Old stuff transferred from my Wiki's Diary

=October 2006= ==10 October 2006== General news update I was halfway through today's entry and realized that if you're following these posts, you might be confused if I didn't announce up here: I am now a married man (since 12 August 2006). Honeymoon was great, we took a 12 day break to Kwazulu-Natal, involving a game lodge for 3 days, a house in Leisure Bay for 5, and visiting Carel and Adri Anthonissen in Pietermaritzburg for 3 days. I got a lot of driving experience, including my first foray onto National Roads leaving the airport and merging onto the N2, before driving straight through to Hluhluwe. Toward the end of our visit, we also were privileged to visit some friends from our cell group George Murray and Minette van der Merwe, who were unable to make our wedding. They're also engaged, and are getting married at the end of the year (31 December?). Also, Dalene has started a job as a researcher at the Agricultural Research Council, specifically Infruitec. She's doing SooPeR-S3kr1t, classified research on tea! And she's going to a conference in Malta later this month. So today our new bed arrived at home. Simmonds Pocket Spring bed, cost an arm and a leg, but we're hoping it will be well worthwhile. We took a king size, since king size beds come with 2 single bed bases mext to each other, so that it's easier to get them up the stairs. Problem with that idea was that the mattress, which doesn't come apart, was wider - so getting it up the stairs was a real mission. In any case, the bed is up the stairs now, and we have most of the bedding we need, except for a quilted mattress protector (specified by the Simmonds care instructions) - we bought towelling, since getting a quilted protector for an extra-length bed, which is what we now have, is well nigh impossible; and a frilly base thing - which at first I thought was stupid, but now I see that beside its aesthetic appeal, it actually is functional too: it stops me marking the base with my dirty feet. So now I'm back at the office, and must complete my CV. Why people say they want a "short" CV, I'll never understand. How long is short? And while on my quest to do my CV, I finally gave up on doing it in a MS-Word like environment, and decided to go the LaTeX route. Hopefully future companies will be satisfied by a pdf CV. Good news is that the university's bursary office have decided they were at fault for my not getting a merit bursary for my doctorate the last 2 years, so they have given me permission to apply for the fourth year of my Ph.D. next year, and have indicated that I will receive the bursary. Together with support from my department, that means I should get almost what I was hoping for for the coming year. Yesterday night we had an interesting cell group meeting, with the reading coming from the Screwtape letters. The chapter was on marriage and the Western view of the only grounds for marriage being "being in love". From there the debate veered to marriages between homosexuals, grounds for divorce, the issue of divorcees remarrying, and polygamy. Quite stimulating, but I thought some people were getting frustrated, while others said the conversation stopped just where it started getting interesting. Diff'rent strokes, I guess - I agree with the latter. Oh yeah - and a while back we decided to move flats. The two reasons were, I was led to believe, that we couldn't get a bed up the stairs (which we have now done), and that a large top-loader washing machine would not fit into our current flat. Which is why I was puzzled by Dalene's support for flat's embodying just these problems. Finally, however, Dalene surprised me by opting for a student dive which is very spacious, at least: the rent is a little higher than where we are, the conditions are probably worse, but the extra space (extra bedroom and larger kitchen/lounge etc. and garage) should more than make up for it, we hope. The place is currently rented by students serious about partying and the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle. Oh yeah, don't forget booze! The last while I've also decided to steam ahead with my thesis, as you may have noticed, after entertaining some doubts about continuing the last while. As part of my commitment to finishing next year (which I need to do to avoid having thick-necked strongmen with baseball bats coming knocking on my door), I have had to withdraw from as many activities as possible. First of these was the Stellenbosch Go club committee (and probably a lot of the meetings in the coming year). On the 15th my resignation from the Western Cape Go council exec becomes effective. Unfortunately, the [http://www.sagoclubs.co.za website] still has to be maintained, and that's all my baby. The other news is that a friend of mine, [[Madeleine du Plessis|Madeleine]], has given birth. Her new son's name is [[Ruben du Plessis|Ruben]]. This coming weekend I'm playing in the Western Cape Closed Meijin Challenger's League. I suspect I'm seriously outgunned, but I have beaten everyone in the tournament on scratch before. Of the 5 players taking part, the last placed player is demoted and has to try re-qualify next year, so I'm hoping to avoid last place. It is safe to say winning the tournament is out of the question for me. To avoid coming last, I need to win a game, and the person I beat has to lose all their games, OR I need to win any 2 games. Winning one game and ending tied is tickets for me. So I'm gunning for 2 wins, although my chances are small. My first round game is against [[Lloyd Rubidge|Lloyd]] - we always seem to end up playing each other in tournaments. Last thing, a school classmate, [[Beverley Minnaar|Beverley]] turned 30 today. Of course, I've hardly been in contact with her, for no greater reason than that I suck at keeping in touch. Tough knowing what to say when you send an email. Comments welcome - use the discuss tab ;P Poor Schumi Michael Scumacher was almost a legend - coming back from a terrible situation, he went into the Japanese Grand Prix with the lead in the Driver's Championship (albeit by tie-breaker), and looked to be driving to a win before suffering the most ill-timed Ferrari engine failure ever. Admittedly, he's been a helluva lot luckier than Kimi, for example, but still, it breaks my heart, I tell you. So Alonso won, and now he's 10 points up. The only way Michael can win the championship now is by driving to victory at Brazil on 22 October, and for Alonso not to score any points at all. That way, Ferrari will also score the constructors, which also now seems to be unlikely to head the way of their trophy cabinet this year. And if Alonso doesn't score points, it will be due to (a) dirty tactics, (b) an Alonso brain-fart, (c) a Renault car-failure, (d) collateral damage involving other drivers. I'd have to say (d) is the most likely scenario of the 4, and then Michael still needs to grab the win. Hopefully, we'll be getting together to see the season finale. And with it being Michael's retirement race, perhaps people won't pour drinks on me for supporting Michael! =June 2006= ==23 June 2006== Hmm - can't seem to get any work done, today, so I've decided to try and get the maths display working on this wiki, which will at least help me to be more productive in future. To do that, I've got to get Objective Caml running on the cs server as a regular user, which is a little non-standard. The BIG NEWS for today is that [[Janette]] who at one stage was in my actuarial class, received news that she passed her final exam, so she is now a qualified actuary!!! congrats, Janette. ==20 June 2006== I've spent quite a lot of effort the last while on my thesis, and am trying to understand how the various approaches to my research field relate to each other. Some of these approaches I don't really understand, so I end up spending a day or 2 looking at papers blankly, which gets me frustrated, since "I need to get something done". Yesterday, we ([[Dalene]] and I) went to Louis Leipoldt Hospital, to go visit [[Sonet]] and [[Theuns Anema]], who are proud new parents of their first-born, [[Emma]]. Emma was not in a co-operative position in the womb, so Sonet had a Cesarean, and the baby came out at 2.8 kg. I also discovered I had neglected my duty to organise a tournament director for the Go club's 9x9 tournament next Thursday, so I had to send out an announcement about that, and will probably have to run the tournament. After visiting Sonet, we popped by Dalene's folks who live across the street from the hospital, where I saw a snippet of the current Survivor series, in the Aztec/Inca ruins. I figured an interesting Survivor modification would be to remove the challenges, immunity, etc, and also to outlaw speaking - if you speak, you are taken off the island. If no one is taken off the island for talking for a week, a tribal council is held and someone is voted off. =May 2006= ==22 May 2006== OK, this past weekend's main social activity was an indoor braai at [[Izak Burger|Izak]]'s place, for his wife, [[Tresia Burger|Tresia]]'s, birthday (on Saturday). The rest of the time I neglected my domestic and academic responsibilities at home to read some stuff. Finished off Rupert Morgan's "Let there be lite" (highly cynical and crude in places, but recommended for a laugh and some thought-provoking, if you don't mind that kind of thing (crudity, not laughing and thinking)); then I spent Sunday afternoon devouring Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" - highly recommended. Spent Saturday afternoon visiting with [[Carel Anthonissen]], a mate who's living in Pietermaritzburg now. He's down here to work on his masters thesis for a week. His thesis is about [[w:Genetic Algorithms]] and [[w:Particle Swarm Optimization]]. Interesting reference from our church service this Sunday - apparently the chance some random Joe fulfills just 8 selected prophecies of the 48 Messianic prophecies which Christians claim they are sure Jesus fulfilled is around 1 in 10 to the power of 17 - anyone know how to do exponents in wiki?) Reference is apparently "Science Speaks" by a fellow with the name of Stoner (I jest not). So I got in to work today to discover I had placed 4th in a Go trivia knowledge quiz, and this qualifies to play in a simultaneous game vs "breakfast" on KGS. He's a 1-dan pro in Korea, Alexandre Dinerchtein, from Russia. I asked to play him on 7 stones, and am uber-excited about that. And on Friday, I discovered that I couldn't set up an ante-nuptial contract myself, and just get it notarised - we have to have a discussion with the lawyers - they claim it's part of their responsibilities as a notary. Is it, or is it just a money making racket? And if so, is it just the lawyers, or are they in cahoots with the government? Surely any 2 people should be able to make and sign an agreement if they wish - why does the contract have to be notarised? Any lawyers or people with more knowledge about this care to elaborate or respond? Post on [[Ante-nuptial Contract and Notarisation]]