tBlog

Aussies, in general, are much more conscious of the impact that human life has on the natural world than most of my former countrymen of the United States. This becomes gloriously apparent when we’re faced with events like Earth Hour. Held at the end of March each year, one hour is chosen for everyone to turn out the lights. The idea is to use zero electricity for just one single hour out of our busy lives — the impact is undeniably worth the minuscule inconvenience (see EarthHour.org for stats). Participation is widespread in Canberra — I met a woman at the markets today who was planning an Earth Hour dinner party, to be prepared beforehand and then enjoyed with friends by candle light. Even without going to her lengths, the one hour break will undoubtedly be a time of people coming together anyplace Earth Hour is observed. 60 minutes to spend with the people around us without all the distraction of electrical interference sounds like something our 24/7 cyberculture could use every once in a while.

Eight o’clock is almost here and I’ve got to figure out how to spend an hour in the dark…

I’m quite proud that I’ve defeated the semester’s first assignment and have learned my very first portion of true computational programming. The proposal given to us was to create something “simple” using modular arithmetic and coprime moduli. I’m still working on perfecting my maths, but I’m starting to feel a glimmer of hope that I might just learn to get some of this programming stuff right before the year is through.

The school year is progressing along and has given me 8,000,000 things to do every minute … all those folks out there who find time to blog each day (or even each week) are real champions — I barely find time to sleep!

That said, I feel it necessary to share a short tale of recent goings-on. Fall weather is upon us here in Canberra, and much like in the States, spiders and other bugs are making themselves more apparent as chill temperatures take hold of the air. A few days ago, I received an email from my mother which suits the season very well:

“Dad and I saw a show on TV this week about dangerous animals around the world. In Australia they highlighted the boxer jellyfish and the funnel spider. YIKES! They are scary!

The program said the way to neutralize the sting of the jellyfish was to pour vinegar on the affected areas. As for the funnel spider, the only help if you get bitten is to get to the doctor quick for some anti-venom medicine. It also said the funnel spider is big and aggressive…it will chase you! Crazy! I know there are some other dangerous creatures there also, so be safe.”

Aside from highlighting how adorable my mother is even in her email messages, this brings to light the fact that some of the insect ’round these parts are indeed very dangerous. After assuring my mother that I was in no danger whatsoever from any nasty spider bites, I found myself face to face with a rather large red back spider the very next day. It had built itself a cozy web-nest out on our balcony which suspended a small egg sack, and had come out to see what I was up to.

No worries, mom, I followed my good ol’ American instincts and quickly snatched up our household can of Raid insect killer and drowned the nasty thing in a puddle of sticky chemical goo. In the epic battle of RedBack vs. Raid, there was simply no contest.