Older blog entries for bjf (starting at number 113)

I was sickened and infuriated to read in the press today how the IMF and the US Government managed to orchestrate the collapse of Argentina's government and civil society. Half the country is below the poverty line, and people are so desperate for food, they've been reduced to looting to survive.

On the other hand, you've got the people in Washington making noises about "mutual respect", "friendship" and "freedom" while simultaneously screwing developing countries over.

In economics, do human decency and morality become "value judgements" - that causing human suffering and chaos in other countries is OK in the name of the Little Yellow God? Twenty people dead!. Wake up and smell the fucking coffee, you heartless bastards.

The American people need to ask themselves whether they actually condone the activities of their Governement in doing this, and whether they want to be associated with this moral depravity. Maybe they're too worried about their investment portfolios to consider what human suffering they're indirectly helping to create abroad.

My trip to Melbourne, just like the previous three years has been cancelled, due to skyrocketing air fares and the impracticality of getting to the airport at five in the morning. Marti and my other friends in Melbourne are going to think I'm a complete wanker for piking out for three years in a row, but unfortunately, them's the breaks.

My Honours supervisor wrote me today and told me that I got a 5 (70%) for my Honours thesis ("... in brief, I didn't learn anything from reading your report"). Serves me right for being such a lazy shit. I'm very disappointed to say the least. Perhaps I can get the GPCP typeflow analysis pass written so that I can rescue my graduating mark to 2A instead of 2B. I am sufficiently pissed off with myself at the moment that I've decided that I'm not going to the graduating ceremony.

I made pricing enquiries about getting the FM3A camera body. It's gonna cost me almost two grand for a very baseline configuration (body, 50mm lens, strap, bag, shutter-release). Ouch.

I also decided to renew my learner's drivers permit with the view to actually getting off my arse and learning how to drive. I went in and was told that since it was my fourth renewal and since it was five years since I sat my last written test, I had to re-sit before getting it again. Shit.

zealot: I agree with your assertion that the object-oriented programming style requires more forethought and design. Modularity and code reuse always demand more effort, since if components are to be reused, they must be generalised for such reuse. Design patterns reduce this effort for us by giving us pre-cooked scenarios that we can incorporate into our designs as appropriate. I personally haven't experimented a great deal with design patterns myself, apart from the Singleton.

Mozilla is a good example of a heavily pre-designed and highly modular piece of software. Mozilla.org had an interesting competiton a few years back where participants were asked to spot design patterns in use in the code, although I never got to see the results.

Want something to belt out a quick hack? I believe in using the right tools for the job: Visual Basic, Perl and Python fill this niche nicely.

Serious programming? Give me Java or C# anyday. I'm prepared to sacrifice flexibility and control for safety. IMHO, strong static type systems are a godsend for aiding in writing correct code.

'Tis the season to be jolly

My brother Daniel moved out of hone yesterday. Mum and Dad now have an empty nest, while Daniel lives it up with some mates down in Palm Beach. I am hoping that it will not prove too much of a distraction from study for him.

Mum and I have organised a 5-day trip to Melbourne after New Year. I'm quite looking forward to it.

I've got the PLAS Christmas party tomorrow and the DSTC Christmas party on Friday. Presents to buy, parties to attend, organising to do...

I got some preliminary academic results in, and discovered that I scored 71% (a Credit) for the one subject that I actually got a mark for (I was expecting a far better mark). Additionally, I'm worried about what's going to happen with my advanced compiler subject, which I fucked up (I get to do a makeup thankfully), and my thesis, which was handed in late.

I am one pissed off individual. I have the ability and skill to do better, but I presently lack the energy, willpower and motivation. I think I'll work for a year or two, and go back to uni to kick butt anew.

However, my doom and gloom was moderated by the spectacular TKO defeat of Australian boxer and notorious loudmouth, Anthony Mundine, in his world title bout today. Guess that's gonna shut him up for a while :)

zealot: with due respect of course, they're some interesting "language peeves". Bear in mind that Java is a much newer language, and that the designers of Java did a great deal to tighten up the language with respect to C and C++. Safety means a lot to me as a programmer: I like to write correct code and do it quickly. Strong static type systems and clean unambiguous syntax just makes it easier.

Speaking for myself, I'd prefer casting operators with low precedence and non-spagettified loop guards. It's not just a matter of style and convenience: Java makes it a lot harder to make stupid mistakes than say, C. I personally like Java and C# a lot, but I can handle C if I need to.

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I handed in my thesis today. I should be celebrating, but I am feeling severely depressed. It might be partially to do with the fact that I have to work for DSTC for several weeks now, coupled with the fact that my graduation has been pushed back three or four months. Please don't ask me why.

I'm dragging my feet on my dissertation, and I ran out of time to visit the folks this weekend. I can't wait for the fucking thing thing to be out of the way. I guess I know what to do about it, don't I?

Daniel (my brother) is coming down during the week to join everybody here for a LAN party. I look forwards to having him around. Too bad I've got to spend the week at DSTC.

I've decided to hold off buying my camera until I know I've passed everything, and that SEA aren't going to turn around and ask for their money back. I think I'm being paranoid, but I've always believed in covering my arse. I should have a pretty good idea what's happening by Monday-week.

I guess now I should try and find the time to do some hacking, once this evil thesis is out of the way. My present project ideas (in order of complexity) are 1) simple XML SAX, then DOM parser implementation, 2) blog software and 3) a BibTeX editor for my Pilot.

I'm feeling the time pressure with the dissertation. I don't see myself doing much other than dissertation work for the next couple of days. After that, I'm looking forward to cleaning out my cube at PLAS, removing my files from the QUT hosts, and finally calling myself a free man.

I haven't heard from John Gough about my Compiler Lab project yet. I guess that I can take that as a good sign.

I got an email from a mate of mine from PLAS with an awfully detailed critique of the differences between C# and Java, stemming from some previous emails. The sheer technical skill of some people I know is truly humbling.

I think I might pay a visit to my parents this weekend - they've probably forgotten what their eldest son looks like :) I'm really looking forward to catching up with my family, drinking beer and enjoying my mother's cooking for once.

I'm also looking forward to buying my camera, and getting back into karate training, but I'd rather not think too much about it while I have so much work hanging over my head.

Why have I ignored karate for the last six months? Besides me being such a lousy time manager, there's also the expense: from what I can tell, the McMahon's run a high-quality operation, so they charge a premium for it. In the back of my mind, the part of the training that I really dislike is the fact that I have to train in a co-ed class, where I'd feel a lot more comfortable training in an all-male environment, which I'd find much less threatening. I'm not being sexist; I just find that the additional stress of having young women (with 'karate-attitude ha-YA!!') around unhelpful. Maybe I just worry too much.

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A friend of mine recently got a girlfriend. One thing that has stood out is that now that he has a regular partner, I find that there's so much that I cannot talk about with him anymore. I wonder if this stems from the phenomenem where when people get married or whatever, they lose all their single friends and find new friends who are also married. Relationships must have some major drawbacks, as well as the obvious advantages.

I find myself resenting their happiness in a way, and I fear that that resentment is becoming obvious, especially to the lovebirds in question. Why should I be resentful? Am I pissed off because I haven't been able to find a steady partner of my own? I believe that I have so many reasons not to be resentful, because of the drawbacks of having a long-term relationship: reduced mobility, job and travel options, having to share expenses, having someone 'in your face' whether you feel like company or not, etc.

Committment must be such a pain in the arse for men, I reckon. Yet it's something that many women, I observe, insist upon. I have a female friend who got into a long term relationship, only to have it self-destruct when she wanted to get married, and he didn't (which was a massive waste, since he was a top bloke who was from my POV perfect for her). She didn't seem to handle too well the fact that committment of that magnitude (marriage!) is a hell of a thing to ask from another person, especially a man with ambition and a budding career.

How do I feel about all this? I think that basically, I need a low-committment 'fuck-buddy' relationship. After getting the deed over and done-with, I think I'd be in a far better position to work out what I want out of a relationship, and how it all relates to the rest of my life.

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Two days to go!

I've been unusually busy lately, finishing my dissertation and having just submitted my report for my Compiler Lab disaster. It was beautifully typeset in LaTeX and bound -- if I'm going to crash and burn, I might as well do it in style.

The only things really left hanging over my head is my dissertation (due next Wednesday) and my DSTC backlog (I went to DSTC today). I'm feeling a great deal more optimistic about things now than I did a week ago. One more week, and I'm a free man!

Music: "I Shit Me" - Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance, TISM.

Have you ever made the mistake of putting women on pedestals? I know I have.

I'm working on my Compiler Lab report. I think I'm going to blow the subject and have to repeat, which is too bad. I have an excellent idea for another project though; something way more realistic. I believe that it may be possible to build an XSLT compiler that can emit .NET IL directly for faster execution. We'll see what happens.

I'm also wondering whether it's possible to write a free Input Method Editor plugin for Windows NT/XP that'll provide for a Cyrillic input method not unlike the Emacs Mule cyrillic-translit input method. So far, I believe that the existing Windows entry method support only supports keyboards that have Cyrillic mappings only. If anyone can offer me some ideas or tips, please drop me a line.