| Offski! |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|03:29 pm] |
Alright, in an hour I'll be on my way on an EPIC journey for three weeks from Doncaster to Doncaster via:
Oxford
Metalcamp
Ljubljana
Budapest
Kaltenbach festival
Vienna (Dum... du du dum...)
mostly with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sophia_fred, although her version of this EPIC journey is from near Cardiff to near Cardiff and won't take in Oxford.
Hoorah! I shall post the winner of the "Guess the time it takes to download 4700 emails" game when Eddie's had a chance to decide whether to stick or twist with his entry. Obv. I'm less contactable by phone but I'll probably get hold of emails from time to time. Love you all, terrah fer nah! |
|
|
| Thunderbird |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|04:25 pm] |
Sooooo I've set up Thunderbird so I can save all my hermes emails on to my computer. This is pretty damn technical for me as I'm not great with computers by any stretch of the imagination (and yes I realise there's probably half a dozen easier ways to go about this, please don't tell me what they are as I'd rather live in blissful ignorance! ;) ). Anyway, I clicked the "Get mail" button about half an hour ago and it's still thinking. I realise I have over 6500 emails sitting in webmail so what's your guess on how long it should take? :) It hasn't told me how many emails there are or produced any sort of meaningful progress bar (apart from the scrolly thing in the bottom that just lets you know it's still doing things) and I don't know if it's supposed to. There will be a prize for the nearest comment as long as it doesn't just fail utterly instead... |
|
|
| Graduation! |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|01:11 am] |
I am now officially Gemma Louise Johnson BA MEng. :D
( Photos! )
So that's it. I've now left Cambridge University forever. Nice to be back in Donny though, even for only a few days. :) |
|
|
| :) |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|12:57 am] |
I passed my MEng! :D
Need to email Interfleet now to check I just needed a pass, not a Merit. The offer was for 2:2 or higher, I'm not sure how that translates. I'm fairly optimistic anyway.
Other things of note during my lack of posting:
* I saw a real live grass snake in the back garden in Doncaster! It was over a foot long! And made a rustling noise!
* I have a colour printer! It makes me want to print things off, but I don't have anything that needs printing off so that's a bit sad. :(
* I went to Hellfest with sophia_fred, caught a really bad stomach bug which I still have in a thankfully reduced form, saw about a third of the bands I would normally have seen, didn't really enjoy them as much as I could have and got back to Cambridge today. Bigger write up later.
* mansunite and I saw Gary Numan in Oxford. Fun was had. He's not bad live either.
* We also went to St. John's May Ball which was the best ball I've been to for enjoyment, probably not acts wise. Not sure if the breakfast was quite worth £25 but it was nice to be warmer. There are photos on facebook. I think I look hideous, my Mum assures me it's not the case.
* I tested my alternator with my supervisor and mansunite (after everything was handed in) and he's emailed back to say it's about 87% efficient, yay! There are definitely more efficient alternators out there of that size, but they probably didn't cost ~£250.
* I went to the CURAS garden party, drank way too much beer and suffered a bit during the Rocksoc May Brawl that same evening. Fury UK were excellent and metalfeast666 has much to be proud of.
* Provided I remember to pay my bill before 10am tomorrow, I graduate on Thursday. :S I also LEAVE CAMBRIDGE on Thursday. On the one hand, yay I get out of this fucking awful house. On the other hand, it's sad to be leaving a lot of friends. Mind you, if I stayed they'd mostly be leaving themselves.
On that note, anyone up for the pub tomorrow evening? I'm thinking Pickerel but am open to suggestions if you're quick. |
|
|
| Fucking great |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|12:19 pm] |
This is a link to a BBC iPlayer episode of Toby Foster's Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Sheffield. At 1:57:20 he interviews Doncaster's new Mayor, Peter Davies, representing the English Democrats.
ARGHS WE'RE STUCK WITH THIS COMPLETE MORON FOR FOUR YEARS!!!!!
And no, I didn't vote, but then I'm not sure where I'm registered any more and I got distracted by finals/project/stress.
In short, he was so utterly unprepared for the interview that a local radio DJ asking fairly routine questions about how he'll put his policies into effect made him storm out. Apparently his slot on Look North didn't go too well either. It sounds like he wrote down his policies on the back of a fag packet after a few bevvies and didn't bother to check if any of them were actually legal. Like stopping translation services, or reducing the number of councillors. Oh, and he'll reduce the number of "PC jobs" in the council. What PC jobs? Oh wait, he hasn't bothered to find out which ones or bothered to think about the impact of removing them.
*RAGE*
One the one hand, for the first time in living memory Doncaster's been that disillusioned with Labour that they lost out to not just one but TWO independent candidates. However both independents sound like complete fuckwits who would do an even worse job than the previous incumbent, Martin Winter, a man famous for overseeing failing social services that resulted in the deaths of seven children ("Haringey of the North"), being regularly ridiculed in Private Eye, being expelled from the Labour party and repeatedly ignoring no confidence votes aimed at ousting him from office. Woohoo! |
|
|
| Pub! |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|01:58 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | pub | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
I'll be in the County Arms from 7:30-8ish if anyone fancies it. :) Until then I think I might catch up on me sleep a bit zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
|
|
| General Engineering |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|10:21 am] |
It's finished and handed in. :) All I can do now is while away the time until the results come out. Owt going on tonight? |
|
|
| It's the final countdown... |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|10:53 pm] |
Final report word count: 7671
Technical abstract word count: 488 <- counted separately otherwise I'd be over the magical 8000 mark.
Page count: 37
My Mum phoned my supervisor for me after her attempt to get me to do it turned me into a gibbering wreck. Apparently I can hand it in tomorrow and I should stop worrying myself sick. *biggest sigh of relief in the world* I have the best supervisor and Mum ever! The report length is finally coming up to something not entirely disgraceful, however there's so many pictures and diagrams in it that I had to split it into 3 to email it home and my poor laptop feels like it's trying to spontaneously combust.
Still to do: Copy out equation derivation into an appendix, insert end equation and an explaining paragraph or two into main report, describe bearing life calculation, describe spreadsheet and possibly create another appendix for that if I feel like it (unlikely), number all figures and references, print two copies and an extra one of my technical abstract. Ooh, and print a cover sheet for my log book which is currently tied together with string. It's neatly tied at least... |
|
|
| Bahahaha! |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|08:44 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | lol | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  amused | ] |
(Edward being the incredibly annoying looking vampire twat from Twilight.) Ok the one hour nap turned into a 3 hour snooze. Oh well, at least I'm more functional! :S |
|
|
| Ongoing project report stuff |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|01:33 am] |
0135
Word count: 5003
Page count: 17
Aiming for 8000 - 12000 words, no more than 50 pages. I've only put in about 3 diagrams though and there's lots of highlighted text that says, "FIGURE!".
Random question: What's bigger, a table spoon or a dessert spoon? I've always thought a table spoon was the big one for serving and a dessert spoon was the smaller one for eating your puddings with, but mansunite thinks different and now I'm confused.
EDIT1: 0330
Word count: 6023
Page count: 20
Man this is taking FOREVER!!! Still, 40% of the way there overall, and over half written, 75% if I stop at 8000 words woohoo! I still need to put in formulas (formatting nightmare so left for now), hopefully those plus diagrams/photos will help. Oh, and Appendices. Not done those yet, that's got to be at least 5 pages. And yeah, I know, 1000 words in 2 hours isn't exactly speedy. Oh well...
EDIT2: 0500
Word count: 6077
Page count: 24
I added some photos. They took up fewer pages than I expected. Mind you, I could just make them a bit bigger to change that - I have shrunk them a fair bit. I was aiming for a 0900 hand in, but that's looking a tad unlikely now. However the extension I applied for was until today so I can hand it in any time before 5pm, possibly later seeing as the technicians go home at 4pm so how would they know if you handed it in at 4:59pm or 9pm? Still, before 4 is probably best. Should check with my supervisor. Of course this is always assuming that I actually get granted this extension. *sigh* Think I might nap for an hour... |
|
|
| Drawing software |
[May. 31st, 2009|05:17 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | eng | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  working | ] |
Does anyone know of a decent free 2D (engineering) drawing package that'll let me draw to scale (i.e. I can dimension things) and then either save to some sort of recognisable picture format or have a print preview function that I can then screenshot? If you can cut lines at an intersection that'd be excellent but I can probably get away without it. Copy and rotate around a specified point would be incredibly useful too. Thanks very much. :)
(If you can't tell I'm finishing up my report and need to put in all the diagrams I've been scribbling on bits of wood and paper). Helpfully the AutoCAD free trial is only avaiable in the US and Canada GRRRR! |
|
|
| :) |
[May. 28th, 2009|09:45 pm] |
|
|
|
| Stuff I've been listening to |
[May. 15th, 2009|11:33 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | blank | ] |
Song I haven't heard for ages - forgot how much I love this:
I was going to say only 10 more days or so and I can go back to being me. Except that isn't true is it? Results day will still loom after then; if I don't pass this year I'm not sure what I'll do. And so it continues... |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 14th, 2009|02:08 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | lol | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | amused | ] |
I was feeling quite miserable after getting a letter saying I'd missed a hospital appointment but then I found this fun link. Definitely NOT safe for work use... ;) And the music's quite annoying, but worth it for a minute or so. |
|
|
| The Age of Stupid |
[May. 12th, 2009|08:46 pm] |
The engineering department is showing "The Age of Stupid" (climate change sci-fi/documentary film) a week on Friday at 7:30pm for anyone and everyone who wants to watch (subject to an entrance fee of £2.50/£5 students/everyone else). There's some sort of live panel in London straight after the showing which may be streamed in - the info page is a little vague about that. There'll be an activist/journalist called George Monbiot, head of climate impacts at the MET office, the film's director Franny Armstrong and a video from the Vice President of the Maldives (a country that is trying to become carbon neutral in order to persuade the rest of the world to follow suit before rising tides (possibly) wipe the Maldives from the face of the planet).
More information on that particular showing and panel here, film's website is here. It's had fairly positive reviews, seems its overall aim is to kickstart people in action rather than teach them about the mechanics of climate change. |
|
|
| Project report time |
[May. 11th, 2009|09:34 pm] |
Hello all! It's final project report time, oh dear. :S Out of interest and my own self preservation, anyone have any useful tips for things to include or ways to present stuff that they wouldn't mind passing on please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? :) 50 pages is a daunting total. |
|
|
| FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! |
[May. 6th, 2009|06:03 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | w00t! | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 16PP | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
Home for foods! Off to the Pick at 7ish, all welcome to join me and whoever else turns up. :) |
|
|
| PUB Pub pub ... |
[May. 6th, 2009|12:32 pm] |
Last exam in 2 hours. Really, really need to revise as haven't done nearly enough and could save it with last minute cramming, but all motivation has disappeared. Well, I never had any to start with, but meh, anyway. Still it'll be all over by 4:00pm, one way or another! Then PUBWARDS! If anyone is feeling starved of pubdom and wants to join in at any point then give me a bell from 4ish onwards to find out where (probably the Mill, but could be different depending on weather etc.) or if I've run out of people to drink with and have crawled home to sleep. Mobile number's in my memories, I don't have many so it should be easy enough to find. ;) That could be why I've done so badly in most of my exams - not having any memory of the previous 4 hours in which I read the answer to the same damn question in an examples or tripos paper. So. Damn. Frustrating. Anyway, everything's over over in just more than 3 weeks. That's scarily short seeing how much project work I have to fit in. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
curious
angry
relieved
determined
anxious