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Sunday, Sep 30, 2012 - 16:52 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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The Passing Of Mr. Robo

changelog v1.16a
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* Basic bug fixes for bert's blog mobile beta, including navigation by date not working for new months, and intra-blog links not working as expected

Mr. Ham: Haven't seen Mr. Robo about for awhile.

Me: That's because he's been dead since Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Ham: Seriously, I thought he was, you know, just pretending, and badly at that.

Me: No, he's dead-dead. Forever-dead.

Mr. Ham: *dabs at eye with handkerchief* Aw, that's... so sad.

Me: And your acting is as hopeless as always.

Mr. Ham: He wasn't that cute anyway, and was getting as lumpy as leftover porridge. How about you get a wombat next? Or even a pig and goat combo? And I did raise Mysdeth to Paragon Level 10 in his honour, not that his being up there helped with the utterly crap drops.

The ghost of Mr. Robo: I don't mind it too much, actually - I'm feeling far better, not to say lighter, and as an added bonus, it doesn't hurt as much when Ms. Robo kicks me in the nads in my spiritual form.

Mr. Ham: Well, your coder-for-hire contract doesn't expire upon your expiry, just sayin', and since you don't need to eat or sleep now, I'm expecting an increase in productivity levels; but that's after your sabbatical, I'm not that heartless.

Me: Well, if so, you could return him the healthcare plan proceeds you hambezzled from him.

Mr. Ham: *grumbles* You have no proof! Ok, how about this - I'm writing a cheque for the full amount *pulls out lighter* and burning it to him, right now. Fair enough? *smirks*

Me: I don't know...

The ghost of Mr. Robo: *interrupts* That's quite acceptable, see? *holds up a shimmering ledger* It's being debited into my account up here as we speak.

Mr. Ham: *jaw hits the floor* What... how...

The ghost of Mr. Robo: FireWire through the Cloud.

Mr. Ham: That doesn't even make any sense!

The ghost of Mr. Robo: *smiles* Things are not always as they seem, Mr. Ham.


Kind Of Unexpected

Made it to the CodeForScience Talk and Awards on Saturday morning, and was mildly taken aback by there being rather fewer teams than I had expected, especially given the extremely liberal eligibility criteria (basically, one just has to be over eighteen years of age); while I can understand professors not joining up (even if they are probably among the best-placed to understand the needs involved), it was still strange that there were not more students, given the annual intake in computer science and engineering-related fields at the very least, despite the mass e-mail invitation.

I suppose it's mostly down to modesty (saying that, one of the participants displayed an admirable go-getting spirit, which might however have gone overboard elsewhere) - given that we're not short on technical expertise from my experience - since even if one doesn't win any of the prizes on offer, the organizers were still lavish with the door gifts, which included a sturdy bag, another T-shirt to work into my rotation, and a very thoughtful 4GB thumbdrive that will make for a great backup device, and that's not even mentioning lunch. Finding the venue was, however, a pain.


And Birdmarks from the cousin


[N.B. On this topic, one way for an individual to decide whether to sign up for a contest, if both too few (unfair to the organizers) or too many (too low a chance of placing/encouraging others to have a go) entries are undesirable, might be to estimate the number of potential entrants E and the number of desired entrants D, generate a random number uniformly distributed between 0 and 1, and sign up only if it is less than or equal to D/E (perhaps weighted by other factors), and trusting all others to do the same. Of course, this probably wouldn't work in reality]

As it happened, I appeared to have gotten third (but it was still kind of annoying, upon lugging the framed certificate home, for my granny to ask why it wasn't first)

Now, with the expection of the champions, whom I felt were clear winners given their overall execution and polish (which I've got to admit that my app has little of as of now, given the hurry), I thought all of the rest were far more even in quality, and it would probably be more equitable to have a finer gradation in prizes, and in fact quite a few of the ideas are actually complementary. Which reminds me, I guess I'm now obliged to seriously buff it up, but that can wait a bit.

One final note: I do expect academic publishers to face stiffer competition in the future, even if it might not be upon them that swiftly, given that arXiv (which I only recently found out is supposed to be pronounced as "archive") and the like have been around for a long time. Given the limitations (if book-likeness) of the PDF format, adding value with various conveniences could be one of the ways to go.


Mr. Ham: That's fantastic! By any chance, if you're looking to put the prize money somewhere, might I offer you my services as Certified Financial Con-sultant?

Me: Um, no. Most of it will be used to set up the Mr. Robo Memorial Fund for Interesting But Probably Ultimately Useless Technical Innovations And Emergency Journal Fees, the first project of which probably will be a DIY (not that DIY) touch screen, when we find the time. And of course a contribution to Mr. Card Game (N.B. got a random copy of Knowing Me, Knowing You)


But when it comes to innovation, I bow unreservedly to his wisdom
(But then life wouldn't be as colourful, would it?)


Mr. Ham: But why, when you could multiply it with me, and then buy all the screens and stuff you want, or even an island, which you could then plonk some top talent on and begin selling million-dollar flats in a few short decades?

Me: First off, I suspect that perhaps too many - and not just in Singapore, mind - are turning to finance as an end in itself. And secondly, your form being on your personal Cayman Islands letterhead doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Mr. Ham: Oh. Good catch.


Epilogue

Mr. Ham: Well, that's it. Mr. Robo's really gone.

Me: Yep. Didn't seem right to have Man vs. Ham this week, though we probably would have lost anyway. United looked as if their entire team were twenty years older in the first half!

*Looks up* The moon looks especially round today. And the sky's on fire.


(Sources: Flickr, Flickr, Wikipedia)


Mr. Robo just texted to say that the First Bunny Lunar Bank has gone up in flames, together with their backup servers, such that all transactions within the past day are reversed. You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, Mr. Ham?

Mr. Ham: What? No! Scout's honour, m'lud. *winks*



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