Archives
June 30, 2006
Scan scan scan (cont)
Naturally, after yesterday's network installation of new virus scanning software to my work PC nothing works now that I've rebooted. I've spent most of this morning either waiting for File Explorer to wake up or trying to view an Excel sheet. I'm seeing a lot of those joyless "(Not Responding)" tags on the end of explorer windows. Fun.
Hosting Limits
For the first time I had an automated warning email this morning, telling me that my hosting space is about to reach it's transfer limit. I have a 10GB transfer limit on the server space that I rent for a bunch of websites (including this one) and this is normally plenty. The culprit is cardifftri.net, which has sucked up almost 5GB of data transfer alone. That site has become pretty popular for a small, local sporting club's website. Typically it's also using up almost half of the available storage space too (lots and lots of photos). I think their hosting costs are going to be going up soon.
June 29, 2006
Scan scan scan
I'm not PC bashing, really I'm not, and I do understand some of the problems of running the same operating system as 90% of the rest of the world. You see my office PC has just had a network-delivered install of Symantec anti-virus software. This is on top of the Windows Defender beta, Zone Alarm's software firewall, Ad-aware, Hijack This, SpamBayes' anti-spam software and who knows what else. My PC always seems to be scanning itself for spyware, viruses, trojans, malware, spam, iffy cookies, adware and the rest of it. Scan, scan, scan. Really there's no wonder I gave up on the PC as a platform for getting any work done on.
June 28, 2006
More bricks
This time Jack has built the Doodlebops' bus. (In fact he built and rebuilt it many, many times).
The Paranormalists
Currently listening to podcast:
The Legend of Brown Willy-Part 1 from the album "The Paranormalists" by Crocanapple Productions.
June 27, 2006
Working from home
I'm working from home today for a couple of reasons (one of them being time-related). I'm writing web stuff for the medicine students as fast as I can, and I can do that easily from my study. Unfortunately the room is still looking really bland. We've had problems with the finish on the walls of this new house, with no-one able to solve them. There are arguments as to whether the problem is paint or plaster related, but until they're solved we can't paint the colours we want or put the carpets down. Usually my study walls are covered by 9" x 6" prints of some of my favourite photos that I have taken, but because they have to keep coming down when the house gets repainted (I've lost count of how many times they've done that) I'm reticent about putting more than a handful up. I've got 4 computers in the room, 2 being used today. When the room is complete I should have a longer desk with more space for a larger monitor for photo and video work, and the speakers for my gaming rig will be properly placed.
Other than that it's a nice room, with lots of cupboard space for all my crap and on the same floor as the living room. My music collection gets streamed over my wifi network to the PC when I'm working, and I'm about as connected as I can be to the rest of the world and to my family all in one place.
June 26, 2006
Anatomy Finished
Today was the last anatomy session for the current first years (I think they were quite happy with that). That's it, the teaching is over for another year. I've still got some web-based revision exercises to add to for them before they sit the exam, but they have been taught all the anatomy that they need to know to practice medicine. Quite a milestone.
All they have to do now is prove to me that they've learnt it all by passing their last anatomy exam in 2 weeks time. Good luck!
June 25, 2006
June 24, 2006
June 23, 2006
Doodlebops
Jack's into the Doodlebops at the mo (to the point of obsession) so he built their set out of bricks. He was very proud. Don't worry, he's still a massive Gorillaz fan.
My Nikon is getting shiny spots where my thumb sits. It's up to almost 8000 photos so far and must be one of the best things I've ever bought.
Dr Bishop et al
Jo and family popped in to the office today. Baby Bradley is doing very well. Great to see them!
Staff v Student Football
Unfortunately I missed the School of Medicine staff vs student football tournament this week. It was billed as the start of a range of tournaments between staff and student groups, so I hope to attend the future games. I wasn't actually planning to play, but I was looking forward to taking lots of action photos. It looks as though there was an excellent turn out, so I'm guessing this will continue strongly particularly as there is a champions' cup for the students to gibe us about.
Oh well, maybe next time. I'm not used to shooting football matches (more usually cyclists, swimmers & runners) so it should be a challenge.
End of term
The 1st year medicine students are approaching the end of term, and the end of their first year. It's a long, tough year, but they have one more teaching week next week, a reading week, and then a week of exams. They have some more work to do after that, but we won't be directly teaching them in lectures. Resit exams will be held in August, and then the new batch start at the beginning of September, so in fact there's little respite for us teachers. We're already preparing for next year.
As a side note, Jo Bishop tells me that her planned return date is 22nd January. The first term of anatomy and all of the exams will be mine to prepare then. I hope I can survive that long!
June 21, 2006
Windy
I thought it was windy last night - this tree came down on the Clyne Valley cycle path. My poor new tree in my garden was getting blown all over the place.
June 20, 2006
Royal Visit
The Prince of Wales will be visiting Swansea University at the beginning of next month. He's not interested in the School of Medicine though, more the Institute of Environmental Sustainability.
June 17, 2006
Medsoc Summer Ball
Here's a photo of Clive delivering an on-form after dinner speech at last night's Medsoc summer ball. An entertaining evening beside the sea (in true Swansea style) at the Oxwich hotel. Thanks for inviting us lecturers!
June 15, 2006
Cardiff Tri Chair
Dave "Gumby" Gunthorpe has stepped down as Cardiff Triathletes' Chairman. I think it's a fairly time-consuming and tough chair to sit in, and Jeff made it look easy for years and years. Thanks for all your hard work and effort, Gumby. Does this mean the pressure's off me to sort out the website?
Next!
Vader
Guess who's under the Vader lid.
Jack visited his new school for the first time yesterday. I went with him, and it was a struggle to get him to leave. He'll be starting (mornings only) in September, and he has made a bunch of new friends already. I think it will suit him perfectly - he needs as much new information as he can get.
June 14, 2006
New Spaced DVD
What the hell is this all about? A new compilation DVD box set for Spaced? They're a bit late for cashing in on Shaun of the Dead, so are they trying to tell us that it's over (after promising a third series) or are they suggesting that a new series is being considered? Simon Pegg, you are a tease.
June 13, 2006
June 12, 2006
Sunny Weekends
I didn't blog on the weekend, probably because I finally fixed my gaming PC. I'd like to point out that my watercooling rig didn't actually cause any damage. Sure, the radiator leaked, but the graphic card was the only thing that got dripped on, and it survived. The damage was caused by me swapping bits around PCs, and prioritising the home theatre PC over the gaming PC (who'd have guessed - TV over games?) The motherboard was dying (not my fault) and I burnt out a CPU because the huge copper heatsink I placed on it wasn't actually completely flush. I checked it twice, but didn't find out until I smelled roasting silicon. It must have been microns out on one edge, the heatsink held up by some large capacitors.
Radiator replaced, new motherboard, new CPU (all cheap replacement parts), and I completed F.E.A.R. over the weekend, patched and scored a few points on Battlefield 2, and downloaded Half-Life 2 Episode 1. Battlefield 2 is getting harder to score in, as Jack now insists we drive around jeeps all the time. A very minor upgrade seems to have improved some of the gaming frame rates anyway.
Photos from the weekend:
A windy Swansea Bay.
How cool are those shorts?
June 09, 2006
Another thief shamed online
OK, so yes, I am taking a time out and catching up on the web, drinking a coke. It's Friday and I've had a busy week.
Anyway, here's another tale of someone losing something expensive, and someone with low morals finding it and not returning it. Again they're getting humiliated online. The beauty of this story is that the Sidekick is a mobile phone that stores your information on a server. So when an idiot steals it and takes photos of themselves those photos get uploaded to your server. Nice. Follow the story at How NOT to steal a SideKick II.
iPod more popular than beer?
apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/06/08/1954233.shtml
And while I'm linking to /. articles, here's another one about the prevalence and importance of the iPod at Universities. The information is based upon US uni's, but from my own experience I'd apply it to UK institutions too, and suggest that this is a very good reason for providing students with podcast based learning materials. This is something I'll probably be doing for the embryology teaching next year.
Wales on Slashdot
Cardiff to be the centre of a rollout of a new telecom platform from BT.
slashdot.org/articles/06/06/08/1725215.shtml
Cardifftri.net stats
I haven't looked at the stats for cardifftri.net for a while. I killed the page counters that it had when the service started throwing up pop-ups and pop-unders. May and June are usually the busiest times of year for that site because of our two main races, Try-a-Tri and Cosmeston. I was happy to learn that we've had:
2.3 million page views in the last year
30Gb of data transferred
128,824 visitors in the last year, averaging 614 per day in May
754 visits (not page views) on the busiest day in May
I was surprised to learn that the top ranking search strings used to find the Cardiff Triathletes' website are:
1. grizzl-
2. huge tits
3. cardiff triathlon
4. grizzly adams
Quite bizarre.
June 08, 2006
GMC
Our regulating body (the General Medical Council) visited today. They're studying our course this year to make sure we're up to scratch and to recommend improvements. Needless to say, we've been building up to today for some time, but in the end didn't really put much on for show, as Thursdays are good clinical teaching days anyway. Reports from those involved have been very positive so far but we need to wait until later in the year for the full, official report. It'll be published online so I'll post a link.
I think we've done a lot in the last three years, and I'd hope that the students of the last two years have taken a lot from it. I've been hearing good reports from clinicians that they've been getting involved with on clinical rotations. I hope we've given them a good base for their last two years of training and for their careers. A good report from the GMC would be very welcome, and very rewarding. It's always nice to be told that you're doing a good job once in a while.
June 07, 2006
Website Down
Apologies - I almost lost this website yesterday, and as a result of restoring from backups some of the comments have been lost.
June 06, 2006
Birds Nesting
Outside the School of Medicine, in a cigarette waste bin, there are a lot of little "cheep cheeps".
June 05, 2006
Lost Season 2
I've just watched the season 2 finale of Lost. I've kind of been saving it up, knowing that it would leave my mind spinning. To sum it up:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhh!
June 04, 2006
Favourite Cosmeston Photo
Photo of the day IMO. Click for larger image.
Other photos from the day here.
Cosmeston Triathlon
I've just got home from Cosmeston Lakes after a long day (out of bed 6am) helping in the triathlon. I do a bunch of tasks, the main one of which is "official photographer". I see the same faces every year and they seem to recognise me, looking out for me at these races and giving me the same poses, which I love. I've got around 450 photos which I'm backing up, tagging and sorting through. If you were a competitor a selection of these photos will be up by this evening, and a huge batch will have been uploaded to cardifftri.net within a week. My first job is to get the results up for you all.
The race went very well, everyone I spoke to had a good time, and the weather was great. The swim was originally 750m so I took a GPS device out in the boat today to measure the distance between the buoys in the lake as we dropped them. The actual swim distance was 550m. No wonder you guys always get such good swim times!
Favourite photo(s) to follow.
June 03, 2006
Oil Paintings
Some ex-Swansea Institute of Higher Education fine art students paint as a group locally, and sell their paintings. They knocked on doors on our estate, knowing that everyone was new and decorating their houses. Kim saw lots of their artwork and picked out some paintings for the house. All were excellent, but this painting of sunflowers is superb and by far my favourite. As with most oil painting you have to see it in the flesh to truly appreciate it. It's very three dimensional and the colours are excellent.
I should get their contact details and publish them here.
Sunny Swansea
The summer is here. It began as June did, and it's warm, sunny and pleasant. Where will I be spending the summer? Take a look at these webcams:
llangennithsurf.com
Langland Bay
I thought these beaches would be busy by 10am this morning, but they look pretty blank. I must get my arse into gear next time (but I bet everyone else in Swansea is thinking the same thing).
Tomorrow morning is the Cardiff Triathletes' Cosmeston Triathlon, at which I will be taking photos for cardifftri.net. That'll be an early start, but is always a good morning.