Cassowaries Rant

Having had a Dearth of Content posted here recently, and feeling like being a little Different, I’ve decided to post a Bit about my current Life. It isn’t especially interesting, but you might care anyway, and the original original Intenion of this Blog was to provide Information on this Topic (as well as others), so I feel I might as well post.

I got my Results sometime last Week. Or maybe the Week before. I think last Week though. I also got a Letter from the Head guy of the Maths Department congratulating me on my Mark of 90-something in Discrete Maths (a first-semester Subject for which we had one Lecturer who spoke English something like the Sveedish Chef from the Muppets, except a little less comprehensibly, and another Lecturer who didn’t realise that we could go through Examples mindlessly in our own Time and that he really ought to present us with Information; in short, the Subject everyone doing a Computer Science Subject hated). My first-semester Results, of course, were nothing new; I’d got them at the end of First Semester. On the other hand, I felt I’d done less-than-spectacularly in my second-semester Exams. Indeed, I was convinced I had failed at least one Subject (most likely Psychology), and the few Days leading up to the Results reminded me very much of Year 12. Not at all helped by Trevor telling me the Results were out a Day before mine were (they’d staggered the Release presumably because they didn’t want to overload the Servers. Anyway, my Fears were, as always, ill-founded in Reälity.

The Letter from the Maths Department invited me to continue studying Maths in Second Year, highlighting especially Discrete Mathematical Structures and Mathemetical Topics for Computer Science, Subjects which, unfortunately, sound Interesting. « Why, you might ask, would someone say that they unfortunately sound Interesting. After all, wouldn’t you want to do something sounding Interesting ? » And of course, you would be right. But the Problem is, my Course is a Double Degree done in four Years, an Activity which doesn’t leave much Room for Electives, unfortunately enough. In Fact, a recent Change to the Course Structure has removed the sole first and second year Electives, replacing them with the first-year Subjects Calculus and Linear Algebra and Systems Programming Using C and C++ (I’ve done the later and hence will do the former next Year). Calculus, though, is the least interesting Part of Maths. Apart maybe for Statistics. Again in third Year, I will be hard-pressed to choose amongst Subjects like Automated Reasoning, History and Philosophy of Science and Psychology and the various Linguistics Subjects on offer. Really it makes me wonder if it’s possible to take the Degree over five Years and do these subjects, as well as Maths (which is not an Option at all in my Course; the Maths Subjects are either compulsory or stricken). I probably scare people with my actual Desire to learn; the rest of yas scare me with the absense of same.

On the Subject of my Course, only four People look like they’ll be doing it next year; two of them have pulled out and one’s deferred with no intention of continuing. Given that there’s a second-year Subject which is only offered to People doing a Bachelor of Cognitive Science/Bachelor of Computer Science Double Degree, this Subject looks like it might be very Interesting. It makes me wonder how many People usually do this Degree, and I’m avidly awaiting the Release of Offers to see how many noobs will be doing it next Year. Throwing Words as Diverse as Psychology, Computers, Logic and Philosophy around together seem quite likely to attract me, but few others besides.

Recently I have spent much of my time reading on the Web. An unfortunate Source of way too much information. Mostly political/current affairs (though none so far this week), some computery, and recently I wandered into an interesting Site with lots of Essays on Ethics (one of which I posted the other Day). This has mostly been by Way of procrastinating from the Tasks I intended to be doing this Month viz. finding a Job and writing the ROX Mail Suite (though much of the computery Readings have been related to the latter).

Finding a Job has so far been unsuccessful. I’m presumably doing something wrong but I’m not sure what. On that Note, though, I did find a very interesting-looking Job (part-time System Admin Assistant), though I don’t expect to hear anything back about that till after the Christmas.

The ROX Mail Suite, or perhaps more accurately the Mail Suite for the ROX Desktop Environment (because it isn’t actually included in ROX, so I feel uncomfortable branding it thus) is a Triplet of minimalist programs designed for viewing, reading and sending/receiving Emails designed to integrate well into ROX, a Desktop Environment focused around ROX Filer, with a Philosophy of Program Design expressing the Virtues of simplicity (many Programs each doing one Task well is better than one doing many well) and Conservation of Screen Space (for instance by abandoning Menubars in favor exclusively of Popups which allows Programs to interact more closely) among other things. Currently I’m slowly working on the Viewer, not sure of the best way to attack showing the appropriate headers. Going through the Source Code to like Programs will probably help. Free Software is most useful.

I am, of course, continously working on my Site. Making random and often unnecessary changes. The more astute of you will have noticed that I’ve changed the Colors here. Actually, that’s probably not all that hard to notice. The Justification is, I guess, that the Colors no longer bore the intended (but never achieved) Similarity to my Computer’s Theme, so I changed it to something totally different. Or maybe the Justification is that I Felt Like It.

But I have also been contemplating converting my Blog to Blosxom (‘blossom’), mostly because it has better URIs than MovableType, and it’s Free Software, which is always a plus for those of us with Senses of Ethics prohibiting theft-via-copyright. I haven’t because I want to convert these Pages over and haven’t quite got around to it. Even in the Holidays, there’s too much Stuff to do, not enough Time.

Anyway, perhaps that’s been long enough. Even if it weren’t, it’s late enough. Have fun.