My notebook

is a toshiba satelite A100 with the following specs;
Processor: Core Duo T2300, 1.86GHz
RAM: 512MB
Hard drive: 80GB
DVD: DVD DL super multidrive (+/-/RAM)
Video card: ATI Radeon X1300 64MB
Networking: 10/100 NIC, integrated 802.11 a/b/g
modem: internal 56kbps V.90
connections: 4xUSB 2.0, IEEE 1394, VGA out, S-video, PCMCIA, 5 in 1 card reader, iR, bluetooth, fingerprint reader
Speakers: Harmon Kardon
OS: Windows XP home
monitor: 15.4" TFT
software: 3mth norton antivirus, office student edition
3yr warranty


the fingerprint scanner is frivolous and fun. I still have to buy a good bag and a mouse - I may get a cordless optical one...or a blue tooth one. That way I can play with the bluetooth stuff.

lecture virgin no more

I have given my first lecture for microbiology. DNA replication in bacteria in review. It only lasted 30 minutes, but this is good as it was supposed to be the shortest lecture of the series. The students appeared to be paying attention and I got several down the front afterwards.

I'm about to go off and give the second lecture; Protein synthesis. I'll be using my own laptop this time. More about the new laptop later...when I have time to drool and don't need to be over at the maths physics building.

and the race is on

After a month of stuffing round getting no thesis work done. I bit the bullet and wrote my last chapter on Monday...in one day. I could be a month more advanced than I am if I'd written it in one day a month ago-sigh. Now to formatting

avoiding work...the purpose of this blog

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I wanna MacBook Pro

Having read the specs and how (quite simply apparently) to run XP on it so I can actually use it at mac averse JCU...I really really like this laptop.
What I do not like is the price. ~$3200
Way beyond my price range. I was getting all whiny at the thought that what I wanted might mean I had to go over two grand. I'd really like to pay less than $1600. Perhaps I can buy 1/2 a MacBook Pro.

Specs I want;
duel core Intel M processor (2gHz)
677MHz, though I'd live with 577
min 512Mb Ram (pref 1G)
Wifi
DVD duel layer Burner
lots of USB ports

Theres more, but that'll do right now

what do you mean there's no computer in the lecture theatre!

I'm looking to buy a laptop this year.
The buy just got urgent as I have found out the lecture theatre I'm supposed to lecture in does not have a computer in it!!!!! Just the peripherals like the data projector (and overhead projector probably). So, if I want to give a lecture using powerpoint rather than old OHTs, I must provide my own computer.

So what should I be looking for?

I think I'd like it to be reasonably fast. Powerpoints can run really slow on the older desktops if you use images (I do)...so maybe I should avoid celeron processors. I'll also probably store scanned photos on it for my family history stuff. I'm unlikely to game on it though.

Any suggestions from the notebook literate?

Yup, a stick I tell you

Got another one this morning. I'm getting better at the " The report is a little enthusiastic. While future work may result in human therapy, my work was a foundation for further research & it doesn't really have a punchy tag for you to do an article about." I'm also getting better at explaining what bacteriophage are.

By the time this is over, I'll have a much better handle on what info to have available to the media prior to their talking to me.

beating them off with a stick....

...or at least two of them.
I had someone from the school newsletter interview me about my PhD (slow news day). She sent me the article - which was hugely misinterpretable and made it sound like I had just about cured cancer (or my disease) so my supervisor and I fixed the worst misscommunications and sent it back. This is the problem with trying to explain pure science in laymans terms and give them a reference point. I should have done more to squelch her enthusiasm as it then went to all the news outlets across Australia I think.

I just had to have a conversation with an associated press person (another slow news day) and explain that what I was doing was foundation science without any immediate practical application to human health. I did say that in the long term, should we get funding and students to do the work, the work I had done would be a foundation for possible human therapy. I should have made that clearer to the first interviewer, but practice makes perfect I guess.

I gave her some names of people with more interest in current human treatment etc., who also have experience with the press, so hopefully she will completely forget about me.

As a scientist, who may need public interest in my work to achieve funding, I should be more eager to talk to the Press - but I'm not. I'll happily write them something, but talking to them fills me with dread.

edited because I can't spell

Larry induced injuries

I have a 10cm cut on my arm with a blue smear around it the size of a 10 cent piece (internal bleeding) and a bad knee causing a limp. Both of these were due to injuries recieved while cleaning up the yard to avoid flying debris should the cyclone hit us. Apart from that I am well and since we were virtually unaffected by Larry, I find these injuries ironic.

On other ironic news, I officially started my short term lecturing contract yesterday and spent it at home doing odd jobs. Good start to the full time job. I'm a day behind in my schedule already.

Cyclone Larry

After spending yesterday afternoon lugging everything under the house and filling up those things that couldn't be lugged in with water and tying them up, taping windows, putting washing machines up on bricks, and generally preparing for the worst....we have light persistant rain, and mild winds (rain at about 45 degrees). I've put up the best windy picture I got - palm trees always look so effective in wind. This is one of the neighbours houses, I wasn't going to tramp out into the rain to take a photo of mine.

Dad and I both have the day off work - organised last night when they shut down the uni for 24 hours and told the contractors at the army not to come in. This cyclone was taken seriously. I guess the speed at which it approached and the rapid upgrading to huge cyclone (cat 5), was taken seriously by those in charge. I'm spending the day doing all those things I don't have time for usually.

My to do list will get shorter at least, but I don't think the people in Innisfail are appeciating that right now. I'd be very surprised if there are no fatalities. Its supposed to be the biggest to hit the east coast for 100 years. Dad says there was one that hit Mackay about 100 years ago that almost wiped out Mackay permanently. Leonta hit Townsville in 03-04 (1903 that is) I think, and it was very destructive too.

Hmm, getting more windy, rainy and grey, maybe I should get off line now.

Living dangerously

If when driving at 100km an hour down the highway, the car starts to vibrate and feels like you are going at high speed over corrugations whilst pushing a 2 stroke lawn mower, do you;

A) stop the car on the side of the road and check for obvious problems
B) slow down, annoying all the other cars and drive more slowly to limit any damage
C) assume its the engine problem you think you have getting worse and stay at 100 since its only another 50km till you get home and how much worse can it get.

Actually it was my rear right tyre separating and the vibrations were due to the egg on the top. After I got home and described the symptoms, my dad said it was exactly this and that my tyre was going to blow out...very soon, so I shouldn't drive on it at all. It was probably only prayer that was the reason it didn't blow while I was doing 100km/hr on a highway with traffic in both directions. My mother was the one who noticed the two, 10cm long wires sticking out of the tyre. I put the spare on this morning and will be spending $140 as soon as I finish here.

and in conclusion....

my exit seminar (now known as a pre-completion seminar) went well. At least it did after the ship anchor otherwise known as the lecture room laptop was replaced with Brendas working laptop. So I started about 7 minutes late.
My supervisor said I looked flushed and nervous to start with, but after the second slide I was away. My friends said they understood it up to the second slide. My mother said she understood most of it, though many of the grad students and academics said they understood very little. My mum is very smart, and has had the advantage of listening to me explain my work to her over the last...egad...seven years. My father fell asleep. This was not an uncommon occurance, several academics looked very sleepy too.
My student monitor (he who must be appeased and approve the PhD) was happy with it. He picked up that I had written MgOH, not Mg(OH)2 . I was suitably mortified after I'd said no, it shouldn't be MgOH2 (which is what I thought he was asking) and then thought the charges through and realised what he was saying. Me with a chemistry degree and all.

I had drinks afterwards and popped my Melbourne cup champagne (Killawarra brut). It was very nice and the cork suitabley hit the ceiling and ricocheted off tables whilst people ducked.

Doom doom de doom

Today is the day. Exit seminar to be given at 2pm. I'll let you know how it went.

Anxiety and a raised heartbeat - though you wouldn't know it to look at me

I practiced my exit seminar in front of my supervisor today. I remember thinking at the beginning "wow my heart is beating fast, it doesn't move like this at my peak exercise rate" and "I'm sure I'm not nervous, after all, we're both expecting him to be shred my talk because my emphasis will be wrong"

Then I sensibly focussed on something else before the "If this is how fast my heart beats when I think I'm relaxed and have one person in the audience, how bad will I be with 30" thought could be fully expressed to make me have a panic attack.

Of course, then I couldn't look at Leigh because every time he made a note, my mind went "noooooooo! I've screwed something up"

In the end the main comments were "No-one in the audience is going to understand this work, you need to hold their hand a little more and use pictures" and " show how much work those protocols you describe in one sentence actually were...with pictures mainly" :)

So, I'm off to play with pictures.

my best effort for an eeuugh!

Is there no way you can end up with an unattractive tartan? I really tried

Och Aye the Noo

http://houseoftartan.co.uk/interactive/weaver/index.html

This would be my tartan based on the colours I liked, in the order I liked, with the number of threads I liked...now, what would happen if I picked a really bad mix....

animal picture 2

This is my favourite pic, the second of the suicidal echidnas. After I took this shot, it curled up in a ball because it didn't like the flash.

animal picture 1

here is the skink Dr Clam was commenting on

hmm, I thought I'd be sabre

At least, thats what the questions made me think

what kind of fencer are you

You are an epee fencer. Epee is a weapon of deceit and guile. You tend to take your time and counter-attack. You can touch your opponent anywhere at any time. What Kind of Fencer Are You?