Just finished the second week of uni! Only another 9 to go until end of semester.

This week I had to decide the title of my third year research project. Everyone had to submit up to six titles, and one would be chosen so everyone in the year was doing something different. My four, in preference order were “Chemistry of Fuel Cells”, “n-type superconductors: synthesis and characterisation”, “Mercury Based Superconductors” and “The Chemistry of Large Scale Hydrogen Production”. I chose those four because they appear to be quite interesting and I think I could find enough material and past research to string together up to 6000 words. Should know some time next week which one I have been assigned to, hopefully it will be my first choice!

Today, 3rd October is the Day Against DRM (Digital Rights Management). What is DRM?

DRM is used to restrict what you and your family can do with the electronic devices and media purchased. It is an attempt by technology and media companies to take away your rights. DRM Means: No fair use. No purchase and resell. No private copies. No sharing. No backup. No swapping. No mix tapes. No privacy. No commons. No control over our computers. No control over our electronic devices.

Did you know that iPod users are restricted from transferring their music to other non-Apple devices because the music downloaded from iTunes is encrypted - locked with DRM? Apple allows you to write an audio CD, but will leave you with very lousy sound quality if you ever want to take your music to a new portable device in a compressed format.

If you want to know more about DRM and what it means for you, read this.

Started back at uni today. Good first day back, 2 hour Business lecture from 9-11, then 3 Chemistry lectures including the year induction. My timetable is pretty good this year, which makes up for last year’s pretty lousy one. I have an average of about 10 hours a week, 9:00 starts on Monday and Tuesday, one hour on Wednesday and 4 Thursday afternoon with Fridays off! Woo. Also, strangely I don’t have any labs this year. They said it’s something to do with making up the credits with Business modules, but I’m not complaining. Have to do a rather long research project though which could be quite a task. Need to choose my topic by next Tuesday.

Here’s looking forward to my final year at uni!

Got my timetable today. It’s only for the first week, so I assume they will issue a new one at the first lecture. Bad news is I have a business lecture at 9am Monday mornings. Better get used to getting up at 6.20am again! Other than that, the core lectures don’t look too bad. Looking forward to receiving the full timetable a week on Monday.

Exactly four weeks today I start my third and final year of uni. I’m quite looking forward to it as I’ve been rather bored the last few weeks, struggling to find much to do during the day. Its amazing how fast the last two years have gone, I will soon have to start thinking what to do after graduation to pump some money in.

Ive found out the graduation ceremonies are going to be either two or three weeks before I go on the Jamboree next year, which is lucky as it wasn’t something I’d thought about. So this time next year I will have graduated and will hopefully be in a job earning some nice cash!

Today I spent the morning at Weston Park, helping clear up after the V Festival. I went with dad’s Rotary club, who were asked if they would like to come and collect any tents that were after and distribute them to Rotary charities. Apparently there were loads of tents and other camping equipment that is just left behind by people, so I said I would go and help. The idea was that we would get as many as possible packed away and put onto big lorries to be taken to disaster areas etc.

When I arrived, I saw the most awful mess ever! I think there were five camping fields, all of them full of litter. It looked like a right pig sty! Everything from frying pans to sausages, coats, jeans and wellies just left there.

All of the tents had been dropped down by security (I assume to make sure there were no dangerous items or bodies in them), so all we had to do was find ones worth keeping and pack them away. You wouldn’t believe some of the tents that were left, many of them brand new, complete with bags. I didn’t count how many I managed to get, but there must have been thousands just on the field we were working on. Working in two’s, we had managed to get most of the ones worth keeping and loaded onto trucks by about 1.

Quite an experience! I was disgusted by the mess that was left behind by these people. How much does it take to put your rubbish in a bin before you leave? Or even take it home if there aren’t any bins. At least some people who have just lost everything will have a nice new tent to sleep in.

Nice little picture gallery charting the history of three of the most important desktop GUI’s - KDE, Mac OS and Windows. Good for a giggle to remember how we used to do things. I can remember as far back as Windows 3.11. Anyone else remember the first operating system they used?

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a nice day.

If you’ve wondered about trying Linux, but maybe your ISP has silly bandwidth limits, or you don’t have a CD/DVD writer then you can get free Linux cd’s delivered to your house. Not even postage costs to pay. Their mission is “To help spread Linux and open source software around the world” so give it a try!

At a recent computer expo , Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated:

“If General Motors had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating (by Mr. Welch himself):

“If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1) For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2) Every time they painted new lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
3) Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4) Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5) Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car95″ or “CarNT”. But then you would have to buy more seats.
6) Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7) The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9) The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.
10) Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11) GM would also require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12) Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13) You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.