Lemmings

I have some fond memories of wasting oodles of time finding new and exciting ways of making small green haired doodles die in the various incarnations of the lemmings series. Why would I mention it today? Because today lemmings is 20 years old. There is even a free version of the game to play. If you haven't played it before, do so now. If you have enjoy a bit of nostalgia :)

Gource just made me feel productive

So, I have been at a bit of a standstill with my analysis of late, not for lack of trying, but mostly due to some the evolution of the atlas code base. In an effort to get my PhD done however I have been coding like a maniac over the last month. Since I have been tracking my development via git I decided to make a little video of what I have been up to (code-wise) and it made me feel good about myself.

See I wasn't completely useless over the last month!

Airports Are Fine, Waiting There Isn't

More airports should have free wireless that works as well as the on in the Vancouver airport. Both Halifax and Tronoto were disappointing. On other news I wish I didn't have to sit around the airport waiting for my flight but could rather be on my way home.

Wordle

So in their events bulleting the UVic GSS folk pointed out wordle, a webapp to create world clouds from text you may find in places such as your blog. Seeking out any opportunity to procrastinate with a vengence I prompty made a wordle of this here blog (let's hope that I can sidestep any recursion problems). have a looksie at the result:

Seeing that we at ATLAS have our very own blog talking about the progress the experiment has been making I churned it through the app as well, and this time not coming up with my own colour scheme and rather using my own, here is what came out the other end:

Living in Genf

So this post is mostly a test on how google buzz interacts with my blogger account. Also of note, after a somewhat shaky start I am finally settled into a place in Geneva. I'll be here still the end of April when I am moving back to Victoria for what I hope to be the final stretch of my PhD.

The shaky start was mostly facilitated by the fact that two days before I left I got an email from the guy I was supposed to sublet a flat from once I got to Geneva that things didn't work out after all. Lukily I could crash with some friends (thanks J-R and Lorraine) till I found a place. I now live in Meyrin which is nice and close to work, sharing a nice flat with a swiss businessman and a physics PhD student from Italy. Both seem rather nice, and I am starting to feel at home.

Once that I was moved into the new place I also met up with some friends to go skiing on Sunday, taking advantage of the close by French alps. It was a great day skiing, Carly posted some pictures on her blog.

Now work is getting a bit more serious, but there is also light at the middle of the tunnel.

To Boldy Go

Today marks the first day I heard someone seriously talk about petabytes (Check out chep 2007) of data. I just can't wait for UT2010 which will be like 5 PB on my harddrive o.O

300 Big Boys

No I am not talking about a Frank Miller comic or a movie based thereon or even the excellent Samurai Jack episode. Check out this website to see if you should spend your next tax refund in the same inspired way Fry did here: