Past, present and future.

Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!

Look to this Day!

For it is Life, the very Life of Life.

In its brief course lie all the

Verities and Realities of your Existence.

The Bliss of Growth,

The Glory of Action,

The Splendor of Beauty;

For Yesterday is but a Dream,

And To-morrow is only a Vision;

But To-day well lived makes

Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,

And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.

Look well therefore to this Day!

Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!

A poem by Kalidasa

Beautiful world

There are quite a few big issues floating around the world these days which could have a major impact on life in the future. Now I'm not well versed in the current scientific mumbo jumbo but my understanding is that it goes soemthing like this;

Polution is bad. Air polution in particular has a very nasty effect on the ozone. The ozone is what protects the earth from adverse amounts of radiation from the sun. The increase in radiation can be exemplified by global warming. The main claim of Global warming is the melting of ice caps and hence the increase in sea levels / reduction in land levels.

If the earth gets hot enough and the ice caps melt enough, then we will all be flooded (or our childrens childrens childrens.... children^(n). Now since those ice caps have probably been around since the ice ages... it stands to reason that they have been melting ever since. Now its going to be a long long time before anything bad happens, but we have a lot of very intelligent people who claim to know that this is definately going to happen.

So what will be done about it in our lifetime? What can we do about it? I'll let you think about that for a while because... the reality is, while it is a very important issue I'm afraid to say that I really have to go do some work on my thesis, which on a global scale is far less important, yet has a deadline of November 13th, 2006.

Sad isn't it, how the world works.

Paintball

I know I haven't been posting much lately, I'm sure people will argue with me but statistical computer programming doesn't leave much room for creative thought processes...

For those that didn't get the email - Paintball is happening on Sunday October the 29th.

Why so far away? because if you book a month in advance you get 100 free paintballs (worth $20). So anybody interested you need to contact me before the 29th of September if you want your free paintballs, otherwise simply before the 22nd of October to get your $10 discount!

So assuming you contact me before the 22nd of Ocotober prices are as follows:

400 paintballs + gun + lunch = $60
600 paintballs + gun + lunch = $80

For every extra 100 paintballs you buy on the day they will cost you $20.

You will need to make your way out to edwards rd, Rouse Hill by about 9 am. Any late registrants forefeit their discounts!

Seeing Double

I could write a post about 11/9... but there is enough crap already written about it... So, here is another puzzle for you!

You have two glasses of equal size. One is half full of Gin and one is half full of Tonic. A shotglass from the Gin glass is poured into the tonic glass, then a shotglass full from the tonic glass is poured into the gin glass. Does the Gin glass have more tonic then the tonic glass has Gin?

Talking abouit a year away

Its has been over a year since I flew out to London, and over a year since I flew from London to Canada! How time flies... in two and a half months I will hopefully be finished Honours! Funny how our lives can be seperated into such small segments.

Some of the things I have forgotten to tell you in the past year because they weren't that interesting then!

When I arrived at Regina international airport, I was confident there would be no problems going through customs. It was late - around midnight. The flight had been slightly delayed. My transfer (Richard from the exchange office) was waiting for me. I didn't have a student visa because I was staying in Canada less then 6 months... When the Canadian immigration offical asked me what I was doing in Canada, I said studying, of course.

I'm not sure if she was new to her job or what, but she wouldn't let me pass! Despite the law being that i didn't need a visa, she thought it a good idea that she prepare a special visa which indicated all the restrictions of a student visa. In fairness it was because I was leaving the country after 5 months and coming back in again! Unfortunately she needed to process all the other passengers first, then she needed to contact the emergency IT department because she needed to overide certain controls to make this 'special' visa. I wonder what those controls were in place for?

Eventually I got away at about 2am. Poor Richard! Then of course there were the problems when I flew into Vancouver from Seattle, they looked at my now expired 'special' visa and said; "What the hell is this?" Yay, more delays, except this time it was Alvin who had to wait about an hour before they shook their head in exasperation and let me go free!

I still say none of it was my fault! Don't even let me get started on the stupidity of the fact that you need a US visa even if you only transit through the country but stay more then 3 or 6 months!