| Richard Stallman and his fans |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|08:04 am] |
I came across a discussion about some tasteless comments Richard Stallman made at a tech conference, especially some sexist ones. Someone tried to email Mr Stallman to get him to apologise, and his response is evasive and bizarre, and above all unrepentant.
But what's equally unsettling is the tone of some of the comments on this post. Who are these people? Do blog posts like this just bring out the worst commenters, or is this representative? They seem much more concerned about Richard Stallman's right to email privacy than appropriate conduct at a technical conference that both men and women are attending. |
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| Judo |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|09:32 am] |
I used to think I was bad at judo because I wasn't strong enough. You need a certain amount of strength to make the techniques work, but what I keep realising and re-realising is that with proper technique it's amazing what you can do. Or as some of my friends might say "Ur doing it wrong!".
I've been very bad at the basic throws in judo for a long time, and so yesterday I went early to try to get some one-on-one instruction so that I could have some chance in the stand-up sparring. People showed me some throws, with about ten seconds spent on each, and I didn't learn anything. But in the second part of the class, a very helpful yellow belt spent a lot of his time showing me how the basic throws in judo worked. What this translated to was me throwing him about fifty times, with him instructing me each time on how I could do it better the next time. Needless to say, he had a lot of patience!
After the two hour class was over and I was completely out of breath, he wouldn't let me leave with everyone else until I threw him about twenty more times. Then he started resisting my throws, while not trying to counter-throw. I was still able to throw him, just with more effort. By now, I was practically dying but he insisted we keep going. After a few more times, he finally let me go home for the night. I thanked him warmly for all his help, which made such a difference. I'm looking forward to throwing guys taller and heavier than me :) |
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| Ich bin ein Auslander |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|06:49 am] |
There's an article today in the SMH about far right wing parties mobilising again. I read an interesting book a few years ago called "I Was A Teenage Fascist ...", about the right wing scene in Australia, and Jim Saleam was a major figure in that book. Turns out he's still around.
It's tempting to write these people off as not much of a threat, but I worry about how much power they're getting and prefer to keep an eye on them. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|03:36 pm] |
I told a friend who frequently visits our honours office that I liked the idea of fountain pens, so he loaned me one of his. I've had it for about a week and am now thoroughly converted. Maths students write all day, so some of us are particular about what we write with. And I'm pretty particular in general anyway.
I'm slowly developing expensive tastes. |
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| Thesis |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|12:55 pm] |
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I'd forgotten how mentally exhausting research was. And how exhilarating. |
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| Thesis |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|02:57 pm] |
( Read more... )
[ Edit: There were some fairly major errors in this post. Fixed now. ] |
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| Quick guitar post |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|10:16 am] |
To relax towards the end of the exam period, I've been playing guitar a bit. More focusing on trying to develop a better sense of rhythm and learn some more about music theory. I've been working through the Berklee method books a little. And I've been trying to work out songs by ear all the way through, which is something I didn't used to have the discipline to do. Playing songs or sight reading to a metronome can be a pretty humbling experience where one moment everything's going fine and you're locked in with the beat, and two or three bars later everything's gone off the rails :)
I've always had some sort of strange hangup about fiddling around with my gear, particularly amp settings. For whatever reason, I've begun to get over that and start playing pretty aggressively with the EQ, and it's been wonderful, nearly like listening to a different instrument. And of course, this is a step on the way to learning to get tones as good as the ones you hear on records. |
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| GLM exam |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|02:16 pm] |
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That was awful. Oh well, only one more exam to go and then I'm done for this semester. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|04:22 pm] |
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2 down, 2 to go. My hardest exam was today, functional analysis. My most irritating exam will be tomorrow morning. I really can't wait to get that one out of the way. |
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| Applied maths honours, not for wimps |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|07:29 pm] |
The applied maths honours students got given a take 48 hour home exam yesterday at 10 am for geometric mechanics. It's 7:30pm and they're still going. Presumably it's due at 10am tomorrow. I hope some of them get some sleep.
Back to studying for functional analysis. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|04:13 pm] |
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I'm studying option pricing for the stochastic differential equations exam I have on Wednesday morning. I never realised selling out could be this interesting ;) |
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| Interesting article |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|09:50 am] |
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There's an interesting article about intrinsic gender difference in today's SMH. Here's the link. I don't have much time to think about it, but it's something interesting to wonder about after exams finish. |
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| Only two more assignments to go, then exams begin |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|07:08 am] |
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This is the part of the semester where I just work and study and rest. There's still so much to do, and I don't know quite how I'm going to do it all, but the only way forwards is just to read, think and try to do example questions. See you guys some time late in June. |
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| Wow, you look like hell |
[May. 30th, 2009|01:37 pm] |
A good friend of mine met up with me yesterday and told me I looked like I wasn't eating enough. My cheek bones stick out or something. Now people have been picking on me for the way I look my entire life, so I've developed the reaction of ignoring them and telling them to go stick it, but this is a particularly good friend so she probably has my best interests at heart. So I thought I might listen for a change.
Gaining weight to get to a healthy weight is as hard for some people as losing weight to get to a healthy weight is for others, so I'm going to put a bit of research in and see what I can figure out. |
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| Honours |
[May. 25th, 2009|04:47 pm] |
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My workload has gotten to the point where I won't be making it to anything at all for a little while. See you guys in June. |
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| You know you're doing maths honours when ... |
[May. 19th, 2009|06:16 pm] |
I'll probably keep adding to this list over time.
- A mark of 85% or 90% on an assignment is a bit disappointing.
- You ask your classmates what they did on the weekend and they say "Assignments". Every single time you ask them.
- Jokes about homomorphisms become funny.
- You can prove the spectrum of a unitary operator lies on the unit circle in the complex plane, but you don't know what day it is.
- You laugh at your lecturer's jokes.
- You don't have any friends who can't do integration by parts.
- You write lists like this as an excuse not to finish an assignment you should be working on.
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| Judo |
[May. 16th, 2009|11:44 am] |
I'm pretty busy right now, but I'll write something quickly about judo. I'm finding I'm running into some limits that I'm used to running into with martial arts (flexibility, strength) and some I'm not so used to (cardio fitness).
I've always had something strange going on with my hip flexibility. Over the years, people have advanced various theories as to what's going on and how to fix it. The current prevailing theory is that I injured my left leg as a young child and so I learnt to walk with most of my weight on my right. This has lead to all sorts of problems, not least of which is the lack of flexibility and weakness in my left leg. I also unconsciously angle my hips so that my left leg doesn't have to stretch. I really have to think in order not to do this at the moment, so I think it's going to be very hard to correct, but I've got some exercises and stretches to help. I tried seeing a physio a few years ago, but she wasn't really very helpful.
I also find I get out of breath about half way or three quarters of the way through a two hour judo class, and lose my will to keep fighting. Part of that is psychology, which is always a hard thing to work with. But part of it is also just cardio fitness, so I'm going to try to work some of this into my training. |
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| Video integrated into applications |
[May. 14th, 2009|01:10 pm] |
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Sylvia wrote an interesting post about video in broadband applications. There were a lot of very interesting applications in there, but it made me wonder whether we're heading towards a world where people expect you to be available for a video conference nearly any time. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|02:44 pm] |
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vimdiff is my friend |
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