And Then He Got Some Marks Back.

I got 90/100 for my Psyc2600 Personality lab report, which makes me even more conflicted about changing degrees and throwing my marks over the previous two years away, and changing to a mathematically based degree which will probably not play to my strengths and I will struggle with.


uurrgghhh.

And Then He Saw The Price

$470 dollars? Are you fucking kidding me? I swear whoever prices products for Australia is drinking too much. Unless you have an axe to grind, why would anyone get a plasticky, samsung tablet with a resolution so high I dont care, with virtually no apps and my previously aggrieved Android on a Tablet OS, when $60 more gets you an iPad 4? Fail.

And Then He Wanted a Computer That Doesn't Exist

I need to purchase a new computer next year.

Well ok I dont need to, but I am going to anyway. My requirements are fairly simple:

- I would strongly prefer a Mac
- Probably a laptop
- Decent graphics to run games

Dont get me wrong, I like my Thinkpad Edge 420, Buttt


Things I dont like about my Thinkpad Edge 420:

- The red rubber is waaayyy easy to scratch off. Infact the lid looks pretty tacky now
- The build quality has absolutely nothing on my Thinkpad T40. Although that was a fairly expensive laptop back in the day, come on. It's 9 years newer.
- The 1366x768 display is literally the worst display I have ever ever seen with my own two eyes. And I *own* it. It's patchy and the backlight illumination literally doesn't go to the edges. If I had seen this laptop in person before I bought it online (it was on crazy special) I wouldn't have purchased it.
- It's light, yet has the strange condition of being incredibly Thick. I call it my Thickpad. Seriously it's huge.
- It has NO CAPS LOCK LIGHT. This is wayyy more annoying than you'd think.
- THe charging light only has green and.. green. I have no idea if it's charged/charging/nearly dead by looking at it. It's all the same.
- When snapping a CD into the drive tray, you always feel like you're about to snap it off
- No USB3 despite being a fairly recent machine
What I like:
- Was cheap
- Really fast
- The keyboard really is that good.
- Fantastic servicing


So when shopping for a new mac, I look at all the apple laptops. My budget will roughly be $2000.

Macbook Air 11'
- Too small for my needs

Macbook Air 13"
- Non retina
- Good size
- The more expensive model only has 256 gigs of hdd storage, adding 512 adds FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE dollars to the price
- Integrated graphics.
- Somewhat expensive for what you get. The top model here.

I dont really want the non-retina Macbook Pros. They have optical drives which I never use, and non retina macs will probably look rather out of date in 2 years time.

The 13" Retina Macbook pros all have integrated graphics :/ What is so "Pro" about a $2k Laptop with integrated graphics? Get your shit together Apple.

The 15" Retina Macbook Pros all have discrete graphics that can barely keep up with screen. Trust me, playing any kind of game is not a pretty experience on my friends machine. And they're all pretty damn expensive

So I guess I want a 13" with a decent graphics card. Which doesn't exist.

Blah.

And Then He Wrote Crap at 5am

It's 5am and I just finished work. The joys of shelf stocking :[ To make things more annoying, I have to pick up and drop off two of my work colleagues. Which I dont mind, but it adds an extra 15 minutes each way.

Ok I think I have finally settled on XFCE. It's mostly like Gnome, before Gnome went insane and wanna-be-tablet-interfacey:

To the right are my applications, notifications and the system menu, and two the right is the window list. This is after trying out a Mac OS X like dock panel at the bottom, but I find this interface a better use of the limited space on my Thinkpad's 1366x768 screen. The panels autohide. Neat huh? I like how  a usable linux desktop interface looks exactly the same as when I first used Ubuntu back in 2004. They need some designers. Badly. And talented ones, or you end up with the pure ugly of KDE.

I want to go to bed, but I'm going with a friend at 9am to get his car serviced, and we're going to watch a movie. I bet I'll fall asleep in the cinema :/

And Then He Tried Gnome

Dear Gnome 3.6

You resemble an ATM from 2002 and a demented iPad smashed together, and you are truly awful to use.

-- Matt

And then He Was Typing Lots

*sigh* My BtrFS partition corrupted itself and died. Why is such an unstable file system included in the Linux kernel? For shits n giggles I suppose. Anyway back to Ext4 I guess. I'm also annoyed by how terrible each of the desktop environments for Linux that I've tried are, Gnome 2.x seems to be the most usable for me, which is sad considering how antiquated looking and feeling the whole affair is. I could write several thousand words on why I think each of the major linux interfaces fail so badly, but I wont -_-

ANYHOW

I'd like to talk about the Microsoft Surface. I'm talking about the Microsoft Surface from the perspective of being Australian, so I'll talk about it as such.

ANDROID'S TAKE

First of all, Tablet manufacturers need to understand the nature of their products' relationship with the iPad. Annoyingly, too many to date have treated the iPad like the elephant in the room, and this has resulted in spectacular failures a la the Motorola Xoom or virtually all of Samsung's tablets. They have treated their product just like the treat their android phones. It's easy to see why - Android phones are definitely a great alternative to the iPhone, intact I own one and prefer it over my iPhone.

Android on a tablet is utter dogshit. It's slow, and it's painfully obvious that it's the phone version, stretched to make it larger, with a few "oh i guess we have to" tablet features thrown in. It's absolutely a non starter, and I think google is not serious about making a great tablet OS. Anyone who says otherwise has yet to convince me, and I've used it *a lot*. I could write an extravaganza on what I feel are the failings of Android on a tablet, but that's not what I feel like writing.

On top of Android being fucking woeful to use on a tablet, we have android tablet manufactures who seem to assume that tablet android will be competitive like the phone version is, and pricing their tablets the same as the iPad, despite in many instances, having considerably inferior build quality

Let's be real here. Honestly real. You walk into a shop. You're a dummy. You don't even know what the difference between android and iOS is. You see two tablets. The SAME PRICE, one has a nice aluminium build, is easy to use, has a tonne of apps, and is the same tablet many of your friends have. The other is ugly, works very strangely (seriously have you watched a novice try to work an android tablet?) and does not have many tablet optimised apps. Which one are the going to buy here? The proof is in the pudding buddy, at my university I have seen a grand total of three, count 'em THREE android tablets. All three were Nexus 7s too. This is opposed to a shit storm of Apple iPads.

So want to sell an Android tablet? Making it cheaper than the iPad is your first priority. If you come out with a tablet for $499, you've fucking failed already. No customer is going to care that your tablet is faster, has a better graphics chip, supports more radio bands or has a kevlar strip on it, it's a non starter. They will care that your tablet is the same price as the nice tablet everyone else has, and they will buy the iPad instead. Case closed, as the numerous Android tablet flops demonstrate, it's as simple as that.

The Nexus 7 stands as a solution to this: it's ridiculously cheap, and its success is reflected in the fact that i've actually SEEN them in the wild here in Australia.

WINDOWS TAKE

Anyone noticed how Apple like they're trying to be? I mean, Apple is making a shit tonne of cash, of course you wanna be like Apple! This can be seen as a good thing (like the daring Metro interface) or it can be bad (not releasing the SDK for Windows Phone 8 until launch so there are zero third party WP8 optimised applications).

Microsoft Windows 8 RT is an interesting take on what a tablet should be, and from my perspective presents a number of key advantages over an iPad:

1) It's a scaled down computer OS rather than a scaled up phone OS. You can multitask, you have quick access to functions via charms, you can run two applications side by side. iPad does none of that (and No, the iPad does NOT multitask. Don't be fooled into thinking it does.)

2) It has a USB port. You tried moving files from a computer to an iPad? makes you wanna cut your wrists hey?

3) Office RT will mean that you can get real work office work done on a  tablet. You can be that Office RT will be really, really good.

Unfortunately they've priced it the same as the iPad, positioning it as a direct competitor.

Like I said originally, customers will walk into the shop, see the Surface and iPad side by side (remember the surface doesn't come with the keyboard as standard). Apple understands the value of something looking good, because their entire business model is based on selling expensive, high margin hardware to cashed up twats (noticed how dumbed down Final Cut X is? Or how they don't give a shit about nichey, high end products like the Mac pro anymore?)

The point of the Retina display is it looks great, even to a cashed up twat with no idea about technology. And no multiple applications at once means said cashed up twat has quite a usable, unconfronting device to use.

By pricing it the same (or more expensive than an iPad in Australia) they are basically shooting themselves in the foot. The 1366x768 display, ignoring all the "it's more readable" bullshit by Microsoft, combined with the boxy, plasticky look of the device, are going to seriously work against it.

So basically I think that the Surface has the potential to fundamentally be a much better device for people are actually know how to work efficiently with technology, but at this price I doubt it will take off. I fearlessly predict price cuts in the near future.

And Then He Ate Sushi

My last ever assignment for psychology is now all done. Sad D:

I also went to Kitami japanese restaurant. The sushi was ok (I like the heavily americanised Sushi Revolution more) but the green tea ice cream was wooonderful. And expensive, but still, you pay more for nice things. It's just how it is.

And then He Got Distracted Some More

So I made steamed mussels and cous cous for dinner, which left me insanely hungry afterwards, so I went and ate a bunch of vitaweets and avocados. I'm so bad hahaha

I've avoided doing my essay so much. I wrote about a page for it literally about 6 weeks ago, and I haven't really done anything since. I was going to work on it today, but I keep going out to do things with friends, plus I have work all the time so it's kinda hard to work on it. I have no self discipline as my after dinner binge confirms :] It's due Wednesday night. It's due while I'm at work. how much dooes that suck? So I've just got tomorrow and wednesday before 8pm to finish it. Blah.

I'm going back out now :]

And Then He Finished

My last ever Psychology lab report is doneskis. :]

It's a beautiful day today too.

I think I'll go for a jog

I'm excited about Software Engineering still. (but not the maths)

And I'm looking forward to working on my language essay a little more. My last assignment in my B. Psyc programme.

>=D

And then He Got an Email from Admissions

So i just got an email back from admissions, and my GPA roughtly corresponds to an atar of 95, so that  rpetty much confirms that I will be doing software engineering next year... how exciting.

Except the maths part. Fuck maths.

And Then He Was Annoyed At How Windy It Is

So I've tried drinking lots of water when I eat. Like eat mouth full of food / Then sip of water.
It works. For like, 30 minutes. I feel totally full. But then I get cramps and have to go pee every 5 minutes for the next few hours. So maybe not such a good idea.

I had two, count 'em, two weetbix. I'm so hard core. Now I'm looking at the clock and wishing 12 would roll around so I could eat sooomeeething. The first two days of El Diet were easy, now it's day three and I can't stop thinking about foooooood

I was going to go for a jog too, but it's freaking cold, and really windy, so I'll probably just wait it out and see if it gets any better.

And my Psyc2600 Lab Report is due tonight. I've done the first draft. I'm fairly happy with it, but when ever I write something, I make a stack of notes all over it, and going over those and fixing what I thought were issues at the time I was writing it will probably take the rest of the day. Sometimes for example, I'll write something that I know I've read somehwere, but to avoid interrupting my train of thought I wont suddenly stop and go look for the reference, I'll just make a note to stick one in. Fixing up that shit can take hhouuuurs, especially if you dont have access to the journal database it's on.  And I'm always wary about citing stuff that I havent' completely read, you never know when a tutor is going to actually be familiar with the reference you are citing.

Foooooooooooooddddd

-Matt

And Then He Got Stuck Into It

I just realised that I'm sad about my lab report. I've started really getting into it, and I've enjoyed doing psychology lab reports and essays. I know I'll get a good mark for this lab report too, but then I get all dissonant when I realise that i'm leaving it all for Software Engineering, and I shouldn't be enjoying it - if I am, why should I change degrees? Ahhh my brain sucks.

And Then He Ate Healthy

Healthy food isn't so bad if you enjoy cooking. Take this for example, it's spinach fettuccine with basil and baby spinach leaves, with some Gorgonzola cheese and crushed pine nuts and pistachios. And a tiny bit of cream and pepper. mmmm

I've also decided to be brave and try BtrFS on my xubuntu install. It is definitely a tad slower than ext4, but having multiple point checksumming of my data, snapshots, online defragging and all those other cool ZFS features makes it worth it, especially seeing as the cunts at Oracle murdered OpenSolaris.

And Then He Procrastinated

I'm still trying to not do my Psyc2600 essay. Nebulous questions do not make for fun assignments. I know some people I know enjoy the open endedness of an assignment like this, but I sure as hell dont. I'd REALLY like a marking criteria about now. I'd feel safer with one.

Speaking of social psychology, I really dont get the point of studying it so in depth. Not that I'm criticising its validity or right to exist, but when so much of the theories we are taught are open to extreme interpretation and have in my opinion, extremely questionable scientific justification, I just find it difficult to commit to memory. It's like I am memorising the wrong answer for half of this stuff. For example the basic question of do attitudes predict behaviour? Even that doesn't have a definite answer. So why do we spend two lectures on the subject if we aren't even sure if this is true? The pseudo mathemetisation of many of the theories also really gets to me, it's almost like they're only in the theory to lend it false credence. We're studying people, not mathematical formulae.  The strange fights that occur between researchers of Social psychology are similarly problematic - there will never be any end to half the the controversy, because there just isn't any solid scientific evidence to back either side up.

Blah. I'd better get back to it -_-

And Then He Introduced Himself

Howdy Chirruns!

So I should introduce myself. I'm Me (duh). I had a blog way back, it was good to write about being me (and probably incredibly boring to read) so I decided to do it again. Plus sometimes it's fun to trawl through the interwebs, and find an interesting blog... and infuriating when it ends abruptly - especially if it's been going on for a few years.

I'm 23 and currently studying Psychology. I've kinda wanted to software engineering, but I've never thought my maths was good enough. Then about a month ago (laugh all you want) I had a dream where a random chick basically said to my face that I was doing the wrong degree. I then reapplied through UAC to change to software engineering. I haven't told my parents yet either, I dont think they'll take it badly, but I should probably get some riot get and a fire extinguisher to be on the safe side.

I'm also moving out of my apartment that I've lived in for two years to live with a friend. He's getting a puppy (maybe a doberman) so I get cheap rent in exchange for helping look after a puppy (he works full time)

And I'm starting a diet. Not that I'm particularly fat, just ever so slightly chubby and it annoys me.

That's that's my currently situation in a nutshell. Three years of Psychology, I'm throwing away a decent GPA and friends in the course I've made, all because some chick in a dream told me to. In a strange way, I feel kinda relieved that I'm going to do what I've wanted to do for a long time. And moving house. And looking after a puppy. And dieting.

I hate moving. Especially if you live alone.
When I first came here, I had all my stuff in my faithful corolla. It all fitted. I could move from sharehouse to sharehouse at my leisure. Easy. Then I moved into an apartment by myself, and I've accumulated a frightful amount of shit. Sofas, table, coffee table, tv, tv cabinet, bed desks drawers etc etc etc, not to mention an entire kitchen full of stuff (I like to cook). I moved once since i've lived alone, and it was one of those rare things in life (along side getting teeth pulled out) that are exactly as stressful, time consuming and unpleasant as everyone says. I had four friends help me, but it still sucked big time.

This blog post is also helping me procrastinate from my Psyc2600 assignment. I liked Psyc2600, I got 89 on the first lab report. Then we got Lecturer #2, who was responsible for Lab Report #2.. I was warned he was "laid back". People apparently confuse "laid back" with "fucking lazy" - he didnt' show up to one of the lectures, had his lecture notes made for him by another lecturer, didn't bother to record the lectures he did give, and his guidelines for this lab report are a joke. The question of the lab report is "You are to write a lab report from the perspective of this study being run as a test of the independent nature of the theoretical constructs that make up the Five Factor model". What the fuck does that even mean.  He then MADE UP some correlations for us. And he literally cut and pasted half the the very scant requirements from elsewhere, infact there is a line, on the "requirements for the Lab Report" that actually says "Please see requirements for the lab report document" ON the SAME THING. Not to mention there is no marking criteria, he basically said "refer to the criteria for lab report 1". Lazy.

I can't wait until I'm all nostalgic about it because it was my last ever Psyc lab report. Blah.