A stacking game for you all to enjoy: http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/super-stacker/

Starkey in the national news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3851561/Bursar-who-stole-500000-put-future-of-university-college-at-risk.html

Library

The new library policy has made me very angry. Instead of allowing students to take books out for the duration of the holiday, the books need to be renewed according to their loan length throughout the holiday. I am particularly annoyed because I took out a book before I left Durham (after term had ended) and was given a renew date of three days, however, what I wasn't told was that the book had already been put on hold for someone else. So, now I cannot renew the book and will be fined £1 per day from tomorrow until I return it. I have been slightly lucky though, as the library is closed from Christmas eve until the 5th of January (when I will be returning to Durham) and they cannot charge me the fine between these dates. Still, it is a very silly rule.

SNOW!

For anyone not in Durham, it snowed today, properly!
Best snow I've seen here I believe (I even saw someone wandering around with a snowboard)!
Yay snow!

My entire life...

has been leading up to the point when I can comb bind things, using the comb binding machine, for free...

Brei

Watch out Steph!

Bond complete set

We've just ordered three complete box sets of James Bond DVDs as a house... because you can never have too much Bond.

Chuck is a cat

The other night I caught Chuck drinking water from a bowl... I think he or she was a little drunk.

Wooo Internet

We now have the internet back after forever - woo!

Hilarious?

This is hilarious. Or is it just me?

Nice Weather

I was walking to church this morning, (quite a short walk since it is next door), while thinking to myself - "typical, it's the first day of Autumn and the weather is nicer than it has been all Summer; I can't remember weather this nice since..."* and then it dawned on me that I hadn't actually been outside since walking home from church last week.

Seven days, I think I've just set myself a new record.

*Yes, I did think the semi-colon as well.

RPG - Ridiculously Poor Glogging

Hello everyone.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the summer so far. I have also said very little on here recently, so I thought I'd add a little summary before term begins. Most of my time this summer was spent working on a summer project in the Maths department, I have finished this now and the outcome was an offer of a PhD to start in Durham next October. Apart from that I have done very little to be honest. A few of our housemates have been taken over by the world of online gaming, and I reluctantly (at first) followed suit. It really is quite addictive.

I have just been driven home by Eden. He was surprisingly confident driving on the M1, although when he accidentally ended up in the far right lane of a 5 lane stretch of motorway there was a slight panic! This weekend I am going to London with my Grandma and Auntie to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and to do a bit of sightseeing. This will be followed by a week of catching up with friends and family in Leeds, and then I will be returning to Durham on Monday (29th September). I'm really looking forward to seeing you all again; but for those who won't be returning, I hope you are enjoying life wherever you are and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Chuck xx

P.s. Glogging is the act of writing a blog in the first person...

MMO - Massively Minimal Orator

I realise I have been pretty rubbish on here. I have had more spare time than anyone can have and yet I haven't decided to share any of the the things i have been doing with you lot.... wait.. oh yeah.. thats why. I haven't done anything.

As I said to Sparky today, I am so lethargic i consider some computer games as too much effort. I better stick to grinding then (not in a sexual sense, although to some, it is)

Anyway. the big news is... wait for it... I have bought a car, take a look:

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/advert+search/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146-236,N-9-14-41-109-240/advert.action?R=200808304147541&distance=5&postcode=Dh1+3be&channel=CARS&make=&model=&min_pr=1000&max_pr=3000&max_mileage=60000

Mobile John.... Signing out

Facebook Tetris

Tetris is quite possibly the most addictive game of all time - but the idea to add an online leader board to facebook was truly inspired, you should all download the application, if you haven't all ready.

I don't understand...

It's already 26th August and there is still no sign of Christmas coming in the shops, despite there being less then four months to go... What's going on?

Summer Update

So, my summer so far. Well my lack of blogs has mostly been down to a lack of internet but I am currently on a train with free wifi so here we go:
Stage 1:
Home. After leaving Durham I spent a couple of weeks at home this was very relaxing but quite boring so on to the more interesting stuff:
Stage 2:
Ethiopia. I spent three weeks in Ethiopia doing a mix of teaching children Physics and more tourist-y stuff. It really was a fantastic experience and I can't really begin to explain it all here. Ask me if you want to know!
Stage 3:
Durham. My birthday was spent moving in to the house in Durham and I spent a further three days enjoying lots of lovely sunshine.
Stage 4:
Edinburgh. I have been spending and will be spending the rest of the summer working in Edinburgh. In short, I love Edinburgh and really enjoy the job. Been spending lots of time seeing comedy shows at the fringe festival and exhibitions as part of the arts festival.

Have just popped back to Durham for the weekend to the house and had a lovely time. See you all soon guys!

Boozy stole my bed

I arrived at the house for the first time last night and was horrified to discover that the highlight of my bedroom, (a nice sturdy metal frame bed) had mysteriously decided to teleport itself 2 metres across the hallway and into Boozy's bedroom. Even more mysteriously, the slightly shabby looking mattress that used to adorn my magnificent bed had remained in place, but was now supported by a dated box that looks and feels like it was designed and made by myself in Mrs Finch's year 9 home economics class. Interestingly enough, the stylish mattress in Boozy's room has remained in place, (although of course now supported by a very stylish bed).

Now to be fair to Boozy, I can see that there may be a very good reason why she would prefer this bed... reasons which are probably not suitable to mention here! So I am left with a bit of a dilemma. Should I:

1. Take my bed back and keep it hostage until some sort of deal can be made.
2. Be a gentleman and not respond to her acts of theft, (but keep a careful eye on my cheese in the fridge from now on)
   
3. Reach a compromise, and just take the mattress from her room, letting her keep the bed.

Embracing the spirit of web 2.0, I will welcome your comments and suggestions on this problem and will be soon adding a poll to the website to help inform my decision.

Back from Holiday

Just arrived home from a very relaxing holiday in France.

This week I have:

• Started to design a Slitherlink solver with my Dad
• Become a Five-Star Commander on Elite Beat Agents
• Been converted to Linux, (possibly)
• Become Audiosurf champion of "Shine Jesus Shine"
• Failed to set an Audiosurf time for John Cage's 4'33
• Decided to buy an ultra-portable PC
• Spoke a total of two words in French, one of which was "Margherita", (the French word for Margherita)
  
• Not done any Maths...

I'll be moving in on Monday - and then straight to the Library on Tuesday to catch up on missed time.

Good News Nobody

So I have had a few days to digest the news. Next year I will be a student. Does this mean I will be a grumpy fifth year, or a raving fresher?

<- Is this what I am to become?

Yesterday really was quite a great day of sport. Watched the Grand Prix at the cinema, which was an interesting experience but definitely not worth the money over plain old TV. Was a brilliant race though. An englishman dominating at the British Grand Prix in a British Car (with a German engine). 

Right, I would say something else here; my awful admission. My dark dark secret. I will never tell... Am I the biggest nerd of the house? Is the end of the world....?

P.S. Who is this "John" in Chuck's post.... "That's not my name!"

"Working from home"

I will be returning to Durham next weekend, on Saturday afternoon to be more precise. For this week though, I am working from home... which basically means I have to read a few papers and look at a couple of websites from the comfort of my own bedroom... and get paid! Hurray! I like this job. 

In the week that has passed since I left Durham I haven't really done anything particularly exciting. I took my tortoise to the pet shop to check it's sex; went to a barbeque; bought Eden's graduation present (which I am rather pleased with) and unpacked. Unpacking did seem slightly unnecessary seeing as it was only for two weeks, but unfortunately most of my clothes needed washing. 

Well, this would have been a more interesting blog if my tortoise had in fact been male and I had to face the dilemma that his name was Tallullah. Unfortunately "it's tail hangs in the middle" as the man in the pet shop said, so I'll have to work harder next week to make my life more interesting...

The house is ours!

So, we've owned the house for 24 hours now - and we're still all talking to each other... (Well I doubt that anybody other than Chuckspresence have talked to each other today as we're all miles apart from each other, but at least nobody is actively not talking to anybody else... (Well I assume that you're not, although to be fair I haven't heard anything from any of you today, so maybe you are all avoiding me?))

In other news, I managed to fix my new computer this evening, so I am now officially unpacked.

Wanted: One film with an ending please. Must have own internal coherence.

So I just saw Wanted and I have to say it wasn't what I expected. Okay that's a lie; all I really expected was Angelina Jolie to get naked at some point and that box remains thoroughly ticked. I'm still left a bit wanting though (and not just for Angelina Jolie).

Wanted is a film about a guy who is picked up out of his ordinary humdrum life and firmly plonked in the middle of an assassin war. So far, so good. But the first twenty minutes of the film are just a slightly less funny version of Office Space, and whilst the middle section contains the obligatory, and in this case reasonably entertaining, training sequence I do find it stretching the bounds of probability that one can go from loser to best assassin in the world inside six weeks.

However, the fun doesn't stop there. They bend bullets, and I don't mean in a "With the power of my mind", Uri Geller kind of way; I mean they can put spin on the trajectory of a bullet that quite frankly puts most high-class spin bowlers to shame. Monty Panesar's got nothing on Angelina Jolie who can apparently put so much spin on her bullets that whilst standing on the edge of a circular room she can shoot herself in the right temple by aiming left.

All this is small potatoes compared to the fact that they get their Assassination orders from a loom, interpreted using (as far as I can tell) some weird combination of binary and ASCII codes. From fate, to the loom, to Morgan Freeman (whom as we all know, is actually God anyway). And lets not even get into the whole "Our bullets collide in mid-air when we shoot each other!" or the "Your heart can beat at over 400 times a minute, whence your magical assassin powers!" aspects of the film.

The ending is what really ruined this for me though. I could overlook all the above if the ending was good, but my god was it pisspoor. Essentially Angelina does all the hard work and then we get some semi-philisophical whine about taking control of your own life - via the means of a mystical loom? I was certainly confused.

In short (and remember I've read more sci-fi/fantasy than you can shake a stick at), this film requires too great a level of suspension of disbelief, has weird Oedipal overtones and the ending sucks. Angelina's still fit though.

Boozy's First Entry

I too have returned to my hometown, although I appear to have only one problem in common with Armstrong and that is the ever-present packing/unpacking annoyance that is the worst thing about going to university. However as I am home for only a couple of weeks I haven't unpacked too much as i have to pack up at least four more times before next academic year.

While I have said that the above is the worst thing about university there is another strong contender and that is having to say goodbye to lots of people that won't be returning next year. Durham's going to be a very different place without a lot of the people that I've met over the past three years, and it's sad that I wasn't able to stay in Durham to see tham all graduate. Please all come back for returners and save me from the House of Maths!

There is, however, a lot to look forward to next year, but first I have an exciting summer ahead of me, mostly spent in places beginning with E...

Chapter 2: Being sent to Coventry

• I returned to Coventry this week.
• I may never see some people ever again.
• I am too sad to write in paragraphs.

Exercise 2.1:

i) How should one attempt to unpack the contents of a full (university) bedroom into another already full (home) bedroom?
ii) Upon returning home from University, how much money, (mainly in coppers), would be a surprising amount to find at the back of a bedroom cupboard that has remained undisturbed for a number of years?
iii) How many times does the earth rotate about its axis in 365 days?
iv) Boozy promised me that she'd write a blog last Saturday, four days have passed and she still hasn't, why not?
v) Why is it that every time I turn my computer on, the house Internet connection turns off, and every time that I turn my PC off, we regain Internet access... regardless of whether or not I have an Ethernet cable or wireless network card connected to my computer?

Solutions:

i) Don't bother, the problem is clearly impossible.
ii) £55.41
iii) approx. 366. Note that other sources e.g. Number Six, claim that the answer is 365. Note further, that these sources are wrong.
iv) Because she's a liar.
v) My best guess is radio interference with our router, but I've no idea what would cause this - any guesses would be welcomed.

So the results are out. Congratulations to all. Everyone seems to have done as well or better than expected.

So, all is set up for next year, everyone knows what they are doing except.....

ME.

Where's Boozy?

Well its been almost a week since this blog was created and still Boozy is yet to post. Perhaps we could lay down a trail of metaphorical bread crumbs to tempt her into a response...

So... I hear that Boots is closer to the cathedral than Bodycare...

Brutal Snake's crew have the greatest cox

Just thought that I'd post a quick note to congratulate Brutal Snake on his victory today... Well done!

Also, I've been hearing rumours from Number Six that Chuck has turned to the darkside, and purchased an inferior computer. I am disappointed.

Decision Making!

Yesterday I received an email from the Maths department saying that I had been removed from my second choice of project to my first, meaning that I am currently signed up to doing the same project as Armstrong and Brutal Snake. The problem that arises from this is that I now have the power to actually choose which of the two projects I would like to do. This is difficult. It was easy to just walk into the project allocation meeting and see my name printed next to a project title and just accept it there and then, and I was very happy with the outcome. But, even after doing a module in decision making this year, I do not feel able to make this decision easily and it will require a lot of thought.

The "Post War" begins!

So... today was a Saturday. It rained for a while, but then it stopped.

On mowing the Lawn

I feel rather honoured to be allowed to write here. I can't seem to find the catch; originally it seemed that it was that I would be kept locked in one of the sheds, but apparently there are tools in there. And a lawn mower. There may also be an opportunity to actually be fed for using the lawnmower-double winner. And if its a flymo then I'll be one step closer to creating my hover car.

Power

Power, everyone strives for it, be it through social standing, ownership, or oddly, power gained through apathy.

Student bodies are great at it, I approve.

Best of all is the power exerted by businesses, They throw themselves around and have board meetings where they mull over the best wording. In O2's terms and conditions for their broadband the following rule exists. I think it reads like a poem or a song...

Section 1, part b) :

You must not use the Services for:

Sending, receiving, publishing, posting, distributing, disseminating, encouraging the receipt of, uploading, downloading or using any material which is

offensive, abusive, defamatory, indecent, obscene, unlawful, harassing or menacing or a breach of the copyright, trademark, intellectual property, confidence, privacy or any other rights of any person;

Or part e)

You must not use the Services for:

Knowingly or negligently creating, transmitting, storing, publishing or uploading any electronic material (including, without limit, files that contain viruses, corrupted files, Trojans or any other similar software or program) which is known or likely to cause, interrupt, damage, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software, hardware or telecommunications equipment owned by us or any other Internet user or person;

... any other Internet user OR person, ... I think I have seen a ghost.

I love it, I simply love it. Don't you go using google image search now, thats downloading copyrighted images... don't you go receiving viruses now...

The House

The gossip of the moment seems to be the recent room ballot, and so it should be; the process was suitably mathematical involving coin tossing and the mention of dice. The downstairs rooms were simple and did not require a diagram; Sparky took the largest room downstairs and Eden the back extension room as his study. So, the upstairs rooms were left to fight over. The diagram to the left shows the final solution, and at this stage I should note that this diagram is not to scale.

The summer is ahead of us, and for all of us that means an excessive amount of money will be leaving our bank accounts every month. We will all return in October for the next academic year to begin, filled with hardcore library sessions, project supervisions and naked Thursdays, but I'm sure there'll be more about that later!

Signing out...

Chapter 1: Introduction

Definition 1.1:
i) Let Armstrong be me.
ii) Let {Armstrong} be the set containing me.

Proposition 1.2:
P({Armstrong})={{},{Armstrong}}

Remark: I like to think of myself as an element of my own power set... It's less lonely with the empty set for company.

Definition 1.3:
i) Let Eden be Eden.
ii) Let Chuck be Chuck.
iii) Let Brutal Snake be Brutal Snake.
iv) Let Boozy be Boozy.
v) Let Sparky be Sparky.
vi) Let Number Six be Number Six.

Lemma 1.4:
Number Six is not a number.

Proof: c.f. The Prisoner.

Proposition 1.5:
The integers do not exist.

Proof: Assume that there is an integer with the existence property, (i.e. the integer exists), let's call this integer x. Either x=6 or x is greater than 6 or x is less than 6.
In the first case we immediately have a contradiction, since x is not a number, (Lemma 1.4).
Consider the case that x is greater than 6, we show first that 7 is not an integer, for if it were, then 7 - 1 would also be an integer, yet we have already demonstrated that this is not the case.
Furthermore, we observe that if k is not an integer then neither is k+1, and we invoke the principal of mathematical induction to show that no integers greater than 6 can exist.
The case of x less than 6 is left as an exercise

Remark: If the integers do not exist, then my degree may prove to be pretty worthless. We must therefore conclude that our definitions are not self-consistent, and reluctantly abandon all rigour in future blogs.

The adventure begins!

These are the rules of the blog:

Rule #1: There is no blog.
Rule #2: No poofters!
Rule #3: No names.
Rule #4: No poofters!
Rule #5: There is no rule 5
Rule #6: No poofters!

---

We selected rooms today. I did surprisingly well. Number 6 did less well having been relegated to the sheds. There were rumours of some argy-bargy between Chuck and Boozy about the room ballot, but these were swiftly quashed. After an emergency negotiation session (in the bar) all was well. Unfortunately the Engineer was too busy getting his yearly dose of culture, but he was probably too drunk to remember what it was.

In other news, project choices are in with me and Armstrong on the same project! Unfortunately Supervisors #1 and #2 were not present for this joyous occasion; hopefully not a trend that will continue.

And finally, Eden is graduating at the end of this year marking the end of an era. Fortunately, Durham will be graced with his presence next year; although whether the Inland Revenue is aware of this fact is a different matter.

One small thing the reader may want to be aware of is that we are limiting the number of posts* we are making in order to avoid the inevitable "post war".

*Actual numbers may vary.