Dave's Archives

AI-generated (stable diffusion) ge of "cyclon writing with a pen".

The sporadic blog of David J A Cooper. I write sci-fi, teach software engineering, and occasionally say related (or not related) things.

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  • Students

    Here’s what diversity means to a university tutor. Student A appears with a deer-in-the-headlights look at the door to the senior tutor room and asks (in a bewildering tone that sounds as if a layer of righteous outrage has been suppressed and petrified beneath another layer of sheer blinding terror) if there is going to…

  • On the eve

    The annual day of mystery and mild trepidation approaches, when things are not quite as they appear. A lot of effort seems to go into it among the technical community. I’ll be scouring the contents of my RSS reader throughout the day looking for my fix. Or at least I would I thought it was…

  • Conroy and Bolt on filtering

    The ABC’s Q&A programme spent about 30 minutes last night pondering Senator Conroy’s mandatory Internet filtering plan… well, idea, because it’s increasingly clear that “plan” is too strong a word. Conroy was, frankly, an embarrassment. To be honest, most of the questions put to him were not especially articulate, but Conroy made a mockery of…

  • Quality news

    How’s this for a misleading headline from the ABC: “China may have to bail us out: Rudd“. The user comments below the article howl in derision at the injustice of selling out the country to those funny Mandarin-speakers. No, people, Rudd wants China to bail out the International Monetary Fund, not Australia. The ABC’s article…

  • Freeway riding

    Another Freeway Bike Hike comes and goes. Team Exermacise was down to three people this year, due to a combination of injury, other commitments, and general slacking off. It’s a nice ride – the fastest 30km (or 10km, or 60km) you’re likely to do on a bike, at least in Perth. However, I’m now sitting…

  • I jinxed the weather

    Last Friday I declared to those sitting around me at lunch that Summer was over. It usually is over by mid-March, and (for a time) temperatures seemed to drop in a firm and unambiguous manner. And now, suddenly, the BoM is forecasting a run of at least four 35-36° days in a row. Grumble, grumble…

  • The Zim desktop wiki

    I’ve discovered that Zim is a great little brainstorming tool, for me at least. While I occasionally “think in images”, my brain usually works on words and symbols. A wiki – especially one that sports a LaTeX equation editor – seems to be a powerful way to assist a text-based brainstorming session. Being a desktop…

  • Continuity

    The bony part of my nose met with the fridge door in an uncomfortable deceleration this afternoon, leaving a nasty cut. This occurred less than a second – literally – after having explained to some friends that I no longer felt sore as a result of rock climbing. Lesson learnt.

  • Theoretical frameworks, part 3

    The [intlink id=”225″ type=”post”]first[/intlink] and [intlink id=”324″ type=”post”]second[/intlink] instalments of this saga discussed the thinking and writing processes. However, I also need to fess up to reality and do some measuring. A theoretical framework is not a theory. The point of a theoretical framework is to frame theories – to provide all the concepts and…

  • Iran, Pakistan and the nuclear threat

    The world’s major powers have expressed great consternation over the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, US intelligence agencies have found no evidence that Iran has any intention of arming itself with nukes, let alone that it has an active nuclear weapons program, but the issue seems to have its own momentum. I’m no…