Who?

Apparently this blog still averages 2 visits per day. I haven't looked into it, but I assume most of them are spambots.

Chocolate

Chocolate is good. I'm just after eating a Lindt dark chocolate ball, at just the right temperature for the centre to be runny. Delicious.

Spam

I've received quite a few spam comments recently on this blog and it's been ages since I last posted anything.
Most of the spam seems to be plumbing or dental.

Posting here

I haven't forgotten about this blog, and I've been meaning to post something for quite a while, but I've been busy, then forgot, and just never got around to it.
Anyway, on the job front, I thought I was at the end of the first placement, which I dislike, but I may have misunderstood the time necessary to remain there, and I might have 1 more week left. I took "3 months" to mean 12 weeks, but I suspect that they meant it as 3 calendar months, which leaves me with another week there. I've tried contacting the hr people, but it seems that they don't know how to reply to emails. I plan to call them today.
It's a little frustrating because I'm not at work today (rdo-like* day) and I don't know where I should be working on Monday (or what time I should start).

* technically they're not rdos, but no one outside of the company I work for would recognise the real acronym.

Busy week

A lot of things have happened this week. I've got a job, which starts in ten days. The job is a position in the company's graduate recruitment programme. The location of this job is such that public transport isn't realistically an option, so I've had to purchase a car. I used the car broker recommended to me and already it looks as if I've got one. I was expecting the process to take a bit longer than 2 days. So, I looked at the suggested car yesterday, decided I liked it and that the price was good, and had it sent to racq for an inspection. I'm now waiting on the results of this inspection, which I'm expecting to receive today. If the car passed its inspection, then I should be able to take ownership of it next week.
On Wednesday I went for a pre-employment medical check, which I think went fine, but in the process of proving my identity for the check, I discovered that my licence had expired. I remember receiving a reminder letter, but then forgot all about it. So, yesterday morning, before the car inspection, I hastened to a licence renewal venue. Queensland has finally begun producing plastic credit card style licences, which are printed and then posted out. Currently, I have my old, expired, licence with a piece of paper stating that a valid one is on its way, and allowing me to drive in the meantime.
I'm also still working at uni.
All in all, quite a busy week.

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

Bookmarking

I'm currently sat on a bus, on my way home, and I've just witnessed a woman fold over the corner of the page in the book she was reading. I wanted to tell her to refrain from such ghastly book defacing, but I restrained myself, and instead I'm just ranting on my blog. Books deserve better treatment.

Nuts with extras

I felt a bit peckish so I wandered over to the fruit cart thingo at uni and bought a small plastic container of cashews. After eating all of them, I noticed a small insect in the bottom of the container. I didn't ask for cashews with insect when I bought them, it was just a free added surprise. I didn't eat the insect, in case you were wondering.
In other news, I wasn't shortlisted for the dsto job that had a ludicrously long set of selection criteria that took ages to complete. How annoying. This means I'm going to be unemployed, at least initially, when I graduate. I hope it doesn't take too long to find a job, and I'd consider implementing a time limit in this country, except that foreign economies aren't going very well and it might be hard to find a job in europe.

Pain perdu

I want to try French toast (pain perdu) with doughnuts. I think it'd work.

Swipe card

My swipe card has locked me out of the lab I work in because I left the lab to get lunch but the card decided to stay on my desk in the lab. Very inconvenient, especially as most of the other people I know who use the same lab don't seem to be around at the moment.

Ouch

I really hate mouth ulcers. I've had this one for several days now, and it's not a welcome feature in my mouth. It's on my tongue and is in a spot that seems to frequently rub against my teeth.