Richard Lobb's Personal Bumph Page

 
    For the more professional stuff, please refer back to my main home page. This page is just all the things that didn't fit into the main page but I thought ought to be said somewhere. 

Brief cv

Born 1947. MSc in Physics in 1969 with a thesis "Automatic Recording of the Faraday Fading of Satellite Signals". PhD in Radioscience in 1975, with a thesis "Studies in Ionogram Analysis and Interpretation." Both at Auckland.

Went to Britain and Europe for a few years for the great Kiwi Overseas Experience; worked as a grape picker, a waiter and a hotel odd jobs man. Then as a programmer for a London software house (real-time minicomputer software) before going to Holland as a free-lance programming consultant for Phillips Data Systems (networking software).

Back to NZ at end of 1978 to join Auckland University's embryonic Computer Science Department as its first appointee. And I'm still here, a little greyer (all right, a lot) and a little more senior.

Rap on Teaching

I subscribe to the unfashionable belief that the primary role of a University is education. That means that my main job is to teach. However, since some students seem to lose sight of their own role in the education business, I prefer to say that my job is to provide a good learning environment for students.

I also believe that lectures by themselves are a pretty useless way of teaching. My view is that assignments are the primary learning experience, with lectures providing a context. So if you take one of my courses, expect to have to do plenty of assignment work :-)

I have at various times taught courses in introductory programming, computer organisation, operating systems (even including a graduate course for Unix hackers in the early days of Unix), algorithm design, image processing and computer graphics. Computer graphics is my speciality.

If you want to know more about my teaching attitudes, you could try reading my random thoughts about how to do well in tests and exams. Or read my raves on the subject of specimen answers to assignments or assignment extensions.

Non-work Interests

Family: I have two children: Anwen (22) and Michael (19). Although they're both getting pretty grown up, it appears I'm still vaguely tolerable company for them, on a good day. And vice versa :-)

Sports: squash used to be my main sport (NZ grading C1), but I had to give it up three years ago. Too tough on the body. I took up running for a while, and ran my first and last marathon in May, 1998. It was horrible. I used to think that training for a marathon was all about getting fit enough that running didn't hurt. It's actually about learning to run when in pain. And those last 10km of the marathon are sheer unadulterated agony. If you're thinking about running a marathon, DON'T! [This is a Community Service Message from your friendly neighbourhood lecturer.] However, having said that, I'm still running at bit. I just have to keep reminding myself how horrible that marathon was so I don't find myself signing up for another one.

Tramping ("hiking" to you furreners): this is my main recreation/sport at the moment. I particularly enjoy rock scrambling and river bashing! I organize departmental tramping trips (see Coromandel Trip and Pararaha Gorge) and am a keen member of the Auckland Tramping Club (ATC). For photos of recent trips, see:

Other Interests:

  • Mountain Biking (enthusiastic beginner). Well, I was enthusiastic until I broke my right hand a few milliseconds after showing my son how much air I could get on the jumps. Then last year I broke my left hand while zipping innocently down a wee hill on an ATC outing. Is there a moral in here somewhere?
  • Music (Listen to all sorts. Play piano and keyboards -- soggy old-style stuff).