the corner office

I'm just storing this as a bit of personal history so I can look back one day and see if this still makes sense, in less than 20 seconds, and without resorting to pencil and paper.

s(Stacks, [Stack1, [Top1 | Stack2] | OtherStacks]) :-
  del( [Top1 | Stack1], Stacks, Stacks1),
  del( [Stack2, Stacks1, OtherStacks]).

Because it sure didn't make sense, in less than 20 seconds, without pencil and paper, this evening :-(

Wading my way through the subjects, back to Artificial Intelligence and Prolog, which is nothing like riding a bicycle. It's been months since I worked on it, and the last time round was quite a cram, so I'm having to start at square 1, again. Thank heavens I blogged about what I'd done to get my environment up and running, else I'd be going through the same grief all over again.

On the up side, once the backlog with AI is done, I've only got one subject that I'm behind with - Data Structures and Algorithms. Since they're the most lenient with their assignment policy, that subject has played second (actually, 10th) fiddle to the everything else. There's plenty of work to be done before then, and the pressure's still on, but thankfully there's light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and it isn't a proverbial choochoo train.

Jeez. When I saw a Steers ad for their new 'phat burgers' I thought it just marketing fluff... but no. The new Phat Burgers are huge! burp

Still snowed under with assignments, and pretty long hours at work, too.

Got an SMS a few days ago for an Alcatraz 10th reunion party at the Horror Cafe at the end of October. I haven't been out jorling in ages, and I'm quite keen to go. Being pedantic though, it wasn't called Alcatraz 10 years ago. I started going to the club in early '94, when it already been renamed to AliceD, and then late '94, early '95 it quickly became Sanctuary, then Ecstasy, then a bricked-up basement. Anyway... these sorts of things always promise to be fun. Yes, one could get all cynical about it, but it'll be a real nostalgic trip, with lots of thirty-somethings with spreading midriffs and respectable haircuts squeezing into tight jeans and faded Sisters of Mercy and Skinny Puppy t-shirts. Cool!

The study-go-round is still going on in full swing, so no real fun stuff happening at the moment. We went to register to vote yesterday morning. In the past we've always voted at Northcliff Primary School, which is just a few hundred metres down the road from us. It turns out that we're just past the border of the Northcliff ward, so we're actually part of another ward, and got sent off to register at the Berario Rec Club, which must itself be about 500 metres from Northcliff Primary as the crow flies. Anyhoo, we found the rec club, and got ourselves registered and our ID books barcoded in about 5 minutes. Nice and easy.

There was also a teddy bear expo going on at the club, and we had a quick look-see. There were bears of every shape and size, and dare I say it, personality. Some of them truly amazing... works of art, except that I can't dispel the image of little kids puking all over them, ripping arms and legs and eyes and ears off and generally putting these cute little creations through several kinds of hell. What really got me though is the scale of this expo. Sure, you'd expect a few people to be teddy-bear makers and that there'd be something of a cottage industry, selling these bears through flea markets and specialist toy shops. No way... a huge hall packed to the brim with teddy-bear makers, raw material suppliers, the whole 9 yards. A hard-core subculture of teddy bear people living and prospering right under our very noses. Very obscure.

Apart from that, it's hard to avoid the on-going back-and-forthing and mountain of media and footage of Katrina and New Orleans. Again, this Internets thing has changed the world so much. In the past, you'd get the Sunday papers and see a few shocking pictures and a few write-ups. Now, there are a zillion people talking about it, writing about their experiences, arguing about who's right and who's wrong and who should be fired and who should be praised, picking apart the news and discussing every minute detail of everything. On top of that, so much footage - web cam feeds, photo albums and literally thousands upon thousands of photos from amateurs to pros. Instead of a single newspaper or two, there are articles and op-eds from dozens and dozens of papers, all of which is out there and accessible by a few clicks. I've seen the term 'disaster pornography' being used, and it seems quite apt, even for a superficial onlooker. I'm not sure that my life is done any favours by aimlessly reading and seeing so much, when there's so much else I could be doing. But it's there, and it's hard to drag oneself away from it.

Apart from that, I have actually managed to get through more university work this weekend. I'm currently plowing into what I've realised is my most enjoyable subject this year - advanced database theory. Living in a relational SQL world now, this is the one course which probably has the most relevance to what I do day to day. It seems that after spending the past few years studying database theory, and SQL on a 'vocational' level, this course is finally the real nitty gritty. (I must admit that a number of my honours courses feel like that this year). Getting deep, deep under the hood and starting to get insights into things that you're sort of aware of but don't have to truly understand to use a database. Fascinating stuff.

I was clicking through blogs and came across John Scalzi's post: Being Poor. His post hits you hard, and the long, long list of replies of other people's experiences hit you even harder.

I've never been "poor", but in a single-parent family we grew up having to 'be careful', learning to appreciate the value of things and sometimes making do with just a bit less than others around us did. I know that my mom made a lot of sacrifices to make sure that my sister and I didn't go without. I can't pretend to fully understand the desperation and want that some of these people have suffered through, (and definitely not the even more wretched desperation that many people in my own country suffer through), but some of these comments do strike a personal chord.

Being humbled by the reminder of how fortunate we are for the things we do have, and often take for granted, is no bad thing.

Multiple blog posts in one day, after days of silence. It goes without saying, it's the first of the month, the ADSL cap has been lifted, and I'm all studied out. Still got a mountain of work to get through before I'm up to date, but I've been buried in books and journal articles all week and I've had enough, dammit.

I will say, it's pretty shocking firing up Bloglines, and seeing gazillions (OK, hundreds) of posts after being out of action for a few days. Over the past few months I've probably halved the number of blogs I follow, but it's still a pretty time-consuming (pre)occupation if you add it all up.

There was an interesting discussion tonight on the MoneyWeb Power Hour on Radio 2000, about where our petrol price is headed. Next week will see an increase of around 23c. It was going to be 18c, until Hurricane Katrina. As it stands, there's a 90c underrecovery on the petrol price. The only reason we're not getting nailed a full 90c next week is because the monthly price adjustments are based on averages for the full prior month. What that means is we won't see a major price bump now, but if the huge refining setbacks caused by Katrina aren't sorted out soon, we're in for a nasty surprise come October.

Some interesting numbers which came out of the show: the current petrol price is split into about R3 overseas cost (ie. suppliers) and R2.50 going to duties (ie. tax) and local margins and supply costs. Also petrol duties net the government around R18 billion a year. Nothing to sniff at.

The one thing that amazes me is that we've managed to maintain a circa-4% inflation rate despite the jumps in the fuel price. The only way I can explain it is that (a) our inflation would be far lower without these oil price increases, (b) the stronger rand is helping to offset some of the inflationary pressures, and (c) something has to give, eventually.

New Orleans is one American city that Ronwen and I have always wanted to visit. It seems like the city dodged the bullet when Hurricane Katrina veered off of course at the last moment, sparing the city from the obliteration that was being predicted yesterday. Even so, it sounds like a particularly unpleasant part of the world to be in right now.

Following on from the previous topic, I got the following SMS yesterday: "You could win a R500.00 gift voucher if u book to attend SAICA's event for under-35 CAs (etc etc)".

Apart from the fact that I'm getting cell-phone spam from them, when even a stodgy old institution like the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants is using sms-speak, you have to wonder what the world is coming to.

On the subject of change, I just noticed that the Vodacom Voicemail Voice has changed. For like, forever, we've been listening to one lady telling us how many new messages we have, and please press 1 to listen to them, and now there's a new voice at the end of the line. It's completely irrational, I admit, but am I the only one who feels totally weird about this?

Via a work colleague, A Parent's Primer to Computer Slang, from those thoughtful folks at Microsoft.

A very clever idea, I think. Get the fogies all hip with leetspeek, "Johnny, j00 better 33t yr c4rr0tz0rs or I'll 0wn j00", and in no time the youf will be giving it up as a bad idea, and reverting to something like, y'know, real English.