So I’ve been in Singapore just over a week, and so far it’s going pretty great. It’s ridiculously easy to settle in here. Everything is crazily efficient and convenient. I think even if you’d never been here before and wandered around aimlessly for a whole day, you’d still find everything you needed. I kept my sim card from when I was here on holiday. I switched it over on the plane and it was working before I got off, including data....

In a little over 4 weeks I’ll be starting an exciting new chapter in my life. I’ll be moving to Singapore, staying in an area called Sengkang, to be with my girlfriend Brin. And strangely, I’m not feeling nervous about it. Perhaps I will nearer the time. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about it; pretty much since I met Brin back in January (generally a good idea if you’re getting into a long-distance relationship), so I’m mainly just excited that the day is finally (almost) here!...

About a month ago I embarked on the project of writing a poker bot. It has all the things I enjoy about programming: it’s open-ended and can always be improved, it can be played against, and AI features heavily. There’s also a wealth of research on the topic: poker-ai.org and The University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group are the two sites I use the most. I started by plugging in to Poker Academy, a game featuring strong AI opponents and a decent user interface....