Eddi Reader - Java - Dus

I came across a broadsheet lying in the station - it was an anarchist.org publication - what made a lasting impression on me were some of the photographs shown in the publication - they are pretty graphic - for a reason - all taken from http://www.mladenpenev.net/

Eddi Reader
Allelujah song obviously by Eddi one of my all time favourites - so lets add it in . . .

the lights on the Westway go on
a million cars hurry home
an ice cream van shuts off its tinsel bells
winter won’t be long

I see you every day
I watch as you walk down this way
we pass on the stairs of this council block
too shy to find words to say

but your smile is a prayer that prays for love
and your heart is a kite that longs to fly
allelujah here I am
let’s cut the strings tonight

so meet me on the corner at eight
let’s get out of this place
we’ll kiss the first of a million kisses
and let the past fall away

for your smile is a prayer that prays for love
and your heart is a kite that longs to fly
allelujah here I am
let’s cut the strings tonight

yes your smile is a prayer that prays for love
and your heart is a kite that longs to fly
allelujah here I am
let’s cut the strings tonight

yes your smile is a prayer that prays for love
and your heart is a kite that longs to fly
allelujah here I am
we’ll cut the strings tonight

and we’ll kiss the first of a million kisses
la-la-la-la-la-la

Well all I can say about the concert - Ooops have I not mentioned that - Judi & I went on Saturday - almost had an altercation with the white feather brigade and we entertained on the steps alongside the bar but that's all for discussion over a glass of red wine - the concert was great - I have never seen Eddi live - was a ardent fan with Fairground attraction and caught one of their concerts by chance on TV once which alerted me to the fact that she was Scottish - and then liked her even more. She has an exquisite range with her vocals (which is more than I can say for her dress sense - each to their own) - I think she got the mix of old standards up-tempo / ballads etc., just right and had everyone eating out of the palms of her hands . . . great accompaniment - although the guy who was her supporting act was roped in as a support guitarist - did not seem quite as enthusiastic as everyone else - John McCusker was superb on fiddle and an Irish accordion player outstanding as was the upright bass player - not to forget Boo Hewerdine on guitar - who has written a number of the songs. Michael, Judi's son - who obviously knows his Mum - gave her 2 tickets for Christmas. Judi is a BIG Eddi Reader fan and on a number of occasions I had to entice her down from her seat as she was standing dancing - or could that have been from the red wine and whisky . . .lol only joking - but she knew all the lyrics and lets just say the arms were going in the air . . . .

Anyway that was Saturday evening - Lazy Sunday - came home about 19h45 after bus & train - was exhausted - managed to do Designing Usable Systems - intended doing Java but couldn't keep my eyes open . . .

Monday morning - up and off to AI - it didn't get any better - I was asleep outside the classroom before I even got in - then fell asleep during the lecture - it just seemed incredible dry - couldn't quite grasp it - like information overload and mind couldn't cope - so I went to sleep - albeit (my favourite word at the moment) for a very short period of time . . . Lab was hence challenging and luckily I have now taken to attending a 2nd lab / practical period on Friday - were I could ask Peter some questions and he sat down and explained some thing is to me. Tuesday I could come up with the solution but didn't understand what it was really saying to me . . .which I know sounds a bit weird - lets look at an example - you have 3 nodes (see diagram) each one has to have a different colour assigned to it - so Nodes A, B & C - colours 1(red), 2(amber), 3(green) - so mathematically we say A could be 1 v 2 v 3 - which reads Node A must be red, amber or green - but that's no good really because all the nodes could be either colour . . .so we then tabulate for the other options if A is set to 1 i.e. then its not amber and neither is it green
written:
-1 -2 (which is kind of like saying [not not one {which means if its not not one then it must be one}] and not two . . . . . etc., all gets a wee bit confusing he says as he reaches for the whisky bottle again (I'll make shensh of theesh yet . . . .)
-1 -3
-2 -3
now the strange things is I can work all of that out . . .i.e. have no problem coming up with combo's . . .don't ask me to explain them though . . .oh the joys - the exam here is starting to worry me . . .

Next was Designing Usable systems - Tuesday afternoon's and we started off by looking at the work we were supposed to do in preparation - I originally read the wrong chapter (I read 5 instead of 4 - will make next week better . . .) but knuckled down to preparing an improved scenario . . which (against my better judgement) ended up sending to David (who is submitting this week) - we had a lengthy discussion regarding a small wheelchair icon for people who are wheelchair bound which would have a green, amber or red background (no this is not AI again) - just to show people whether or not the station / route etc was wheelchair friendly etc., . . . Last week we were awarded 8/10 for group work so hopefully David can maintain this mark - its actually supposed to be a group effort so not a solo run - only ourselves to blame if marks are not as high . . . Nothing to hand in next week as it is spread over 2 weeks with 4 components forming the report and (guess what) 4 people in the group - I'm getting an idea here ..- lol . . .so we'll each complete 1 section of work - the first truly collaborative report.

Wednesday morning went for a swim - nothing too strenuous (that had me sweating on predictive text on my mobile - but I learned as I can write it now easily - so it has its educational uses . . ) was in plenty of time for the 10h52 train (which never comes at that time- always late) which didn't arrive on time - I'm spoilt now and would in all likelihood miss it if it ever did arrive on time. Its an express train stopping only at Dumbarton East; Dalmuir skips everything and then stops from Hyndlnad onwards Partick; Charring Cross & Glasgow Queen Street (my stop)) I was early for class and I have a classroom opposite my lecture hall that is always empty which I now use as my personal waiting room - I sometimes sit there and surf the Internet as the uni has wireless access throughout . . . I actually wrote this note whilst sitting waiting (just changed its tense for the blog) - this is all on the Royal College building which was built in 1903 - and must have been quite an imposing building in its time - So it has been an educational building since its inception - Strathclyde uni was originally a college which merged with a number of others before finally becoming or being granted its uni status - this is why some people don't like it as they refer to Glasgow as the only true uni in this neck of the woods - we actually have Caledonian uni - just across the road from us and then Paisley uni another 6 or 7 miles away - so you have quite a few to choose from. The Royal College building houses mostly engineering faculties and you see some strange sights as you walk around. At the moment there are builders everywhere as they are in the process of yet again trying to morph the existing building into something else. These builders seem to appear from nowhere and are everywhere - I think this is linked to the fact that it is almost 12h00 - which is a universal lunch time - more scary are the uni staff in white lab coats which somehow in my mind (illogically) conjures up visions of a mental institution - just saw an elderly (oops just realised my tense has changed - sorry you'll have to cope with it) woman walking round with what looked like long thin test tubes - almost expected to be stopped and asked for a urine sample (sorry - no explanation) then I was nearly knocked down by another white coat pushing what I can only describe as something that looks like it was made to strap a body to it and be wheeled away for experimentation . . . lol - crazy I know . . . my AI lecture starts at 12h00 - oops which it was now time for . . . - better run - I can always tell when it is almost time for my class to start - I don't have to see the time - I can actually hear what time it is - by the activity in the hall way / passage way - the classes empty their contents into the passageways - like floodgates opening and releasing water into these canals / central channels and it is this noise which alerts me to the fact that it is time to go . . . .

AI was OK - was given a virtually unsolvable problem and asked to solve it . . . Peter was basically revising what he had covered with us over the last 3 lectures . . .

Thursday Software Construction and Lord Linlithgow had given us an introduction to trees last week which he continued and elaborated on - still struggling a bit with practical. Dealing with LinkedLists; Nodes; Mergesort etc - but not just allowed to make use of existing methods need to write our own - Practical basically have to type in a series of integers - store as objects in a LinkedList - then split this list into 2 - sort the integers (collection of objects) in numerical sequence and then merge the 2 files again back into 1 and ensure that it is in sequence still. Hope to meet with Colin on Friday morning to go over it - worked late (late) on Thursday evening - Murphy's law emailed everything to myself apart from my main file - so it was hardly worthwhile having him look at my code as a major part was missing . . . will have to see him next week during the week rather than on the Friday as we are going to be assessed on this practical . . .so need to work on this during the week . . .

And basically that was my week - did sit with Peter AI in the lab on Friday again - as I mentioned already - I now start and end my week with AI . . .

Oops nearly forgot - very chuffed with my Java GizzaPizza project for which I received 84% - Yipeee! time for celebrations! And Judi come over to my place so champers on ice and a quiet drink and a meal to celebrate the return on all the hours I put into that project - ALL of our outstanding marks should be out early next week - a number of assignments / project / exam marks still outstanding - I hope to be as happy towards the end of next week with my marks as I am this week . . .

Bye for now - keep smiling . . . .

the science of sleep

Howdy fans - countrymen & women - admirer's - et al . . . Well it's another week - I am older and deeper in debt as the song goes but as with everything when you look back and contemplate it I think in the grand scale of things its been a good week . . . a long one or so it seems . . . . All photos from film of same title as blog title this week - some problems originally (thanks Margaret for pointing it out . . .) & - now some of you may see 2 pictures - although this might only be on the machine on which I created the blog?? not sure - alternatively you will see an elongated white line - this is the place-holder and this is where they display on machine blog was created on - anyway I have loaded alternative photos - [OK finally removed the original links to photo's - so that should be it all sorted out now . . . interesting almost as if the original site blocked me from using the photo's from their web site - which considering I am only really advertising the film I find strange . . . last one ad for band I mention . .

Well stayed over for the weekend in Edinburgh with Judi was a strange weekend at times all sorts of things on the go but bottom-line I think we are really getting to know each other better - its making that transition - an important one - from the constant highs to a longer term more realistic and normal relationship - we are still living separately although we would like to address this we both agree not something we want to rush into and also do not need any knee-jerk responses . . . all in good time - methinkest.

Went to Scotland Wales match on Saturday - Graeme came through and joined us and we watched the match - I have to say I have never been so cold in all my life - a little Arctic gale came through straight from the North Pole and froze us half to death - we had some chips straight after the game - to get some sustenance back into the body - we made straight for the Famous Grouse tent - where they were giving away free drinks - guess what - as we got to the bar they ran out of drinks . . . Murphy's law???

Went from Judi's straight into Artificial Intelligence on Monday - a new lecturer - a Doctoral thesis student I think looking at Satisfiability - which constraint satisfaction problems by another name - well not really but it seemed so - fairly abstract and theoretical - a very off the wall type lecturer as he seems to hop skip and jump all over the place - at one stage he was even sitting cross-legged on the table and then he'd be off again scribbling something on the whiteboard and then jumping in front of the projection screen to point to a character at the very top screen . . . I wouldn't have been surprised if a grizzly bear had just walked across the stage and exited by one of the side doors - it seemed that bizarre at times. He is a very clever person and used what I thought to be some very innovative ways in which to illustrate very abstract ideas and concepts - full marks to him for that - I just hope he puts his slide up on the web as I would like to go over what he had said. I even managed to ask an intelligent and relevant questions for both Monday and Wednesday lectures . . . although he couldn't get out of the class quick enough on Wednesday . . . could be because Maria had already left . . . Managed to attend the practical on Tuesday - we have some software we use to do what we have had to do manually up until now - managed on Tuesday to complete last week's lab which I somehow missed (actually didn't know we had one). Then on Friday by accident ended up in another practical lab and managed to catch up with this weeks work - well almost . . . so happy with AI at the moment.

Monday night - Braidfield computer drop in as usual . . . the usual suspects present - M who prints off her Superman pictures adnausem - in fact when I put paper int he printer the next week it usually fires up and prints some more Superman pictures again - mind you I did see some cute photo's of Supergirl in amongst them . . . R, J & M - also looked at stats from Scot Exec for P. F still frustrates me as after all this time still has a problem typing in her user name & password - not sure how many times now I have caught her actually typing in 'user name btsxxxx' and then I point out that no, I don't think that you are supposed to type the whole thing - rather just the btxx part . . . - she'll get past that part and then within minutes I'll find her staring at the screen and she'll have lost Internet Explorer from the screen and her Internet connection . . .although these days she is on YouTube regularly - although why she somehow ends up connecting to a heavy metal band video - at full blast I have no idea . . . anyway all fun and games and not really work - for which I am paid . . .

Tuesday - I had arranged for a local charity to come and pick up my old cane living room suite (not that I have a new one) - my living room was just too cluttered . . .so I had made all these arrangements before I realised that I have a 12h00 practical with AI (as mentioned) but I told charity they could come anytime before 12h30 as I was under impression that my 1st class was Designing Usable Systems @ 14h00 . . .so I was faced with a dilemma do I go back to charity arrange another time / day etc., - so I thought what they hell . . .I thought I'll just go with it and see what happens - they came at about 10h45 and I even managed to get into practical - albeit 10 minutes late . . . stayed after 1 hour and well as you have read managed to crack last weeks Golum ruler problem . .

Designing U Systems - was @ 14h00 - our marks went down to 5.5 out of 10 - but we somehow were given an extra point so ended up with 6.5 . . . seems we had not quite hit the mark for the previous week . . . as I explained last week we were all rushing around doing things that we weren't supposed to . . .so Murv had to put it all together at the last minute so not too bad after all . . . How is our MCSS -
Mobile Commuter Support System coming on - not too badly but part of it seems to be a tick-box exercise - 25% of our class mark will come from this. A lot of what we are proposing is based on Transport Direct's website - which a brilliant journey planner which I can recommend for anyone (provided you are here in the UK) - see some of the figures - we now also have a research paper and presentation to give and an exam sometime in April / May - now part of the exam will be open book - which scares me as they are usually the most difficult i.e. you always tend to say 'well don't need to learn that as I can just look it up' problem being you don't learn much in the end and spend at least 1/2 your time paging through knowing its in there somewhere . . .

Wednesday was Valentine's day and Judi & I had decided that it wasn't really practical to see each other - she works late on a Wednesday and we have the distance thing etc., - it is just a commercial construct anyway . . . we had exchanged cards on Saturday evening and decided that we would celebrate on this weekend - which we did and saved ourselves a lot of money . . . I did take my Mum shopping and we popped over the road at her local Chinese restaurant who guess what? had suspended there usual menu and had a set Valentines menu . .

Went home and spent some time chatting with Jude's . . . it seemed like a very long, varied and interesting day . . . as days should be . . . only thing missing for me was Judi . . .

The rest of the week was Software Construction - Lord Linlithgow - done really well . . . covered some interesting material - Practical on Friday saw me sitting up till all hours - turned out Colin had sent out the solution by mistake - and I couldn't resist - as I had been struggling a wee bit - so instead of writing my own code ended up borrowing - I now want to go back and try by myself - turns out we are going to be assessed on the code - so I had better do so . . .

Thursday morning saw Katrina from Career services coming to give us a talk - I was running late and was 5 minutes late - turns out I was the only person who bothered to turn up - we had a good blether and I am going to work with her - jack up my CV and target a number of companies - attended the Royal Bank of Scotland presentation that evening - they were telling us what the position entailed - it sounds very interesting and I am seriously thinking of applying.

I went to see a very interesting and thoroughly entertaining film this weekend - the title of this week's blog - all the photo's are from here -
"The Science of Sleep" - go on its an off the wall comedy - an alternative art film as it does not follow a script . . .

The grapevine has it that the next big thing in music is Mr Hudson & the library - mark my words . . .

That was the week that was . . . . adios muchachos!

Time after Time . . . and how it flies

Hi there

Well week three has come and gone - AI; DUS & SC frustration / elation / confusion . . .
(pictures to follow)

Started off with Artificial Intelligence with Maria - launched into some more theoretical concepts - my mind is still reeling from sweet Portia's caskets - I still haven't worked out which casket the protrait is in - which means I'll not be having her hand in marriage that is for sure . . . . I seem to understand the high level stuff but when we drill into it I kind of get a wee bit lost (so to speak) anyway on Wednesday Maria herself stopped sort of half way through everything and said she realises that it is all highly theoretical and abstract - and were there any questions - this is like waving a red flag at a bull with me - always got to open my mouth and say something - not always linked to what we are doing at the time . . . couln't help but complain about the fact that the notes / slides from the classes were not there - albeit that Maria had said that we should use last years slides - but they were in a completely different sequence and for that matter context was also different - so she apologised and promised to get them up apart from that though there were no questions . . . which is strange becuase I'm sure most people did not understand half of what she had covered . . . hey but then again maybe its just me - who knows - poor Portia would have become a spinster - with more of my type around . . .lol

Designing Usable Systems - farce continues - well I had done all my homework -good little boy that I am - even with all the distractions over the weekend . . . anyway when we get to the class it is supposed to be a case of we discuss / agree and then move forward - however we have a member of our group who has taken it upon himself to do NO work in preparation or for the reports - as if that in itself were not bad enough he has now gone one step further and is in obstructionist mode, or that is how it seems, we seem to spend most of the class - 2 hours arguing and explaining with him what we should have done as preparation - and he then goes off at a tangent as to what he is going to do i.e. create a video of commuters at Queen Street & Central Station - which is of no significance other than it sounds good . . . to cut a long story short it seemed that the 2 hours just whizzed past and all we seemed to have time to do was to work out who had to do what to help Murv compile his report for Friday (I was all for taking the previous weeks approach i.e. do nothing unless you have to write the report [incidently got 7 out of 10 for last week's report - not bad]) - so we all left with a set of intructions . . .I had to document the artefacts we had collected and then do a Competitive Product Analysis . . .spent quite some time doing screen dumps and explanatory notes only to receive an email @ about 23h00 on Thursday from Murv to say he had made a mistake and he actually didn't need any of what I had done . . . nice one . . I suppose it was a useful exercise - I can say that now but did not quite express it in those terms on Thursday evening . .

Thursday was Lord Linlithgow and between you & I - I had secretly decided to skip his class on Thursday - it was my only class and I thought I can do a lot more at home given that I have to commute as well . . . I weighed up the pro's and con's and eventually guilt kicked in and I decided to go in - so at the end of the day I could at least say I kept my side of the bargain . . . went in - gave Phil a ring invited him for coffee and then we went up to the class together - guess what - there was a seminar on in the classroom - his Lordship arrived on the scene about 10 minutes later and Yes, our class was cancelled - Morale of the story - listen to your instincts . . . .

Friday was Software Cnstruction practical - starts @ 9am - as I was going to Judi's for the weekend took my gear through to uni - Continued with Java project - I really have to say I have forgotten a lot of what I have learned for my project last year . .so need to do a lot of catch work in this regard . . . Lord Linlithgow outdone himself - he gave us a very good lecture on ArrayList . . .

Andy was successful and has landed himself, what sounds like, a very good position . . so we popped round to the 'Print Works' for a quick beer - also took Arran's P85 into tax office which turned out to be right across the road (well almost) from Print Works - and then I legged it up to Buchanan street and caught my bus to Edinburgh . . .off to watch Scotland vs Wales tomorrow . . .

James my brother - left for New Zealand in the week - that was him returning home after visiting and attending my Mum's 80th . . .

Actually made it back to gym and even had a swim in the week . . . that during a really cold spell here . . . no snow though . . . but that makes me think of the Brazilian girl I bumped into - she had been travelling across Europe for the last 3 months and all she wanted was to see snow - thus far she had been disappointed . . . I was left thinking I hope she was in Aberdeen this week . . . tempertures of -9 degrees and plenty of snow . . .
That's



A link that Judi sent me - wow! - what a lifestyle - watching the the slideshow had a sense of being there and even the movement of the ocean . . . lol - hope you enjoy.


’NZ Blue’ - Papamoa, Ocean Collection 1

Those idiots that draw the Euromillions lotto - got it wrong again - the just keep refusing to draw my numbers what is wrong with them . . . lol