Seth Yates

Back from the Gold Coast

We just arrived back from the Gold Coast late tonight and were greeted by a torrential downpour, Sydney-style.

The four day trip has been an enjoyable quick break to celebrate my brother-in-law’s graduation from Monash (Mechanical Engineering) and return to Malaysia. The last two days have been spent touring around Sea World and Movie World in near-ideal temperatures with next-to-no crowds—you’ve got to love off-season.

As usual, photos from the trip will eventually find their way up on to Flickr.

8 Little Known Things About Me

Looks like this meme is going around. Nigel dobbed me in (…thanks bro). The ground rules for the meme are simple. Here they are…

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Little-known facts about Seth

1. I was born in rural Alabama, but for the most part, I grew up in suburban Texas (although we moved around a lot).
2. Although I grew up in the United States, I’m a New Zealand citizen. But I live in Sydney, Australia (like probably around 30% of the NZ global population).
3. In university, I wanted to be an astrophysicist…until I found out you had to know a lot of maths and the hours and pay was bad. So, instead I went into IT…where you have to know a lot of maths and the hours and pay are bad…hmm…
4. Was flying in an Ansett flight from Wellington to Melbourne the day that Ansett shut down. Was actually their last flight…ever. We had to circle Melbourne Airport while the pilots arranged a non-Ansett ground crew.
5. My first job was programming C/C++ on UNIX doing intense geospatial work (see #3 above). I worked my first job full-time while completing my Uni work varying between part- and full-time. This non-stop work+school schedule prepared me for future endentured servitude such as working on contract at Microsoft in the late-nineties.
6. Built an e-prescribing system which was the foundation for a now multi-billion dollar company (I still own shares, but unfortunately, I didn’t own that many).
7. In mid-2000, I spent four months travelling overland from Singapore to Hong Kong (seeing Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Southern China along the way).
8. I speak passable Mandarin Chinese. Also speak a bit of Foochow.

So, onto the viral part of the meme – the tagging:

1. Mark Cohen
2. Paul Andrew
3. Brett Iredale
4. Barry Goldberg
5. Richard Giles
6. Julian Bright
7. Jorge Albinagorta
8. John Barton

The FAIL! video

That’s the best way I can think of to describe this video….FAIL!!!

Afternoon storm through Sydney

A small storm rolled through Sydney’s Inner West this afternoon. Some brief rain, but fantastic looking scenery:

Compact Calendar 2008: Australia version

I’ve created my own localised version of David Seah’s Excel-based Compact Calendar. It includes all national public holidays and most of the major state holidays, but not complete coverage.

Compact Calendar Australia 2008

Rugby Hell

Rugby Heaven (NZ) appear to have rebranded this morning following the shock defeat of The All Blacks.

All Blacks out of World Cup

What a horrible weekend for Autralasian Rugby. In a shocking upset, France defeat New Zealand to dump The No. 1 Ranked All Blacks from the World Cup. Thanks to some ill-advised/ill-timed NZ substitutions and to an uncalled French forward pass leading to a try, France were able to get 2 points ahead and hang on under considerable pressure from the NZ attack.
Go Fiji!

UPDATE: Rugby Heaven has coverage here.

Rock, Paper, Scissors…super-sized

We’ve all played the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” at least once in our lives. Its a familiar part of most Western (and much Eastern) culture.

However, did you know there’s actually a World Rock-Paper-Scissors Society? The website even provides hints on strategy and game play, including Official Abridged Rules of Play and “The Great Eight Gambits” for playing “best two of three” games:

1. The Avalance (Rock, Rock, Rock). “A subtle yet aggressive gambit”;
2. The Bureaucrat (Paper, Paper, Paper). “The deadpan delivery of this gambit is the ultimate in passive-aggressive play”;
3. The Crescendo (Paper, Scissors, Rock). “The slow-building nature of this gambit makes it a very elegant opening series”;
4. The Denouement (Rock, Scissors, Paper). “This gambit relies on a cooling-down approach to gently destroy your opponent”;
5. Fistful O’Dollars (Rock, Paper, Paper). “This gambit is still arguably one of the great surprise offensive moves”;
6. Paper Dolls (Paper, Scissors, Scissors). “The complexity of this gambit is belied by its apparent simplicity”;
7. Scissor Sandwich (Paper, Scissors, Paper). “An invasive and devious gambit”;
8. The Toolbox (Scissors, Scissors, Scissors). “Effective use of this gambit requires steady hands and steely nerves”.

As if this wasn’t enough, have a look at what you can do if you take this…well…just too far:

Don’t try this at home (or work)!

Wallabies out of the World Cup

In a scrappy match where England played above their Pool match performances, the English forward pack and the boot of Johnny Wilkinson wins the day and dumps Australia from the World Cup.

UPDATE: Rugby Heaven has coverage here.

Shaped