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Trouble on the Line

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on December 6, 2011 by telescoper

Well, I’m finally back on line. After reporting the fault with my broadband connection on Saturday morning, the technical team quickly diagnosed a fault at my end and mobilised an engineer. Unfortunately the earliest appointment was this morning, between 8 and 12, so I had to hastily rearrange some appointments in order to take the morning off.

Actually the chap came quite early (just after 9) and quickly figured out the broadband modem wasn’t working properly, so he gave me a new one, complete with wireless hub. Great, I thought. All operational parameters looked good, so he proceded to try activate it to connect with the Virgin Media network. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, quite a lot. After numerous reboots of both computer and modem, the darned thing still wouldn’t connect to the outside world. Then the engineer called back to base and was informed that there was a fault at system HQ which meant no new services were being activated. The engineer then left – at about 11am -for another job, telling me just to wait and it would get activated in due course. To be fair, he did phone back later to check whether it was working. It wasn’t.

Rather irritated at the impasse I decided to remain in the house and get as much work done as I could without an internet connection whilst checking back every now and again to see if it was working. The little green lights never flickered, though, and the activation wizard stubbornly refused to venture further than the first screen of instructions.

Eventually, about 4.30pm, the connection appeared to be emerging from its comatose state. I followed the activation instructions, and for a change actually got to the second screen. But it crashed again. I rebooted the modem yet again. No joy. Then tried restarting the computer and – lo and behold! – it started working. Must have auto-configured itself better than I could configure it. No surprise there, I’m not very good with computers really. I’m too old.

So now I’m back on line, annoyed at having wasted a day but in the end pleased that I do now actually have something like proper broadband speed. Before it failed completely on Saturday, I’ve been struggling along at <50 kB/s for a few weeks now. “Virgin Media – the Broadband that’s slower than Dial-up” is not their official slogan, but I assumed my slow connection wasn’t unusual given the horror stories I’ve heard. Anyway, I’m now actually getting – though only occasionally – the 10 MB/s I’ve been paying for.

All’s well that ends well,  suppose. and it’s nice to be back online. Even the e-astronomer has managed a post while I’ve been off!

Coincidentally, the first thing I read on Twitter after reconnecting was the story of the First Great Western train that got stuck between Newport and Cardiff because about 60 cows surrounded it and appeared to be holding it hostage. I thought this breaking moos was quite amusing, but hope the passengers aren’t too cowed by their experience. Even in cattle-class. They’ll have plenty to beef about when they eventually get home, that’s for sure….cont, p. 94.

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Service Interruption

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on December 3, 2011 by telescoper

My Virgin Broadband service  has failed and I’m therefore unable to connect to the internet, so no posts for a while until they fix it. Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible but, for the time being, there will now follow a short (?) intermission.

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It’s Time

Posted in Uncategorized on November 25, 2011 by telescoper

 

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Google Citations

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on November 18, 2011 by telescoper

Just time for a quick post this morning to pass on the news that Google Citations is now openly available. I just had a quick look at my own bibliometric data and, as far as I can tell, it’s pretty accurate. As well as total citations, Google Scholar also produces an h-index and something called the i10-index (which is just the number of papers with more than 10 citations). It also gives the corresponding figures for the past 5 years as well as for the entire career of a given researcher.

I’ve bragged blogged already about my most popular paper citation-wise, which has 287 citations on Google Scholar, which doesn’t exactly make it a world-beater but I’m still quite please with its impact. What I find particularly interesting about that paper is its longevity. This paper was published in 1991, i.e. 20 years ago, but I  recently looked on the ADS system at its citation history and found the following:

Curiously, it’s getting more citations now than it did when it was first published. I’ve got quite a few “slow burners” like this, in fact, and many of the citations listed for me in the last 5 years actually stem from papers written much earlier. Unfortunately, although I think this steady rate of citation is some sort of indicator of something or other, this is exactly the wrong sort of paper for the Research Excellence Framework, as it is only papers that are published within the roughly 5-year REF window that are taken into account. It would be more useful for the REF panels if the “5-year” window listed citations only to those papers actually published within the last five years. I wonder how the panel will try to use this limited information in assessing the true quality of  a paper?

I should also say that although this paper is, by a large margin, the nearest I’ve got to the citation hit parade, I don’t think it’s by any means the best paper I’ve ever written.

Another weakness is that Google Scholar doesn’t give a normalized h-index (i.e. one based on citations shared out amongst the authors of multi-author papers).

Still, you can’t have everything. Now that this extremely useful tool is available (for free) to all scientists and other denizens of the interwebs, I re-iterate my point that the panels involved in the assessing research for the Research Excellence Framework should use it rather than the inferior commercial versions, which are much less accurate.

 

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Polished Cox

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on November 17, 2011 by telescoper

It looks like impressionist Jon Culshaw has been working hard on Cox in his spare time judging by the following, rather polished, article recently unveiled on TV:

 

 

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Intermission

Posted in Uncategorized on November 6, 2011 by telescoper

Owing to a combination of circumstances, I’ve decided to take a break from blogging for a few days. Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible but, for the time being, there will now follow a short intermission.

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Fright Club

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on November 1, 2011 by telescoper

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know that a few months ago I tried my hand at stand-up comedy at the Second Bright Club Wales (see posts here and here). Last night I went along to the latest Bright Club show, number 4 of what I hope will be a long-running series. This time it was much more relaxing for me, as I didn’t have to “perform” and was therefore not only spared the nervous tension but also offered the potential of a bit of schadenfreude. Whether it was Hallowe’en horror or stage fright that caused the impromptu renaming of last night’s extravaganza “Fright Club”. As it turned out, all the acts were very good and the audience very friendly, so despite a few nerves nobody actually died…

I know one particular contributor, our own Ed Gomez (who also blogs),  was a bit apprehensive before the show, because he told me as much. But  he needn’t have worried, as his set turned out to be as hilarious as I thought it would. My only criticism is that I was a bit  disappointed with his use of foul language. There just wasn’t enough of it. Anyhow, Ed had the prescience to record his set so here it is in all its glory….

Kudos to all the contributors last night, and to the inestimable MC Dean Burnett for directing the traffic with such aplomb. It was great fun, and as a bonus it gave me an excuse to be out of the house when the trick-or-treaters came round!

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Serious Brain Power

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on October 28, 2011 by telescoper

I can’t resist doing a bit of advertising on behalf of Cardiff University’s new recruitment campaign which has the slogan Serious Brain Power.  A major initiative is under way to attract high quality researchers to Cardff (either at Chair level for established academics or at the level of a Fellowship for those earlier in their careers)  across a range of academic disciplines, including STEM subjects.

In the School of Physics & Astronomy we’ve already appointed four new lecturers in Physics over the last year, and will also be joined by a new Professor of Experimental Physics next year, all independently of this scheme, but it would be great if we could attract even more excellent new people into the School via the new initiative; for an advert see here.

At fellowship level the positions  provide a greater degree of independence than a normal postdoctoral research assistantship, including the possibility to direct one’s own research programme. The number of  similar positions funded by research councils  is  dwindling owing to cutbacks in the research council budgets, making such a post a particularly valuable and attractive proposition.

Although this is a personal blog, and therefore not officially part of the recruitment campaign, it occurred to me that readers of this blog might well be interested in these opportunities, hence the reason for posting this message. Applicants for astronomy and cosmology would be welcomed,  by me at any rate! It’s a rare opportunity to join a Physics department that’s actually growing in size…

To find out more about the Fellowships and Chairs, see here. Feel free to contact me informally if you have any questions, and  please also feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested!

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Late Arrivals at the Statistician’s Ball

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on October 16, 2011 by telescoper

I’m in a frivolous mood this Sunday morning so I thought I’d have a go at stirring up a bit of audience participation. Taking my cue from I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, please let me announce some of the late arrivals at the Statistician’s Ball. Your contributions are also welcomed…

Ladies and Gentlemen may I introduce:

Mr and Mrs Ear-Regresssion and their daughter Lynne Ear-Regression

Mr and Mrs Thmetick-Mean and their son, Harry Thmetick-Mean

Mr and Mrs D’arderra and their son, Stan.

Mr and Mrs Layshun and their daughter, Cora

Here’s Mark Offchain and his friend Monty Carlo

Incidentally, the food this evening will be served at your table free of charge; there’s a “Buy no meal” distribution…

Mr and Mrs Rating-Function and their daughter, Jenna.

Mr and Mrs Mentz and their daughter, Mo.

Mr and Mrs Al-Distribution and their son Norm.

Mr and Mrs Variate and their daughter Una; she’s still single, by the way…

Mr and Mrs Otis and their son, Curt

Mr and Mrs Pling-Bias  and their son, Sam

Mr and Mrs Inal-Probability and their daughter, Marge.

Mr and Mrs Over and their daughter, Anne Over.

Mr and Mrs Mogorov and their son, Carl. I’m sure he’ll want to try out the vodka. Hey Carl Mogorov! Smirnov test?

Mr and Mrs Fordslaw and their son, Ben.

Mr and Mrs Knife and their son, Jack.

Mr and Mrs Motion and their son Ian (who’s just back from a holiday during which he got a very deep tan), yes it’s Brown Ian Motion.

Mr and Mrs Rage and their daughter, Ava.

Mr and Mrs Sprier and their son, Jeffrey Sprier.

And now we’re joined by royalty. From the distinguished house of Ippal-Components, here’s Prince Ippal-Components.

Mr and Mrs D’alscoefficient and their son, Ken.

Here’s the Hood family with their particularly amiable son, Lee. I’m sure you will like Lee Hood!

Mr and Mrs Gale and their son, Martin.

Mr and Mrs Imum-Entropy and their son, Max.

Mr and Mrs Spectra and their daughter, Polly.

That’s all I’ve got time for at the moment, but please feel free to offer your own suggestions through the box below…

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My Blackberry (still) is not Working!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on October 13, 2011 by telescoper

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