Toxicity

Scaremongering, or good cause to think about what you're breathing?

First exam finished an hour ago. Was satisfactory, I think. 10 to go.

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Psycho City

A short disclaimer: Officially, I have decided to resume regular writings after the exams, but this story warrants a special entry, since it's the first vaguely amusing thing to happen in a fair while.

So. When I got back from Oxford at 2am on Saturday night, there were no empty parking spaces or car-sized patches of pavement anywhere near the house, so I'd driven further down the road and parked on the pavement outside one of the bungalows, being careful not to block anyone's drive or anything like that. I ventured out to my car the following afternoon to find this lovely letter wedged in the driver's door. For those of you reading this using a text-only browser or a mobile device, here is the full text of the letter:

WHEN THERE IS  PARKING
OUTSIDE YOUR PROPERTY
PLEASE DO NOT PARK HERE
AGAIN

THANKYOU

Yes, quite. Thank you, scary elderly couple.

I've tried to preserve the formatting, but you really have to see the thing to appreciate the psychotic vibes it radiates. I mean, just look at the capital letters. The uneven spacing and the huge margins. "AGAIN" threatens remarkably well on a line all of its own.

The only aspect that you can't appreciate over the old information superweb is the quality of the paper. It's good, thick stuff, not your standard laser/copier fare.

When I proudly distributed the photo on I.R.C., the discussion quickly turned to the form that a prospective reply might take. I was considering some kind of ransom note, fashioned lovingly from traditional magazine cutouts.

IF YOU WANT YOUR
PARKING SPACE BACK
DEPOSIT 5 MILLION POUNDS
IN THE WHEELIE BIN
OUTSIDE NUMBER 39

THANKYOU

James's suggestion was, I thought, quite masterfully distasteful:

WHEN THERE IS ROOM
IN THE GRAVEYARD
PLEASE DO NOT TAKE UP HOUSES
OTHER PEOPLE COULD USE

THANKYOU

John suggested simply scrawling "NO" in my own blood on the original letter and returning it. Concise and really quite elegant.

I just wish I wasn't scared of getting arrested.

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$0.O2

I just called O2 Customer Services to enquire about a new handset. After listening to 9,600bps music at national rate for 15 minutes, I got through to a call centre droid who politely informed me that their systems were down and they couldn't access anyone's account details. Call back tomorrow morning.

Now, I paid for a 15 minute call to be told that, and the guy on the other end was paid to tell me. Why wasn't it in a recorded message played as soon as I selected 'handset upgrade' from the menu?

I thanked the droid and hung up. It wasn't his fault, after all.

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According to the good denizens of the Bandsoc forum, I look more prog than Dan! Sorry, Dan.

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.plan

Tasks for the great expanse colloquially referred to as "the start of the Easter holidays until the start of exams halfway through term 3"
(or 13th March to 1st June (?))

Presented in tasteful pseudo-Windows-INI-file form for your viewing indifference and my ease of consolidation. Subject to change.

[learn]
datacomms
concurrent programming
concurrent processes
HCI
logic
ISE
automata
algorithmics
systems design
Z
databases

[develop]
protoM3
m3fe.com
raytracer

[misc]
build music PC

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Getting there

Okay, the basics are now up and running.

So what's actually happened?

Well, I've expanded clunkyblog to a fully fledged little content management system, so that all of the pages and journal entries on the site are now stored in the same database. Among other things, this means that visitors can leave comments on any page on the site - not just the blog.

I've still to move most of the old content into the database, so the old navbar's looking a bit bare at present. And there are plenty of rough edges making the whole thing look a bit... rough. But it functions.

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Under construction

The site is going to appear quite broken for the next few hours as I effect the transition to clunkyblog2. Come back later!

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However

Introduction: Define the subject matter. State what the audience will learn in this session.

That's how Powerpoint's AutoContent Wizard (*shiver*) suggests that one might begin a presentation. However, I believe that the author of Lecturing For Dummies (a volume that, if it doesn't already exist, should) may have inadvertently confused "session" with "entire bloody term".

Yes. I suggest this because I am compelled to rant (briefly) about so-called "introductory" lectures. I hate them. I shall be fair on Jane Sinclair, though, by conceding that today's Systematic Software Development lecture was only a partial example.

But anyway. A module introduction should last five minutes, not fifty. Fifty minutes of being told what you are going to study over the next ten weeks is not a productive use of valuable potential learning time. Especially when all the information given is already on the handouts and the module web pages, trivially accessible to anyone with functioning eyes (or a screen reader, damn it). There really are few activities as pointless as listening to someone reading you the contents of a sheet you're holding in your hand. Uhm, unless the content is in a foreign language, and you're trying to learn it.

I find myself wondering if there's a rule among academics for this sort of thing. Did some 1990s politikalkorrektchik publish some woolly set of lecturing guidelines that everyone is still following?

At the dark, sub-zero start of a second term that promises new extremes of theoretical drudgery, I'm doing my very best to garner motivation for lecture attendance. This process is not aided by initial lectures that leave one with the frank conclusion that nothing useful was learnt, as one tends to project this result subconsciously across the entire module. First impressions, and all that.

Lecturers, please, if the handout for lecture 1 has a week by week outline of all the topics covered in the module, then *don't* stand there reading it out and offering no extra information. If there will be a programming assignment worth 20% set in Week 8 and it says so on the handout, then don't spend five minutes explaining this.

If I want a loose outline of the lecture plans, then I'll read the module web page for myself, in my own time. Your job is to use the available lecture time to *teach*.

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First Day

Well, I went to all three aforementioned lectures today - believe it! The first was remarkably boring, the second, quite boring and the third, just boring. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised; I was expecting far worse! Here's to a term of boredom levels I can just about cope with.

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Back in Coventry now, and I seem to have spent the entire day reading web pages (Slashdot, Paul Graham, Gamasutra) and ebooks (Understanding the Linux Kernel, Relativity - The Special and General Theory). How easy the Web has made it to drift passively along, reading, re-reading and shift+refreshing the news that real, effective people are making while you watch.

Tomorrow is the first day of term, and promises three brand new and equally horrific sounding modules: Systematic Software Development, Data Structures and Algorithms and Automata and Formal Languages. I think I want to be something else.

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