Yay, It’s March and the weather is getting better wetter. Been busy doing strange stuff to this site, moved the blog to a subdomain, made the main site a django based site to allow me to practise my python and design skills, which so far has allowed me to add a carebear pic -- baby steps!
Here’s the strangest pop video I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll never look at bald guys the same way ever again.
Hot Chip -- I Feel Better (HD)
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Borders has finally disappeared from UK streets, I must admit out of all the recent big closures this has been the one that I missed the most. It was a place that I’ve seen for the past 7 years of my life, nearly every day on my way to university.
I have walked by it, through it and all around it. I’ve wandered through every section and seen the titles on spines change as the months went on. Seen Terry Pratchett in his hat signing his wonderful books and the crew of the Mighty Boosh attracting hoards of dressed up fans. Myself, in a poor attempt deciding to get a signed copy of Gordon Ramsay’s book but lacking the stomach or the patience to stand in such a queue for hours
It was a very nice location, in the heart of the city, watching the bustle of Buchanan street, with the street performers: magicians, and musicians, and break dancers. The building itself was lovely too but as you can see, the dark insides on Boxing Day 2009 make it an empty shell.
RIP
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Just a little something about a big movie called Avatar, not to be confused with Avatar: The Last Airbender. One being a movie about invading another planet for it’s natural resource. The other about a kid with magical abilities.
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What a finely freezing frosty day it is. Never have my bits (fingers!) felt like they were not there anymore. I can still feel the numbness in my tips. My laptop provides a comforting heat source in these cold days. Thankful for the poor temperature control on my GPU (thanks NVIDIA!) and my warm battery (thanks Sony!)
In other news. The teaching semester is over
Our departmental Christmas lunch was yesterday. It was great. I ate loads and loads. Sure felt a little weighty after but it was worth it. The menu was excellent this time around, I was satisfied and jolly and even wore the silly hat you find in crackers
Although we’re still here until Wednesday afternoon, I can’t wait. It’s been interesting times and I look forward to a less interesting holiday. What I miss the most is the amount of casual reading I have neglected ever since 4th year of university. I hope to catch up over the break, and not deal with work at all. This is a Christmas wish, which I hope Santa is listening too (I’ve ate the cookies and milk =\).
In fact today, I’ve decided to celebrate a little early. Hopefully, going to see Avatar this afternoon. A visual feast I’ve been told by semi reliable sources (the Internet!) I hope it’s worth it, but more importantly I hope the cinema is warm enough so that my arse wont stick to the seat when I try to leave. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. If my fingers work
Laters
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It’s been nearly one year since I’ve began my PhD, things have been hectic this past few weeks and months. We’ve had the Eusipco 2009 conference to organise and run which was very successful. Also, for me there has been a lot of work being going on with regards to my research. Next week will be my annual review where it will be decided if I can continue on with it for a second year.
I’m hoping that all my reading will start coming together to and form something that I can call my own. Novelty, is an important factor in PhD research and without it difficult to justify three years of work. I don’t really do a new year’s resolutions but I think for university it makes more sense, a new session will start, new students will be returning and it’s definitely a milestone for me so this is my list for the new university session in no particular order.
I think that’s pretty much it for now, I’ll be sure to think on these things and try my best.
Thanks for reading
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Ever seen those wacky moves with scientists/engineers/geeks that seem to produce instant result?
The Myth:
24 is my favourite example where encryption is childsplay, and takes less than an hour to break, to the right person and everything works and is so seamless and batteries last an entire day with all their fancy phones that can do GPS take Hi Res images and are instantly compatible with all data formats. It makes me laugh, but I still watch it
The Reality:
Sitting in an office doing research is like sitting in an office it’s not much different than the usual. We read scientific papers full of language and ideas that have been compressed into four sheets of paper trying to figure out what all the extra greek letters are referring to and giving yourself a pat on the back when we finally understand the gist after reading it about 3 times. Fully understanding it can take a week (well for me it can) .
Of course that is only ever one part of it, then trying to figure out if there is anything directly applicable to our research and that we think is worthwhile in pursuing needs careful consideration. In fact sometimes we just sit there hoping for a little inspiration in what we read and that inspiration is what it takes to progress forward to the next … whatever. This can be a very slow process at times, i.e, will take longer than an hour, and that’s why a good supply of coffee is beneficial and some food to keep the brain ticking. Research is a waiting game 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, and after 3 years or so we hopefully vomit out something that looks remarkably looks good and of course full of greek letters and maths for the next generation of researchers to mull over
P.S. The title doesn’t even make sense now and therefore I dedicate this another rambling post
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There is always one bit of advice I give to people when they think of coming up north to Scotland, and specifically Glasgow and that is to bring an umbrella.
Our city is a strange one, ever heard the song with the lyrics “All four seasons in one day …” this is for sure referring to here. There have been days when there is sun followed by rain, rain followed by snow, snow followed by sun and sun folllowed by hail. You just never know, even at the height of summer rain and sun chase each other and the effect is an overall dullness and a ray of sunlight sometimes seems a marvel after being drenched to the bone.
So if you come up here, please bring an umbrella
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So, finally I managed to get a sim free Samsung i8910 HD or Player HD as it is known in France. Yep I have the french version running I8910XEFIF1 custom version dated 15/06/2009. My previous phone was a Nokia N82
Firstly, wow. The screen is beautiful and large with vivid colours and good contrast. A big change from the N82 which just seems unimpressive.
The size being large, it seems a bit bulky, but for me it’s still a good weight, i put on a silicone case and a screen protector, but ordered up a leather holder/belt clips since my jean pockets can be a little tight.
Touch screen interface was not as bad as I thought, there are a few niggles that I’ll come to in a more full review. It’s a symbian based phone so it was pretty easy to navigate for me, I do like the Touchwiz interface Samsung put on.
Camera doesn’t seem to impressive to me, my N82 did alot better even though it’s only 5MP compared to 8MP, the pictures look noisy in indoor low light conditions, hopefully this can be fixed in firmware the LED flash is as you’d expect fairly useless unless taking a relatively close up pic. To be expected, it’s rare to get a Xenon flash on a phone these days but this definitely needs fine tuning.
Never really tried taking a video, but seems ok. I know there is now firmware available to italian users that allow AAC audio, so this is good news
Speaking of cameras the i8910 comes with a secondary front camera, yet the only way to access this is when on video call, which is a missed trick I think. also, there is apparently a built in FM transmitter yet still no software to access it.
GPS I only tried for a short while, but the lock seems to be quicker than the N82 and I haven’t tried the route 66 software.
Music player is ok, when in landscape mode a coverflow interface a la iPod appears. I hate it that you can’t seem to exit the music player when in landscape mode, and you have to go into portrait mode to get your options, this seems to be a general issue with a lot of touch screen apps, it bugs me silly. Also music cuts out while playing for a split second every so often, not too sure why.
Web browsing is ok, but a few bugs such as when you stop loading a page it crashes the browser, and sometimes dragging around the screen ends up clicking things, just requires fine tuning i guess.
BBC iPlayer works great, only caveat being can’t download vids and play, fails at aquiring license
Palringo works ok, although i can’t find a method to view a contacts email address, which is annoying because they change display names all the time, and i’m never sure who is who.
Fring has an early access version available specifically for the i8910, this seems to work well too
Overall Opinion:
Pros.
Cons.
I’ll be doing a more full review later, and adding pictures and video samples
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After a hard days work I was much confused by the fact there seemed to be a racing match going on around George Square in Glasgow, I being a curious sort decided to record part of the event and whipped out my N82 taking a few pics and a video
A few pics, not that I used it anywhere interesting
Using my superpowered brain and a dash of ‘Oh Look At The Big ADVERTS’ … I realised it was an event from Knockhill racing circuit and you can go see what the event was all about.
Of course If I had known about it I would have definetly taken part .. or not as the case may be because no matter how often I dream of driving a metal machine really fast while sounding like the growls of turbo powered grizzly bear, I’d rather not be a danger to myself and everyone around me while my brain scream ‘What The Hell Am I Doing!’ and stick with the safe travel speed of foot power, i.e., at least one foot on the ground at all times and if this conjures up an image of a hopping man, my apologies. Now before I ramble on further I shall call it a night and hopefully dream of my i8910 if it ever gets here
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