Blog

Well, I’ve got some accomodation booked for the first few nights. I was worried for a second as Christchurch seems to be rather busy and I needed a bed for tonight, but it’s all worked out okay and I’m crashing at a place called Charlie B’s. For Greymouth we have Neptunes and for Franz Josef (where the main glaciers are) there is Black Sheep Backpackers. All I have to do now is get enough work done to have 8 computers working for me while I’m away, fill out a leave form and chat to soem people here at work, meet up with the other Andy Jackson for a beer tonight, finish packing and make it to the airport in time for the 9:40pm flight. Life is not dull at present. :)

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Travels

Crikey. I’ve just booked a Magic Bus Transalpine Experience, so it looks like next week’s trip is all sorted. Sure, I’ve not organized any accommodation, but surely they’ll not be booked up yet!? Even in autumn the tourists are in full force - I suspect the only reason summer/Christmas are so busy is that all the kiwi’s are on holiday as well. I’m sure it will work out okay - things usually do. I’ll also look into adding a Magic Milford Discovery, a HeliHike, a Catlin’s Coaster and maybe even a Cook Connection.

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Travels

Great quotes during this trip…

• “I’m hungry like the wolf.”
• “It was like buying pies with rainman.”
• “But I’ve never even owned a flute.”
• “Pony Poo - $1 a bag”
• “Yes, I am here with the intention of dining.”
• “Pull out your prawns and smile.”
• “It’s where I discovered that adrenaline is brown.” Well, trust me, they were funny at the time. Anyways, we went to Taupo, Rotorua and around. Stewart did his bungy and loved it, and we met up with some mates of his up there and had a great evening. Before it was over, Stewart had been leaping into topiary, and Kim & I had been given a rare opportunity to hear the nocturnal call of the Liverpudlian Wolf.

We’ve seen the world’s smallest pony, been to the rather fine thermal areas of Orakei Korako and Craters Of The Moon, bathed in piping hot springs, seen the daily gush at the Aratiatia Dam and the rapids that it creates on the Waikato River, visited the Huka Falls, watched Kim & Stewart Zorb, eaten geothermal prawns, been to Trout Central, visited an elevator from The Shining via a tunnel from a hippy...

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Travels

Well, I’m off to Taupo with Stewart (my flatmate) and Kim (a visitor to the lab) this weekend. Should be good. It’s Stewart’s birthday on Sunday, and he’s going to bungy-jump and then get very drunk. My Dad suggested that this was the wrong way around.

And, I’ve just booked a flight to Christchurch and back, for a week of adventures on the south island. I’ll fly out on the 16th and return on the 26th, and see as much as humanly possible in the meantime. Planning a HeliHike on a glacier - weather permitting of course.

After that, I’ll have to sort out the return to the UK. Blimey.

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Travels

Was looking for some cake recipes, as I am cooking cakes for friday-buns-on-thursday this week. During the process I discovered DeliaOnline and The BBC Recipe Archive which both seem to be excellent recipe sauces.

Unfortunately, I just remembered that my flat does not have a proper oven. It’s a blokes flat where everything is either fried, boiled or microwaved (but mostly fried). Looks like I’ll be buying a cake instead of making one, but at least I have a good excuse!

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Top Tips

Well, finally tracked down the optimization bug. A weird Intel chip + gcc issue that can be described as an ‘extended precision problem’. Its pretty dull, but likely to hit many folks doing my kind of work, so I’m putting a summary on a seperate page. On a lighter note this is scarily human, and this is pretty cool.

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Development