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I love this animation by Eric Schwartz, to the song “Still alive”, by Jonathan Coulton, from the game Portal.

I’m at the Orbital Eastercon, a science-fiction convention in London. Just been to a talk by author Charles Stross:

It was a really interesting overview of various forms of technology, where they seem to be going over the next few years, and the implications of that for us. He’s obviously a really knowledgeable guy, who’s done a lot of research on a lot of different subjects. Made me think quite a bit about some areas I’d not considered before, as well as giving me a few ideas of stuff I want to look into further.

(not a great photo though, I was a bit far back, so I took one of the video projection instead)

Things are always incredibly quiet for me over summer. There’s nothing much on at work for most of July and August, as there are no students around and the major summer projects are usually done in September. And all the things I normally do in the evenings only run during term-time, so I’m pretty free outside of work too. So it can get quite boring if I don’t find things to do. These are my current distractions:

At work:

Studying computer networking – I’m currently working my way through TCP/IP: Architecture, Protocols and Implementation which is fairly old now, but it’s giving me a bit of background info on networking. After that, I’m going to look at some Cisco specific stuff using the router lab at work, and hopefully go for the CCNA exam.

Practicing the keyboard – I’ve got a music keyboard on my desk, so I’m having a break from the computer and playing a few tunes every now and then. I don’t think it’s annoying my officemates too much yet. I used to be able to play a bit, but it’s been years since I had lessons, and I never really practiced much when I did. Would be nice to take an exam or two in that, but we’ll see how it goes.

At home:

Learning Flash ActionScript programming – I’ve done a bit of Flash before, especially in my MSc project, but I’d like to learn a bit more about it, and about proper ways of programming rather than my usual way of hacking at something until it works. Working through Object-Oriented ActionScript for Flash 8, which is a bit heavy going at times, but I’m getting there. I’d like to try making a few games in Flash.

Learning Spanish – I’m trying to relearn some of the Spanish I studied at GCSE. Like a lot of other things, I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it in the 10 years since I left high school. Using Oxford Take Off in Latin American Spanish, as it’s one of the few Latin American Spanish courses I could find. I think South America would be a lot more interesting to visit than Spain itself. It’s a pretty good course, from what I’ve seen so far.

Of course, being summer, I should really be going outside doing something. Ah well. Let’s see how I do with these things. I’m pretty bad for starting things and not finishing them.