Azrael's Weblog

Fuel bills

2008-07-25T15:41:00.002+01:00

Fuel bills seem to be rising all the time. But just found out that my account with my gas/electricity provider is in credit, they owe me almost £200. Yay!

Didn't get it

2008-07-18T13:36:00.003+01:00

I didn't get the job mentioned in my last post.

I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting to get it, I don't think the interview went too well.

Job interview

2008-07-08T12:33:00.002+01:00

I have a job interview this week, on Thursday to be more specific, and I am spending most of today working on a five minute presentation I have to give.

I have selected which topic, of those offered as choices, to base my presentation on, and I mostly know my opinion on the topic. I am, however, finding it difficult to translate my random thoughts into a coherent presentation. That isn't to say that it's a difficult topic, just that I am very distracted, a lot of my attention seems to keep being dragged to my pending house move in four days time.

More information

2008-06-17T14:29:00.003+01:00

For the sake of fairness, I suppose I should note that new information has come to light.

Campus Watch now claim that they cut the chain of a totally different bicycle at approximately the same time as my colleagues bicycle was stolen. Also that they have been in touch with the supposed owner of the bicycle they liberated, asked for a photo of the bicycle they liberated for him, which matches the bicycle they remember liberating, and does not match my colleagues bicycle.

Oh, and all the CCTV cameras in the area - captured nothing!

How to steal a bicycle

2008-06-17T11:24:00.003+01:00

Find a nice looking bicycle on campus
Visit Campus Watch (Security) and tell them you've forgotten the combination to the combination lock
Show your student card that proves you are a foreign student in your final year of study who is about to leave the country
Show the security guard where the bicycle is, and have them cut off the non-combination key-locked chain - don't worry, they won't notice the inconsistency of your story and the facts
Cycle away

My poor colleague will now spend most of the rest of the day cursing loudly, talking to the police, making an official complaint against stupid members of security, and dealing with the University insurance.

Good weather

2008-05-09T14:14:00.002+01:00

It's good weather to be sitting out on the grass eating lunch and catching some sun. Good views to be had too.

Quiet campus

2008-04-07T10:08:00.002+01:00

It's the start of the end of term break on campus now. That means all the students vanish for about a month, and most of the academics with them. I'm expecting things to be very quiet on the work front, except for the ongoing projects that don't require too much academic input - a good chance to catch up on documenting for the Moodle project.

Despite the snow yesterday, it's a sunny day today, but I doubt it will be warm enough to sit on the lawns at lunch, might have to wait a few more days before that becomes possible.

Drowning out the builders

2007-11-26T10:55:00.001Z

The builders are building a lift at work. This is a good thing... improving accessibility etc etc. What's bad about it, is that my office wall is the only barrier between me and extremely loud drilling and bashing equipment. Insanely loud noises are driving me insane.

However I found a way to make it relatively tolerable - listen to insanely loud music. Today, my distraction of choice is http://ninremixes.com/.

Third month

2007-11-23T12:14:00.001Z

Into the third month of my new job, and all is going well. I haven't really made the time to post a blog entry, but having just installed Flock to see how it's coming along, it was a good opportunity to test the blog editing tool in flock, and to post a mini update.

It took a few weeks, but I've been set up in my new office with a new PC for a while now. I'm on the third floor, so a little tiring a climb after walking up a steep hill to work.

Blogged with Flock

New Job

2007-09-17T16:08:00.000+01:00

Second week of the new job - and everything is going well... so far.

Sweet sweet victory

2007-08-11T09:33:00.000+01:00

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070810165237718

Wyefayre

2007-06-27T12:53:00.001+01:00

The weekend after next is a fun and busy one. There's a festival being held in the village where I work, and as a member of staff I've obtained a free ticket.

Why I love cricket commentary

2007-06-08T14:29:00.001+01:00

It's a world of its very own, with a language that goes with it.

Harmison steams in, all arms and legs, like an Hindu deity running for a bus...and his first ball...is a ruddy wide...short and high over Ganga's shoulder...and his second is a load of old rubbish and ends up slapping into the fine-leg fence. Hmmm...A couple outside off-stump...before another runs away for four down leg-side. Another leg-side wide and this is very ugly to watch...AND HE'S TRAPPED GANGA LBW!!! That's Russian roulette for you, Daren, you're bound to get your brains blown out at some stage. Smith gets an absolute jaffa second-up, the ball spitting off a length and just missing the top of off. That was one of the strangest overs I've ever seen.

You've got to love it, or else ;)

Earthquake

2007-04-28T12:26:00.000+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6602677.stm

I woke up at about 8:20 this morning to feel my bed shaking. I thought I was just jiggling my leg nervously in the semi-asleep state that i was in. At the time I thought it was a little unsettling quite how much my bed was rocking. I consciously jiggled my leg, and the bed kept wobbling - convincing me for a moment about cause and effect. I stopped jiggling my leg, and the bed stopped shaking.

After becoming more awake I thought how my bed must be close to collapse if it could move that much, and by that time I was talking online to a friend asking me if I had felt the earthquake. Phew. Nice to know my bed's not falling to pieces!

Ban DRM petition

2007-02-19T18:50:00.000Z

I recently signed an online petition at the UK government website putting my name down for a ban on DRM. The government has kindly put up a response.

I have my own response to this:

They say:

'We believe that they should be able to continue to protect their content in this way.'

This implies that they OWN the content, whereas it is my view that the purpose of copyright/patent/etc law was for the government to grant temporary monopolies to content creators to encourage the creation process, and that after the duration of the temporary monopoly expired the work returned 'back to the people'.

Surely the only logical purpose to encourage content creation is to enrich society.

Surely society benefits by the content ultimately being owned by the people as a whole.

While I accept the logic that content creators should get to benefit in the short-term as a reward for creating the content, I believe it to be counter productive to forget that content should ultimately belong to all of society.

Labelling the content as being owned by the creators allows this point to be forgotten all to easily.

Another important aspect of DRM is that if we the people can not make copies freely, then we can not leverage our ownership of it once the copyright expires - DRM essentially becomes a means for content creators to extend copyright terms indefinitely.

Any reasonable law governing DRM should very clearly put an obligation onto copyright creators (protecting their work with DRM) to provide an unprotected copy for public use upon the expiration of the copyright term.

I rest my case

2007-01-02T01:32:00.000Z

I can't help thinking that I was right.

In good company

2006-11-06T16:00:00.000Z

The BBC are reporting that Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he is "against the death penalty, whether it is Saddam or anybody else".

A death sentence

2006-11-05T16:19:00.000Z

I can understand the emotions of wanting someone dead, and I can understand the satisfaction of hearing about the death of someone despised. What I cannot accept is the sheer joy and jubilation at the prospect of someone, no matter who they are, being killed. Killing, state sanctioned or otherwise, is a terrible act. I'm not a pacifist, I have no objections to state-sanctioned killing in an uncontrollable environment - i.e. war. But the idea of the termination of life as punishment is abhorant to me. I think it says more about the people mandating and carrying out such a sentence than those sentenced to it.

Let's accept that in certain countries the death penalty is simply going to happen anyway, there's not much that can be done about that - yet. However I lose all respect for those that are able to celebrate the death of another. It makes them little better than the murderor whose death sentence they are cheering. It is the nature of man to be animalistic, our advantage that we are able to rise above it, and our curse that we (at times) cannot escape it. It disgusts me that British lives are being sacrificed trying to bring freedom to savages. If they embrace murdering each other so happily, we should leave them to it.

That said, I guess it would actually be better working with them, and trying to bring some sort of moral understanding to them. When wanting to give them freedom to choose their own future, you can't then object too much to the way they decide to use their freedoms. It is inevitable that a fledgling democracy is not going to start out at the same point as more established ones. Democracies are forged from bloodshed, let's just hope it develops more rapidly than others - such as those that still favour such barbarity as the death penalty.

Mac Pro Mac Pro Mac Pro Mac Pro

2006-10-20T12:38:00.000+01:00

I arrived home last night to find a large box waiting for me. I drooled on it a little, and put it to one side of the room. Tonight I unpack it and run my excited hands up and down the cheese-grater.

Contract Extended

2006-10-16T14:22:00.000+01:00

My employment got extended again today. Instead of running out in Feb 2007, it now runs out in July 2008.

Lovely people

2006-10-06T15:57:00.000+01:00

The people at work are lovely (which is exactly the right sort of thing to say in case they ever read this)!

Not only balloons and banners, but home-baked muffins, chocolates, cards, and a scarf.

Way more than I deserve, but I ain't givin' it back!! ;)

Tropical weather and balloons

2006-10-06T10:51:00.000+01:00

Baking sweltering heat, almost constant rain, it feels like I'm somewhere tropical. But no, just in the office. It is officially 'cold season' and the antiquated un-thermostated heating has been turned on. Doors and windows open across campus, fans are turned on, jumpers pulled off to sit in t-shirts. Energy efficient? No. Environmentally friendly? No. Any other choice? No, not really.

Got to the office today to find a banner across my door proclaiming 30 years of age. There are more banners in my office and the main office. Balloons cling with sticky-tape to my monitor and window.

What October brings

2006-10-03T09:15:00.000+01:00

The first two days of October brought torrential rain, and today I stepped out of the house this morning and felt that the weather had turned significantly colder. Autumn is surely here.

Walking up the road to work this morning, I was amazed at just how many spiderwebs I could see on the hedges and trees. They were all glistening with dew, and I momentarily wished I had a camera. I soon put off this thought, as even if i had a camera, I probably wouldn't be carrying it around, ever eager as I am to reduce weight in my bag.

Inevitable slide into decrepitude

2006-09-29T10:24:00.000+01:00

It isn't all that long until my next birthday. While that affords me the opportunity to consider purchasing myself a spanking new computer, I am also faced with reaching a significant decimal landmark.

In the scheme of things, thirty isn't too old. But as a land mark, it is the first one to be reached that actually makes you stop and think "hey, I'm getting old!". I wasn't overly excited at reaching twenty, but as a land mark it only brings on a realisation that you are in fact a fully fledged adult. I'm sure that reaching forty is actually not that bad, after all, you've already hit thirty and had a whole ten years to resign yourself to the whole age thing. Fifty... that might be depressing, but I'm going to put off thought on that one - I have time.

I supppose the traditional thing to do is look back on my life, and regret things. I actually don't think I have much in the way of regrets. I'm rather accepting of my life and where it is, and how I got here. I'm not dissapointed, and I intend to continue being happy. So.. roll on thirty, do your worst! I'm more than a match for you. Now, back to the thoughts on a new computer.

Personal Learning Environments

2006-09-25T11:17:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking recently about Personal Learning Environments from an institutional point of view. It makes sense that an institution would provide/host/manage a PLE for its students, but it makes no sense for that environment to be lost to the student after graduation. When you think of a student then moving between multiple institutions throughout their learning-life (and with life-long learning, wouldn't this be their entire life?), it becomes complicated if different institutions run different PLEs. Even if a PLE was available to alumni, a single student may find themselves operating upon multiple different PLEs. Where's the sense it that!?

So what problems do we have?

How to keep the PLE available to the student after graduation
How to prevent the situation of person split across multiple different PLEs
If sticking with a single PLE, how to keep it relevant and competitive with other web tools.

I stuck problem 3 in there, as that's always going to be a problem for any web tool.

I'm not just posing the problems. I'm also posing what I think might be my solution to this.

My suggested solution is constructing a framework PLE site that exists to pull together the tools the student wants to use. The PLE will contain minimal data on the student, but then provide a range of plugins. These plugins turn the PLE into a portal for the student to access their favourite web tools, as well as selectively share some of the information about themselves with others. For example, if the student activates the google-mail plugin, their portal includes a login box that takes them to their email. If the tick a box to share their google-mail details, then anyone viewing that students 'who am I' page will see their google-mail email address. Likewise if the student adds the flickr plugin and makes it public, others will be able to see the students flickr ID.

This way, anyone searching the PLE for another user, and visiting that user's page, might be able to get their email address, flickr ID, url of their webpage, link to an RSS feed of their weblog, wiki, etc etc

So, how does this solution resolve the problems?

The PLE is only a portal to other web tools which the student can keep using after graduation. If the student moves to another institution that is running the same PLE, they can activate all the same plugins, and be immediately operating in a familiar environment.
Because the student is picking and selecting the web tools that they want to use, and taking them with them wherever they go (as they are not owned by any one of the institutions they are part of), they don't need to worry about their identity being split over multiple PLEs.
Because the PLE uses a plugin system, providing access to other web tools, you don't need to compete with them. Plugins should be easy to create (10-20 lines of xml), and a new plugin can be created for every new web tool, letting the student pick which they want to use.

Having thought of this possible solution to the PLE problem, I thought I should mock up a page as a demo.

I'd be very interested in any comments, suggestions. Anyone interested in working towards developing along this line, would be more than welcome to get in touch with me to discuss.