Tell me, who in the whole world, writes THIS SLOW?

I just spent the past 48 hours locked up in my apartment, eyes glued to my Dell Vostro screen and buttocks literally numb from sitting on my couch... And for the past 48 hours, I experienced a kind of emotional yo-yo, thinking about missed deadlines and... the incredible speed of my writing...

Yes I said incredible. As in INCREDIBLY SLOW.
I mean, who else in this whole world, with this much education, writes THIS SLOW?
Tell me who can beat my 5 paragraphs in 48 hours?
So I told myself that if I said some prayers, meditated a little and brought in more green plants into my apartment, that perhaps, maybe and probably, my writing flow would be restored.

WRONG.

Every sentence I write, I rewrite twice. Then I read my paragraphs over and realize I am missing important and crucial references, which then require I go read and browse through another couple of articles... This is not counting the bibliographical entry attached to each reference I add to the text. Of course the writing is punctuated also by feelings of inadequacy about my other roles: single mother and housekeeper. Sigh.

Of course, trying to reach other PhD friends on the phone is nearly impossible as every single one of them seems to have turned into a turtle and receded into their shell.
Talk about a community of learning. Pfft.

So I end up staring at my Dell Vostro and writing and deleting and cutting and pasting back, and spellchecking, and rewording, and deleting again. Going to sleep is another uncertain process. After brushing my teeth I realize oh Eureka, maybe I should have added this idea into the text, so I turn the laptop back on. Only to end up feeling completely deflated once the Word document is open and I am suddenly feeling as uninspired as I was before I brushed my teeth in the first place. The great idea I just had in the bathroom? Well, it didn't look too good anymore once confronted to the 25 pages already written and looking back at me with... should I say, poise?

Sigh.

Anyway, I guess I need to get back to my writing. This was a nice break though. It made me feel useful.

Looking for next victim?

I guess it had to happen. Everyone’s realised that finance is a big gamble. Who's going to be the next Alitalia?

Paddy Power have started advertising their betting service as a kind of insurance against your holiday being ruined by an airline going bust.

I came across this ad while browsing the Guardian travel supplement online while waiting to board my plane in Canberra.

More than half of me hates it. Less than half of me thinks it’s clever.

Paralympian DOPED

Damn, Paralympian also need to resort to Performance Enhancement Drugs.!

Ahmet Coskun, a German wheelchair basketball player, was tested positive for a banned substance. He's the second athlete to test positive in the Paralympics in Beijing. Coskun says he was just using the product to grow hair (what hair?).

and by the way, Steroids do cause hair to grow...on your back, face and arms

Ramsay Gets Fucked!

Jeez, is there nothing that can’t be turned into a video game these days - now Gordon Ramsay gets the video game makeover.

Chef Ramsay watches players’ every move and judges them as they progress by yelling at them, praising them or shutting down the kitchen if their skills don’t meet his expectations.

As players progress, they’ll gain access to authentic Gordon Ramsay recipes, including many that are offered exclusively to game owners.

Can't wait to get my hands on a new set of Wii to replace my ol' Xbox.

yet another act of GREEN WASHING...

Driving around in cardboard cars, catching litterbugs in the act and splashing removable green paint on those who harm the environment...

the EnvironMENTALS, a trio of environment guardians have been spotted in town doing the above acts as part of a GLOBAL company in photographic and digital solutions commitment towards a better environment .

the global brand has even pledged to plant 2,500 trees on a city suburban field and urged the public to take part in the programme..yes.!!!by submitting photos (using the company's products?) to the designated website..

KUDOS for instilling greater awareness on the need to safeguard the environment but a smart CSR campaign? more like an act of green washing...

street fighter 2

one of my lovely mate, a computer scientist was talking to me about beating up a car in Street Fighter 2. And I was sort of like: “what?”. And he was like: “when you see it you’ll totally remember”. And he sent it to me. And I was like: “totally!”.

It’s amazing how that bit had temporarily slipped my mind until I saw it again. Kung-fu-ing cars - it doesn’t get much better than that.

Chaos on My Desk...

I got in this morning and the cleaners had spilled some coffee/glue hybrid on my desk. It had gone all the way under a box file that I use to keep all my USB gadgets out of the way:

It was very firmly stuck fast. Then I had to clean up. Which wasn’t easy. Sugary coffee forms a very very sticky substance indeed.

After a bit of tidying and re-arranging I now have the prefect working environment

The Dark Knight

Just came back from the Dark Knight (FINALLY). I thought it was really good and you should go and see it. Don’t want to throw out any spoilers (even tho most of you must have watched it), so all I can say is it that I think almost everything is rubbish, so this must make it a good film. It definitely shouldn’t be a 12A though. A 15 would be more sensible. I’m 28 and it was a bit much for me at times, pity the young kid (barely 10). i'm sure he'll have nightmare tonight...

my favourite pastime...

I spend so much of my time reading random things on the internet. Sometimes I stumble on interesting random facts, for example:

• There is a piano on the top of Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest mountain, put there by some dundonian removal men in the 1980s.
  
• The world’s first real intercity, passenger-carrying rail service was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. It used Stephenson’s Rocket as its locomotive and on its opening day in 1830 a Member of Parliament managed to get himself run over and killed by one of the trains.

i have a dream...

Or I should say, I had a dream, last night. I don’t remember what it was about, but it was significant for one reason. Last night, Danny Devito was in my dreams.

I don’t know why he was in my dream. I can’t remember what he was doing in my dream. But he was definitely in my dream. He was most likely playing a quirky cameo role in an offbeat dream I was having though…

Anyway, the question to you my friends is, who was in your dreams last night? Let's throw in a carrot, best answer wins a biscuit.

wordle...

This is pretty cool, a wee app that let’s you visually look at the occurence of words in documents, or in web pages. Stuck my blog in first, not sure how far back it manages to look, think it maybe just looks at all the posts on the first page

Following your dreams...

I just finished reading a lovely book, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I wouldn't want to ruin it for you, but the general story is about a shepherd who is happy, but gives up his sheep to pursue his dream of finding a treasure at the Pyramids. He travels far and learns much and eventually realizes that the journey is just as important as the treasure.

I think there are many lessons in this book. As a graduate student, I am focus mostly on my treasure, a Ph.D. Sometimes my goal seemed unattainable and other times tantalizingly close. But i am sure by the end of my Ph.D., I will realize that it is not about getting my thesis to work, it is about the process. Learning how to diagnosis a problem, to research it, and to develop and test solutions. Really all of research is like that. Maybe we start out wanting to understand one thing and along the way another interesting question or finding appears. Do we follow the first direction or the second?

A second lesson from this book is that you should pursue your dreams no matter what and listen to your heart. I started out in industry and didn't like it. I knew that I wanted something else so I return to school and do a PhD. It would have been easy to stay where I was. I don't really make that much more money here than I did in industry with only a BA! and all that time and energy could have been spent elsewhere, but it was what I wanted, so I pursued it.

I think it is really important to listen to your heart and follow it. Probably more important than anything else. Did i just finished reading a non-academic book? damn..better get back to the drawing board & start writing a few lines ;)

everything's gonna be alright...

Strange. Past two months, I've almost been enjoying school. I have no paper deadlines; I don't have to make a mountain out of my teeny result-molehill. I see my supervisor once every fortnight; his crazy-talk bounces off my brain like cartoon bullets. I'm diligently working on my two projects, making progress on implementation and measuring results.

I saw a female faculty in the hallway the other day. Last time I spoke with her, I was in poor shape. She'd given me some advice on the candidature confirmation, finishing the degree, and getting a job. She asked, "How is the confirmation going?" I said, "All done." She said, "Wow! Do you plan on graduating this summer?" I said, "No way jose!"

This is how I thought graduate school was supposed to be. I'm working independently on stuff I enjoy. I'm learning new things. I see a clear end. I know what I need to do to get out. Instead, the first few semesters were torture; I got through them with rage, depression, therapy, and tenacity. The last 2 look like they'll be decent.

I've quoted her before, but she's worth repeating. From Annie Proulx's "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World,"

The main thing in life was staying power. That was it: stand around long enough, you'd get to sit down.

One question: What do I call this blog once I graduate?

good research...

While doing other things I’m in the middle of post-AOIR thinking on research methodologies, ethics and researcher’s responsibilities. I have to do all those other things, but I’m pretty sure that this thinking will surface in writing, sooner or later.

But so far just a quote from Annette Markham (Ethics as method: A case for reflexivity (.pdf)):

• Good qualitative research, online or off,
• is not difficult to find or access,
• it is difficult to formalize.

Good research, online or off, is hard work.
Good research comes from the heart.

Conference anxiety...

I am starting to plan (or not plan) for this year-end conference season, and am filled with anxiety. Mainly, I have research envy. There is a 2-day session at this one conference that has every big-wig and player in my subfield, and I am jealous that I may not make that list. Of course, I am a second-year junior faculty with no data and an empty lab, so I have nothing much to present anyway, but I am still jealous. Totally rational, yes? Also, I read the abstracts and feel alarm because some people are doing research that I want to be doing!

KEEP.WRITE.THESIS.MUST.FINISH.PHD

I’m at work on a Sunday, I need to get my PhD finished. I’ve decided to stick updates on here so you guys can nag me to keep going, cos motivation is very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard to keep up.

Ok so don’t expect regular updates, cos I’m still working to produce results as well as writing up, so the writing will probably be kind of irregular. I have the whole chapter structure mapped out, and I’m sticking it down here more for myself than anything else, so I can tick things off as I go, and I figure if I do it in public it’ll maybe help me get going. This’ll be shorthand so just ignore it, but i’ll tick things off as i go.

1. Intro
2. Literature- half done - aim to finish by end february
3. Conceptual Framework - mapped out/structured easyish to write
4. Data collection - infancy
5. Frequency offset estimation algorithms and implementation
6. Node implementation - NCO parameterised/performance curves trade-offs… - work done by mid march maybe, written up by end (optimistic)
7. Possible intra-net comms extension
8. Conclusions.

Maybe I’ll try for weekly updates / goals. Before I leave today I’m going to have ch.2 properly mapped out, maybe a bit of writing done. Conference Paper to write/finish before wednesday, should be ok, work for it will go into ch.6 so that’s cool.

I’m going to look back on this post one day as Dr Tang, oh yes I will.
Oh, and people who are particularly helpful / motivational may be lucky enough to get a mention in my acknowledgements.

LONG TAIL cut short?

A new study by a marketing professor at Harvard Business School casts doubt on one of the sacred texts of new media - Chris Anderson's 'The Long Tail'.

Anita Elberse looked at data for online purchases of music and video rentals and then compared the data with offline purchase data. In spite of the vast back catalogue of options available online, it seems that online consumers are pretty much like their offline equivalent. Purchases hugely favour a few 'hit' titles - and if anything people online are more likely to focus their spending on popular choices than offline shoppers.

It seems that what we really value is not choice, but the social aspects of consuming the same media as everyone else.

Can't say I'm sorry to see the back of this particular theory - it seemed to me that the same two businesses were always trotted out in support of it (eBay and Amazon) which didn't seem to me to be a conclusive sample.

On the other hand, if the Long Tail is a lie, the online world is a somewhat bleaker place where almost all the micro-publishers, bloggers, video artists and musicians are doomed to a life of obscurity - including your truly...

Beijing bound...

was strolling down Surfers Paradise earlier and bumped into the Australian Olympics Basketball Team having a promotional event in one gaming shop.

NBA star, Andrew Bogut (he plays for Milwaukee Bucks), was part of the entourage.

that's AB (highlighted)

the Aussie swimming team are currently training at my workplace's pool before flying out to KL for acclimatisation before the real thing in Panda-land.

Goodluck folks...

blogging 101...

Life in the blogosphere. I’m still trying to learn the basics of ‘how to blog’ but I think its something I can see myself getting into. I guess this personal weblog will serve as a place I can go to post (hopefully) intelligent ideas, comment on current events, or write about random thoughts. I do read and consider myself pretty well-rounded but my best asset is the fact that I have talented friends whom I regularly draw advice and provocative insights from on a variety of things.

One of my friend (you know who you are)suggested to me that I should start my own weblog, and obviously I decided to take up on the idea.

I guess that should be sufficient for breaking my blogging cherry. More to come later.

Trendspotter...

I attended a corporate debate recently about the importance of generating innovative ideas to stay competitive in the new economy. One of the speaker mentioned the Innovation Challenge and argued that transcending traditional business practices by relying on creativity was most important for spawning originality.

I began thinking about how companies obsess over research and development to ensure their next line of products are innovative. Firms use their best insights to predict what their future customers will demand in the marketplace (Apple predicted that there would be an insatiable demand for digital music players and gave us the iPod).
The common denominator in many innovations is identifying an emerging trend and developing a product/service which will cater to the next big thing. The problem, however, is how do we position ourselves at the right place at the right time to identify these trends before they become too widespread to take advantage of them? One article on trendspotting offers a few suggestions:

• Be curious and obsess about everything.
• Ask yourself why new things are happening and leave no answers unquestioned.
• Look for patterns. What are the links between new ideas, attitudes, and behaviors?
• Seek ideas from other industries and apply them to your own.
• Watch out for counter-trends and their opportunities and challenges.
• Remember that the biggest trends are always a confluence of smaller trends. Dont miss the macro because you’re concentrating on the micro.
• Keep it simple. Start out with what’s individually true and then look for the universal.
• Don’t confuse short-lived fads with major trends.
• Use the history of products and markets as a guide to their future.

These suggestions will hopefully lead us to be more cognizant about the world around us and allow us to identify emerging trends. Generation Y increasingly gets their news, current events, and other information from non-traditional media such as blogs. How will businesses be able to take advantage of this new trend as well as any other emerging trends in the future?