Thoughts of a Psych/Code Monkey/Guitarist

To all those who are reading this, I wish you a very Merry Chirstmas, as well as a Happy New Year!!! It seems as though each year is more enjoyable than the last, and this has been no exception :) So, to all those who've helped make this the best year yet, thanks very much and have a great holidays! Finally tonight, i'll leave you with some numbers (how could I not? :p) Songs written: 10 Music play on soundclick: about 2222 - My Immortal and Boulevard of Broken Dreams both are over 1100 :D Blogwatch loads: >500 :) Goals scored: umm...wasn't keeping track :p Trips to ACT: 4 - hahaha, you think I'd learn Years better than this: 0

Blog Watcher has moved! It's now on a server that I (part) own - thanks again Raf for organising that one - so can people update their links to http://padster.gyronet.org/blogwatch ! Thanks - there's now a nicer automated registration process, so you can tell others about it as I don't need to sign people up manually now. (Oh, and sorry for the google ad, it was just too tempting :p). And those people who were already members, if possible can you send me an email (padsterpat at gmail dot com) with your current email address so I can update the database? thanks :) Summer scholarship has started...programming all day for most weekdays, fun fun fun :D Hopefully Blog Watcher will be faster soon, I'll post whenever it gets updated. Ta!

[rant-ish, skip to below if you want]My watch arrived, so I went to pick it up from the store, and everything seemed to be going ok. I tried it on later, and realised it was too big and I needed some links removed, so I returned and was going to walk in to ask about it when I got cut off at the door (yes, an attendant actually stood in front of me as I was walking in). I explained the situation, how I had picked up my watch earlier and wanted links taken out. "What type??" - "Rado Original" - "Show me."...."We don't fix bands, sorry". I was a bit confused about having to prove to them I actually had a watch...the only logical reason for asking me this, especially seeing as they already knew they didn't fix bands, would be because they didn't think I actually had it. So, I got turned away without even entering the store, yet older customers managed to walk right through without such harsh attention. The second indication of this attitu

Yet again, me is off to the nation's capital, staying at ANU for 10 days to help train people in programming, and probably learn a few things myself. Which means I won't be in the normal levels of contact until i get back (late on the 15th) - so, to all those people with birthdays, valedictories, soccer matches....or anything really - enjoy life here in SA while I'm gone! It seems that this year, like the last two, there will be no girls at the programming camp...the gender that makes up 52% of this country, you'd hope that something like this wasn't so gender-inbalanced...though, looking at the TopCoder member audience, the IOI participants and the IT industry in general, it does seem like a trend. I wonder why though....like, even maths isn't this one-sided. Is it the way it's promoted? The fact that it's computer-related? The testing process?....hmm, if you have any thoughts pls add them to the comments, they'd be much appreciated. Back to the mus

Well well well, it's been an interesting coupla days...and for some reason (apologies for those who've noticed, and many thanks for those who lent an ear to hear about it) I've been feeling in a state of confusion :S Hopefully the 10 days in ACT will act as a holiday to clear that up, but at least I've got another song out of it :) {albeit a sad one...sorry...}. Basically, during an MSN conversation about this matter, I had mentioned to someone what I'd been thinking about, and it went something like: Well it seemed... But then they...... And I thought... hhmm...... Basically, disjoint fractions of sentences buzzing around my head, leading to this confusion about everything in general :o ! Anyhow, I thought it'd be nice to have a song that had that sort of confusion in it, so I sat down today (minus the broken E string and with the other strings all a semitone sharp) and wrote "Confused". It's still not quite finished yet, and I haven't recorde

For the language that it supposedly the easiest to learn and use, the English language has some weird areas. For example, name the opposites of these words: Replaceable, Redeemable. Easy, right? Now try the opposite of Regardless, or Respective...if you apply the rule, you don't get the opposite, you just get a longer word which means exactly the same thing ! rightio.... Similarly, you walk *onto* a bus, and after than you are 'on' the bus, even though you aren't on top of it. Really, you're inside it, but you certainly don't walk *into* a bus, that'd be disaterous :p - And, thank's for Tom for this one (you learn something new every day) when you get of the bus, you 'alight' from it! Nothing to do with fire, but when you get off a vehicle a word you can use for that verb is 'alight'... On the music side, two new songs are coming along very nicely. One of them is my attempt at a piano piece - sounds kinda classical-ish / bad-stage-showish

First of all, a big *thankyou* to all those people to sent me a bday SMS, or email, or organised a picnic etc...despite being in ACT and having to wake up at 4am, it's really nice when ur phone keeps giving you another birthday wish throughout the day :) Now, I just have to remember when *your* birthdays are. I've decided finally to get a proper watch, and am deciding between: http://www.watchesplanet.com/Product/RADO/R12408294.jpg and http://www.watchesplanet.com/Product/RADO/R12408234.jpg basically, the only difference is the colours...if i could get blue with gold band, i'd go that. Blue & Yellow are the nicest colours (Subaru....) so it's hard when I have to choose just *one*. I'm thinking of going the yellow one, partly because it's bright and cheerful, and partly because soo many watches are silver with blue dial, I think some yellow is called for. For those programmers out there, now is the best time to join up & compete at TopCoder (see the link

Sorry! I know, it's been a while, but you see that last week and a bit has been rather busy. Here's a summary: 1) End-of-year exams: Now, I'm of the opinion that too much study is a bad thing and can have negative effects on your enjoyment, and therefore your success, in exams. So, I haven't been studying all that much, but have still needed to prepare sometimes, and the thinking does take a bit out of you. Only got one left on tuesday :) Worst question so far, is from CS: "A company selling allergy-tracking software has decided to give it free to kindergartens with the work "banana" in their name. Your local kindergarten doesn't qualify, but you've managed to obtain a pirate copy. Discuss the ethical issues raised in this scenario." :S - I mean, it's worth 1/12th of the marks, you'd think they could give us a realistic scenario. 2) Music: I got the most recent Fastball album: "Keep your wig on". I've been listening to i

Today, I had one review lecture at uni....6 people turned up :p It finished early, naturally, and ss I had plenty of time left over I got lunch from Mayo, the uni refectory. There was some offer on - $4.60 for a standard pie & 600ml diet coke, so I thought I may as well try (not being much of a pie fan). Upon eating the pie, I had to wonder about it's contents...kinda like brown slush...not really 'meat' at all. How is this relevant? it isn't, but here's a list of a few items that seem to have the product names: Meat Pie (see above): It's a pie, but not meat, so only scores 50%. Chunky Beef Pie: It's a pie...but I don't know if the gristle is beef or pork, or human even, and it's certainly not chunky...33+1/3% Brett-Bix....If Weet-Bix are made of wheat (supposedly) that means Brett-Bix *should* be made of Brett Lee, correct? THEY'RE NOT! Disappointing :( - and I've never eaten them as though they were biscuits, so I'd have t

Watching Halloween Resurrection at 1am...maybe that was a bad idea. But i can't stop, because then I don't get to see the ending, and Michael might still be out there!...nah, never really been much of a sucker for horror movies - I like them though, if only to see the reactions of the people I see them with. This one, I'm alone though, so I don't really know why I'm watching. And now there's a big-ish spider crawling across the floor...its a sign! :p Gotta wonder though, why does the killer always walk slowly? If they ran at their target, it'd increase their chances, surely :S Anyway, it seems my cover of 'My Immortal' has been listened to 970 times, which means that in a week it should hit the 1000 mark! Wow...Boulevard of Broken dreams is on 900, and catching up quick too...I wonder which'll get there first... On another musical note (pun intended, sorry), iTunes has opened up in Australia. not a big deal, because: 1) I don't have an iPod,

There comes a time in a person's life when they sit down and think..."gee, it's about time I changed the strings on my guitar". This very thought has crossed my mind a few times, and so finally I got around to doing something about it. Yep, I got new strings! However, for those people who decide to do a similar thing, I think I should post my experiences, to save you from repeating my problems. So here goes: Wear gloves. Or, at least some type of finger protection. Or, keep your fingers well away from the ends of the strings (this last bit might be hard, especially as you're changing them...). Anyway, the guitar strings that I and many guitars use are Steel, coated with Nickel, and pointy at the end => Useful if you want a syringe, but be careful. If the strings aren't coming out, don't take a screwdriver to your guitar and take it apart, hoping to find out what's wrong. This could lead to lost screws and a screwed guitar - luckily, i managed

Exams soon? And so, procrastination season begins. Just a quick message for those who are looking for good procrastination sites, a few arty ones i've found: http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/ -Combines a personality test with drawing a pig. The question now is...how big was the tail? http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/ -A very cleverly done site which lets you draw pictures, then watch as the paint and brushes are animated to redraw the art. Some of the artwork there, if you look through enough, is simply amazing; reconstructions of Van Gogh! Finally, keep an eye on http://padster.gyronet.org - coming soon!

When one catches buses every day during school holidays, and sits near young children playing eye-spy as often as I have, eventually one picks up some interesting ways to play, including these two pearls: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'l'"...-lots of incorrect guesses go here-..."We give up, what is it??"...."It's 'little'! My turn again". - Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but most people can't see sizes. Maybe this was some genetically engineered human superhero-vision that enabled her to see 'little', but if that was the case I would've thought she should be banned from playing due to an unfair advantage. Which makes me wonder...I wonder if Superman was the king of eye-spy when he was young.... "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'H'"...-lots of incorrect guesses go here-..."We give up, what is it??"..."It's 'Hungry Jacks!"...&

For those who don't know (which included me until a week ago), there's a free web hosting place called Dot TK . The main difference between them and any other service is that they don't actually host anything, they just give you a free domain name that you can get to redirect to your other website (works with email redirection too :D ). So, to cut a long story short, I've recently commandeered a .tk website for the blog service. Everything is now available through www.padster.tk which will hopefully be much easier to remember...however, to keep my ownership of that site, it has to be viewed a certain # times every month, so if possible I'd recommend using the .tk site instead of the webpal one, so that padster.tk can be kept. In addition, I will soon be updating that site (i'm thinking...procrastination time during exams), and you can also reach me at padster@padster.tk or even admin@padster.tk :) [warning...pictures depicting 'cruelty' against a virtua

There you go, I have now joined the google-ad-world. I'm not sure exactly how AdSense works, but i think if anyone clicks on a link above and buys something, i get some of the proceeds. Probably unlikely to happen, but if Google are nice enough to provide us with Blogger, I may as well help them out i guess. In more bloggish news, there was another TopCoder match for money...but I did rather badly, so I won't be able to shout anyone anything at the UniBar, I'm sorry :p I did however last match manage to get the fastest submission for a question, for the first time ever :) And the design I won has almost finished development phase, so that'll be over soon, and the one i've just started has had a 5-day extension, because they had to change things (even though they actually made it easier...) :D Tomorrow I have the annual checkup with my diabetes specialist...time for the H1bAc results. Kinda like a 'have-you-been-a-good-boy' lie-detector test to see how my blo

PatFute 3D has it's memory leak removed. Turns out I was creating a new font every time I wrote anything to screen and never deleting them. And by 'creating' I mean getting openGL to automatically create a new bitmap of the character set of the font, which gets quite large in size very quickly. Anyhoo, it's fixed, and you can get it from here . If that doesn't work, go here first and click on the 'PatFute 3D' link :D Oh, and as the headline says, the ACM results are offical! We can now claim to be the #1 team in Australia, so now can start practicing and planning for our trip to San Antonio, Texas. So long as it's not flooded by any hurricanes, I hope, for our sake and more importantly the sake of all citizens of USA, that Rita doesn't hit land.... in TC (TopCoder) news, the project which I won ages ago has finally reached development stage. Which means now I have to answer questions from 10 or more coders who are trying to develop what I've des

Wow...you know before how I was talking about waiting for something BIG to happen? Well, i think it just did. You see, uni mid-semester break just started. But no, it's better than that :) On the friday, the first episode of the new survivor series started, and I played the first game of indoor for three weeks. Depsite the loss, was great to get back and survivor should be interetsing... But no, it's better than that :) On saturday, Adelaide Uni hosted the state-wide final for the ACM-ICPC, a world-wide university programming competition where teams of 3 from all over the world compete. For this stage, it's just teams from Oz and New Zealand - about 100 in total. It's a 9-question, 5 hour competition, so from 11:30 til 4:30 on saturday i was programming for 5 hours straight, while supplied with free pizza and drink for lunch. But no, it's better than that :) My team was me, another first year, and a second year student, so pretty young overall. We'd all gone th

Just a quick post saying: BlogWatch now has added functionality - ShareWatch (but, it's still gonna be called BlogWatch, because i like the logo and i can't think of a better name :p). Basically, you can track a virtual portfolio by adding in shares (ASX only for the moment, sorry for any overseas ppl) - just make sure you know the ASX code for it. Also put down the number of shares you have (dw, you can edit this later as needed) and whenever you update the page you can see the value of each of your shares, as well as the total value of your portfolio. Enjoy!

I've had a strange feeling over the last week or so that I'm just counting down the days, waiting for something BIG to happen....only problem is, I have no idea what this thing is, any suggestions? Anyway, i've been thinking about acronyms (as one does) and have come to the conclusion that: 1) Microsoft is trying to trademark as many 2-letter acronyms as possible. They've already taken XP, NT, MS, XL, IE, ... i mean, there's only 676 possibilites, when should we start getting worried? So long as they let me keep PC for my initials without having to pay royalties. 2) Linux, on the other hand, is trying to associate itself with three letter acronyms: KDE, BSD, gcc, GNU, ... note that sometimes, to avoid clashes with with Microsoft two-letter-acronyms, recursive definitions are required (Gnu's Not Unix, for example, instead of simply NU, same goes with KDE). Notice that, by using 3 letters, Linux has many more possibilities for extension, but requires a bit more wo

Hmm...weekends are nice. Especially ones which last 4 days :) Although, i guess you can't call the first two days 'weekend'...techincally you could almost call it 'work', trying to progress in two tournaments. yet....bad news ><...no free trip to US for me this year. both were cutting down to the top 100, and as i'm ranked just a bit above that, i guess i could've been expected to miss out in both of them, but was a bit depressing to lose twice in two days. To make it worse, the only reason i failed in the TCO was due to a *really bad* problem statement, which redefined the word 'optimal' to mean 'must be strictly better than everything else, otherwise there is no optimal' and followed this up by giving a bad example which made it seem like they hadn't redefined a word...many people failed the question, those lucky enough to have spotted the change were able to get enough challenges to progress :( However, weekend should be nice...t

For those people having a bad week...if only there were some way for me to lend you some hapiness, i seem to have more than enough...why, you may ask? Well, programming (again, no suprise), in summary: 1) Made it to round 2 of TopCoder Open. I've never passed quals before, this is two steps further, and top 400 in world! I get my free shirt, and have chances at winning $$ :D 2) Made it to the first round of Google Code Jam. This is cool too, cos first round here is top 500, out of over 4000 coders. I also went really quickly, and came high in my room (check here) which made me feel -> :D I was rather relieved to qualify, because onsite has 100 competitors, and i'd be seeded about #100, so if I perform consistently i might get a free trip to Google headquarters! 3) Got enough points to get 1st in a design :D...$$$...awesome 4) I've had hardly any work at uni...everything seems to be stuff from last week that i finished then because i didn't realise we had two weeks to

Hmm...i seem to be tired quite a lot recently, and this week is no exception. This is mainly because it's coming into programming competition season :) That's right, I'll be competing in the TopCoder Open (TCO), Google Code Jam (GCJ), ACM (university-level) and TopCoder Design competitions, plus keeping track of the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) at which I know all of the australian team. This week was a bit messy on the designing side, as I was the only person who was working on this particular project. I knew this was going to happen, because I had intentionally signed up for a difficult program in order for the practice, and a few days in I asked for an extension. Then, when it was more obvious that noone else was doing it, as well as the project specifications being changed twice, I asked for the extension again (I'd had no response from the first time). This time, they actually said no...so on wednesday i didn't go to uni and instead worked on the

Ahhhh! Gotta breathe in the bimbo-free air. I know it sounds mean, but in a 40min bus trip to uni, sitting behind me were two 17-yearold Vicky Pollards (from the TV show Little Britain...If you've seen it you'll know :p) ...oh the agony, 40 mins of non-stop high-pitched mindless chatter about anything and everything requiring no thought...Here's a few memorable quotes: "I like Playboy.....and Barbie, " "Why do we always look slutty in pictures??? I don't think we should take pictures on the bus." (said when taking a picture using a phone camera.) "We were watching that Britney Speares documentary...do you think Alyce looks like her?" "No way! She's just died her hair! Anyway, she's a mole!" "Hey, can you go up to my boyfriend, and ask him who he thinks is prettier...me or Joss?" "ok...i'll go up to him and be like 'hey, who is prettier? Nicole or Joss' and he'll be all like '

Rightio, Blog Watcher 1.0 is officially ready :) I'll try and give you brief introduction. 0: Site is to be found hyar: http://padster.webpal.info/xml/blogwatch/checker.php 1: You must have a username / password account with me to log in. Please comment here with your address if you want a username, and I'll give one to you and a default password, and tell you how to change it. 2: Once you've logged in, add your blog watches in the "Add a blog Watch" Page. The blog formats accepted are: *** atom .xml feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <issued> date. *** .rss feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <pubdate> date Note that these MUST finish with their appropriate extensions (.xml and .rss) This is why live journals /rss is supported, but you should not use this with their /atom feed because it leaves off the .xml As you can see, probably any xml-based

OK: My Blog-watch site is virtually up and working, more info tomorrow when I'm awake and hopefully when I add support for .rss files (multiply and MSN spaces), and feel i've tested enough for it to work. Basically, i've already set up a watch for me on this site, and want to post here to see whether my watch turns up as having been updated. *fingers crossed*

Ok, wow, so much to report since last entry...it's all so cool, anyway, here's a summary of my week: 0) Last Friday (i know, it's not part of this week, but hey!) WIN indoor soccer division grand final! Get hit in the eye and partially blinded by the ball :( Score a goal while I can't see :) Get hit again in the same eye :( Score *again* using my now-patented cornder-drag-move :) miss penatly :( win 5-2 :D get free beanie :S Anyway, special congrats to Sarah on her hatrick + Ron on his super-keeper skills. 1) Monday...back to uni, meh, but free-pooling & darts til 5 was nice. 2) Tuesday...not much, i guess you could say Algebra tute is actually looking rather nice (good other students, audience participation and all), but nothing much happened cos i was getting ready for: 3) Tuesday night / Wednesday morning: TopCoder SRM 256 (yes, 2^8, also had 666 registrants...) i came 13th overall!! Got 2nd highest score (=2nd fastest soltuion) out of anyone for the hardest ques

Firstly, a warning: PatFute has a memory leak that takes up about 2Mb RAM per sec...i.e if you don't have much free ram, don't play it. I will be trying to track down the source of the leak, and a fixed version will hopefully be updated soon. Sorry for the inconvenience! Anyway, sorry for the delay, been extremely busy. However, this has been rewarded with receiving my first cheque from TopCoder, and then winning another $400 :) There was a money SRM on this week, but due to technical overload and other problems, it was postponed to Sunday morning at 1:30am...should be interesting :p Kinda lucky actually, as I was doing rather badly when they decided to cancel it, but i guess that was partly due to the fact that it didn't let me compile, then logged me out part-way through and refused to let me back in. That's right, Uni goes back next week....finally a chance to get some rest :p I dropped all my classes and reenrolled so I could get a better looking timetable - only st

As the title suggests, the rent-a-monkey-guitarist business is operational, with phase 1 complete. I call this phase: "Commitment Bells", cos that's the song that was recodered ;) Anyway, to those who requested it (and anyone else interested), its up at my soundclick site. Link on the right --> However, looks like Soundclick is going to start making you pay for cover versions, so might have to find a new hosting place soon.... In programming news, week 2 of the TopCoder CDDC is over, and I actually managed to submit this week...only thing is, so did 4 others for the component i was working on. One of those is highly rated, and the other 3 are all first-timers, so it should be interesting...tune in next week for the results. Until then, there's week 3 work to think about. There's one really good designer, and noone has submitted the same component he's worked on yet, so maybe I'll try that in an effort to get a near-guarenteed 2nd place...hey, it's w

Just a really quick message to say that my attempt at building an entire 3D game in a week was great fun, very enjoyable and extremely exhausting but.....it's done! That's right, PatFute3D is ready!! http://www23.brinkster.com/padster/programs/PatFute3D.zip Well, there are only two teams and two stadiums, but they're really easy to create, trust me :) Post on the TAG board if you are having any trouble, or encounter any bugs (check the crash.txt file). Oh, and what i've learnt from watching the Tour De France is that guy's should *not* wear lycra...nuf said.

Finally, exams are over! Though, does anyone else get the feeling that holidays are more busy than during uni semester? Anyway, as you can guess, times are a-busy round here....mostly due to my sudden urge to try and write a 3D game in one week...it's almost done, and might be finished by the 7th...stay tuned :) The TopCoder 5-week design competition has also started this week...i'll probably miss submitting this week, due to the amount of stuff I've got on, but after this wednesday it should be ok. Sorry for the break in updates, exams does that to you, but now they're over I should be able to write some more. What's more scary is that results have started coming out already...maths is already up at uni (though, not updated on access adelaide until about 4-7 days time...strange delay, but it's uni, they always have strange delays). To keep you updated on my music, after this week i hope to add more as a thankyou to everyone who's listened to any of the song

Who said there's no money in programming? Today, I managed to pick up US$43 from the nice people at Citigroup. They sponsored a TopCoder programming competition, in which I came 3rd in my 'room' (300 coders split into rooms of around 20), so got part of the overal prize purse. However, as the first check they owe me still hasn't arrived (about 4 months late), I'm not really holding my breath for this. In much more intersting news, International PatFute day is coming up quickly (July 7th for those of you playing at home)! And in recognition of this once-a-year event, plus the fact that I've got too much free time on my hands, I'm trying to make PatFute3D, the new and improved version, with custom teams, stadiums and possibly later network play :) Soon i might be putting up the format for the teams, so you can create your own if you want, but until then, if you have anything you *really* want in the game, TAG to the right--> Alternatively, you can try out t

Update! finally....yes, i've finally decided to take a break from my non-study to write some more in here... Firstly, thanks to anyone who's been listening to my songs - 32 plays in two days :D - and now I have enough cables to do more things, e.g. record background midi percussion, i shuold be uploading a few more songs soon. Rent-a-monkey-guitarist is still operational, so please TAG away with song suggestions :) Part from that, nothing much is happening...not doing much study, first exam is monday...before then is soccer playing (friday) and soccer coaching (saturday match), plus the big programming design competition starts two wednesdays from now, so will be rather busy then. A small tip i have: children's quiz-shows these days lower your IQ when you watch them. It's not just the questions...one i was watching had a board, including arrows that pointed the way to go, yet the player *still* went 180 degrees the wrong way...one wonders what happens to these people wh

Wow, my first ever poker tournament... the nice people at www.pokerroom.com have free-roll tournaments, where bascially you start with nothing, and if you end up in the top 40 (of 2400) you win real money. So, over the last day I've been fine-tuning my probability-calculating skills, plus learning some strategies to read actions. So, here's a summary of what happened: 11.00pm: Game begins. I end up in the first hand with pair of kings after river, and win :) good start 11.21pm: after not much, hanging around the inital $1000, I get a pair of queens after the flop, and bet through to the river, $100 each time. One guy still with me, who thinks quite a bit then goes all in. I call his bluff, and double up 11.34pm: Tables get merged as people start bowing out. Still no good hands, but sitting next to 'KirkRiker'. Amazingly only 1000ppl left. This is supposed to take 4hrs, but seems like it might be faster this time. lets hope so 11:41pm: Sat around doing nothing, which

That's right - I now have two weeks until my first exam, and no uni until then :D I've promised myself no study for the next few days, giving myself the chance to catch up on sleep, guitar and programming. To everyone else with exams or essays due over the next few weeks...goodluck! In other news, thanks for everyone who's listening to my songs - Final Goodbye is now up to #591 in the soundclick charts. I've also had an email about people who want to use a song on a CD, but I have a feeling it's just Spam :p To keep you interested though, my cover of My Immortal is now up, and over the next few days I might improve any of the songs that are on there, or if I'm really bored I'll try to write another :) Until then, i'll be trying to get a TAG-boardish type engine going, once I can figure out how to do certain things. Also new is another contender in the monkey picture competition: http://www23.brinkster.com/padster/pics/codemonkey4.gif

Yay! Good to be back on successful terms in indoor soccer. After finding - to our suprise and delight - that the good team had departed from our division and left us as the top team, we managed to prove why by winning 14-0. So that was a good start to the weekend :) And then, to top it off, I was introduced to the Bodie Mansion, including his not-so-intelligent intelligenRobotic Vacuum cleaner Bob. In coding news, the dates for two of the big competitions of the year have been announced. During exams, but hey, that means I have heaps of free time ;) Let's hope I don't stuff up as badly as last year....Also, on the todo list is a Padster TAG-board, so if/when that's up and running i'll add it to the side there --> And after a bit of a lull in the music department, I've decided to add to the small selection by including in an instrumental cover - it's easier than writing a whole song, afterall :p. I'll be My Immortal (Evanescence) because it sounds good ev

While I'm filling in time, I thought I'd update you on the adventures of Clive. Yes, I received another message today: Good morning Helen, how's Clive? Big Hug and kiss to you both. Look after yourself. Love etty. Despite the entertainment to be gained from etty and her friend Clive, I felt it best to reply that they had the wrong number. Which makes me wonder - how many SMSs get sent to the wrong person every day? I mean, if you call the wrong person, you know as soon as they pick it up. But with SMSs, you may never know.... Oooh, other good news is: 1) Final Goodbye is up to 784 in the charts. There must be some critical mass place, where if you rise above it people you don't know will listen to your song just because you're above the critical mass, yet I'm guessing the magic value is above 784. So, I'd better either publicise more :p, or actually finish it and get someone to sing. Any suggestions? Clive, perhaps? 2) I've got another job :) Coaching so

Hmm, winter is approcahing quickly. Is it just me, or has everyone seemed really tired recently? Maybe its the fact that the semester is coming to an end, maybe it's because the days are getting shorter and colder, i'm not sure, but I've certainly had little energy lately, and it seems i'm not the only one. Oh well, time to put on the beanie, sit next to the heater and enjoy some coffee - holidays will be here soon :). Thanks for all the people who've listened to the music! Final Goodbye is currently #829 (of 27,000) in the pop charts at sound-click, and Believe has been downloaded 3 times :D Which makes me want to finish them, which i'll do soon i hope. A good procrastination activity, seeing as swatvac is approaching. (update - Singer has been lengthened) In other matters, I've finally got an mp3 player (Creative Zen Micro, *not* iPod), and will try to fix the monkey pictures so that they actually work. Another case of a strange they-work-for-me-but-not-

Just a quick message - i've found a place which'll host my music. For a sample of what's been put there (mainly work in progress) visit: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/6/padster_music.htm

Yes, i'm not normally angry, so this might be the only time this year that I let out steam, but here goes. This was all triggered on friday. No, not from losing to the DBTs in soccer, although their decision to try to injure me at every chance was rather annoying. No, it was from afterwards on the way driving home at night. For those who don't know, just after stirling and before aldgate (the small town/suburb that i live in) there is a progression of tight-ish corners that you generally have to slow down for, and you definitely have to now that they've put up cones everywhere while they fix the footpath. ANYWAY, i was approaching these, if anything a bit faster than I normally do, and suddenly the car behind me starts getting closer and closer. I was concentrating round the first two corners, and it wasn't until I changed down to third that i looked in the rear-view mirror to see why the lights from the car were bothering me so much. To my suprise, and slight horror, i

Just a quick message this time; after browsing a few sites for the appropriate code monkey picture for this blog, it has come down to two plus one of my own invention. The three finalists are: #1: http://www23.brinkster.com/padster/pics/codemonkey1.jpg #2: http://www23.brinkster.com/padster/pics/codemonkey2.jpg #3: http://www23.brinkster.com/padster/pics/codemonkey3.jpg Vote for your favourite on the poll to the right ---> The winning pic will be announced in a little while, and used as a banner for this site :) More later -

As my name suggests, who owns a shoe? To the best of my knowledge, the set of people who own shoes certainly does *not* contain my Discrete Maths tutor. Of the six or so tutes he's run, he's had footwear to exactly zero of them. Quite and effort, considering how much chalk is on the floors of the maths building. He must leave little white chalky footprints wherever he walks now :p And don't think this is just a tutorial thing - I have seen him walking around uni, and even crossing North Tce. without his shoes, which only leads to the most logical conclusion that he has no footwear. Onto other matters - Voting engine is slowly improving. The username/password system is now enabled. This means that if you want to create a poll, ur gonna need me to add a username and password for you, so post a comment here, or even better send me an email. Details: http://padster.webpal.info Hopefully, eventually I'll be able to find somewhere to upload some of my music to, and the games

As the name suggests, the voting engine is up and running in full swing. Check the bottom of this page for an example. Alternatively, check out this voting system in action on the site of a fellow blogger - http://blowingupspace.blogspot.com/ Now, I've also created a simple builder to create polls, so if you want you can create your own. Just visit the creator. For now, until I create a login system, the password to user is 'password'. Fill in whatever username you want. Poll name is the internal storage name for the poll, and has to be unique for each user (e.g. 'colour'). Display name is the actual name to be shown on your poll, such as "Your favourite colour is:"). Then name each of your options - maximum of 9, if you want more you'll have to post a comment here to ask me to set it up. Keep in mind that I can view any polls you create, so be nice and don't abuse the system. :) I'm sure noone will. On other matters - stats homework is soooo

Another quick late-night update: I just found out I scored 80.6, by highest ever :) I still only came second, but this is great becase now I don't have to: Work for another week on fixing the flaws in my design the reviewers found. Answer questions on the design for another week from all the people trying to write the code for it. And most importantly: Know What I'm Doing!! seriously, I still don't properly know what a Struts Action class is, yet my design had one. However, I did learn what custom JSP tags were, and how to use them. Learning hard java in a week is one of the main reasons why I'm doing this, so at least I got that out of it. Oh, and the payment doesn't hurt. Finally, please tell me if you can get the voting thing down the bottom working...it seems to randomly pick when to work and when not to. The most annoying this is it always works fine for me...meh, it's not the code's fault, it must be the internet's. :p

Good news :) In the design competition that's just finished, where you get money for coming 1st or 2nd with a score over 70%, there are only two competitors. Now, I've just found out that I've scored 78% (at least, pending some appeals), that means that some $US are coming my way. Who says being an online programmer is a waste of time? In other matters, one I learnt some basic phrases and vocab in PHP, and opened a new website that supported it, the voting system was able to be created - although it's only in a primative state. I've only been able to speak PHP for about 5 hours now, so later in the week if I can integrate SQL with it, I'll be able to chuck everything into a database and host many polls at the same time, if anyone wants one :) - so that's on the TODO list. In other non-programming news....*blink*....not much. 6 unbeaten games of pool today, but apart from that I'm enjoying the monday off, followed by a lazy tuesday and an soon to be an ev

Just a quick message to say: "Please excuse my while I play about with the html for this page." Hopefully soon the people hosting my website will allow be write-access for a few files, which will allow me to fix the voting system at the bottom, and write a proper one. Until then, bear with the error message. News update is that i came 99th, probably should've done better with Q2, but rating still went up! Oh well, probably should stop procrastinating and finish homework....

Well, here we go, post #1. This is actually the third blog I've ever done, but the first without a real purpose, and the first that i've done from within Australia.... anyway, it's 3:18am. What am i doing up at 3:18am? No, not partying...I've just been in a programming competition that's run in the US, so starts at the strangest time here. Me crazy? I guess so. Plus annoyed, as I just missed a question because i forgot that 200 * 100 != 2000. Oh well, all good practice for next time. On the other hand, the week-long competition side is going well - i'm in the top two, so if i score more than 70%, i get paid ($US) for my efforts... fingers crossed. Onto other matters - my minds a bit jumpy at 3:18 in the morning, as one would expect - is that it's a long weekend. Yay! Now, to find something to fill it with. Probably guitar. Or programming. Again. Oooo- and homework, as always. Time to whip up some optimisation-solving C++ code to do it for me. Anyway, i'l