Keeping busy

Looking across the River Clyde

Exams are finished, the world didn't end yesterday, and I've got 2 weeks of holiday to enjoy! It's a shame the weather is still insistent on trying to dull the mood. Between rain and study I've had little chance to do much lately, but this morning I put on my waterproofs and headed out for a walk.

I know I should be taking this time to relax, but I enjoy being occupied and challenged by something. I'd quite like to start something new, perhaps another programming language, a website, or a small project. Earlier this year I started experimenting with gesture-control in Android. My programming experience with Android has been largely positive, and the simplicity of implementing basic gesture control is another reason I think it's a great platform to develop for. I'm hoping to do a mobile interaction project for my 4th year university project, and Android will almost certainly be the platform I choose.

So, what could I start learning to help kill some time over the next fortnight? As far as programming languages go, I consider myself "good" at C, Java and Python, and I'm familiar with Haskell and PHP. I suppose two popular languages missing from there are C++ and Ruby. I suppose I could follow some more advanced Haskell tutorials and improve my understanding of functional programming, especially since I'll probably take the functional programming course next year at university.

Almost there...

The "Arrochar Alps" (Photo: Andy O'Donnell [Flickr])

As I write this it's only 24 hours until my last exam this year and the only thing keeping my excitement in check is anxiety and concern after yesterday's exam. I've also accepted an additional 2 weeks of work this summer which will give me a bit of extra money (enough to cover a semester of travel expenses) but still leave me with a couple of weeks to relax before starting the final year of my degree.

May has been one of the stormiest I can remember and I can't remember how long ago it's been since we had a day without rain. I'm hoping that the weather starts to improve for my two week break to give me a chance to get some good hiking and cycling in.

I'd love to do a couple of Munros in that time. Two which have been at the top of my to-do list for a while now are Beinn Narnain and Beinn Ime. Both are Munros (the name given to Scottish mountains at least 3000 feet high) which are part of the informally named "Arrochar Alps" (pictured above).

Although I'm not as fit as I was this time last year, I still reckon I could do both in a day. Whether or not I can convince someone to join me, however, remains to be seen!

Procrastination, photography and Portugal

Carvoeiro, Portugal (Photo: garyhayes [Flickr])

Do you ever feel like you mindlessly browse the internet, consuming vast amounts of content for no reason other than to kill time? I think I definitely fall into this category at times. Maybe that's why I've lately been trying to update this blog more often and found a desire to share more photos on Flickr. Perhaps switching from being a consumer of content to a producer is a way of feeling like I'm not wasting so much time online.

I don't imagine this blog ever being read by more than a few people close to me and I'm surprised whenever a photograph of mine on Flickr gets more than 20 views. However, I think that the time spent writing these posts and taking photographs to share on Flickr is a more valuable use of time than browsing Reddit or Facebook.

Writing blog posts has lately seemed almost therapeutic to me - it's relaxing to write my thoughts down, even if I'm just talking nonsense. Sharing photos on Flickr is just an end-product of doing something I enjoy. If anything it gives me something to look back on, reminding me of the interesting places I've been and the cool things I've experienced.

The photo at the top of this post is of the beautiful cove beach in Carvoeiro in the Algarve. In a way I suppose I have a sad memory of being there; it was the last place we visited on our last holiday to Portugal. I miss the freshly cooked seafood, the kick from piri-piri chicken and the amazing bread. Strange, I know, but the locally produced bread was delicious; I've yet to find bread in Scotland which even comes close.

Books and comics and Kindles, oh my

Between Silk And Cyanide (by Leo Marks)
This is one of the most entertaining and interesting books I've read in the past year; one that I'd certainly recommend, especially to anyone else interested in mathematics or computing science. Leo Marks was a British cryptographer during the second World War, and this book tells the story of his amusing struggles within the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Bottom of his class, Marks wasn't deemed suitable for Bletchley Park, Britian's main codebreaking site during the war. Instead, he ended up at the SOE, dealing with the messages sent to and from secret agents spread throughout Europe. Unsatisfied that the lives of these agents were at risk from the poor encryption being used, Marks introduced (with entertaining difficulty, largely thanks to bureaucracy) increasingly better forms of security for messages transmitted by radio.

Largely my interest in this book was that it was vaguely computing science related, albeit from a much earlier age. It was fascinating to gain some insight into the secrets of communication during the war, and Marks is such a fantastic storyteller. You almost get the impression that he was rebelling against the bureaucracy for the fun of it, as well as helping to gain support for his ideas.

xkcd volume 0
Not much to say about this; who doesn't love xkcd?! More books should have their pages numbered in the base 3 number system. It's the only webcomic I read but I've missed so much over the past few months of university. After exams I'm definitely going to set a morning aside for catching up on everything.

Kindle
To make my long commute to work less boring this summer, I think I'll get myself a Kindle. Travelling for almost 2 hours each day, I'd be bound to get a lot more reading done. It'll be refreshing to read something that isn't academic for a change.

I still have books on my desk which are half-finished or not even started. One I plan to start reading tomorrow is The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, a biography of the wonderfully aloof Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős. I started reading it in January, only to have to set it aside due to studying. Erdős has published more academic papers than any other mathematician, yet spent his life travelling the world, living out of a suitcase and giving most money he made to charity. When my uncle gave me the book he said that even I'm not as eccentric as Erdős... challenge accepted!

Walking and databases

This morning I awoke early to go for a walk with my camera, to take advantage of the early morning sunlight. Everything just looks so beautiful bathed in that warm, orange light. Alas, I must've left my camera on overnight because the batteries were flat. That gave me a perfect excuse to take another walk later in the day, though! I'm going to have to start getting back on my bike more often so that I can experience the same terrain at a more thrilling speed. Rough ground you've walked on a hundred times still looks intimidating when you're moving at 15mph!

I feel like I got through a good amount of studying, with my focus being my databases course. That's the first of my three exams next week and I'm quite confident about it. The topic of normalisation is still being taught in third year, although in three years of university and two years of college, I've yet to hear it explained better than it was in high school. Who'd have thought that, 5 years later, I'm still using knowledge from Advanced Higher Info Systems?

I'm going to have to take advantage of a quiet weekend to get through as much work as possible. Despite my best intentions, I can never manage to study effectively after sitting an exam. With 2 early in the week next week, that's 2 days of potentially ineffective studying. At least it's almost over.

Cool stuff
Web version of Angry Birds
Visualisation of a Daft Punk mashup
Build stuff with blocks

Spring rain

The rain let up for just long enough to let me get one picture

I had my 6th exam of the semester this morning, leaving me with just 3 next week to go. To help wind down after today's exam, I put on my hiking boots and waterproofs and headed out for a walk. I suppose I'm fortunate to live right on the outskirts of town, only a five minute walk from the countryside and amazing views across the river.

Lately the weather has been typically Scottish; sunny one moment and pouring rain the next. I found myself taking shelter under some trees on the golf course as the showers started. I must've been the only person on the course at that time. The usual ping of a driver smacking a ball was nowhere to be heard, although perhaps I couldn't hear it for the wind. I grew up playing golf on that course, but alas, studying took over my life once I started university.

Tomorrow I plan to take another walk, even if it rains as expected. There's a saying that the best time to relax is when you don't have the time to. I definitely feel that the fresh air is just what I need to help beat the exam stress.

Finding motivation to update

River Clyde from above Port Glasgow

I took the above photograph just over a year ago today, just a 15 minute walk from my home. Despite my interest in trying to capture the things which I find interesting, I've only uploaded 1 photo to my Flickr in 2011. To motivate myself to both update this blog and play with my camera more often, I'm going to try and make at least 1 post a week with a photograph of something from the past week.

University, exams and summertime

It's been almost 6 months since I last updated. I guess I'm not surprised that I never got around to posting more; the past few months have been the busiest of my life. I've almost finished my third year of university, an overwhelming amount of coursework, and so far I've completed 4 out of 9 exams this year. Less than a fortnight to go; I cannot wait! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't stressed.

Hallstatt, Austria (photo: zcortez [flickr])

Alas, I have no plans to travel this summer. Instead, I'll be spending another 10 weeks at university doing paid research work. I had a similar position last year which I really enjoyed so I'm quite looking forward to this summer.

The above photograph is of the beautiful village of Hallstatt in Austria. For a while now I've wanted to travel to Austria and Switzerland, to explore the idyllic villages hidden in the mountains. The historic city of Bern, Switzerland is another place I'd love to spend even just a weekend. Maybe I'll have the funds and time to do so next summer. What better way to celebrate the end of university and the beginning of a new stage in life than to experience such a beautiful and interesting part of the world?

I still plan to get away for a short time this summer, even if it's just a weekend away in Scotland with my girlfriend, or opportunistic camping trips alone in the mountains. I think I've succeeded in encouraging Allie, my girlfriend, to take up hiking and join me on my crazy adventures.

Whatever is in store for me this summer, I can't wait!