14 Nov 2006
Went and got back my last assessment for English 1005 today. Predictably, nothing pleasant, but only shy 5% of a pass. (The exam can still make me pass). I pity anyone reading my uni transcript in the future, because I’m on track for a distinction (I need a meagre 59 in the exam) in the other English course I’m doing this semester, and aiming for an HD (I would need 92 in the exam) just to make the contrast all the more confusing.
And I think I’m finally starting to get this modernity thing, too. Way to pull it together in the last week, the course has been fun but completely thematically unsound up until earlier today! My only concern with the exam for that subject is that the first part requires close textual analysis (which I haven’t started yet) of a poem, and I’m afraid I’m going to try and go all functional grammar ninja and try to open up a can of experiential analysis on its ass, managing only to cut myself on the can as the poem runs away shouting war slogans.
Very modern.
So, hopefully I will avoid slightly more, err, exotic forms of analysis and just stick to the sensible stuff. Either way, it’s reassuring to know that at least in one of my English subjects this semester I could continue to do the don’t-write-anything-in-exam-and-still-pass dance. One of these days I’ll put in enough work to get good at all my subjects for that semester. One day.
14 Nov 2006
Direct from Kingsford Maccas.
It’s also on Google Video if you’re not Flash-friendly (they offer MP4 downloads as well as the in-site Flash and proprietary GVP (Google video player) rubbish).
Alluded to in the video, “myspace audience” are located at myspace.com/morbelli. Not up at time of writing.
13 Nov 2006
I just discovered (thanks Tori) the past papers for ENGL1025 from 2005 and 2004, to bitter disappointment. The texts are different enough from the bulk of the ones we’ve looked at that the focus is mainly unhelpful, and the wording of the questions fall victim to the vicissitudes of academics constantly trying to out-perform themselves in turgidity and profuse obscurity”
‘The texts of modernity seem transfixed between an ardent longing for certainties and the knowledge that certainties are impossible to discover.’
Explore this conundrum in two or more texts on the unit.
That is an amusing example: who would have thought one would encounter the word “conundrum” in an examination context? It is simply indulgent and the opposite extreme of last week’s featured administrative prose from the same institution. A happy compromise, if indeed there is one, is not immediately apparent!
But, let it be noted, this particular textual brutality appears to be vastly more prevalent amongst the modernists (and onwards) in the English department … but maybe that’s just me being prejudiced against certain ways of thinking ;-)
12 Nov 2006
From Apple’s Quicktime Pro webpage:
Professional studios around the world spend millions of dollars and man-hours producing commercial entertainment. Please don’t steal their work or in ten years, it will cost $50(2) to see a movie in the theater [sic]. But, you can find lots of material on the Web that’s legal to cut, copy and remix. Look for the Creative Commons license and add to the world’s culture.
(2) Exaggerated estimate.
What. The.
It’s hard to tell whether they’re mocking the MPAA’s of the world or being serious. In which case, it’s great to see they’re being honest, but, again… what the?
Oh, and I still haven’t bought Quicktime Pro. I went there via their trailers site and saw this line in the footer: “Broken Movie icons? QuickTime 7 is now required to view Trailers- and it’s free.”
Clearly, Quicktime 7 isn’t free if you paid for 6. And, so far as I know, there’s no way to run multiple versions of Quicktime in tandem. So if you want to be able to view new generation content being created, you’re basically locked into a continual upgrade cycle. Which is a load of crap.
Also a load of crap is their Australian pricing for Quicktime Pro, which is $AU44 versus $US29 (about $AU38 at time of writing). The bits are identical. Don’t charge me more. I have foreign exchange transaction fees added to my card if I purchase something in a different currency, but it’s not anything near six dollars (try twenty cents or something ridiculously small). And it doesn’t cost you six dollars more to send an email to Australia instead of to your US customers.
I’m in this bizarre pseudo-closed-source land at the minute and I’m really fearful for the longevity of content sitting where I am now. In terms of relative openness, Apple aren’t looking too crash hot right at the minute…
11 Nov 2006
If everyone were to stop hiring or outsourcing to people that did rubbish work for six months, that should be sufficient for them to either starve, find non-IT-related employment (or at least IT-related employment far enough away that they wouldn’t piss off the rest of us), or become at least slightly proficient.
Assuming that the average IQ of developers is not so dim that, if the Matrix were real, a room full of us would struggle to light an LED, this might even go some way to resolving the gargantuan labour shortages with which the industry is presently faced. Latest is that even Bangladore (or whatever non-Westernised name they are wanting to be known by now, I can’t remember it) are anticipating having only one-third of required workers based on current growth rates within the next year or two.
Incidentally, if anyone knows a decent developer (preferably with a Python background, but that’s not essential…) who would be keen on working for a Christian organisation full time for about three months, pass on their details. I’m not fussed about working from home or not, but ideally they would be based in Sydney and able to come into the CBD once a week or as required. Remuneration commensurate to experience and all the rest of that. Nothing’s finalised yet, but this would be for a start in early January. After the three month period there would be occasional contracted/casual maintenance.
Just putting this out there in case anyone’s looking for work or has heard of someone with the right skills that is. My strong preference is for someone who is aligned with the goals of the project to come on board (it’s a website for enabling Christian youth ministries to use the Internet more effectively… so, Christian applicants who are motivated in the same ways by the same thing)… but if things don’t work out then obviously first preference is someone I know/is recommended over having to do the whole CV-trawling, cold-interviewing trip.
Will post more once I get around to making some decisions (sometime after exams, which finish next Friday, allowing me to catch up on about a month of untouched work!)