Entries Tagged 'general' ↓

Today is the International Bloggers’ Day for Burma. More than three thousand bloggers around the world are participating to raise awareness of the Burmese junta and its oppression of Burma’s people. The protests may have been stamped out,and the monks murdered or imprisoned, but the international community must continue to pressure the Burmese regime to improve its human rights record and restore democracy.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you sign the Avaaz petition calling on the UN Security Council and the Chinese government to take action. It has half a million signatures already, and they’re aiming for a million. If you want to take more concrete action, Amnesty International will be holding protests in Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin this Saturday as part of the Global Day of Action for Burma. Alternatively, you could also email the Burmese embassy expressing your disapproval, or write to or email members of the Burmese regime urging them to respect human rights and release political prisoners. But if you’re reading this, please do something. We can’t do a lot from so far away, but every email, letter, and voice raised helps.

Text borrowed from No Right Turn, and via mundens.

Today is the International Bloggers' Day for Burma. More than three thousand bloggers around the world are participating to raise awareness of the Burmese junta and its oppression of Burma's people. The protests may have been stamped out,and the monks murdered or imprisoned, but the international community must continue to pressure the Burmese regime to improve its human rights record and restore democracy.If you haven't already, I suggest you sign the Avaaz petition calling on the UN Security Council and the Chinese government to take action. It has half a million signatures already, and they're aiming for a million. If you want to take more concrete action, Amnesty International will be holding protests in Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin this Saturday as part of the Global Day of Action for Burma. Alternatively, you could also email the Burmese embassy expressing your disapproval, or write to or email members of the Burmese regime urging them to respect human rights and release political prisoners. But if you're reading this, please do something. We can't do a lot from so far away, but every email, letter, and voice raised helps.Text borrowed from No Right Turn, and via mundens.

So BarCampChristchurch went pretty well. Quite a few interesting talks/discussions and I think my talk on the Singularity held some interest for people:

It’s also fortuitous that the BarCamp was on the Friday before the Singularity Summit 2007 because it meant I could at least pretend I was attending! On a side note, the Summit got on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ben Kepes and Marek Kuziel live-blogged the event. There were even some rumours of video being recorded. I’ll make an update if that eventuates (and I don’t look like a daft fool).

I enjoyed going out for beer and Indian dinner afterwards. Met a bunch of interesting web types, which was cool because I’ve been somewhat isolated from the web-tech world while doing my PhD in an Ecology department. I also heard some more about The Valley In Christchurch meals, which I’d like to attend… once I’ve exumed myself from the monetary grave I am in right now!

So BarCampChristchurch went pretty well. Quite a few interesting talks/discussions and I think my talk on the Singularity held some interest for people: It's also fortuitous that the BarCamp was on the Friday before the Singularity Summit 2007 because it meant I could at least pretend I was attending! On a side note, the Summit got on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ben Kepes and Marek Kuziel live-blogged the event. There were even some rumours of video being recorded. I'll make an update if that eventuates (and I don't look like a daft fool). I enjoyed going out for beer and Indian dinner afterwards. Met a bunch of interesting web types, which was cool because I've been somewhat isolated from the web-tech world while doing my PhD in an Ecology department. I also heard some more about The Valley In Christchurch meals, which I'd like to attend... once I've exumed myself from the monetary grave I am in right now!

A whole group of friends from Wellington and a couple from Australia came to Christchurch recently. For snowboarding, and for our alternate event to Burning Man…. Melting Man. Helix DJed at Nitrate, with some of the WDC there to support him on the Saturday. We travelled to Flock Hill station on Sunday, and on Monday I mountain biked like a crazy man (on the Broken Hill track). Monday evening was building a snowman, dancing on a hill, and having good times (more about it from Kathy and Tatjna).

A whole group of friends from Wellington and a couple from Australia came to Christchurch recently. For snowboarding, and for our alternate event to Burning Man.... Melting Man. Helix DJed at Nitrate, with some of the WDC there to support him on the Saturday. We travelled to Flock Hill station on Sunday, and on Monday I mountain biked like a crazy man (on the Broken Hill track). Monday evening was building a snowman, dancing on a hill, and having good times (more about it from Kathy and Tatjna).

Next week I’ll be speaking at the unconference Bar Camp Christchurch, on not one, but two things. First my PhD work and second about the Singularity. Seth, the founder of Interclue, invited me along, since he’s interested in tech/singularity stuff and thought it’d be a nice opportunity to spread the idea to those that hadn’t heard it.

Of course these’ll be smart geeks I’m talking to, so I’ll have to do my best to convey the ideas well because the singularity is often just relegated to crack pottery.

Think I’ll watch some TED talks of other presenters explaining similar concepts and peruse the SIAI website for useful info.

Next week I'll be speaking at the unconference Bar Camp Christchurch, on not one, but two things. First my PhD work and second about the Singularity. Seth, the founder of Interclue, invited me along, since he's interested in tech/singularity stuff and thought it'd be a nice opportunity to spread the idea to those that hadn't heard it. Of course these'll be smart geeks I'm talking to, so I'll have to do my best to convey the ideas well because the singularity is often just relegated to crack pottery. Think I'll watch some TED talks of other presenters explaining similar concepts and peruse the SIAI website for useful info.

I promise I won’t do this often, but this poem from this book sums up the first half of this year for me.

My life has fallen down
around me before
–lots of times,
for lots of reasons–
usually other people.

Continue reading →

I promise I won't do this often, but this poem from this book sums up the first half of this year for me. My life has fallen down around me before --lots of times, for lots of reasons-- usually other people. And most of the time I was fortunate enough to have a large lump of that life hit me on the head and render me numb to the pain & desolation that followed. And I survived. And I live to love again. But this, this slow erosion from below --or within-- it's me falling down around my life because you're still in that life --but not really. And you're out of that life --but not quite. I do all right alone, and better together, but I do very poorly when semi- together. In solitude I do much, in love I do more, but in doubt I only transfer pain to paper in gigantic Passion Plays complete with miracles and martyrs and crucifixions and resurrections. Come to stay or stay away. This series of passion poems is becoming a heavy cross to bare.

You can ask Panda_pitt or Mundens, I had an idea about making a meme where people video themselves catching and then throwing a ball (or something) in a youtube video. It has no purpose, but it’d be fun to watch. And you could make a web-app mashup with google maps to show where the ball was travelling.

Google has decided to make one for GMail, showing a GMail envelope going around the world. Of course my idea was to automate the whole thing, and Google is going to just select the best ones and put them together manually, probably for an ad or something.

You can ask Panda_pitt or Mundens, I had an idea about making a meme where people video themselves catching and then throwing a ball (or something) in a youtube video. It has no purpose, but it'd be fun to watch. And you could make a web-app mashup with google maps to show where the ball was travelling. Google has decided to make one for GMail, showing a GMail envelope going around the world. Of course my idea was to automate the whole thing, and Google is going to just select the best ones and put them together manually, probably for an ad or something.

There is something exciting about clean slate. The potential it holds.

As a kid I used to ridiculously excited about buying stationary for school each year. All that blank paper, waiting for thoughts and ideas to placed upon them. Even now when I go to book stores, my favourite area is not the fiction shelves, the technical book shelves, or the magazine stand, it’s the stationary area. Particularly the notebooks, so many styles and all begging me to express my thoughts, ideas or projects upon them. It’s the same with buying a new computer, it’s a new piece of equipment with a spanking fresh OS install, I can plan how to organise my folder structure, trim down the installed applications to just what I’m currently using and my mind exudes a clarity that immediately fills with potential projects and Cool Things to do.

And so it is with my life right now. Despite the best of intentions, the whole “lets just be friends” isn’t feasible for my ex and me, at least not with some significant amount of time apart. So here I am almost at a place I can in some ways call a clean slate. Not quite yet though, I still have to finish this PhD I foolishly committed to some 3 years ago. Purely by being in the same environment for so long has kept me from moving on due to so many memories over that time. I do immensely look forward being ALL DONE, then the world is my oyster, or at least my olive*.

There is one thing I might have trouble with though. The sheer limitless number of possibilities available when I buy a new book or computer often has me procrastinate for a long time while I try and weigh up my choices, trying to come up with the best plan. It’s difficult to overcome this block since before I start perfection is still a potential state for anything. I want things to be just right, and sometimes it prevents me from doing anything. I know it’s psychological, and that I should really follow Nike’s slogan: Just do it.

*since I’m potentially allergic to shell fish.

There is something exciting about clean slate. The potential it holds. As a kid I used to ridiculously excited about buying stationary for school each year. All that blank paper, waiting for thoughts and ideas to placed upon them. Even now when I go to book stores, my favourite area is not the fiction shelves, the technical book shelves, or the magazine stand, it's the stationary area. Particularly the notebooks, so many styles and all begging me to express my thoughts, ideas or projects upon them. It's the same with buying a new computer, it's a new piece of equipment with a spanking fresh OS install, I can plan how to organise my folder structure, trim down the installed applications to just what I'm currently using and my mind exudes a clarity that immediately fills with potential projects and Cool Things to do. And so it is with my life right now. Despite the best of intentions, the whole "lets just be friends" isn't feasible for my ex and me, at least not with some significant amount of time apart. So here I am almost at a place I can in some ways call a clean slate. Not quite yet though, I still have to finish this PhD I foolishly committed to some 3 years ago. Purely by being in the same environment for so long has kept me from moving on due to so many memories over that time. I do immensely look forward being ALL DONE, then the world is my oyster, or at least my olive*. There is one thing I might have trouble with though. The sheer limitless number of possibilities available when I buy a new book or computer often has me procrastinate for a long time while I try and weigh up my choices, trying to come up with the best plan. It's difficult to overcome this block since before I start perfection is still a potential state for anything. I want things to be just right, and sometimes it prevents me from doing anything. I know it's psychological, and that I should really follow Nike's slogan: Just do it. *since I'm potentially allergic to shell fish.

Those Japanese have the craziest game-shows! Although I do admit this is also pretty cool too…

via jwz.

Those Japanese have the craziest game-shows! Although I do admit this is also pretty cool too... via jwz.

I feel like I need one these woolen suits:

From Joshua Dalsimer

I feel like I need one these woolen suits: From Joshua Dalsimer

I wouldn’t normally post a job position on my personal blog, but my supervisor is having trouble finding someone with Matlab skillz.

Basically someone in the university has got some research funding to do some grid computer, and my supervisor wants to get a whole lot of Self Organising Maps and Multilayer Perceptrons (both a type of Artificial Neural Network, ANN) running on a computing grid. All the code for the ANNs etc is there, from my understanding it just needs to be adapted to run in parallel across the computing grid.

Shoot me an email if you are in chch looking for some temporary work ( joel.pitt@gmail.com ).

I wouldn't normally post a job position on my personal blog, but my supervisor is having trouble finding someone with Matlab skillz. Basically someone in the university has got some research funding to do some grid computer, and my supervisor wants to get a whole lot of Self Organising Maps and Multilayer Perceptrons (both a type of Artificial Neural Network, ANN) running on a computing grid. All the code for the ANNs etc is there, from my understanding it just needs to be adapted to run in parallel across the computing grid. Shoot me an email if you are in chch looking for some temporary work ( joel.pitt@gmail.com ).