Work has been busy and still next week is fully booked already. People are beginning to ask who else to see. I suspect I am going to start a blog on resources for researchers on USpace and see if I find any followers. Maybe I need to think wider than just me and see if the there is some way of doing this cooperatively either with others in the department or even wider. The fact is that most of the useful stuff I have come across has been by a process of trial and error or by odd links. Take the Thesis Whisperer for starters a good blog on the basics of writing a thesis and often where I learn of good process books. Then there was the fact I chanced on a Vitae blog “Whats up doc?” and the guy was worrying over his literature review. Now I know I am not doing a literature review, For a complex thesis like mine, separating the literature out from the rest of the writing seems to add a level of confusion. However he mentioned that the literature review was the introduction. Well ligth bulb moment, I knew that I needed to write and introduction but the clarity of thinking of it as connected with a literature review gives a clarity to the introduction that I had not had before. It still won’t be a literature review but it will probably set the scene in a variety of ways for what comes next.
On Tuesday I was down to Birmingham for the High Powered Computer session on running Window HPC. What we were looking for was a way to run Windows based products in a High powered computing setup. Unfortunately this does not do it. That is not to say it is useless, if as I suspect will be the case, that licensing can be sorted, then I could well see this allowing engineering and such to teach parrellel computing at a lower cost than at present. We would have a small server on site, which is actually all that is needed for over 90% of the time but when a class is in progress we might have the ability to up this quite quickly by connecting in machines over the net to something that is ten times that size. It needs high powered network infrastructure, and licensing by the hour (some companies will be in for a shock when that happens). The other thing I learnt was that there was a communication problem, when I say non-standard user for research machines, I mean people who are from the Arts or the softer end of the social sciences, when Birmingham says that they mean engineers and biologists. The problem is that for us the engineers and such are the chief users of our present Linux based HPC, I can not see any reason to introduce a Windows version for them. It is not widening our customer base. Another thing was the gender balance. The room had about forty people in it, of which two were female; this is the softer end of HPC and people wonder why I refer to it as “toys for the boys”.
For those who want to know, I saw no trouble at all on Tuesday night in Birmingham. The nearest I got to trouble was probably while changing train at New Street, but the trouble was not even that side of the city centre and I did not leave the station. Once off at Selly Oak I really was heading into deepest darkest areas of Quakerdom, not only staying in Woodbrooke Hall but also past at least one Quaker meeting house and en route to Bournville. Now as far as I know it is over two hundred years since the last time Quakers triggered a riot and they never went in for looting, so I was not really worried. For added measures there was the Christian Education offices is just up the road. I was greeted by the Quaker in residence with “You look as if you have come to stay”, I presume referring to the rucksack on my back. Normally I carry a small rucksack and a travel bag but had badly ricked my neck carrying the travel bag the previous weekend so had to find some way that suited me without carrying anything across my body. The simplest way was to take a weekend rucksack and a small light bag for day luggage.
The one effect of the riots was to make people reluctant to go drinking in places near New Street Station, not a problem for me as I needed to catch a 5:00 p.m. train from New Street and by 4:15p.m. I was tired and ready to head home. However the result of this was to find out that in the summer the University of Birmingham campus is dry until 5:15 pm! Well you can go to Spar, buy some drinks and sit on the concourse and drink them (brown paper bags are optional), but there is nowhere that serves a drink. I think its non-conformist roots were showing! With Sheffield there are so many non-university owned pubs on campus, there is no way this could happen.
Friday was Broomhall Breakfast and we had forty nine for breakfast. Actually most of the time we were coping fairly well as we had a good number of workers. Towards the end things got a bit interesting, a local lass who has come quite often in the past and has a sort of pastoral relationship with Sarah came in obviously nervous. So when Sarah came to take over my duties so I could eat my breakfast I pointed her in this girls direction instead. Then one of the breakfasters who had been in hospital with heart problems, came up and said the he was having a heart attack. I told him to sit down and called Jean Dickson out of the kitchen. I was suspicious that this was either him wanting attention, or that he was having some slight angina but was nervous and with that had jumped to the wrong conclusion. I just felt it needed sussing. So suddenly we were two workers down and Mary was having her breakfast when Stuart ran into difficulties copying the service sheet. The rest of Friday I just slept.
Saturday however I woke with a good amount of energy. I went shopping and was functioning pretty well although I forgot what I went to Boots for then walked back out of town. On getting in I happened to glance out of the window on the hall way outside my flat and spot two collard doves nesting on one of the tv aerials (see top of blog) so I went back and took some photos. I think this is the same pair as I saw a couple of weeks ago sitting on top on a lamp post on the close. I also uploaded other photos I have taken over the last few months so feel free to browse on Flickr if you want to. The rest of the day I did normal Saturday things, some supervision admin and so forth.
Today I was at Herringthorpe again and set up my last but one interview for a fortnights times. Otherwise it has been a normal Sunday.
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