The online home of Appleman1234 / Benjamin Southall

Hi everyone,

Just upgraded Wordpress to 2.2.1, almost went to a BBQ with Chrystle, was quite nice and meet some wonderful people. I also had the luxury of engaging in an intellectual discussion about the state of the world (overpopulation, shallowness of people, levels of intellectualism, perception of reality, asian philosophy, the purpose of religion, etc), was both informative and interesting , all the while getting to see some pretty sketchs / pictures of Anime characters (especially Kingdom Hearts 2, see machina-maw.deviantart.com) .

Chrystle was very tired, so I hope she is sleeping well now :), earlier and as per her LJ we played a derivate of 20 questions over MSN, I was reformatting her entry to add some of my own questions (no, I won’t post the raw log) and spent 1.5 hours doing so in Openoffice.org only to lose it all when trying to export to XHTML, (fuzzle, wuzzle, fuzzle, learning to behave Java.)

I may upload the information later along with other stuff I need to get round to doing and uploading (fixing up 002 resume site and uploading, coding some nifty stuff in PHP / Ruby, etc, doing more Gimping and playing around with Inkscape, not to mention song lyrics, poetry, stories and my mental skits.)

I currently am doing my final study for my Programming Abstraction & Linear Algebra exams, so I am in the mood for Graph Theory, Data Structures, Design Paterns, Matrix Algebra & Proofs, Eigenvalues & Diagonalisation and Linear Operators. I like the usage of Linear Operators in 3D graphics engines, and am conceptualising (thinking, planning, modelling) a new way of Wesnoth Damage calculation using Linear Algebra as a opposed to the current matrix method, so that units with ridiculous health (Survival Extreme / DOTG etc) don’t take up excessive RAM.

I am also unsure if my entry for the Greenphone competition will be ready in time, *sigh* maybe next time, at least I’ll see them at the Trolltech BBQ at QUT after my exams are over.

I have also been attempting to get the Wireless Reception to work on my bed in our RAMMED earth house and(packet loss >85% ) . Today on the way home from BBQ, there were some troublemakers on the train that got off at my stop (and probably would have attempted to bash me, if not that I had a ride waiting).

These people were locals to my region (I am ashamed, it wasn’t like this in the Beginning (when I was 3), stupid population and education system creating low social economic circumstances and bored youth) and idiots (in Grade 9 to 11) looking for a fight on the train calling people faggots and trying to wake up the people that were asleep. Their ring leader was drinking Bundy Rum on the train (underage drinking and drinking on a train is $150 fine) and was calling a guy near me a faggot, after they had walked on I talked to him and realised just how lucky they were that they hadn’t attacked him. (He knew his rights and the law)

The bothered me when I got of the train, probably because I am weird and more intelligent them, with the usual faggot taunting, I said Grow Up and then got asked to supposedly repeat it to his face, but I just remained silent and kept walking. (I don’t want no trouble or wasted time)

My little brother doesn’t like living in the city, but with the low socioeconomic suburban sprawl of uneducated, immoral and bored youths surrounding the place I call home and others call home the noise, pollution and hustle bustle of the city is looking more enticing by the minute.

Thanks

Stay Safe (I like I barely did)

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

This is my third audio blog, as all good things come in threes, well perhaps not, but shmeh,

Have fun and Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

BTW please check out the pictures, lyrics, poetry, extra stuff etc

BTW I CAN HAS Audio Blog 3 ;P

Hey everyone,

Some of the Photos taken from my phone are now in my gallery. Descriptions and the rest of the photos are coming later. It was quite hard to get them off my phone, first I had to infared them to Dallas Baird’s Palm then he had to bluetooth them to computer, then email to me. I did get to learn about Kbluetooth though.

Gallery is here.

Hopefully this will be one of my shortest posts yet.

Have fun

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

Whilst I have been audio blogging, I felt that I should return to written form because I need to write / type some stuff in order to properly self express myself, as written language seems to give more freedom than verbal and less prejudices than verbal. Although I can’t really be sure. First up

Computer Science / IT / Linux Nursery Rhymes

This little piggy programmed in Lisp
This little piggy programmed in C
This little piggy programmed in Perl
and this litlle piggy programmed in CPL & basic assembly

Little miss muffet
saved to her emacs buffer
her files and data displayed
Along came a vi-er, who terrified her
and flushed the buffer away

Three MCSEs
Three MCSEs
See how they code
See how they code
They code with VB and ASP.NET
So terribly that you want to forget
Three MCSEs
Three MCSEs

Add the data to stack
Place it their in sequel
Give it some CPU time
Pop goes the weasel

Next

I was able to get in contact an old friend of mine that I meet in Yr 10 when studying Indonesian as a visiting student at USC. As I thought I had lost all contact, this is definitely something I am very happy about :). I may be able to get credit for one my Indonesian subjects I did there, and that should help my GPA.

That said my mood is currently conflicted after watching two movies (WarGames, Rage in Placid Lake). The theme question of WarGames regarding futily of war and other things (What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? ) makes me wonder how many other strange games there are in Life, in thought and in everything else ? The second movie talks about a semi social outcast and his efforts to attempt to normalise himself, it hit very close to home, as the main character’s situation reminded me of my own slightly, and also caused more thought and consideration into previous memories , decisions and actions.

Hope however is a marvelous thing, because despite everything from illogic, philosophical questions about life, busyness caused by my university situation and my current mood, hope allows me to attempt to pull myself out of digging my own grave of despair mode and attempt to refocus and restabilise / justify who, why and what I am to myself and the world around me. Thanks for those have been supporting and inspiring me, it is greatly appreciated.

If it is better to have loved and lost then not to love at all, does that mean that love isn’t a strange game ? Big Brother is a strange game however, because despite the prizes at the end, both the contestants and the spectators lose their dignity in exchange for a million, a holiday and car …., nothing changes the romans enjoyed watching the gladiators, now the people enjoy reality television which is in fact one of the biggest oxymorons that I am aware of.

I am not doing too badly at Uni, although I would have liked to have done better on my Statistics Midsemster, and provided I do better on the final exam, I should have no issues, I also have to focus on getting the outstanding assessment commitments done, so I can study for exams. I have examined my degree pathway and am a little annoyed that MAB580 isn’t offered anymore, but as I have identified a valid secondary pathway (Plan B ) I should and will be fine.

In all the reflective learning we have done in MAD (Modeling Analysis and Design), I have come to the same conclusion as a both my team members that most systems are much easier to just lightly plan and develop as opposed to using the techniques taught by the subject. Whilst I am sure UML will come in handy, I prefer Petri Nets and State Machines and other more mathematical ways of modeling. On this note Umbrello and Dia are really good tools for UML modeling, but both still need a few more improvements.

People having being shoving Discworld (Pratchett) references in my face and it reminds me of the amount of stuff (Discworld,C, C++, Emacs, Vi, Language / Linguistic skills, Rollerblading, etc, list goes on) that I learnt or mastered a long time ago but need to brush up on. I am most likely going to enter Trolltech’s Greenphone competition (I have the SDK, and am brushing up on my C++, both for comp and Wesnoth, and my QT). As probably aforementioned I really like the greenphone and winning one or even having the chance to develop apps for it and QT, is a great oppourtunity.

Also wanting to get WINE to link correctly on my Gentoo 2007.0 (originally from Sabayon), which doesn’t seem to want to link wine to right libraries without a custom ebuild or an EXPORT statement. It would be nifty if WINE was slotted so I could do the regression testing on WinMX a fare bit faster / easier.

I also have to study up on Networks, UML, Abstract Data Types & other concepts, Linear Algebra and Statistical Analysis for my exams. Wish me luck. My emerge world is all done now (finally, kde-meta 3.5.7) except WINE but that will be fixed shortly. The Syntek Driver for my Webcam has version 1 release out, and it is a noticeable improvement in webcam quality. My apologies to the people I unintentionally irritated this week, group assessment creates short fuses…

The Asus Acpi also has new driver out that turns my previous always off wireless led to always on (bug filed), it should be changeable like the mail led using echo, but for some reason it is not. Make 5 Wishes Manga also reminded me of Rage in Lake Placid, and also helped me related to myself.

I am virtually sick of games without good or innovative game play, we need to revert to the classics or to innovate lest people die of boredom. (ET Quake Wars is going to be awesome when it comes out.)

This blog’s questions are related to both WarGames and the song lyrics of AT 17 (remember those who win the game, loose the love they thought they gained),

Is love a game ? Is life a game ? Are either of them strange games ? Is winning everything ? anything ? Is it better to roll the die or pass, fold or hold, take a chance or sit on the fence ? Are the sacrifices worth the victory ? How many sacrifices can one make and still win or draw the game ? What the game fun ?

Best wishes
Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

Here is my second audio blog.

Have fun listening

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

To start off with,

You have seen Snakes on a Plane and all the other parodies across the Internet / Interwebs. You love Snakes on a Plane for two reasons.

1. Samuel L. Jackson

2.“Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!”

Well I was recently sitting in my Linear algebra lecture, scrawling notes down , when it occured to me, that The only thing better than Snakes on a Plane is Motherfucking snakes on this Motherfucking plane! and the only thing better than that (being the enthusiastic Maths student I am) are Vectors on a Plane or Isomorphic Vectors on a Isomorphic Plane.

I wonder if we can get Samuel L Jackson (or even better Jesse Ernest Wilkins, Jr
see (http://magazine.uchicago.edu/9708/Images/AAWilkins.gif)

), to star in a more Maths educational film Vectors on a Plane, or maybe I will just have to make another Flash or MNG animation / parody / tribute (The world needs better MNG animators and animation support). And can you imagine come exam time the number of Linear Algebra Students that will say Enough is enough! I have had it with these isomorphic vectors on this isomorphic plane!” .

Also we were proving that B1A commuted to B2A, which I immediately interpreted as B1 being B1 the Banana and B2 being B2 the Banana and A as being their thought matrix. As it commuted successfully (so we proved on the board) B1 and B2 were thinking the same thing. (Are you thinking what I am thinking B2 ?) For more maths humour see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_joke and

Also my I made lemon sponge pudding nice, and it was quite tasty, I still prefer butterscotch but you take what you can get and my hair is all plaited / braided up properly now.

The question today is once an IN joke is common knowledge, is it still an IN joke or does it become an OUT joke ? Does this idea apply to things other than jokes ? If you have any funny in jokes I would love to hear / read them ….

Chill out or Stay Warm

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

I went to Supernova this weekend, it was awesome but somethings were a bit of a let down.

<RANT>
Disappointment 1
KA-LAN Attendance was so low…., I was only registered member and biggest UT2004 game we had, had 4 human players. On the upside however I did meet two really cool people :).

Disappointment 2
I didn’t get to play / duel (not in tournament, just normal game) Yugioh with anyone, instead getting abused and heckled by 2 collectors that wanted my Gold Top Don Zalous . (Anyone heard the term NFS …..)

Disappointment 3
Most of the stuff I wanted to buy was either to expensive in comparsion to its actual value to me or not avaliable for purchase.

Disappointment 4.
DDR brang back memories of LCA2007, (Thanks mark_alec) and $3 for a bottle of water is a rip off and Tales of Earthsea premier which I really wanted to see was sold out…

However Supernova wasn’t all bad

Leet Thing 1.
Meet two really cool people from KA-LAN.

Leet Thing 2.
Acquired lots of free stuff and got to watch 300 and Blackadder

Leet Thing 3.
Got to hang out with Gatl for almost 2 days … (Thanks Gatl, I hope you enjoyed your uni stuff evasion and all your shopping)

Leet Thing 4.
Hellsing Ultimate 2. This was a one my first few exposures to Anime and I enjoyed it greatly :).

Leet Thing 5.
Got two possible job offerings and got myself a blueberry cheesecake in freezer at home. Yum

</RANT>

Other notes about Supernova include , I got to preview night 9 hours early , then went into city and didn’t end up returning to preview night, instead spending the day studying / working (half heartedly) and configuring Anope (IRC Services bots) on Olympus and helping Dorian Gray get a new sub domain for phpbb3 testing and stuff.

I have chapped lips from the weather and lots of shampoo,soap etc (I don’t eat chocolate, and received an organic hair and bodycare pack instead (And it is all from the only range I would buy (but the shops won’t sell me), w00t :))

I also did some work on 008 (MAD = UML project), and while I don’t like UML, Umbrello makes the diagrams childsplay. I greatly thank the KDE Team for making my life easier once again :). (Dia is also good, I should probably rewrite / update my ORM set for Dia…, mmmm, maybe after I get Netrek Cow and Quadra 1.2.0 to compile cleanly…)

I have get back to work on the 4 group assessments I have to complete. (I am so closed to finishing my Linear Algebra one it isn’t funny, oh well maybe it is ). I also have to watch more Anime and read more Manga (Gatl and Supernova demonstrated how in the shallow end I was…)

I am still also looking for part time work and part time fun…
I am going to start chatting and studying before I have to catch the late bus to cheesecake (I mean home) :).

Hope you enjoyed your Easter Break as much as I did,

The Question today is
Vampires or Werewolves which would eat more ice cream and sandwiches and you have to state a reason why …. ?

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

I was in a MAB101 lecture at the moment, studying F and T distributions …, but that is over now and I have Easter Break. COUGH!!! Easter break should be called Easter break from classes, because that is all it is a break from classes. (Easter by itself is special for another few reasons… (Jesus sacrificing himself, Other spiritual new life festivals and celebrations etc )).

I have at least 3 group projects todo and lots more study todo (ITB006, ITB008, MAB101 Worksheets etc). I also lots of catching up to do on chatting to people, blogging, publishing and finalising ideas and stuff I have created etc etc.
To keep a long story short… I am quite busy, but not busy enough to care or spend / waste time with good company.

I missed my 006 lecture last night due to a family commitment (Alistair Hulett concert) , which involved a BUS traffic jam and having to walk from Adelaide St to Brunswick St with my little brother, but we made with 5 minutes till the calzones were ready.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was quite nice, as were the kalamata olives, (the pips just slid out of the olive, and there was no strong brine aftertase.) The waiter was friendly and funny and the calzones weren’t bad (not as good as the Italian ones, but not bad at all). Real Italian calzone, pizza and pasta ruins most calzone, pizza and pasta made anywhere else or commercially unless it is made by an Italian.

The concert was awesome. Alistair Hullet mainly focused on the Australian and Scottish labour and union strike. He was accompanied by Dave Swarbrick on violin / fiddle , whose mastery of the instrument was tremendous, and had by foot which was keeping in time, sore from matching his 16/16 time with the occasional 32 in for good measure.

None of Alistair’s songs from Backstreets of Paradise were played, however he was kind enough to give me a link to all his Youtube recordings . His new albums are Red Clydeside and Riches & Rags so if you like folk music or protest folk music relating to Australia and Scotland (protest folk is akin to Red Gum etc) then please visit his website http://www.alistairhulett.com/ and / or purchase his albums.

He should be at the National Folk Festival in Canberra by now, if your lucky enough to be attending that then you’re in for a treat.

In Greenroom news, Rembo has wrecked almost all of the machines by quick formatting them and not making the partitions bootable, or bad images with no usb support or a single ip address configured. We also resurrected everest on a different machine (to its original one) (so the Greenroom has a least one working machine) and procured a nice big black server we like to call Olympus (one higher then everest). ATM we are setting up useful stuff on Olympus and we already have IRC. #QUT server qutirc.no-ip.org and port 8000 I believe if you attend QUT and want to visit us.

Thanks for reading, the question is When and what was your last experience that you found it difficult to keep a straight face ?

Stay safe over Easter.

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Kill -9 by Monzy: See http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4 or monzy.com enough said.

Petri Nets

I am doing my 008 Software enigeering methodology report on Petri nets, which is awesome because Petri nets pwn all other methodologies because

• They are a formal method and formal methods pawn. ( according to Week 2 Readings for 008 by Richard Thomas)
• The have interesting, cool, fun, quirky and even coloured diagrams and animations. (Go see the ones on Wikipedia, they are so much better than Waterfall model or Spiral Model diagrams and best of all they are comptiable with UML or see below)

• Now the best part (especially for me, being IT & Maths) Petri nets are and can be formally defined in mathematics and have mathematical properties. For all the mathematical goodness see the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petri_net .
• Also Petri nets are nondeterministic which gives you lots of freedom and options and freedom is good :).

Cheater pointed me to http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1396 , Vi vs Emacs is the best arch rivalry. A few years ago I learned vi and emacs fluently and also learned C and C++. I then used them both for a few months and then forgot them. I had to spend 15 to 30 minutes just remembering the save and quit commands for both of them. I now use nano on command line and kate or kwrite in GUI.

But enough with the history…, this moves me on to the topic of Pirate vs Ninja. I never really decided which one I was and when asked first by Gatl (I replied undecided) and now again by Cheater (I also replied undecided, to which he said that wasn’t possible…) , now that I think about it, Ninjas and Pirates are quite similar in fact the only things that seem to differ is people’s opinions and stereotypes of them.

Ninjas and Pirates both fight with sword usually. (Pirates with cutlass, Ninja with Katana or the smaller ninja sword with the really long name)

Ninjas and Pirates are generally both dishonourable characters. (Yes Ninjas have no honour, they are assassins and spies, the samurais where the ones with honours)

Ninjas and Pirates are both resourceful in combat.

Ninjas and Pirates both usually fight to train, for money / treasure or for power. (Both can also be mercenarys)

Ninjas and Pirates respectively both band together in groups.

Ninjas and Pirates both prefer stealth and surprising their opponents.

Ninjas and Pirates both use napalm / pitch, poison and gunpowder :).

Ninja and Pirates both like the colour black, although Ninjas do wear it more often unless they are disguised.

Ninja and Pirates both practice guerrilla warfare.

Ninja and Pirates both enjoy alcohol. (Yes belief it or not Ninjas like Saki as much as any other Japanese person or non Japanese person for that matter)

Ninjas and Pirates are both not that special, they are just people that practiced the craft of piracy or the art of ninjitsu.

Ninjas and Pirates are quick to betray … (not-loyal) .

Not sure if female pirates existed, but female ninjas definitely did. I am of the opinion female pirates should have existed.

Ninjas and Pirates both use and create chaos to achieve their objectives.

Ninjas and Pirates both like being free.

All lot of real Japanese pirates (before pirates were modernised in to the crap with guns and speedboats), had a decent knowledge of Ninjitsu.

And numerous other similarities….

I am still not decided, but think that if Pirates & Ninjas meet by accident they wouldn’t fight without reason, rather they would go their own separate ways.

Also as my webcam works some more photos of me will be available in my gallery .

And now the stupidity epidemic, The Stupidity epidemic is currently effecting humanity, please use your remaining intelligence that hasn’t been watered down by the media, reality , your country’s education system, to avert suffering stupidity and to immunise your friends against stupidity.

Another symptom of this epidemic is ignorance and that should be avoided as well where possible, question , learn , understand, think critically but don’t become a heartless cynical hypercritical atheist pure logic bastard, because another major symptom of this epidemic is emotional ignorance and stupidity.

Things you can do to promote intelligence, think, think before you speak, think deeper, play games that require thought instead of just point click, be imaginative and creative, feel, believe, love and smile, etc, etc..

Best of luck saving your friends,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

(This blog’s question is If knew you would die tomorrow, what would you do before tomorrow comes ?

Hi everyone,

Sorry that this post is so late, but I didn’t get the photos back and uploaded till after LCA2007 (See the following post for more on that).

I am now official 18 (well 18 and 1 month and a bit), I can now legally choose to abstain from certain benefits of being 18. One such benefit that I won’t obstain from is the one which allows me to transact in online commerce. Paypal, Ebay, etc here I come :P.

My birthday party was hosted at The Sofitel on the eve of my birthday. The preparty (Organised by my mother) was fun , and I hoped I mingled enough. Thank to all the people that attended the preparty, your company was wonderful. Photos are in my gallery which is at the same address as this blog, but replacing /blog/ with /gallery2/ (here) .

The Sofitel did a great job, the food was great, the cake was awesome (see photos), the room was great, etc. Other great people included Derek Matthews (our MC and game moderator for the evening), the guests that showed up, (Thank all you all so much, for making it a memorable experience), the guests that didn’t and RSVPed (you missed a fun night) the waiters and event manager and the Sofitel organiser / correspondent, the pastry chef, anyone else who I forgot to mention.

Highlights of my 18th

• Presents (I did not expect any presents only guest presence but I got quite a few, so thank you all very much
• The IceBreaker (The background info that was only for Derek’s eyes, but he read it out to everyone, whilst censoring on ocassion)
• The conversation (Lots of friends talking at the same table, gave lots of varied conversation, including hypothetical conversation about naming my future partner and kids)
• Mafia , this was awesome despite Derek’s occasional mistake, People caught on fast, features of this included, Crazy intelligent, rambling suicidal innocent townies played by Ruben and I , The sneakiness of the Mafia, The number of people killed by Mafia, saved by Archangel only to be killed by Assasin, The crazyiness of the voting
• Mao, it was fun, Andrew & Megan knew different rules to me and I got caught out twice
• The speechs of my father and me
• The Cake

To all the people that did not come and were invited, regardless of RSVP, I would like to eventually catch up with you all and this will be easier due to my relocation to Brisbane this year.

Christmas

Christmas was grand and traditional, I shared it with some dear family friends on the Gold Coast.
The German tradition (of the presents on the 24th night) and the perform something for Christmas or no presents, and other traditions were wonderful. I sung Favourite things from the “Sound of Music”. There were bonbons and carols, and great food…..

Then slept till 25th and had Christmas brunch with the same friends, then went to family gathering in the afternoon.

The Party of the Futurrrr

The Party of the Futurrrrrr, was the New Years party I attended with Dallas and his friends, all aspects of this including the lack of sleep beforehand (installing Gentoo for Dallas all night :)), the drive to Brisbane, meeting Dallas’s friends who had a Wii, an awesome flash comic series on Newgrounds and cool future costumes. Think Robot and Buzz Lightyear of the Futurrr.

We had fun on the way down to the party which was out past Logan, it is a cross between a treasure hunt and a Super Mario platform game in a roundabout level. We got there eventually , and I met some more nice people and spent New Years playing Blank White Cards (Think Mao + Charades but simpler and crazier) , watching drinking games, singing and listening to folk and other types of music in the early hours of the morning, talking and a little bit of sleeping.

Only to arise to pancakes and smiles and the urgent rush of Dallas needing to get back to his office for Work. (being on call is fun :P). But all in all it was a great new years with great people.

Sorry if this post is too long or too short or too delayed etc, I will probably be updating it or elaborating if I need to.

Best of Luck and Have fun

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

PS: BTW how were your Christmases and New Years ?

Also BTW, I didn’t finalise this post till after LCA so even though it all happened between 23 Dec 2006 and 5 of Jan 2007, the date on this post is kind of wrong