Journal Entries
Axe was there.
Posted Jun 30, 2005
Well I've been saving up some money to go overseas, during my study break, but then my Russian invited me to go to the Mudvayne concert in Auckland with him, so now I'm back to having no savings, again. 
The concert was on tuesday night, and had a surprisingly good turnout given that it was a weeknight. It was probably the most crushed I've ever been in a moshpit - to the point where actual moshing was mostly impossible, and the crowd just sort of jumped up and down as one entity, because individuals in the crowd didn't really have any choice in the matter.
Wait, let's try this in chronological order...
On tuesday night, one week before the concert, I received an e-mail, at about 10:20pm, from my Dwarf, C, who's been overseas being a professional vagabond in Europe for the last two years. The e-mail said "I'll be in Auckland on wednesday." Cue much swearing. If I'd received the e-mail only ten minutes earlier, I could probably have organised to meet him at the airport.
As it was, I had no confirmation that my assumption was correct in that by 'wednesday' he meant 'tomorrow', until I recieved a text from my ex-flatmate who now lives in Auckland, inviting me to a dinner at their place on saturday, "and by the way we have a C".
Cue transport issues. 
At 4pm on saturday, after having been sent very helpful texts from C saying that I "could get a lift with R, his number is..." after R had already left the city ()... I gave up on seeing C that weekend.
Ten minutes later, my phone rang. A friend of a friend had heard that I wanted to get to Auckland, and was keen for a mission up as long as it was okay for him to come to the gathering too, and hopefully we could go into town (dancing) as well. Half an hour later, we were on our way.
Needless to say, the hosts were surprised to see me, since the last they'd heard I wasn't going to be able to make it, and I hadn't been able to let them know otherwise since in my haste I'd left my phone charging at home. Good thing I'd memorised their address.
Saw ex-flatmates - first time I'd seen them since their wedding last year. Saw their baby, now a few months old. This was a little scary since I was literally there when they first met. I'm getting old.
Saw my Dwarf. Saw my other dwarf, who was my trainer for years, and is now married despite saying he would never get married. I'm getting old.
Saw my elf, who is also an ex-flatmate, from the same flat and the same time as the other two. Scared my driver (friend-of-a-friend) by describing the incestuous-sounding relationships between all of these people. (I come from Hamilton, these sort of descriptions happen all the time. Vis: The elf, R, the one I could have got a lift with if I'd known earlier, has two kids. The mother of his kids, L, is ex-flatmate number 1's sister, and used to go out with Other Dwarf, P. R now screams P's name in bed with L, just to annoy her. P used to do the same, screaming R's name. These are the kind of mad shinnanegin's I used to have to put up with while living with them. 
)
Went into town with C, the woman who was his last girlfriend in New Zealand, and my driver. Cue moshing. I like voodoo lounge. It's fun to mosh there. Somehow it's not really the same without C moshing beside me.
P had made me promise to drag C back to the gathering within two hours, in order not to kill the party. Managed to get C back again four hours later, party was dead. Damn.
Got driven back to Hamilton very early in the morning, just late enough to be blinded by the sunrise on the way back.
Driver very expressive about how much fun he'd had, and how much he liked the people he'd met. I like that. The two of us will go up for more random moshing missions at some unknown stage in the future. 
Skip forward to this tuesday; different party, different set of people. Had organised to be driven up by my friend M, because she was going to the concert too. We picked up the Russian from the airport on the way up.
Unfortunately she was driving back again that same evening, because her boyfriend was up from Wellington and they wanted to spend some time together. And they didn't really have a place to stay anyway.
So I organised a bus ticket so that I could stay overnight and still get home again, because I wanted to hang out with my Russian for as long as possible, and also my Dwarf, I discovered later.
Now it's important to mention that my Russian and my Dwarf hadn't actually met yet, at this point. I met my Russian about three years ago when I was living in Wellington, and by the time I'd moved back here again I'd only seen my Dwarf once more, and that was at his going away party two years ago.
The Russian bought the Dwarf a ticket to the concert, which I may never forget. 
They met at about 6pm on the main street of Auckland, as I was walking with the Russian one way, and the Dwarf was randomly walking the other. We went and gathered with various other people, and drank some. Then the Russian, the Dwarf, our friend J, and I went for dinner, which was flamin' tasty Japanese stuff I can't remember the name of, and we had sake. The Dwarf invited J and the Russian to his homecoming party in two years, which he'd already asked me to help organise.
Considering it's invitation only, it's quite impressive that he invited them less than two hours after first meeting them. That just goes to show the quality of my friends, I guess. 
So anyway, concert happened, it was great. Lost the dwarf before the concert, and didn't find him again until afterwards, which was a bit stink 'coz it meant I didn't get to mosh beside him. But he had fun and so did I, so never mind.
I started out next to the Russian, but got too far away from him to keep track before too long, due to the motion of the crowd. He had fun and so did I, so never mind.
We went into Voodoo after the concert, moshed a little more. Drank a little more. Talked a bit about stuff. Got a feed. Got a taxi. Went to J's place, she was waiting for us to arrive. It probably would have been a lot easier if I'd taken my eftpos card to the concert with me, but with a bit of funds shuffling everything worked out okay. Unfortunately J had work early in the morning, so we didn't get to chat for long before we had to get organised and bedded. Sleep happened. We walked to the suburb centre for breakfast the next morning, where I found out I hadn't been paid yet. Damn. Cought a bus into the city, browsed a bit, said goodbye to the Dwarf, went to the bus station, said goodbye to the Russian, got on the bus, and came home randomly sitting next to another friend who had also been up for the concert.
Got home, and felt lonely. Went to bed. Woke up far too early, had an exam. Came into computer lab. Time is now synchonised with the telling.
Unfortunately I now have to go to work, which is why the last few paragraphs have been so bulleted. Sorry if that makes it hard to read, but I wanted to get it all down while it's fresh.
Big hugs to all my friends. I'm feeling quite soppy now, since it's rare for me to see a single good friend, let alone have several of them so recently in my memory. I wish they knew how much I love them.
Big hugs to all. Gotta go.
Discuss this Journal entry [52]
Latest reply: Jun 30, 2005
The mind wobbles!
Posted Jun 9, 2005
Someone (I think it was GalaxyBabe) posted a couple of links to some stuff on Doctor Who. It was mildy amusing, despite the fact I don't really care much about him, and so I followed a link on one of the pages to see if I could find a little more info.
I got to this page: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=630272005
And noticed the following a little lower down:
"Salisbury: Police are investigating sightings of a mysterious creature which has been spotted prowling the local streets.
Described as a cross between a kangaroo, a leopard, a monkey and a cat, at least four sightings have been reported to police, who have alerted Wiltshire Wildlife and Salisbury Wildlife Rescue, in the last month.
Nicki Lomas, 23, first spotted the animal at midnight on May 6. She said: "It looked like a leopard. It was very big with a yellow and black tail." "
I can't imagine what this thing must look like. A large kangaroo-leopard-monkey-cat, with a yellow and black tail?
Can anyone draw me a picture?
Discuss this Journal entry [33]
Latest reply: Jun 9, 2005
The darkest website.
Posted Jun 7, 2005
If ever there was a list of goth websites, this would be in the top five, at least.
This, to me, is the essence of the goth mindset. Nothing pretentious showy or arrogant; just simple, clean, honest, naked and ashamed.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
(The premise: Write a secret on a postcard, and send it in to be published anonymously.)
I've seen a similar site before, without the nice artwork. It was /much/ more lighthearted, right up until the one posting which made me depressed for the rest of the day: "I haven't told my family I have cancer and less than three months to live."
If you're feeling particularly vulnerable or easily depressed at the moment, I recommend you don't look at this site until you're feeling stronger, emotionally. It has real potential to sadden.
However, it also has real potential to heal. This is what I cling to, knowing that my depression has now taken almost two-thirds of my life. I have to believe that by looking at the dark side of life I'm not just sticking to what I know, and I don't /like/ being depressed; but instead I'm finding the tools to cope with what life really is, in the same way this website does.
My favourite? "When I worked at the post office as a clerk, I would read postcards as I sorted them. !!!!! Are you guys still doing that?"
Discuss this Journal entry [51]
Latest reply: Jun 7, 2005
It's official,
Posted Jun 3, 2005
My dreams are bigger than my means.
I realised this during today's lecture.
Two or three years ago I was vaguely thinking about self-optimising code, and how it could be created. Particularly, whether I could write a piece of software which could take /another/ piece of software as input, and spit out the most useful code which does the same thing.
Today I learnt one of the first steps towards what could, potentially, with a large amount of effort, maybe, be an attempt towards that. Perhaps.
It's interesting that I noticed the connection between the use of this algorithm as it was presented, and my previous idea of a few years ago. Admittedly this was the second time I'd been presented with the concept of Hamming codes as a means of reducing the correlation between error responses, but this is the first time it was presented in relation to applying Ockham's razer to null-hypothesis testing in an attempt to find the best solution to a problem, rather than just correcting errors in real-time.
Unfortunately, the application of it would still be far beyond the realm of current computing power, unless some interesting dynamic programming technique was used. Now quantum computers would be a whole nother dimension of interesting. The mind wobbles.
Currently, the number of null hypotheses for each 'classification' (ie possible line of code, currently 2^64 I believe, although the number could well be a lot less than that...) increases at a rate of (2^(k-1))-1... which is heaps more than reasonable, considering the largest value of k the MLG upstairs managed to get was 11, and the creators of this algorithm recommended a likely value of k as no more than about 6... certainly not 2^64!
Also today I had presented to me the term 'black magic algorithms', of which I'd experienced the concept but had never been given a title for it. I think it's quite well-put, myself.
The concept is that this particular set of algorithms can be proven emperically to work, and sometimes can even be proven emperically to be efficient, but it's either impossible or very difficult to prove /theoretically/ that they do what they're seen to actually do.
Which is kinda funky.
This kind of stuff is why I get a little annoyed when people say to me: "Oh, you do stuff with computers! Can you fix my internet for me?"
That's not what I do. THIS is what I do.
I guess it's like the difference between installing car stereos and designing mass-transit systems.
And that's why I don't want to switch degrees, even though this one is so difficult. In a way it's /because/ it's so difficult, that's also what makes it interesting. I just wish it was difficult in managable bits!
Anyway, going back to the original topic, I have no desire to decrease the size, width, or scope of my dreams. I just want to be able to plan the median goals and baby steps as well as I can plan the big picture. I would be SO sorted if I could train myself to do that. Still working on the skill.
On a completely unrelated topic, and just because I'm thinking about it, I've spent a little time playing a game called fable on a mate's X-box. It's yet another role-playing-type game thingee which has left me thinking that it had a couple of really neat features, but nothing really to make it stand out. I'm yet again certain that a game which has all of the best features of all of the best RPGs, would be an absolute winner. I really should write a list of all of these mint features, before I start to forget them.
I could probably make this hypothetical game, but it would take a lot of time. And strangely, the part I would least like to create is the graphics engine. Maybe the doppelganger would be interested in doing that for me. Probably not though.
I don't suppose anyone out there in internet-land feels like writing a customised 3D RPG engine? Just to warn you, it'd be a scalable, fish-eye, parallax system. Contact me for more details. And I promise to give you a hefty cut of the royalties, if and when they arrive. You can trust me, we have witnesses, and they know where I live.
Discuss this Journal entry [81]
Latest reply: Jun 3, 2005
Current projects.
Posted May 31, 2005
Since I'm not spending anywhere near as much time at uni now, I've started thinking again about some of the projects I've had on the back-burner for a while.
It's important to me to stay creative, especially given recent events.
So, in the manner of sharing and an attempt to sound more positive to people who don't deserve to bear the brunt of my negativity, I'm going to describe some of them a little. Besides, I'm pretty sure that most of you would have a good idea or two that I could use. 
If you don't think you'd be interested, of course feel free not to bother reading this. I really don't mind, Job.
The oldest project: the workstation chair. Essentially I want to put computer parts into a comfy chair, so that I have an ergonomic workstation with back support in all the right places etc, and the user can be comfortable and relaxed no matter what they're working on. I think this is even more important given that people these days tend to spend crazy amounts of time in front of the computer, and most of them don't even know how to adjust their monitor to the right height.
At the moment I have the skeleton of an old recliner, and I think I've figured out where all the computer parts can go. I've had a few issues with things like cables not being able to reach as far as they need to, and trying to make sure there's enough airflow so that the CPU doesn't overheat and so on, but I think it's sorted now. Soon I'll start adding wooden framing back onto the metal skeleton, and putting speakers in and so on. Then I'll have to figure out how to convert the signals from laptop keyboards into whatever PS2 ports take, and find a decent sub-woofer pre-amp circuit.
And then I need to reupholster it, which will probably be annoying 'coz it's not my thing at all and I don't know anyone else that would do it for me for a favour.
The next main current project is a robot. I think this one started in a random conversation. I realised I knew how to make most of the bits already, and besides, robots are cool.
I can make the brain be a multi-layer neural network, that way it can train itself and I don't have to bother hard-coding everything from scratch. Besides, it'll behave cuter that way too. I think I've still got the code at home somewhere.
The body will mostly consist of the computer to run the brain, which means that it'll be bigger than I'd have liked, because smaller computers are more expensive and therefore harder to get for free.
Also on the body will be something like an actuator-sensor interface; essentially something which takes digital signals, like from a serial port, and converts them to analog voltage levels along one of several wires, which will be connected to the actuators for the legs and so on.
The actuators themselves I /think/ I can make myself, but I'm not certain. To find out, I need to buy some ferrous toroids, but I haven't been going past the shop much recently so I haven't got around to it. It would also be helpful if I could find some iron nails, but I'm not sure they exist any more; the only ones I can find are steel.
The legs can be made out of almost anything, as long as it's strong enough, and can have holes drilled in it. For the sake of laziness I'm looking for something like meccano (mecanno? meccanno? Y'know, that metal bits construction kitset. Like lego, but not plastic.) so that I don't have to bother drilling the holes and getting metal filings all through my carpet.
It also needs a sensor interface of some kind. I want it to have no less than two eyes, so that it can figure out 3D parallax vision for itself. It should have no less than two ears, for pretty much the same reason. And it probably won't have /more/ than two each of these things, because it's easier to find two free cameras and two free microphones, than it is to find more.
It won't have a mouth or a nose, because I don't care.
It's tactile sensory information can just be microdot switches in various positions, like the ends of its legs, on its corners, etc. Because they're cheap and its easy.
Aparrantly to get the signal of a microphone or camera converted into something the neural net can use, I just connect to the video/sound card and use a frame grabber mechanism thingee. Aparrantly this is pretty standard and easy to do, although obviously I'll have to find out exactly how.
Which means the only major problem (apart from the actuator-sensor interface, which I might just ask someone else to make for me) would be powersource. Usually a computer is plugged into a wall. Usually a robot is designed either to have someone come along and plug it in to recharge its batteries, or it has a solar panel and finds its own power, which means it brain is designed to have very low drain.
Usually a full computer is not used as a brain, on a robot which is designed to be independant. Which means I need some funky way to have either a fairly big solar panel, which charges a fairly big capacator or battery, and a circuit which will shut down the computer when the capacator drains too much, and restart it when it's charged up enough. Otherwise, if it just turns itself off by not having enough power to run any more, then it'll forget everything it's learnt since the last time it turned on; I need the brain to save stuff before it dies.
Luckily, most parts of a computer only take 12V power; the power supply in a computer doesn't actually use most of the power it takes out of the wall. Which is mint.
So currently, I need to find: a large solar panel. Legs of some kind. Two cameras. Two microphones. An actuator-sensor interface. Um. Actually, I think that's all. Apart from buying some ferrous toroids, but I just have to get around to that.
Oh, and aparrantly the robot has to be spider-like (ie eight legs), and be purple. So I'm told. 
The idea of making a flying device and getting myself to Canada is still in the back of my head, although engine design is still bugging me. It'd be easier if I had a junkyard to raid; I might have tested a couple of ideas by now if I did. Someone pointed out to me that I don't need to build a frame as such - there's the body of a spitfire plane bolted on to a pole in a park down the road. But it's a memorial, and I have too much respect for my dead peeps to steal it.
And I still want to make an air pool table, but I decided I was going to wait until I'd finished the workstation chair first, because my flat is small. Pity: I should have done it first because it's easier to make, and I have someone standing by to market it for me already.
If I'd done it first I might have a good income out of it by now. Damn.
Any ideas from anyone? 
Discuss this Journal entry [61]
Latest reply: May 31, 2005
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Jerms - a Brief flicker and then gone again.
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