Time for a KitKat?

I have just electronically submitted two pieces of coursework, following a handing in of a 20-or-so page research report on Thursday, and a test on the same day.

It was all interesting but quite exhausting.

At this precise moment in time, I have absolutely no outstanding coursework. I have lectures, classes, and of course work on the group project which is ongoing. That’s all.

I think this calls for a celebratory cup of tea.

The Term So Far

It’s only been a week so I can’t swear to anything yet, but my feelings regarding my modules this term are: confidence.

I can’t swear by this either because I am (regrettably) not a mathematical genius, but things you do in your final year are worth significantly more than things you do in your second year. This means that in the case of modules available to both second and final year students, assuming they are significantly easier than final year only modules (which they are), you’re better off doing them in the final year where your higher marks will have more impact on your degree as a whole.

Fortunately, through pure co-incidence because I happened to take a module or two in my second year which qualified as “higher” level instead of “intimediate” level, I was able to have half of my modules this year be easier ones. This I feel bodes well for me.

So far I have been learning stuff which either I’m naturally very good at (programming) or stuff I already know. I have already done a piece of programming coursework in a language I’ve never done before which is due in two or three weeks time.

It strikes me that all this might come off as quite arrogant, but what did you expect: I’m awesome.

100 percent is actually quite a lot of percent

I would just like to note that so far my marks for all assessments this year are exactly 100%, although that is including a 95/100 which was then changed to 9.5/10 and rounded up to 10/10 because you can’t have decimals in the system. Don’t think I’ll be querying that one any time soon.

So now taking the weighting into account, in two of my modules I’ve already got 10% of the entire module :)

High five anyone?

I’m doing science and I’m still alive

I’m still alive, and not dead, or anything. I have a bit of a cough, if that’s interesting to you for some reason. Yes I am eating fruit/veg/not poison/etc/etc.

I had a bit of a scare at the start of the week when a faulty ATM decided it was hungry and ate my card, leaving me with £5 to last the week while my replacement got sent. However this was quickly remedied by a friend who owes me money.  Now I have a new card and everything is fine. Also, on the subject of money, both my student account and my savings account are currently fine and neither bank has collapsed or anything, so we’re okay so far.

I’m going to go and eat lunch now, and definitely some sort of healthy lunch with lots of salad and nothing involving a big old burger of some sort.

It’s happening

And I’m quite excited

Great news, 99% of people being idiots is a lie

It turns out that it’s only 63%.

Douchebag companies reduce amount of douchebaggery

So we haven’t spoken in a while, and mainly that’s because I’m in summer holidays in my hometown where absolutely nothing happens. Even less happens when I get glandular fever, my xbox breaks and half my family go off on seperate holidays. You haven’t been missing anything.

As the more nerdily enclined of you will know by now, I dislike DRM. I dislike the supporters of DRM and I dislike the companies that attempt to force DRM down my throat even though I’m buying their stuff legally. If you don’t know what DRM is, you can safely ignore this post.

Apparently, though, there is beginning to be a change of heart about this sort of thing. The article linked can be summarised thusly: companies who see their copyrighted video appear on youtube are beginning to ditch the “shit, some guy who likes our movie has uploaded his favourite scene from it, let’s sue him for everything he’s got” attitude and beginning instead to think “hey, if we put an advert for more of our stuff on that page, people would probably click on it and we would make money”.

I’ll spare you a supportive rant due to laziness. Just read the article if you’re interested in this sort of thing (you big nerd you).

The Bestest Holiday Ever

So finally I finish my year of work and get ready to enjoy my long summer holiday, when two things happen in succession.

1: I get glandular fever. I have headaches for a week and then suddenly my throat goes screwy and I can’t eat solids for three days. This makes me lose a considerable amount of weight that I now need to put back on because I’m skinny enough as it is.

2: Finally after recovering from the illness, my XB360 decides to throw me the red ring of death. Again. Luckily this time my address doesn’t have an ampersand in it so hopefully it won’t take Microsoft’s crack support team over two weeks to submit the repair order.

I love XB360s. I do. I think they’re by far the best console of all time.

I just wish I could play it.

Top Story: Most people download music illegally

As you can see from this study, apparently lots of people are downloading music illegally these days. Thank God someone did a study on it because I had no idea.

What does please me about this article – other than the fact that the statistics of people being naughty are actually surprisingly low in my opinion – is that it British Music Rights (BMR) does not go on to say “let’s sue the pants off everyone, quick!” but instead the following is noted:

“BMR, which commissioned the research, is spearheading a campaign to make legal download services easier to use, and to make breaking copyright less appealing.”

“The positive message is that 80 per cent of downloaders said they would pay for a legal subscription-based service, and they told us they would be willing to pay more than a few pounds a month”

Hell yeah is all I have to say to that. I fail to understand the stance that some take (e.g. the notorious RIAA) where they prefer to win legal music customers with lawsuits and anti-piracy messages/threats, rather than, say, providing a superior service than is available illegally.

You can download HD films now that are vastly superior to what you’d get on a DVD because you don’t have to watch trailers or anti-piracy messages (they get stripped out), and the only thing stopping that taking over is the long download times. You can download music illegally and easily that is equal in quality to something you’d get off iTunes, but without the DRM or the frankly stupid music format it uses. How about you start giving me something worth paying for, like high quality files and no DRM and the ability to download it multiple times, like say, exactly what they do at play.com?

As soon as something with the same feature set as play.com’s music download store and the same variety of music as iTunes hits the internet, I predict illegal music downloads dropping an impressive amount.

Definitely Newsworthy

I just want to say how much I agree with this news story. It is definitely newsworthy, not entirely stupid and if a whole seven people complained about it it must be wrong.

In addition to this, I would like to inform anyone who has ever called me a nerd or geek, despite the fact that I refer to myself using these terms, that I am suing you all for racial abuse.