| Update |
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| 12:45am 17/08/2007 |
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So, having abandoned this for a long time here goes again.
So, I graduated. Lots of arcanery and people disappearing, many of whom I have a feeling I didn't really say goodbye to sufficiently for the fact I probably won't see a chunk of them ever again. My final result was a 2.i, which while what I needed was a bit irritating - the breakdown reveals I got 2.ii's in all 3 january papers (for which I think I probably did the most revision) and firsts on all subsequent exams and my long project for a final total of about 69% (also came about this close in first year).
Have been doing a summer job continuing my long project (writing software for solving tomographic problems from electron microscopy) at the Materials Department in Cambridge. It's a fairly decent job that is keeping me interested and paying fairly well, and the people I work with are both interesting and friendly. However, college refused to give me accomodation after I'd graduated - I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere but it did feel a bit like the door being slammed in my face as soon as I'd walked out of the Senate House, so I'm living in a rented house in North Cambridge with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) l_ren, which seems to be working out fairly well.
I think all the buerocracy to start my PhD has now been dealt with, so come October I'll be starting a PhD in High Energy Physics with the group of the same name at Imperial College, funded by STFC. For that end I've been looking for a house in London with lightningstate (I think I've been back and forth between London and Cambridge now I know every detail of the Cambridge-King's Cross route and the Piccadilly line, but I digress), and it looks like we've found somewhere near Hammersmith to share with one further PhD student, so I'll be moving there sometime at the start of September if all goes to plan. I guess it's goodbye to Cambridge at that point... |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Evolution? |
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| 12:47pm 26/04/2007 |
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Following on from an interesting discussion last night. Human evolution has been rendered almost redundant by technological and sociological development allowing us to far exceed the capabilities of the most beautifully evolved other species on earth by artificial augumentation. But if it were possible, what things that other species have developed the ability to do would you like to be able to do?
I can think of things like better vision (greater sensitivity and better low-light vision like birds of prey, and receptors for a greater range of wavelengths to see in the infrared), regeneration (as with reptiles that can regrow lost limbs), electric/magnetic field sensitivity (as in migratory birds that appear to have some compass sense and weakly-electric fish that can sense nearby organisms by the fields they give off), pressure resistance (as in marine mammals that can dive and surface quickly without suffering the bends). Doubtless there are many others. What would you want? |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| Meme |
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| 05:22pm 09/04/2007 |
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This map shows a simulated nuclear strike on the UK - this was considered to be a medium case (131 warheads). The outcome was expected to be 29 million immediately dead and another 7 million dead within a few weeks.
So, would anyone reading this have survived? |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| Easter holidays |
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| 05:07pm 09/04/2007 |
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Have just got back from the holiday part of my easter holidays and I now have to get on with work and revision for the next fortnight, which is no fun at all. So I'm going to remember holidays instead.
Me and lightningstate went to the Brecon Beacons for a couple of days. In deference to what might have been expected for Wales it was bright and sunny. We spent one day walking up the central peaks which was beautiful albeit windy, and being a bit out of practice ended up with sore legs. The next day we were going to do a lower easier walk but when we got there we couldn't - a pipeline is being built through the region which is being much protested so all the paths near the route have been closed.
One thing I really noticed when in Wales (surprisingly enough) was the prevalence of Welsh - our maps and books from ~30 years ago make absolutely no mention of it but it's now it's almost impossible to read anything without seeing the welsh translation above it - in some cases, no English such as signposts with only the welsh word for yards on them. A little research suggests this has been the case since 1993 - but even so only about 20% of the population can speak the language to any degree, and the number of welsh-only speakers is negligible. That it is now so widely written and yet so little understood seems to suggest it's a rather daft program being driven to please a minority rather than because it has any great utility. |
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| Summary |
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| 08:39pm 30/03/2007 |
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So, on summarising the time since I last posted on this.
Most importantly, I've been offered a PhD place at the Imperial College HEP department next year, with PPARC funding for 4 years. There are a number of possible projects although the majority would be based at CERN, typically with the second year abroad.
Application was a bit fraught - I also applied to Cambridge HEP and had discussions about another project both at Cambridge (Helium Microscopy) and Imperial (Pinch fusion). My Imperial application was delayed a significant time by referees being away or busy and so by the time I interviewed I subsequently found out 5 of the 7 funded places had already been allocated. I recevied a number of phone calls telling me that I had the first reserve place and then that one person had pulled out, so I got the place. Which is most excellent.
So, this means living in London and probably finding a place to live with lightningstate, which should be nice. I've been down to London at the end of each term to stay for a week and although her flat is a bit small and rather cold it's been nice to stay in. That said, I think I'd prefer to live with more people rather than just in a two person flat, as I'd rather live in a situation where there were more people around to socialise with - a house of 4 or 5 instead of just a 2 person flat. But in general I'm looking forward to it. |
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| It reawakens. |
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| 10:55am 29/03/2007 |
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So I hear I haven't updated this for $AGES - having just got back from London and being bored here I'll try and put down a bit more info. So, a meme to start with. Stuff about next year and this year to follow.
( (Meme) ) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| On balconies |
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| 03:12pm 06/10/2006 |
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The disadvantage of having a balcony attached to my room is turning out to be a constant desire to go out onto it, adopt some suitably dramatic pose and make some megalomanical utterance along the lines of "The World is Mine!" (evil laughter). The effect would be improved by having a crowd of minions down below with torches and pitchforks, but I suppose I'll have to settle for an occasional audience of a few slightly damp squirrels, unless anyone wants to volunteer? |
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| Societies Fair |
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| 06:35pm 04/10/2006 |
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Today I have been pitied by more foo's than Mr T could pity in a lifetime. This is what you get for standing for most of the day with a fixed smile trying to convince the skeptical public that the Physics Society was the best thing since sliced bread (a poor invention that makes bread go stale quicker). This isn't an easy sell at the best of times but mostly you just get a pitying smile which gets a bit annoying after a while.
We did get about three times as many signups as last year though, for which the only detectable difference is that this year we had cakes and balloons to make our stall more visible (cake given away to anyone who could calculate the lift you get from one of our big helium balloons).
There was a stand giving out books of matches mere steps from the CICCU stand though, which seems like a good combination. I got a look that could kill when I told the person trying to push a bible on me that I didn't read fiction though (making the fundamentalists cry is the name of the game). |
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| Hammer time |
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| 12:36pm 23/07/2006 |
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The good sysadmin, bad sysadmin act doesn't seem to be making much of an impression of my computer. Damn its eyes. |
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Post |
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| Too hot... |
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| 05:31pm 18/07/2006 |
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This cycling thing is made a lot more difficult when it is so hot the road has melted and you stick to it...
I want the winter back. |
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| 11:57am 09/07/2006 |
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Having come home for the weekend as a temporary respite from work, I'm being reminded of the 200 thousand-odd good reasons not to come to Peterborough. Yes, it is the people of Peterborough, at least most of them. A more wretched hive of scum and villiany you will not find without going to a galaxy far, far away.
But I digress with that somewhat predictable rant you doubtless all expected by now. Work is going reasonably now I have battled the demon in the pit that is Fortran 77. Working with a computer language considerably older than I am just seems a bit ... wrong. Yes, so English is ancient and derived from god-knows-what-else but that's not the point.
I also feel like having a bit of a rant about all the stuff this weekends about the anniversary of the london bombings last year. There is no particular reason why one year later is a significant time to remember them, and the amount of time that has been spent reminding us how unpleasant it is seems totally unnecessary. I don't think this amount of digging up unpleasant bits of the past is helpful for anyway, it just serves to reopen old wounds and scare people again. Similarly the response to the video that surfaced a few days ago; the newsreaders tell us in hushed tones that this was intended to cause maximum hurt and distress etc etc and then they go and play us the bloody thing. What purpose was this meant to serve? Why do we bother trying to make it difficult to disseminate their messages if our domestic village idiots are going to do it for them?
Anyway, I leave you with this which makes my job sound a bit more fun. |
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| Summer of ...2006 |
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| 01:17pm 23/06/2006 |
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So, the exams are over and so is mayweek, almost. Much that the exams were a pretty soul-destroying experience, the outcome is good - I got a first, with pretty much of all my exams and coursework all being firsts rather than a skewed outcome like last year. I suspect I did benefit from good luck in what was on the papers rather more than I'd like, and it feels a little bad to have benefitted from luck where some people haven't.
This weekend, after finally convincing the accomodation officer that I needed somewhere to stay this summer I'm moving into a new room - TCR108. Although I don't think it's one of the really tiny ones, it does feel a bit like going back to first year compared to my nice set, which is even now getting cleared of my stuff.
On monday I'm starting work at the British Antarctic Survey as a fortran programmer, doing analysis of magnetic fields in the ionosphere. That should take me through to the beginning of september, when I'll go on holiday if I can organise it. |
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| 04:15pm 31/05/2006 |
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One exam down, 3 to go.
Today's exam was a massacre. The questions seemed to have been picked to avoid the usual topics for these questions as much as possible and go for obscure corners none but the most efficient would ever have got to; the choice of essay questions was possibly the worst, a large block of people (me included) knew next to nothing about either and had to try and make up the physics as they went along. Even the supposedly easy section-A questions were unpleasant (including one thing my supervisor had told me not to bother revising because it would never come up).
Very relieving to hear that most people seem to have hated it. Possibly those who didn't were just keeping silent in case the mob decided on an impromptu lynching.
Anyway, 65 hours before it's all over. In which I need to revise the next three papers. |
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Read 4 - Post |
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| 06:03pm 20/05/2006 |
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I have been offered a job at the British Antarctic Survey for 10 weeks this summer as a fortran-monkey writing programs to model the ionosphere. Which means it looks like I'm going to be in Cambridge all summer. But at least I have a job - sitting at home the whole time wasn't a terribly inviting prospect. This should leave 2 weeks at the end of the holiday for myself and lightningstate to go off on a European trip - Interrail {Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland} looks good.
Meanwhile, revision is not going well :( 10 days to go and while I can do exam questions fine with notes available, I'm getting really not far trying to do them closed-book. Hopefully super-exam-memory will kick in and I'll be able to do stuff then, but I'm not living in hope. With the amount of coursework submitted and knowing that much of it was good I should have a fairly good basis to go into the exams on (30-35% of possible 40%), so in theory a 2.i shouldn't be too difficult in the exams (25-30% of a possible 60%) but I have a feeling there is a catch somewhere I've missed.
Finally, if I hear the so called People's bloody Anthem again I need a will save not to strangle someone. The whole world cup thing is annoying me sufficiently I'm beginning to really hope we get knocked out by somewhere really obscure as quickly as possible. |
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Read 7 - Post |
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| 10:11am 08/05/2006 |
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The world doesn't seem to like me this weekend.
My computer has completely failed - the boot disk which has been on the blink for some time crashed and is now unreadable, and the old hard disk I had sitting on the shelf as a backup also appears to be defunct. Plus the bios seems to have developed an error that it takes minutes to complete hard disk detection even with the bad disks disconnected. So, it looks like it's out of action for some considerable time until I can do a complete rebuild and reconfigure.
However, this is probably pretty serendipitous happening now in that I now have little choice but to spend the next three weeeks doing undistracted revision without the siren call of the Internet (peace be upon it) constantly in my ears.
Then this morning, I found (5 minutes before a lecture) that my bike had a flat tire. After running to the cavendish (and nearly killing myself doing so, lol unfitness) I realised that because I hadn't used it up until now I think I've left my puncture repair kit at home.
And to round it all off, despite having the money available I managed to forget to go and pay my college bill on friday and will have got fined for it. |
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Read 4 - Post |
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| Local elections |
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| 10:59am 05/05/2006 |
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Listening to the radio this morning there were a queue of apparently learned commentators lining up to tell us that this is an ``elitist government out of touch with the people''. But what do they actually mean by this? It seems to (along with ther NHS and the railways being completely unusably awful) have become another piece of fashionable received wisdom which people trot out whenever asked such questions because they don't have an opinion or just don't know, but think that because other people say it it must be correct.
Surely government is meant to consist of the best people (which some might call elitist) and is meant to govern rather than cater to people's short-term whims (which to people unable to see past what Rupert Murdoch wants you to think today probably seems out of touch). I would probably tend to the other end and say this government is not elitist enough in the people it picks for top positions and is too in touch by allowing immediate opinion and headlines to influence policy that needs a long-term view.
This probably points to a problem that a false vision is being propagated of how much influence people can actually expect to have in the grand scheme of things; that suggests that people should be able to get instant results on their day-to-day whims in deference to more important long term aims.
Perhaps this is just me being really elitist, but when the cards are down I probably am. Any thoughts? |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Distractions |
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| 02:33pm 11/04/2006 |
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Clearly getting a lava lamp was a mistake. Staring at beatiful liquid patterns proves much more interesting than trying to concentrate on my notes. |
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| 04:30pm 03/04/2006 |
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Well, that was an interesting holiday. Got washed out of a campsite when the rain turned it into an quagmire and we went and stayed in a youth hostel instead. Had good weather for one day and went out for a good walk, otherwise spent a lot of time staring at rain on the tent or car window. Went to York on the last day which was fun, until we got rained on again. Still, was nice to get away for a bit (I'm going to be bloodyminded about going for holidays outdoors even if the weather hates me).
Now have lots of work to do which I really can't remember. Plus other vague objectives like get fit and stop spending so long on the internet (Peace Be Upon It).
Also, damn parents who knock and then just walk in. Ahem. |
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Read 7 - Post |
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