James Bond

I loved Casino Royale.

I didn't even mind the non-stop, no-story action of Quantum of Solace the first time I saw it. I thought Daniel Craig was an interesting Bond, he'd obviously decided he wasn't going to ham it up; just play it straight and tough and I appreciate that in a secret agent.

However, I've been reading Thunderball, the James Bond story that introduces his nemesis Blofeld and all I can say is that the book Bond is an infinitely more interesting and likeable character. He's unashamedly smart, witty, not quite as self assured as movie Bond, and is a much more believable lady killer. I think that I shall research the Bonds of the past and report back on the blog on whom I think is the best match to the book - and then who I like the most.

Off to spend Christmas in The North.

Tomorrow I leave for 5 weeks in Sweden (with a weekend in London). I will make the most of my post uni holiday by spending time in Norrköping, Falköping and Göteborg. I'm looking forward to reading some James Bond on the plane, the cool weather (a chance to use my gloves from Antons) and of course to catch up with special people.

I'm not looking forward to bad airport coffee, running out of laptop batteries at some point during the flight and manky hair.

The song of the weekend is Little Lion Man:

Seven years of robots.

At the completion of seven years of an engineering degree (seven rather than six as I spent 18 months working full time) I guess I should post some form of summary; my thoughts on Computer Science, Robotics, Swinburne, etc. I  don't really have the energy to do that at the moment as I've spent the last few months working flat out on our final year project and a number of assignments, I feel a bit fried. I also think that these thoughts form over time, attempting to tease them out now when everything is so fresh may not lead to anything too valuable.

However, I would like to point out that the best parts of my course were the people that I met. I've worked with people who are infinitely more intelligent than me, much more likeable, and even some with more style. These are people who I would contact straight away if I was about to start a venture, if I needed advice or a question answered, but best of all people who I will always look forward to sharing a drink with.

Lines (and lines and lines and lines...) of Code

I shall post a summary of all of the interesting things I've learned in Software Deployment and Evolution when I'm revising for the exam. In the meantime though this is a good example of why any company that thinks lines-of-code is a good metric compared to 'bits-of-functionality-actually-implemented' is a company to stay away from.

The Daily WTF: The Ultimate State Selector

My professor explained that he was once tasked with investigating a contractor who had recently failed deliver any real functionality - despite an increase in code size and hardware requirements. It turned out that the contractor had created a script to auto generate sutb/empty classes... thousands of them. Of course large, successful companies don't get where they are without precise standards and expectations on deliverables. So just how long did the contractor get away with this? Surely at most a month or two before someone said "Where is feature X? No... 3 years!! The contractor spent 3 years and a million dollars delivering nothing before anyone guessed something was amiss.

There is room for improvement.

Machinarium

To avoid doing any homework I have started playing Machinarium.

You point and click your robot through a beautifully designed environment, solving puzzles and helping other robots. It isn't too difficult and it's the first game I've played for more than 10 minutes since Grand Prix Legends (which came out in 1998). Best of all it only costs $20!

Ramses the humanoid

We seem to be getting together a blooper reel for our final year project (the humanoid robot named Ramses). This is one of his many 'freakouts'.

Nassim Taleb's essay on The Limits of Statistics

This essay by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is fantastic:

The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics

The abstract doesn't quite do the essay justice. It's main contention is that there is a realm in which statistical and model based decisions are entirely flawed. There is no model that can predict the impact or return of rare events of great consequence.

Nassim Taleb is one of the few people whom when I read I feel entertained, smarter and generally inspired to be a better human. I read in this article that he follows a paleo diet (which despite not really following at all I have a lot of time for) and earns $60,000 a lecture; how can you not be inspired by this man?