cached version of the java code, and edit it frantically to a submittable state. After zipping the .zuml and all files, I successfully submit at 10:29pm!
As an epilogue, I should add that if anyone ever thinks that UML designing can't be high-paced and frenetic, I suggest you try it in a blackout. I owe that friend (Bodie) a lot for doing that - turns out you get disqualified if you don't submit, so yeah, letting me use power and net late at night was very helpful indeed. Oh, and on the way home I had to swerve to avoid a Koala, certainly an interesting night. Stay tuned for design week #2!"

In other news, I've heard back from Google - as I thought, the interviews went well, no matching positions in Sydney, but I'll hear back in 2-3 weeks while they're trying to match me with US projects. Uni is coming to a close, very few pracs left, BlogWatcher is getting a small javascript-aided improvements, and until next time, there's always talking cats!

Stuff while I'm gone

2006-10-06T23:18:00.000+10:00

Ok, so TCCC design finals have started - under a cloud of mystery as one finalist is possibly disqualified and another takes their place :S
Anyway, my intention is to blog each day of this next week to track my progress, but as the contest is still running I can't post it til the end. So, while I'm away, I thought I'd leave a list of comedy things to be found on this interweb thingy to fill in time, one per site:
1) Wikipedia (search for "Baby Food")
2) Google videos
3) Youtube
4) Cyanide and Happiness
5) South Park episodes
6) Carlton Draught - more dancing =)
As a final thought, I'll leave you with something interesting today from a psych lecture:
Scenario 1: There are 4 cards on a table, each has a letter on one side and a number on the other. The faces you can see are: "A" "4" "D" and "7". If you want to test whether "All vowels have an even number on the other side" is true, what is the most number of cards you'll have to turn over, and which ones?
Answer: If you said '2 cards' you are right, but if one of them was "4" you'd be wrong. The two you need to turn are the "A" and "7" cards - the statement is equivalent to "All odd numbers have non-vowels on the other side" so you have to test the vowel and odd number cards to make sure the other side is what it must be.

Scenario 2: There are 4 people at a bar - the only thing you know about them is that: the first is drinking beer, the second is over 18, the third is drinking water and the last is under 18. Say you're the owner of the bar, you want to check that all alcohol drinkers are over 18 - who do you have to ask for age/drink type?
Answer: You have to ask person 1 if they're under 18, and the last if they're drinking alcohol, the other two are fine.

(highlight for answers)
Notice any similarity between the two? If you can solve #1 just as easily as #2, you should try programming :D
Edit: oh, and apparently youtube is may be sold to Google for US$1.6 billion...not bad - maybe blogwatcher is next?

Travelling

2006-09-30T22:52:00.000+10:00

It's official! - results of the TCCC design contest are out - I ended up with 40/40 pts, in the top 8, so get to go to San Diego California!!! Means I'll be away 14th->20th November - I miss the 2nd week of exams, so have to reschedule sitting 3 of them...it *also* means that I'll be flying over the Atlantic on the 19th, and it'll last only a few hours before I cross the dateline. Last year I was in ACT for my birthday, this year it won't even happen! ....does that mean I stay 19??
Speaking of travelling, my parents leave for their 6-week european holiday after mum's retirement - Sis & I get to fend for ourselves at home, should be interesting...
In other news, the ACM final location has been announced, so it looks like my team & I will be in Tokyo in mid March '07. Our ACM prizes have also come in - not only is the iPod shuffle 1Gb, but it also has 'Google' written on the side =) Seriously, how much do you think it'd cost to have your company name put on the side of an iPod, before it's boxed...

Speaking of Google, I had my phone interview for the internship. I'll leave you with one of the questions - say you have a list of 1 billion pieces of information for places: {place, longitude, latitude} sets. Can you think of an efficient way to, given a longitude / latitude pair of values, find the closest places to the given point. If you have any ideas, tag them or add them to comments. The hint is, earlier in the conversation we had talked about B-trees...

Holidays!

2006-09-22T02:33:00.000+10:00

Yep, Holidays have started!
"Wait!"...I hear you say..."Didn't they start saturday" - yeah, I guess, though now week 5 of the TopCoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC) design contest has just ended, which means I get a break after working for almost 6 weeks straight :S - this week was particularly hectic though, due to ACM, Google Code Jam and TCCC algorithm *also* being on at the same time. The result? Prizes won this week:

1 TCCC t-shirt for passing review in design
1 TCCC t-shirt for participating in round 1 (yes, it's the same shirt)
1 TCCC student rep. shirt for convincing someone to compete.
1 GCJ shirt for coming in the top 250 in round 2.
1 Google shirt for winning the ACM regional
1 ACM shirt for attending the ACM regional
1 iPod shuffle (apparently...still waiting) for winning ACM
1 trip to Tokyo (probably) for winning ACM
1 trip to San Diego, CA, for placing top 8 in TCCC Design (still pending)

Seriously though, what are you supposed to do with six programming shirts? If you add the Google shirt I just received for last year's ACM, that's...one per day!! Anyone want a shirt (seriously)? If someone reading this decides to hold a programming contest, can you please give away free pants? or maybe shoes...
This is just a random update at 2am cos I've been working today and feel like staying up, I'll post more interesting stuff soon, however all left today is the news that blogwatch has hit its next target :D

Browser personality

2006-09-12T21:40:00.000+10:00

Something I came up with while procrastinating - another one of these games, tis quite simple. Most browsers cache the addresses you visit often, so press 'a' and copy down what your browser suggests. Then 'b', then 'c' etc... to find which sites you frequent. This is me through my browser:
a: www.australiancentral.com.au
b: blowingupspace.blogspot.com
c: www.cs.adelaide.edu.au
d: dictionary.reference.com
e: en.wikipedia.org
f: forums.topcoder.com
g: www.gyronet.org (not google!)
h: www.hotmail.com
i: www.imdb.com
j: java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/index.html
l: www.logicgamesonline.com
m: modnar.poolboys.org
n: ninemsn.com.au
o: orac.amt.edu.au/formums
p: padster.gyronet.org/blogwatch/checker.php
r: www.research.ibm.com/ponder/
s: software.topcoder.com/review
t: www.topcoder.com/tc
u: www.ultimate-guitar.com/
v: video.google.com
w: webmail.adelaide.edu.au/horde/imp/
x: www.xmpp.org
y: www.yourtv.com.au/guide/index.cfm
K, Q and Z had no matches.
One and a bit weeks left in design contest, soon I shall have spare time!

iPod therefore I am?

2006-09-02T01:46:00.000+10:00

For all those not interested in tech stuff, tune out now! For once, I'll do a codemonkey-esque update. No, it's not about how MySpace is one of the ugliest looking sites yet gets 7000 new australian members to day, 60% of whom will never return. Though that in itself puzzles me.
No, instead, it's about Apple's iSTUFF idea, what will / should happen, and why.
Firstly, many have tried to topple the mighty iPod - Sony have the walkman, Creative the Zen, Microsoft are soon to the Zune, in an attempt to make an iPod killer. But no, these are doomed to fail. Why? A few things, most are driven by ease of use. You see, people don't like to do too much stuff when it comes to computers. Apple managed to capitalize on this by making a system which:

Uses one program (iTunes) to do virually everything.
Gives you access to the iTunes (Apple) music store from within the program
Uses non-standard file format AAC for iTunes downloads, rather than mp3
Handles 'podcasting' which is just syndication for audio files, around for ages yet still manages to get its own apple-ised name.
Uses custom hardware which only works for iPods

So, basically, they're creating a monopoly on portable music that is growing rapidly. People generally hate big corporation monopolies though, why is Apple still successful? Because all of those things listed above (except maybe file format) make it soooo easy for beginners to use. Is it going to last? Possibly. Certainly the competing companies won't take it down any time soon. However, an army of iPodders, all playing AAC and downloading iTunes, isn't really the best outcome in my eyes. Here's what I think should happen, and how it may work:

Make simple drivers for computer-player interaction. Things like addSong(), getSongDetails(), setPlayMode(), etc... will make it easy for anyone to write software to organize music libraries.
Create an *open* XML protocol for communication between music stores. Things to allow searches of content, pricings, track/album info, etc. This allows music library code to be independant of music retailers, and would help people hunt for the best price, hopefully making things cheaper in the long run. Kind of like what CDDB tried to be, but with retail information, and before it was privatised.
Decide on a file format to use - including the different multimedia types, like music, video, streaming, syndicated... The answer certainly *seems* to be mpX + xml.
Make hardware that works with different players. It's pretty simple, heck, everything could be USB if people really wanted. It's just amazing that there's no common way.

To sum it up, the different sections (software, hardware, distribution) should be split into different sections to give users more options - can you imagine if everyone had to use hotmail. search google and chat on AOL? As well as being made made public to aide decentralisation.
Sadly, I don't think this will happen soon - for the main reason that it will also make illegal distribution easier, so labels will be less willing to help out. Instead, we sit back and watch as corporations battle for sole ownership of music. Shaping up to be an interesting war ahead...

Oh, and for those wondering - TCCC design is going well, and psychology lectures - inverse determinism, Cantor's theory - are a lot like maths lectures - invert the determinant, Cantor set. Enjoy september, and the show if you're going :D Blogwatcher has had a few bugfixes, and should hit 10,000 page loads soon :o

Flash update

2006-08-25T22:24:00.000+10:00

Hmm....it's getting busy...very busy. But before I have to knuckle down and do...stuff...I thought i'd update with why I may be hard to track down over the next week or five:
1) TCCC design has started! 5 weeks of consecutive UML designs to try to earn my place in America. This wouldn't be too bad, but the very first week, I pick a hard component. Ok, good in the sense that, if I pass, I get the US$1500 payment, 500 digital run points and 10 TCCC points, but bad in the sense that there were problems with the specs, so now its been extended til monday which takes time away from the next design.
2) SRMs go on as usual - most recent was cancelled due to server problems...at 1am in the morning before a 10am start the next day! :p - add to this the ACM regional and Google Code Jam, TCCC algorithm, plus training = so much coding, so little time :(
3) No assignments this week (*phew*) but...only because there's 4 or 5 due next week! One is doing a UML design (= TCCC design for beginners), another is writing a stack/queue (=TCCC algo for beginners), another is assembly {blurgh, but almost finished} and the last isn't even out yet...
Anyway, in OTHER news, the IOI just finished, and incase you missed it...Chris got a Gold and Jarrah a Silver!! That's the first ever Australian gold (15th) and 2nd ever silver! And the other two memebers (Jack and Alan) also scored close to 200 :D Awesome results, truly awesome, and what's more, 3 of them are eligible to do it all again next year :D
Oh well, back to the work, I shall see you when next I emerge...and until then, we seem to have misplaced a planet:

Two Twisted

2006-08-15T22:46:00.000+10:00

In the spirit of the new Australian tv show (which I haven't seen, I'm just stealing the name, sorry) comes two back-two-back narratives from today:
Tale #1: Bus Prophet (starring 4yo kid and grandfather)
-- *bump*, bus hits kurb while going around roundabout --
kid] Papa...did we just hit something?
man] Yes, our bus just hit the kurb when going around the roundabout.
-- kid thinks for 10s --
k] Papa...why did we just the kurb?
m] Because he's a lousy driver.
-- kid thinks for 1 minute, waits until the bus is quiet, then in a REALLY loud voice:
k] Papa...WHY IS HE A LAZY DRIVER??
{we now skip 20 minutes ahead in time}
k] Papa...why are there no seatbelts on busses?
m] They don't think they're needed.
k] But...the driver wears a seatbelt?
m] That's right. They say it'd be too expensive to put them on every seat.
k] That's Silly!! *10s pause for thought* Papa...how much do seatbelts cost??
Deep. At least, about as deep as Australian drama gets :) But stay tuned in, for...
Tale #2: My 2c times 5
pat] Time for a drink.
coke vending machine] Warning!! Please enter correct change!
p] Ok vending machine, take my 20c piece.
cvm] *gulp*. Thankyou, you're up to 00:20
p] Have this 50c piece too.
cvm] *gulp* 00:70 now, only $2 to go.
p] Rightio then, here's a $2 coin.
cvm] *bleurrgh* NO WAY! Have it back.
p] Hmm...try again. $2 goes in...
cvm] *bleurrgh* NO NO NO! I accept all coins except 5c pieces and that $2 coin.
p] Maybe you're programmed by a CS student...oh well, I have no other coins, can I have my 70c back? --pushes refund button--
cvm] *cough* 20c *cough* 20c *cough* 20c. You're up to 00:10
p] But...20 + 20 + 20 = 60c...not 70c?
cvm] haha, yes. too bad, bye bye.
-- pat successfully challenges coke programmers for -10c --
For non TopCoder-ers, in contests you get 50 points when you find a bug in someone else's code. It appears the prize in real life is -10c, oh well. Enjoy, to whomever drank from that next and got a free 10c. The annoying thing was, I didn't have a 10c piece on me. Otherwise I would've put it in, pressed refund, and waited for another 20c piece...lateral thinking :p (now I know how I end up with so many 20c pieces...)
Speaking of programming (i was...kinda) the IOI is on. Best of luck to the australian team :D - In addition, the Google Code Jam 06 has been announced. The times are REALLY good for australians, and the dates are around the ACM, so it's going to get very busy very soon...more later, after I've finished this currrent design and the TCCC starts :D

Guilty of Gross Stupidity

2006-08-11T01:06:00.000+10:00

It's happened again...sporting stars, found guilty of gross stupidity. Last time it was Barry Hall (there aren't too many words to describe 'punching someone in a semifinal') and now, the cycling world tops it with Floyd Landis. There would be few out there who think he's perfectly clean, but then again there are plenty of other athletes guilty of drug cheating. The thing that gets me about this case, though, is how he managed to get 10 minutes behind on stage 16, then the *very next day*, stage 17, suddenly thrash everyone by six minutes. Add to this his claim that he has naturally increased testosterone levels, even though the extra found was artificial, this seems to win the sporting stupidity award for the week.
This is not confined to the sporting field though. Recently, a man put a 14-month-old girl into a tumble dryer because he thought it would be fun for her. It is unlikely that there was any malicious intent, but there's laws against being dangerous, maybe there should be laws against being stupid? The problem with stupid acts is that often people are repeat offenders, and it's hard to tell when the next will occur...
For example, a certain parental tried to guess when I'd be at the busstop, without telling me, but she went to the wrong stop. I realised this only as the bus was pulling out. too late :( So instead I walked home from a closer stop to my house, and waited for said parental to get home. When that occurred, as expected, I was blamed for 'forcing' her to wait at the {wrong} stop. Ok, first time, i wouldn't have minded, it was a caring thought. Second time, it's getting a bit repetative, especially after I had pointed out the right stop that I get off at. But THIRD time? tis a bit much...
And in slighty related news, from the paper today: 7% of australian year 7s can spell 'definitely', 35% don't know there's an apostrope in 'can't', 56% don't know that 'calm', 'still' and 'unexpected' are adjectives, 47% can't spell 'paid', and 65% don't correct 'could of' to 'could have'. Add this to the up-late gameshow, where contestants had to guess a 6 letter word, ending in 'ner', and the guesses included "spanner", "spinner", "grinner" and "funner". Can anyone spell "dumbed down"? I guess soon maybe not...
Sorry bout the rant-ish nature, here's something to cheer ppl up - music on treadmills :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCjSwr7zYtEM

Pictorial

2006-07-25T22:37:00.000+10:00

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. So, here's a blog entry that's 5219 words long:

It's on! The TopCoder Collegiate Challenge has been announced :D It's TopCoder's big Uni-only tournament - soon the Design contest will start, I'm hoping to make the top 8 to get a trip to the US (not too many uni students design). The algorithm contest starts part way through next month too.

Wondering why I've gone crazy? Squint your eyes...it's part of the ASCII world cup feed. I'm glad to be back on the scoreboard at soccer, and for those in either one of the two teams, click the pic above.

During holidays, I played a bit of poker online, managed to come 16th out of 1000+ in an Omaha tournament, the second time I'd ever played it ;) and up to over $100,000 in play money, after starting at $1k...if only it were real :p

Uni's back! Enjoy the learning. This has a double meaning too, as last night was the first ever TCHS SRM (school-age programming contest at TopCoder) run for which I had written the questions. It seems to have gone off without any major dramas (phew), the questions were around the right difficulty, and there's been good feedback on them. So, in short a pretty good week
Ooh, and I forgot to add. Random: On Saturday, I saw the movie The Breakfast Club. My dad had started watching it, I came in just after the start, but still really enjoyed it - recommended for all teens out there :)

Separated at birth #2

2006-07-17T21:05:00.000+10:00

First, we found out Andrew Symonds was now playing with band Gorillaz - this time, compare the pear:

...oh, wait, I mean, pair:
vs.
No wonder Queer-Eye Australia didn't work - they didn't have Tim Cahill as the 'lifestyle' (a.k.a what-the-heck-does-he-actually-do) guy! Oh, and speaking of Australian versions of US shows...it's terrible!! Oh, how terrible - they're soon going to have Australian Celebrity Survivor!!
After the complete failure of the normal Australian version of Survivor - their first challenge NEVER FINISHED because it got windy ;) - someone has decided to now have it starring B-grade celebrities. And what is more, they have chosen Dicko as the host! The greatest parts of the US (= true) version are (a) The scheming and back-stabbing, which I seriously doubt celebrities will do much of infront of a camera, and (b) Jeff has the host! I for one will not be watching this version :p

Holidays :D

2006-07-10T09:21:00.000+10:00

Winter often seems to be accompanied by the cold-weather blues. It's inevitabre (I'm sorry, it's what? ... Inevit, inevitabre!) due to colds, lack of sun, football fixtures, + miscellaneous other. Anyway, I promised more pictures, so here's a start. During these wintery weeks, remember; Make the ball happy!

Oh, and for all those who noticed the post time and thought: "But...you never wake up before 10am!" - you are correct ;) Waking up implies sleeping, which I have yet to partake in due to aforementioned football fixture (unfortunate way for Zidane to go) - it is now 9am, I wonder when that sleep wall is going to headbutt me in the chest...

E for Education

2006-07-02T00:18:00.000+10:00

Before I start -
Seems like Czech AND Argentina are out - probably Germany or winner of Brazil v France will have the best shot. And while that's happening, Federer is continuing his title defense at Wimbledon :)
In addition, two new Lemonade sites: the wiki, and the OneWay portal - the former is great for quick generation of information, the latter looks much nicer but is a bit less userfriendly - for now, use both, but later I think the wiki stuff should be moved over to the portal.

However, what I actually thought I may as well blog about was the weird stuff happening to the Education Systems in each of the states. Unfortunately, at the same time, people have introduced Outcomes-based Education (OBE) in Western Australia as well as protesting against a mandatory A-E grading system throughout primary schools. Sure, maybe A-E is a bit blunt, especially when not accompanied by any explanation. But, why 'unfortunately'?
Well, it all stems with what people are recommending they replace A-E with: 5 levels (still!) but now going from "minimal achievement of what is expected at this year level" to "excellent achievement beyond what is expected at this year level".
In other words, it seems like "your child isn't performing well" is being forcebly removed, deemed inappropriate (even if a child isn't performing well...) and replaced with: "they have achieved, but not excelled" even when not achieving :S - I dunno, maybe it's the sadist in me, but don't you just wish sometimes some parents could be told the truth about how annoying / evil their bundles of joy really are?
And what is worse is that OBE in WA not only gets rid of grades altogether, but it also weights all subjects equally, which has been predicted (quite logically) will severely decrease the number of people studying maths or sciences because there are simpler options with the same result. Throw in the proposal that WA music students don't have to play an instrument, and literary students don't get penalised for spelling or grammar, and analyze movie posters and txt messages - just as long as people can spell 'Dumbed-down education', all shall be well :p
What else could I leave with than a picture (rare around here, I know, sorry):

Ole

2006-06-17T22:24:00.000+10:00

Many apologies - long time between drinks. Has been a rather busy few days ... I mean, weeks ... I mean, month and a bit ;)
So, in as few words as possible:
NiceStartToWordCupButMyBetSoFarWouldBeCzechOrArgentina,
BadLuckToFedererAtRolandGarrosNiceWorkJustineThough,
DidAnotherTCDesignButTwoOtherSubmittersHopeIDon'tComeThird!
ExamsStartedTodayNumericalWentWellGuessIReallyShouldStudy...
that pretty much sums it up. Thanks to the music of Dream Theater for keeping me sane :p
And just when I thought I was heading into a period of relative calm after (and during i suppose) exams, where I could work on the Lemonade game, suddenly I get *two* contract job offers in two days! I'm not sure how much I can say (not really a secret, but ppl may want to keep them a suprise) though I'll add later once I finish them. So shall be busy writing code & documents over the next few weeks.
In addition, the TopCoder Collegiate Championship is beginning soon :D - my best chance to get onsite, as you have to be a uni student to enter, and most designers have already left uni (ranks be about 4th or 5th) so that's bound to take up a bunch of time too.
Hmm...maybe I should start posting pictures of stuff...when anything interesting-enough happens, I shall do. Until then, it's more staying up late watching true football! Adieu :)
Oh, i almost forgot (well...did, then edited this in): A nice site found by my cousins: PotterPuppetPals try it ;)

Update

2006-06-01T00:05:00.000+10:00

Ok, quick update before swatvac starts and I get preoccupied with other forms of procrastination - 1) Well spotted by Jelly from QLD - my blog is now a year old. Let's reflect what we've learnt since it started.....right, that didn't take long. However, in my first few posts it seemed I wanted to add something interesting down the bottom of each post...maybe I should do that again...
2) Yes, Tom, you're right, BlogWatcher (and gyronet in general it seems) has been a bit tetchy this week. It seems to be ok now, but I hope it doesn't continue - also, the main checker.php site has now hit 6000 page loads! coolies :) I managed, by accident, to be the 6000th hit, i might post the screen shot later - gotta think of something for 10000 :p
3) Exams / end-of-semester essays / presentations are on their way, coming to a town near you. Well, near me, in adelaide. Best of luck to all those who have them on at some point soon :D yes, even you arts students!
4) Hopefully I get to find a bit more about the chances of me interning at google soon - I may end up even going to the Googleplex in california to do it :D - more later though.

On the topic of google, and leaving you with some IT-related tidbit (see part 1):
for those who trust google to not datamine with your data, I recommend trying out their accelerator: http://webaccelerator.google.com/ It only works for DSL/cable connections, but apparently it has saved me 34.3 minutes out of 7hrs of page loads already - not bad for something that took 5 mins to set up.

Answers

2006-05-26T22:49:00.000+10:00

Firstly, fewer than 500,000 people watched Eurovision! tsk, to all those ppl who were watching the mining disaster interview, you don't know what you missed :p ...but, if you want to find out, I now have the CD :) - On the topic of music, here's the answers from the earlier quiz (sorry for when the songs temporarily disappeared :p)

ONE POINT (easier)
4. 'Love, just don't stare', he used to say to me, every Sunday morning (Dream Theater, Awake)
6. You held my hand and walked me home, I know (Avril Lavigne, Don't Tell me)
8. Lord unchain my hands - let me sing inside the crowded trams. (The Cat Empire, The Crowd)
1. And I'd give up forever to touch you - Iris, Goo Goo dolls (Bodie)
2. I looked away, then I looked back at you. - Avril Lavigne, Fall to Pieces (JAmes)
3. So we've put an end to it this time. I'm no longer yours, and you're no longer mine. - Missy Higgins, Ten Days (Jack)
5. Hast Du etwas Zeit fuer mich, Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich - Nena, 99 Luftballons (Bodie)
7. Here comes johnny singing oldies, goldies - Be-bop-a-lua, baby what I say. - Walk of Life, Dire Straits (Bodie)
9. There is freedom within, there is freedom without - Crowded House, Don't Dream It's Over (Bodie)
10. I'm so tired of being here - suppressed by all my childish fears. - Evanescence, My Immortal (Jib)

TWO POINTS (harder)
3. You outta see you, you're always bitchin' about somethin'. (Fastball, Perfect World)
4. Ladies and gents, turn up your sound system to the sounds of Carlos Santana (Carlos Santana, Maria Maria)
5. Outside, gets inside, oooh, through her skin. (Kate Bush, Breathing)
6. Paint my face in your magazines, make it look whiter than it seems (Nelly Furtado, Powerless)
7. Sometimes I feel so happy, sometimes I feel so sad, sometimes I feel just about everything, lately I'm just feeling bad. (Pale Blue Eyes)
8. Who knows how long I've loved you, you know I love you still (The Beatles, I will)
9. You know it's generally known, you got everything at home (Road to Ruin, the Ramones)
10. Life, it's ever so strange, it's so full of change, think that you've worked it out then BANG (Jem, Just a Ride)
1. The chef prepares a special menu, for your delight, oh my. Paul McCartney, Vanilla Sky (Bodie)
2. I didn't take no shortcut, I spent the money that I saved up. - The Strokes, Barely Legal (Bodie)

I would've thought a few more may have been guessed (Beatles & Cat Empire), but I guess my taste in music is just weird :p In other news, it's almost end of the Uni term, which means swatvac & exams coming up. Which ALSO therefore means more music (I have 13 tracks now, I'll start tidying them up & making actual versions) as well as programming (hopefully the modnar sport page will be done soon, and I'll have my own java server - War Plan and all :p)

Eurovision!!!!!

2006-05-21T15:52:00.000+10:00

It's that time of year again! Eurovision finals are being televised, anyone who's not doing anything - I recommend you watch them! Sure, the songs aren't great, the bands aren't great, the dancing is appalling...but, it's Eurovision, what other reasons do you need? Although I already know who wins {curse you, MSN messenger, having it in the news thing before it's televised!}, after watching the semi it's certainly worth it :)
In addition - yesterday, I was watching a game where one team was trying to minimise the possession of the other, by utilising open spaces and passing it around the back to free players, slowly pushing forwards and taking opportunities in advancing by using precision passes. Sounds like (real) football, right? Well, the suprise was, it was AFL! Richmond v Adelaide, the former winning using the (real) football-style tactics to beat a team that was considered unbeatable in that match :p - it was certainly a change from the usual kick-long-down-the-middle-and-hope tactic, or the other strategy of kick-long-down-the-sides-and-hope, and much better to watch than the everyone-piles-onto-the-ball-before-kicking-it-long-and-hoping that is usually used. Who knows, I might even start watching AFL again if it keeps up. (note: it won't, people like Graham Cornes etc. will hate it and the rules would be changed before that happened :( )
Anyway, tonight is Eurovision night, I'll post about my Google trip soon, as well as answers to those songs - so, if you know any more, now's the time to TAG the answer.