Bloody socks!
Last Sunday's hike didn't go as planned. The bus driver refused to drive to Wensleydale due to the snowy roads, so we ended up in Ingleton somewhere in the Northern Yorkshire Dales. It was a good hike with moderately high intensity and a decent ascent of some 6-700 metres. My feet verily agreed and bled accordingly in an expression of excitement:
It does look a bit messier than it was, but I have some amendments to make for the next adventure. First of all, I went to an outdoors store today and bought a CamelBak® and a 108 dB safety whistle (the latter subject to testing next time the tw**s in the flat below choose to party at 4 am.)
Secondly, I'm buying some thin upper mid-layer clothing, preferably Gore-Tex® or a similar breathable fabric.
Thirdly, I'm not bringing 1.5 Kg of food and 1 Kg of peanuts. In fact, there are a lot of items I'm not bringing on next hike. I am, however, bringing 6 L of water instead.
Next trip will be to the Lake District, and I'm quite looking forward to the scenery.
More hiking madness
The few of you that are still stalking me on facebook are likely to know that I went on a spontaneous hiking trip to Snowdonia in Wales a few weeks ago. I'll let pictures tell the tale on flickr.
I'll also depart on my next trip in some three hours, joining the UoM Hiking Club to the Yorkshire Dales, and once again I'm bringing my camera for my dear readers to partake in the venture. Stay tuned for updates.
It’s not a myth
I just noticed the following on a DHL delivery tracking from last week:
The parcel that remained undelivered for a day? (with swipe card for size comparison)
All Quiet on the Western Front
It's been quiet on the blog recently. Lots of 'stuff' going on in real life. Yes, like 'secret stuff'. Yes, life exists outside the blogosphere.
More blog posts are to be expected. Meanwhile, I'm feeding you with Salad and Coffee.
Salad. Green stuff found on a lawn. A citrus fruit from a faraway land. An embryo, stolen from an unwitting bird. And some traditional British mayonnaise.
Coffee. A brew derived from roasted and ground seeds of the Coffea plant. Requires multiple levels of processing before palatable, the above image showing the final step where the coffee is integrated with water. The machine to the left could be a secret roasting machine used in the process, or it could be a rice cooker.
Enjoy!
Academic referencing made (really) easy
I usually don't get excited over software. But an academic reference manager claiming to be "like iTunes" and turns out to be excactly that simple and intuitive, allowing me to stay organised in research and save hours of time, is almost to good to be true.
I was introduced to Sente by word on the street - the PhD street to be specific - and I have patiently waited for their next major update before purchasing it. A few days ago Third Street Software thus decided to release a public beta of Sente 6, which I have been testing since.
The interface is quite intuitive. I create a library for each project, and when I come across a new source I just drag and drop it into the library window. Sente will then attempt to find the reference for me, or allow me to search for the reference myself:
The articles are then copied into the library file, which allows me to throw away the downloaded files, usually named something obscure like "sdarticle-9707104011.pdf" from my download folder, and browse the articles inside Sente. The software further allows me to organise the library in a very iTunes-like fashion, including a rating system with the famous iTunes stars.
When I start writing the essay, report, dissertation or whatnot, I keep my Sente library open and drag and drop references into the document as I type. Then I just add {bibliography} wherever I want to put it and select a style (APA 5, obviously) to make Sente automatically convert all references for me.
I've only used five articles in this example library; the undergraduate edition of Sente allows up to 250. Postgraduate researchers need even more and as the library grows to huge sizes there are very powerful tools to keep it organised. But that's a different story. I could post screenshots of my dissertation library when I get there, but I presume the demand for it would be quite low. More examples and the software itself is available here. Unfortunately, Sente is available only for Mac users - those stuck with Windows will have to use Endnote.
Mancunian Adventures
I spent the Saturday at the Accidents & Emergency on the Royal Infirmary after a tiny misjudgment leading to me cruching an IKEA drinking glass with my bare foot. I had to go through triage a couple of times since the first x-ray failed to reveal a shard of glass still stuck in my foot. I even looked at the first x-ray myself and it seemed allright, but after walking a few hundred metres from the hospital I started limping like a one-legged pirate.
I thus pirate-walked my way around Manchester all day until I finally cut my stubborness and paid a second visit to the A&E in order to comandeer a pair of crutches. They sent me through triage a second time, despite my plea for shortcutting to the crutch storage and grabbing a pair on my own. Luckily though there was a shift change in personnel, why I had to describe the issue to a new nurse, and while doing this I felt for the wound and discovered a 2 mm long piece of glass still stuck in the foot. After removing it I could magically walk normally again.
All's well that ends well.
Summer brings change
I've made my way to Sweden, where I'll spend the rest of my summer.
I'm on vacation. One definition of vacation is "the action of leaving something one previously occupied".
Thus, I've decided to switch over to casual blogging in Swedish. I'd recommend non-Swedish or otherwise uninterested readers to check back in September.
You'll find my summer blog over at sonnie.se
Cheers!
Revision period
A minor bird
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.-- Robert Frost
Revision period
noun
The time of year when the students that will pass examinations are troubled, and those that will fail are celebrating.
The Purgatory
Art is long and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
-- H. W. Longfellow
Poetry is famous for in brevity and wit describing feelings unlike any other forms of text. An extract from A Psalm of Life by Henry ("The Beard") W. Longfellow, the first line in this quatrain epigram describes how I wished I felt about educating my stubborn mind above the masses of society; the last three describe how I actually feel, in this very moment.
Exams are closing in. I was a few heartbeats from the grave, symbolically or diabolically almost failing my first year for not being active enough in an inane (twist that tongue of yours!) experiment participation scheme. Then, like a fresh wind carrying me out of the purgatory, came the realisation, or epiphany if I were religious. Essays are to be written, exams to be sat; but in a year's time, art will still be long, and time still fleeting.
Ryssen
"Det är inte en fråga om, utan när ryssen kommer." - Befäl angående varför de driver de stackars värnpliktiga så hårt.
Jag satt precis och funderade på om jag har några engelska läsare överhuvudtaget på den här bloggen. Kanske borde marknadsföra den genom en gigantisk PR-kupp mot BBC-huset i Manchester.
English translation: Precisely, I've funded English lasers overhead from this blog. In return, the border-market for genome put a gigantic PR cup (of tea) in the BBC building in Manchester.
Doesn't really make sense, but I would make a lot of money as a translator 