28 Days Later

Today is the party day! I'm very curious to see how it will turn out, since we haven't really had a big party at our place before. I should do some work stuff today too, but it'll just be bits and pieces since I don't want to start anything big before the weekend. I plan to get back into high gear on Monday and start with the thesis writing to give me a break from the dreaded ns2. This week has been a bit lazy since the deadline got extended (no surprises there! ;) and I felt like I needed some time to relax. Plenty of things to sort out in the flat too. I'll try to put up the shelves and the pinboard in my work area and put up my Penny Arcade cartoons that I've printed out. Should give ppl something to discuss tonight at least! I'm also gonna update my thesis timeline and send it out to da boyz, and also write a mail to the research group in Tokyo who seem to do some cool stuff. Per should write to the opponent today, I'm very curious to see what his reaction will be!

On A Rail

Bought a new TV yesterday. 28" for 2100SEK, it wa a pretty good deal. Unfortunately the XBox hasn't arrived yet, so there's nothing sensible to plug it in to. I tried connecting the laptop via S-Video through a SCART adapter, but that didn't work quite right. It sometimes gave a colour picture (I managed to watch a whole Johnny Bravo episode though), but most of the time to was Black & White. Which is kind of a pain, but it's not really going to be connected to the TV, so it's not a problem. Also couldn't get the video to work over co-ax. *sigh*. So, I'm just gonna get a SCART connector for it, which should just do the trick. I'm really excited about the xbox, I can't wait for it to arrive! :) Too bad that it probably won't arrive in time for the party though.

Today I think I'm going to reinstall my box at work to bring it up-to-date. Since I have a little bit of breathing space, I think that now is a good idea to do it, 'cuz I won't get another opportunity until I finish the thesis. There's a few other bits and pieces to do too. Then tomorrow night is out Moving In party which should be pretty fun! There will be a real mix of ppl there, so I'm quite curious to see how it pans out. Time for some coffee!

At Dawn They Sleep

Sprang out of bed at 7am, dashed off a mail to Per, did some exjobb supervision with Mats, showered, shaved, had breakfast, read slashdot and now I'm off to work! Phew! I'll probably collapse at 1pm, but who cares?! ;)

Anomalous Materials

Just talked to Per and we've agreed to push back the date of the defense. Provisional date is now 6th May which means I would submit 1st April (how appropriate! :). This is really, really great news since it means I now have nine weeks to wrap everything up, which I think is certainly manageable. Turned out that because of Per's schedule and Christian & Ian's long feedback loops plus how much work actually needs to be done, it's a good idea to push it back. One drawback is that I'll have to integrate the thesis work with preparing for Datakom II since there will be a bit of overlap. I'm very happy to have the extra time. I hope I will be able to make use of it.

Snowblind

Got to work on the bus today since Arnold brought me and the monster TV home in his car yesterday. Couldn't get the TV hooked up to the video unfortunately, but I'll have another go at it tonight. Today is payday! w00t! That's very good news indeed since I have been flat broke for the last week. Moving into an apartment is expensive! I'm glad that hopefully there won't be too much more to buy. So, with my ill-gotten gains I bought a modded xbox, which is pretty exciting. It seems to be the best price/performance combination for a media centre in the living room. I hope it arrives before the Moving In party on Friday so that I can get drunk ppl playing games on it! ;) So now I have to restrain myself from buying anything unnecessary this month. As I'm fairly bored of being broke. OTOH, it shouldn't be too hard since the flat is in pretty good shape now with most stuff being present and working.

I'm trying to get a final piece of the code puzzle solved today before I drop it for a while to go back to the thesis writing. However, I'm so tired I'm about to black out. It was not the best night's sleep I've ever had last night, too much stuff running around in my head. I hope that I'll get better as the day progresses. Hopefully I'll get to quiz Per a bit today about what the future will hold. Watch this space!

Today's Fortune

Do not sleep in a Eucalyptus tree tonight.

Sounds words indeed...

Ergonomics

The ergonomics person dropped by to help me with the pain in my fingers. She's tweaked my sitting position a bit, so we'll see if that helps. Also she gave me some exercises to do which should help me a bit. As per usual when I get to work there are all sorts of other distractions happening which prevent me from getting anything done. Er... like this, in fact. So, time to start work.

Power Up

Crawled out of bed to find out that Arnold is gonna pick me up at work and drive me home with the TV. w00t! That's really cool! Currently we're using a monitor that I borrowed from Olof as a TV which is fine, but it would be great to have something a bit better. I'm still not decided what the long term solution is renting/buying/whatever, but that's for another day. I'm still not decided about what to do today: A) try and implement a few more features in my code or B) try and start with the thesis. I'm leaning towards getting the code fixed so that I can start on the thesis stuff with a clean conscience. Hopefully it shouldn't take more than a couple of days.

Trying to find some good "drum music" for Sandra. She said that she really liked the drum solo that Mickey Dee played at the Motorhead gig, so I'm trying to find some other classic drum solos. Other than Buddy Rich Orchestra, I've found a live version of "Moby Dick" by Led Zep which has quite a cool John Bonham drum solo.

Time to go work, I guess...

Unforeseen Circumstances

Sunday's are always a tough day to work on. Getting up late, everyone else relaxing and general lethargy don't really help the ol'work motivation. I managed to get a bit done today though, despite all the distractions. Now I automatically send a reply when an XRP message is received which means that automatically scaling up the system should be a bit easier now. Sandra and I discussed more about going to Japan, she sees a lot of the (very real) difficulties, whereas I tend to see more of the opportunities. Different outlooks I guess. She talked to a guy at a party who said that an application to study in Japan needs to be in at the beginning of Feb, so there isn't too much time. The courses are taught in English which should be a breeze for her, but it'll be a good idea to take a TOEFL test to please the evaluators. The more I think about it, the more excited I get about the idea of going to Japan for six months to year. It would be a fantastic experience and there's just so much to learn about the place. Plus I could get Udon & Sushi every day! :)

I'm looking forward to getting the PhD thing done and out of the way. There's lots of other research things that I'd like to work one. Perhaps something slightly more applied. Well, we'll see. Also talked to Stef about the impending pan-European road-trip which should be a lot of fun. I'll really need a holiday after this. I should make one last stab at trying to fix some outstanding issues with my code before hitting the sack.

New Day Rising

I was supposed to get out of bed early today, but somehow the Sunday feeling kicked in so I ended up sleeping in. Which isn't such a bad thing I guess, I need my beauty sleep. So it's back to the daily grind of compile, test, crash, swear, fix which has been my mainstay for quite a few weeks now. But hopefully I won't have to spend too much time with ns2 after the thesis work is over. I'm seriously contemplating writing my own simulator just so there can be something that doesn't suck quite as much as ns2.

It's quite nice day today, which I plan to observe from the confines of the server room.

Your horoscope for today is:

Lucky colour: heliotrope
Lucky number: imaginary
Lucky weapon: The steam-powered rotary crossbow from "Van Helsing"

"Time for bed" said Zebedee

Blade Trinity was pretty good fun: lots of weapons, lots of stylish fighting and not much else. Exactly what you want from a Saturday night film. Sandra did some more recruiting for the Moving In party next Friday, so that's pretty nice. There was a worry that there would be a competing party on the same day, but it looks like the competition is a no-show. Hopefully I will have the XBox by then so that we can get drunken ppl playing classic arcade games on it! :) Tomorrow is another working day (*boring*), so I will have to try to get up early and get stuck into playing around with my code. All I want to do at this point is find some fun computer game to play, but I don't think that Per would be very happy with me slacking off at this stage of the game. Time for bed and some more "Beyond Fear"...

Sandtraps

Played around a bit with my code, discovered a couple of weird bugs, but nothing that I think will be a show-stopper. I'll look at it in more detail tomorrow after I've slept on it. Haven't had too much energy for work-related stuff today. Been thinking mainly about what kind of simulations to run in order to demonstrate what SelNet is capable of. I think that, at least at first, I will concentrate on its abilities to provide a user or end-system with choice about which of a handful of routes should be used for carrying its packets depending upon some user-defined criteria. Playing around with that should give me at least something to work with. I noticed from reading the IPNL paper, for example, that the implementation and evaluation section was not that comprehensive. Und dass ist irgendwie ein beruhrigendes gefühl. I'll probably have to produce a quick technical report for inclusion in the thesis and then work on a real paper with more in-depth results and detailed experiments for a journal paper at a later date.

Sandra is going out in an hour or so to Jossan's party, so I get to watch Blade Trinity and eat chocolate whilst she's out. :) Maybe I should blast some monsters in Painkiller: Battle Out Of Hell to keep me going in the meantime...

Surface Tension

A few bits and bobs done, like laundry. Lars-Åke and Maria dropped by to pick up their drill and to partake of a rather delicious fruit salad that Sandra whipped up. One of the really great things about having our own place now is being able to entertain our friends. Everyone comments on how nice the apartment is. I think that that Sandra and I have done a good job. I'm very happy with the network and server configuration too! ;) Looking forward to buying the XBox next week and getting the TV from Arnold to complete the set.

On the work front I'm grappling with what simulations need to be done and what I want to show. It's not such a straightforward task since I'm not trying to solve a very specific problem, but rather to improve flexibilty and choice in the Internet through the use of indirection. It's a slightly fuzzy thing so it's not that easy to measure. I need to do some more background reading and look carefully at what others have done in the area to demonstrate their work.

Residue Processing

The kitchen certainly looks a mess this morning. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given that we were forced to abandon everything due to excessively steak filled stomachs last night. Lots of loose ends to tie up today. Laundry, Lars-Åke's drill etc. Maybe even have some lunch in town if I can crowbar Sandra out of bed in time! ;) On top of that I need to update my various supervisors about my progress i.e., that there actually is some, and work with the code a bit more to see what it can and can't do. By my rough calculations, I have approximately four weeks left before the thesis is to be sent to the publishers. Then it takes seven weeks for them to print it, meaning it should be ready on the day of the defense! ;P Oooh, I love margins of error! ;) So, four weeks to make the thesis itself look presentable, make the code really do something useful, do a bunch of simulations for the final paper and write the final paper. To use a classic Swedish phrase: "Gott om tid!" (there's plenty of time!). Well, one week for each task, we'll see how it goes. Of course, this all depends a lot on who is the opponent, when they can make it for the defense and what my supervisors think of my work so far. Perhaps they think pushing the defense into May is a good idea. I would love to have more time to make everything as good as possible, but at some point I guess you just have to draw a line in the sand and say: "This is my PhD".

Damn, it'll be a good feeling when/if I finally graduate! Stef mentioned something about having a road trip through Europe in July to celebrate both of our graduations, and that sounds like a great idea! Especially since we could end up in Greece and do some island hopping, which would be great to do with a native. So, there are things to look forward to!

Another good fighting wine

Had an amazing dinner: griddled steaks with Bifteck Sauté Bercy, cubed potatos and french beans. Was absolutely delicious! The first wine we had wasn't so great (Chilean Cabernet Sauvigon 120 Santa Rita 2003), so most of it ended up in the sauce. The second bottle, Italian Gran Mauro el Primitivo was excellent as per usual. Couldn't quite get the cubed potatos as crispy as I remember them being, I should check with Mum on the fine details of the recipe. After stuffing ourselves to the brim, we watched Azumi which promised to be a braindead Japanese samurai action flick which by-and-large delivered the goods. However, both of us were far too full to actually pay any attention to the wafer-thin plot, which in the end was probably a good thing. I then started to watch another Japanese film "Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies" which had a bit too much gore in it for Sandra. However I didn't get too far since it actually turned out to be quite an interesting film, rather than the sleazy zombie flick I was hoping for. C'est la vie. Sandra is going out tomorrow night for a while to Jossan's party so I will probably seize the opportunity to watch Blade Trinity whilst she's out. ;) It'll be terrible, but hopefully terrible in the way that Blade II was! :) Damn, I enjoyed that film so much, even thought it was really, really bad. Mutant vampires with machine guns, ya can't beat it!

...and on that note I'm gonna hit the sack now and see how far I can get with "Beyond Fear" before passing out... wish me luck! ;)

Apprehension

It looks like the very first basic cut of the code seems to work! At least I have something to work with now, so all is not entirely lost! Hopefully Sandra has picked up some wine for tonight. Maybe I have the time now to actually do some other important non-work related stuff like laundry and taking the drill to Lars-Åke's place.

Having sound-proofed all the boxes really helps with the noise levels in the server room. Now it's almost a place you can work in without your ears bleeding!

Point Insertion

Today's report is that I'm coding on the ns2 stuff. NS2 is a network simulator which I'm using to demonstrate some of the ideas in my thesis. However, it's not exactly behaving itself at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to get some of the remaining bugs ironed out by Sunday so that I can start revising the actual thesis itself on Monday.

Current plan is to get at least a preliminary version of the ns2 code running by Sunday, then spend next week working on the thesis, taking on board the comments of Christian, Ian & Per. Then the week after to write the final paper and run some simulations. Then the final week to take on board the feedback from various supervisors and produce a final version of the thesis to send off to the printers. The timescale is very tight at the moment, so I'm not sure that I'll make it. There is an option to defend the thesis in May, but I'd really rather not to do that. A) because I have to teach Datakom 2 and B) I want the damn thing over and done with. Somewhere in the midst of all this Per needs to find an opponent for me too! ;)

Today I'm gonna be working at home, trying to solve this annoying Classifier bug in my ns2 code. I hope that I'll be able to get something done so that I can have the night off. I haven't spent much time with Sandra recently, so it would be nice to have a relaxing evening with her, some good food & wine and maybe some anime.

Current listening habits: Manic Street Preachers -- Lifeblood, Garden State soundtrack, Thievery Corporation, Motorhead -- Inferno, Megadeth -- The System Has Failed.
Current viewing habits: Cowboy Bebop, RahXephon
Current reading habits: Bruce Schneier -- Beyond Fear, Richard Dawkins -- The Ancestor's Tale

I recently watched The Life Aquatic which was a pretty interesting film, still haven't made up my mind about it, but well worth watching. Bill Murray is just great these days, although Olof is right that he usually plays similar roles. Apart from Coffee & Cigarettes though! ;)

Easter

Looks like I will spend the Easter in Luleå. Sara has her defense and Lars-Åke has invited me to do some scooter riding and various other cool things. I think it will be a fun trip and Sara will also come to my defense. I tend to sleep well in Luleå so that's another thing to look forward too! :)

Huygen

Huygen's trip to Titan is pretty damn cool. I'm just waiting for the trip to Europa with a big drill to see if there are any massive squid lurking about under the ice! :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4193043.stm

Post-doc Scholarships in Japan

Got some great tips from Mattis about post-doc scholarships in Japan. It might be the right time to slip away for six months until the research funding situation in Sweden improves a bit. There seems to be quite a bit of choice, so when I have a spare moment, I think I'll have a look at what they have to offer. Sandra has had a look at the exchange programs to Japan and there are a bunch of places in Tokyo that she could potentially go to. We need to see how it all fits together to see if there's a good opportunity for us both. I would really like to go. It would be great to check the place out for a while and six months is probably a good enough time. Longer than that would be a bit difficult I think. Well, we'll see what happens!

http://sjf.positionett.se/startpage/index.lasso
http://www.stint.se/dokument/pdf/Sweden-Japan.pdf

First Post!

This is first test post to see if this actually works...