Women In Computer Science

I was recently sent an email asking me to support "Ada Lovelace Day" an event organised to promote women in computer science.  To me this is a deeply flawed notion as the crux of the contribution was to get people to write about "a woman in computer science who you admire".

To me, this seems counter-productive.  I have a list of papers and researchers who I follow because I like their style of working, but their gender isn't revealed by "J. Smith et al" and I simply don't care.  This event is asking for people to highlight the differences between researchers, shine a spotlight on totally irrelevant factors like gender and race.

I admit that CS doesn't come close to being a 50/50 split of men and women, but to me the problem is about making it more socially acceptable to all groups and promoting the subject in general.  I'm passionate about my research area, it asks fascinating, fundamental questions about the nature of information, but I think that somewhere along the way we stopped teaching "science" (in the context of "what is science?") in schools and started teaching scientific theories and data.  It's difficult to get excited or passionate about dry facts, but the quest for knowledge, the use of empirical and theoretical study, that's something to inspire.

Lets not promote women in science, lets promote science in all its wonderful complexity and beauty to all people.

No, your RSS reader is not broken

Yes that's right, I finally got round to finishing the repairs to my blog, so I can once again pollute the ether with my tedious meanderings.  A massive amount has happened since I was a regular blogger.  Most notably, I have nearly finished my PhD.  The viva is in March and you get your results on the same day.

Vivas can have four possible outcomes:
1) Pass - no problems, just publish away!  This never happens, as if your examiner can't even find a typo they probably haven't read it.
2) Pass with minor corrections.  This means that you get 3 months to perform corrections to the thesis.  This is the most common outcome.
3) Pass with major corrections.  Similar to above, but you get 12 months to perform more serious corrections, like new experiments etc.
4) Fail.  This also pretty much never happens, as if your supervisor has gone to the trouble of organising a viva, they think that it's at least passable.

I'm obviously hoping for minor corrections, though major wouldn't be the end of the world.  I'm actually pretty chilled about the entire thing.  Not because I'm complacent, but because I'm actually looking forward to chatting about my work.  I have heard of people working themselves up into frenzies, even lying to their examiners to avoid major corrections, and I just don't want to do that.  I've done the work that I've said I've done and all I can do now is answer my examiners' questions truthfully and sensibly.  Obviously a bit of "on-the-day-nerves" will kick in, but so long as that doesn't turn into actual fear that should be a healthy thing!

In the mean time, my folks are on a cruise, so I have the house to myself, (plus my girlfriend, who's a teacher, so we've got a week of lounging around the house planned :) )  so I fully intend to balance my time between baking, reading thesis, cuddles and of course... my xbox :P

Repair Test 1

Hello

Test

Test of fix to blog so I can actually publish again!

Wow!

So the gap between blogs appears to be getting bigger, but that's probably got something to do with my facebook addiction and the sprawling vortex of chaos that I call a life. Either that, or some kind of temporal Doppler effect caused by my proximity to anomalously high levels of biscuits.

I'm not going to go into detail, but it's fair to say that 2008 sucked balls. Largely due to my own inability to avoid people who keep themselves ticking over with weapons-grade evil, (stupid Disney making me believe that they'd have a propensity to cackle maniacally and have talking animal side-kicks.)

Finally, it would seem that I'm recovered and refreshed from the ordeal and 2009 is looking up. I'm a busy little monkey, what with thesis writing and trying to rinse a couple of bonus publications out of my research, but I'm not feeling overwhelmed.

I'm splitting my time between my "office" in Stoke and Nottingham, which is so far proving to work pretty well. I'm already clawing at the walls and looking forward to moving out of Stoke, but that only serves as motivation to get my shit together.

So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I hereby announce that boB is back!

Election

So Obama has won. This was certainly the decision that I had hoped for, but I do have one tiny reservation.

Maybe it's because I'm British, maybe it's because I'm turning into a bitter old cynic, but seeing all those millions of people, world-wide, filled with hope for the future makes me think one thing... it's about now when everything turns to shit and your high hopes give you all that much further to fall.

I for one am bracing for a nuclear winter.

Scandal

Am I the only person who is loving the fact that the man being identified as the victim in a taste and decency row is an actor who built his career on a marginally racist portrayal of a Spaniard?

Tidying

Well, the time finally came. After nearly 2 months of living in my house, I decided that it was probably time to unpack. I am now surrounded by empty boxes waiting to be transported so they can live out the rest of their hollow lives in peace at my parent's house, (much like my sister.)

All in all, it's not a bad gaff. Though we don't have a tumble dryer, so I predict that it's going to take me about 20 years to get all of my washing done.