Neugebauer Chocolate, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

I was in the TUU Shop today, and did a double-take as I saw my surname staring back at me (it's in the top left corner of the wrapper).

Why a Brazilian chocolate company would call themselves "Neugebauer" is beyond me -- but I shalln't complain. The occasional ego trip can be healthy.

(Oh, and the chocolate itself wasn't particularly nice. Oh well :()

Just a friendly reminder to you all that Google Code Jam 2008's qualifying round opens today. Code Jam is an individual programming competition, which lets you compete with a number of languages. Qualifying opens at 9AM Australian time, and you have until that time tomorrow to qualify. Good luck!

My 20th Birthday was yesterday, so I'm making amends for not posting about it yesterday by making a note of it today. Notably, I don't really feel any older than any time before, other than a strange feeling of foreboding that accompanies age in general. Or that may just be my stomach. No idea, though I'm sure I'll find out in the ensuing years.

And a brief wrap-up of other me-related news:

• Had a nice, short trip to Sydney in early July -- I will make it a point of not entering New South Wales when State of Origin is on in the future. Went to the Apple Store on George Street far too many times -- free internet is quite enticing when you're waiting for people.


• Whilst in Sydney, I attempted to catch up with SydneyPython in order to spruik my proposal for a Python Miniconf at LCA2009. Unfortunately, the meeting was cancelled, and so instead the SyPy people went to Beer2.0, where we met a bunch of interesting Web2.0 people.


• Uni exams finished in mid-June, with results being released last week. In short, I had my best semester yet at Uni (straight HDs/nothing below 82), and so I'm certainly not regretting the increased workload as far as maths is concerned.


• Semester 2 of Uni is now underway, I've had lectures in all three of my coursework-delivered units (Real and Complex Analysis, Computer Graphics and Animation, Topics in Advanced Mathematics), with only my research project unit to be dealt with. It's looking like it'll be a very interesting semester, with some thoroughly difficult units to be dealt with, so I'm happy about that.

That's all for now. More as it comes.

I just posted the following announcement of my proposal for a Python Miniconf to be held at linux.conf.au 2009 to Australian Python mailing lists. I'm posting it here in case anyone has missed it:

Linux.conf.au 2009 is to be held at the University of Tasmania's Sandy
Bay campus in Hobart, Tasmania over the week of January 19-24; and the
call for presentations [1] and mini-confs [2] is now open.

I am currently in the process of producing a proposal for a Python
Miniconf to be held at LCA, so I thought I should detail my plans to a
greater audience for the purpose of feedback/suggestions.

The miniconf would be a single-day conference on the broad topic of
Python programming.  Broadly speaking, the topics I would like to see
presented would range through:
- Recent developments on Python core (presented to a more
Python-oriented audience than may happen at LCA proper)
- Frameworks and libraries (e.g. Django, which I believe is hitting
1.0 this year)
- Techniques of Python programming (e.g. using advanced/new/etc
features of Python effectively)
- Discussions of Python use in the "real world" (e.g. Industry use,
education, etc, etc, etc).
- Anything else Python-related: please make suggestions! [3]

The intention is that there would be 5 "organised" talks of ~45
minutes length (although if there is sufficient interest/free space, I
could split blocks into 2x25 minute talks), with a 50-minute block of
lightning talks to conclude the event, with the possibilty of some
loosely-organised get-together of pythoners after the day's
proceedings have finished.

If you are interested in participating in the Python miniconf (which
requires you to also be interested in attending Linux.conf.au), please
e-mail me [3].  I would particularly like topics of talks that people
would be able to give (vague/general is fine at this early stage in
preparation), so that I can include them in the miniconf proposal (so
the earlier I receive them the better!).

Thanks in advance for any help that you may be able to offer me.

-- Christopher Neugebauer

P.S. if I have missed any user groups/potentially interested parties,
could you please forward this message on -- I've already dealt with
most relevant mailing lists in Australia, but international lists may
also be interested, due to the nature of LCA as an international
conference.

[1] http://marchsouth.org/media/news/6
[2] http://marchsouth.org/media/news/15
[3] for the benefit of google groups users: chrisjrn [ a t ] gmail.com 

Last Friday, whilst in Sydney on a short trip, I had the fortune of being asked to go ice skating with a bunch of people from USyd. This required me to visit a large suburban shopping mall.

Whilst the ice skating was fun and thoroughly enjoyable, the visiting of the shopping centre and surrounding parking facilities was one of the most traumatic events of my recent life. In my travels, which has resulted in visiting shopping malls in many different cities, never have I been so thoroughly disoriented in my life. As well as the completely haphazard layout of the centre, which resulted in me not being able to figure any direction, there were (at least) two disjoint car parks, each consisting of 6 levels of confused layout, with only minimal indication to newcomers as to how to identify the location of the car park.

Perhaps it's just that my brain is wired for a small city, but I've never encountered such a deliberately confusing building. Ever.

A band that I've been quite impressed by of late is The Grammar Club, a four-piece rock/hip-hop group from the USA who produce their music collaboratively over the Internet. They relaunched their website recently, and whilst it is a really unfortunate all-flash job, they did provide a nice freebie to celebrate: a cover of Jonathan Coulton's Code Monkey.

If you approve of it, you can download their debut album, Bremelanotide from their website -- it's good!

For the benefit of friends of mine who read this blog, I'll be in Sydney for the latter half of next week visiting friends -- if you want to catch up with me, let me know.

Russell Coker writes on the comparison of
costs of Public Transport as compared with that of using a car. I see two key flaws
with his argument:

Firstly, the costs of travel that he uses are fairly specific to Melbourne, where
there exists a very good ticketing system amongst all forms of public transport,
therefore a trip involving a bus to a train station, a train to the CBD, followed by a
tram to final destination is all covered within the same ticket, and $2.76 is certainly
a very cheap price for this. I believe that this argument only applies to cities with
such a system (or cities like Hobart, where there is only one primary form of public
transport, with a single supplier). For example, in Sydney, tickets only apply to the
provider of transport that the ticket is purchased from: so, a trip involving, say, a
bus, a train and then a second bus would require three separate fares (in fact, fares
are not even consistent within a single provider -- the Sydney Morning Herald reported
earlier this year that there exist more than 100 individual fares for the rail system
there. Sorry for the lack of a proper citation -- SMH appear to have removed the
relevant article).

Secondly, Russell's argument relies upon a definite choice between public transport,
and private car ownership: this is since, as he rightly points out, the cost of
registration and insurance tend to be flat, annual fees, that do not depend on how far
you travel in the year. Therefore the only way to decrease the "per kilometre" cost of
car travel is to travel more. This implies that the choice to occasionally travel by
car, and occasionally by public transport will actually increase the total cost of
owning a car. At least one friend of mine does not travel by public transport for this
reason.

Whist the sole use of public transport may be a viable option for people living near
the centre of large cities (such as the relatives I stayed with during LCA this year,
the trains were very regular extending well into the night), it is not an option for
many others. Transportation here in Hobart into the night is very sparse, and implies
either the choice of perfectly timing one's evening to coincide with a once-every-three-
hours bus service, or paying for a taxi, which costs considerably more than a private
vehicle per kilometre (for example, a trip from the airport to where I live,
approximately 15 kilometres will cost $40 -- a cost of $2.66/km). This therefore makes
access to a car imperative in many places.

In summary, I'm not surprised by the relative lower cost of trips by public
transport, but in a circumstance such as this where not owning a car is a serious
inconvenience, the collateral costs that the use of public transport entails makes it a
less appealing option.

TUCS Tech Talk #1,
originally uploaded by
Christopher Neugebauer.

As I mentioned href="/website/blog/life/20080503-TucsLaunch.html">previously,
TUCS
had its first tech talk on Friday (delivered by myself, on the topic of Introductory Python), this is the first opportunity to show off photos from it. I was rather impressed by the turnout (there are a few people off to the side that can't be seen in the frame).

Upside-Down Man, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

On Digg, Today, there's a site that allows you to create silly sketches and swap them with people.

Unfortunately, as with most such things, it's turned into an exchange for Goatse impressions, and phalli.

I got an impression of the latter in return for this, so I figured that I'd share this with everyone.