the corner office

Last night saw a really weird storm in Joburg. First "rains" of the season, but it was far too much dust-storm and wind and too little actual precipitation. Today's been overcast(ish), so everybody's hoping we get some real drenching rain out of all of this. At least just something to settle the damned dust.

Work's busy as can be, and the assignment death march continues. I've gotten through a few since last week's Info Security, and I'm on Formal Logic at the moment. It's always been the one subject I dread each year, but this stuff isn't bad. To be honest, it's mainly just riffing on the same old themes we've been doing in AI and the like over the past 2 years, so it's quite doable, notwithstanding one of the most cryptic textbooks I've ever read. I had to double-check something last night, so I cracked open my Logic textbooks from first and second year. I found myself thinking 'how quaint'. I never thought I'd find myself looking back at some of that work on formal proofs with anything remotely resembling fondness, but there you go.

Ronwen's folks are coming to visit us this weekend, so it's a bit of a rush to get everything semi-spring cleaned. I wonder if we can blame the general state of our home's 2-students-in-full-swing disrepair on the dust storms?

Ole Oireeen Bester announces that the Saturday night movie is the Three Musketeers, with Chris O'Donnell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Charlie Sheen. Except that when the opening credits start rolling, it's the 1973 version with Michael York et al. Somebody at the SABC is in for a roasting on Monday. Or maybe they just won't give a shit, which is perhaps why stuff like this happens in the first place.

Oh well, back to m'studies.

Griping about the weather here is a fun pastime, but by and large our 'weather problems' are pretty inconsequential. At times like these I'm grateful that I live more than a mile above sea level, and the worst thing we have to worry about is occasional hail damage.

So soon after Katrina, comes Rita. Measured a few days ago as the third strongest hurricane in the Atlantic in recorded history. It weakened before hitting land, but it still seems to be wreaking havoc. It looks unlikely that the humanitarian crisis is going to be as big a mess as with Katrina, but the economic effects on the USA (and the rest of us as a consequence) might not be pretty.

It's late September and we still haven't had any rain. The air in Joburg is dry and grotty and while some plants are itching to get all springified, everything's still pretty bleak and brown. The weather people say we're (possibly) in for a hot summer (bah), and an above average rainful (no complaints from me). I think I should append 'eventually' to that, because it seems that the rain ain't arriving any time soon.

Blame it on El Nino... or George W Bush, evil mastermind behind global warming. Either way, I'm not a fan of these wonky weather patterns.

For-future-reference post. Linux Magazine has what looks like a fairly decent article on Derby, including details on how to get it all up and running.

(Aside: Linux Mag had dropped off my radar ages back, but the current online issue has a number of really decent articles. Their article on Git is an in-depth look at the new Linux source management tool and the history that precipitated it, in far more detail than the 5-lines-and-fluff that most news sites devoted to it back when everything was unfolding.)

I had an obscure thought: the old White Horse Inn wasn't too far down the road (in old country road terms) from the Banbury Cross centre, if I remember correctly. I wonder if the names were linked? It'd be an awful play on words if they were - but you never know...

Interesting trivia: I did a quick Google, and found that the White Horse Inn, which was a landmark of Joburg nightlife for years, until it closed down in the 90s, has been turned into a psychiatric facility.

The week's been a bit of a blur, largely because of the dratted AI assignment(s). I was hoping to be done by Thursday night, which became Friday night, which became Saturday morning, and ended up being Saturday night. Thankfully though, things started to fall into place, and I'm a bit more comfy with the concepts than I was a week ago. Here's just hoping the lecturers don't reject the assignments 'cause they were too late.

The drudge was broken for a bit this evening; it was Mr Gruben's 30th, and we (being the usual suspects) went to Giovanni's at Banbury Cross Village. Pricey restaurant, but the portions more than make up for it and the food was rather good, especially the Pavlova; notwithstanding that they lug the cake dishes from table to table in a less than subtle sales gimmic, and I couldn't help but wonder how many dozens of people had oohed, aahed and breathed over the cakes by the time they got to us.

Some headed off to the Red Room after dinner, but we came home and I carried on with my assignments (sad, sad, sad). Got the last AI assignment done and submitted online about an hour ago, and I've been reading through the next assignment (Info Security). I enjoy the subject, but the assignments boil down to 'Discuss X (no more than 10 pages), Discuss Y (about 8 pages), Discuss Z (no more than 50404040 pages.)' I sincerely doubt that the lecturers actually read ten-page summaries of the textbook and journal articles, so I can only presume that we're being put through this because the lecturers think that the ability to write long, extended treatises on stuff is going to be a really valuable thing in later academic years. Or perhaps they're just mean.

I've taken to hauling the old Deep Purple and Uriah Heep CDs into the car. Ronwen's taking this rather good-naturedly - for now - but after a week of listening to the Smiths over and over and over and over again, I needed a bit of a change.

I'm just storing this as a bit of personal history so I can look back one day and see if this still makes sense, in less than 20 seconds, and without resorting to pencil and paper.

  s(Stacks, [Stack1, [Top1 | Stack2] | OtherStacks]) :-
    del( [Top1 | Stack1], Stacks, Stacks1),
    del( [Stack2, Stacks1, OtherStacks]).

Because it sure didn't make sense, in less than 20 seconds, without pencil and paper, this evening :-(

Wading my way through the subjects, back to Artificial Intelligence and Prolog, which is nothing like riding a bicycle. It's been months since I worked on it, and the last time round was quite a cram, so I'm having to start at square 1, again. Thank heavens I blogged about what I'd done to get my environment up and running, else I'd be going through the same grief all over again.

On the up side, once the backlog with AI is done, I've only got one subject that I'm behind with - Data Structures and Algorithms. Since they're the most lenient with their assignment policy, that subject has played second (actually, 10th) fiddle to the everything else. There's plenty of work to be done before then, and the pressure's still on, but thankfully there's light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and it isn't a proverbial choochoo train.

Jeez. When I saw a Steers ad for their new 'phat burgers' I thought it just marketing fluff... but no. The new Phat Burgers are huge! *burp*

Still snowed under with assignments, and pretty long hours at work, too.

Got an SMS a few days ago for an Alcatraz 10th reunion party at the Horror Cafe at the end of October. I haven't been out jorling in ages, and I'm quite keen to go. Being pedantic though, it wasn't called Alcatraz 10 years ago. I started going to the club in early '94, when it already been renamed to AliceD, and then late '94, early '95 it quickly became Sanctuary, then Ecstasy, then a bricked-up basement. Anyway... these sorts of things always promise to be fun. Yes, one could get all cynical about it, but it'll be a real nostalgic trip, with lots of thirty-somethings with spreading midriffs and respectable haircuts squeezing into tight jeans and faded Sisters of Mercy and Skinny Puppy t-shirts. Cool!