Saturday, 27 February 2010
One Soggy Morning
The park is like a river,
continually it flows,
pausing not once,
onward it goes.
Never caring for any man
be they in sandals or boots,
towards the sea it heads
past grass stems and tree roots.
© Martin Lilley 2009
continually it flows,
pausing not once,
onward it goes.
Never caring for any man
be they in sandals or boots,
towards the sea it heads
past grass stems and tree roots.
© Martin Lilley 2009
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Owl or Lark?
As I have been growing up people have always talked about So'n'So being a morning person or an evening person - commonly known as Larks or Owls. I have also met the odd Nightingale as they shall now be called who spend more of the day sleeping than awake!
Walking into the office this morning at some ungodly hour (it was still dark..) I was struck by the fact that personally I am quite capable of adapting to suit the situation. Maybe the shift work on ships has helped but I can enjoy the day just as much when I get up early late, or even at Midnight.. This led me onto thinking that the labelling of a person is probably more down to their habits than actually when they can physically work better. It is possible that a certain time of day does suit some people, but how did they get to that situation in the first place? Is it simply being used to getting up at a certain time and then switching on mentally so-many-hours after that?
All in all I would suggest that your habits dictate the way you are. Anyone can be anything if they put their mind to it. Otherwise an owl would become a lark when working on the Western Seaboard of the US rather than London... Maybe it is simply conformity which results in our daily lives fitting around others and the working day.
When would you like to work/get up/have your free time? Give yourself a couple of weeks to adapt (just like jet-lag) and you can. Go on, go for it! ;) That is what flexi-time is for.
(This posting is brought to you by PhD-writeup-distractions.sea.sci.swampea)
Walking into the office this morning at some ungodly hour (it was still dark..) I was struck by the fact that personally I am quite capable of adapting to suit the situation. Maybe the shift work on ships has helped but I can enjoy the day just as much when I get up early late, or even at Midnight.. This led me onto thinking that the labelling of a person is probably more down to their habits than actually when they can physically work better. It is possible that a certain time of day does suit some people, but how did they get to that situation in the first place? Is it simply being used to getting up at a certain time and then switching on mentally so-many-hours after that?
All in all I would suggest that your habits dictate the way you are. Anyone can be anything if they put their mind to it. Otherwise an owl would become a lark when working on the Western Seaboard of the US rather than London... Maybe it is simply conformity which results in our daily lives fitting around others and the working day.
When would you like to work/get up/have your free time? Give yourself a couple of weeks to adapt (just like jet-lag) and you can. Go on, go for it! ;) That is what flexi-time is for.
(This posting is brought to you by PhD-writeup-distractions.sea.sci.swampea)
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
SI Units - Systeme Internationale or Systematic Insanity?
SI units or metrification as many of you will know it resulted in the overall adoption of seconds, grams, metres, litres and Pascals in place of the commonly used minutes, pounds/ounces, feet/inches, pints and pounds per square inch. Okay so some parts of the world have developed a certain reluctance in the uptake of these units despite their development way back in 1960 - the UK for one clinging to miles and pounds of fruit and veg. Aren't we backwards ;)
The reason for blogging has been the recent absolute frustration at the overlaps in the system. In this case it concerns the use of the letter k. k as everyone should know represents 1000. However this substitution takes place for one thousand metres (km), grams (kg) and bytes (kb) to mention just a few, but it also gets placed into the number (£3k) as well. Once the idea that something might be wrong gets into my head then I have great trouble proving to myself what the correct way actually is, despite probably using it without thinking for years. In the current situation I have been happily converting km2 to m2 (square kilometres to square metres - 1:1,000,000) for absolutely weeks.. until the idea got into my head (thanks guys...) that km2 could actually mean 1000m2 - i.e 1000 square metres rather than 1 million.
Believe me it messes with your head and the more you think the more you doubt!
The consequences, bar the inevitable overestimating in this case jellyfish abundances and biomass - x grams per m3 suddenly reduces to 1000x less grams per m3..., is that I have been doubting the validity of all the other sources of data I have been using. "Maybe they meant 1 thousand instead of 1 million, maybe they meant something else, how can I tell?". The answer to the later bit is simply that I can't. I have to trust that the published figures are as they were meant to be. Arrrghhh.
All I can say is that at some point in my thesis I am going to define and write in words Exactly what I mean by g 100m3 and km2 so that there can be no confusion with my interpretation of the presumably-correct published history.
What a week!
By the way.. 1 Tonne of jellyfish in a square kilometre is exactly the same density as 1 gram in a square metre. Now convert from T km-2 to g 100m-3 using the web to work out the depth of the water where the samples were taken from... or even better from grams of Carbon m-3 to grams of wet weight per m-3 when the authors haven't provided an equation between one and the other. Good luck!
The reason for blogging has been the recent absolute frustration at the overlaps in the system. In this case it concerns the use of the letter k. k as everyone should know represents 1000. However this substitution takes place for one thousand metres (km), grams (kg) and bytes (kb) to mention just a few, but it also gets placed into the number (£3k) as well. Once the idea that something might be wrong gets into my head then I have great trouble proving to myself what the correct way actually is, despite probably using it without thinking for years. In the current situation I have been happily converting km2 to m2 (square kilometres to square metres - 1:1,000,000) for absolutely weeks.. until the idea got into my head (thanks guys...) that km2 could actually mean 1000m2 - i.e 1000 square metres rather than 1 million.
Believe me it messes with your head and the more you think the more you doubt!
The consequences, bar the inevitable overestimating in this case jellyfish abundances and biomass - x grams per m3 suddenly reduces to 1000x less grams per m3..., is that I have been doubting the validity of all the other sources of data I have been using. "Maybe they meant 1 thousand instead of 1 million, maybe they meant something else, how can I tell?". The answer to the later bit is simply that I can't. I have to trust that the published figures are as they were meant to be. Arrrghhh.
All I can say is that at some point in my thesis I am going to define and write in words Exactly what I mean by g 100m3 and km2 so that there can be no confusion with my interpretation of the presumably-correct published history.
What a week!
By the way.. 1 Tonne of jellyfish in a square kilometre is exactly the same density as 1 gram in a square metre. Now convert from T km-2 to g 100m-3 using the web to work out the depth of the water where the samples were taken from... or even better from grams of Carbon m-3 to grams of wet weight per m-3 when the authors haven't provided an equation between one and the other. Good luck!
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Thoughts for life
The following quote was published in a book by Gwen Moffat 35 years ago (and I can really recommend it if you come across any of her work) all about life in Snowdonia, working as a mountain guide and core values for conserving the environment. See what you think:
"Whether or not their education has been academic and conscious or a wider absorption of basic principles, or both, more and more young people are realising that the old concept of happiness acquired through material possessions is false, that happiness is at least part spiritual, that physical shouldn't be confused with material nor sensual with sexual - and they know that work can be fun" !
Survival Count - Gwen Moffat, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1972
Timeless prose, equally applicable now, as it was then. Hopefully we have made some progress towards the realisation that we can't just exploit the earth without understanding the consequences.
"Whether or not their education has been academic and conscious or a wider absorption of basic principles, or both, more and more young people are realising that the old concept of happiness acquired through material possessions is false, that happiness is at least part spiritual, that physical shouldn't be confused with material nor sensual with sexual - and they know that work can be fun" !
Survival Count - Gwen Moffat, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1972
Timeless prose, equally applicable now, as it was then. Hopefully we have made some progress towards the realisation that we can't just exploit the earth without understanding the consequences.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Jellyfish have a God!
Once in a while something comes along to relieve the mental mathematical breakdown of trying to work out how someone else achieved the listed values for gelatinous biomass when they fail to put in all the data sources or raw data. This morning the relief was in the form of a quote from an otherwise fruitless search in a journal article:
"The abundance and biomass of M. leidyi started to decrease as a result of B. ovata praying;"
(in this case M. leidyi and B. ovata are not characters from the local WI meeting, but species of jellyfish thought to inhabit the Caspian Sea)
So apparently jellyfish pray to the gods and their prayers are answered!
Have a good day :)
Shiganova (2003) Biology Bulletin 30: 180-190 if you are interested! - http://www.springerlink.com/content/vq2p3442w34j8400/
"The abundance and biomass of M. leidyi started to decrease as a result of B. ovata praying;"
(in this case M. leidyi and B. ovata are not characters from the local WI meeting, but species of jellyfish thought to inhabit the Caspian Sea)
So apparently jellyfish pray to the gods and their prayers are answered!
Have a good day :)
Shiganova (2003) Biology Bulletin 30: 180-190 if you are interested! - http://www.springerlink.com/content/vq2p3442w34j8400/
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Cricket Tension - again
How can a man work when there is tension on the wires? The final day of the third test in Cape Town required England to survive for 90 overs without losing all seven wickets remaining. Shades of Cardiff, Australia and Summer 2009..
For much of the day England coped well and scored slowly without losing much ground. However towards the end my work suffered tremendously listening intently to TMS and watching the BBC live text for an alternate view.
To quote my discussion with a friend through the last over:
Martin says:
*6 balls, one wicket...
*5
*"a seagull lands close and wonders what all the fuss is about" Aggers again
*4
*3
*2
*whoop whoop!
*Reviewing the penultimate ball, the commentary team think his missed the bouncer..
*NOT OUT :D:D:D
*One ball left
*hard work listening...
*WE WINNNNNNNN!!!! Onions does it again!!!
*Whooooopie!!!!!
Around the UK great scenes of joy... as England DREW the match! Some people will never understand the fascination of Cricket!
"And Onions has reduced the South Africans to tears... That would normally be too awful a joke to make but I am dancing round the office with my shirt over my head - my judgement has clearly been compromised!"
Cambridge Library: "Just leaped out of my seat in celebration, headphones all over the place, seat flung backwards, and looked straight into the eyes of a woman utterly bewildered. Doubt she expected this on Level 5 North Wing, home of Arabic literature."
What an afternoon! Back to finishing that PhD....
For much of the day England coped well and scored slowly without losing much ground. However towards the end my work suffered tremendously listening intently to TMS and watching the BBC live text for an alternate view.
Frankly an awful lot of emotion expended staring vacantly at a computer screen. I don't think however that I was the only one (quotes from the live text):
From Paul, Spain, TMS inbox: "There's a junction outside my flat. In the middle of it is a piece of metal attached to a pole, advising drivers where each road will take them. I think it could be a sign."
From Adam in Lancs, TMS inbox: "I don't know about Paul, but avidly following live text this afternoon is definitely lowering the standard of IT Support I'm currently providing."
"Any naysayers predicting the demise of Test cricket, eat humble pie. No one-day game can produce this level of tension. Mesmerising stuff."
"My boss has just told me I can go home. Never thought I would say this, but not a chance."
To quote my discussion with a friend through the last over:
Martin says:
*6 balls, one wicket...
*5
*"a seagull lands close and wonders what all the fuss is about" Aggers again
*4
*3
*2
*whoop whoop!
*Reviewing the penultimate ball, the commentary team think his missed the bouncer..
*NOT OUT :D:D:D
*One ball left
*hard work listening...
*WE WINNNNNNNN!!!! Onions does it again!!!
*Whooooopie!!!!!
Around the UK great scenes of joy... as England DREW the match! Some people will never understand the fascination of Cricket!
"And Onions has reduced the South Africans to tears... That would normally be too awful a joke to make but I am dancing round the office with my shirt over my head - my judgement has clearly been compromised!"
Cambridge Library: "Just leaped out of my seat in celebration, headphones all over the place, seat flung backwards, and looked straight into the eyes of a woman utterly bewildered. Doubt she expected this on Level 5 North Wing, home of Arabic literature."
What an afternoon! Back to finishing that PhD....
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