Some of you might not be aware that im currently in San Francisco, at WWDC08.

Upon landing yesterday i had a slightly unusual hotel checkin.

Due to another conference, Diabeties America or some such lark hotel rooms were rather hard to come by when i was booking for my trip a month ago, so in the end i managed to get a room at the Handlery Union Square hotel for 2 nights and then the remainder of my stay at the Fusion SF.

Anyway back to the story, so im at the check-in counter and there is one of those moments when you know something isnt quite right, but the guy is still smiling. He goes and gets the manager who then explains that he is extremely sorry, and that they had overbooked the hotel.

In short they booked me into the Nikko Hotel San Francisco for 2 nights, game me the first night free and the second night at the rate of the other room and an envelope with US$50 cash “Spending Money” for my troubles. They have also promised to post me a 50% discount voucher for my next stay with them.

So no im holed up in this fantastic hotel room, with a 60″ plazma tv, Sony surround sound stereo system and 5 CD/DVD changer plus all the luxury trimmings.

I have come to the conclusion that some people just have no idea when it comes to security.

Im sitting on the train atm, laptop out, and this woman is talking loudly on the phone, all of a sudden i hear, “Can i pay by Credit Card”. Im like fair enough, but then she proceeds to read out in a loud voice, 1234 5678 1234 5678, the expiry date and 2 digit check that is on the back of the card.

Now there are possibly 35 people on the train, within hearing range atm. Does that strike you as just slightly idiotic.

I guess some people will just never learn.

Well folks, i got back from the San Fran trip, and since then have been flat out with projects so havnt really had a chance to say hi.

So here goes, just a quick note to say that im back and that i am alive, which is a good sign.

-Rich

I love exams, they are the best way to show just how much material you are able to remember, learned by rote and only needed for the shortest amount of time.
You see it all the time, most often right before exams where those students are huddled around lecture notes, cramming in as much of the content as they can before walking into the exam room, to recite it onto the paper. Most of it to be forgotten as soon as they leave that room 2 or 3 hours later.

I have come to find that this information is generally stuff that while important in terms of a specific field or situation, one does not need to carry with them for extended periods of time. eg Inserting and deleting nodes in linear and exponential hash tables or B+Trees.

Case in point, if i’m writing that new funky back-end storage structure for my latest coolMcCoolCool app, im likely to refer to a nice big fat reference book in-order to implement the data structure (one of my favourites atm is Algorithms in C by Robert Sedgewick ) or the internet in general as it also contains a whole wealth of info on great structures. What i try to do as a general rule of thumb, is to not assume that something that i learned in a uni subject is slightly relevant.

This has come about mainly because I’m fairly sure that anything that we learnt in a uni class, while fundamentally correct has been been simplified to such a level that it is in no way an optimal solution. Implementing it would be sure to highlight these limitations in quick step. Instead I’ll refer to the books and hopefully find something that will work well for the given situation and has an execution curve that is less than exponential as the number of objects indexed increases.

I guess i am just really going on about nothing, as exams have been around for atleast 100 or so years. Yet i have to ask myself. Do exams really work for modern subjects, in a world where information is readily available if you just know where to look?

Surely it would make more sense for the majority of a given subjects assessment to be done in terms of using research materials available to ones-self in-order to find solutions to problems independently. rather than sitting exams where we are expected to recite material learned in lectures.
What does having 60% or more of a subjects end score based on a single 2 or 3 hour exam paper have to do with anything other than making it easier for the subject organisers to assess the students enrolled in the subject. Any results given are based not on ones ability to find solutions to problems, but on their ability to remember some semi-relevent fact or method learned by rote that was mentioned in passing 10 weeks ago, in a single 2 hour lecture.

This is the sort of thing that I am finding all to often at the University level. Surely what one should take away from a 3 or 4 year degree, especially in rapidly changing areas such as Computer Science is more than the material taught in the subjects that make up the degree. It really should be about knowing how to find information for an unknown problem 5 years down the track, and the ability to apply ones-self to learn ways of solving problems that didn’t existed back when the degree was being undertaken.

Just a few thoughts that hopefully have an effect on someone in the near to long-term future.

-Rich

Well i’m back from Italy, the land of Pizza and Pasta. It was a long haul to get around the cities and the driving was terrible, with street signs just not making any sense at all especially in places like Piza where there are literally hundreds of one-way streets.

But the Pizza’s on the whole were good, and I managed to take quite a few good photo’s in the week over there. I will have to post some of them some time soon. I visited Piza, Milan and Venice in the space of a week, driving between the places on autoways and generally feeling like a lame tourist! In the end I guess it was a good experience and i don’t think i will be taking anything in Australia for granted in the near future. Its rather scary when the only choice of restaurant you have for the night is Italian or Italian.

It will be good to be back in Aus some time soon, however not to soon, i still have to visit Berlin.

Ok so its been a few weeks (ahm: months) since my last post. but times have been busy and well get this, im in the UK at the moment. Its not all that cold, although im guessing it will get colder closer to Christmas/NYE. Its good seeing a some of the family that i dont often get to catch up with and im enjoying having a new city to photograph.

i will be posting some more shots in the coming weeks / months both here and over at Pixel. Till next time take care and ill talk to you on msn given half a chance.

James is currently writing a post about his new camera, a new Canon IXUS 65. Its a little pocket rocket and he seems to love it so you should go and post about it on his blog if you are so inclined.
In other words im back from Bright’s IGA, and we had dodgy parma’s and wedges for dinner…

Im currently drinking a bottle of wine that was fairly cheap, so cheap in fact that it has no vintage on the label!

-Richie

OK im up in bright with Jan, Chris and James, anyway right im about to pop out to the supermarket, just waiting on jan to put on some shoes, but the guys next-door, lol they just arrived at there house, in a chopper.. im serious… a fucking helicopter.

-ttyl
-Richie

No-one believes me when I tell them this, but Crown Lager and Fosters Lager are the SAME BEER!!! I find this amusing because no self respecting Aussie would be caught dead drinking a can of Fosters, but they will glady pay twice the price for a bottle of Crown. Crown Lager is simply a good batch of Fosters, (with respect to its specifications – colour, bitterness etc), that has been double filtered.

I challenge anyone to tell the difference between the two beers.

For example, there are no artificial colorings in any beer made by Carlton and United Breweries or the Fosters Brewing Group – they use caramel to adjust the color to the correct specification. Yes, they do use artificial hop extract, but it is only used to bring the batch of beer up to the correct bitterness specification. They actually use “Pride of Ringwood” hops in most of their brews. There is no “artificially” carbonated water used at all – yeast produces more than enough CO2.

Interesting.

Lots of things have been happening recently, Starting back at uni, getting my MacBook Pro, birthdays, all the rest of the stuff that i cant actually remember.

More to come later.

Richie

OK, i ordered a MacBook Pro 1.67Ghz about 2 weeks ago and lo and behold apple today suprised me with a free upgrade to a 1.83Ghz machine at no extra cost to my person. Im not complaining. Not one little bit.

see some more info here and here.

-Richie

I came across this funny psp rip the other day up in the Queen Vic Markets here in Melbourne, Australia.

Its so funny, what these guys over in China / Taiwan try to do in-order to sell there products to consumers. However you would have to be rather stupid to buy one in the first-place, if you ask me.

If only you could get a real PSP for $12AU.

-Richie

Viva La Bam – Prank Wars – Google Video:

So funny. These guys just dont know where to stop when it comes to pranks on their friends.

Have a good week.
Richie

Well it is once again a new year! Hopefully this one will be super duper fabulous for everyone. If all goes to plan we had a cocktail night at Pant’s last night, with all sorts of tasty alcoholic beverages.

New years resolution: (Haha), get window tinting for my car, and maybe loose a few kilo’s. All good for me.

Hope you all had fun down at Triangle festival on Philip Island, those of you who went, what a great way to see the new year into existence.

Did you see the fireworks? there were quite good this year, although not quit the same as back in 2000.

-Richie

By the time this appears on the blog, we (Chris, Pant and myself) will be on our way upto Bright for a few days of R&R.

Should be good me thinks….. Its also going to be a big test of the TomTom (GPS navigation) system that Pant got for himself in November after always finding himself getting lost :) (Not really, but it does sound better that way.)

So were leaving Wed 28th December, and will be back some time friday arvo/evening. I will be sure to post some photo’s once i get back, from the new camera of course..

Till laterz, Richie

Christmas this year has been good. Not to busy and quite relaxing, the weather has been nice as well (for the most part anyway).

I ended up getting a few bits and pieces for Christmas:

• A new queen-size duvet
• Plenty of shirts (always welcome)
• Shoes
• A Keg of Beer
• Some cash
• Vouchers (thanks Pant)
• A few other pieces of Clothing
• And so much food its not funny (Chocolate especially)

Christmas day was spent at home with Marilyn, David, Andrea, the Family and All 3 of my remaining grandparents which was quite alright. The amount of food we had was however insane, Turkey’s, Potato’s, Salads, veggies, Christmas Pudding, Cheesecake. The whole works.

Till next time.

-Richie

The 23rd of December every year is my special day, and this year i ended up having a small gathering with a few people, a bit to drink and loads of food. The night was good fun and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves.

I ended up getting that camera that i had been looking at over the last month, the Fuji F10, with its super duper low light shooting, and lovely high ISO Film speed ratings.

I will have to post some photos taken with it soon, but enough to say i am happy with it!

O yes, before i forget the brownies were fabulous to. They are so good, and this time they even had hazelnuts in them, soooo tasty. i want one now… to bad they went so fast.

Till next time, laterz
-Richie

Well guys, as you may have seen i havn’t posted much at all in the last few weeks, until now that is.

Stuff that’s happened or i have done since the last post.

My grandfather Peter Hirschel died on Tuesday the 8th November 2005. A sad day for all. The Funeral is over in the UK, mum flew over on Sunday (13th Nov). He will be missed by all.

I have finished all my exams for the semester, and believe that all went well! even the maths which is great.

Jan has been over a fair bit, we’ve seen a few films (Saw 2, Flight Plan) and we pulled the door off his a-class to see if we could fit new speakers. We also fitted new Blue/white headlight bulbs to the car, which took some doing as the A-Class engine bay is not all that spacious.

I would like to also say Happy Birthday to a few people, Namely Laura (12th Nov), Pant (15th Nov), and Stu C (18th Nov).

Laura has also come back from her time away in the UK / Europe, and we need to catch up sometime soon.

I have been going to most Sunday breakfast’s at Finz, and they are still quite good fun. Still havn’t managed to drag Aim to one yet, however it may happen this weekend! Also One mammoth 21st this weekend, so that shall be good fun!

In Work / Dev news i have been working on my Usage widgets, and have added a few new features as well as being in the middle of rewriting the JS Code to separate functions from ISP specific data.

I am atm, and have been for a while now been working Tuesdays with dad, helping with the new Computer System ( Oasis ), and it looks like i will be down there most Wednesdays for the near future.

I have also been for a Job interview at a Lighting Tech company ( ENTTEC ) where i would be working on a few Web systems that they have going. They make some rather cool gear, namely Ethernet / Wireless DMX Transmitters, and USB DMX Interface hardware and software. Plus solid state DMX recorders for light shows at places like casino’s and Theme Parks. If i get the Job it will be rather cool!

I have also bought myself a new Amp and set of Hi-Fi Speakers, a Sony STR-DE497, and a Pair of AAD C-100i ’s which pack quite a punch.

Till next time

-Richie.

Britain’s underground city – Sunday Times

Its quite astonashing all the things that governments build and do in secret, and this is a great example of one of these massive projects. Check it out!

After being iPodless for the past week i have received my 60Gb Black iPod with Video from Apple. The screen is insanely clear and the battery life is better than ever, 20 hours for audio. It however only plays video for 3 hours before it needs charging again, so ill have to be careful not to over do it!.

There are some good apps out there to convert to one of the iPod formats such as handbrake which converts DVD’s to ipod on a mac, and for you pc users have a look at Videora iPod Converter that will convert from .wmv .mov .avi .mpeg .mpg to either of the the ipods h264 320×240 or mpeg4 between 480×480 pixels.

-Richie