Posts Tagged ‘university’

Take your use case and shove it.

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

UML is horrible, cludgy, trying to be all things to all men, and all in all an over-complicated method of shoehorning an OO system into a non OO modelling framework.

It’s the kind of thing that actually gets in the way of real work, the type of thing generated by some consultant ’systems analyst’ to make the development team stop programming and document the system using a godawful syntax. Then the ‘consultant’ can look at the UML diagram and say “here’s your problem, this arrowhead should be filled in” when in fact the only reason it isn’t is because the developers couldn’t give two shits if the arrowhead is filled, hashed, open, closed or even pointing to the right place.

Seriously, I’ve spent longer trying to draw the UML than I would have taken to just write the damn program. Even in COBOL.

iPhone: Lincoln Edition

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Blackboard on an iPhone

I present Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom and logo of the University of Lincoln, on the home page of my iPhone.

A bit more inventive than the usual screenshot of a page, and looking far more stylish on my iPhone’s home screen than the Blackboard login. The icon - for the curious - takes me to my university’s digital learning environment. Big kudos to All in the <head> for the original bookmarklet which made this possible.

Anyone else in Lincoln who is sad like me and has an iPhone/iPod Touch and links to Blackboard, the icon is at http://tn-uk.net/bbicon.png - you’ll need the above bookmarklet to use it.

Huzzah!

Monday, November 19th, 2007

I’ve passed my first Creative Technology assessment (See one/zero/one/four) with 72% - another First (Although closer to the line than the 92% in CMP1017)! I think I should go out to celebrate, I don’t have to be anywhere until 11.00 tomorrow.

In other news, Leafblower Man is back. I’m gonna start being physically violent soon. I don’t enjoy being woken at 6.30 by a 2-stroke petrol engine.

Hooray!

Friday, November 16th, 2007

I’ve passed my in-class test for Data, Networks and The Web with 92%, which is a very comfortable first. Now all I’ve got to do is pass the rest of the assessments this year.

On The Subject of Lectures

Friday, October 19th, 2007

This lecture lasts for ever,
I want to go back to my bed.
Boredom.

The slides I cannot hope to see,
Blue on black is a poor contrast.
Ouch.

Writing haikus is easy,
You just stop at the seventeenth
Sylla.

WiFi does not work today,
Making using Blackboard hard.
Bugger this.

He is using black on black,
Impossible to see.
Please make it stop.

One zero zero one zero one,
Zero one one zero.
Zero.

Societies and Savoury Mince

Monday, October 1st, 2007

I’ve joined two (Yes, two!) societies here at Lincoln. V-GAS (The Video-Gaming Appreciation Society) and the Drama Society. Thieving bastards, £5 for V-GAS and £20 for Drama. Apparently I get a free t-shirt though, so it must be worth it.

I also think I’m the only person who understands savoury mince. When I cooked it today, people just looked at me blankly and said “Meh? What’s savoury mince?”. When I explained it, people went “Oh, bolognese!” and I had to respond with something along the lines of “No, it’s not bolognese! If it was bolognese I would have said bolognese! It’s savoury mince!”

Foreigners.