On the 28th of March (the same day as our choir concert), we have the ANU open day. I'll be there in the morning, showcasing some of my retro computer collection. I decided to write a 140KB program for my Apple IIe (just enough to fit on one floppy image) that prospective students can use to learn about our degree programmes.

This was about 1000 lines of assembly: the entire thing is actually graphics, I don't use the Apple II text mode at all. It's actually quite impressive that the Apple IIe is fast enough to do this kind of bitmap rendering. But it truly is a bizarre system: the addressing for the bitmap data is super weird (all over the place), and each byte of bitmap data is 7 (not 8) pixels of data. Still, it means you can do some impressive graphics considering when the first Apple II came out.

It also has a screensaver to stop the burn in on my amber monochrome monitor (which has the right colours for ANU).

I really recommend this article by Paulette D. Koronkevich. It perfectly expresses some of the same thoughts that I've been having about CS, both research and teaching, in this AI-polluted age.

I am only in this business because of the people. My PhD advisor Gabi and her husband Manuel, my mentor Kai, my collaborators Rob and Peter and Christine and Zilin, my colleagues Ohad and James and Sam, and most of all my students over the years, among whom in particular I would name Andrew, Jiyeong, Tammy, Emmett, Amy, Ke and Rayhana.

Iudica me Deus, et discérne causam meam de gente non sancta: ab hómine iníquo et dolóso éripe me: quia tu es Deus meus, et fortitúdo mea.

This final Sunday before Holy Week at All Saints Ainslie was an Evensong sunday, so I sang for the morning service and directed our choir for evensong. In the morning I sang Dowland's In this trembling shadow accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close on the organ.

In this trembling shadow, cast

From those boughes which thy winds shake

Farre from humane troubles plac’d

Songs to the Lord would I make

Darknesse from my minde then take

For thy rites none may begin

Till they feele thy light within.

For Evensong, I sang the Venite chant followed by the Choir singing Stainer's Hail, Gladdening Light, ferial preces and responses, my own tonus peregrinus arrangement with organum for the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis from Orlando Gibbons' Short Service. For the anthem we sang Wesley's Lead Me, Lord. This was the first time I've directed a choir for Evensong.

Lead me, Lord.

Lead me in thy righteousness.

Make thy way plain before my face.

For it is thou, Lord,

Thou, Lord, only,

That makest me dwell in safety.