http://journals.jevon.org/ Recent Entries on the Journals en-us Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:37:59 +0800 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss journals.jevon.org widget support@jevon.org support@jevon.org http://journals.jevon.org/users/thundercat2/?showid=19811#19811 I was walking to the store while on my way to work today. Some bastard ran past me and took my purse. I'm not saying much because I don't want to undermind the police investigation. If you are walking down Gravois near Schnucks and Roosevelt High, be careful. The good news is I got some of my property back but not all of it. My purse is Black. I have a pink wallet in it that has my state ID. My state ID has my home adress on it. If anybody finds it PLEASE turn it in to the police or mail it to me. My purse also had some other items like a book " Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events: Book the Nineth" , Cherry Blossom perfume, my keys, an adress book with 101 Dalmations on it. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:49:55 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/thundercat2/?showid=19811#19811 http://journals.jevon.org/users/thundercat2/entry/19811 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19810#19810 After driving back from Homer I packed my bags, Patrick and I went to the gym, we ate two kinds of chocolate ice cream (dark chocolate and chocolate mousse) and with a pleasantly ruined body (heavy back-squats followed by heavy deadlifts) boarded my flight to Seattle. In Seattle airport, while drinking a coffee, I met a woman whose husband was the principal of an english speaking highschool in Taiwan. In Taiwan the students come from all the most privileged parts of Asian and the middle east to study harder than is good for them (by the sounds of it).  They then go on to high powered jobs all over the world.  The woman I met was from Canada (Vancouver Island) originally and found the extreme population density of Taiwan difficult to adjust to.  She also noted that when her husband was a principal in Canada he held a fairly ordinary place in society in Taiwan they are regularly invited to national events by the president of Taiwan.  Very nice woman.  Her daughter arrived to meet her (the mother was on her way up to Canada and the daughter, by happy coincidence, was there to pick up her boyfriend) and I left them to catch up and went to sleep on a bench somewhere near the entrance of the airport. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:27:58 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19810#19810 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19810 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19809#19809 On my flight into Anchorage there was a team of cheerleaders on the plane.  This counts as another genuine American experience. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:52:33 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19809#19809 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19809 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19808#19808 After reviewing my journal entries I realise that I have forgotten to mention an important activity.  On the morning that I bought my laptop Patrick and I also went skiing.  We drove about 15 minutes out of town and ascended a small mountain called flat top mountain.  This was my first time on touring skis with skins for going up hill.  I loved it.  Skining about on skis is a great way to move about on the snow.  Something that is really great about Alaska is the lack of development in their outdoors.  I asked Collette, who is a keen skier herself, if they have any lift skiing in Alaska.  She said that they did but she couldn't remember where it was.  Backcountry skiing is the norm here and on our trip we met a number of hikers and skiers just getting about in the Alaskan mountains.  Much better than being crowded out by teenage snowboarders on Ruapehu in my opinion. Unfortunately my touring boots were not made for any kind of downhill work at all.  They resembled basketball boots in size and material construction.  I was completely unable to ski downhill in them and had to develop a technique of simply sitting on the skis to get down.  That was great too. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:39:30 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19808#19808 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19808 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19807#19807 After the meal we drove down to the mooring where Patrick and Rebecca's boat lay.  The boat was excellent, and warm as we'd been there before the restaurant to turn the heaters on, we watched a film about people with difficult lives in Mexico and had a very peaceful night's sleep.  In the morning it was very cold but I was warm in my sleeping bag with my down jacket around my head. We had breakfast and attended to some boat maintenance.  I wandered off and spent a good part of the day stalking the American Bald Eagle which live in great number in Homer scavenging fishermen's waste.  They are quite pretty birds and fun to stalk, but this was the one time in Alaska where I got truly cold as stalking birds is mostly a process of standing still.  I enjoyed this alot. Toward the end of the spit, on which the Homer Mariner lies, sits a row of attractive beach holiday houses.  They are very tall, thin and colourful which somehow looks oddly out of place in such a rugged location.  At the very end of the spit is a small hotel which serves coffee and other less important things.  I was still struggling with the US hospitality system and in confusion sought out a till at which I could place my order.  After standing awkwardly for a spell I finally took a seat and was immediately attended by a waitress who brought me my coffee.  The Americans like to drink filter coffee which is cheap and the cups are bottomless.  I like this too, especially on a cold day. Nearer to the mariner is a small bar which is built into an old lighthouse.  The ceiling inside is so low that I can't stand up straight while inside.  All of the walls and the low ceiling are covered with signed dollar bills attached with staples and pins.  I only went in to ask if I could get access to a building behind in order to photograph birds, but they said the person who owned the building behind was not around today. During this day I managed to take 490 photos on my large Nikon and proba... (more) Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:30:12 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19807#19807 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19807 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19806#19806 We arrived at Homer some time in the evening.  It gets dark around 6 at this time so it was after 6.  We went to a restaurant with a collection of giant cups and saucers above the entrance.  I ordered Cod with Scallops, Patrick ordered a lamb shank and Rebecca ordered the clam entree as a main.  It was delicious and stands out as a truly exceptional meal in my life. At this stage I have to go to bed.  I will finish this entry tomorrow - or maybe the day after. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:56:23 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19806#19806 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19806 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19805#19805 Prior to leaving NZ I was looking into buying a new laptop.  My old one was breaking down and my mother had generously offered to give me some money for my student loan.  So I thought I would put to toward a new laptop.  Obviously. So it seemed like a good idea to have a look around in the US while I was there.  It turns out that laptops (like everything else) are extremely cheap over there.  So we went to a store called Best Buy to have a look.  I got carried away and rather than, wisely, getting an adequate laptop at a reduced price I simply, and foolishly, picked up the most expensive laptop in the store and bought a camera tripod to go with it.  At this stage I had neared a purchasing frenzy and was looking about the store to see if there was anything else I might want to take with me. So I decided to leave. I am now the proud owner of a brand new Sony Viao with a keyboard that lights up if the room is dark (which is obviously worth any amount of money).  It also has a battery life of 3 hours brand new, because it's like a V12 Jaguar with the gas tank of a Toyota Corrolla.  I like it a great deal. After that we went to a store called REI.  This is like Kathmandu except instead of only crappy gear they have a range from rubbish all the way to excellent.  They had a sale on (what are the chances?).  I bought a high-tech sweatshirt and a high-tech balaklava.  I also got a very nice white softshell jacket for Judith.  Rebecca and I found a tall girl in the store to try on clothes for me.  All a great success and luckily it also lacked the giddy thrill I had at Best Buy so it was safer too. After REI Rebecca and I had lunch next door and I had a delicious chicken sandwhich and a fresh fruit juice with ginger in it.  Excellent. After shopping we drove to Homer, which is where Patrick and Rebecca have moored their boat.  It is, I think, four hours drive away. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:43:21 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19805#19805 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19805 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19804#19804 Judith and I are now in York.  We will be moving into a new flat and were very lucky to get a spacious one on the ground floor by the river.  It's like a normal house - not an attic apartment.  Very happy.  Insulation, gas central heating, double glazing.  Not inexpensive - now I must come out of retirement to help support our new lifestyle. Between Alaska, Germany and the UK I get the impression that NZ has taken out a patent on wind.  These countries are not paying the license fees.  It is very nice.  Also when the temperature drops below zero the air is dry and without the wind it's actually comfortable (provided you are not naked). Back to Alaska - next entry. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:22:15 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19804#19804 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19804 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19803#19803 Version 0.4.3 of the IAML Modelling Platform has been released. It adds the modelling construct of a Label, which allows a static field that cannot be edited by a user, yet can still be changed (for example, on events). This release also marks the start of some significant metamodel refactoring, which should hopefully be transparent to (any) end users. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:26:06 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19803#19803 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/entry/19803 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19802#19802 Yay start of semester and 2 labs down and 1 to go. Micro was oookkaaayyy... wasn't anything taxing, genes and gene expression however, was a different story. We spent the whole 3 hours doing biochemistry (emphasis on the chemistry) problems. After 2 hours my head was swimming and all I wanted to do was go home. Demostrators while helpfull, didn't spend enough time down our end of the lab. Mary Nulsen grouped all the BMLS students together in all papers so hopefully I can get to know other BMLS students. Speaking of which, the girl who sits next to me in mirco is from Feilding, went to Otago last year but didn't like and came back, and is doing med lab. I felt like I'd met my twin soul. Well, must go and revise! *jevon would be proud lolz* Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:31:35 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19802#19802 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/entry/19802 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19801#19801 Although I did end up with an M16 and a smaller bolt-action rifle in my bedroom for most of my stay in Alaska I never fired a shot.  Although an assault rifle would be fun to fire, it is by far the least exciting part of Alaska. On the second day I hopped on my bike and followed Patrick into work (at the University of Anchorage Alaska).  I spent a bit of time tracking down their computer science department.  Unfortunately cmp-sci at UAA consists of two professors who spend only one hour a day in their offices.  So I gave up on them and headed into town. One of the best things about Anchorage is an enormous network of trails running through, and outside of, the city.  These are organised into mixed use, Nordic skiing, walking, and mushing trails.  The mushing trails are for dog sledding, which is truly awesome.  There is probably over one hundred miles of these trails in Anchorage and the residents are all over them, skiing walking and cycling.  I didn't see any dog sledding unfortunately but I did see a baby's pram with a single front wheel and two skis instead of back wheels. For the last year now I have had glandular fever (some might know it as mono).  This has meant that although I did continue weight training I haven't done a single piece of aerobic exercise this whole time.  As a reintroduction to endurance exercise I spent more than three hours riding over hard packed snow.  I was very slow and my ass ached for two days afterward from the hard seat.  It was excellent. I reached town, after having gotten lost and riding in the wrong direction for a while, and went straight to a cafe called 'Snow City Cafe'.  Having met the mother of a struggling Hollywood actress and a gun enthusiast I was looking forward to experiencing the famous American serving size.  I was not disapointed. I ordered an americano coffee and an eggs benedict with bacon and spinach.  The coffee was enormous and the meal was fairly large but not extraordin... (more) Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:16:58 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19801#19801 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19801 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19800#19800 So now my journal entries do not match the passage of time.  My previous entry has me in Germany and now I am writing about Alaska. Rebe and Patrick picked me up from the airport at about midnight and we went home directly where I promptly slept for 12 hours.  The next day I wandered around and used the bicycle that had been kindly lent to me by Patrick's neighbour cycle around the neighbour hood and take endless photos of suburban streets covered in snow.  At this point every street was exciting and white, later I looked at the photos and they are universally boring, but the sheer novelty on that first day was completely overwhelming for a wee boy from NZ. That night I got to meet Patrick's neighbour (Brian), who will now appear as my second real American experience.  Brian has a great many guns and a wall for displaying them.  The first thing that Brian said to me as we entered his man-room (a room which mostly contains many guns and a flat screen television) was that he was sorry that he had lent his 50-cal sniper rifle to someone because it was the biggest of all his guns, I said that this was ok.  I was alarmed when he said that his pump action shot-gun was loaded with catridges designed to kill people.  But I was excited when I offered to lend me his M16 to shoot rabbits.  If you don't think too much about it you could almost convince yourself that the M16 was designed to hunt rabbits. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:03:15 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19800#19800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19799#19799 I have recently left New Zealand inteding to settle in York for a spell with Judith.  I have now been in Germany for a few days and have time to write about my journey so far. Before flying to Germany I spent 6 days in Alaska with two friends Patrick and Rebecca.  My time there was fantastic and, I think, a great introduction to the USA. I first flew into L.A. where I got to spend 7 hours laying about the airport waiting to be able to check in to my next flight (Seattle and then on the Anchorage).  L.A. was not so aweful as I had expected it to be and the extensive (shoes and belt off) security checks are a fine way to pass the time in transit in my opinion. On the flight from L.A. to Seattle I had what I will call the first of my true American experiences; I say next to a woman who was flying out of L.A. having just finished visiting her daughter who was eking out a living in Santa Monica trying to become an actress!  I was most pleased by this as I had only been in the country for about 8 hours and already I felt I gone right to its very centre.  The struggling actress's mother was very good company and pointed out the more interesting parts of Seattle as we flew in. Having had such a good time on the way I couldn't wait to get to Anchorage and catch up with Patrick and Rebe. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:58:17 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/?showid=19799#19799 http://journals.jevon.org/users/francis/entry/19799 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19798#19798 Version 0.4.2 of the IAML Modelling Platform has been released. It adds the concept of Entry Gates and Exit Gates, preventing access inside or outside a session without first co-operating with a given requirement (currently only other pages). This example demonstrates using an Entry Gate to prevent viewing pages until a disclaimer page has been viewed; and this example illustrates an advertisement being displayed before the user can exit out of the session. Pages have now been renamed into Frames. In the future, this will allow Frames to recursively contain other Frames, which may be replaced using particular wires (the exact specifics have not been decided yet). I think the next milestone will be on adding support for sending e-mails (a fundamental requirement of web applications). Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:13:47 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19798#19798 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/entry/19798 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19797#19797 Is checking out your Google Code-based project slow over Subversion? Apparently it's a known issue since November 2009, but the fix is pending... Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:34:00 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19797#19797 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/entry/19797 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19796#19796 I was interested in improving the performance of my test cases, so I decided to write a few profiling methods so I can analyse what is taking the most time (the first fundamental rule of optimisation: know what to optimise). The preliminary results (executed only on a single large test case of 9 test methods) are interesting: 13% of the time is spent inferring model elements; 54% of the time is spent executing code generation; 4% of the time is spent copying previously generated (cached) code generation files; and 29% of the time is spent actually navigating the generated application. However, these results are affected by the code generation cache. If I only consider the first test method (i.e. there is no way to reuse previously cached information), I get a more accurate representation of the necessary time for a single test case (which does very little web application navigation): Here we can see the initial inference time and the initial code generation time - notice they are identical (in seconds) to the overall test time. If we remove these constant costs, we can get a picture of the average cost per test case: 12% is spent loading from cache; 11% is spent waiting for AJAX calls to return; and 70% is spent navigating around the application otherwise. More investigation is necessary to actually see which parts of my tests I need to focus optimisation on (by profiling the entire test suite, for example). Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:40:25 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19796#19796 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/entry/19796 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19794#19794 My favourite shops are stationery shops. I also love this time of year - say the last few days before I go back to school. I love getting my books and new pencils and pens and things. It makes me happy. This year I intend on being so organized! I'm going to get a noticeboard that is half whiteboard along with the MUSA wall planner (I've decided that I like looking at the whole year rather than just 1 month at a time) so I can more effectively organize myself. Apparently pre-reading IS a good thing to do before class. Luckily - no great big hunking textbooks this year! So I hope we get study guides as I can just read that on the bus at 7am. Oh dear lord the first few weeks of getting on the bus at 7 is going to kill me. I read some interesting things on some "study skills" websites that if you have 2+ classes in a row then read the reading for the last class that you have first. I'm also getting a bigger lab coat and locker if MUSA offers them. Actually, do any of you ex-Massey students know if MUSA does that and if they do, how much they are? I'm also going to put in my time table when I have time to do pre-readings and lecture reviews. I've still got my dictaphone so I can record lectures and I do intend on going to every single one unless I'm sick. All that being said I'm so excited about starting 2nd year! I'm not liking this heat though. Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:22:00 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19794#19794 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/entry/19794 http://journals.jevon.org/users/koneko/?showid=19793#19793 Like any typical Friday night activity, I decided to google myself, just to see what came up. It's kinda creepy to see what people can find just by doing a simple search. For serious, I think it's time I changed some of my privacy settings so that my social networking pages aren't plastered all over google. And then, what's this? My Jevon's journal at #4 :P... Maybe I'll make that my activity for Saturday night ;D (In all honesty, it's not something to take lightly, this day in age. People get fired if photos of their drunken escapades fall into the wrong hands. But we're not that silly now, are we ;)) Meh, I can't be bothered writing anything more substantial this evening. Let's just say that I've been a devil with the credit card in the past two weeks. Weddings are damn-expensive. But! So far, I've got my wedding dress from Sydney, wedding shoes from Brisbane and bridal veil from Melbourne. The interwebz is awesome. And I'm cool. Goodnight! Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:10:37 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/koneko/?showid=19793#19793 http://journals.jevon.org/users/koneko/entry/19793 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19792#19792 Ah, Latex - you come from a world where content-presentation separation was novel, and things were done in crazy stack-based assembly languages. It took me the last five hours to work out how to get my thesis draft formatted in a different font. Quite ridiculous. This week I am looking at working on a draft on my thesis. I want to understand how much work I have ahead of me. Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:30:44 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/?showid=19792#19792 http://journals.jevon.org/users/jevon-phd/entry/19792 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19788#19788 My mum and step dad are thinking of moving to Christchurch. Should I be feeling as anxious about this as I am now? If they do decide to go (which could happen TONIGHT when I only found out herb was going to scope it out today, last night) things could happen very quickly for me. I'd need to find a new house etc but I don't want to make any comittments until I know for certain. I won't be visiting much - I vowed never to go back to the south island. I GOT INTO SECOND YEAR! Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:03:22 +0800 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/?showid=19788#19788 http://journals.jevon.org/users/MyAddiction/entry/19788