Lanparty is coming

03 Nov 2005 I did a lot of stuff for the lanparty today. (BANG is organising a lanparty on 4 and 5 november 2005, more information on http://test.singularity.be)

I got the projector, paid the deposit for the rooms we hired (372 euros in total), got me a GBIC and created the rules for the lanparty (shamelessly ripped from OCC)
We also moved the fridge and the gameserver with some help from a colleague.

The plan is to print the lanparty rules on an A3 paper and put them on the walls at the lanparty.
Ever tried to print a LaTeX document on an A3 paper ? I didn't get it to work, but then again I cheated. I created a postscript file and printed it 2 pages on 1 sheet. Then I tried to print it on A3, which failed for some reason.
Oh well :)

Just got back from the pub now. I had an interesting talk about all kinds of things. Stuff like project management, the beauty of mathematics and science, true ingenuity, Voronoi diagrams, graphics hardware and FPGA's.

And then the DJ decided to screw up the evening by playing his crappy music so loud that we couldn't hear eachother anymore. What is it with pubs these days ? It's like they're all involved in a contest to play the loudest possible music ?
When I go to a pub, its not to sit there, drink something and shut up. I go to a pub to have interesting conversations, which means the music in the background stays IN THE BACKGROUND. The last pub on this side of the planet where it's actually nice enough to make conversation it now infested with the same disease as all other pubs I've been to so far :(

Anyway, among other things I wonder if there are any studies about people in impossible situations. More specifically, I wonder how people react when they are forced into a position where they have to solve an unsolveable problem, and are forced to try and force it even when they know (either conciously or subconciously) that it is impossible.
I imagine most people would get annoyed, but how do they deal with this ? Do they show violence ? Do they crack and collapse ?

If I didn't have so many things going on, I would research it. Right now, I have to finish a couple of projects (sogld and SDS: Steven's Driving School). After those projects, I might set up a computer/electronics lab and experiment with (among other things) FPGA's