Andrea and I went out last night to celebrate finishing masters and so on to a restaurant by the beach in Barcelona. The area is so touristy that Andrea got given a menu in english and we had to ask for another, explaining that Andrea was not in fact a guiri, but spanish.
From the inside of a toilet cubicle at Sabadell Hospital cafeteria, chemistry is the future:
Yesterday I defended my masters thesis ('''tesina''' in spanish) which marks the end of my 2.5 years of study in the Computer Architecture and Operating Systems (CAOS) department. The title of my dissertation was '''Simulación de departamentos de urgencias empleando un modelo basado en agentes''' which more or less translates into Simulation of emergency departments employing an agent-based model. It's been great fun, although obviously the stress and sleepless nights (okay, night) towards the end probably could have been avoided.
Andrea defended hers today and there are a couple more days of presentations before all 14 of us across two different masters have finished. Next week the doctorate thesis defences begin.
Towards the end of last week I got an email from my thesis director saying that I needed more colour in my presentation (based on my previous presentation which admittedly had a lot of grey in it). I like to say I immediately went out and resolved the problem in my own style, but the truth is I was planning on doing this anyway. I got my hair cut into a mohawk, died fuchsia and bought a matching tie, which is what I wore for my defence.
There are a couple of photos below, one of me answering a question from the tribunal at the end of my presentation, and another of me with my masters thesis director Emilio.
Dreamhost seem to have upgraded their python install, 2.5 is now the default. This broke all the hackish things I had to do to make my sites work with python 2.4 previously - obviously this is now fixed.
Old news I know, that Kevin Rudd has been replaced by Julia Gillard as Australian Prime Minister, making Gillard the first ever woman to hold the position in Australia. Having lived out of Australia for a little while now, I like to keep hold of my romantic view of Australia, with that in mind here's what I'd like to believe was said by our new PM to her predecessor.
"No offence Kev, but you've completely lost the fucking plot."
Everyone in Australia knows that anything following the phrase "no offence" can be just about as offence as you like.
Last Saturday there was an auction, 10 Ocean Street Hampton was bid on and the house I grew up in, live in for the first twenty-one and something years of my life, was sold. I can't say I'm not a little sad - it's going to be hard not going back there the next time I return to Melbourne - but everything comes to an end, and I enjoyed many wonderful years living in that house.
After living in that house for more than half their respective lives, Thea and Bruce are moving on to 'the third phase' of their lives, and who knows what that's going to entail.
I saw a woman with three lines of text that appeared to be tattooed across the top of her chest. The text was in German, but I didn't have time to read it.
A girl pouted her lips to kiss a guy walking past, he didn't notice until she grabbed him at the last minute.
A nice bit of insight from Magic Molly:
One of the problems with technology is that its advancements eliminate opportunities for demonstrative revulsion. For example, it is not possible to slam down the receiver if you’re speaking on a cell phone. You cannot shatter an mp3 like you can shatter an LP.
