January 8, 2012
What's Up, Doc?
That was nerve-wracking but, if I'm honest, not as much of an ordeal as I anticipated. Some sharp interrogation occurred during the two and half hour session, but in the end my thesis was passed with no corrections. The examiners somehow failed to spot me for the complete intellectual fraud I am, and so the story ends. I may even be able to close out the admin process before next weekend's departure for southern parts.
Farewell studenthood, presumably for the last time. It's been a slice.
Now I have plumbing to organise, and travel, and a wedding. And to get a job, just as Western Civilisation seems hell-bent on destroying itself. Again. So that should keep me busy.
I am not planning to change the title on my bank cards.
Posted by matt at 4:34 PM | Comments (2)
December 31, 2011
Out with the old
So, here we are again. RIP 2011. Another one bites the dust.
Helen Arney did indeed play a uke at the Monkey show, and again at the somewhat overlapping Nine Lessons & Carols on the 23rd, along with a couple of other people. A jolly good time was had on both occasions, and a few others besides. Ian discovered that he actually quite likes Stewart Lee after all.
Christmas itself was spent in Wales with the in-laws. An actual physical game of Carcassonne was assayed; the FIL was thoroughly underwhelmed, but the rest of us enjoyed it. Christmas presents were somewhat dominated by things associated with our forthcoming departure to far-flung places, which at least gave a measure of structure to the process. Doctor Who was saccharine and silly, but I enjoyed it anyway. Great Expectations was thoroughly splendid.
Compared to the excesses of years gone by, this holiday season has been the very picture of austerity. Objectively, perhaps not so much. Weight has been gained, alas. But I am more or less sober, and spent much of the evening cooking a tasty couscous for dinner. Friends have been visited, love and good wishes exchanged. No attempt will be made to attend the evening's kettling excitement down by the river. We might possibly watch a bit of Jools.
Proper closure on the year will have to wait another 6 days. (My thesis is garlanded with Post-its in preparation.) But in the meantime, as that plumber would say: let's a-go!
Buon anno a tutti.
Posted by matt at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2011
Tuber
So, um. There's this:
My ongoing project to become a complete internet cliché continues.
In the context of the scientific limbo between thesis submission and viva, I recently gave a kind of valedictory talk to my fellow CoMPLEX students. Well, it was more of a spittle-flecked hellfire and brimstone rant, creaking under the unwieldy title Candide Must Die! Winston Churchill, Unscrewing Office & the Epiphenomenal Imbroglio -- and there was a subtitle too. Highlights for me included the line "Next time you hear someone claiming that some complex phenomenon is an 'emergent property' of underlying simple rules, TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF!" Ah, the spirit of calm and respectful scientific discourse. Highlights for the audience were presumably concentrated around the wretched thing eventually ending.
Anyway, the Christmas season is upon us, with all the inconvenience and excess that entails. There's some fun stuff coming up amongst all the drinking excuses, notably Uncaged Monkeys on Wednesday, back at the Hammersmith Odeon for another night of comico-scientific geekery. Someone will doubtless play the ukelele. I may or may not report.
Posted by matt at 10:03 AM | Comments (3)
November 13, 2011
Loose Ends
Another set here seemed too many, so I posted the latest City Jitters on Facebook. Call it convergence, call it mixing it up, call it a craven capitulation to the Zuckerberg hegemony. Maybe the next one can go on G+ for balance; I'll be sure to choose pics that I don't want anyone to see.
A long time ago, in a galaxy not very far away, a question was asked and answered; which left a narrative thread dangling. Moves are now afoot to tie off that loose end.
Not quite as long ago, although still quite awhile, I posted a to do list. In the intervening years, only one item has been checked off. You'll be happy, or jealous, or just indifferent to learn that two more of those are now in the firing line.
These news stories are not entirely unconnected, although the "honeymoon" -- not that it is that, exactly -- is going to precede the wedding, and is prompted as much as anything by the date of my PhD viva finally getting set. All being well, come the feast of the epiphany I will be Dr Matt. Less than ten days later we set off on the scariest holiday ever. At least until the last one on that list becomes feasible.
April's ceremony, obviously, will be rendered moot if we don't come back alive.
Posted by matt at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2011
City Jitters 14
Posted by matt at 6:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2011
Filler 59
I imagine anyone reading this either knows me on Facebook or else is basically here by mistake; if neither of those applies, please wave. But working on that basis, you've probably already heard most of my news.
It is, for example, merely a formality that I should mention having finally, after many months in a widening gyre of hysteria, exhaustion and disgust, submitted my PhD thesis a few weeks back. My viva, for somewhat aggravating reasons of examiner availability, is not scheduled until January. In the intervening slough I find myself sorely lacking in enthusiasm for the tying up of loose ends or the quest for longer term work. I have managed some small moves in both directions, but my heart doesn't seem to be in it yet. And a random programming task -- coding an ImageJ plugin to help identify putative synaptic regions in fluorescent images -- which I agreed to do largely on account of it being completely unrelated to my own research -- is sort of completed already, or enough to be going on with at least.
Also for form's sake, I'll point out that, after more than three years, I finally broke cover at YouTube and posted a couple of vids. No idea whether there will be more, but it makes a change from pure consumption. So far I seem to be all about other people's art.
Possibly as a symptom of post-submission malaise, I'm finally putting a teensy bit of effort into learning the uke Ian gave me a couple of xmases ago. I currently know the chords to about four tunes, including AFP's nicely simple In My Mind, although it seems I can't generally manage all three of fingering, strumming and singing at the same time, and even just two is sometimes asking too much. Do not expect evidence to find its way online anytime soon.
On the music front, I went on Sunday night to see Michelle Shocked, of whom I have been a fan since approximately forever, and fantastically good fun it was too, with jolly entertaining support from The Sweater Set and Peter O'Toole (no, not that one). Michelle encouraged audience participation, and I was tipsy enough to sing when requested, which I enjoyed a lot but was probably quite annoying for my neighbours.
And so on.
Posted by matt at 6:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2011
City Jitters 13
Posted by matt at 11:24 PM | Comments (2)
September 20, 2011
Talky Talky
Posted by matt at 8:14 PM | Comments (1)
September 16, 2011
Google Plus
It was with some difficulty that I restrained myself from posting the following on a tedious Google+ comment thread regarding, ostensibly, climate change. The comments were on someone else's post -- the ever-splendid Dunx's, to be precise. The more voluble other commentators were drearily self-regarding Mid-Western code monkeys paying tedious lip-service to the ghastly scriptures of our time. I felt bound by the rules of hospitality not to pollute Dunx's stream with venom. It's one of the perils of the new social networking age. At least on one's own blog one can say whatever one fucking pleases, safe in the knowledge that in all likelihood not a single motherfucker will read it.
So, let's see.(i) I will shortly bow out of this because arguing with Americans is like arguing with Christians -- sets, obviously, with a significant intersection -- if for no other reason than that none of you fucking syphilitic cunts appreciates proper shit-bastard arse-buggering swearing.
(ii) If you start out a six paragraph comment with "I am simply not qualified to comment" you probably shouldn't expect what follows to be taken seriously.
(iii) If the biggest problem in the green energy movement is cronyism then break out the champagne because we all have it made. Everything's going to be fine and the world is in fucking clover.
(iv) It never hurts to be reminded that libertarianism makes you stupid. At some point I will also get around to posting my explanation of free market economics as a cargo cult. In the meantime, feel free to point out how unfettered markets have actually achieved anything of value that you can explain in a generalisable fashion. Doctrinal assertions will not suffice. I expect equations. Otherwise go fuck yourselves.
(v) No, computer science is not science. For that matter, software engineering isn't engineering. Coding does not give you a meaningful understanding of reality. And yes, I write as a recovering coder with a keen appreciation of the contradictions inherent in making such an assertion. I can also introduce you to a Cretan acquaintance if you'd like.
Hackers who argue the culpability of scientists on the basis of profiteering haven't a single fucking leg to stand on between the millions of them. If you think you have something to add beyond "WAAAH! I DON'T WANT THE SITUATION TO BE XYZ! I LIKE THINGS AS THEY ARE! JUST GIVE ME MORE MONEY!" then you are wrong. You are basically just making grunting animal noises. Please shut the fuck up.
I know, it's all so easy to say this shit on the home turf of Walky Talky. Failing to engage the hapless peripheral forces of darkness on the field of battle is pure cowardice, a gross abdication of intellectual responsibility.
Well fuck you too, you putrescent spacehoppers. Fuck fuck fuck fuck cunting fucking fuck.
Fuck.
Shit.
Fuck.
I fucking give the fuck up.
Yes, I am a teensy bit drunk. Why do you ask?
Posted by matt at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
The Morphail Effect
So, this happened. Just one fleck of fallout from the interminable process of wrapping up the PhD. There have been plenty of others that needn't distract us here. As far as I am concerned the thing is pretty much done, but there are doubtless a few more false dawns to weather yet. It will take truculence, triage and probably some grudging concessions before the fucking thing finally gets consigned to the dustbin of scientific history in which it clearly belongs.
In any case, an IonView page was needed, and there it is. Eventually I may get around to reorganising things around here so that it is easier to find stuff like software and photos and so on, but there doesn't seem any particular hurry.
All sorts of outings probably merit fuller mentions, but since that doesn't seem to be happening here are some capsules. I enjoyed Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's TeZukA a lot, although it didn't seem quite finished -- should lose 15 minutes, at least one fight sequence and (especially) the interval. Amanda Palmer's Heaven show was one of the best gigs I've seen in years, packed with guests and randomness and just enormous fun from beginning to end, despite one or two joyless emo caricatures in the audience pouting because everyone was having too much of a good time. Kill List was gobsmackingly unpleasant, and sort of interesting in its shifting Brit pastichery, but packed less punch than it should because the characters were impossible to give a toss about and the final slide into Wicker Man territory was just plain silly. Last night Kym took me to see a cappella lad-band The Magnets, who were enjoyable and technically accomplished but it was a bit hard to see who their audience was meant to be.
In Michael Moorcock's sf&f multiverse, time travel into the past is (in some defiantly non-mechanistic way) possible, but it is made difficult by a kind of chronological inertia that resists paradox. Any hint of anachronism can lead to unceremonious eviction from the time stream. Successful chrononauts, of whom there are few, avoid this fate by immersing themselves in the visited period to such an extent that they more or less forget they were ever anyone anywhere anywhen else. One such traveller, at least in some of his very many manifestations, is Jerry Cornelius.
There is an extended, slightly unfocused, film festival in town at the moment to celebrate the Scala, the notorious art-cum-grindhouse repertory fleapit at which I used to work. The only festival event I've caught so far was a double of John Boorman's Zardoz with the film version of Moorcock's first Cornelius novel, The Final Programme. Suffice to say that both films are so profoundly of their time that they would have nothing to fear from the Morphail Effect.
Posted by matt at 4:21 PM | Comments (0)