Myself, Coding, Ranting, and Madness

Extract: Multi-Agent Scheduling

This is an extract from an extremely earlier draft of my Final Year Project. It's part of a topic that is likely to become a recurring theme in my posts for the next few months and, although this isn't the best place to start in terms of explaining it (this section is currently in a position some 12 pages into to the report), it represents an evening's work.

Website Checklist

Like many of my long programming posts, this is as much a reminder list for myself, with vague attempts at explanations tacked on to validate it as a post. Not for general consumption. Do not use orally. You kilometerage may vary

Here in 2012, websites are an important part of our everyday life. I've had the joy of writing a few myself, and I've learnt a few things along the way. I've also collected a number of rather more arbitrary dispositions; I have the misfortune of not knowing which is which anymore, so this post will contain a mix.

Passage of the Lords

The House of Lords (Amendment) Bill had a nearly uneventful passage through its Third Reading in the Lords. There were the normal amendments relating to cross-referencing - the clauses always reference absolute points in the text, and the Lords have to vote through the substitution of 'the Part' with 'clause n'. There were a couple of actual changes - the clause I mentioned previously relating to armed forces was also extended to the diplomatic service, as it was noted that

why I am anxious that service both in the Armed Forces and in the Diplomatic Service should be exempt from the provisions on compulsory leave of absence? In both services, service overseas is part of the conditions of service. If you are in the Army and you are told to go to Afghanistan, you go. If you are in the Diplomatic Service and you are told to serve in Afghanistan, off you go, or you will lose your job. You have no choice. In other public service appointments, that is not necessarily the case. Therefore, these two services should be specially provided for.

This amendment (number 2) was made in conjunction with amendment 3, which gave grounds for a general waiver for those in public service. Both of these were passed quickly. The point, however, was a good one — and there is a neat, in inherently unpleasant symmetry in the two groups it affects.

Lords Refo...er...Amendments

Due to scheduling madness, this post only covers up to the report stage. The 3rd (and final) reading is...was...to be on March 1st.

The first lot of House of Lords reforms are currently working their way through the Lords. This started off as pretty much the same bill that is brought in in every parliamentary session but is different in the fact that it might actually go through - presumably because of a much larger Commons Government backed bill that is due to come around at some point. That's not to say that there have been a couple of interesting moments, such as Conservative peers David Trefgarne, 2nd Baron Trefgarne and Malcolm Ian Sinclair, 20th Earl of Caithness tabling of over 300 amendments for, as a reaction to clauses relating to the removal of by-elections of hereditary peers (previously Clause 10).

World Day - Correction

This is a correction note for: World Day

I have finally the original source for the Calendar that I described in my post earlier today - Wikipedia places the formal suggestion (with the same terms) a good half a century earlier than the book I remember it from - not overly surprising, considering the amount of sense it makes

World Day

Today, as everyone has probably noticed, is the 29th February. I'd like to wish all the people whose birthdays fall on the leap day a very happy day. That said, I feel that they probably get enough attention; I for one would probably be quite happy to get away with having to deal with birthdays once every 4 years - except that everyone would insist on making a bigger thing of the few that I do have.

Is It Not Null?

Of all the weird things that go on in the world of writing SQL, the common syntax for querying databases, the use of IS NOT NULL has to be the one that annoys me the most - because it is an entirely unnecessary bit of syntactic fluff which does not do what pure logic says it should.

The LaTeX Atrocities — Domimatrix

I'm currently having a lot of fun doing my quantum computing course. I'm going to blame this work on this, but it was actually because someone asked me if I knew how to do it, and when I'm in a doing things mood I find it impossible put something like this down.

The task was a more concise way to write matrices when typing in LaTeX - most people use array or align, and have to deal with the column definitions, tab separators, and different kinds of line breaking characters

Humour as a Tool

It always occurs to me that humour is one of the most useful things to this world as it currently exists - it's the one thing which we will always demand is new, changing, different. It has been, in recent months, more of an inspiration to me that speculative fiction, which is too often by people who prefer physical engineering to social engineering. A large chunk of it is rubbish - just jokes, puns, Milton Jones being Milton Jones.

Yay! References!

No, it isn't a post made entirely out of links and footnotes and references. I still have a modicum of decency and sense left, regardless of what my writing might imply. I've had a couple of goes at writing posts about why I do so much referencing on what is a pretty much unread blog, and I could never really put my finger on it. In some ways, I think it's related to some of my thoughts on analysing situations which I discussed last week. This post is really to fill in between that rather jovial take on the thing, and a related rant that I wrote but a few days later.