Man. Oh yeah.

I think everyone gets them from time to time, and when they come along, you have to just sit back and enjoy it. I try to keep personal guff out of the blog as much as possible, but really, at the moment, I can’t help but say something. I’m riding the wave, and it’s all good.

Basically, everything at the moment is “going right”. The things that comprise the going right may seem like small fish, but put them together and I feel like I’ve got a bigass mofo of a blue whale.

So what are the things that’re going right?

1. Financial situation

For the first time in a long time I’m financially sorted. All my credit cards are paid off, or only have a very small balance on them. My bank accounts all look healthy and I’ll be paid again at the end of the month which will make them look very rosy indeed. I’ll strike off all my overdrafts and be in a position to book an overseas holiday (first real holiday in a long time), enjoy a few creature comforts and live plentifully. This is very fulfilling because I know I’ve worked hard in the last 3 years to achieve this, and bought many nice things during that time (car/motorbike etc.) which I’ve paid for myself off my own back.

2. The weather

The weather is picking up. It’s a beautiful sunny day outside and it’s not cold (but not hot). This is great because it means I can get out on my motorbike again with a vengeance and really enjoy the investment that I put into it. It’s going to get a new exhaust system and new tyres, and a few little touch ups and I’m looking forward to it.

3. Work is going well

Not so much doing the doorman thing, cos that sucks pretty hard. It pays the bills and can be enjoyable at times, but most of the time is dull. But that’s not my real job. No, at work work, i.e. PhD stuff, things are going well.

First off, all the effort and energy I put in to getting my actual work (research, programming and so on) is finally paying off. Now it’s a case of plugging in the data and getting the results out, which is good. I can definitely see the finishing stretch at the moment – I figure I’ll finish this part of my work by the end of March, finish the next stage by the end of April, finish all programming and testing work by the end of May, which will give me 3-4 months to write it all up and submit my thesis by the end of September. And if I submit on time that will be one heck of an achievement, I’m tellin ya. I really feel like I know what I’m doing at the moment, I’m working well with one of my supervisors, and after, for example, getting asked to peer review somebody else’s work as an expert in my field, I’m feeling like the whole PhD thing hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

Secondly, I got confirmation that a paper I submitted to a big international journal has been accepted for publication. This is really great news, not just because the paper itself was a bit ropey (dubious at best, and I wasn’t expecting it to get accepted) but because this has more positive implications other than just being published. Basically, when you submit your thesis for Phd all you’re looking to do is, by a process of peer review, prove that your work is of a certain standard – i.e. that it’s any good. Obviously though, if I have a published paper that has already been peer reviewed and published in a very well respected journal, then the question of whether the work is any good has really already been answered. So this is quite significant. Additionally, since I first submitted the paper the advances in my work have been substantial so it’s more than likely I have at least one or two more papers that I could put out for publication, which is all good stuff for the CV.

4. The future

With work going well, my thoughts often tend toward my future. And I’ve seen a wealth of job opportunities that I could quite easily do. And they look very interesting, and coincidentally, pretty well paid too. So my hard work in doing this PhD looks to be paying off. Knowing that I can see the end of this thing is a really good motivator for getting it all done. I can look forward to the time I’m going to allow myself off after finishing (6.5 years at University on the trot – I need a break…) and then look to the future after that. It’s all quite exciting.

5. A special person (and no I don’t mean they take the special bus)

Last, and certainly by no means least (unless of course you consider that I’m saving the best til last), to the very special person in my life who is possibly reading this… how can it be almost 9 months? But that is not the issue – the fact that you’re there is what’s important, and it is certainly very important to me. So to you… thanks. [You know who you are ].

Anyway, enough gushing, I’m going to get on with some work.

I’m the best. Seriously.

Comments back from one of the referees for a paper I submitted to a big and very well respected journal for the field I work in:

This paper presents a pixel-swapping algorithm to mapping rural land cover objects from fine spatial resolution images. It is a well organized and written paper. The research method is certainly innovative and the results are interpolated clearly. Overall this is a good piece of research work. Everything in the manuscript is perfect. I do not see any revision necessary.

I couldn’t agree more.

Primary school bans pencil cases

BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | Primary school bans pencil cases

A school has banned children from taking pencil cases into class in case they are used to hide sharp weapons.

You have to laugh, I mean you just have to… what’ll be next? No milk at break time in case it’s used to make some sort of explosive? No chalk for the chalkboards? No story time in case it teaches the wrong lessons?

Chilly!

How not to treat your CBR!

(from BossTurbo.com)

ASBO’s

It amuses me somewhat, about the hype and emphasis that the government is putting on its “revolutionary” ASBO’s (Antisocial Behaviour Orders) – the ability of local police and so on to issue on the spot fines and take into custody “yobs” who breach the peace. Lots of publicity and media coverage has been given to this new way of dealing with such people.

But when we were forced to call the police last night, after a group of individuals who we ejected from the club were not only causing trouble, using illegal substances and fighting with the doormen, but then returned a couple of hours later to bombard us with rocks and stones, no-one even showed up to find out what was going on or even take a statement. When we gave an explicit location for the offenders, did anyone go and apprehend the hooligans?

What do you think?

Prank radio request

Apparently the folks at BBC Radio Leicester are easily fooled!

Meaningless links.

A gripe I have with a lot of the blogs/authors/webpages I read are the lack of meaning decipherable from the link text. For example, consider these two sentences:

1) And as I reported before, Mr Matey said this about someone else.

2) And as I reported before, Mr Matey said this about someone else.

Which of those two sentences do you prefer? Do you think in both cases the link texts used in the links mean the same, or is one easier to determine than the other?

I would expect/hope you to say you prefer the second sentence. In my mind, and it’s something I see a lot around the web, the link texts in #1 are much too vague to let you know what you’ll be clicking to if you select either of the links. For example, the second link in #1 could either be a link to the article about what Mr Matey said about someone else, OR, it could be a link about “someone else”. In #2 the potential confusion is considerably lessened, where I’d be 98% confident I’d be going to the article about what Mr Matey said.

Does the same work for the first half of the sentence? Not so much, because it’s not foolproof. But in todays web orientated blogging/authoring culture where things like Pagerank and backlinking are a priority, people use all sorts of regular expressions and blogging tools to fill their pages with links, to increase their search engine rankings and popularity and so on. It’s in these cases that the system often breaks down. Consider this page as a gentle example of what I’m talking about – it’s by no means as bad as I’ve seen.

A day after Syria announced that it will start pulling its troops back from some areas of Lebanon…

That link is to a Guardian news story about the removal of troops from areas of Lebanon. It does not link to the actual announcement Syria made. However, it could have been linking to anything – a definition of the word “announce”, for example. Had it been me, I would have linked it thus:

A day after Syria announced that it will start pulling its troops back from some areas of Lebanon…

Which is more descriptive?