Saturday, September 30, 2006
Vagabond and eytmology - again
I've just finished Vagabond
It's fun. It's Bernard Cornwell doing what he does best, writing battles. Instead of the Napoleonic era of the Sharpe novels this is set during the Hundred Years War between England and France and has an archer as the main character. It's the second of his holy grail series, but the whole grail plot is just a good excuse to have characters wandering around fourteenth century England, Normandy and Brittany. I look forward to the third and final book.
I haven't had any more etymological epiphanies through the book, although my gradual progress in Icelandic has lead to some which I've found very amusing. Take the word for 'business', for instance. The Icelandic word for business or trade is viðskipti - literally with money. But skipti is only an ending away from skip, or ship. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? Money is what you need to buy things from the people who own ships. Barter works fine on a local basis, but when those trading ships come in you're likely to need a bit of ready cash if you want to trade with them.
What I really need now to help with my Icelandic studies are a couple of Icelandic films with English subtitles. I've got reasonably passable at following the Icelandic subtitles on English-language television programmes, but I could do with things the other way around. I need English translations for spoken Icelandic phrases so that I can start to recognise them when I hear them. CDs would work, I suppose, but TV gives you a lot more contextural information that you don't get on a language CD. Maybe I'll pay a visit to the new CD and DVD shop downstairs from the embroidery shop in the shopping centre just down the road.
0 comments
It's fun. It's Bernard Cornwell doing what he does best, writing battles. Instead of the Napoleonic era of the Sharpe novels this is set during the Hundred Years War between England and France and has an archer as the main character. It's the second of his holy grail series, but the whole grail plot is just a good excuse to have characters wandering around fourteenth century England, Normandy and Brittany. I look forward to the third and final book.
I haven't had any more etymological epiphanies through the book, although my gradual progress in Icelandic has lead to some which I've found very amusing. Take the word for 'business', for instance. The Icelandic word for business or trade is viðskipti - literally with money. But skipti is only an ending away from skip, or ship. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? Money is what you need to buy things from the people who own ships. Barter works fine on a local basis, but when those trading ships come in you're likely to need a bit of ready cash if you want to trade with them.
What I really need now to help with my Icelandic studies are a couple of Icelandic films with English subtitles. I've got reasonably passable at following the Icelandic subtitles on English-language television programmes, but I could do with things the other way around. I need English translations for spoken Icelandic phrases so that I can start to recognise them when I hear them. CDs would work, I suppose, but TV gives you a lot more contextural information that you don't get on a language CD. Maybe I'll pay a visit to the new CD and DVD shop downstairs from the embroidery shop in the shopping centre just down the road.
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Friday, September 29, 2006
TGIF
And not only that, but I don't have a video lecture tomorrow.
I got up this morning and realised that my neck and shoulder ached in a similar manner to just after the car accident. Drat. Clearly what I thought had healed hadn't healed entirely - and it might take months yet. Mutter mutter...
So I wandered into work with the intention of getting some research done. Until, that was, I remembered that I really did have to sort something out for next week's first year lab. Over the past four weeks I've covered all sorts of useful things about how to search the web effectively, how to do clever things like insert tables into Word documents, and how to add animation and sound effects to Powerpoint presentations. But still I had a week left. If the course was aimed at computer science students I'd have done a lab on assembly language, but not with the business students (a number of whom don't see any point in learning anything other than how to use Office).
In an attempt to do something that everyone will find useful, then, I've spent five hours today writing a lab on Microsoft Project. It's a standard business piece of software but it's also useful to the science students for planning projects. The problem is that it takes a long time to set up a project to start with. Five hours writing so far, and I've only just finished the initial project set-up. It's going to take at least another couple to describe how to use it to track a project's progress and produce useful reports. At least that will be the last of my labs for this course as I'm only teaching the first half. Next Wednesday will be my final day from hell where I have a two-hour meeting at ten followed by a three-and-a-half-hour lab session at twelve thirty.
There was a brief flurry of excitement this morning when the fire alarm went off in Borgir. We in CS actually have a set of procedures for what to do in case of fire - unlike anyone else in the building, or so I am told. Someone on the other side of the building managed to set off the alarm by burning toast, and I dutifully shepherded everyone in CS out into the car park. No-one else bothered. One day they'll have a real fire and the entirety of the university's top-level administration will be roasted alive.
I eventually got out just before five and went shopping. I hate supermarket shopping on Fridays. The places are full of people who don't understand the basic rules of how to handle a trolley politely and will stand in the middle of the aisle talking to their friends so that you have to go up the next aisle and down again in order to reach the tinned tuna. In spite of the mounting frustration there was a high point - there, in the middle of the bargain DVD display, as a copy of the Danish edition of Spartacus. Hurrah! I've recently been in the mood for things Roman and have watched and re-watched both Rome and Gladiator. I'd got to thinking that it would be nice to get hold of I, Claudius next time I'm in the UK, so having this pop up here is something of a treat. Guess what's on my viewing schedule sometime this weekend? :)
0 comments
I got up this morning and realised that my neck and shoulder ached in a similar manner to just after the car accident. Drat. Clearly what I thought had healed hadn't healed entirely - and it might take months yet. Mutter mutter...
So I wandered into work with the intention of getting some research done. Until, that was, I remembered that I really did have to sort something out for next week's first year lab. Over the past four weeks I've covered all sorts of useful things about how to search the web effectively, how to do clever things like insert tables into Word documents, and how to add animation and sound effects to Powerpoint presentations. But still I had a week left. If the course was aimed at computer science students I'd have done a lab on assembly language, but not with the business students (a number of whom don't see any point in learning anything other than how to use Office).
In an attempt to do something that everyone will find useful, then, I've spent five hours today writing a lab on Microsoft Project. It's a standard business piece of software but it's also useful to the science students for planning projects. The problem is that it takes a long time to set up a project to start with. Five hours writing so far, and I've only just finished the initial project set-up. It's going to take at least another couple to describe how to use it to track a project's progress and produce useful reports. At least that will be the last of my labs for this course as I'm only teaching the first half. Next Wednesday will be my final day from hell where I have a two-hour meeting at ten followed by a three-and-a-half-hour lab session at twelve thirty.
There was a brief flurry of excitement this morning when the fire alarm went off in Borgir. We in CS actually have a set of procedures for what to do in case of fire - unlike anyone else in the building, or so I am told. Someone on the other side of the building managed to set off the alarm by burning toast, and I dutifully shepherded everyone in CS out into the car park. No-one else bothered. One day they'll have a real fire and the entirety of the university's top-level administration will be roasted alive.
I eventually got out just before five and went shopping. I hate supermarket shopping on Fridays. The places are full of people who don't understand the basic rules of how to handle a trolley politely and will stand in the middle of the aisle talking to their friends so that you have to go up the next aisle and down again in order to reach the tinned tuna. In spite of the mounting frustration there was a high point - there, in the middle of the bargain DVD display, as a copy of the Danish edition of Spartacus. Hurrah! I've recently been in the mood for things Roman and have watched and re-watched both Rome and Gladiator. I'd got to thinking that it would be nice to get hold of I, Claudius next time I'm in the UK, so having this pop up here is something of a treat. Guess what's on my viewing schedule sometime this weekend? :)
0 comments
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Return of the blob
There was a Tai Chi class tonight. I went. I left early.
After 15 minutes of assorted knee and shoulder rolls to warm up before we started, my shoulder and knee were clearly auditioning for the Spanish Inquisition - my shoulder, in particular was doing the red-hot poker shooting pain thing. So I managed another 10 minutes and had to give up. And, of course, I felt bad about it.
I'm not a big fan of gyms. They're always full of stick insects and muscular sporty types, and tonight was no exception. I'm a blob, and I always feel hideously embarrassed when I go to an exercise class that's full of highly toned perfect bodies. The only one I ever found that wasn't was the Jazzercise class in St. Andrews when I was a postgrad. For once there were some bigger women in the class and we all did the mutual support thing. The instructor was a great guy, and was really encouraging towards us. Then I moved out of St. Andrews and couldn't find a local class.
*Sigh* So I suppose it's back to the DVDs. And, right now, into a hot shower to do something about these neck and shoulder muscles.
0 comments
After 15 minutes of assorted knee and shoulder rolls to warm up before we started, my shoulder and knee were clearly auditioning for the Spanish Inquisition - my shoulder, in particular was doing the red-hot poker shooting pain thing. So I managed another 10 minutes and had to give up. And, of course, I felt bad about it.
I'm not a big fan of gyms. They're always full of stick insects and muscular sporty types, and tonight was no exception. I'm a blob, and I always feel hideously embarrassed when I go to an exercise class that's full of highly toned perfect bodies. The only one I ever found that wasn't was the Jazzercise class in St. Andrews when I was a postgrad. For once there were some bigger women in the class and we all did the mutual support thing. The instructor was a great guy, and was really encouraging towards us. Then I moved out of St. Andrews and couldn't find a local class.
*Sigh* So I suppose it's back to the DVDs. And, right now, into a hot shower to do something about these neck and shoulder muscles.
0 comments
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Vagabond
The word, not the novel by Bernard Cornwell.
Although it was while I was reading the novel that I started thinking about the word itself. Quite often, I find that I can get some sort of idea of the meaning of an unfamiliar Icelandic word by thinking about old English or Scots words that sound similar. Að biða, to wait, is one of these words that is clearly from the same root as the Scots to bide. What is rarer is when I look at an English word and start seeing the origins and meaning from an Icelandic word.
In the churchyard at Laufás are two gravestones that bear names and, beneath the names, the words húsbóndi and húsfreyja - in effect, the master and mistress of the house. OK, so there's an obvious connection to the English word husband, but it's the root word bóndi that interested me. This roughly translates as agricultural worker, or serf, although it has changed over time to apply to the farmer rather than the workers - hence the term 'master of the house'.
So you take bóndi and prefix it with vegur, road, and you end up with a wandering farmhand, possibly resorting to a little thuggery as he travels from one job to another.
OK, so I know that there are people out there far more knowledgeable about the origins of words than I am, and they'd probably say I'm wrong. But I get a certain satisfaction in coming up with what seems to me a perfectly plausible explanation for what is, really, a very strange word. Think of it as my version of Newtonian gravitation; it may not be entirely right but it's a usable first approximation.
1 comments
Although it was while I was reading the novel that I started thinking about the word itself. Quite often, I find that I can get some sort of idea of the meaning of an unfamiliar Icelandic word by thinking about old English or Scots words that sound similar. Að biða, to wait, is one of these words that is clearly from the same root as the Scots to bide. What is rarer is when I look at an English word and start seeing the origins and meaning from an Icelandic word.
In the churchyard at Laufás are two gravestones that bear names and, beneath the names, the words húsbóndi and húsfreyja - in effect, the master and mistress of the house. OK, so there's an obvious connection to the English word husband, but it's the root word bóndi that interested me. This roughly translates as agricultural worker, or serf, although it has changed over time to apply to the farmer rather than the workers - hence the term 'master of the house'.
So you take bóndi and prefix it with vegur, road, and you end up with a wandering farmhand, possibly resorting to a little thuggery as he travels from one job to another.
OK, so I know that there are people out there far more knowledgeable about the origins of words than I am, and they'd probably say I'm wrong. But I get a certain satisfaction in coming up with what seems to me a perfectly plausible explanation for what is, really, a very strange word. Think of it as my version of Newtonian gravitation; it may not be entirely right but it's a usable first approximation.
1 comments
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
I would rant
But there's no point as it wouldn't make any difference.
So let's just accept that I'm feeling quite frustrated at present and get on to other things. Things like... err... the weather.
Akureyri is one of those places with its own microclimate. As the town is set deep into the fjord, with mountain plateaux of 1000-plus metres height on each side, once a body of air manages to make its way into the fjord it can stay there for days. It is kept warm by the water beneath it, and the cold wind above blows straight across the plateau without seeming to make much difference to the weather in the valley below.
This means that Akureyri is far warmer and dryer than it should be given its latitude and the fact that the fjord opens up just short of the Arctic circle. It is warm enough that the town has a well-respected botanical garden that is home to palm trees and other fragile flora - although these are taken indoors in the winter as most palms get a little unhappy when covered in snow. It rains here far less than it does on the west coast, certainly far less that it does in Keflavík. The snow is lighter too.
In spite if this relative dryness, on occasion we get clouds forming within the fjord itself. It's a very strange sight, coming out of the office (which is on a hill) and looking down onto the layer of fluffy white cloud that covers the water. It reaches right the way downstream and quite a way upstream, so that on some days you can't see much of the town itself, just the mountains on the eastern side rising out of the clouds into the blazing sunlight. Quite, quite surreal.
0 comments
So let's just accept that I'm feeling quite frustrated at present and get on to other things. Things like... err... the weather.
Akureyri is one of those places with its own microclimate. As the town is set deep into the fjord, with mountain plateaux of 1000-plus metres height on each side, once a body of air manages to make its way into the fjord it can stay there for days. It is kept warm by the water beneath it, and the cold wind above blows straight across the plateau without seeming to make much difference to the weather in the valley below.
This means that Akureyri is far warmer and dryer than it should be given its latitude and the fact that the fjord opens up just short of the Arctic circle. It is warm enough that the town has a well-respected botanical garden that is home to palm trees and other fragile flora - although these are taken indoors in the winter as most palms get a little unhappy when covered in snow. It rains here far less than it does on the west coast, certainly far less that it does in Keflavík. The snow is lighter too.
In spite if this relative dryness, on occasion we get clouds forming within the fjord itself. It's a very strange sight, coming out of the office (which is on a hill) and looking down onto the layer of fluffy white cloud that covers the water. It reaches right the way downstream and quite a way upstream, so that on some days you can't see much of the town itself, just the mountains on the eastern side rising out of the clouds into the blazing sunlight. Quite, quite surreal.
0 comments
Monday, September 25, 2006
Last night...
... There was a shiny wiggly green thing in the sky.
Yes, you know that winter is on the way when you see the first aurora of the season. It wasn't too spectacular, just a moderately mobile green bar with the occasional ray or section of curtaining above it, but the important things were a) it was there, and b) I could see it from my balcony if I shaded my eyes from the sodium lights. I believe that there was a similar one visible on Saturday night but I missed that one.
Pretty it might have been, but it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm not going to be able to make it to Rent-A-Don this weekend. My travel plans have been stymied by a number of thing, and while I could, technically, fly out on Thursday and back on Sunday it would be expensive and I'd have to leave the event on Saturday evening in order to stay overnight near Stanstead. Not what I originally had in mind. So, as you can guess, I'm not exactly a happy bunny, particularly as I was looking forward to crossing blades with Jean-Loup in his Free Scholar Prize Fight.
Damn these 1000 miles of water between me and the UK!
2 comments
Yes, you know that winter is on the way when you see the first aurora of the season. It wasn't too spectacular, just a moderately mobile green bar with the occasional ray or section of curtaining above it, but the important things were a) it was there, and b) I could see it from my balcony if I shaded my eyes from the sodium lights. I believe that there was a similar one visible on Saturday night but I missed that one.
Pretty it might have been, but it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm not going to be able to make it to Rent-A-Don this weekend. My travel plans have been stymied by a number of thing, and while I could, technically, fly out on Thursday and back on Sunday it would be expensive and I'd have to leave the event on Saturday evening in order to stay overnight near Stanstead. Not what I originally had in mind. So, as you can guess, I'm not exactly a happy bunny, particularly as I was looking forward to crossing blades with Jean-Loup in his Free Scholar Prize Fight.
Damn these 1000 miles of water between me and the UK!
2 comments
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Preparing for Christmas
I've finished my first major Christmas present.
It's a ecru tablecloth with a geometric design in ecru perlée 5 thread. The idea is that it's something that can easily be thrown into the washing machine if necessary. In fact, I'm going to throw it into the washing machine soon just to soften it up a bit and get rid of all of the oils that will have leaked onto it from my skin as I've worked it. Of course, being ecru on ecru it isn't the most photogenic of pieces, so here instead are some pictures of the tubular peyote I was talking about the other day. The wrist one should give you some sort of a scale for the bead size; they're standard 9/0 seed beads.
I'm sufficiently happy with the bracelet that I might make a couple more as Christmas gifts. Maybe. I've got some quite nice 2mm glass beads that should make quite nice plain or striped bracelets. Hmm... I wonder if this is a period technique? I suppose the Venetians may have done something similar, I'll have to check this out.
0 comments
It's a ecru tablecloth with a geometric design in ecru perlée 5 thread. The idea is that it's something that can easily be thrown into the washing machine if necessary. In fact, I'm going to throw it into the washing machine soon just to soften it up a bit and get rid of all of the oils that will have leaked onto it from my skin as I've worked it. Of course, being ecru on ecru it isn't the most photogenic of pieces, so here instead are some pictures of the tubular peyote I was talking about the other day. The wrist one should give you some sort of a scale for the bead size; they're standard 9/0 seed beads.
I'm sufficiently happy with the bracelet that I might make a couple more as Christmas gifts. Maybe. I've got some quite nice 2mm glass beads that should make quite nice plain or striped bracelets. Hmm... I wonder if this is a period technique? I suppose the Venetians may have done something similar, I'll have to check this out.
0 comments
Saturday, September 23, 2006
That's a relief
I've just finished Judas Unchained.
This is a doorstop of a book, the sequel to another doorstop (Pandora's Star), and between the two volumes it makes up about 2500 pages of hard science fiction. It's the second multi-volume work of Peter F. Hamilton's that I've read, and I must admit that when I started it I was rather concerned that it might have a weak ending in the same manner as the first one.
The first trilogy, Night's Dawn, contained a beautifully crafted universe, a great plot, and characters that I cared about for approximately 3600 pages. Then he blew it with a deus ex machina ending. I really, really hoped that he wasn't going to do the same with the Commonwealth Sage and, thankfully, he didn't. The ending works, ties everything together and while it doesn't leave any loose ends it does provide a number of different threads that he could choose to pick up and develop further if he wishes.
In some ways the fact that I'm going back and forth to the UK has actually increased the number of books I'm buying. I get sufficiently paranoid that I'm not going to have anything to read when I get back to Iceland that every time I come back to the UK I pick up at least six new books. They're not always science fiction either - recently I've even tried historical novels (although definitely not romances!) as well as the more common 'mediaeval fantasy' works. What is particularly nice right now is that at present I'm not feeling guilty about taking time out just to read. Sometimes I do; it depends on where I am in my depressive cycle, but for now I'm reading a lot and feeling good about it.
0 comments
This is a doorstop of a book, the sequel to another doorstop (Pandora's Star), and between the two volumes it makes up about 2500 pages of hard science fiction. It's the second multi-volume work of Peter F. Hamilton's that I've read, and I must admit that when I started it I was rather concerned that it might have a weak ending in the same manner as the first one.
The first trilogy, Night's Dawn, contained a beautifully crafted universe, a great plot, and characters that I cared about for approximately 3600 pages. Then he blew it with a deus ex machina ending. I really, really hoped that he wasn't going to do the same with the Commonwealth Sage and, thankfully, he didn't. The ending works, ties everything together and while it doesn't leave any loose ends it does provide a number of different threads that he could choose to pick up and develop further if he wishes.
In some ways the fact that I'm going back and forth to the UK has actually increased the number of books I'm buying. I get sufficiently paranoid that I'm not going to have anything to read when I get back to Iceland that every time I come back to the UK I pick up at least six new books. They're not always science fiction either - recently I've even tried historical novels (although definitely not romances!) as well as the more common 'mediaeval fantasy' works. What is particularly nice right now is that at present I'm not feeling guilty about taking time out just to read. Sometimes I do; it depends on where I am in my depressive cycle, but for now I'm reading a lot and feeling good about it.
0 comments
Friday, September 22, 2006
OneWebDay
So what has the Internet done for me?
This business about OneWebDay, a day celebrating ten years of the world wide web got me thinking. I've actually done the 'net' thing for over twenty years now, not just the ten they're talking about.
Yes, email did exist twenty years ago. My first email address was AS0NW@st-andrews.ac.uk, what was at the time a very rare thing - a non-honours astronomy department email account. Three of us managed to get computer accounts through the astronomy department rather than the physics department and although at the time undergraduates had to have special permissions to send email outside of the university, we still had addresses that would accept external mail sent to us. This later morphed into ASHJW@st-andrews.ac.uk when I got into honours, as Nigel Wallis had already got ASHNW the previous year. By now we did have external email and also access to STARLINK so that we could download data from Hawaii for astronomy labs, but this was still long before the web as we now know it.
The next big step forward occurred when I was doing my PhD at Dundee in the early nineties. I was a lab assistant for the IT101 course and, when I wasn't answering questions, I spent a lot of time using gopher to download pretty pictures from NASA. And then came Mosaic... and the online world was never the same again.
When I look back and ask myself 'how has the Web affected me?' I have to admit that it's been absolutely vital over the last two years to keeping me sane out here in Iceland. It is my main source of news, of social contact and, oh yes, of general information. I've always been a sucker for reference books so to me the Web is just a very large encyclopaedia. I don't surf, I dive. I know where I'm going and I go there. Sometimes I trawl, via Google or Dogpile, but mostly I dive. It's an information junkie's dream, so long as you have the skills to find things effectively and can judge whether a site is worth believing.
If my first-year students remember nothing else about my lectures and labs I hope that the stuff on how to search the web effectively and efficiently sticks, because the ability to find information will be one of the most useful skills they'll ever learn.
0 comments
This business about OneWebDay, a day celebrating ten years of the world wide web got me thinking. I've actually done the 'net' thing for over twenty years now, not just the ten they're talking about.
Yes, email did exist twenty years ago. My first email address was AS0NW@st-andrews.ac.uk, what was at the time a very rare thing - a non-honours astronomy department email account. Three of us managed to get computer accounts through the astronomy department rather than the physics department and although at the time undergraduates had to have special permissions to send email outside of the university, we still had addresses that would accept external mail sent to us. This later morphed into ASHJW@st-andrews.ac.uk when I got into honours, as Nigel Wallis had already got ASHNW the previous year. By now we did have external email and also access to STARLINK so that we could download data from Hawaii for astronomy labs, but this was still long before the web as we now know it.
The next big step forward occurred when I was doing my PhD at Dundee in the early nineties. I was a lab assistant for the IT101 course and, when I wasn't answering questions, I spent a lot of time using gopher to download pretty pictures from NASA. And then came Mosaic... and the online world was never the same again.
When I look back and ask myself 'how has the Web affected me?' I have to admit that it's been absolutely vital over the last two years to keeping me sane out here in Iceland. It is my main source of news, of social contact and, oh yes, of general information. I've always been a sucker for reference books so to me the Web is just a very large encyclopaedia. I don't surf, I dive. I know where I'm going and I go there. Sometimes I trawl, via Google or Dogpile, but mostly I dive. It's an information junkie's dream, so long as you have the skills to find things effectively and can judge whether a site is worth believing.
If my first-year students remember nothing else about my lectures and labs I hope that the stuff on how to search the web effectively and efficiently sticks, because the ability to find information will be one of the most useful skills they'll ever learn.
0 comments
Thursday, September 21, 2006
No Tai Chi
Which was rather annoying.
Particularly since I'd had a stretched thin day and needed something to help me unwind a bit. I stayed in the office until 18:15 (without killing anyone) and went over to the gym, only to find that the instructor hadn't turned up. I suppose this gives me another few days to decide whether I'm crazy enough to attend one of the free come-and-try-it karate sessions before the tai chi class next week, but I really could have done with the de-stressing. Hmm... am I crazy enough to try a karate session? I have enough ankle problems already...
I seem to have acquired five (count 'em) students to supervise for their final year projects this year. Five. Out of nine students. I was only planning to have a maximum of four, but somehow an extra one has snuck in somewhere. Three are database projects in conjunction with various companies, one is on the HORUS project doing pattern recognition of hieroglyphics and the other is building a Lego Mindstorms Mars Rover. Well, we have a very Martian landscape here so we might as well take advantage of it.
I've just had to add HORUS to the dictionary in Semagic, the client I use to write these posts. Every time I typed it the software insisted on changing it to HOURS. It seems to already contain Ra, Isis and Bast but not Horus, Osiris, Hathor or Apep. Clearly the author is in the pay of a particular System Lord political faction. :)
2 comments
Particularly since I'd had a stretched thin day and needed something to help me unwind a bit. I stayed in the office until 18:15 (without killing anyone) and went over to the gym, only to find that the instructor hadn't turned up. I suppose this gives me another few days to decide whether I'm crazy enough to attend one of the free come-and-try-it karate sessions before the tai chi class next week, but I really could have done with the de-stressing. Hmm... am I crazy enough to try a karate session? I have enough ankle problems already...
I seem to have acquired five (count 'em) students to supervise for their final year projects this year. Five. Out of nine students. I was only planning to have a maximum of four, but somehow an extra one has snuck in somewhere. Three are database projects in conjunction with various companies, one is on the HORUS project doing pattern recognition of hieroglyphics and the other is building a Lego Mindstorms Mars Rover. Well, we have a very Martian landscape here so we might as well take advantage of it.
I've just had to add HORUS to the dictionary in Semagic, the client I use to write these posts. Every time I typed it the software insisted on changing it to HOURS. It seems to already contain Ra, Isis and Bast but not Horus, Osiris, Hathor or Apep. Clearly the author is in the pay of a particular System Lord political faction. :)
2 comments
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Tubular peyote
Sounds dodgy, doesn't it?
It's the sort of word combination that, if you saw it in an email subject line you'd immediately check the address, note that it came from Hebe Carlingford-Locke and consign it immediately to the deleted folder. But as it happens, it's actually a beading technique with which I metaphorically wrestled for two hours last night. It's used to create what looks like a woven tube of beads and is very useful for things like bracelets and necklaces.
In fact, when I got up yesterday morning I didn't want to go to work at all, I just wanted to start immediately. I put this down to my reading an issue of Bead and Button in bed. On my last couple of visits to the UK I've picked this one up and I'm quite tempted to just subscribe to it. It has lots of pretty things I can make for other people... or could if there was a decent bead shop around here. I may be forced to mail-order stuff from the US, although I believe there's a bead shop in Liverpool now (I'm told it's quite expensive, but hey, not for Iceland it can't be!).
So after three attempts I have something that looks vaguely like it might turn into a necklace, except that it's about three times the width it needs to be. Tonight I'm going to try again - twenty beads was waaaay to wide, 12 beads is still far too wide, so I think I'll try eight beads in the starting loop and see how that goes. If it works then I'll post photos in a couple of days tiome.
0 comments
It's the sort of word combination that, if you saw it in an email subject line you'd immediately check the address, note that it came from Hebe Carlingford-Locke and consign it immediately to the deleted folder. But as it happens, it's actually a beading technique with which I metaphorically wrestled for two hours last night. It's used to create what looks like a woven tube of beads and is very useful for things like bracelets and necklaces.
In fact, when I got up yesterday morning I didn't want to go to work at all, I just wanted to start immediately. I put this down to my reading an issue of Bead and Button in bed. On my last couple of visits to the UK I've picked this one up and I'm quite tempted to just subscribe to it. It has lots of pretty things I can make for other people... or could if there was a decent bead shop around here. I may be forced to mail-order stuff from the US, although I believe there's a bead shop in Liverpool now (I'm told it's quite expensive, but hey, not for Iceland it can't be!).
So after three attempts I have something that looks vaguely like it might turn into a necklace, except that it's about three times the width it needs to be. Tonight I'm going to try again - twenty beads was waaaay to wide, 12 beads is still far too wide, so I think I'll try eight beads in the starting loop and see how that goes. If it works then I'll post photos in a couple of days tiome.
0 comments
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
What be I doin' this day?
In case you didn't know, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. So, in honour of this:
Arr... well, first I be haulin' messel' from me bunk to the quarterdeck, to thrash a mighty great lesson into me sprogs on the fine art of misdirecting the thoughts of lily-livered landlubbers and other scurvy dogs by the use of false colours. Then I be off to a fine long chin-wag with the other gentlemen (and wenches!) of the squadron for us to be drawin' up a cunning and unbeatable plan to be relievin' more pox-ridden governors of their ill-gotten booty.
And so we be getting together, mesself, me fellow captains and their crews, to plan our latest assault upon the treasure-chests of the northern seas. And there we be hearin' of a ragin' great victory, that we may take our plans forth into the future. So, of course, much sweet rum and plundered Spanish wines be downed by all. Yo-ho-ho!
Or, in English...
Got up. Went into work. Gave a lecture on data visualisation to the third years. Had meeting about the next stage of the Arctic Portal project.
Good news at this afternoon's meeting: we have the go-ahead for the next phase of the Arctic Portal project. Naturally this called for a celebration and the cracking of a couple of bottles of Cava, together with some strange Latvian mead.
0 comments
Arr... well, first I be haulin' messel' from me bunk to the quarterdeck, to thrash a mighty great lesson into me sprogs on the fine art of misdirecting the thoughts of lily-livered landlubbers and other scurvy dogs by the use of false colours. Then I be off to a fine long chin-wag with the other gentlemen (and wenches!) of the squadron for us to be drawin' up a cunning and unbeatable plan to be relievin' more pox-ridden governors of their ill-gotten booty.
And so we be getting together, mesself, me fellow captains and their crews, to plan our latest assault upon the treasure-chests of the northern seas. And there we be hearin' of a ragin' great victory, that we may take our plans forth into the future. So, of course, much sweet rum and plundered Spanish wines be downed by all. Yo-ho-ho!
Or, in English...
Got up. Went into work. Gave a lecture on data visualisation to the third years. Had meeting about the next stage of the Arctic Portal project.
Good news at this afternoon's meeting: we have the go-ahead for the next phase of the Arctic Portal project. Naturally this called for a celebration and the cracking of a couple of bottles of Cava, together with some strange Latvian mead.
0 comments
Monday, September 18, 2006
Freaked out
By a book.
And not by the contents of a book, either, just by the book's very existence. I went to bed last night and picked up my current bedtime (and occasionally daytime) reading - Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton - and found that it still contained the Traveller trading card of Duke Norris that I'd been using for a bookmark. Except that earlier in the day I'd picked the book up in the living room to discover that said bookmark wasn't there and had duly replaced it with a completely different bookmark.
Somehow I have two copies of this book. I know I picked up one when I came through Glasgow, but I've no idea when I got the other one. Particularly as it should have been sufficiently high on my to-read list that I should have started it as soon as I'd finished my travelling book. Perhaps I should put it down to stress, but if that's the case I've no idea what else I might have done and completely forgotten about.
In other news, the roast lamb was edible but certainly not a major success. And the roast potatoes didn't roast properly either. I think I'll just have to accept that roasting meat is not one of my culinary skills. Meringue swans, Viennese biscuits and Black Forest gateaux OK, sensible meals Not OK. *Sigh*.
2 comments
And not by the contents of a book, either, just by the book's very existence. I went to bed last night and picked up my current bedtime (and occasionally daytime) reading - Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton - and found that it still contained the Traveller trading card of Duke Norris that I'd been using for a bookmark. Except that earlier in the day I'd picked the book up in the living room to discover that said bookmark wasn't there and had duly replaced it with a completely different bookmark.
Somehow I have two copies of this book. I know I picked up one when I came through Glasgow, but I've no idea when I got the other one. Particularly as it should have been sufficiently high on my to-read list that I should have started it as soon as I'd finished my travelling book. Perhaps I should put it down to stress, but if that's the case I've no idea what else I might have done and completely forgotten about.
In other news, the roast lamb was edible but certainly not a major success. And the roast potatoes didn't roast properly either. I think I'll just have to accept that roasting meat is not one of my culinary skills. Meringue swans, Viennese biscuits and Black Forest gateaux OK, sensible meals Not OK. *Sigh*.
2 comments
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Experimental cookery
I know, the traditional Sunday roast is not meant to be an experiment.
It has been a long time, however, since I've actually done a roast. Partly this is the due to almost fainting when I look at the price of a joint of meat, and partly because it seems a terrible faff when there's only me here. Given that I'm going to be the one cooking Christmas dinner this year I thought that perhaps I should get into practise.
So I've started off with the local meat of choice: lamb. For many years after leaving David Russell Hall in St. Andrews I couldn't face lamb in any shape or form, particularly not roast lamb. The stuff that they served at Sunday lunch was so fatty and stringy that after the first two years I'd just see it on the menu at the bottom of the stairs and turn straight around to return to my room. It even took a year here, where lamb is the most commonly-served meat, for me to pluck up the courage to try it once more.
Thankfully Icelandic lamb has only one thing in common with the stuff they used to serve us at DRH - the word 'lamb'. The meat here is moist, tender, flavoursome and certainly worth trying if you ever make it up here to the Rock. When I was in Hagkaup on Friday I discovered that although the salad bar was out of hard boiled eggs (what is the world coming to?!) they did have some tasty-looking lamb with tomato and rosemary marinade so I thought I'd take the plunge.
It is now sitting in the oven doing the cooking thing together with some roast potatoes (prepared as per Delia's online instructions) in the hope that the two dishes will make a passable meal. Or hopefully two.
0 comments
It has been a long time, however, since I've actually done a roast. Partly this is the due to almost fainting when I look at the price of a joint of meat, and partly because it seems a terrible faff when there's only me here. Given that I'm going to be the one cooking Christmas dinner this year I thought that perhaps I should get into practise.
So I've started off with the local meat of choice: lamb. For many years after leaving David Russell Hall in St. Andrews I couldn't face lamb in any shape or form, particularly not roast lamb. The stuff that they served at Sunday lunch was so fatty and stringy that after the first two years I'd just see it on the menu at the bottom of the stairs and turn straight around to return to my room. It even took a year here, where lamb is the most commonly-served meat, for me to pluck up the courage to try it once more.
Thankfully Icelandic lamb has only one thing in common with the stuff they used to serve us at DRH - the word 'lamb'. The meat here is moist, tender, flavoursome and certainly worth trying if you ever make it up here to the Rock. When I was in Hagkaup on Friday I discovered that although the salad bar was out of hard boiled eggs (what is the world coming to?!) they did have some tasty-looking lamb with tomato and rosemary marinade so I thought I'd take the plunge.
It is now sitting in the oven doing the cooking thing together with some roast potatoes (prepared as per Delia's online instructions) in the hope that the two dishes will make a passable meal. Or hopefully two.
0 comments
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Difficult writings
Over the last couple of weeks I've had some difficult things to write.
Not difficult in the sense of unpleasant or negative, but more in the technical sense of the word. One of them was the Head of School's introduction to the student handbook I mentioned yesterday. This sits on page 3, just underneath the welcome from the Dean of Faculty, and it was the first time I'd had to write something like this. Not being a particularly social person I don't really like doing the getting up on stage and talking to people. This may sound strange for a lecturer, but lectures are a completely different kettle of fish - there I know exactly what I'm going to talk about and I know the material sufficiently well that I'm reasonably confident that I can field questions.
Speaking in a social context is, for me, a far more difficult task. I have terrible problems with small talk. It may be the glue that holds society together but it always seems something of a waste of time to me. Once you've got past the 'hello' then you can get onto discussing the eternal verities, right? And in many ways the introduction to the handbook is just that - the small talk before you get down to the serious business of information transfer. My basic instincts were to say something like:
Not exactly going to rally the troops, is it? So I had to wrap it up in small talk, which is what made it so difficult to write.
The other difficult piece was a recommendation for one of my former students who is off to do his MSc at Oxford. The college wanted a letter from me to confirm that his English was sufficient to be able to survive the course. Content-wise this was a no-brainer; he speaks excellent English and I have no hesitation whatsoever in believing that he'll not only survive the course but will thrive in such an environment. No, this was was difficult because I felt that in many ways it was a test of my English. After all, if you're writing to Oxford (or St. Andrews, or any of the other real universities) you don't want to let your student down by making a linguistic fool of yourself. I think I did okay; after all, my written language skills generally aren't too bad.
Which brings me to some difficult writing I plan to do in the near future. Spurred on by a friend who tried it last year I'm going to try the NaNoWriMo challenge and write a novella during November. There, I've stated it publicly so I can't go back on it now. I haven't decided whether it's going to be an SF or a fantasy novella yet, as I'm playing with several ideas at present. So you have been warned - expect authorly angst throughout November. :)
0 comments
Not difficult in the sense of unpleasant or negative, but more in the technical sense of the word. One of them was the Head of School's introduction to the student handbook I mentioned yesterday. This sits on page 3, just underneath the welcome from the Dean of Faculty, and it was the first time I'd had to write something like this. Not being a particularly social person I don't really like doing the getting up on stage and talking to people. This may sound strange for a lecturer, but lectures are a completely different kettle of fish - there I know exactly what I'm going to talk about and I know the material sufficiently well that I'm reasonably confident that I can field questions.
Speaking in a social context is, for me, a far more difficult task. I have terrible problems with small talk. It may be the glue that holds society together but it always seems something of a waste of time to me. Once you've got past the 'hello' then you can get onto discussing the eternal verities, right? And in many ways the introduction to the handbook is just that - the small talk before you get down to the serious business of information transfer. My basic instincts were to say something like:
Welcome to the School of Computing. This handbook contains a lot of useful information about the university. If you think I've missed anything out then please let me know and I'll see about including it in next year's handbook. Have a good year.
Not exactly going to rally the troops, is it? So I had to wrap it up in small talk, which is what made it so difficult to write.
The other difficult piece was a recommendation for one of my former students who is off to do his MSc at Oxford. The college wanted a letter from me to confirm that his English was sufficient to be able to survive the course. Content-wise this was a no-brainer; he speaks excellent English and I have no hesitation whatsoever in believing that he'll not only survive the course but will thrive in such an environment. No, this was was difficult because I felt that in many ways it was a test of my English. After all, if you're writing to Oxford (or St. Andrews, or any of the other real universities) you don't want to let your student down by making a linguistic fool of yourself. I think I did okay; after all, my written language skills generally aren't too bad.
Which brings me to some difficult writing I plan to do in the near future. Spurred on by a friend who tried it last year I'm going to try the NaNoWriMo challenge and write a novella during November. There, I've stated it publicly so I can't go back on it now. I haven't decided whether it's going to be an SF or a fantasy novella yet, as I'm playing with several ideas at present. So you have been warned - expect authorly angst throughout November. :)
0 comments
Friday, September 15, 2006
Call me...
... Beowulfa.
For I have finally slain the Grendel-beast that is the student handbook. Now I wait to see if I will face the Grendel's Mother of all political fallout as a result.
This morning I spent over two and a half hours printing, collating and binding fifty copies of the handbook. It's only three weeks later than planned, and a lot of that was due to the problems I had getting the information to put into it. The response from several of my Icelandic colleagues has been very positive, ranging from that's the most useful document I've ever seen in this university to giving me a list of people in the marketing department who really need to see it as an example of what a) can be done independently and b) needs to be done institutionally.
The OECD recently released a report on the tertiary education sector in Iceland that said, in essence, that one of the biggest problems facing the sector is that almost all of the information needed to run it is in peoples heads not on paper, and that this leads to massive amounts of inefficiency and reinventing the wheel. I can back that up from personal experience given data gathering problems I've had - if I hadn't had the now-chairman of DATA, the computing student union, helping me with this there's no way that I could have done it. As it is, there is still information that I haven't been able to put in because it doesn't yet exist in English - things like the examination regulations. I've been told that these will be translated into English soon (although 'soon' in Iceland evokes the same sort of timeframe as 'mañana' in Latin America) so hopefully I'll be able to put them into next year's version.
Next year... oh yes, there will be a new version next year. I've asked people to comment upon it and to tell me if there's anything that they think is missing. One thing I think is needed is some stuff about Akureyri itself. So far I've managed to get the basic information about what to do if you need to see a doctor but Davið and I were originally planning to have a section on the sports and other recreational facilities in the town, as well as the other basic amenities like shops and post offices.
In many ways this handbook is the academic equivalent of the convention handbook. I introduced the concept of the readme flier to people for the NUCOG workshop in February, and this is the local extension of that document. That was a four-page flier containing everything you needed to know for a week-long workshop; the handbook is everything you need to know for the academic year, whether you're from overseas, out of town or even Akureyri itself.
I have learned quite a lot about the university during the creation process. Things like the fact that the university has its own gym (we start Tai Chi classes there next Thursday as a result), or that the International Office doesn't just handle matters for overseas students coming to Akureyri but also arranges things for Icelandic students to study abroad. We do indeed have a Student Counselling Service, and the Cafeteria serves both breakfast and lunch (you can get seconds of soup and the main meal for free).
I've also learned quite a bit about Microsoft Publisher - like the fact that it doesn't automatically do tables of contents, which strikes me as very odd. I wasn't too ambitious this year, and the handbook is a simple 22 sides of A4 affair. Next year I might shrink it down to A5, assuming that I do it over the summer and can find a long arm stapler with which to bind it. Or, even better, get it professionally printed. Still, everyone who's seen this year's has commented on how professional it looks, which has pleased me. I knew it was a good idea to read that manual on graphic design.
To me the phrase Information Technology isn't just about technology, it's also about information. The technology needs information to be of any use, and the information needs the technology in order to be managed and presented efficiently. I like to believe that I understand both parts reasonably well.
0 comments
For I have finally slain the Grendel-beast that is the student handbook. Now I wait to see if I will face the Grendel's Mother of all political fallout as a result.
This morning I spent over two and a half hours printing, collating and binding fifty copies of the handbook. It's only three weeks later than planned, and a lot of that was due to the problems I had getting the information to put into it. The response from several of my Icelandic colleagues has been very positive, ranging from that's the most useful document I've ever seen in this university to giving me a list of people in the marketing department who really need to see it as an example of what a) can be done independently and b) needs to be done institutionally.
The OECD recently released a report on the tertiary education sector in Iceland that said, in essence, that one of the biggest problems facing the sector is that almost all of the information needed to run it is in peoples heads not on paper, and that this leads to massive amounts of inefficiency and reinventing the wheel. I can back that up from personal experience given data gathering problems I've had - if I hadn't had the now-chairman of DATA, the computing student union, helping me with this there's no way that I could have done it. As it is, there is still information that I haven't been able to put in because it doesn't yet exist in English - things like the examination regulations. I've been told that these will be translated into English soon (although 'soon' in Iceland evokes the same sort of timeframe as 'mañana' in Latin America) so hopefully I'll be able to put them into next year's version.
Next year... oh yes, there will be a new version next year. I've asked people to comment upon it and to tell me if there's anything that they think is missing. One thing I think is needed is some stuff about Akureyri itself. So far I've managed to get the basic information about what to do if you need to see a doctor but Davið and I were originally planning to have a section on the sports and other recreational facilities in the town, as well as the other basic amenities like shops and post offices.
In many ways this handbook is the academic equivalent of the convention handbook. I introduced the concept of the readme flier to people for the NUCOG workshop in February, and this is the local extension of that document. That was a four-page flier containing everything you needed to know for a week-long workshop; the handbook is everything you need to know for the academic year, whether you're from overseas, out of town or even Akureyri itself.
I have learned quite a lot about the university during the creation process. Things like the fact that the university has its own gym (we start Tai Chi classes there next Thursday as a result), or that the International Office doesn't just handle matters for overseas students coming to Akureyri but also arranges things for Icelandic students to study abroad. We do indeed have a Student Counselling Service, and the Cafeteria serves both breakfast and lunch (you can get seconds of soup and the main meal for free).
I've also learned quite a bit about Microsoft Publisher - like the fact that it doesn't automatically do tables of contents, which strikes me as very odd. I wasn't too ambitious this year, and the handbook is a simple 22 sides of A4 affair. Next year I might shrink it down to A5, assuming that I do it over the summer and can find a long arm stapler with which to bind it. Or, even better, get it professionally printed. Still, everyone who's seen this year's has commented on how professional it looks, which has pleased me. I knew it was a good idea to read that manual on graphic design.
To me the phrase Information Technology isn't just about technology, it's also about information. The technology needs information to be of any use, and the information needs the technology in order to be managed and presented efficiently. I like to believe that I understand both parts reasonably well.
0 comments
Thursday, September 14, 2006
I will not grumble.
Even though it's 19:15 and I've just got in from work.
Sigh. So what else do I have to talk about? The new power supply for my iBook doesn't fit, the plug is too small. I begin to fear that I'm not going to be able to get a new one to replace the broken one and that my iBook is forever condemned to darkness. :( Which is annoying in many ways, the most immediate of which is that I used to use it as my bedside 'radio' to play mp3s of Radio 4 science programmes to lull me to sleep. There's this big part of me that so wants to buy a new MacBook, but I'm torn between paying 50% extra over here and getting the safety net of a local service centre, or waiting until I get back to the UK and buying at a more sensible price (but having to pay it in a single chunk).
I have started embroidering one of my Christmas presents. It's a very plain tablecloth with a fairly abstract design done in ecru perle on ecru cotton/linen blend. I think it's going to work up fairly rapidly, which is good as it's supposed to be a working day-to-day tablecloth rather than a special occasions once. I just hope that the pattern will wash out once I've finished it as I'm using a medium chain stitch rather than the pallestrino stitch on the illustration. I don't particularly like long rows of knots as a linear stitching style.
Anything else? I've taken to bandaging my arm to provide some padding on the burn as it's in just the wrong place when I'm sitting at the computer with my forearms leaning on my desk. Now if only crepe bandages didn't itch so...
0 comments
Sigh. So what else do I have to talk about? The new power supply for my iBook doesn't fit, the plug is too small. I begin to fear that I'm not going to be able to get a new one to replace the broken one and that my iBook is forever condemned to darkness. :( Which is annoying in many ways, the most immediate of which is that I used to use it as my bedside 'radio' to play mp3s of Radio 4 science programmes to lull me to sleep. There's this big part of me that so wants to buy a new MacBook, but I'm torn between paying 50% extra over here and getting the safety net of a local service centre, or waiting until I get back to the UK and buying at a more sensible price (but having to pay it in a single chunk).
I have started embroidering one of my Christmas presents. It's a very plain tablecloth with a fairly abstract design done in ecru perle on ecru cotton/linen blend. I think it's going to work up fairly rapidly, which is good as it's supposed to be a working day-to-day tablecloth rather than a special occasions once. I just hope that the pattern will wash out once I've finished it as I'm using a medium chain stitch rather than the pallestrino stitch on the illustration. I don't particularly like long rows of knots as a linear stitching style.
Anything else? I've taken to bandaging my arm to provide some padding on the burn as it's in just the wrong place when I'm sitting at the computer with my forearms leaning on my desk. Now if only crepe bandages didn't itch so...
0 comments
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
WIDAWT
Or What I Did At Work Today
Arrived. This wasn't until 09:00, rather later than usual nowadays, but my excuse is that I spent the previous evening at a gaming party with some of the students and ended up drinking coffee at about 22:30. I managed to come second in Star Wars Monopoly (one day I really will extend the rules to actually use the Death Star) and then introduced everyone to Guillotine.
Did stuff. Mainly that involved doing the final edits to the new student handbook (yes, I know it's now three weeks into the semester but life's life that) - checking the table of contents and so on. For some reason Microsoft Publisher doesn't automatically produce tables of contents, which seems a bit ridiculous to me. At least it's now finished and ready to print out. It also involved proof-reading a surprisingly interesting business paper written by one of my new colleagues in the business school section of the faculty.
Did labs. Wednesdays are my big lab days in that I have two back-to-back labs that take up the entire afternoon. It was a fairly straightforward lab on basic Microsoft Word, but grew into the everything you need to know about keyboard shortcuts one. I appear to be the university's Apple Mac specialist nowadays, which is quite amusing. Several of my students have Macs rather than PCs so it's a good thing that I'm multi-lingual (as it were)!
I was then going to print out and bind the handbook except that the place with the colour printer closes at 16:00. So that's a job for tomorrow.
Designed an MSc conversion course. Within a couple of years we're planning to offer an postgraduate diploma / MSc course in computing as well as the undergrad course. One of my current problems is to actually design that course. In many ways the fact that I did one of these myself is very useful as it's given me an idea of what the absolute necessities of such a course really are. Having taught another one is quite handy too. Now I've just got to confirm that it conforms to the Bologna requirements and write it up as a formal proposal.
Tomorrow... tomorrow everything starts again. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend already.
2 comments
Arrived. This wasn't until 09:00, rather later than usual nowadays, but my excuse is that I spent the previous evening at a gaming party with some of the students and ended up drinking coffee at about 22:30. I managed to come second in Star Wars Monopoly (one day I really will extend the rules to actually use the Death Star) and then introduced everyone to Guillotine.
Did stuff. Mainly that involved doing the final edits to the new student handbook (yes, I know it's now three weeks into the semester but life's life that) - checking the table of contents and so on. For some reason Microsoft Publisher doesn't automatically produce tables of contents, which seems a bit ridiculous to me. At least it's now finished and ready to print out. It also involved proof-reading a surprisingly interesting business paper written by one of my new colleagues in the business school section of the faculty.
Did labs. Wednesdays are my big lab days in that I have two back-to-back labs that take up the entire afternoon. It was a fairly straightforward lab on basic Microsoft Word, but grew into the everything you need to know about keyboard shortcuts one. I appear to be the university's Apple Mac specialist nowadays, which is quite amusing. Several of my students have Macs rather than PCs so it's a good thing that I'm multi-lingual (as it were)!
I was then going to print out and bind the handbook except that the place with the colour printer closes at 16:00. So that's a job for tomorrow.
Designed an MSc conversion course. Within a couple of years we're planning to offer an postgraduate diploma / MSc course in computing as well as the undergrad course. One of my current problems is to actually design that course. In many ways the fact that I did one of these myself is very useful as it's given me an idea of what the absolute necessities of such a course really are. Having taught another one is quite handy too. Now I've just got to confirm that it conforms to the Bologna requirements and write it up as a formal proposal.
Tomorrow... tomorrow everything starts again. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend already.
2 comments
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
One tyre: changed
I have now successfully changed my tyre.
It turns out that I need a 19mm lug wrench rather than the standard 21mm one. One of my students, Siggy, loaned me his Toyota one to see if it was smaller than Jóhann's, but it wasn't. Then this afternoon, as Martha had popped in to ask me some questions about the Arctic Portal, I got her to give me a lift down to Bílanaust to get a new one that fitted.
Except that Bílanaust has moved from its small shop by the bridge into larger premises behind the ESSO garage. We didn't actually know where they'd moved to until Martha phoned her husband to ask him. Fortunately he knew and so we found the new, big and exciting Bílanaust at last. When we arrived I decided that I really ought to take Martha in with me, because I know from experience that the man who knows everything in this shop doesn't speak English. And I certainly don't speak enough Icelandic to describe a wrench appropriate for removing wheel nuts of size of approximately 10.5mm per hexagonal side.
Eventually we came out with a reasonably-prized lug wrench with four detachable heads and an LED light built into the handle. This then allowed me to successfully change the tyre, although I haven't been able to refit the wheel trim as of yet. Placing it against the wheel and kicking it - my normal method of trim replacement - failed miserably. Still, I have wheels again and can now do things like go shopping once more. Or to meetings in town. Or into the bank to get special Lazy Town armbands to send to Beth.
Or, indeed, to the post office to send these to. They're not really pink, it's just that they reflect artificial light in a very strange manner. In normal light they're silvery-white. Each is about four inches in diameter.
1 comments
It turns out that I need a 19mm lug wrench rather than the standard 21mm one. One of my students, Siggy, loaned me his Toyota one to see if it was smaller than Jóhann's, but it wasn't. Then this afternoon, as Martha had popped in to ask me some questions about the Arctic Portal, I got her to give me a lift down to Bílanaust to get a new one that fitted.
Except that Bílanaust has moved from its small shop by the bridge into larger premises behind the ESSO garage. We didn't actually know where they'd moved to until Martha phoned her husband to ask him. Fortunately he knew and so we found the new, big and exciting Bílanaust at last. When we arrived I decided that I really ought to take Martha in with me, because I know from experience that the man who knows everything in this shop doesn't speak English. And I certainly don't speak enough Icelandic to describe a wrench appropriate for removing wheel nuts of size of approximately 10.5mm per hexagonal side.
Eventually we came out with a reasonably-prized lug wrench with four detachable heads and an LED light built into the handle. This then allowed me to successfully change the tyre, although I haven't been able to refit the wheel trim as of yet. Placing it against the wheel and kicking it - my normal method of trim replacement - failed miserably. Still, I have wheels again and can now do things like go shopping once more. Or to meetings in town. Or into the bank to get special Lazy Town armbands to send to Beth.
Or, indeed, to the post office to send these to
1 comments
Monday, September 11, 2006
Bílasaga II
New car, new story.
It's Monday morning, bright and early. The sun is shining in that strange brilliant manner that only occurs when you have a huge black thundercloud covering most of the sky apart from a pocket of clear blue. I'd realised late last night that the one thing lecture-related that I should have done on my research day was to photocopy the slides for today's lecture. Instead I have to go in early just in case the photocopier has exploded or something similar. So I pack up my stuff and head downstairs to the car (necessary so that I can go to a meeting in town later).
Hmm... the car seems to be resting at a rather strange angle... oh no! A flat tyre!
Now I could have changed the tyre there and then, except that I really wanted to get to the photocopier and I'm only a fifteen minute walk from the office. I looked at it blankly for a couple of minutes and then climbed back up to the flat to get a coat and a bag for the stuff I needed to take with me. I arrived in the office about twenty minutes later than planned, only to find that I had a breakfast meeting about which I'd completely forgotten. Oh well, at least the photocopier was working.
Work work busy busy chop chop bang bang. Plus I reorganised the distance learning module and informed the British Embassy of not only my presence (they weren't too worried about that) and my job (they were much more interested in that). Then I came home early to change the tyre. Or that was the plan...
I have a spare tyre. It's a very nice spare tyre, with lots and lots of fresh new tread on it. It's easy to get out of the boot, which is also a plus. But is there a jack or an x-bar? Nope. Not that I can find, anyway. They're certainly not in the tyre well where they're supposed to live. I'm not a happy bunny. Isn't the tyre changing kit part of the basic car? It never even occurred to me to check if it was standard. Maybe I've just missed the blindingly obvious. Maybe if I go downstairs again once it stops raining I will find it. Otherwise I shall have to walk down to the local equivalent of KarBar and pick up both items. Grr...
0 comments
It's Monday morning, bright and early. The sun is shining in that strange brilliant manner that only occurs when you have a huge black thundercloud covering most of the sky apart from a pocket of clear blue. I'd realised late last night that the one thing lecture-related that I should have done on my research day was to photocopy the slides for today's lecture. Instead I have to go in early just in case the photocopier has exploded or something similar. So I pack up my stuff and head downstairs to the car (necessary so that I can go to a meeting in town later).
Hmm... the car seems to be resting at a rather strange angle... oh no! A flat tyre!
Now I could have changed the tyre there and then, except that I really wanted to get to the photocopier and I'm only a fifteen minute walk from the office. I looked at it blankly for a couple of minutes and then climbed back up to the flat to get a coat and a bag for the stuff I needed to take with me. I arrived in the office about twenty minutes later than planned, only to find that I had a breakfast meeting about which I'd completely forgotten. Oh well, at least the photocopier was working.
Work work busy busy chop chop bang bang. Plus I reorganised the distance learning module and informed the British Embassy of not only my presence (they weren't too worried about that) and my job (they were much more interested in that). Then I came home early to change the tyre. Or that was the plan...
I have a spare tyre. It's a very nice spare tyre, with lots and lots of fresh new tread on it. It's easy to get out of the boot, which is also a plus. But is there a jack or an x-bar? Nope. Not that I can find, anyway. They're certainly not in the tyre well where they're supposed to live. I'm not a happy bunny. Isn't the tyre changing kit part of the basic car? It never even occurred to me to check if it was standard. Maybe I've just missed the blindingly obvious. Maybe if I go downstairs again once it stops raining I will find it. Otherwise I shall have to walk down to the local equivalent of KarBar and pick up both items. Grr...
0 comments
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Windy night
It certainly gets windy up here.
We don' t actually get that much in the way of rain but we do get a lot of wind. I suppose it's a problem with living in a fjord, where the wind whistles one way or the other. It's a very relaxing sound in many ways, but I'm weird in that respect.
Yes, it's been a quiet day. So quiet I'm talking about the weather. I suppose there was the highlight of the Grand Prix... or rather, the press conference afterwards. Well, I suppose that there's a fair chance that Schumie's going to exit with a final championship win under his belt.
Oh yes - and there was a very good Toyota advert. A farmer in a Toyota pickup drives into a field in order to fix a plumbing problem in a water trough. Two large black bulls watch him, trying to decide which one of them is going to butt him into the trough. Then they see the Toyota, and the next thing they've stolen it and are attempting to drive around (and through) the farm at high speed. They smash through a barn. They crash into a field of sheep who scatter with the exception of one large ram that plays chicken with them. They swerve to miss him and sail over a cliff, landing in a field of cows, at which point two lusty young heiffers flutter their eyelids and greet them with a 'hello, handsome!'. Not one I've seen before and certainly one of the better ads I've seen over here.
Naturally I'm convinced that it must have been in the UK and US for at least a year by now, but it amused me all the same.
0 comments
We don' t actually get that much in the way of rain but we do get a lot of wind. I suppose it's a problem with living in a fjord, where the wind whistles one way or the other. It's a very relaxing sound in many ways, but I'm weird in that respect.
Yes, it's been a quiet day. So quiet I'm talking about the weather. I suppose there was the highlight of the Grand Prix... or rather, the press conference afterwards. Well, I suppose that there's a fair chance that Schumie's going to exit with a final championship win under his belt.
Oh yes - and there was a very good Toyota advert. A farmer in a Toyota pickup drives into a field in order to fix a plumbing problem in a water trough. Two large black bulls watch him, trying to decide which one of them is going to butt him into the trough. Then they see the Toyota, and the next thing they've stolen it and are attempting to drive around (and through) the farm at high speed. They smash through a barn. They crash into a field of sheep who scatter with the exception of one large ram that plays chicken with them. They swerve to miss him and sail over a cliff, landing in a field of cows, at which point two lusty young heiffers flutter their eyelids and greet them with a 'hello, handsome!'. Not one I've seen before and certainly one of the better ads I've seen over here.
Naturally I'm convinced that it must have been in the UK and US for at least a year by now, but it amused me all the same.
0 comments
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Teaching by video
This morning was my first distance learning lecture.
When I've done distance learning beforehand it's always been by sending out all of the material in advance and then handling questions and discussions through email and bulletin boards. This is the first time I've worked within a system that has bi-weekly videoconferencing sessions. So I looked at the timetable and at the amount of stuff we have to teach, and I work out that I can give them a condensed version of the lectures together with support through WebCT. That way they can spend their time here in Akureyri (they're gettting a full day devoted to this module) to deal with the lab work.
This module is not designed to have tutorial sessions. It does not lend itself to group discussions the way that business modules probably do. What the hell am I supposed to do for two hours if I'm not lecturing to them? I can't do lab work as that involves talking to them individually, and as they're scattered over about eight different locations (two of which I can't even pronounce yet) the travel is impossible. I think that I may have to resort to overview lectures anyway and then just ask for questions. What's more, I'm really going to have to treat the distance learning module as a completely separate module in terms of structure and assessment, as the distance learners as going to get lab stuff well before the local students.
The actual lecturing via video process will also take a little getting used to as well. The technology isn't hard to operate, you just have to remember to switch between the video feed and the computer feed so that you don't give a three minute monologue waving your hands and using significant non-verbal signals while the students are sitting looking at a powerpoint slide instead of you. It's also a little confusing when you have more people on the television screen than are in the room. I tend to keep looking at the camera rather than the people in the room. I suppose that that's probably the right thing to do most of the time, but it does feel rather rude at times.
Ah well, I only have three of these sessions, so it's one down, two to go. I have a meeting with the other lecturers covering the module later this week, so we're going to have quite a lot to talk about.
0 comments
When I've done distance learning beforehand it's always been by sending out all of the material in advance and then handling questions and discussions through email and bulletin boards. This is the first time I've worked within a system that has bi-weekly videoconferencing sessions. So I looked at the timetable and at the amount of stuff we have to teach, and I work out that I can give them a condensed version of the lectures together with support through WebCT. That way they can spend their time here in Akureyri (they're gettting a full day devoted to this module) to deal with the lab work.
This module is not designed to have tutorial sessions. It does not lend itself to group discussions the way that business modules probably do. What the hell am I supposed to do for two hours if I'm not lecturing to them? I can't do lab work as that involves talking to them individually, and as they're scattered over about eight different locations (two of which I can't even pronounce yet) the travel is impossible. I think that I may have to resort to overview lectures anyway and then just ask for questions. What's more, I'm really going to have to treat the distance learning module as a completely separate module in terms of structure and assessment, as the distance learners as going to get lab stuff well before the local students.
The actual lecturing via video process will also take a little getting used to as well. The technology isn't hard to operate, you just have to remember to switch between the video feed and the computer feed so that you don't give a three minute monologue waving your hands and using significant non-verbal signals while the students are sitting looking at a powerpoint slide instead of you. It's also a little confusing when you have more people on the television screen than are in the room. I tend to keep looking at the camera rather than the people in the room. I suppose that that's probably the right thing to do most of the time, but it does feel rather rude at times.
Ah well, I only have three of these sessions, so it's one down, two to go. I have a meeting with the other lecturers covering the module later this week, so we're going to have quite a lot to talk about.
0 comments
Friday, September 08, 2006
"Research" day
Today was blocked off in my diary in order to get some research done.
Ha! Instead I dealt with a pile of emails, some issues pertaining to overseas and exchange students, and found out how the distance-learning videoconferencing kit works. Although I also managed to finally half-clear my desk and write a nice letter to the Computing Lab at the University of Oxford to say that the English skills of one of my recently-graduated students are more than sufficient to do an MSc in computing with them. Some of us have really been quite rotten to him about doing a degree at Oxford - telling him horror stories of gowns and formal meals with the Masters of the College and so on, but I'm very pleased that he'll be continuing his studies there.
My most successful piece of 'research' was that I've located the chemist shop that sells the first aid supplies. It's the one in the centre of town (of course!) opposite the dangerous coffee shop, Té og Kaffi, which meant that I had to go in and get some more Kenyan coffee (I ran out yesterday). I'm becoming more comfortable with using Icelandic when shopping although my vocabulary is still sadly lacking. For instance although I got the idea that the girl in the shop was asking me if I wanted the coffee beans ground, I had to resort to the English word 'filter' at that point. *Sigh*.
Maybe it's time I picked up the dictionary and my Icelandic copy of The Hobbit and started reading. Except that I'm currently in the middle of James Lovelock's new one, The Revenge of Gaia, which is a) new and b) much less effort. :)
0 comments
Ha! Instead I dealt with a pile of emails, some issues pertaining to overseas and exchange students, and found out how the distance-learning videoconferencing kit works. Although I also managed to finally half-clear my desk and write a nice letter to the Computing Lab at the University of Oxford to say that the English skills of one of my recently-graduated students are more than sufficient to do an MSc in computing with them. Some of us have really been quite rotten to him about doing a degree at Oxford - telling him horror stories of gowns and formal meals with the Masters of the College and so on, but I'm very pleased that he'll be continuing his studies there.
My most successful piece of 'research' was that I've located the chemist shop that sells the first aid supplies. It's the one in the centre of town (of course!) opposite the dangerous coffee shop, Té og Kaffi, which meant that I had to go in and get some more Kenyan coffee (I ran out yesterday). I'm becoming more comfortable with using Icelandic when shopping although my vocabulary is still sadly lacking. For instance although I got the idea that the girl in the shop was asking me if I wanted the coffee beans ground, I had to resort to the English word 'filter' at that point. *Sigh*.
Maybe it's time I picked up the dictionary and my Icelandic copy of The Hobbit and started reading. Except that I'm currently in the middle of James Lovelock's new one, The Revenge of Gaia, which is a) new and b) much less effort. :)
0 comments
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Gross!
Gel-filled burn dressings are officially gross.
And oven doors are sometimes hot. I discovered this last night as I went to put the Canadian pizza in the oven (carefully preheated to gas mark 8) when the oven door sprang back up and hit the back of my forearm just below the elbow. Ow, I thought, and immediately went to run it under the shower for a bit. (The shower was the only practical thing given the location of the burn and the kitchen taps.) Not a problem, it didn't hurt for long so I just went back to my stitching and, half an hour later, enjoyed a very good pepperoni pizza.
Today I realised that the burn (although only a surface burn) is a triangle about three inches by two inches, with blisters covering about two thirds of it (one long one, about three inches by half an inch and another a triangle taking up most of the rest of the area). Oops! Well, it was clean and not painful so I just wore a long-sleeved thing to protect it a bit and went into work. All well and good, except that I had a meeting by Skype this afternoon that meant I had to wrestle cables out of my computer and pop went one of the blisters. At this point I decided that I really needed to put a dressing on the thing, but it's sufficiently large that I didn't have anything non-fibrous in my office first aid kit.
A trip to the chemist after work and just under £30 later I have three four-inch square gel burn dressings. I've just applied one to the arm and it is definitely the most gross wound covering I've ever seen. Not only that but it's already soaked through the fabric dressing on top. I think I'm going to have to do downstairs to my fencing kit to retrieve one of the crepe bandages for sprained ankles in order to keep this thing properly in place without leaking everywhere. Curiously enough it hasn't hurt all day until I put the dressing on it, which stung somewhat.
Drat - I am so going to have problems showering with this thing on my arm.
2 comments
And oven doors are sometimes hot. I discovered this last night as I went to put the Canadian pizza in the oven (carefully preheated to gas mark 8) when the oven door sprang back up and hit the back of my forearm just below the elbow. Ow, I thought, and immediately went to run it under the shower for a bit. (The shower was the only practical thing given the location of the burn and the kitchen taps.) Not a problem, it didn't hurt for long so I just went back to my stitching and, half an hour later, enjoyed a very good pepperoni pizza.
Today I realised that the burn (although only a surface burn) is a triangle about three inches by two inches, with blisters covering about two thirds of it (one long one, about three inches by half an inch and another a triangle taking up most of the rest of the area). Oops! Well, it was clean and not painful so I just wore a long-sleeved thing to protect it a bit and went into work. All well and good, except that I had a meeting by Skype this afternoon that meant I had to wrestle cables out of my computer and pop went one of the blisters. At this point I decided that I really needed to put a dressing on the thing, but it's sufficiently large that I didn't have anything non-fibrous in my office first aid kit.
A trip to the chemist after work and just under £30 later I have three four-inch square gel burn dressings. I've just applied one to the arm and it is definitely the most gross wound covering I've ever seen. Not only that but it's already soaked through the fabric dressing on top. I think I'm going to have to do downstairs to my fencing kit to retrieve one of the crepe bandages for sprained ankles in order to keep this thing properly in place without leaking everywhere. Curiously enough it hasn't hurt all day until I put the dressing on it, which stung somewhat.
Drat - I am so going to have problems showering with this thing on my arm.
2 comments
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Oh for a fish and chip shop!
Preferably the Auchtermuchtly Chipper.
Unfortunately it's a bit far to go for a takeaway, which is a shame as I could really go a fish supper tonight after a ten-hour day in the office and the lab. Instead I have a Canadian McCains pizza about to go into the oven. The McCains is definitely the best of the larger pizzas although I have a very soft spot for the Chicago Town mini pizzas (3 minutes in the microwave and you're ready to go).
Among the tasks I've wrestled with today was getting stuff into WebCT. Now I know that I said a couple of days ago that WebCT 6 is a great improvement on WebCT4, but in the last few days I have discovered that it still has quite a long way to go. I'm redefining it as having an 'interbelly' - somewhere between an interface and an interarse. If I have the energy I might actually send the creators a note suggesting things that they might improve for WebCT 7. Still, once the stuff is in there it won't take too much in terms of updating in future.
Less and less, though, do I want to sit in front of a computer when I get home. We're now at that time of the year where the nights are obvious once more and the balance between day and night is more normal. This means that I'm back to embroidering at night with the light one, so I'm not doing anything quite as complicated as I do in the summer. I really must see about getting a better side lamp with a daylight bulb in it.
2 comments
Unfortunately it's a bit far to go for a takeaway, which is a shame as I could really go a fish supper tonight after a ten-hour day in the office and the lab. Instead I have a Canadian McCains pizza about to go into the oven. The McCains is definitely the best of the larger pizzas although I have a very soft spot for the Chicago Town mini pizzas (3 minutes in the microwave and you're ready to go).
Among the tasks I've wrestled with today was getting stuff into WebCT. Now I know that I said a couple of days ago that WebCT 6 is a great improvement on WebCT4, but in the last few days I have discovered that it still has quite a long way to go. I'm redefining it as having an 'interbelly' - somewhere between an interface and an interarse. If I have the energy I might actually send the creators a note suggesting things that they might improve for WebCT 7. Still, once the stuff is in there it won't take too much in terms of updating in future.
Less and less, though, do I want to sit in front of a computer when I get home. We're now at that time of the year where the nights are obvious once more and the balance between day and night is more normal. This means that I'm back to embroidering at night with the light one, so I'm not doing anything quite as complicated as I do in the summer. I really must see about getting a better side lamp with a daylight bulb in it.
2 comments
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Two faces of Orion
Last week NASA finally gave a name to the new lunar programme - Orion.
What a shame they're not going to do the name justice. You see, the name already has quite a history behind it. In the late fifties a group of American physicists including the late Freeman Dyson (he of the 'Dyson sphere') came up with plans for an interplanetary spaceship powered by nuclear explosions. The propulsion system would have worked by exploding small nuclear devices of about 0.1 kilotons approximately two hundred feet behind the spaceship. It was funded for some time by the USAF but NASA eventually decided not to contribute and, in doing so, killed the programme in favour of the Apollo programme.
So what has brought on this burst of interest in defunct research projects? Well, as a result of NASA's decision I've offered to give a talk on the original Orion project at Redemption in February. That seems an excellent way of guaranteeing that I actually make it to the convention, I think. :) It gives me a good excuse to buy a couple of books on the subject, which is nice. I've also agreed to give a second talk, this time on Wormhole Physics 101, which should also be fun as I want to do it without too much mathematics.
Hurrah for real science projects!
0 comments
What a shame they're not going to do the name justice. You see, the name already has quite a history behind it. In the late fifties a group of American physicists including the late Freeman Dyson (he of the 'Dyson sphere') came up with plans for an interplanetary spaceship powered by nuclear explosions. The propulsion system would have worked by exploding small nuclear devices of about 0.1 kilotons approximately two hundred feet behind the spaceship. It was funded for some time by the USAF but NASA eventually decided not to contribute and, in doing so, killed the programme in favour of the Apollo programme.
So what has brought on this burst of interest in defunct research projects? Well, as a result of NASA's decision I've offered to give a talk on the original Orion project at Redemption in February. That seems an excellent way of guaranteeing that I actually make it to the convention, I think. :) It gives me a good excuse to buy a couple of books on the subject, which is nice. I've also agreed to give a second talk, this time on Wormhole Physics 101, which should also be fun as I want to do it without too much mathematics.
Hurrah for real science projects!
0 comments
Monday, September 04, 2006
Another completion.
The tudor cap is also finished.
I completed it last night while not watching Bleak House on RÚV. I tried. I really did. I can see that it has wonderful production values, a fantastic cast, great locations and the rest, but I just couldn't get into it. Dickens never was one of my favourite authors, and his particular brand of caricature leaves me cold. So in spite of it being a great drama serial I might just give it a miss. Maybe if it was A Tale of Two Cities I'd enjoy it more.
Still, that's two projects down, a couple more to go. Tonight is another snowflake night. I've had to rescale the diagrams to get them to fit the sequins I've got, but I think that the ones I've done now should fit.
I think I'm going through a phase of trying to complete everything I've promised to other people. This week I've done three rosaries, one collar and one cap. I still have all sorts of other things to do - hats, shirts, various tablet woven things and so on. A very large part of me wants to get everything done and out of the way so that people aren't waiting any longer. Some of this is certainly because I've lost effectively six months of this year and have realised that there's no way I'm going to be able to get all of the things done in time for Christmas that I'd originally planned. Drat.
I'm calm. I'm serene. I will get at least two more things done this week.
0 comments
I completed it last night while not watching Bleak House on RÚV. I tried. I really did. I can see that it has wonderful production values, a fantastic cast, great locations and the rest, but I just couldn't get into it. Dickens never was one of my favourite authors, and his particular brand of caricature leaves me cold. So in spite of it being a great drama serial I might just give it a miss. Maybe if it was A Tale of Two Cities I'd enjoy it more.
Still, that's two projects down, a couple more to go. Tonight is another snowflake night. I've had to rescale the diagrams to get them to fit the sequins I've got, but I think that the ones I've done now should fit.
I think I'm going through a phase of trying to complete everything I've promised to other people. This week I've done three rosaries, one collar and one cap. I still have all sorts of other things to do - hats, shirts, various tablet woven things and so on. A very large part of me wants to get everything done and out of the way so that people aren't waiting any longer. Some of this is certainly because I've lost effectively six months of this year and have realised that there's no way I'm going to be able to get all of the things done in time for Christmas that I'd originally planned. Drat.
I'm calm. I'm serene. I will get at least two more things done this week.
0 comments
Sunday, September 03, 2006
One collar...
... Completed.
For once I've actually done at least part of what I'd planned to do this weekend. I have finally made Jean-Loup's cavalier collar.
I made it using the instructions at The Renaissance Tailor as my basic guidelines. It did, I must admit, take me four or five attempts to pin the 'clocks' in place before I stitched them in place. Eventually I stitched all of the parallel lines first then repinned and stitched the angled edges of the clock in order to ensure that you didn't see too much of the stitching.
The lace around the edge is technically a braid, not a lace, but as everything's hand-stitched it would be easy enough to remove it and replace it with proper lace (I haven't managed to find any out here but I think the pseudo-lace edging looks quite nice). The string is lucet cord in medium crochet thread, the same thread that I used for the tassles.
Unfortunately I've got no excuse to make one of these for myself. :(
2 comments
For once I've actually done at least part of what I'd planned to do this weekend. I have finally made Jean-Loup's cavalier collar.
I made it using the instructions at The Renaissance Tailor as my basic guidelines. It did, I must admit, take me four or five attempts to pin the 'clocks' in place before I stitched them in place. Eventually I stitched all of the parallel lines first then repinned and stitched the angled edges of the clock in order to ensure that you didn't see too much of the stitching.
The lace around the edge is technically a braid, not a lace, but as everything's hand-stitched it would be easy enough to remove it and replace it with proper lace (I haven't managed to find any out here but I think the pseudo-lace edging looks quite nice). The string is lucet cord in medium crochet thread, the same thread that I used for the tassles.
Unfortunately I've got no excuse to make one of these for myself. :(
2 comments
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Musical inversions
I'm listening to Classic FM, and it's got me thinking.
Right now they're playing the chart show, and Classic FM at the Movies is still number after an impressive number of weeks. They've just played The Launch from Apollo 13 by James Horner, a piece (and indeed movie) of which I am quite fond. While I was listening it suddenly occurred to me that although the film score is can be described as the ballet or opera of the modern day, there is a major difference: the overture has been replaced by the end credits.
Historically there were two basic types of overture - the concert overture and the operatic overture. The concert overture is a self-contained piece like Tchaikovsky's 1812, which often tells a story through the use of a number of different themes. This form later developed into the symphonic poem such as Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. The original form, the operatic overture, is used as the introduction to a stage performance and includes all of the main themes that will be heard though the opera or the ballet it precedes.
With a film score the opening credits sequence still serves the function of setting the scene, but no longer needs to contain all of the major themes. Consider the opening to Star Wars. Opening fanfare and main theme. No sign of any of the other leitmotifs used in the score. Admittedly this is an extreme case as Star Wars doesn 't have any of the usual A so-and-so film or the cast names up front, which cuts down the need for a long opening piece, but the principle holds for many other films.
If you want to hear all of the major themes from the movie in a single piece you have to wait until the end credits sequence. As these have got longer and longer with the introduction of larger and larger special effects teams, so the music to cover them has also been extended, and what better way than to reuse the various themes developed within the score to reinforce the memory of on-screen sequences. Originally an opera or ballet would finish with a dramatic crescendo, curtain down and silence, but now the filmmakers want to you stay right to the bitter end so that you can see the name of the third assistant polygon wranger.
The obvious solution then, is to move the overture from the beginning of the film to the end of the film. Now you can have a short piece at the start to set the scene, and a glorious sweeping recapitulation at the end. Problem solved, everybody (including the third assistant polygon wrangler) is happy.
I do like it when something inspires me at the weekend. :)
0 comments
Right now they're playing the chart show, and Classic FM at the Movies is still number after an impressive number of weeks. They've just played The Launch from Apollo 13 by James Horner, a piece (and indeed movie) of which I am quite fond. While I was listening it suddenly occurred to me that although the film score is can be described as the ballet or opera of the modern day, there is a major difference: the overture has been replaced by the end credits.
Historically there were two basic types of overture - the concert overture and the operatic overture. The concert overture is a self-contained piece like Tchaikovsky's 1812, which often tells a story through the use of a number of different themes. This form later developed into the symphonic poem such as Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. The original form, the operatic overture, is used as the introduction to a stage performance and includes all of the main themes that will be heard though the opera or the ballet it precedes.
With a film score the opening credits sequence still serves the function of setting the scene, but no longer needs to contain all of the major themes. Consider the opening to Star Wars. Opening fanfare and main theme. No sign of any of the other leitmotifs used in the score. Admittedly this is an extreme case as Star Wars doesn 't have any of the usual A so-and-so film or the cast names up front, which cuts down the need for a long opening piece, but the principle holds for many other films.
If you want to hear all of the major themes from the movie in a single piece you have to wait until the end credits sequence. As these have got longer and longer with the introduction of larger and larger special effects teams, so the music to cover them has also been extended, and what better way than to reuse the various themes developed within the score to reinforce the memory of on-screen sequences. Originally an opera or ballet would finish with a dramatic crescendo, curtain down and silence, but now the filmmakers want to you stay right to the bitter end so that you can see the name of the third assistant polygon wranger.
The obvious solution then, is to move the overture from the beginning of the film to the end of the film. Now you can have a short piece at the start to set the scene, and a glorious sweeping recapitulation at the end. Problem solved, everybody (including the third assistant polygon wrangler) is happy.
I do like it when something inspires me at the weekend. :)
0 comments
Friday, September 01, 2006
End of week one
And I'm still in one piece - just. :)
I've discovered that part of the job of being head of department here is also the job of departmental secretary. As well as photocopying and stapling the inches and inches of notes for Monday's lecture I also reorganised and relabelled the post drawers (we have drawers rather than pigeonholes) and tried to find out if our exchange students can sit modules from other departments rather than having to do purely computing modules. It occurred to me as I returned to the departmental corridor from the photocopier downstairs that this may be analagous to being self-employed - one job with a multitude of hats, none of which can have your full attention.
Friday is now blocked out in Outlook as being my research day in future, in the hope that I might actually get something done. At last I have some data for the Iceland Express project and I really need some time to analyse it. What's even better is that I can use the data for two purposes - in a survey I've done to discover the general level of computer experience in our students I've also managed to include questions about familiarity with eCommerce.
I already have one student signed up to do his final year project with me, which is nice. OK, so I had a big box of Lego with which to tempt him, but all's fair in love and final year projects. What else was heartening was that another student expressed interest in doing work on the HORUS project. He will probably end up doing a different project but might yet change over, or at the very least see if he can take one of the sub-problems within the project and do it as his coursework for for the pattern recognition module.
And finally I am getting to grips with WebCT, the main course delivery and information system. We had a workshop on it this afternoon and I must admit that the new version is far superior to the old one. I'd used the old one before elsewhere and hated it - it didn't have an interface, it had an interarse. This one, though, looks to be quite usable, so I'll start uploading stuff on Monday. I've got to use to deal with the distance students, so I'm quite glad that I don't have to use the old one.
Now for a quiet weekend. Last night I started JL's cavalier collar, so I'm planning to finish both it and Rebecca's tudor cap over the next couple of days. Beyond that I'm not going to be too ambitious.
2 comments
I've discovered that part of the job of being head of department here is also the job of departmental secretary. As well as photocopying and stapling the inches and inches of notes for Monday's lecture I also reorganised and relabelled the post drawers (we have drawers rather than pigeonholes) and tried to find out if our exchange students can sit modules from other departments rather than having to do purely computing modules. It occurred to me as I returned to the departmental corridor from the photocopier downstairs that this may be analagous to being self-employed - one job with a multitude of hats, none of which can have your full attention.
Friday is now blocked out in Outlook as being my research day in future, in the hope that I might actually get something done. At last I have some data for the Iceland Express project and I really need some time to analyse it. What's even better is that I can use the data for two purposes - in a survey I've done to discover the general level of computer experience in our students I've also managed to include questions about familiarity with eCommerce.
I already have one student signed up to do his final year project with me, which is nice. OK, so I had a big box of Lego with which to tempt him, but all's fair in love and final year projects. What else was heartening was that another student expressed interest in doing work on the HORUS project. He will probably end up doing a different project but might yet change over, or at the very least see if he can take one of the sub-problems within the project and do it as his coursework for for the pattern recognition module.
And finally I am getting to grips with WebCT, the main course delivery and information system. We had a workshop on it this afternoon and I must admit that the new version is far superior to the old one. I'd used the old one before elsewhere and hated it - it didn't have an interface, it had an interarse. This one, though, looks to be quite usable, so I'll start uploading stuff on Monday. I've got to use to deal with the distance students, so I'm quite glad that I don't have to use the old one.
Now for a quiet weekend. Last night I started JL's cavalier collar, so I'm planning to finish both it and Rebecca's tudor cap over the next couple of days. Beyond that I'm not going to be too ambitious.
2 comments