Kev's Uni Homepage

Hi, this page is here so I can find all my crap when I'm at different browsers, and/or locations with different bookmarks. I also use it to put things on that I don't want to lose, like random bits of source code, GPS coordinates of exciting stuff, and links to cool things. It is possible (although unlikely) that you might find something of interest. If you do see something you really like, or have any other comments about this page - then give me an email

I suppose I should provide a picture in case any of you are at this page attempting to find me as it would probably help if you knew what I looked like. I have just randomly gone through the pictures of me on Facebook, and I've chosen this one, from new year 2006 in Edinburgh.

I'm the guy at the back with a Pringle in my mouth, I'm usually eating some kind of garbage so it is quite a representative picture! However, I'm a little worried because after thinking about it for 5 minutes, I haven't got a clue where it was! At least if I see it everytime I go to find something, it might help me remember. (update Thu Apr 5 10:40:33 BST 2007) I think it might be the house party that we went to on new year's eve. The place that was up all the stairs.

This document is split into various sections - it probably only fills about 3 pages so scrolling down isn't hard, but just in case you are one of those people who can't survive without a contents or index, I have provided one below. It is undoubtedly incomplete and out of date though. You people should really learn to live without organization and just read the whole document(come on, it's not that big!). Plus, if you do skip to your desired section then you're missing out on a possible gold mine of treasures, a damn good procrastinating opportunity and last (and probably least) my witty writing!

uniStuff LUMS research tutoring randomTripsOut backgammon otherRandomStuff newComputerSecurity programming contacting getMyEmailAddress

If there are any UNIX geeks out there, then check the page source for a nice little shell one-liner that produces the contents.

I am a memeber of the department of management science (operations research to normal people) at the university of Lancaster. The web board thingy we're supposed to use can be found here.

It's now the summer and because there are no undergrads I have nothing to teach. I'm hoping that I'l be teaching MSCI100/101 and MSCI103 during the academic year 2007/2008, but this has not yet been decided. You can find my stuff about MSCI103 for the academic year 2006/2007 here

I like to get away from life on a regular basis, especialy at the moment. I only really put my trips on here if I have any pictures, but I'm forcing myself to take more pictures because having something like this to look back on is realy nice. Anyway, for your perusal, there are details of my walk from Grange Over Sands to Ulverston, my quest to solve the landlocked lighthouse mystery and a walk to Barrow, my trip to Abbeystead reservoir and dam, some random pictures taken near Heysham, my trip along the Lancashire coastal way between Morecambe and Carnforth, and finally, just these pictures that don't really fit anywhere.

This is extremely out of date. I'm currently working on a good way to store and catalog my pictures(with the ability to automatically update this web thingy). Unfortunately I haven't got anything yet. Two of my more recent pictures worth a look at are the sand turtle and the fairy steps.

I'll start by listing a couple of sites where you can play turnbased backgammon online. Two that I play on are Dailygammon and It's Your Turn. I play with the userid kev82 on both, but I am only accepting new games on Dailygammon, because I'm fed up with IYT. The interface is now impossible to use without being a paid member and it's just generally an advert nightmare. I still play because I refuse to leave until I win a tournament there. Dailygammon is just generally awesome, try it out!

If you like live play, it's worth checking out FIBS Just telnet to fibs.com on port 4321 to play. For those trying to play from Lancaster, ssh to cent1 first to connect. Unless you have an office computer like me, and just about every outbound port you can think of is open, so there is no problem.

I have played (and do play) in a few backgammon teams. I will add more links here eventually, but the only ones I'm active in right now that I can think of are: Jason Lee's postcard tournaments, Rush2112's trio league, and Erik and Modesty-B's world tournament You should pay special attention to Team DrakGreen in the trio league. Notice how they've never been relegated and have only ever lost to 1 team! One to watch I think. Of course my suport isn't at all effected by the fact I play for them.

Manchester backgammon club is also in the area if you want to go. IIRC they play every Tuesday night. However, I can't play because none of the northbound trains stop at Lancaster station after about 1030pm, they all zoom past. If anyone wants to go and carshare (I can't drive) please do get in contact with me.

Also, I am looking for people in the area for OTB games, again please do et in touch if you want to play OTB (match play only, not money play)

I'm absolutely useless at remembering the URLs for library catalogs, quite strange since I'm really good at remembering the URLs for other things. Anyway here are some of the ones I use. Lancaster University, Lancashire County Libraries, County Durham Librares

I have found the best way to find a county library catalog website is to google for "[County Name] County Libraries".

I wrote a program recently to calculate the probability of a given attacking force beating a given defending force in the hame of Risk assuming both attacker and defender roll as many dice as possible. It is write in ANSI C++, so should run on just about anything, you can find it here.

This should keep most virii and script-kiddies off the internet - or at least educate them whilst they are there trying to break stuff. Every computer should have one!

I go out walking a lot and often my trip out and/or home involves a train in some way. Because of this, finding train stations is of vital importance to me. So stolen from Wikipedia, here is a list of all stations and their postcodes. AS I find them and remember to turn my GPS on, I'll record the coordinates too. I need to decided on a data structure I like first though.

I compete in various online programming competitions, by far my favourite being the Topcoder (Algorithm) Competition. This is a live programming competition that runs in a java web start application. Basically you have 75 minutes to solve 3 programming problems of varying difficulty in either C++, Java, or some .Net languages. You get points depending how quickly you solve the problem and then you get 15 minutes to try and break other people's code. Basically it's awesome - I don't know what else to say other than to try it! There are other competitions as well as the algorithm ones, but I'll leave you to explore. I warn you though, the marathon matches will suck your life away!

My TopCoder rating graph is always worth a look.

Some other competitions that come to mind are SPOJ whixh is just plain impossible, Project Euler which is very mathematical, but you submit answers, not source, so there is no chance of timing out, and USACO which I don't know anything about because I've never tried it

If you wish to contact me, by far the best way is via email. Instructions to get my email address are below. I can't read Microsoft Documents at home, only at the office. So if you want to send me anything, can you please make it in either text, postscript, or pdf. You will get a much quicker response if you do so.

If you wish to call me or post something to me, then email me first and I'll give you my address and/or phone number.

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