The video from Granda's funeral is up on YouTube and available to the public.

It's a wonderful video. It sums him up in many ways. In my life, he was such a constant. It never even occurred to me that there were people out there - people I knew - who'd never met him. So, for you, here it is.



Credit goes to Leanne and Nana.

My granda died this morning.

He went in for a knee operation the other day. This morning he was shaving and collapsed. They tried to revive him, but he's gone.

Fuck.

I take issue with the use of the term destinies in this question. It kind of goes at odds with the spirit of the second option...

Anyway, the answer is that I do not believe in fate, in that I do not think things happen for a reason. I think it's possible that the universe, and therefore our actions, are deterministic. The general scientific opinion is that it is not, but there is legitimate doubt.

Quite simply, there's no reason to think that things happen for a reason. In hindsight, we see many patterns, and we tend to place emphasis on those events which match it. I could say that events in my life have conspired to make me the person I am today, but would I not be able to say that no matter who I became?

Two Dr Hook albums. Not for the fact that they're Dr Hook, but that I bought two that were almost identical, but each of which had some songs the other lacked that I wanted. Now I have dupes in my library. How embarrassing...

I listen to them every so often. They're kind of memory lane songs for me. Nice to have handy, but not something I'd listen to very often.

I keep it very much to myself. Outside of my family, I've not met anyone (my own age) who likes them.

Happy 90210 Day.

It's that time of year again. The day that marks the beginning of this country's most violent period. On this day, some 222 years ago, the British Empire landed on this island, declared it devoid of intelligent life, and proceeded to slaughter the intelligent life that did exist here, because no one likes being wrong.

It's also the day that all those people who were so enraged by John Howard's refusal to apologise for the transgressions of those long dead celebrate the beginning of the slaughter and oppression, mostly by chowing down on the flesh of those somewhat more recently dead.

There are things I like about Australia. I like the standard of living. I like the liberties and rights we enjoy (not perfect, but as far as they go, we're pretty lucky). I like that you can drive for an hour from the heart of the densest population centre in the country and find yourself in a rural area.

I don't mean to be anti-Australia. If people are really proud to be Australian, that's great. This day, however, does not mark the beginning of a glorious era. It marks the beginning of a great deal of pain and human suffering. It marks the decline of a rich and ancient culture.

For one day of the year, everyone becomes proud to be Australian. So proud that it can only be expressed with cheap flags they got for $2 at the Reject Shop. So proud that the police have put on extra patrols to combat drunken violence. So proud that the entire definition of what it means to be Australian is reduced to cricket, thongs, and VB, eschewing that whole multicultural part of Australian society (although implicit in this is that it is respected the rest of the year).

Where are the cars flying the Australian flag the rest of the year? Where is the Australian flag themed swimwear, the unexplainable tolerance for bad beer, the spontaneous chorus of "Aussie Aussie Aussie"? For 364 days of the (non-leap) year, most of us live here, and are relatively comfortable, then this day hits and everyone gets this rush of patriotic guilt.

I like living in Australia. It's not my first choice, but it's high up there. I like living here no more on this day than any other, although I do like it a little less.

Our spring session report is due in on Thursday. Appropriately, we allocated sections on Friday, with the goal of submitting them on the weekend for editing.

I got mine in kind of late, on Monday night. I felt bad, but it was necessary: I spent my time trying to get the damn thing working instead.

I felt particularly bad seeing how early the guys doing hardware got their stuff in. The guys doing hardware were James and Will. These are the guys who took a month to get out parts ordered, ended up ordering the wrong sensor, and built a faraday cage to house an RF module. So, they're useless, but they got their stuff in on time. Sigh.

Well, I decided to check up on their section. I had a quick glance, and sure enough, they'd not only ordered the wrong sensor, but they'd written about the wrong sensor. I replied telling them of this, and got to studying for our test (easy D, by the way).

So, I got home today and played with the sensor a bit. Got some output, then my sensor fucked up, and now it's too late to keep dropping heavy things in the bathtub. So, I thought I'd finish off my section, since I still need to include the results of some of this testing and a lot of code. While doing so, it occurred to me that they may not have received my message. I figured I could just go in and rewrite that part for the new sensor myself, so I opened it up.

The hardware section is split into two parts: electronic hardware, and enclosure (with considerations such as pressure equalization). The autumn report contained nothing about the enclosure, but it did have stuff about the electronics. I wrote it, and I figured they'd borrow pretty heavily from it, which is good because they have no idea.

So, I was reading through what they'd written. It seemed familiar. I've noticed a new sensation in the past few weeks. It's a mixture of dread and amusement, associated almost exclusively with the impending revelation of complete failure on behalf of my teammates. I opened up the copy of the autumn report that had been put up, and compared.

From what I can see, the following represents the total difference between the corresponding sections. For the record, this section came to a total of 592 words in the autumn report.


Autumn:
This inexpensive module is designed to deliver a clean 3.3V. The module is designed to deliver rechargeable power: it includes a AA battery holder.

Spring:
This inexpensive module is designed to deliver a clean 3.3V with an surplus power being delivered to a rechargeable battery housed on the underside of the module.


I'm not exaggerating. You can figure out from this how long their section was. There was not a single letter or punctuation mark different other than this.

I'm not quite sure what's pissing me off most about this: that they so blatantly copied my work, or that on the one sentence they did change they couldn't even use good grammar.

The parts for our project have finally arrived!

For some reason, our second microprocessor was an Atmega16, not a 16L. This is not terrible, and may actually work in our favour. There's not really any need to have a 3.3V chip for the indoor unit, since it runs from mains. I can just step down for the XBee module, and this means the buzzer will possibly be louder.

Also, he ordered the wrong pressure sensor. I told him to order the new one, rather than the one on the list, but to be fair, he ordered the parts almost three weeks after that. Anyway, I have the sensor we're using, so it just means our budget will look a little off, and I'll have a spare high-resolution, slow sensor I don't know how to use...might be interesting to see if I can get it working over the break?

More interestingly, I now have our solar module. I can finally find out if our project will be able to run, or whether the parts will just sit there, dead. This should be interesting!

So, testing will start tomorrow. I'll have to look into some more efficient serial code tonight. The code we were given is far too jittery and slow. Selwyn mentioned having seen some code that does it better, so I might hit him up for a link when he comes online.

Also, report's due next week. Ahh, fuck. We're doing our final report on a project that's just entering its main testing phase. This is going fantastically.

In happier news, we have our class test for digital hardware next week! Yay! (I'm not being sarcastic. I get really excited about assessments I know I can ace)

The other day, after those in my group finally ordered parts after failing miserably, Will (who did the failing) started messaging me about getting our PCB in. I found this infuriating, although slightly amusing, since it was due to his failing that we could not get it done by the workshop.

His last message for the day read: "Well to make things less stress full if you can send me the dimensions we can get the box welded up in the next week".

I didn't think much of it. I didn't have good dimensions, since certain question about the design were unanswerable at that time (would the solar module be enough, did we need regulation, etc). Yesterday, they started badgering me for dimensions. I told them I was not at home, and would get it for them later.

I forgot. Got a message this morning urging me to send dimensions. So, I quickly overestimated, and sent the dimensions off.

Some time later, a thought occurred to me. It was a word from that message. Welded. I suddenly felt as though I'd been dropped. I messaged Will, asking him what material we were using for the enclosure. Some time later, the answer came back: aluminium.

If I've not said it before, one of the main features of this project is wireless communication, using XBee modules (which implement the Zigbee standard). Zigbee is essentially radio, with a lot of layers to obscure the implementation and make it easy for the developer to make a wireless network. What Will and James had designed to protect this module from the elements was a faraday cage.

So, I called Matt. He can get it made out of plastic for the next week. It should look a damn sight better than aluminium, too. If only someone had actually done what I asked and looked at getting power to the indoor unit, I could get an enclosure made for that, too, but I suppose that would be too much to expect.

When at Uni today, I went to see Brian. I need an extra STK500 to test out wireless stuff, and I figured I'd see if any of our parts have come in yet (I really want to do some testing on the low-power chips we're to be using).

I asked him if the parts for team eight have come in. He had a look around. Asked who ordered it. I give him a few names. Apparently, no order has gone in for our group...

ARGH!

PCB layouts have to be submitted by Friday. FRIDAY! I'm going to be submitting a layout without even having used our final hardware?!

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

They had one fucking job to do. A week after I asked them to order the parts, I ran into one of them, who asked where the parts list was (did you check the forums? Design subsection?). He didn't bother to call me in that week, or email me, he asked me when he ran into me at Uni. That was over two weeks ago, and no fucking order has been placed.

Even if I get a decent layout, I can't give them the parts, which means we'll get a bare PCB we have to solder ourselves and absolutely no margin for error. At this point, a stray strand of molten metal could ruin our project.

I think I was right not to entrust them with any of the design.


EDIT:

I messaged Will, asking how long ago he'd ordered the parts. He replied saying it had taken him ages, and he'd only gotten the order in on Friday.

I call bullshit. It's a pain, but it doesn't take that long. I'm hoping I might be able to catch him putting the order in tomorrow after our lecture ^_^