aer lingus, erlang-us

First off, an update on the Ireland thing; I sent off an email to the course director at Trinity. Still no response, but hey...it's only been a couple of days (and despite the title of the post, it'll be a while before I'm buying plane tickets; it's only there for cleverness).

Secondly, in preparation for potentially becoming a distributed computed grad student, I've been learning Erlang. For those of you who don't care about clicking the link, Erlang is a language for distributed systems that has primitive support for concurrency and error recovery while still maintaining the benefits of a high-level, functional language. So far, I like it. It's been fun to learn a new syntax and I like the thought of something distributed (I mean, seriously; think about all the unused cycles in my apartment!). I'm planning on eventually writing some sort of digital ant farm; for now, I'm working on a simple hill-climber that will grow into a swarm algorithm of some sort.

Also, I've been on a wine kick lately; I might be posting about that from time to time in the near future.

the pipes, the pipes are calling

For those of you who may not already know, I have a plan. I tell the Internet my plan for two reasons: (1) I'm rather excited about the plan, and (2) if more people know about it, there's more pressure for me to follow through.

So, anyway, here's the plan: I'm going to apply for a master's degree in computer science at Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland, if that wasn't immediately obvious).

For those of you who know me only marginally or through certain circles, that may be a bit of a surprise; a foreign M. Sc. in networks and distributed systems is a far cry from a domestic Ph. D. in philosophy. When it comes right down to it, though, computer science is what I do. And if I can do it in Ireland, I am in like Friends was in the mid-to-late 90s.

Although I haven't worked out all the details, here's what I know about the plan so far:

• My background in JDE seems to match well with the program (or should I say, programme), so I think my application would be well received,
• Provided I get in, the course would last me from October 2007-September 2008 (or 2008/2009, pending discussions on fellowships),
• I would end up with a M. Sc. in computer science from Trinity, and
  
• It's in Ireland.

Overall, I see no real problems with this plan, so I'm going to do it. I'll give more details as I get them.

potent potables

Apparently, one shouldn't leave containers of perishable liquid sitting around for multiple months without at least checking on them once in a while. I have two testimonials.

One: A jug of milk was left half-full in the office fridge for approximately 3 months. The milk had been slightly sour when purchased (thanks, SunMart!) and, of course, got progressively worse. However, no one was ever planning on drinking it, and no one really used the fridge for much, so it wasn't an issue...

...until the pressure building inside caused the bottom of the jug to rupture and leak mostly-curdled milk all over the inside of the fridge and onto the floor outside it (the office smelled like puke last Friday).

Two: My roommate purchased a bottle of mead from James Arthur Vineyards about six months ago (you'll have to correct me if that's wrong, Jesse) and placed in the wine rack, where it sat quite contentedly...

...until Tuesday, when some combination of a bad cork, oxygen in the bottle, and overactive yeast managed to spontaneously fire the cork across the living room. The bottle happily gurgled half of its contents onto the futon before we recovered enough from the shock to tip it upright (the futon mat still somewhat smells like vinegar).