All quiet on the East Didsbury front
Things have been a bit quiet as of late, work keeps me busy during the day and most evenings are spent catching up on admin (e.g. sorting out the upcoming UKUUG conference) or writing academic documents. Not being involved with FoE has freed up a lot of time, but it all seems to have disappeared into /dev/null or somewhere.
On the thesis front I have finally got approval of my first technical report, which basically describes the technical experiment I was asking people to complete back in August (you can even look at the exciting PHP code behind it, should you have nothing better to do this weekend). I have to write one for each experiment, but thankfully they will all be along similar lines so I can hopefully get the other two completed and emailed across by Monday morning.
I also got some feedback on my redrafted thesis chapter, apparently it is along the right lines but reads like a mystery/thriller. In other words, a career as a novelist seems more likely than tenure at the University! Still, it means another rewrite, though a less substantial one than the last time. The final hand in date seems to keep getting pushed back, which is frustrating as I can’t work on anything else, and I think it will now be the end of July before I can hand something in. 
posted by Paul at 9:36pm on Saturday 13th June 2009 | 1 Comment »
UKCOD trustee position
This may be of interest to some people reading this blog: UKCOD, the parent charity of mySociety, is looking for new trustees. I’m not sure how many places are open as the blog post alternates between the plural and the singular, and it’s not clear whether the position is arising out of a need for new trustees now, or because one or more of the existing trustees is standing down.
The current make up of the board, for anyone who is interested in the diversity aspect, is six people, at least five of whom are male (can’t tell with one as s/he hasn’t specified a title) and all of them live in the South of England. Most seem to work in the technology sector and hold directorships on other companies too.
posted by Paul at 12:15pm on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 | No Comments »
Trundling along slowly
Thesis is still trundling along at an embarrassingly slow rate, I just don’t seem to have time to work on it. I have managed to finish another draft of a technical report and email it to my supervisors, but chapters 4 and 5 are still dragging their feet into the ground. Fortunately I think the next few weekends are free for me to make some further progress.
The other thing which I have been thinking about is what to do once I have finished my thesis (it will happen eventually—either that or the deadline will pass!). I still want to carry on learning new things and gaining qualifications, because I genuinely enjoy doing this when it’s a subject of interest (my MA year was by far the most enjoyable of all my time in academia). There are two possibilities: further academic study at a distance learning institution like the Open University or evening classes at a Manchester university, or professional qualifications from bodies such as the British Computer Society, Institution of Engineering and Technology or the Chartered Insurance Institute. Academic study would probably be more enjoyable, but professional qualifications might be more beneficial in terms of work…
posted by Paul at 2:43pm on Monday 25th May 2009 | 3 Comments »
Clear out
I’ve finally finished handing over the membership secretary position of the UK Shareholders’ Association, posting down the last batch of paperwork earlier this week. I enjoyed the role as it was flexible in terms of time and I was interested in the organisation’s work anyway, but it took up just a bit too much time to run it in parallel with my full time job and bits of freelance work.
The next big clear out will involve taking all my research papers to the recycling bin once I’ve (hopefully!) been awarded my MPhil in a few months. At the moment these are spread throughout my lounge in various piles such as ‘papers to cite’ and ‘references to chase up’. In fact, my flat basically consists of enormous amounts of paper, in the form of books and printouts, with a couple of pieces of furniture hiding amongst them.
In terms of my thesis, I now have three chapters (out of a total of six) provisionally approved, to the point where my supervisor has said that he will only need to look at them again once the whole thing has been put together. The analysis is still going slowly, and I’m slightly annoyed that the book on gnuplot which I was hoping to buy has had its release date back put back by two months, but I have the bank holiday weekend to work on that. Perhaps by the end of May I’ll be in a position to submit…
posted by Paul at 4:16pm on Saturday 2nd May 2009 | 1 Comment »
Closer to completion
Still working on my thesis, though it’s getting closer to completion now. I’ve emailed two more draft chapters to my supervisors, so hopefully I will get some feedback at some point and smooth out all the rough edges before a final round or two or proof-reading. I actually enjoy writing it to an extent—especially as I’m starting to get the hang of statistical analysis, thanks to Statistics in a Nutshell—it’s just the feeling that the whole thing is dragging on far longer than it should which annoys me.
I also found out that phpBB is utterly unextendable into a full-blown content management system, so I’m currently laying out a framework for a new version of Rogue Students—something I’ve been meaning to do for some time now. Hopefully once the groundwork is laid I can rapidly add new features such as a decent forum system and the ability for users to submit articles to the site.
In other news, the major change recently is that I stepped down from being a joint coordinator of Manchester Friends of the Earth, which was a tough decision to make but I wasn’t enjoying the role and it was probably time to give someone else a turn at the rudder. It feels strange not to have to deal with FoE work on a daily basis, but I am far less stressed out as a result. I don’t think there are any other opportunities in the pipeline, so hopefully things will stay quiet on the volunteer front until I’ve got my thesis in.
posted by Paul at 3:52pm on Sunday 26th April 2009 | No Comments »
Working from a shed
Saw this article, Garden offices: The hut parade, in the Grauniad. I think I will do this once I have my own house with a sufficiently large garden…
posted by Paul at 10:21pm on Saturday 25th April 2009 | 1 Comment »
Marching on with the thesis
I seem to have spent most of the Easter weekend working on my thesis, which was rather boring but I’ve made lots of progress—one whole chapter is redrafted and emailed to my supervisor, and a technical report template is also on its way. Things are looking much better now, all I have left to do is:
- Move around the existing material in the methodology and discussion chapters.
- Add in some further analysis which says how unique and fantastically brilliant my research is.
- Tidy up the future work chapter so that it all ties together and think of some final mind-blowing conclusions that prove the utility of my work—or at least convince the examiners to give me the degree.
- Finish another technical report discussing how to build/deploy the system.
Lucy also pointed me in the direction of some similar research, which probably doesn’t overlap too much with my work and is sufficiently different to enable me to spend a few paragraphs distancing it from my research.
If I can keep working on the thesis at a reasonable pace, I’m hoping to have a complete draft handed in by the end of April, and the whole shebang to be done by mid-May. There will probably be at least a month between me handing in the thesis for binding and hearing anything back, but once it’s in I can’t do anything else and so won’t need to worry about it.
Finally, whoever took the executive decision to screen the utter rubbish that is Red Dwarf: Back to Earth on Dave this weekend has just been “promoted” to the position of first against the wall when the revolution comes, leapfrogging Michael Grade (crimes against Doctor Who), the people who thought double-spacing in essays/theses looks better (crimes against typesetting) and Gordon Brown (crimes against finance, amongst many other things).
posted by Paul at 10:01pm on Monday 13th April 2009 | 1 Comment »
The joys of London
Since the early hours of Monday morning I have been trapped down south in London. Alas, my train got in late due to a power failure at Milton Keynes (this always seems to be where problems occur), so I had to cancel the morning meeting and arrange to go back again next week instead. On the plus side, I saw Leanne for lunch before she goes away traveling, and spent the evening wandering around London with Laura, although I once again failed to make it to the British Museum, which I keep meaning to see each time I go down but never seem to get to.
The UKUUG Spring 2009 conference, which was my main reason for being down south, seemed to go well. I haven’t looked at the feedback questionnaires in detail yet but everyone said they had a good time and there were no major disasters, although I had to spend a lot of time chasing the venue for various things. We had dinner on HMS Belfast, just hours after Spandau Ballet announced their reunion, which was a pleasant change from the usual hotel-style conference dinners. It’s also the location of “the market” in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, which is well worth a read.
Next week I am down in London on Monday to hand over the membership secretary position which I’ve been performing for the last nine months or so, then back again on Thursday for a UKUUG council meeting and coming back via Birmingham for a board meeting on Friday where I have to give a presentation. I think this month I will have actually spent almost as much time away from Manchester as I have at my flat…
posted by Paul at 11:27pm on Thursday 26th March 2009 | 2 Comments »
Wedding and job
The last few weeks have been dominated by a wedding and a job. I spent a week (more or less, when we managed to get over there!) in Alderney for Nick & Jane’s wedding, which was a fantastic event and a chance for me to relax for a few days afterwards as I decided to stay on. Although a lot of places are technically closed outside of the main tourism period, it turned out that several people I knew on the island had keys, so I still got to see the museum and a guided tour around the island.
Some amusing moments from the trip include:
- My disastrous attempt to vault a gate, which would have succeeded had the gate not been off the latch. Cue a crashing sound and much pain, though I was mostly worried about whether I’d damaged my suit and if anyone had caught it on film (alas, the answer turned out to be “no”).
- The vicar being confused and having to adjust to the fact that apparently I have a Northern accent.
- Everyone dancing in a line to Combine Harvester at Nick’s request. Quite possibly the scariest video footage the world will ever see.
If I hadn’t had a job to start the next week I might have stayed for longer (possibly permanently), which leads me on to some unexpected news… I’ve finally succumbed to the world of employment and got a real job, working as the technical manager for an insurance intermediary. I avoid discussing work on my blog as all sorts of people read it, but so far I’m happy with the role and things seem to going well.
posted by Paul at 7:36pm on Sunday 8th March 2009 | 1 Comment »
Getting back into politics
Now that I’m finally approaching the end of my MPhil (first of many drafts handed in today), I’ve spent the afternoon pondering what I want to do once I’ve been freed from academia and let out into the real world. One of the things I’m interested in is getting back involved with politics, sad thought it might sound I used to really enjoy going to meetings and fighting elections. I’d particularly like to get elected as a councillor or MP, partly because I want to change things for the better and also because I think some, though by no means all, of the incumbents aren’t 100% committed to public service.
The problem is, I can’t find a party which has a reasonable chance of electing people and whose policies I agree with. The Conservatives under Cameron seemed promising at first, particularly on the environment, but I fear he will lurch to the right as the Tory home guard exert their usual pressure on the leadership. I think being active in both the Conservatives and Friends of the Earth might cause some tension too. The return of Ken Clarke to the frontbench though is a step in the right direction, and the promise to block Heathrow’s third runway if the Conservatives get into power gives me some hope.
Given my environmental bent, the Greens should in theory be my party of choice, and they’ve finally made some steps in the right direction such as appointing a proper leader instead of some half-hearted principal speaker nonsense. Surprisingly they seem to be rather Euro-sceptic, against both a European super state and wanting to stay out of the single currency, although I’m not sure how much I’m against the latter nowadays—it’s a subject I want to read up on. On the other hand, the Greens are a tiny minority party with no money and no MPs, which means electoral success is a pipe dream at the moment. However, in some ways that is an advantage as it means fewer people competing for positions.
As for Labour, well I’ve still not forgiven them for tuition and top-up fees, or their recent economic policies which have left me worse off in every single situation because I’m self-employed and rent and save instead of indulging in reckless borrowing. That leaves the Liberal Democrats, whose policies I generally agree with, though I think they lack the strong and effective leadership needed to make a serious impact into the other two parties.
The other major problem with all of the parties is that anyone classed as ‘young’ (usually this means under 30) is automatically swept into a different group such as Young Greens or Conservative Future. I can see advantages to this, but if I’m in a party I want to be taken seriously, not put in a corner just because of my age. In fairness, this didn’t happen too much with the Tories, though that might have been because when I was involved, I was Conservative Future in Bury—I certainly don’t remember anyone my age coming along to meetings.
Hmm, I think I shall have to think about this a bit more, as I don’t feel drawn in any one particular direction at the moment.
posted by Paul at 9:27pm on Tuesday 20th January 2009 | 5 Comments »