I’m writing this entry on a bus on the way to UCD - if I can manage to find an unsecured network and post it while the bus is at traffic lights I’ll be rather pleased with myself 
I meant to write about this sooner, but anyway: this weekend I’m off to Utrecht, Holland to compete in NWERC 2007. It’s a regional qualifier for the ACM ICPC. This is the first year any university in Ireland has entered a team (or so I’m told), so it’s “kind of a big deal”.
Why me, you ask? Well, it’s party because I competed in a programming competition in UCD last summer, but also partly because the whole thing was sort of under the radar. Only six people expressed an interest in being part of the team, of which three were finally chosen. The entire school of Computer Science got an email about us last week though, so maybe I’ll have some stiffer competition to qualify next year 
We’re staying in a hotel with the charming name of “Van der Valk Biltsche Hoek”, which looks quite nice; the website was all in Dutch though, so we may have reserved 4 car parking spaces for 3 months for all we know. Half way though the booking process we were presented with the following choice:
We managed to figure out that “kamer” means “room”, but were stunned to discover that “meerpersoon” means… “more person”. What the hell is a ““more person room”?! We booked them since they were the same price as standard, and I assume if it turns out we don’t like the “more people” provided we can tell them to take a hike.
We’re going over on Friday at about 3pm, and arriving at 6ish. Those are local times; seems it doesn’t take 3 hours to fly a few hundred kilometers. Even more strangely we’re leaving at 7 on Sunday and getting in to Dublin at 7:30! Holland is ahead, or behind, or something. My brain isn’t designed to process time zones; just thinking about the International Date Line makes me nauseous.
I realise this is all of questionable interest to anyone else… I’ll make it up with some funny youtube videos soon, I promise. In fact, here are some dudes trying to act like ninjas when they are quite clearly not ninjas:
I can only hope that video gives the above article clarity and context 
Recent Comments
Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/public/blog/wp-includes/post.php on line 174