Time flies when you’re having fun. That’s why I’ve spent most of the holidays either being unproductive or working, both of which are very fun for me. And yet, it’s now one (1) week out from uni, and I’ve once again completely forgotten that I have a Nerdery to write. Fortunately, at the last Nexii contributor meeting, I was smart enough after getting smashed to try looking though archives so I could come back with a wizz-bang story on the history of waiKato nerds. Unfortunately, this isn’t that article. That article is next week’s article. Instead, this article is a witty collection of random ideas in the hopes that people out there (that’s YOU) can help me resolve them.

Why is it that the big recycling bins on campus take glass and aluminum cans, BUT NOT PLASTIC?!?!? I dare say that drinking fizzy, sugary, oh-so-caffeinated beverages is more popular on campus than beer (I could be wrong). The lack of plastic recycling is especially upsetting for us in the Interaction Design Lab (the dungeon-esque one), who combined consume a few bottles of black liquid per week. Anyone on the environment council thingy know why this is the case? Also, why are there no recycling facilities in Bongo? The garbage bins overflow with sushi containers and plastic bottles, why is this all going to the tip?

Why is it that the Clarence st Pak n Save doesn’t stock Cadbury Three Wishes chocolate and Bluebird Sweet Thai Chili chips anymore? While I highly doubt Pak n Save management types read Nerdery, if anyone out there knows how to complain and get these in stock it would be much appreciated. I’m tired of going out of my way to seek these items out elsewhere. Oh, and stop making the Croissants randomly disappear!

And before I forget; waiKato needs another Imagine Cup team for next year to carry the torch of excellence we seem to always wave here in the computer science department. In 2007 the waiKato team came 1st in NZ and won a trip to Seoul, Korea to compete in the world finals, and this year we came 3rd (although it’s fine to say fuck in Nexus, I don’t think my thoughts on the winners of this year’s competition would be suitable for this column). Ryan Tarak from Microsoft and I are to give an information session to anyone who wants to be involved, at the time of writing this is to be Tuesday September 13th @ 14:00, but this may change. For updated information, visit my site; (you’re here) or look out for the posters that I’m supposed to be putting up.

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I just realised that it’s now Tuesday 17:31 and I’ve still got to write another 200 words, arranged in a fashion that makes clear and concise logical sense and has something tech-related. So, this weeks article is about problems. When faced with a problem you usually have two options; ignore the problem and use enough resources to live around it, or face the problem and use enough resources to solve it. I realise my insight is a tad generalised (and the phrasing probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve been playing a lot of Age of Empires lately), but has held true for just about every case I’ve thrown at it. ^[1]

Unsurprisingly, you’ve probably come to the same conclusion at some point in your life as well (although you probably didn’t word it as eloquently as I did). And yet, many people don’t accept it, not foreseeing the cost of resources to live around an issue. I could list examples such as doing homework before the due date as opposed to right before the due date, but instead I’m going to dive right for the more technological issue; data backups. Drives are cheap and getting cheaper. And yet I look at how many people take regular backups and am still amazed at how few take regular backups. Remember people; data is cheap, time is expensive.

Now, in life (of Comp. Sci.) we also have the problems of the more interesting kind. The Programming Competition kind. Congratulations are in order for the solo guy who just wanted a T-shirt (which he received), the DARTH VADER team (esp. Daniel for the pelvic thrust after solving a hard question), and to everyone else who competed and managed to beat agp (Almost Grey Power), who despite being senior programmers, were only able to solve the 3 easiest questions.

Finally, I’ve been alerted by my girlfriend that blue LEDs are pretty. Indeed they are. But that’s still no excuse for them glaring in my eyes when I’m trying to listen to music. I’ve also been told by randoms that I use a lot of brackets in my articles (mostly to extend a point while keeping within an acceptable sentence length). To this, I can say “kiss my ass”, as I like to use excessive punctuation where appropriate. It makes the English programming language a lot more fun, like php.

[1] Of course, some of the more insightful philosophers reading my column would be quick to point out “Hah! You forgot, you can throw resources at the problem before the problem occurs, adding a third option!” and would be right, except that you’d be ignoring that you’ve faced the problem, it’s just you faced it before the problem became a problem.

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Let’s start this week off with a little quiz. When buying an expensive piece of electronics with your freshly borrowed “course related costs”, do you expect to find;

1. An Apple-inspired design
2. Blatant branding to remind you it’s not made by Apple
3. Blue LEDs, which indicate that it’s obviously high-tech

If you answered C, you deserve a slap, as you’re the reason why myself and many others like me (i’ll explain) are either;

1. Voiding warranties by opening up things and replacing the LEDs with a more sensible colour
2. Putting electrical tape over all the blue LEDs

So, for those who don’t quite get my rampage, let me explain something. Blue light has a short wavelength, which makes it really hard for your eye to focus on. So, for an ambient light, like the type which alerts me to know my speakers are on, blue light is really bad in terms of overall interface design. It’s irritating to the eye. There’s a reason why you don’t normally see blue lights in car dashboards; it’s dangerous, especially for night driving. And yet, over the last few years, consumers have come to expect lots of blue LEDs in their products, because it looks cool.

If done correctly, there’s nothing wrong with using colour lights. But please, why do you think it’s necessary to shine blue light in my eyes when I’m just trying to listen to music? Not to mention, not only does it look “high-tech” to consumers, but marketers have also decided that it sounds high-tech as well. BlueTooth headset anyone? Maybe a Blu-Ray player? When will the madness end!

But, then again, most of the tech world is crap, and if it wasn’t for the sea of crap we wouldn’t have the shining stars. So really, what can one really expect from our generation?

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As those who know me know, I work for a large international communications company. Not only do I get to have a part-time job doing something that I enjoy, but I also love the side benefits; being able to roll into work whenever I want, or just working from home and proving the myth that pants are optional. But this week, I’m not just sitting at my desk, trying to draw inspiration while hard at work. This week it’s all around me. This week I’m in a communications room, in Tonga.

To cut a long story very short, a server that helps run one of the Tongan mobile networks died. It was supposed to be a simple job; fly in Wednesday, change the CPU, relax and fly out Saturday. In my urge to screw my carbon footprint this year and get another stamp for my passport, I didn’t stop to think I’d be pulling my hair out trying to fix hidden problems, but like all things, nothing is simple. My colleague and I are now waiting for assistance from our advanced technical support centre. As usual, Murphy’s law prevails.

(picture me with greasy hair putting my head in hands and rubbing eyes)

Since my first dial-up account for my 12th birthday, a decent internet connection has never been more than a short maneuver away. And suddenly I find myself in a place where, according to statistics, most people don’t use the internet regularly and many have only heard of it. I knew this was the case, but it’s a major shock to realise how lucky we are to have this resource, but how quickly we are to complain about it.

I’m also amazed with how loyal customers can be. Despite fierce advertising from the competition, the incumbent telco is keeping a strong hold on their market out of pure choice by the customers. According to locals, everyone knows the competition is cheaper and provides better mobile signal coverage, but the audio quality is poorer and it’s not Tongan owned, and so few people permanently switch.

It’s amazing what a short airplane ride can do to one’s perspective. So next time you’re ready to complain about how your is, or how it costs “too much”, just spare a moment to think about how lucky you are that you’ve come to expect the world. Read that last sentence a couple times.

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Eleven (11) days ago (relative to publishing), while scoffing down the excess amount of pizza available at the Nexus contributor meeting, I found a copy of Nexus, issue five (5) from 2005 (two thousand, five). For those not 4th year or older, it was an issue dedicated to nerds and nerdihood. Josh then proceeded to point out the nerd figurine atop the arcade machine, and at that point I nearly cried when I saw it had been disfigured.

One of the articles was what it is like to be a nerd. As I sit in one of my COMP papers, looking around for my girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend who is supposedly also doing this paper (that said I’ve never seen him in here…), it gives me pause to think of how far we’ve come over the last few decades. Nerding has really become an accepted part of society, or at the very least we’re no longer at the bottom (to which we owe the emo and emo-esque crowd for displacing us up the chain). But, before I get all boring and philosophical, I call to enlighten all Level one (1) and higher nerds;

For those not in the know, the new library that the uni is building actually has less space for books than the current library (read: Wintec Student Hub). As such, books that are “of no value” to the uni library are going to be stored by Crown Relocations while the new building is built, and afterwards will be destroyed. Most of the books on this list haven’t been checked out in a a few years, and are deemed to have no or little significance. That said, at the SCMS BoS meeting, a few interesting titles were brought up which have geek cultural significance.

These titles include books written in the 1980s (nineteen eighties) about AI and one that was written by two NZ computer science professors. For nostalgic types these are the goldmine collection, and it’s a shame we don’t have storage capacity. The most interesting fact about this disposals process however is that departments will not be able to take these to-be-destroyed books and put in their offices, tearooms, private libraries etc. If you’re interested you’d better get in contact with someone from the library (sorry, didn’t catch any names. To quote former editor Roz; “This is professional journalism”).

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My room is an absolute mess. Normally I have crap piled on my desk, but today the crap has found it’s way to the floor. Unlike some days though, today is a particularly good day, as it just concluded a weekend that I look forward to: the World Cyber Games NZ Qualifier (aka xLAN).

For those not in the know, it’s an annual event held in Auckland. The winners of some selected tournaments go on to compete in the APAC finals, and then the world finals (this year held in Germany). It’s held on the weekend before the second semester starts back, people come on Friday and leave Sunday afternoon. Sleeping is optional, and very few people get over 12 hours of it. Many cans and cans of energy drinks are consumed. This year we had 760 people, so after crew, tournament computers and expo people, about 850 computers. About 900 amps of power was being constantly used, and you thought your last power bill was bad!

It’s not all tournaments though, as many people come to just have a few fun games with their friends. And not to mention, there are quite a few of us from waiKato who are crazy enough to volunteer, but we all love it. Especially when Zapman (aka Daniel (congrats, 4th ever plug!)) starts to be… himself. I’m the network administrator, and It’s no small job running an enterprise grade network comprising of computers you’ve never seen or configured before.

I strongly suggest anyone with an interest in computer gaming to come along next year, although you have to get in quick as seats sell out quite quickly. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Ok, I’m going to end it here before my brain really goes to mush from tiredness (according to Google Docs this is 7th grade level writing… I’m very disappointed). And, finally, yes I did dance again. 4 times. Only one of them was any good IMO, I was very disappointed in myself, but if you wanna come back to my site in a few days, and I’ll of hopefully uploaded it by then.

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