Done!

It's over. Last exam sat, course work archived, studies are over.

Unless I'm mad enough to do post-grad....

Huzzah!

Had my final university lecture at 4pm today. Just gotta get past two 3-hour exams in early November, and then I'll graduate. Still haven't decided about going to the capping ceremony. My wife, sister-in-law and mother-in-law want me to do it, but I'm not big on public displays.

Happy New Year!

2009, eh? What can we expect?

• Hopefully, I'll finish my undergrad studies at VUW.
• Mafia II!
• Possibly start thinking about trying for kids...
• More D&D rulebooks...
• Idiot right-wing policies from the National-led government (you know, like fixing the economic crisis by giving more money to the twats that caused the problems in the first place).
• Mafia II!

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of now.

Edit: Add "many more games of Warhammer" to the list.

Relax!

Okay, that last exam was a bee-atch, but it's over now. Two whole weeks before semester two starts.

And then the merrygoround begins again....

So I'm not maladjusted? Hooray!

Interesting study that's been done (courtest of Techdirt):

Been a while

Yikes! Managed to go all February without making a post. Baaaad crispy-bacon!

I guess the combination of finishing my internship at Innaworks, and starting back at university gives me some excuse though.

Anyhoo, stumbled across this awesome looking flight sim called Jet Thunder. Based around the 1982 Falklands War, I definitely adding this puppy to my collection when it comes out.

Hey, I know her....

Techdirt is reporting on a story about a lecturer at the University of Brighton who has banned her students from using Google in writing their papers. Prof. Brabazon has claimed that too many students were taking the easy way out and regurgitating the first few search results for their assignments.

This seems to be another case of blaming the technology for what is really human laziness. If a student can't be bothered to research their assignments properly, then they should get poor grades. Then, they'll either fail the course or learn to research properly.

Banning Google and Wikipedia is not the answer. When I did history at Victoria University (in 1994), the first assignment was on how to use the library. We had about 20 questions, and in finding the answers to those questions, had to learn the layout of the library, the call number system, etc.

The solution to Prof. Brabazon's problem would seem to be an assignment designed to teach students how to use tools like Google and Wikipedia, making sure that students learn what these tools are not -- an alternative to thinking, or to proper research.

I was a little surprised when I read this story. Prof. Brabazon took the final third of Hist105 (waaaay back in 1994), and I always thought of her as a more technologically clued up lecturer (who once used an episode of Fawlty Towers to demonstrate a point).