OK, technically it’s not the same series.  A different company has partnered with LucasArts to make a new game.  They say it isn’t the long-awaited MI5, but instead takes place after the (nonexistent) MI5.  Also, rather than being a monolithic game, it’s a series of 5 episodes.  They are released monthly, starting from August this year.  Two have been released to date, with 3 more to go.

The graphics are somewhat better than the last two, but the controls are a bit strange.  None of the 3D MI games ever quite sussed out how to control a 3D character effectively, and this one is no exception.  The strange drag-to-move interface is only a minor annoyance though – the same quirkiness and humour is still there, and that’s what makes MI so much fun.  It also seems rather easier than the previous MI games in that there is usually some logic to what you have to do in order to achieve a certain goal, although figuring out some of the details is still a bit tricky.  It’s definitely a good way to while away a few hours.

So far, my regular charity ‘portfolio’ looks like this:

• Unicef Global Parents
• Kiva.org
• NZ Breast Cancer Foundation
• Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust

This year I also supported the Atheist bus campaign, although I’m unlikely to make that a regular thing.  Since my kiva lending will keep rolling over, I’ll have more money to spend next year,  so I’m still on the lookout for other charities to support:

• Charities that hand out condoms
• Something with an environmental/conservation slant
• Groups that support education, particularly science education for kids or, even better, educating parents about the importance of educating their kids

For some reason, I have an irrational aversion to the iPhone.  The way they control everything obviously results in good user experiences, but the way they lock up the ability to develop applications for it just annoys me.  Even if I liked the phone itself, I wouldn’t be happy knowing it was an Apple product.

I’ve also never been an Nokia person.  I’ve been quite happy with my Samsung, but not so keen that I’m even bothering to keep up with their new releases.

Nope, me, I’m a Google fan.  So ever since they announced Android, their mobile phone OS, I’ve wanted one.  I’ve also been quietly jealous of Stephen’s (Windows Mobile) HTC Touch, so when HTC announced the HTC Magic would be an Android phone, I began scheming to get my hands on one.    Since it was a reward though, I made myself wait until after submission, and boy am I glad it took me so long. 

During the interval, HTC came out with the Hero, and I fell in love.  It has multi-touch goodness like the iPhone and Flash available in the browser.  It sports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, GPRS and all the goodies you’d expect for a price tag of $1k.  It also has a completely customisable set of home screens on which you can embed not only shortcuts but running applications that you can easily switch to.  To say I was looking forward to it is a gross understatement!

It finally arrived yesterday and I love it even more than I thought I would.  The tactile feedback (subtle vibrations) you get when you use it is incredible.  The screen is just gorgeous, and every part of the phone has beautiful icons and visual details that just make it delightful to interact with.  It’s also very responsive, which I was a bit worried about, having seen people with WM phones that take a long time to react to user input.

Being a Google OS, it naturally hooks up perfectly with my Gmail, GChat and Google calendars, but I didn’t expect it to play so seamlessly with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, the three social networking applications that I actually use!  It automatically matched up all my Google & phone contacts with their Facebook and Flickr profiles, so I can see updates from any channel.  It also plays nicely with Exchange so I can access my work mail.  And, oh yeah, you can send text messages and call people.

I’ve only had it less than a day, so I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I can do.  I haven’t even tried out the 5 MP camera, or turned on the GPS, or downloaded any music or video onto it.   I’m off now to play with it some more.

A few random thoughts and highlights:

• Melbourne is a lot like Auckland only three times bigger and with an exponentially improved public transport system.
• The Australian bush is very different to New Zealand bush, but equally beautiful.  It’s a bit scary to think how prevalent bushfires are though – people living in the countryside have to be very careful.
• If you ever get a chance to take a Gray Line bus tour with a tour guide called Daryl – take it!  He’s missed his calling as a stand-up comedian.
• There are some gorgeous little villages (like Sassafras and Olinda) in the Blue Dandenong mountains that would be a great place to spend a lazy Sunday.
• The Yarra river is really not very exciting.
• Melbourne has awesome food but terrible coffee – at least everywhere we we went it was awful.  In fact, even the hot chocolates weren’t very good.
• Melbourne streets are really wide – up to two lanes of trams, 4 lanes of cars and 2 lanes of parking.  They were allegedly designed that wide to allow a bullock team to turn around without unhitching from the wagon. 
• Melbourne is a planned city, with the CBD being divided into equal sized square blocks, 4 blocks high and 8 wide, and with smaller lanes, arcades and alleyways within the large blocks.
• Shops don’t open very early in Melbourne – 10am during the week and midday on Sunday.
• Air New Zealand’s A320s are much nicer than their 767s.
• 4 days is more than enough time to go shopping.

And part of my official letter from the university confirming that I’m really finished:

I have no plans to change the name of my blog just yet though.  There’s still plenty of procrastination to be done, even if it’s not specifically thesis procrastination.   Suggestions for a new title welcomed.

About 5 groups were affected by this, and each group had around 20 items in their to-do list.  It wasn’t a SQL injection attack, the vandal  simply manually edited every item to say ‘eat penis’.  They weren’t entirely single-minded about it though – on every list, one of the items said ‘eat pussy’ instead.

I took a screenshot and emailed it to each group, then ran some queries on the database to update all the items to something innocuous.  Some of them were simply grateful that I’d let them know, while others were mortified about the situation and sent me emails profusely apologising and assuring me that they hadn’t done it.   However, almost as soon as I’d updated the databases, they were changed again.  Most of them put proper authentication on their site fairly soon, but not before someone else in the class had added their 2c to the situation:

As the sites were public, I had no way to really trace the culprit except to an Orcon IP address.  Since they hadn’t actually done anything really wrong, I had no cause for further action, although I did my best to embarrass them in class.  I have my suspicions who it was, but I’ll probably never know.  I consider it a useful lesson in the importance of security a website.

As well as the checklists, they also filled in a few of the website contact forms (of which most were copied or sent to me as the “company representative”):

Three groups still hadn’t got their authentication sorted by the time of the final presentations – they simply updated the data every time it was vandalised.  One group emailed me explaining that they’d been ‘attacked by the eat penis person’ and asking if it would affect their marks for the presentation (it didn’t – only their project mark).  Another noticed during the presentation that all their to-do items had been changed to eat penis, but apart from getting very red-faced, ignored it.

This time at least, the person seems to have had slightly more imagination:

The CT scan I was supposed to have never happened – I lucked out and they had a free surgery slot open up on the Monday and they put me in it.  Saturday and Sunday I was mostly just waiting, popping painkillers and tethered to my drip.  Fortunately, they gave me a much nicer hospital gown that didn’t risk causing everyone nearby snow blindness every time I got out of bed.  It was actually very comfortable.  I wasn’t eating anything because the pain was too unbearable, so between visitors, I mostly just marked my exams, txted people and dozed.

The surgery itself was fairly uneventful – I put on the surgical gown (no arse coverage at all), the sexy compression stockings, signed all the consents, met the surgeon, surgical nurse and anaesthetist and listened to them explain what was going to happen.  They put an oxygen mask on me, put something in my IV line and I went straight to sleep.   I came to when they were lifting me off the operating table onto my bed and wheeling me into recovery.  I was only in recovery about 15 minutes, getting morphine every time the pain went above a 3/10. 

I got back to my bed to discover my mother waiting, along with some lovely bunches of flowers.  I showed off my 9 large gallstones (3 were donated to science) and was pretty much too groggy to do much except sleep for the rest of the day.  It was actually several hours after the surgery that I realised I had a rather large tube sticking out of a hole in the middle of my stomach, there to drain any blood and liquid away from the internal site of the surgery.  Moving was extremely painful, although not because of the surface wounds.  The pain was actually deeper, in the muscle, and felt rather like I’d done the most hideous killer abdominal workout ever devised.  The surface incisions weren’t stitched and started bleeding every time I moved though, so I had to had my dressings changed often.  

The most annoying part was that I couldn’t roll over at all and had to sleep on my back, which I’ve never been very comfortable doing.  The next few days were mostly spent resting and having my dressings changed frequently.  I could eat again, without pain, although frankly, with the quality of the food I was getting, I still preferred not to.  I’m sure the regular hospital food isn’t bad, but to avoid stressing my bile ducts, they had me on a low fat diet, which was awful.  I was craving protein something awful.  I was actually relieved when they put me nil by mouth again for Thursday’s procedure.

Although the surgery went according to plan, they weren’t able to clear my bile duct so on the Thursday I had to have an endoscopy to check it and clear it if necessary.  They didn’t knock me out for it, just sedated me and gave me something to numb my throat.  I could feel the camera thingie bumping against the inside of my stomach and duodenum all the way down – a very bizarre and unpleasant experience.  Fortunately they were able to clear the duct fairly quickly and it was all over in a few minutes.  I only started gagging just as they removed it from my throat.  The sedative they gave me was awfully powerful and I ended up sleeping almost all the rest of the day.

And finally, on the Friday, a week after I was admitted, they removed all the various tubes that were sticking out of me.  I learned firsthand the value of direct pressure on a wound.  IV lines tend to bleed very heavily when removed, but you press hard on them for a minute or so and they close right up, not even needing a sticking plaster.  

Removing the drain tube from my stomach was a rather more interesting procedure.  It was stitched in place, and penetrated a few inches through the muscle, so I thought.  The nurse cut the stitch away and told me to take a deep breath and hold it, as she pulled about 20cm of tube.  Then another deep breath and another 20cm, followed by a third deep breath and another 10cm or so.  There was over half a metre of tube inside me and for the life of me I can’t figure out where the hell it was.  It sure didn’t feel like that much at the time.

Finally, after all this (and a little bit of paperwork), they cut off my hospital bracelet and set me free!

I’m pretty damn lucky to be living in NZ.  I know people in the US who have had to pay thousands of dollars to have this surgery, never mind the cost of a week in hospital.  Using the Southern Cross health insurance scheme costings, I consumed over $20k worth of healthcare, and it didn’t cost me a single cent (well, not directly).  I am a huge fan of socialized medicine.

This semester, I noticed while marking that one student had a couple of functions he was using for validation that didn’t really make sense.   He had one function called DateTime() which returned a date object representing the 1st of January 2059, and another function called Default() which returned a date object representing the 31st of December 1959.  This didn’t really meet the requirements and was a bit bizarre but most of the rest of the code was OK so I moved on.

Three projects later, I saw the exact same code.  Whenever I encounter duplicate code, I search everyone’s project for it, and found another two instances of the exact code.   After comparing the code, I found that one student (Student A) had everything pretty much right except for this unusual construct, but he had it actually working.  Two others (Students B & C) had the same functions but had called them incorrectly (and identically) and a large chunk of the related code was also identical.  The final student appeared to have an exact copy of student C’s code.  However, because his data model was slightly different, his project didn’t even run.

As is my usual practice, I called the students in to explain, their stories confirmed my analysis.  A had helped B with how to create dates for validation.  B and C had worked together/copied each other.  Their justification was that they thought this section was worth much so it wouldn’t matter (it was worth 20% of the assignment).  However, they had taken the time to slightly change the wording of some of the error message text in their otherwise identical code, suggesting an attempt to conceal their cheating.

Student D sent me an email in which is confessed his sins, saying how he “disgracefully cheated….. and have to face the penalty”.  It’s the most honest response I’ve ever had from a plagiariser.  Generally, I’m much more inclined to be lenient if they admit what they did and face the consequences.  The ones who try to somehow justify their actions and try to evade a penalty are the ones who annoy me. 

The university policy for first offences is clear – they lose the marks for the section of the assignment in which they plagiarised.  A, B & C lost 20% of the assignment this way, but managed to pass both the assignment and the course overall.  D lost 80% of the assignment, and not only failed the coursework, but also failed the exam and therefore the course.

Still, my favourite stupid plagiarist has to be the guy who was taking my course a second time, and handed in my own code as his answers to the lab work, complete with all my copious educational comments.  He didn’t even take the time to pretend it was his own work.   When I asked him why he did it, he seemed surprised and replied, ‘well, I wanted my solutions to be right’.

After three days, I was almost out of tramadol and got myself the next available doctors appointment.  It was two days away so I had to beg drugs from my sister to get me through til then (fortunately her medicine cabinet was well stocked).  The doctor gave me a heap more tramadol and sent me off for some blood tests the next morning.  The day after the blood test, the doctor phoned me at home in the morning to tell me something was seriously wrong with my liver and I needed to get myself off to the hospital for some tests.

The hospital admission was pretty quick and painless – less than 5 minute wait in the emergency department, less than 10 minutes in the waiting room at the admission and planning unit (APU) and then I was handed a hospital gown and told to put my clothes in a brown paper bag.  The hospital gown was the stereotypical one that doesn’t cover your arse, but once I was in bed, it didn’t really matter.   There was lots of waiting around as various nurses and doctors came and spoke to me, and several people came with needles to suck my blood.  Eventually they put a drip in my arm and left me alone for a little bit.  When I say alone, I mean in a very noisy ward with 6 other patients and their visitors, nurses and doctors.  Fortunately, I had a book and my cellphone to keep me amused until they came and wheeled me off (bed and all) to radiology for an ultrasound.

If I’d had the ability to twitter from my cellphone, I would’ve had a constant array of things to complain about.  The guy next to me had his condition and medication regime explained to him three times (by the doctor, nurse and pharmacist) and claimed to understand what was going on.  When his family showed up and asked him what was wrong he suddenly seemed to forget, insisting that he didn’t know what was wrong, that he hadn’t seen a doctor, and that nobody had told him anything except that he was going home and had some new pills. 

They guy opposite me gave a very loud and detailed narration of his rectal bleeding, another woman had to have her blood sugar monitored every half hour, and the nurses came and took my pulse, blood pressure and temperature every hour.  I felt great pity for the orderlies who had to wheel me around as my hospital bed had a mind of it’s own and wanted to go sideways rather than forwards. One orderly told me it was probably older than him and I combined.   It was like being in a dodgem with the steering stuck – we basically just bounced of walls and doors and trolleys all the way to radiology and back.

It was about 4pm before a parade of specialists came with the news that they wanted to do a CT scan the next morning so I’d have to say overnight.  On the plus side, they were finding me a bed upstairs so I didn’t have to stay downstairs with all the swine flu sufferers.  Unfortunately, they didn’t move me until nearly midnight so I had the opportunity to try and go to the bathroom in a hospital gown and to experience the Loudest Snorer in the History of the World. 

Rectal bleeding guy was bitching and moaning about the noise made by the nurses taking a history from the newly admitted woman next to him and went and sulked in the TV room for a bit, complaining it was too loud to sleep.  He didn’t come back til about 10pm, so I managed to snooze a bit beforehand, but when he came back, we all found out what too loud to sleep really meant.  I have never in my entire life heard anyone snore as loud as this guy.  I swear everything in the room was moving towards him as he sucked in each breath with the noise of a jet engine.  I tried covering my ears with the pillow but it didn’t do the slightest bit of good. 

It was at this point that I’d better go to the toilet.  Unfortunately, the toilet was out in the corridor.  Not only did I have a gown that required me to hold it closed at the back so as not to reveal my arse to the world, I had a drip stand to manoeuvre with my other hand.  I managed to negotiate my way to the loo without mooning anyone, but then I had to open the toilet door.   It swung outwards, meaning I had to grab it and step back.  Stepping back meant I had to hold onto the drip stand, and so my only option was to flash my arse to everyone in the vicinity.  Fortunately APU isn’t particularly crowded at that time of night, but still, not one of my most dignified moments.

Because I was concentrating so much on not flashing my arse to strangers, I hadn’t noticed that my drip had actually stop dripping and was now actually running in reverse – the entire drip tube up to the bottom of the drip itself was now full of my blood.  Fortunately on the way back to my bed, I ran into the nurse who told me it was normal and nothing to worry about, despite how scary it looked.   Even more fortunately, the nurse had  ear plugs for everyone – the industrial ones my brother uses when guiding helicopters and planes at Whenuapai.  And even with those on I could still hear the Loudest Snorer in the History of the World(although it was muted enough that I could sleep).

Still, I was extremely happy when and orderly came and took me upstairs to the lovely quiet and peaceful gynaecology ward, where I got a new super-comfortable, non-squeaking, automatically adjustable bed.  Yay!

To be continued.

Kiva is a web-based US microfinance organization.  They partner with institutions in a variety of countries in developing countries to offer loans to people who need them to support their businesses.  Most of the loans go to sole traders or family businesses.  The people to whom I have loaned grow vegetables, raise cattle, run general stores, sell soft drinks, beer, hats and a variety of other goods.

The local partner microfinance institutions provide information about the loan repayments, and Kiva has a system of fellows who do volunteer work uploading profiles of all the borrowers and making regular updates about the progress of their business.   The interest rates are not too bad by the standards of our country, at around 20% or more (although this is comparable to the unsecured rates we are charged, for instance on credit cards).  However the lenders generally don’t qualify for bank loans in their countries and would normally have to borrow through loan sharks at extremely high interest rates (varies by country but the average is over 85%).    The field partner also usually provides a program of business mentoring and support along with the loan.

The standard contribution each person makes to a loan is US$25.  Most loans are in the vicinity of US$500 – US$1000 so many Kiva lenders share in each loan.   The two main risks are that the borrower doesn’t repay the loan to the field partner, and that the field partner pockets the money rather than pass it on to the borrower or back to Kiva.  Both have happened in the past, but Kiva has a system of volunteers to check up on the field partners to try and reduce the latter risk.

The borrowers usually repay the loans a little bit each month over terms ranging from 6 months to 2 years, and the field partners settle up with Kiva the following month.  As soon as $25 is repaid, the lender can re-lend it again to another person.  As this is charity, Kiva lenders don’t receive any interest.  Kiva tries to fund itself through donations, and the interest charged to the borrowers goes to fund the work of the field partners.

I started a month or two ago with 8 loans, which are now between 8% and 33% repaid. I was able to make another loan this month, and should be able to make another in a couple of months time.  I like the idea that this is like a donation that can be reused again and again to help people.