Chris Alexander

I was given the Jobs biography for Christmas, and while I made a start a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t really progressed beyond the first couple of chapters.

This is for a number of reasons, which are mostly not anybody’s fault.

It’s not actually the content that’s doing it. Overall it’s written pretty well and stories are told well. There have been a few bits I haven’t liked so far, but that’s not really something to complain about.

By far the biggest issue with the book is that it is a book. As in, made out of dead trees. I have the hardback and it weighs an absolute TON. It is almost impossible to read in bed it is so large. There are no highlighting capabilities (discounting vandalism) and I can’t read it in the office as well as at home without having to carry it around (which is, incidentally, entirely impractical). I can’t search it (other than page by page) and there’s no built in dictionary functionality.

This all may sound like a joke but I assure you, I have come across each of these issues in the short amount of time I have been reading the book. Quite spoilt by the Kindle, no doubt.

Thinking of books, I was sat in a lecture today and was recommended a hefty tome on Cybernetics for subject background. Now, at the end of my degree, having bought a grand total of 3 books for the entire 4.5 years so far (one of which I would be quite happy to burn, those of you in the department may know it as Software Engineering) I somehow feel compelled to start collecting these books to form some kind of small library to help me remember bits of my degree when I inevitably start work in a completely unrelated field and build robots for fun in the evenings (Robotics has always been a hobby more than a career for me). Perhaps I will buy one with my first pay packet.

First of all, it has come to my attention that a number of people read my blog. Upon reflection with a friend and colleague today this was a surprise to both of us (he was referring to surprise over his own blog having readership). He pointed out that we both treat them like private diaries, but in public, which I think is true and potentially dangerous if I ever get caught napping thinking nobody is reading.

On to the topic I was intending to talk about – swarm robotics.

Other Chris and I have been having a bit of fun with this topic – not because we are working on swarm robotics, but because it seems like 50% of the MEng finalists are doing something to do with swarm robotics.

This is a bit of a joke for us. There are a number of reasons which I shall enumerate:

1) There is not the budget to do a properly working robot swarm. The budget is £100. I have spent that on 25% of a robot (it’s all my own money – no I don’t mind this, no I don’t intend to let the Uni get their hands on my robot, yes it was far easier to spend my own money than go through the Uni procurement process; any more questions?). How you intend to build a swarm of robots with £100 and 9 months I’m not sure. You may be able to build 1, 3, 5, 10, or even 20 at a real push, but as one of my lecturers made the point today, 20 isn’t a swarm of robots. I would say 100 isn’t. It’s probably when you’re getting well into the 1000′s that it is actually a swarm. Good luck making robots for 10p each.

2) As one of my colleagues pointed out, what’s the point in doing a swarm project, if you can’t make one robot do what you want yet?

3) Today our lecturer listed around 10 acronyms for various swarm intelligence algorithm families. I could get one or two (but I am not doing swarm robotics as my project, hence why I am on this module to learn), most of the class got one tops. One guy got nearly all of them – I assume his project is swarm robotics, and I do wonder what the others have been up to if they couldn’t list those algorithm classes. Presumably not background research.

This is bit different from the usual programming, I’m not making any guarantees about content going forwards!

At the risk of sounding like a fourteen year old girl, this is a great interview with Taylor Swift.

(I fully realise not only do I discuss Taylor Swift in that previous sentence, but also link to a Vogue article. If this concerns you, please do not read on. I also posted this entry on my blog. That’s fine, as I figure nobody reads it anyway.)

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Tomorrow is my first lecture of what I have come to define as my final term at Uni.

I say it is my final term because the actual final term (which doesn’t start until April and lasts until very nearly July) will consist of a couple of exams, a couple of robot demos then a whole lot of dossing off (not working, for those who thought what I just said was rude).

There’s something else interesting that I’ve noticed having been through this “night before the start of term” thing more than a few times over the years. I think this is the first time I genuinely haven’t been nervous about the day to come.

Whether it was junior school (where I was just ill), high school (where I really didn’t want to be) or – I’m not afraid to admit – University, I never seem to have gotten over the pre-term apprehension. Except this time.

I should imagine this is largely because I’m going back to uni for a nice break. I can scale back on the work, do a bit of the “student” thing (not much, mind) and generally enjoy being sat at the back of a cold room slowly obtaining knowledge I’m likely not going to need past July 2nd.

I’m being cynical. I would be lying if I said I didn’t love every single second of uni. Except when idiot classmates swear adamantly that Shanghai’s not in China (this actually happened two weeks after I’d been there). Other than that it’s all good.

It’s also a sign of the times that my preparation for the lecture tomorrow is to charge and locate a new notebook for the digital pen and charge the iPad. If only I could have seen myself 5 years ago when I started this all off. It is 2012, after all.

I get annoyed at this website every year so I thought I’d write down the list to make myself feel better.

It requires both https and www components of the URL, and gives you a pretend Internet Explorer error message when you don’t do it instead of redirecting you. -5 internet points for just being annoying

It authenticates through HTTP headers, except it returns HTTP 200 on any authentication, even if it isn’t right – which means you have to re-authenticate through their form and have no opportunity to re-login. -5 internet points for failing to implement HTTP properly

It is pot luck what your username is – its either just your username, or sometimes it’s prefixed with “rdg-home\”, presumably the authentication domain. -5 internet points for being stupidly inconsistent

If you are forced to re-authenticate through their form and have to prefix with “rdg-home\”, the form input is not long enough (only 15 characters, enforced through max-length) by default to accommodate a full username string. I presume laypeople just don’t log on, but you can modify the form with the DOM inspector in your favourite (useful) browser. -10 internet points for being damned stupid and useless

The default options are useless. There’s no “My timetable, this working week” button (so the weekends take you to the next week, not the current week which they do at the moment). The default layout is impossible to comprehend. Even the layout that is possible to comprehend uses popups to display information such as the room number, which don’t work on touch-based devices at all. -25 internet points for being a total usability fail

There is no option to export your timetable in any form. I don’t care even if its CSV, at least you can get the data out. I guess it would be too much to ask for a useful calendar format. -25 internet points for failing basic interoperability stuff

The website goes down the first day of term and the last Sunday before the start of term while countless freshers hammer it trying to figure out if they have to get up in the morning. -10 internet points for not scaling to your predicted user base, let alone “web scale”.

Further complaints in comments please.