Well in Cambridge over the past couple of days it has been pretty windy - the back-end of an Atlantic hurricane (well, post-tropical depression) is off the west coast of Ireland and so we've received a bit of the brunt. Most of the actual gale-force winds are off the coasts of Ireland and Wales, but it's still been blustery here. The problem with this is that Cambridge has a lot of trees - some old, some new, and most with some form of hard fruit on them.
Most probably know the tale of Newton's "eureka!" moment, when he was sitting under a tree and an apple fell on his head, causing him to realise that gravity was a fundamental force that could be described using his second law of motion (F=ma, or in this case F=mg). You can see the tree and its story in the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens, just east (and a little south) of the Engineering Department on Trumpington Street. This story may or may not be true, but today I realised that I'm in no doubt as to whether or not Sir Newton received a blow to the head from a falling tree seed.
Cycling in to work this morning was more like going through a military obstacle course - weaving in between the fallen chestnuts on the floor (and some other green spiky objects which I wasn't sure about - I don't know my trees!) and at the same time trying to avoid falling nuts and branches. Probably the worst part is the wind kicking up little bits of dust and leaves into your eyes. All in all, a pretty rough ride compared to the usual peace in the flat lands of Cambridgeshire!
As I got back to college I head a loud "thunk" as a chestnut fell out of the tree and hit a Volvo parked just next to where I was. I couldn't help but wonder if someone else more fated than I received a bump to the noggin today, and whether or not that would push them to some scientific epiphany!
Monday, 12 September 2011
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
It's all rubbish, ain't it?
(title stolen from the Fast Show. Rubbish!)
I'm always one to have a bit of a giggle at my Mum for playing the lottery every week - she has played it every week for as long as I can remember, usually 3 tickets each time. I usually take the Dr. Cox (from Scrubs) approach of telling her that "I've already burned a pile of money this morning, so I've got none spare" when she asks if I'd like a ticket.
As a maths man, I could never accept the probabilities and the odds of the lottery. I've convinced myself that given the minute chance of winning the lottery, the best strategy for long-term financial gain (I suppose "gain" is the wrong word here; "stability" is probably better) is simply to pocket the money not spent on the lottery and place it in a savings account. Although at the back of my mind is this constant nag that perhaps I could be lucky and one day win big, and of course that would then erase any financial trouble or any expenditure on tickets in the past. It's a funny psychological phenomenon that when the jackpot has rolled over to a very large amount, more people enter as they genuinely believe that it could be their chance to win. In reality, the chances of winning are of course exactly the same as before. But that "what it?" still lurks in the back of the mind . . .
Websites like TopCashBack are excellent for nagging thoughts like this, as you can get cashback on purchasing lottery tickets so you don't feel so dirty (mathematically). I tried it once - £4 cashback for £5 spent, so essentially you pay for one ticket and get five chances. Unsurprisingly enough, I won a grand total of zero pounds that week.
So I was all ready to ditch my grand dreams of winning the lottery and buying myself a nice guitar, when I came across another site through TCB, called Search Lotto (http://www.searchlotto.co.uk/index.php?rid=19609). If you remember all those years ago when P2C sites were big (Pay-to-Click) - it's among similar lines. You make searches on the websites, and earn points for doing so - the unique thing about this site is that 25 searches earns you one entry to the lottery. Not quite so simple, as actually you are entered into a syndicate of 10 people - but still entered nonetheless. 10 searches a day count towards the 25 search limit, up to a maximum of 50 per week. The search is done via Yahoo, so I use it as per usual during the day to get through my 10 a day without sitting down and wasting time unnecessarily.
I think this is quite a nifty website, and now means that when mum tells me that "you have to be in it to win it" (thank you, Lotto advertising people) I can tell her that I am in it, but I've not paid anything to do so. I'm pretty sure that in the distant future I will not win big on the Lotto, but my mind rests at ease to know that I'm not spending money on it, but that slight chance of actually winning has also been taken care of by just searching a few times a day. Give it a try! You never know. (although you probably do)
(quite late edit - I noticed today that a "Mr. D from Cambridge" had won something on the lottery via this method today - unfortunately not me!)
I'm always one to have a bit of a giggle at my Mum for playing the lottery every week - she has played it every week for as long as I can remember, usually 3 tickets each time. I usually take the Dr. Cox (from Scrubs) approach of telling her that "I've already burned a pile of money this morning, so I've got none spare" when she asks if I'd like a ticket.
As a maths man, I could never accept the probabilities and the odds of the lottery. I've convinced myself that given the minute chance of winning the lottery, the best strategy for long-term financial gain (I suppose "gain" is the wrong word here; "stability" is probably better) is simply to pocket the money not spent on the lottery and place it in a savings account. Although at the back of my mind is this constant nag that perhaps I could be lucky and one day win big, and of course that would then erase any financial trouble or any expenditure on tickets in the past. It's a funny psychological phenomenon that when the jackpot has rolled over to a very large amount, more people enter as they genuinely believe that it could be their chance to win. In reality, the chances of winning are of course exactly the same as before. But that "what it?" still lurks in the back of the mind . . .
Websites like TopCashBack are excellent for nagging thoughts like this, as you can get cashback on purchasing lottery tickets so you don't feel so dirty (mathematically). I tried it once - £4 cashback for £5 spent, so essentially you pay for one ticket and get five chances. Unsurprisingly enough, I won a grand total of zero pounds that week.
So I was all ready to ditch my grand dreams of winning the lottery and buying myself a nice guitar, when I came across another site through TCB, called Search Lotto (http://www.searchlotto.co.uk/index.php?rid=19609). If you remember all those years ago when P2C sites were big (Pay-to-Click) - it's among similar lines. You make searches on the websites, and earn points for doing so - the unique thing about this site is that 25 searches earns you one entry to the lottery. Not quite so simple, as actually you are entered into a syndicate of 10 people - but still entered nonetheless. 10 searches a day count towards the 25 search limit, up to a maximum of 50 per week. The search is done via Yahoo, so I use it as per usual during the day to get through my 10 a day without sitting down and wasting time unnecessarily.
I think this is quite a nifty website, and now means that when mum tells me that "you have to be in it to win it" (thank you, Lotto advertising people) I can tell her that I am in it, but I've not paid anything to do so. I'm pretty sure that in the distant future I will not win big on the Lotto, but my mind rests at ease to know that I'm not spending money on it, but that slight chance of actually winning has also been taken care of by just searching a few times a day. Give it a try! You never know. (although you probably do)
(quite late edit - I noticed today that a "Mr. D from Cambridge" had won something on the lottery via this method today - unfortunately not me!)
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
If ever there was a time to use Twitter . . .
As I assume people know, there are currently a series of riots going on in the UK in the major cities (or more accurately, in areas of low socio-economic status in inner cities of the UK). Now, if ever, is a time to use Twitter. I've never engaged with it before, always seen it as something as a passing-by interest but nothing I'd do myself. Last night it was amazing to watch the riots unfold in real-time on Twitter - unfortunately being essentially a large server of Chinese whispers meant that the vast majority of "tweets" are just rumours. It's good that the police constabularies use the service to debunk the rumours though - Derbyshire and Leicestershire were two such services.
The people doing the rioting are lowest of the low. There is a quintessentially succinct phrase that springs to mind: "don't shit where you eat". Why is it that the rioters/looters (sorry, BBC, "protesters") are targeting small family businesses and a couple of smaller chain companies? It is heartbreaking to see family businesses that have been run for decades destroyed overnight by brainless thugs.
I think that the Met Police have done an excellent job in handling the situation. In a way, if they had gone in heavy-handed on Saturday night then it probably would have quelled things down and then resulted in a much larger uprising against police brutality. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for them, and I sympathise with that. Hopefully with the police out in force tonight, they will be more "robust" (nudge nudge wink wink) and teach the looters that the biggest, baddest gang in London is the Met police.
The Cambridgeshire police seem to have gone south to join their London pals - the only place where there may be an issue with rioting here will be Peterborough. Cambridge need not worry - its residents are decent folk, and the University folk of course tend to be somewhat more cultured and intelligent than the idiots rioting in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. I suppose that we should probably touch on race given that generally the lower-socioeconomic groups in the inner cities are minority groups; without wishing to get too deep I shall just say that the largest minority group in Cambridge is by far the Chinese. So, we will not have any problems here. Just delicious food and brilliant mathematicians!
The people doing the rioting are lowest of the low. There is a quintessentially succinct phrase that springs to mind: "don't shit where you eat". Why is it that the rioters/looters (sorry, BBC, "protesters") are targeting small family businesses and a couple of smaller chain companies? It is heartbreaking to see family businesses that have been run for decades destroyed overnight by brainless thugs.
I think that the Met Police have done an excellent job in handling the situation. In a way, if they had gone in heavy-handed on Saturday night then it probably would have quelled things down and then resulted in a much larger uprising against police brutality. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for them, and I sympathise with that. Hopefully with the police out in force tonight, they will be more "robust" (nudge nudge wink wink) and teach the looters that the biggest, baddest gang in London is the Met police.
The Cambridgeshire police seem to have gone south to join their London pals - the only place where there may be an issue with rioting here will be Peterborough. Cambridge need not worry - its residents are decent folk, and the University folk of course tend to be somewhat more cultured and intelligent than the idiots rioting in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. I suppose that we should probably touch on race given that generally the lower-socioeconomic groups in the inner cities are minority groups; without wishing to get too deep I shall just say that the largest minority group in Cambridge is by far the Chinese. So, we will not have any problems here. Just delicious food and brilliant mathematicians!
Friday, 1 July 2011
July
Thought it was about time to update the blog again - we've made it through the busiest month of the year now for academics and everything else now frees up over the summer holidays whilst the kids are home. (sorry, the undergraduates/postgraduates) Not quite so simple for my two supervisors unfortunately, one of whom is a pro-vice chancellor of the university (and thus works all year around) and the other who is an examinations officer for the Department of Engineering. They signed up for it, I suppose!
We had a mini-conference in Cambridge this week for the CASTech project (Catalytic Advances in Sustainable Technology) which was only bettered by the food at the Cavendish Labs (kidding) and the spectacularly-timed thunderstorm on Tuesday. One of the academics at the Magnetic Resonance Research Centre put up a slide with a (very) large set of complex linear algebra equations and a huge clap of thunder went directly overhead! No such dramatics for my presentation, however. For those interested, it was a 30-minute talk on "Computational fluid dynamic simulations of the hydrodynamics of trickle-bed reactors with validation using magnetic resonance imaging techniques". Short and snappy, as ever.
I'm just getting into the minefield now of techniques for predicting variable-density liquid flows, which will become important once I start considering reaction. The assumption of incompressibility is out of the window once you have strong exo/endothermic reactions going on, unfortunately. I'm about to finally start developing the new code PULSAR and shaping it the way I want it. These big milestones are always very difficult to start, but once I get started on them I find that it takes up all of my attention!
Just as a side note to physicists - why don't you ever develop your equations of state to match fairly ambient conditions? Peng-Robinson was a nightmare to get converging for a 1-atm water solution at 25 degrees C . . .
We had a mini-conference in Cambridge this week for the CASTech project (Catalytic Advances in Sustainable Technology) which was only bettered by the food at the Cavendish Labs (kidding) and the spectacularly-timed thunderstorm on Tuesday. One of the academics at the Magnetic Resonance Research Centre put up a slide with a (very) large set of complex linear algebra equations and a huge clap of thunder went directly overhead! No such dramatics for my presentation, however. For those interested, it was a 30-minute talk on "Computational fluid dynamic simulations of the hydrodynamics of trickle-bed reactors with validation using magnetic resonance imaging techniques". Short and snappy, as ever.
I'm just getting into the minefield now of techniques for predicting variable-density liquid flows, which will become important once I start considering reaction. The assumption of incompressibility is out of the window once you have strong exo/endothermic reactions going on, unfortunately. I'm about to finally start developing the new code PULSAR and shaping it the way I want it. These big milestones are always very difficult to start, but once I get started on them I find that it takes up all of my attention!
Just as a side note to physicists - why don't you ever develop your equations of state to match fairly ambient conditions? Peng-Robinson was a nightmare to get converging for a 1-atm water solution at 25 degrees C . . .
Friday, 17 June 2011
Spring has finally arrived!
Maybe an odd thing to say halfway through June, but spring has finally arrived! The UK had a ridiculously warm and dry couple of months instead of the traditional spring showers in April/May, and it looks like the rain is all finally catching up with us. Just in time for the undergraduate exams / May Balls / graduation ceremonies as well! It's been thoroughly miserable here in Cambridge for the last few days, and it's supposed to continue into next week. I shall remain grumpy as ever as I shall be doing research all through the summer holidays anyway (no more summer holidays ever as I am no longer an undergrad!) - in fact I shall be a little less grumpy because I will actually get time to do some of my own research for a change!
I saw The Hangover: Part 2 last weekend. That in itself is not exciting (although I did enjoy the film) - the exciting thing for me is that the film was shown on a "digital screen". It's all very odd - somewhat like the transition from LP to CDs all those years ago, or VHS to DVD not so long ago. At first you don't really notice anything - it's still a film projected onto a large screen (same size) with surround-sound audio blaring out all around you. Then you suddenly notice - the audio is much crisper (DTS?) and the picture is absolutely crystal-clear.
Do I like this? . . . I'm not sure. I feel somewhat nostalgic about when you go to the cinema and you see the flickers on the screen, those black spots from the reel appearing in random places and the odd crackle in the audio. It feels like this is my "format reborn" moment - I was too young really to go from LP to CD as I went straight from tape to CD. That was much better as tapes were in general dreadful quality. Even VHS -> DVD was one I largely avoided as I tended to watch a lot of videos on the PC (back on Windows 95!) and so I was already accustomed to digital format videos. The codecs back then were pretty terrible though - or good I suppose as they had to compress the video down to a tiny size to fit on your 200 mb hard drive!
I saw The Hangover: Part 2 last weekend. That in itself is not exciting (although I did enjoy the film) - the exciting thing for me is that the film was shown on a "digital screen". It's all very odd - somewhat like the transition from LP to CDs all those years ago, or VHS to DVD not so long ago. At first you don't really notice anything - it's still a film projected onto a large screen (same size) with surround-sound audio blaring out all around you. Then you suddenly notice - the audio is much crisper (DTS?) and the picture is absolutely crystal-clear.
Do I like this? . . . I'm not sure. I feel somewhat nostalgic about when you go to the cinema and you see the flickers on the screen, those black spots from the reel appearing in random places and the odd crackle in the audio. It feels like this is my "format reborn" moment - I was too young really to go from LP to CD as I went straight from tape to CD. That was much better as tapes were in general dreadful quality. Even VHS -> DVD was one I largely avoided as I tended to watch a lot of videos on the PC (back on Windows 95!) and so I was already accustomed to digital format videos. The codecs back then were pretty terrible though - or good I suppose as they had to compress the video down to a tiny size to fit on your 200 mb hard drive!
Sunday, 5 June 2011
The stress of moving . . .
Just on the road back to Cambridge from Milton Keynes again. This weekend the major focus was trying to find my partner a new place to live - last week she went from being the only person in her house to being a bit of a cog-in-the-machine - a Latvian family of around 8 people moved in suddenly with no prior warning from the landlord! (I thought it was a bit fishy that the landlord had repainted a couple of rooms - he isn't exactly the most utilitarian of people . . .) So we lined up on Friday trying to find places - http://uk.easyroommate.com seemed to be the best/most reliable bet - and went to three viewings to try and desperately find a place.
First room was nice - double room in a detached house - but quite expensive at £370 not including bills. (for reference, my partner currently pays £300 inc.bills - wanting to move to a nicer area means that she had to up her rent a little) The housemate was nice (and actually British!) as he was a support worker for autistic people, so he had that natural caring/friendly streak. The price was a shame really - if it had been reasonable (£370 inc bills) then I probably would have pushed her to see that. Second room was cheap (£320 inc bills) but it was in a small terraced house that looked like it didn't belong - the estate was all semi-detached and this house had been kind of "wedged" in between the two semis on either side. Both housemates were Polish and the room/house looked a little worse for wear.
The final house (which she took in the end) was a "tardis house" - looked quite small from outside but then suddenly expanded when you walked into it! The garage is open (that probably makes little sense) and has a landing above it, so it is a 4-bedroom end terrace house. It's got a large kitchen and bathroom (even with a jacuzzi!) and a nice conservatory & living room. To top it off there is a very large garden and even a gas BBQ for when we want to have a bit of a grill (but can't be bothered for the whole hog of heating charcoals). The live-in landlord is a ski instructor - handy as my partner wants to learn to ski - who has been divorced for a few months so he now has extra room in his house (unfortunately).Slightly expensive at £370/mo inc bills but easily worth the extra for the quality of the house - very clean and tidy too as the landlord lives there.
The whole episode reminded me of just how stressful it is to find a new place. You look on the internet and it looks like there are thousands of places but by the time you filter them all out, you're left with 3 or 4 (if you're lucky!) places, none of which match your criteria perfectly. You then have to find a way of contacting people (sneaky room mate websites usually need one of you to sign up to it) and have a prod around auspiciously. I suppose we were lucky in that MK has no student population - this removes a lot of the volatility in the market and means that you're not facing as much competition. On the flip side there are lots of young couples so there is demand from that segment in the market, but they will tend to look for a 1-bed flat / 2-bed house as opposed to a room in a shared house.
Thankfully all out of the way so she can have a good rest next weekend - no more 4am wake ups from the loud children & dogs! For me it is presentation time next week and completing my CPGS essay (first year PhD report essentially) - things will suddenly become much more free after the next couple of weeks.
First room was nice - double room in a detached house - but quite expensive at £370 not including bills. (for reference, my partner currently pays £300 inc.bills - wanting to move to a nicer area means that she had to up her rent a little) The housemate was nice (and actually British!) as he was a support worker for autistic people, so he had that natural caring/friendly streak. The price was a shame really - if it had been reasonable (£370 inc bills) then I probably would have pushed her to see that. Second room was cheap (£320 inc bills) but it was in a small terraced house that looked like it didn't belong - the estate was all semi-detached and this house had been kind of "wedged" in between the two semis on either side. Both housemates were Polish and the room/house looked a little worse for wear.
The final house (which she took in the end) was a "tardis house" - looked quite small from outside but then suddenly expanded when you walked into it! The garage is open (that probably makes little sense) and has a landing above it, so it is a 4-bedroom end terrace house. It's got a large kitchen and bathroom (even with a jacuzzi!) and a nice conservatory & living room. To top it off there is a very large garden and even a gas BBQ for when we want to have a bit of a grill (but can't be bothered for the whole hog of heating charcoals). The live-in landlord is a ski instructor - handy as my partner wants to learn to ski - who has been divorced for a few months so he now has extra room in his house (unfortunately).Slightly expensive at £370/mo inc bills but easily worth the extra for the quality of the house - very clean and tidy too as the landlord lives there.
The whole episode reminded me of just how stressful it is to find a new place. You look on the internet and it looks like there are thousands of places but by the time you filter them all out, you're left with 3 or 4 (if you're lucky!) places, none of which match your criteria perfectly. You then have to find a way of contacting people (sneaky room mate websites usually need one of you to sign up to it) and have a prod around auspiciously. I suppose we were lucky in that MK has no student population - this removes a lot of the volatility in the market and means that you're not facing as much competition. On the flip side there are lots of young couples so there is demand from that segment in the market, but they will tend to look for a 1-bed flat / 2-bed house as opposed to a room in a shared house.
Thankfully all out of the way so she can have a good rest next weekend - no more 4am wake ups from the loud children & dogs! For me it is presentation time next week and completing my CPGS essay (first year PhD report essentially) - things will suddenly become much more free after the next couple of weeks.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
That time of year . . .
It's that time of year when things get very busy in the academic world - final examinations for the undergrads. It seems strange to think that a whole academic year has already gone by - but the academic year is very short for Cambridge undergrads (a whole 21 weeks!) so in essence it's actually about half of the year for myself. The summer holidays are somewhat of a blessing in disguise as there are no undergrads running around, which means no interruptions, no marking and no supervisions or tutorials!
Oxford has the slightly perverse tradition that undergrads wear gowns to their examinations - thankfully Cambridge does not share the same tradition. Unfortunately, the examiners have to wear the gowns - which means that myself, as an invigilator, will have to wander around Cambridge for a few days in my BA status gown. This is one of the put-me-downs of the system - as I did not get my undergrad degree from here, I'm not entitled to 1) wear my colours of my subject (MEng) and 2) wear the gown corresponding to my status (Masters graduate; but <24 years old so have to wear a BA gown). So I shall walk around the exam room and no doubt the undergrads will know that they are being examined by a "dirty" academic!
Although the joke is on them. I attended a student-supervisor dinner at Robinson College last week (food/wine was excellent as always) and most of the fellows on the table are fellow "dirty" academics. My supervisor, who was previously the head of department and is now the pro-vice chancellor for research, graduated from Bristol as an undergrad before doing her PhD at Cambridge. She told me that when she applied for her PhD, she was told in no unerring fashion that "if a Cambridge student wants to do it, then we will give it to them instead." Luckily it wasn't the case, and Cambridge didn't lose one of the brightest academics of that generation! It perhaps explains why she told me the first time I met her that they preferred to take on non-Cambridge undergraduates for PhD positions in the department - I presume that it's probably a "fresh blood" sort of thing as well.
My other supervisor is filthy in comparison - St. Andrews undergraduate and UMIST (now University of Manchester) PhD student. Transferred to Cambridge soon after and has stayed there since, becoming a Professor recently. It's all a confusing game!
Oxford has the slightly perverse tradition that undergrads wear gowns to their examinations - thankfully Cambridge does not share the same tradition. Unfortunately, the examiners have to wear the gowns - which means that myself, as an invigilator, will have to wander around Cambridge for a few days in my BA status gown. This is one of the put-me-downs of the system - as I did not get my undergrad degree from here, I'm not entitled to 1) wear my colours of my subject (MEng) and 2) wear the gown corresponding to my status (Masters graduate; but <24 years old so have to wear a BA gown). So I shall walk around the exam room and no doubt the undergrads will know that they are being examined by a "dirty" academic!
Although the joke is on them. I attended a student-supervisor dinner at Robinson College last week (food/wine was excellent as always) and most of the fellows on the table are fellow "dirty" academics. My supervisor, who was previously the head of department and is now the pro-vice chancellor for research, graduated from Bristol as an undergrad before doing her PhD at Cambridge. She told me that when she applied for her PhD, she was told in no unerring fashion that "if a Cambridge student wants to do it, then we will give it to them instead." Luckily it wasn't the case, and Cambridge didn't lose one of the brightest academics of that generation! It perhaps explains why she told me the first time I met her that they preferred to take on non-Cambridge undergraduates for PhD positions in the department - I presume that it's probably a "fresh blood" sort of thing as well.
My other supervisor is filthy in comparison - St. Andrews undergraduate and UMIST (now University of Manchester) PhD student. Transferred to Cambridge soon after and has stayed there since, becoming a Professor recently. It's all a confusing game!
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