Not A Bad Week

Had time to spend on my pet project.
the program is almost working, just a few bugs here and there.
it's quite annoying that the server doesn't respond consistently.

for example when i send a msg like "how are you?",
it's supposed to reply "fine"
but once in a while it replies with a "you suck"
and then my program panics and crashes.

not a big deal i think,
just need a bit more work to handle crazy replies.
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Have been getting more familiar with Labview too.
Labview is a completely graphical form of programming.

so for example to do "x = 3",
you draw a variable box called "x" and a constant box called "3" and then draw a line to connect them.

and for looping, you draw a big box and then put in whatever you want to loop inside the box.

Everyone i know who uses Labview says it's very difficult to pick up in the beginning because it's quite a big paradigm shift from regular word programming like C to graphical programming.

But they all say once you get the hang of it, it's a lot easier that word programming.
"Just drag icons and draw wires! No need to study the language!"

i think i'm at the stage where there's so much more to learn but it's no longer intimidating.
Just last week i learnt how to make my labview program close on its own.
And on friday a Labview expert came and shared other tricks of the trade.
He was happy to talk so long as i allowed him to gobble my lemon flavored Fisherman's friend.

it's actually quite fun.
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Spend most of last week recovering from my sore throat and cough.
it's tough work fighting viruses and i was tired most of the time.

i'm 95% fit now.
self medicated with leftover cold tablets and panandol and lemon flavored fisherman's friend.
Fisherman's friend works for cough and constipation. even when you don't really have constipation.

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Had a good juggling session on Friday as i was happy that my program worked and i was finally fit and energetic again from fisherman's friend.

There's a German juggler that will be based here for the next 3 years.
he's mostly a contact juggler but he's very keen on performing so may be more exciting things to come.
He'll be back in October after getting his work permit stuff ironed out and this time he'll be back with his girlfriend who is a professional club swinging performer.

wow!

hopefully their presence would give the juggling performing scene a big boost.

And then as luck would have it we have a juggler from France as well.
This one's an exchange student and will only be here till end of the year.
but he's a club juggler so we are able to share more tricks with each other.

he has already taught me one new multiplex trick which will keep me busy for another few weeks.

In our midst is also a primary school girl from china who is learning diabolo tricks from one of the experts.
On Friday she asked me if i knew the "female juggler who wears headphones and juggles well".
i told her i'm not sure who's she's talking about.

and then i put on my headphones and started juggling and she went "oh it's you! I had a feeling you'd come back!"

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MJ msn-ed me yesterday about a great youtube video called "elegant universe part 1".
i ended up hooked onto it and only just finished all 3 parts of the video series.
it's quite interesting, especially for the physics enthusiasts.

it's about coming up with the theory of everything, and then it talks about string theory, and the 11 dimensions that results from string theory and parallel universes.

very informative. i'd love to have watch something like this as part of physics lessons.
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it's been a good week.
let's see what next week brings.