Month: July 2005

Ho Hum

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Spending yet another weekend in Leicester. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it†, but I just want to spend a relaxed weekend with Katy and that won't happen for another 2 weeks, and then it won't happen for another month or so. Blergh. Between her operation and my work trips, we probably won't have time to ourselves until the end of september.

Katy's gran is still in the hospital, though she's now on the upwards trail. She's going to be there for a week or two still, but hopefully things are going to sort themselves out. It's weird though. One minute, she's cracking lewd jokes, the next, she's in the middle of a coughing fit. I've been told I'm not to grow old…

And now for something completely different. Katy got a car this weekend:


Rover 414i

It's her parents' old Rover. Since the Rover plant went belly up a few weeks ago, their resale value plummeted. They were offered 300 quid for it, so they decided to give it to Katy instead. It's a bit old, but still in perfect working order. And it's free, so you can't beat the price.

Spent a large part of Saturday walking in town, while Katy and Rita were having a serious girl-talk. My plan was to go read a book I wanted to buy at Waterstones until I got called, but that went south when neither of the books I wanted were there. I ended up wandering for 2 hours, buying coffee and socks.

†Except for the fact that her bed is too small for two psople to sleep comfortably in. Hence, I'm tired and my back isn't really happy with me.

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Conference hell

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I've been holed up in a small lecture hall for the past 2 days, listening to academics drone on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about their pet project.

Observation #1 about conferences:

  • Academics can't speak in public. They drone. They have no social skills to make them interesting.
  • People assume that you know just as much as they do about what you're working on. No, I don't know what LC-QTOF-MS/MS means. Intro slides are not wasted
  • Powerpoint is the evil. Slides should NOT BE YELLOW ON A BLUE BACKGROUND! Also, it's called a bullet point, not a paragraph mark. Condense what you want to say in a single sentence, don't read your fucking slide.
  • The comfort of the seat is inversely proportional to the time you have to spend in it for a session

I have to go back for it. I so don't want to.

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Weekend in Leicester

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Just got back to Cambs from a weekend in Leicester to see Katy's gran in the hospital again. Generally relaxed weekend, except for a bit of coffee house drama. The next weekends are going to be busy. It's Rita's birthday next weekend, mine the one after, Katy needs to be in Leicester the one after that for some pre-op visits, and then she's going to be operated the week after. The weekend after *that*, I'm getting ready to leave for Munich (or is it Geneva, I'm not sure, I need to check). Therefore, busy busy busy.

Just got a bit of a phone update. Katy's gran is less than stellar right now. She seemed tired when we visited her, and she wasn't really better this afternoon. She's not eating and she's losing weight. *sigh* Getting old sucks.

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Oy

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I'm glad it's friday, cause I can't really take any more of this week. Quack. Quack. Quack. We were supposed to release the new version of PRIDE to the general public this week. It didn't happen, and it's not looking good to happen next week either. The problem is that we're waiting for things that are out of our hands.

Pride is a repository of proteomics data. Groups can submit their experimental results for peer review and collaboration. We have tons of data right now but it's all private. The groups haven't published it to the scientific community at large so it's not available yet. The only source of public data we have hasn't given us the data files that will work in the new version, and only they can make them. Joy. We can't release without public data, it's ludicrous.

Other nasty item: Oracle is a pig. We did all our testing on local installations of mySQL on our laptops and it runs fast and smooth. We dump all the data on it and still, it's fine. We dump the same data on Oracle and now the database queries take roughly 60 times more time. What used to take 5 seconds now take 5 minutes. We need to talk to the DBA group to tune our database, but that's not going to happen overnight. We can deploy to a mySQL database on the EBI systems network, but we're waiting for them to greenlight it and give us access.

So, basically, we're waiting on people.

Quack.

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The difference between Americans and Brits

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Brits: We get bombed in the transit system, ok. We'll take our bikes. We need to plod on cause we can't let them win.

Americans: In the wake of today's 4 dud bombings in London, the U.S. House has voted to extend the Patriot Act by a vote of 257-171. This includes 10-year extensions to the two other provisions set to expire on December 31, one allowing roving wiretaps, and another allowing searches of library and medical records.” From CNN

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