I went to Paris last week. I have been delaying posting about it because (a) I wanted to wait for the photos to be developed, and (b) I have been writing a Masters Thesis, and if that doesn’t count as Better Things To Do then I don’t know what does. Regardless, the photos are now uploaded and the thesis can handle a few minutes’ break, so I shall pen a few lines to let everyone know I’m still alive.

The excuse for Paris was the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, in particular the Gathering of Animated Lifelike Agents at which ERIC (remember him?) was competing. (Yes, he won a prize.)

The other attraction to the whole experience (apart from Paris itself of course) was the experience of the new high-speed ICE, which I took in both directions. Thundering across Northern France at 300+ km/h is rather an experience. Also an experience is having the power cut out on the way home as we cross the German/French border, leaving us stranded for two hours 5 km/h out of Saarbrücken. Almost home! even with Saarbrücken buses driving along the road next to the track … if you would only open the doors… But not to worry, we’ll just try rebooting the train from scratch, sorry folks, this means even the emergency lighting will go out, it’ll be pitch black for a while, please don’t panic.

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Oh, well, that didn’t work. Never mind, we’ll phone a train from Frankfurt to come and tow us into Saarbrücken. Sorry for the inconvenience. Szank yew for traffeling vis ze Deutsche Bahn.

Regardless, the way to Paris was uneventful (give or take 15 minutes’ delay leaving Saarbrücken …), and at 300+ km/h you really do have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that you really are in Paris already, not just dreaming of it after falling asleep on the train somewhere around Metz. I stayed in a wonderful hostel/hotel in Montmartre called the Montclair which I have no reservations about recommending, it was clean and cheap and everything you expect from a hostel. Montmarte itself - and of course all of Paris - was also lovely, particularly around sunset. But you can see the photos for yourself.

Since then I have been mainly writing away at this thesis. On Friday I went to Frankfurt to sort out some visa issues, and stayed overnight to see the AFL Grand Final at the Aussie Bar there, since the No Worries Australian Pub here in Saarbrücken had never heard of the AFL. (”Grand what?” “please tell me you are joking”) A nice change from all the other Geelong Grand Finals I’ve watched (to say the least…) I’m a bit far away from the festivities at home, but I’m wearing my vaguely blue-and-grey striped jumper proudly even if nobody here knows why it brings a grin to my face.

Anyway, I’d better head back to the grindstone, plus there’s an apartment to be cleaned and that rare commodity called sunshine outside, which might be worth taking advantage of before it disappears again.

Last week the Powers That Be decided it was time to purge the advertising columns around campus of all the old posters that were still hanging on there. Obviously this sort of thing doesn’t happen too often…

(… and translated from the original Saarländisch)

Tourist Who Doesn’t Speak Much German: Ticket? Tram ticket? Need tram ticket?
“Helpful” Post Office Official: No, this is a post office. Can’t get tram tickets here.
Tourist: Ticket?
Postie: Nono, no tickets here, we send mail. Post. POST. POST.
Tourist: Post? Ticket?
Postie: Yes, POST! Not ticket. We make mail go Voom. VOOM. *hand waving to illustrate mail going voom*
Tourist: Ticket? *admits defeat and leaves*

At this point the postie turns to the lady at the next counter with a huge grin and a “well, tourists, what can you do” shrug. (She asks him “how did that go again? Voom?”)

…

At no point in this did it occur to anyone present to tell the poor tourist where she might actually obtain tickets.

I like vim. It is a wonderful text editor. It even comes in a GUI version for the Mac. It has a tendency to open every document in the same window, so the nice people at http://macvim.org/ provide a Mac app ‘gvim.app’ that opens vim via a script to make it open every document in a new window. But somehow, alone in the whole download, this simple little just-run-a-shell-script app wasn’t universal! For want of a nail, etc etc etc, so launching vim was remarkably slow. Well, we can fix that! This universal version of gvim.app uses almost the same launch script as the original, tweaked to play nicely with the current version of Platypus. If you’re using an intel Mac and want vim to start up in the blink of an eyelid (instead of an afternoon nap), download here.

I learnt today that when the rest of the world uses the phrase “lucked out”, they mean exactly the opposite of what Australians mean when they do. For verification, check The American-Australian Slang Dictionary, and compare the entries in The Free Dictionary and usingenglish.com with the Macquarie Dictionary Book of Slang (unfortunately not online):

luck-out
verb to run out of luck; to have bad luck.

So there you have it.

On another note: Best. Pun. Ever.

… his name is Eric, and I’ve been spending all day, every day with him the last few months:

… because it was time for a change, and a new theme is easier than a whole new post.

I feel the need to link to this, mainly because of the quote:

“We were thinking about something that connects the industrial revolution and the digital revolution,” said Deller. Kane added: “They are worlds apart but there’s also a proximity. The steam age and the digital age are not so far apart.”

Perhaps the top hat is not so out-of-place after all.

though I never said it was…

I have been reading the following in the newspapers:

THE toll from yesterday’s horrific Burnley Tunnel crash and inferno could rise above the three people confirmed dead, authorities have warned.

Police are seeking surveillance footage of the accident, which began in the tunnel just before 10am. They said it was not yet known how many people had been travelling in the cars destroyed in the carnage.

The tunnel could remain closed until Monday as investigators examine the scene and engineers assess it for structural damage, police said.

Explosions rocked the tunnel, motorists told of a huge wall of flames and temperatures soared above 1000 degrees. Police Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby said some of the crash vehicles had turned into “balls of molten metal”. Investigators had still not identified the make of some of the cars.

In particular, I am driven to comment on CityLink’s response to the accident:

A motorist trapped in the tunnel, barrister Anthony Southall, QC, said the rescue effort was inadequate for those first frightening minutes when motorists were trying to walk out of the 3.4-kilometre tunnel unaided.

“There were no CityLink staff to direct us. In fact, there was a disabled lady in the car behind us and she needed some assistance.”

So what was CityLink doing?

CityLink spokeswoman Jean Ker Walsh said the initial accident had occurred very quickly, before a CityLink recovery vehicle could respond.

“We do know that immediately our lane closure system was activated. Regrettably, before an accident response team could get there, the incident occurred.”

“There are very strong practices to shut down a particular lane where necessary … it happened so instantaneously, emergency practices were just starting to occur when the second and third crashes occurred.”

Now, I don’t know if road engineers use the same buzzwords, but in the field of software engineering we make a distinction between ‘verification’ and ‘validation’ as types of testing. Verification testing checks that some process occurred as specified. Seems the “lane closure system” passed this test. Validation checks whether the process had the desired effect. Obviously this is the more difficult type of testing. And we also see that the “lane closure system” did not have the desired effect. So perhaps it would be more helpful to say “hmm, looks like we need better crash response procedures” than to say “well, our crash response procedures operated as designed, whoopeedoo!”.

He urged motorists to put the tragedy into perspective. “The tunnel’s been around a long time,” he said.

This one really gets me. A long time? Puh-leeze… the tunnel was opened in December 2000 - it’s just over 6 years old. CityLink have a contract with the government to operate the tunnel for 30 years [33 years and 6 months, in fact]- so the tunnel has just passed one fifth of its expected operating time. Tunnels that have been around a long time are:

• Kurikoyama tunnel, Japan (constructed 1880)
• Glenbrook railway tunnel, the Blue Mountains (constructed 1891-1892)
• Der Alte Elbtunnel, Hamburg, Germany (constructed 1907-1911).

I’d even give the honour to the San Bernardino Tunnel in Switzerland, constructed 1967. But 6 years?

At least they have some compassion:

CityLink also announced today that tolls would be waived for affected motorists yesterday.

Hot:
spring weather
longer days
no more exams
looking for PhD positions

Not:
painting the apartment
out-of-focus photographs
writing seminar summaries
broken CD-ROM drives
not updating a blog for months

Meanwhile, spoken Dutch makes me giggle. Dertien minuten later liet de aanvaller zijn tweede doelpunt aantekene. *giggle*