Mind bending

Greetings on a surprisingly cool November morning.

I've recently been thinking about the rise of mistrust in science. There are a couple of obvious examples: climate change denial and the anti-vaccination movement. I'm not going to discuss these particular issues but I am interested in how they have precipitated a challenge to the authority of the scientific method and research in general.

I trust the scientific method - it makes sense to me. It is self-correcting, which means it is tolerant of mistakes. Mistakes are a very human trait. Whether a mistake is the result of malice, self-interest, carelessness or simple misinterpretation, a theory that is falsely substantiated will ultimately be exposed and corrected.

What science does not promise is certainty. We have varying levels of confidence ranging from "maybe this is how it is" to "you can bet your life on it". We wouldn't build an aeroplane if the theory of gravity was in the former category. But just as importantly, we cannot always wait for a theory to reach the "bet your life on it" before we act.

I don't think this will surprise anyone. Most people understand that nothing is perfect so we do the best with what we have. But more and more, this seemingly sensible approach is being challenged. We all know the frustration of being told that something is bad for us only to be told that it is actually good for us a few years later, but it seems very shortsighted to wait for a 100% guarantee that a particular cancer medicine will cure your cancer.

The problem occurs when we use extremely rare examples to drive our thinking and ignore the staggeringly huge number of examples where the correct advice has been given.  This is the basis of the Cherry picking argument, which ignores the preponderance of evidence in favour of evidence that supports the desired position.  Like denying global warming because today is the coldest day for the start of November in many decades.  Studies have shown that people who are generally uncertain about global warming are more likely to believe it is true on hot days and less likely on cold days.  It's almost like they are ignoring the word "global".

Now here is the mind-bending part.

If I have a right to my opinion, do you have a right to try to change it?  Put another way, what gives someone the "right" to challenge another, if they have a "right" to decide for themselves?

While the previous paragraph might sound interesting, it is basically rubbish.  First, while you do have a legally enforceable right to an opinion, no one has the right to their own facts. An opinion cannot extend to clearly logical fallacies like 1 + 1 = 3, but apparently, it can extend to the denial of expertise.

This is a critical shift in the public psyche. We are no longer surprised when thousands of experts are ignored because someone claiming to be an expert presents precisely the evidence desired by vested interests. 

It is not unreasonable to raise the question about expertise.  Every major scientific breakthrough in history has flown in the face of thousands of experts.  But as Carl Sagan stated, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".  Each of those claims that did have to rise above the wisdom of the day met this demanding condition.

Could it not be, therefore, that such extraordinary evidence is on the side of the climate deniers and anti-vaxers?  Perhaps they are the experts making extraordinary claims, and to dub them "self-proclaimed experts" is denying them the same opportunity to rise above the wisdom of today.

Nope.

They do not have extraordinary evidence.  They willfully misinterpret, cherry-pick or outright deny the existing evidence.  This is not science, and they have no place in the scientific discourse.

It would be great if we had the time to thoroughly test all the claims, retest all the evidence collected so far, and calmly walk the sceptics through the evidence.  It would be great if we could be 100% sure of all scientific claims.  But we can't, and time is not on our side.

And yet, their voices are loud.  Too many people want to be told that the alarm bells of science can be safely ignored.

They ignore the warnings to their peril, and we tolerate their ignorance to our own peril.

Thought for the Day: It really is surprising cold today.

How embarrassment

Ok, so here is a little additional blog post that I thought I should share while I think of it.

A few years ago, Peter Jackson, the acclaimed film director, announced that he was making "The Lord of the Rings".  I watched and enjoyed these films a great deal.

DW and I watched each of the films in the cinema, and then bought the extended-release DVDs, and watched ALL the extra features and the movies again with the audio commentaries.  We watched it a lot.  We even mastered the Trivial Pursuit version.

I tell you this so that you will appreciate just how excited we were to hear that Peter Jackson's company was making "The Hobbit", the precursor to "The Lord of the Rings" and one of my favourite books as a child.

My excitement might have been slightly more than DWs.  It was slightly diminished when I heard that Guilermo del Toro was attached to direct instead of Peter.  I did enjoy "Pan's Labyrinth", directed by Guilermo, but it seemed like they were messing with a proven team.  So, it was with piqued interest that I signed in to an Internet chat at 5am on a cold Sunday morning 11 years ago to partake in a Q&A with Peter and Guilermo.

They had been collecting questions over the previous weeks and would aim to answer the top 20.  I hadn't submitted any questions but I was definitely keen to get the scoop.  Also, they did say that they would try to take extra questions if there was time.  I figured I might get lucky and think of a particularly good question that they found so intriguing and insightful that they couldn't resist.

The sign-in process was a little odd, and I found myself in a chat room that appeared to be empty - no messages, no other participants, nothing.  The title of the room was correct, but I was concerned that I hadn't signed in properly so I posted the message, "Are we starting?"

The message didn't appear, so I started to think that I should sign out and back in, when all of a sudden, names started popping up in the attendee list.  Stuff was happening.  I was in the right place.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the name I had been waiting for appeared.  Peter Jackson.

Guilermo de Toro was there as well.  Peter posted the first message to kick things off.  Apparently, it was rainy in NZ and cloudy in London.  The host of the chat, called "WetaHost" posted the first of the 20 initial questions, about the use of physical locations vs digital locations.  Both Peter and Guilermo explained their preference for physical where possible, and I was already starting to think about what my question would be.  There was a text field on the side of the chat screen where you could pose questions that they moderators would select from.  A tricky task given the number of people posting questions.

Then it happened.

I asked my question.  My one and only question.

Not the cleverly crafted question that I had been drafting on a notepad beside the computer.  Not even some stupid fanboy question.  So, what question did I ask?

bmeade: Are we starting?

Yep, my question that I posted to test if I was in the right place spat itself out into the chat room 20 minutes later and landed in front of millions of fans desperately hoping to get to ask their own cleverly crafted or stupid fanboy question.

It sat there for a couple of seconds.  I couldn't believe it.  For a moment I thought it might just be a caching problem with my chat window, until Peter answered it.

Peter Jackson: Hi bmead - we are underway, great for you to join us!

My heart sank.  Then Guilermo chimed in...

Guilermo del Toro: We are,. Welcome

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get to ask any more questions.  I was right.  I'm also pretty sure that was the largest number of people swearing at me in unison in my life.

I got to ask one question of Peter Jackson and Guilermo del Toro, and it was "Are we starting?"

To their credit, they were both very polite.

And of course, the Internet doesn't forget.  While several versions of this chat transcript are available, most have trimmed out the stupid questions, but a couple of complete versions exist.

And just in case you don't believe me, here is one such link: https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Jackson-Del-Toro-Chat-Up-Hobbit-With-Fans-8938.html

It's been 11 years, but I am starting to recover.  I won't say I see the funny side yet, but there is hope.

Thought for the Day:
I really did have a great question planned

Values and authenticity

Good morning, world. I hope it is sunny wherever you are, unless it is night, or you are hoping for rain.

I am participating in a discussion at work where we are hoping to drive the business side of the University with Values that are shared and committed to by all staff. This sort of activity is often embraced by management but causes eyes to roll among the staff. I'm definitely in the Management camp these days - mostly because of my extensive experience and because I can't be trusted with the systems we operate.

It is very easy to argue that these sorts of activities actually get in the way of the work, but seem from another point of view, one that has to take in the horizon as well as the day to day, these activities promote sustainability.

I was pretty sceptical when the process started, and I may have put some of my colleagues offside by disagreeing with the general sentiments. Most of the others in the review team were very happy with the process, but I felt that we needed to challenge the status quo. In my opinion, of the values we currently operate by are valid, they will still be so at the end of the process.

I don't believe in starting from scratch every time, or that our current values were fundamentally wrong. On the contrary, I think they were pretty good and I actively embraced them. But during this very process I was introduced to the concept of core vs aspirational values. I reflected on these ideas and what they meant for the current values. I realised that we had only expressed one core values, but the other two were aspirational.

This doesn't have to be a problem. It is perfectly ok to choose this - the key is that we actually make that choice.

My biggest concern is that core values need to be understood and shared. Aspirational values are great as a guide, but not achieving them is not a disaster. You can always keep trying. Core values are those that you actually live by. I think we actually have good core values but we are not sure of our is ok to express them. For example, we need to save the Uni money so that it can support more teaching and research.

This means we can't always provide the very best services, but we can provide the best service we can afford. And that is ok. Value for money is a necessary evil when it comes to research and education. Actually value for money is just a necessary evil, full stop.

So once again I will optimistically join in the conversation because I believe that, shared values are indeed the best way to ensure the sustainability of the University and produce the best graduates and research outcomes possible.

Now, don't I sound like a manager?

Thought for the day:
Working on Melbourne Cup Day sucks (I know, profound, right?)

Halloween

Welcome to this All Hallows Eve.

I don't know much about the origin of Halloween, but my awareness has come from a steady diet of American TV. It seems like fun but there is probably a serious downside. Is it really a good idea for kids to ask strangers for treats? Better minds than mine are pondering this problem.

Speaking of better minds, I'm trying to decide what to do with mine. I mean, now that I have bettered it, not that it is generally better than others. Since finishing the PhD, I've taken some time to take stock. Obviously, the changes that have occurred this year have forced a deeper introspection than I might have otherwise committed to, but that is ok. Maybe it is even better.

So, after many months of navel-gazing, I have decided that I need to change the world. Let me be clear, the world is changing whether I want it to or not. My intention here is to guide that change. That probably seems a bit arrogant, to which I respond, "Have you met me?"

I know I probably can't change the world, but I'm pretty sure I won't if I don't try.

I think that most people believe that they can't change the world or compete with those larger-than-life figures that dominate the international news. There is also the problem that we don't all agree as to what changes we need.

I don't know either, but I think I have some good ideas. I think the first thing we need to change is our resistance to change. We all find a way of tolerating our circumstances unless the impact is sudden. My evidence for this assertion is that the people in my street wouldn't tolerate the conditions present in a poorer suburb if they were suddenly thrust into it. But over time, a suburb can become poor, and the people there adjust slowly. So, some of those intolerable aspects become tolerable given time.

Obviously, this isn't always the case, and there are many exceptions. But that is not the point.

Reading back over this, I can see how it might seem that I am contradicting myself. I propose accepting change and then I say we already do this, as long as it is slow. What I mean is that when charge comes on is slowly, we don't think of it as change, so we have accepted changes that we shouldn't have because we don't want to change quickly, even if it is for the better.

So, why should someone accept my perspective of what is better?  Again, "Have you met me?"

Actually, now that I think about it, most people believe that things could be better, at least for themselves.  The problem may be that we tend to focus on the way change could be worse, and evolution has molded us to believe that worse is more likely than better.  Ever said, "If it ain't broke...?"

But it is broke, and it can be fixed.

"How?" you might ask.

First we need the will, then we need the action, and finally, we need perseverance.

Thought for the day:
I want an 8k screen.  It may be the key to my happiness.  That is all.

For posterity...

Ok, so this blog entry is more for me than you, so feel free to skip over the boring bits.  To make it easier, I'll make the non-boring bits red.

So the purpose of today's entry is to tell the story of my PhD.

It all started long ago (2009), in a room much like this one.  Actually, it might have been this one, or that one (you can't see me pointing).

A friend of mine, I think I'll call her Shally Smolderazzo to protect her identity, contacted me to let me know about an online astronomy course that was at Masters level and run out of Swinburne.  I'd been interested in astronomy for some time, and had even purchased my own 6" Newtonian telescope.  So I decided to look up Swinburne Astronomy Online.

Sure enough, it was possible to get a Masters degree (by coursework) entirely online.  I had two Bachelors degrees through the University of Melbourne, and I now worked at the University, but it is always good to have a higher degree if you want to work at a university.  So after discussing it with DW, I signed up for the first of 12 units required for the Masters (2010).

I was not a good student when I was at Uni previously.  I was easily distracted and lacked commitment.  I scraped though my degrees, but I did the bare minimum.  I had decided being a student was not for me.  Fast forward some 15 years, and I was ready to get back to study.  I was eager, I was focussed, I was older and wiser.

My first unit was fantastic.  Not only did I learn a lot of basic astronomy, I started learning how to actually do research.  I dived into the work and engaged with the online community, a bunch of like-minded people with the same fascination with astronomy that I had.  We were all paying for this course, so everyone was invested, and that makes for a lively class.  While I never met any of my classmates in person, it was great to connect, albeit briefly, with people like me.

I received a high distinction for that first unit, and the second unit as well.  For my third and fourth unit, I just missed out on high distinctions, but I wasn't too worried about the marks anyway.  I was enjoying the study and I was happy to plod along doing the work.

And then I met Chris, who would eventually become my principal research supervisor.  He came to Melbourne University to discuss our Tiled Display Wall, called an Optiportal.  We named ours OziPortal.  Chis was a researcher at Swinburne and was interested in setting something similar up at Swinburne.  He mentioned that he an I had met some years earlier, but I still don't remember it.

Chris recognised my name as one of the Swinburne Astronomy Online students, and asked me how I was enjoying the course.  We chatted about it for a while, and he mentioned that the work I was doing with the Tiled Display Wall at Melbourne Uni could be the basis for a research project in the Masters course.  To complete the Masters program, each student has to complete a research unit.  Chris offered to act as supervisor for my research unit, if I wanted him to do so.  After some discussion, Chris suggested that it was probably worth more than just a unit in the coursework program, and that maybe I should consider converting to a research degree.

Meanwhile, a former colleague from Melbourne Uni, Leon, was now IT Director at Swinburne.  I ran into him at a conference, and discussed this with him.  He agreed with Chris, that a research degree was probably a better option, and he agreed to support my application.

At that time, I had completed the first four units of the coursework program, and was able to withdraw from the program with a Graduate Certificate in Astronomy, and at the same time enrol in the Masters by Research.  We had discussed whether a Masters or PhD was the better option, and Chris advised that we should start with the Masters, and convert to PhD if we decided that there was enough in it.

It actually took nearly 8 months to get my enrolment through, due in part to my poor results from my undergraduate days, and also in part to the somewhat flawed processes at Swinburne.  I also had two supervisors from Melbourne Uni, Richard and Steven (2012).

However, finally I was a student again, or to be politically correct, a graduate researcher.  I started work on my first paper with Chris, which was for a conference called PacificVis.  It was soundly rejected.  It wasn't because it was bad, it was just poorly targeted.  So we rewrote it for a local conference and it was accepted.  It was a collaboration with all my supervisors and some colleagues.  It was a position paper, meaning it described the state of the art, and didn't contain any original research, but it was still pretty exciting to present my first peer-reviewed work at a conference (THETA 2013).

But it was time to get my hands dirty with some real research.  Chris and I designed an experiment to test the notion that Tiled Display Walls were actually needed, that people did actually perform better using these expensive displays when compared with standard displays.  This was the reason many universities were building them at that time, so we wanted to find a way to confirm or deny that hypothesis.  We tested many people, astronomers and non-astronomers and published the results in PASA (Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia), a well respected journal in astronomy (2014).

This was the first real feather in my cap.  I had been through a thorough peer-review process for an impact-rated journal, and this would be the centre-piece of my thesis.  During the writing of the paper, I had my confirmation of candidature and presented my early results to the astro community at Swinburne.  The review panel were very enthusiastic, and suggested I consider converting the research to a PhD.  I thanked them for the advice, but had decided that while I did want to do a PhD eventually, I wanted it to be more astronomy related than technology driven.  I remember them clearly saying it could have more astronomy in it, but I still declined politely.

So as soon as the paper was published, I started work on the Masters thesis, with the literature review the next major piece of work.  I read many papers, summarised them and put together what I thought was a pretty decent lit review.  Chris thought it was excellent, and he said it was better than most PhD lit reviews he had read.  He also asked me to advise on an astronomy observing campaign called Deeper, Wider, Faster (DWF) that was underway and needed some visualisation guidance.  After meeting with the principal investigators of that project, Jeff and Igor, and on the back of Chris' comments about my lit review.  I started thinking that maybe I should convert to a PhD.

Apparently I had left it two late to convert, as I was actually nearing the submission stage for the Masters, but Chris decided to push for the conversion, and secured the support of the review panel after I wrote a substantial conversion plan.  Swinburne HDR umm'd and ahh'd for a bit and then agreed.  I was now a PhD candidate (2015).

Three opportunities for papers arose almost simultaneously.  The first was the DWF campaign, which I started work on with Jeff and Igor.  The second was another conference, where I presented a summarised and slightly extended version of my journal paper (THETA 2015).  And the third was a program set up by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to investigate the use of AWS to support SKA research.  Chris and I submitted a proposal to look at the potential of GPU-enabled remote desktops, which would allow the SKA data to be computed on in situ in the data centres, rather than downloaded to local desktops.  We were successful with the grant, but it was very slow to get the prototype desktop working.

Meanwhile, at the end of the 2015, the first DWF campaign ran, just before Christmas.  It was hot in the room despite the air conditioner, because we had around 15 astronomers, and 20 or so computers, with 24 high-res displays and two HD projectors all working at the same time.  I remember when the first on-sky session was just about to start and the TDW I was responsible for operating froze.  Jeff had organised for a documentary crew to record the event, and I had put up an amazing image on the display to impress them.  They were taking photos just as the first telescopes where about to come on-sky, when I noticed that my head node had stopped responding.  My heart stopped.

But, as luck would have it, something went wrong with the processing pipeline, which meant that the images capture by the primary remote observatory could not be processed by the local computers, which meant I had no new content to display.  So while everyone crowded around the processing team, and ignoring me, I desperately tried to fix my TDW without anyone knowing.

I rebooted the head node, which I knew would not disrupt the display on the TDW, so it would still be showing the great big nebula I'd put up earlier.  People were still taking selfies in front of it.  But the head node didn't come back up properly.  It wouldn't reboot.  Now I was stuck.  But a stroke of inspiration hit me.  Maybe I could use a cloud node.

I had cloud resources set up for the AWS project, so I created a new virtual machine (VM) in about 2 minutes and started installing the software I needed.  This took maybe 10 minutes to complete, and then I configured the new VM head node to act as the head node of the TDW.  Now this new machine had a different address to previous head node, so the TDW nodes needed to be told about it.  So I had to reboot them and let them connect to the new head node.  I remote logged in to each one and changed the details so they would look at the new head node and then rebooted them all with a remote boot command.  The TDW shutdown and restarted as I held my breath.  Everyone looked around when that happened because the room suddenly go darker when the displays turned off briefly.  Jeff asked me what was happening and I said it just needed a reboot.  He nodded and went back to focussing on the pipeline problems.

One by one, the TDW nodes came up and connected to the new head node.  Slightly less than 20 minutes had passed when the pipeline processing team fixed their problem and everyone returned to their positions in front of the TDW, ready for the images to inspect.  Each run was 20 minutes, and we had lost the first one, but the processing pipeline team were ready for the second one.  As soon as the data hit, the pipeline kicked into action and images came pouring in.  And the were directed to the new VM, not that anyone new it was new, or a VM.  I simply gave the team a new IP address to send to.

And bang.

The first image popped up on the TDW, right were it was supposed to.  Then the second, then the third, and so on.  Astronomers were rushing in to look at them, eager to find some speck of significance.  The room was abuzz, people calling out, and rushing from image to image.  I finally exhaled, eight minutes later.  People assumed I was seating so much because it was hot.  No one knew, until they were reviewing the paper about to be submitted, what had happened on day one of the DWF campaign.

The start of 2016 saw the development of the second journal paper of my research.  However, there were 15 authors on that paper, with 5 principal authors.  It took months to get it ready, and in fact, the second DWF run which took place in the middle of 2016 had occurred before I was ready to submit.  I didn't include that run in my paper and submitted it as it was.  At the same time, I submitted a short paper (5 pages) to the Astronomical Data and Simulation Software Conference in Italy, which was accepted.  Not only that, I was lucky enough for the conference to cover the costs of the conference and accommodation, and work covered the flights.  So I was able to present my work at an international conference.  As it happened, my journal paper was rejected two days after I delivered the conference paper in Italy.  I also delivered my mid-candidature review around this time.

The rejection wasn't too bad, it was simply calling for major revisions.  In fact, the simple revision was to include the second run in the results.  These revisions, which took until early 2017 to complete, were accepted in the second attempt, again to PASA.

So now my attention returned to the AWS project.  AWS weren't able to help me get the prototype desktop working, but some very clever people at my work were able, so I now had a prototype.  Chris and I again designed an experiment to test how well a remote desktop with GPU acceleration could work for astronomers.  This paper produced some excellent results, and Chris was eager to publish it in a Tier 1 journal, namely the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.  He acknowledged that the likelihood of acceptance was low, but tried anyway.  And the reviewers at the MNRAS suggested that we try another journal.  So we aimed at the journal Astronomy and Computing, which was the most suitable journal anyway.  And they accepted, though with a strange review result.  One reviewer loved the paper, but the other reviewer accused us of wilful bias in experiment design, poor writing and deliberately misconstruing the results.  Fortunately the journal editor did not agree with this review and completely rejected it.  We did have some minor amendments to complete the paper, which were completed in early 2018.

So now I had three journal papers and three conference papers under my belt, which is pretty respectable for a PhD thesis.  I decided to work part-time in March of 2018 and spend the rest of the time working on my thesis.  For six weeks of hard writing, and corrections, I hammered out a 260+ page, 101 thousand word thesis.  I had a good process, with me writing a chapter, sending to Chris for review, then updating and sending to Rich and Steve for review.  Steve didn't send any comments back, but Rich was prompt and thorough.  We ploughed through it and on the 13th of April (a Friday no less), I went up to Swinburne to submit.

I had printed out the thesis, but apparently that requirement had been dropped, though not removed from the Swinburne website.  But they accepted my printed copy anyway.  I headed home, giddy with relief, to a welcoming family.  We all went to lunch.

Eight weeks passed and I had heard nothing.  So I contacted Chris, who contact Swinburne, who contacted the reviews, who contacted Swinburne, who contacted Chris who contacted me.  That took another week.  So exactly nine weeks after submission, almost to the minute, I received the news that my thesis had been accepted, pending minor revisions.  I took the rest of the day off work.

My elation was short lived, because despite the positive result, I still had work to do.  So I buckled down again and started working on the revisions.  A week later I met again with Chris to finalise the changes required.  I thought we would knock them over that day, but alas, it was not to be.  So I took another couple of days, bouncing changes back and forth with Chris, until the following Wednesday, when he decided he was satisfied with the changes, and submitted the final thesis on my behalf. 

So I waited to hear from Swinburne HDR.  I was pretty impatient and on the Friday I rang them to find out what the process was.  I was informed that the thesis amendments would be reviewed by the HDR sub-committee the following Wednesday, and I would probably find out the results before the end of the following week.  At least I now had a timeline.

On Wednesay, the 4th of July, I received my Letter of Award, stating that my PhD thesis had been accepted by Swinburne HDR, and I was now able to call myself Doctor.  I was pretty bloody jubilent, let me tell you. 

However, it was a conditional acceptance, meaning there were several additional forms that needed to be submitted to actually complete.  I had a look at the list, and was sure I had submitted them.  In fact, my supervisor had submitted them, but apparently, they were expecting them from me, so they ignored the ones from him.  Only they didn't tell me that.  I emailed them asking if there was anything missing, and included the documents again.  They finally agreed that they had everything, and sent me a Statement of Completion.

Now I was done.  Or so I thought.  The final step is the actual graduation, which I would be invited to via an email.  I thought I had missed the cut off for August and would have to wait until December.  However, DW asked me to check the requirements, and I spotted a link on the page called "My graduation".  I clicked on it, and it prompted me for my username and password.  I logged in and was greeted with the message, "Congratulations!  You are enrolled to graduate on August 22nd!"

Don't get me wrong, this was a great outcome, but it took me by surprise.  Anyway, as I write this, it is the 20th of August.  In two days I will graduate and finally my PhD will be behind me.

And that is the story of how I got my PhD.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: I'm pretty satisfied with level of academic achievement.  For now.

The doctor is in

It has been many moons since I last posted to this blog.  In fact, it has been many moons since I wrote anything significant other than my thesis or for work.

That's right, I have written my thesis.  Not only written it, but submitted it, had it accepted and have finally completed my PhD.  I am now officially not that sort of doctor.  What sort of doctor am I, I hear you ask?  I am the sort that you would call if your ultra high resolution tiled display wall powered by a GPU-enabled virtual hosted cloud-based desktop computer wasn't working.  I wouldn't be able to fix it, because I'm not that sort of doctor either.  But I could tell you what you should have considered before you bought it, and I'd probably be right.

So now I lurk around conversations at parties waiting for my area of expertise to come up, so I can jump in and show off.  It hasn't happened yet, but soon...

Having focussed myself on the big research questions for the last few years, I now find that I have to find something new to keep myself from annoying DW.  Yes, DW still hasn't left me for an actual that sort of doctor, though now when she jokingly tells people she is married to a doctor, there is a tiny little tear in her eye.

So I am turning back to my old tunes.  Literally, in the case of my guitar playing, and figuratively, in the case of my writing.  Over the last few years I have been jotting down all my ideas.  I've stopped telling them to DW because I've been able to bore regale her with juicy details about my research.  But all those ideas have still been happening, and now I have to dive back in and pick one.  That is the trouble of course, choosing just one.

And then there are all the jobs around the house, but they've been around for ages, so I'm sure they can wait a few more years...

...apparently they can't wait a few more years, or even a few more minutes.  So I'm off to do some jobs around the house.

Ciao!

Thought of the day: Happy wife, whatever it takes.

Ever so slightly offensive

STEEELLLLLLAAAA!!!

Pardon me.  Just trying to get my groove back (and mix up some pop culture references to keep 'em fresh). 

Okey dokey.  DW and I have been watching Stephen Fry's Planet Word, not to be confused with the Futurama episode "Planet Fry? Word.". The most recent episode focused on swearing and how it is used in languages. The thing I found fascinating was that swearing actually serves a purpose in language. Surprisingly, it is the very taboo nature of offensive words that makes them useful. Our brain learns these words and then learns to inhibit them, so as to meet the accepted norms of society. However, when we step beyond this inhibition, these words can be used to great comedic effect, but also to actually increase the amount of pain we can tolerate.  This makes swearing during child birth or hitting yourself with a hammer quite acceptable. It also recognizes the humorous or dramatic effect of swearing in entertainment. 

However, the program also pointed out that it is the inhibited nature of these words that makes them useful, and when they become commonplace, they lose this effect.  For example, someone who swears all the time doesn't receive the same benefit when experiencing pain. Fuck no. And it's benefit as an entertainment device comes from its unexpected use, where our brain is surprised by the breach of protocol.

So the moral of the story is this.  We will never stamp out swearing, but it is well worth the effort to personally avoid it.  The more you do so, the more effective it will be when you really need it.  And we shouldn't be ashamed of actually using it in those cases. No more "pardon my French", but rather "whew! I needed that!". 

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: The far king can't 

Happy Anniversary,DW!

We made it. 14 years today!

Well, I finally gave DW the present I have been holding on to for many months now. I've been building it up so much that I panicked and apologized for it before I gave it to her. I was worried that she wouldn't like it as much as I did but she would be too polite to tell me. That still may be true.

So what was this brilliant idea, you may ask? I scanned one of the better photos from our wedding (our photographer was terrible) and had it reproduced in 3D form inside one of those glass block displays. I think it looks cool, but my reason for giving it to DW goes a little deeper than that. Photos are great because they record a moment of some importance, and in the case of a wedding, that can be of great importance. But I guess in the back of my mind, I know how easy it is to manipulate those images. What once represented a form of some permanence seems a little less so now. Not that it necessarily matters, as I know that the photos of our wedding are accurate and a true representation of the day. But to me, the very nature of the glass block display means it cannot be undone. I suppose it could be added to, and as it is the product of an easily modified photo, it is just as subject to manipulation, but in my mind, it feels more permanent. It feels like it has captured the moment in a way that goes beyond the photo that was used to generate it.

Why does this matter? For the same reason that we bother taking photos in the first place. The journey that DW and I started 14 years ago was one of hope. We each believed we had found the right person for us, but how could we be sure? If I had been completely sure, then I wouldn't have been taking a risk. Committing to someone for the rest of your life is most definitely taking a risk. If I had been completely sure, then the is no way I could have become more sure with every passing year. If our relationship had been perfect at the start, then it would never have improved, but it has done, and in so many ways.

So the two people represented in the glass block display are a reminder of the chance we both took on each other. That is a fixed point at the start of our marriage and it cannot be changed (let's not be too literal with the metaphor, ok). The fact that the glass block display carries so much meaning therefore, is a testament to the courage and determination we have shown to each other. Love is the seed from which the relationship grows, but it is the effort we make that keeps it alive, that keeps it from breaking under the pressures of external forces.

It may not be easy and it's not always fun, but I have never doubted its worth and I'm pretty sure DW agrees with me. It's one of the few things we agree on.

So, happy anniversary my love. Be careful with the glass block. It's fragile (I mean that literally, not figuratively - if you do break it I can always order another one - our marriage is like a rock, but that doesn't look as pretty in the display cabinet).

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: Blackberry jam is the best!