Alton Gladding

I just had a conversation with Alton. The quiet old guy in the corner of the office. He’s close to retirement (65, I think). I used to consider him the “access guy” because he was the only one who would willingly work on the Microsoft access projects.

My how my opinion has changed.

Continue reading Alton Gladding

Oh the humanity

The image on the right is what a developer workstation looks like. Lookie, it’s got them new fangled flat screens and there’s two of them to boot! Yee haw, what will these crazy computer geeks think of next eh? Mice with lazers in them, I’ll bet. Or holographic screens I’ll wager.

Now I know it seems petty and unrealistic. I mean, I have a perfectly good 17 inch CRT at work, the refresh rate doesn’t give me a headache and it complies to OSH standards. I am even getting a brand new chair any month now, so as I can hold my mouse in the right position to appease the gods of occupational health and stave off the end of my career from carpal tunnel syndrome a few years more.


But.. but… It just doesn’t feel the same. I’m not asking for much, it’s not like I want two screens or even three. I would just like a single LCD screen to call my own. The image on the left shows three screens, but it’s not really fair. The third screen belongs to Andrew’s other computer. So I suppose you could say he only has 1.5 screens per computer and he has to use two keyboards which I suppose could be confusing. Yeah, confusing.

I guess you’re right. I suppose I’m just being greedy. I mean no one really uses LCDs, they’re far too expensive, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Cooldown 2

So, we got the goods and it was all very exciting, just like Christmas. Then…

Aaaaaaaarrrrggh!
The graphics cooling down thingy didn’t work. It was the wrong make. Good waste of $30 (but it was so pretty). Before we had any bright ideas, we tried wedging the graphics card fan under the graphics card with a few chopsticks (I shit you not). Needless to say, that didn’t work.

To top it all off, the stupid thing still overheated even with the new PSU. We were going to need to cool down the CPU…

So, we ordered even more hardware and waited a week for it to arrive.
Continue reading Cooldown 2

Pikachu and Master Chief

Well, at work we received a present from Dean Maguire. A master chief action figure. There’s not much more to say, really, except that Pikachu didn’t stand much chance against a guy in body-armour.

I should point out that that the idea of Pikachu getting sodomised by a master chief action figure was that of Dean Heard’s!

In other news, I made Pikachu’s glasses with a paper clip, cute eh?

Individual results may vary

For a few months there, I had comments turned off because the comments kept filling up with spam about gambling, porno and drugs.

So, I hacked my wordpress installation. Now you have to check a checkbox, declaring yourself to not be a robot or you will get a rude message rather than successfully posting a comment.

On the plus side, I learnt about a whole bunch of new drugs:

Phentermine
Triggers neurotransmitters in the brain in an attempt to suppress hunger. Essentially gets you pumped up on adrenaline so you don’t feel hungry.
Cialis
Helps give you an erection, but it may make you blind…
Adipex
Another hunger depressant. However, this one shouldn’t be taken while agitated.
Propecia
Helps fight baldness but may give you man-breasts. Sweet!

Use only as directed and if symptoms persist, see a doctor.

Cooldown

It all started with a break-in. Our little flat was broken into and the bastards stole both of our laptops, the playstation and a few games. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to us considering that we live very near to Glen Innes. Continue reading Cooldown

Starting at Beca

So, for many reasons I quit my job at Cecil and started working for Beca.

It turns out that developers are the same, no matter where you go. They all have the same purile sense of humour and similar approach to things. This is strangely comforting.

On the right is my development team leader Dean Heard. He took an instant liking to my Pikachu hammer.

In this image he’s approaching an “unsupecting” Richard Adlard (another senior developer) with the hammer behind his back. Reminicient of Tom & Jerry, wouldn’t you think? I wonder which one is Tom 😉
Continue reading Starting at Beca

Neural Networks

I have a keen interest in Artificial Intelligence. Mainly because if it can be achieved it poses interesting philosopical questions. Unfortunately I have neither been trained in AI or Neurology, so it’s pretty much like trying to read a language you’ve only ever heard.

That said, I do, however, believe the following:

  1. AI is possible in my lifetime
  2. It is only possible through a bottom-up approach
  3. Neural Networks will have to be understood and mastered in order to achieve this
  4. Current Artificial Neural Networks fall short in a number of ways

Continue reading Neural Networks

Andrew & Sally Eberhard’s wedding cake

She said yes, apparently. 😉 Sarah & I made this wedding cake for our dear friends Andrew & Sally:

It’s 3 layers of solid chocolate mud cake. Covered in layers of chocolate icing. The chocolate decorations are moulding chocolate piped in a zig-zag pattern, then stuck to the sides with more chocolate. It feeds over 100 people and there was plenty to spare after the wedding.

Click more for the recipe Continue reading Andrew & Sally Eberhard’s wedding cake