Ouchie

My feet hurt. Mostly because they're the colour of really sunburnt feet (a perfect description).

Internet blackouts

Does anyone remember when I protested the ridiculous idea of
censorship in Australian internetting stuff by applying a blackout
screen to my blog? Well, I'm sure it reached a significant audience in
order to stop, or at least postpone, the silly notion in this country.
I'm not in, nor am I a citizen of, the USA, so I'm not going to bother
doing it again now, even though I am sure that were I to take part in
the protest, I'd definitely reach a larger audience than any of the
other sites taking part, like Wikipedia, for example.

Domestic travel

Within the next 4 weeks, I'll be spending time at Byron Bay and in Melbourne.

Morning coffee

I bought a latte this morning, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's had morning coffee with me. The barista drew a leaf on the foam. I realise that a leaf is probably one of the simpler designs, but it's better than nothing and a like coffee art.

German

I've discovered that there are serious holes in my knowledge of German regarding the future tense (or tenses?) and prepositions. I came to this conclusion after attempting to write a text message that seemed to be mostly future tense and prepositions.

Social Media Exhaustion

I joined another social media site today. I think I'm going to drown in a sea of social media soon. I've got profiles on Facebook, Google+, Diaspora, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, and now Path. I technically also have a profile on Foursquare, but I'm ignoring that one now as it seems pointless (why use a third-party program to publish details of check-ins to Facebook when I can do that directly?). I've never had a Myspace page, and never plan to.
Several years ago, when Twitter was new and fresh, I decided I didn't want to join because I didn't see a need for it. I regret that decision now because I have joined, and my preferred usernames were taken, which may not have been the case had I joined all those years ago. I joined it mainly for the puns, but I've stayed for the made-up stats, random trivia, and useless banalities.
I hope there aren't any new social media on the horizon. I don't know how I'd keep up with it all.

It's been a while

My last post was in november. I completely missed december altogether. I'll try to use this more this year. Maybe it could be a resolution or something.

Should I be driving automatic cars?

I've long been a fan of manual cars. I understand that automatics are easier to drive, especially in heavy traffic, but overall, I'd prefer to have a manual. Part of the reason for this is that I've had experience with horrible automatic gearboxes in the past that changed gears at stupid times, such as when going up hills, and part of the reason is that I like driving and I enjoy driving manuals. A friend, who has only got an automatic licence, recently pointed out that this doesn't really fit with my project and my studies. After all, my project has been all about automation. Is it strange for me to pursue a career path in automation, yet dislike automatics?

Polar 2

Here's the result for those of you who don't have access to Matlab.

Polar Bear

This is cool (found here):

function polarbear
% plots a polar bear in Matlab

function ec(h,k,a,b,ang)
% (h,k) is the center of the ellipse or circle
xp=a*cos(ang);
yp=b*sin(ang);
plot(h+xp,k+yp,'LineWidth',3,'Color','blue');hold on
end

% First plot curves that use theta between 0 and 2pi
ang=0:0.01:2*pi;
ec(5,0,2,2,ang),ec(-5,0,2,2,ang) % plot the feet
ec(2,0,1,1,ang),ec(-2,0,1,1,ang) % plot the hands
ec(0,9,4,3,ang) % plot the head
ec(1,10,0.25,0.25,ang),ec(-1,10,0.25,0.25,ang) % plot the eyes
ec(0,8,1,0.5,ang) % plot the nose

% Plot remaining curves for specific theta
ang=0:0.01:pi/2+3*pi/180; ec(5,0,2,5,ang) % plot the right legs
ang=pi/2-3*pi/180:0.01:pi; ec(-5,0,2,5,ang) % plot the left legs
ang1=pi:0.01:240*pi/180; ang2=-60*pi/180:0.01:0; ec(0,4,3,3.60,ang1),ec(0,4,3,3.60,ang2) % plot the arms
ang1=-24*pi/180:0.01:45*pi/180; ang2=pi-45*pi/180:0.01:pi+24*pi/180; ang3=254*pi/180:0.01:286*pi/180; ec(0,4,5,5,ang1),ec(0,4,5,5,ang2),ec(0,4,5,5,ang3) % plot the body
ang=0:0.01:155*pi/180; ec(2,11,1,2,ang) % plot the right inside ear
ang=26*pi/180:0.01:pi; ec(-2,11,1,2,ang) % plot the left inside ear
ang=-5*pi/180:0.01:156*pi/180; ec(2,11,1.25,2.25,ang) % plot the right outside ear
ang=25*pi/180:0.01:185*pi/180; ec(-2,11,1.25,2.25,ang) % plot the left outside ear
ang=pi/4:0.01:pi/2; ec(1,10,1,1,ang) % plot the right eyebrow
ang=pi/2:0.01:135*pi/180; ec(-1,10,1,1,ang) % plot the left eyebrow
ang=119*pi/180:0.01:2*pi+61*pi/180; ec(0,7,2,1,ang) % plot the mouth
ang=200*pi/180:0.01:320*pi/180; ec(0.75,8,0.75,1.5,ang) % plot the right smile
ang=220*pi/180:0.01:340*pi/180; ec(-0.75,8,0.75,1.5,ang) % plot the left smile
end