Very apt that I found this on Apple iPhone Day. Someone that thought different about the use of drones. I think this is the best drone video I have seen for some time! Hat Tip to Trevor for pointing this video out!
Publishing
One of the most exciting and memorable parts of my postgraduate research was having recorded results that was worth publishing in a scientific journal. If memory serves me correctly almost every word was agonised over, after the first few drafts anyway. Every table and figure scrutinised and double checked. Hours spent over the best sounding title. Every reference formatted into the journals exact specification. The amount of coffee drank re-reading the text. The printing out and posting (yes, posting at the post office) of the final manuscript. Thankfully fieldwork in Greenland took me away from checking the post everyday.
I still remember receiving the returned manuscript and the anticipation i felt before opening the package, a rejection or an acceptance letter? It was a new experience reading though the comments of two other scientists on what they thought of my results. As "luck" would have it they agreed that the work was worth publishing with a few changes here and there.
When I started thinking of my M.Sc. dissertation this year I was already thinking that it would be great to be able to publish the results of the research. It was with some dismay I found out how much the academic publishing landscape has changed. My plan was to publish in the Journal of Glaciology (from the International Glaciological Society). That plan changed quickly when I realised that they charge £1200 to publish a paper. I was a bit shocked. It seems that they now don't have a subscription fee for the journal, instead they charge the authors to publish and the readers get the material (online) for free. It appears that many journals are turning away from subscription based models towards author charged models. Quaternary Science Reviews (where I published my first article, with Dr Peter G. Knight) is now charging $2850.
I think this is a disturbing trend. I cannot fathom how an editor can base good research against the requirement of revenue, even though the work is peer reviewed. It also works against the researchers who don't get large grants to undertake research, or in my case, the students that sometimes lay the foundations for future work. To me charging authors for publishing is simply anti-science. I worry about what research isn't getting published that we are missing out on because the author cannot afford to publish.
I do realise that if the publication is then shared via a creative commons licence and that everyone (with an internet connection) can read them then the work reaches a larger audience. But if the science that has been published because the journal needed more revenue that month then what is the worth of the articles? There has to be a fairer way than the current trend.
Short term goals.
Instead of wasting my days between student and employee I thought it would be good to set some short term goals during my 'sabbatical time'.
Statistics: When I told someone that I needed to get some sort of qualification in statistics I was asked why I would want to be involved in that sort of self- flagellation. However, as I have discovered over the last year, my statistical skills are lacking in certain areas. I would like to do a one or two day course in intermediate statistics, or even beginner to intermediate statistics.
Publish: I think that my dissertation research is worth re-formating and perhaps cutting down into a research article for a journal. This may be another exercise in self-flagellation as well.
Photography: Good lord do I need to go into the countryside and take photographs. I don't think I would even recognise my camera if I tripped over it right now. I haven't spent any time in the past couple of months and would love to spend time doing some serious photography. I think a few days in the Highlands is required, perhaps around the area of Strathy (@samchair).
Database: For some reason I would like to build a database driven website. I cannot explain this. Probably a result of the Spatial Modelling course that I did last year. Am sure (hoping) this will wear off.
Website design: This site has been the same for about a year now, I think a refresh may be in order. A few years ago I thought it would be nice to split the journal into different sections.
I guess it would be a good idea to add get a job in this list too, but I don't want to be too hasty about this, it has to be the right job.
Adaptive Design
I realise it's been over a week since I last posted anything, it has been a busy time. I finished my M.Sc. thesis (Identifying the potential for Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Eastern Tibet) and have created a 'one pager' webpage that the course requires. It's not entirely finished yet but is getting closer to what I want...
I wanted to create the webpage using Adobe Muse, in general to see how useful it might be in future projects. Muse's central ethos is built around adaptive web design. This allows the site to change depending on the screen size (think "desktop v mobile phone"). It uses breakpoints, the point where the site starts to look broken with text/images overlapping. This means that at each breakpoint the text and images can be re-arranged or moved to fit the breakpoint size (or switched of in a particular breakpoint).
To be honest it's quite fiddly. I am more of a coder when it comes to websites and like having written the code and knowing what's going on and where. Muse, is great in the sense that you just place your assets where you want to see them but the program itself is still buggy. I was never sure that when I previewed the site if it was going to look the same as I had with the Muse display.
Still, for a quick webpage that adapts to different display sizes, even at this point, it fulfils my design brief.
I have a few books on adaptive web design and I don't think that Adobe's Muse will fill the gap for real coders any time soon, particularly as web browsers and code is a living language that continually evolves which makes it an interesting area, for me anyway. This experience has certainly given me something to think about.
I had to laugh when someone in the lab mentioned that this was an area that was "solved" and was "easy", it reminded me of a tumblr site that i used to read a lot; 'Clients from hell'.
Snapseed update
Snapseed recently updated to version 2.7 on the iPhone. It is generally my 'go to' application for quickly adding some pop to photographs on the iPhone. It has a nice clean minimalist interface thats intuitive and can easily share photographs to other applications on the phone (think Instagram). The update came with a really nice new feature though, it has added a section called "Insights".
The insights feature provides short tutorials on how to add different effects using the application. It also has photographer interviews, which are really good for finding out about how they got into the business. The insights feature is a nice addition if you need some inspiration.
The photograph I have added shows the "Detailed Black and White" insight, added onto a photograph I recently took of Edinburgh Castle. It's a bit more 'effect' than I would apply, depending on my mood of course.
