Up All Night - 2

Bloody hell. I did actually find yet another bug in my simulation which was acting as a memory leak. That is now fixed but I'm going to be working on slightly more coarse data due to time limitations. I'm currently building my second data set for comparison.

In the last hour I've mostly been fiddling in order to get my iSight built in webcam to work as a video camera so that I can hopefully take you on a little stroll of the building later in the night. I've also drunk a pint of crysantemum tea. Not much to report really. Though oddly enough security have not come past yet (usually they seem to turn up at about 12:30).

Asteroid simulations running

Southampton University, SES, PhD Research

Up All Night - 1

So the night begins. It's now gone 11. Yikes, it's just gone 12. Where has that last hour gone?!?

You join me tonight as I proceed to work throuhg the night writing my paper for an upcoming conference. Today I finally made the breakthrough which allows me to generate the results for said paper. Meaning I can now get on an actually write the results and conclusion (the into and methodology are done).

But quite frankly that's of no interest to you. No. Me neither for that metter. No, what will be more interesting and really cook your noodle, is what will happen over the course of the next 7-10 hours. What will I learn, what crazy things can I find to do in this building in the wee small hours. Can I find any other friends to make? I'll try and blog each hour with a photo if I can.

For one thing I've already found that my office is 16 leaps from the toilet - can I beat this target?

The story begins

Who needs LSD when you have an imagination like mine?

late night engineering, Southampton University, asteroid impact research

My Precious

Many moons have I waited for this day. I remember seeing the rush of people buying the Fellowship DVD's when they first came out all those years ago. But I waited. Then I looked on at amused their dismayed faces when, just before the second film was released, the Fellowship extended edition box came out and they had to buy that. But I waited. Still further, as the Two Towers DVD appeared and went, I waited. And sure enough out came the exvended edition and yet again these poor hapless souls forked out for that too. By this time I was sure there would be an extended edition boxed set and so still I waited. The third film, third DVD and third extended edition came to pass, and still I bided my time. Then, finally the boxed set was released!

But at 60 odd quid I though it best to wait a little while longer. For a few months it harboured, festered almost, in my Amazon wish list, untill one day, as I loged in to my shopping basket I was presented with a notice saying that the boxed set had dropped in price by £7.

And so here I am, master of delayed gratification, finally with the boxed set sitting on my desk. It is a many splendid thing and I look forward to delving into it's depths (though I've caught glimpses here and there of the various bits (yet never actually seen The Return extended edition).

My geek status has been enhanced

Lord of the Rings, LOTR extended edition box set

Coding Late at Night

A little ale to help the late night coding run smoothly. They talk of beer goggles and the beer scooter - well I'm trialing the beer coder.

Shhh!

black sheep, real ale, coding

Finally I felt the urge to try some arty photography. I've not done any for so long now, but desiring to play with my spark stick (used for lighting fires) rather than go to bed, I took these shots.

Colours muted slightly - I love the bounce captured.

Some sparks burst apart giving the secondary rays.

Here I struck the sparks above the lene to let them rain down.