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[Aug. 7th, 2004|02:40 am] |
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Hey folks, since its been a while since ive updated this properly you're in for a bit of a headrush: First, im done as an undergrad. Scored I in exams and was pretty happy. Found that out while on hols in Yorkshire. Second, im now working at HP once again. Different folk, different project, still totally interesting. Third, i was offered a phd position at the university of edinburgh, only then to find out ive been offered a postgrad award at tcd to do my own project. After much debate i rejected the edinburgh offer and accepted the trinity one - and have generally been greeted with surprized reactions from many folk for the decition. Still, feck them. The fact that i really don't care what they think reaffirms the fact that i made the right decision - which was quite hard to arrive at. It doesnt stop me from regretting the rejection of an opportunity to go live in a wonderful new city for three years - although i'm really not convinced the studentship that i was being offered would cover anything more than fees given i'm a ROI resident and not one of the UK. I've been reminded why being drunk is a bad thing (tm) (and for once it wasnt a self-taught lesson!).. infact im loosing all interest in anything to do with drinking. Been going to the gym (shock horror!) in preperation for the Berger in a few weeks time, which i cant wait for. There's no way ill be fit enough to bottom it unless at a nice slow pace, but we'll see what happens. I've also been brushing up on my french (je droit aller entre lyon et autrans par autobus et j'ai l'impression que les persones francais n'aime pas bien de jeuns comme moi qui parler anglais toujours) (editors note: i wonder if that makes any sense?). *yawn* bored now and going to bed. |
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| Daddy or chips? |
[Jul. 28th, 2004|11:56 am] |
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Well, what would you pick - Daddy or chips? |
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[Jun. 11th, 2004|03:27 pm] |
I didn't get IRCSET funding. I scored 74/100 and fell outside of the 120 who were funded during the first round. Fiar play to everyone who was successful with it though, it's nice to see hard work rewarded.. its unfortunate that more people cant be supported through the scheme though - competition for the awards seems pretty serious, with the lowest successful applicant having an 80/100 score!
Exams are over :) I guess thats pretty obvious since I've had no interest in updating this blog thing *tap tap* since last friday. After an initial hour of being (seriously) peeved off with the final exam the being finished college aspect of the whole fiasco started to sink in (along with the help of a few pints :-)). Dinner at Indigo Yard was fun, mostly because of the big group of us and not so much because of the food (which wasnt as bad as other people seemed to make out). Nightime found us at the capitol bar (with free champaign won by paul + annie!) followed by the odeon. The odeon was crap (imho) and i never want to go there again. Nasty results are out on the 18th :(
Tomorrow im off on holidays caving in yorkshire for 10days.. cant wait. An entire year with only 2-3 trips away has been driving me crazy.. It seems everyone else is away on holidays over the next couple of days too. We deserve it! A long year of proper work.. surely this isnt what lies ahead for us!?
I forgot what it was like to be bored. I discovered it on monday after enjoying two days of watching crap tv, going to gers birthday and the like. Thankfully things are starting to get busy again now.. |
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[May. 31st, 2004|10:54 am] |
Five days to go.
Five days to go.
Dum-diddley-aye-didley-aie-didddley-do.
That is all. |
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[May. 20th, 2004|12:24 am] |
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Marc told me to update my blog today. So here it is. It seems I'm too ugly to have my photo on his blog-feed-thingie on his website :( |
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[Apr. 29th, 2004|01:10 am] |
The FYP saga has come to an end. The report is printed, and the cd's have been burned. All that remains to be done is submit the lot to the comp. sci dept tomorrow and get stuck into study.
I spent the weekend just gone in Fermanagh doing an advanced SRT course. It was pretty good - covered lots of rescue techniques, and some very dodgy photos were taking as people practiced mid rope pickups (think guy-on-guy stradling action!). Ive come to the conclusion that I'm no way near fit enough for the Berger trip and will have to find a cure for the problem soon.
In other news I finally gave blood. I claim that I was tricked into it, but was really just waiting to go over and do it with a crowd - safety in numbers and all that. It was no where near as bad as i expected, and now over a week later my arm is unbruised - a nice change from the last time someone took blood from me for testing!
Im feeling somewhat content at the moment, and aspire to be a window cleaner, yet have been sorting out more stuff for a masters at trinity next year. After four years I think i've had enough of computers, but still.. a masters could be fun. Watch this space. |
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[Apr. 14th, 2004|11:46 pm] |
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Im well impressed. Ive been cited :) From time to time to see if anything ever came from my work at HP i do a quick google search for my name along with keywords from the tech reports i co wrote while working there. And today i got a proper result for one from 2003. Thats put me back in a good mood after realizing ive probably got no chance at getting Ircset funding due to not being properly prepared and totally incapable of writing a three page article on why i am wonderful (aka a 'personal statement'). I think ive been using all my creativing juce on that FYP writeup.. |
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[Apr. 8th, 2004|12:08 am] |
Everyones demo has been going well, as did mine today. Its so nice to be finished, and none of the people at the demo tried to crucify me - which was a pity, its what id been expecting all week! I dont like surprises. Teh demo being finished is a bit of an anticlimax, perhaps it will kick in when i get caving this weekend for the first time in 6months! Annie-of-the-purple-hey-messages and Paul-whom-i-direct-dirty-looks-at both have their demos tomorrow. Despite all her claims to the contrary over the past week Annies looks pretty impressive & at last Paul will stop trying to explain what his is to me (other than a rip off of some guys PhD!). Bring on the weekend!
odd: www.skthoth.com |
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[Mar. 30th, 2004|11:47 pm] |
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Reference counting and the COM architecture are the doing of satan himself! that is all. |
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[Mar. 30th, 2004|04:57 am] |
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test |
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[Mar. 24th, 2004|01:35 pm] |
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- The passport office in Ireland is a shambles.
Do they use email? Aparantly not.
Do they answer the phone? Aparantly not.
Do they provide any good form of customer service if, god forbid, you have to actually go into the passport office? NO.
If you need to make any form of contact with them other than through the 'passport express' service in the post office you're screwed. And they'll take 70euro to do that to you.
Dont get me started on the registry office of marriages, births and deaths :) |
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[Mar. 23rd, 2004|08:59 pm] |
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mmmmmggghhh..... falafel. After eating falafel in the UK last year at the 'falafel king' ive been obsessed by it. So much so i bought all the ingredients and tried to make it at home a few months ago. All i managed to do was make a huge mess which stank though. While in m&s getting food earlier i came across pre-made stuff, just cooked it and it was sooo nice. mmmmmgh falafel. |
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[Mar. 21st, 2004|08:37 pm] |
Thanks god! I just discovered that my FYP demo is wednesday *two* weeks, and not wendesday week as i've been thinking all weekend. Note to self: learn to use a calendar. Note to self (2): get off ass and do some work.
Oh, did you know you can buy pigs ears as a treat for a dog? Not treats that look like pigs ears, but actual real live (erm. dead) pigs ears. With veins and everything. They go *crunch* when a dog bites them. Pigs have such big ears. I was ill when i saw them. |
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[Mar. 20th, 2004|03:06 am] |
This may turn into an anti-religion rant. Beware!
I recently went to see The Passion of The Christ, and despite the warnings of some friends that viewed it before me I was still enthusiastic and joked "sure there's nothing like a good crucifiction". I have no idea what the Irish film examining board were doing when they reviewd this film and stampted it suitable for 15/pg audiences. Its possibly the most horrific voilance i've ever seen in a film that was actually realistic, and other than the blood and guts scences there wasn't very much to the movie.
Like many in Ireland, I went to schools where the religion was roman catholic, and in my time have seen a couple of other films along the lines of this one which gave much more detail about the life of Jesus, but didnt include the explicit graphicness of this film. I dont see why people are running about declaring how this film has changed their lives (they are you know -- go look at the daft americans over here http://www.mylifeafter.com/responses/summary.html). Great, so it shows that Jesus did infact suffer a lot. Wonderfull. I don't think people believed in the past that a person was crucified without any pain, nor that Jesus had an easy life. So why should a film like this "open your eyes" and re-afirm your devotion to a religion, or worse - convert you? If you were religious before the film, fine. If you suddenly feel more pasionate about your religion now you need to consider how it is that a film has had such an impact on all that 'faith' stuff you claimed to have in the past. If you were not religious, nothing should have changed - if it did, well, i suspect that the world of religous fanatics will welcome you with open arms. They're welcome to you!
The only thing that i've taken from the film is (1) the fact that despite a general objection to censorship of films, i now consider the examining board in ireland to be a total waste since they dont seem to have any abilities to determine what age groups films are appropriate for and (2) that ill probably get a bit more involved in amnesty international again now after a prolonged lack-of-doing-anything due to exams, travel, {insert excuse here} |
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[Mar. 12th, 2004|04:22 pm] |
After an entire week I finally left the house today for a couple of hours -- the flu is now only manifesting itself as a sore throat. The reason for the outing? A meeting with my final year project supervisor.
While my project is still more-or-less going to plan, I realized during the meeting that there’s a whole lot more to distributed systems than meets the eye.. which means I’ll be spending the remainder of the weekend re-implementing something which I had already attempted to do. That’s no harm at the moment though; its nice to have motivation and be working on a fun problem for once!
I’m somewhat preoccupied with the fact that Imperial conditionally offered me a place on the MSc. taught course in advanced computing which I applied for. First off is the question of where ill source any cash to go live and study in London for a year if I accept it, and then there’s the problem of the ‘condition’ – receiving a I overall this year. Will see what becomes of my application to Trinity (note to self: get off ass and apply for research funding for Trinity!).
I still havn’t managed to get Java working so that I can do the irish times crossword. This may be a good thing.
Plans are afoot for the trip to the Berger (http://latronche.free.fr/berger) this August. Much fun will be had, but I’ve really got to start training for it..
In other caving news it seems that there’s a new film in the making ‘Primeval Instincts’ – a Potholing horror film (http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/news/newsstory.asp?news_id=15671) . I can’t wait. |
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[Mar. 10th, 2004|09:11 pm] |
I might be colour blind, but the register seems to be blue. Wonder when that happened?
In other news i've still got this damn cold. That wasnt in the 4week plan to make a final year project. On the plus side i've now found my way about this daytime tv thing.. as long as you stay in bed till at least 2 o clock you avoid all the bad stuff.. from there on its things like old er re-runs & countdown, which is a step above ruphus and his fortune-telling friends phonein show.
The web is filled with fun things to do. So far today i've discovered:
http://www.housegymnastics.com/
http://www.yetisports.org/playonline.html# |
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[Mar. 8th, 2004|05:04 pm] |
It appears that I've managed to pick up the flu yet again. All day Friday I felt like crap and put it down to a week of days spent finishing coursework followed by pints in mahaffeys most nights before the last bus; but it seems that I was wrong. It didn’t help that Friday began with a drinks (beer) reception at lunchtime in the oreilly before I had even eaten breakfast. Since Friday night ive spent approximately 42hours asleep. Mmmmgh sleep.
Putting on my positive-hat, im now finished lectures forever. Ok, so there’s that whole final year project thing to get finished, and then there’s exams – but lectures are over and done with. Another day spent drinking OJ and knocking back disprin and I’ll find some motivation to worry about it all.. for the moment I’ll continue watching daytime tv (which isn’t all that its cracked up to be!). |
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devoid_of_anger's journal