Still a computer scientist.

My laptop is becoming a little unreliable. Putting aside the issue that it's the oldest and dirtiest laptop in the world for a moment, it seems that whenever it's transported from one place to another the monitor breaks down - there must be something loose inside it. I remedied this the last time by holding it about five inches above the table and letting it drop, which cured it instantly. Its home this semester is going to be permanently in the lab rather than sitting at home doing nothing - I'm using it just now to type up notes during lectures, and it's also somehow comforting to have Windows an arm's length away when Linux gets all too much for me.

I shouldn't say this because it'll just make everything instantly difficult again, but I think I'm approaching the end of the "rewrite the 'ls' command" practical. The three main problems are that I hadn't used C in ages, that even something as simple as writing strings becomes a hugely awkward obstacle in C, and that I'm too stupid to be able to use pointers. Java, or preferably MMF, are the way forward. I can't help but feel that MMF might have been taken more seriously as a professional software tool if they hadn't made the mistake of making the tutorial a guide to making a rubbish little Breakout game.

The practical for Databases is going to be a different kind of difficult, like I've mentioned before - I have to think up a scenario to model, something that isn't too complex but not too simple. At the moment I think I'll go for being vastly unoriginal and keep a database of students at Qwertyuiop University or something, but the lecturer was saying today that it doesn't have to be real, so people can run hypothetical databases for spacecraft manufacturers or something. In fact, the example she gave involved elves making pixie dust, but I don't think I'll take up that idea as it would raise severe questions about my sexuality.