Illustration Got Published

A paper of mine, which forms the guts of my thesis, was recently published in Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence, volume 4766. They just sent me a copy of it, and I got quite a surprise: the cover illustration they used is actually the one from my paper and thesis. It's an illustration of a distributed CSP that I created for demonstrating my algorithm. Don't quite know what to say. At least they really liked the diagram? :)

Moving Stories

Random stories from my recent move up the building:

• The first time we inspected the new apartment, it had a slightly smokey smell. The carpet had just been shampoo-cleaned, but whoever had done it had left a cigarette butt in the toilet. The windows were open letting dust and stuff in. To top it off, they stole the light-bulbs from the bathroom. Go figure.
• I've never owned a vacuum cleaner in Canada - I had always borrowed one from some friends in the building. I managed to buy a good one from Sears in the last week, and have had great fun since then sucking up dirt and dust. There was surprisingly little dust in my old apartment, considering I've only vacuumed twice since I got to Canada. And there was no sign of Mum's earring that she lost here. Oh well. :|
• We cleaned my old oven using some truly nasty spray-on stuff. You're supposed to wear goggles and rubber gloves, but we're lazy and skipped that bit. I just held my breath for most of the experience.
• We briefly met two neighbours on my old floor that I'd never even seen before. We also received a complaint from a neighbour for playing a movie too loud on the day before I moved. Oops. They were a pretty noisy couple anyway. :)
• The elevator was trying to kill us the whole time. We had to load it up with large amounts of stuff each time (bag run!), but if we took a few too many seconds it would start shrieking and the door would slowly close in dramatic style. It was kind of like the garbage compactor in Star Wars. At one point, Emily and I were on opposite sides of the elevator door when we realised we each had the wrong set of keys. It was a very Hollywood moment, passing the keys to each other moments before the elevator door closed on us. :)
• I still have a chocolate rabbit from my early years at University. It was something my sister gave to me, and I made some kind of promise not to eat it until I finished University. Well, my thesis is still ticking away. It survived the move, however I left it on the kitchen table today when I went to work. Guess what - my apartment now gets sun! One of its ears melted and half-collapsed, and I fear I have deformed its head when picking it up this afternoon.
• I would like to give a big thank you to Emily who organised the kitchen very nicely for me. In a related note, there is nothing on the top shelves of my kitchen cabinets. ;)

Seriously, Emily has a huge help with this move. From keeping me motivated, to packing the contents of my desk, to helping me slide my bed across tiles by use a magic carpet. She was always there, and was fantastic. Thank you.

Anyway, here's looking forward to a lot of years in this apartment. I don't want to move again for a while. It's a nice place, and I hate moving. :)

PS. There are three (3) alternative meanings to the title of this post. Can you find them all? ;)

Photos From New Apartment

So I've moved up in the world - same building, but higher up. That also means (significantly) increased living space, and some of the best views I've ever seen here. I've uploaded high-res photos to an album on Picasaweb, but smaller versions are here:

Bag Snatched From Apartment

Forget Poseidon - Hermes seems to have it in for me. Someone has stolen something while I was in the apartment. :(

I have just moved into a new apartment (more on that later) with a huge amount of help from Emily. We were tired from all the moving and cleaning so decided to have a 30-minute afternoon nap. When we woke up we noticed:

1. One of my boots had been moved from 'near the door' to 'blocking the passageway to the door'.
2. The front door was unlocked, presumably left that way by us when we came into the apartment.
3. Emily's red MEC shoulder bag was missing, including her Nintendo DS, all her games, and a whackload of Pocky.

It looks like, between 2.15pm and 2.45pm, someone opened the (unlocked) front door, saw Emily's shoulder bag on the floor just past my boots, grabbed it and ran. They didn't bother to come into the apartment, else they would have stolen my camera or wallet.

I'll notify the landlady, but I'm not planning to notify the police any time soon. It's frustrating that Emily's DS was stolen, but the odds of the police finding a "red DS with no distinguishing marks" or "some packets of Pocky" are extremely slim.

Final Move from Australia

With the help of friends in Australia, there are now 5 boxes of my stuff in transit to Canada. I don't know when they'll get here, what shape they'll be in, or whether Canadian Customs will charge me duty for importing. As it says in this email:

Your boxes were collected today by TNT, each box labeled with your address in Canada. Their eventual destination is now in hands of the gods.
Janos.

Lets see if Poseidon likes me or not. :D