Dissertation writing up...

July 9, 2016

The last time I had to 'write up' a large body of work I had a job in the university library. Actually I had about four jobs in the library, which basically funded my beer, accommodation, and cheesy pasta that I apparently lived on. The jobs I had in the library were amazing, they were never terribly busy and I was always sat at a computer. This allowed me to type up my work, think about my work and run downstairs to the journals if I needed to look something up. Of course now I can find any journal online... Of course, I also served people when it was required ;-)

Still, I miss having those jobs right now as I have been finding writing up more difficult this time, hence being up since 4am (which is when it gets light) having slept very little last night. This dissertation come in two parts, a scientific paper and a technical report. Thankfully the paper section should be finished off for review today and i can start finishing off the technical section next week.

It has been interesting getting back into a subject that has always interested me (Glacial Lake Outburst Flood's) and it has been great applying new skills learned during the M.Sc. to that subject. My results have been interesting, lots of histograms and images of glaciers with polygons around their pro-glacial lakes! :-)

Well, it's almost 6am and the rain is steadily falling. Time for some tea I think.

Kindrogan and Christmas

November 6, 2015

A few days out of the city. Normally this would turn out to be a time to recharge batteries and catch up on reading. This trip turned out to be a coffee fuelled marathon of data collection, processing and presenting. A "fun" coffee fuelled marathon of data collection processing and presenting.

Time has marched on in my education and the first block of classes went past faster than I could possibly imagine. The distant memory of being told that we would be going away for a long weekend 'at the end of October' suddenly appeared. As I start the second set of classes I would like to think that I have a better handle on time management and organisation but I think I may be kidding myself on.

The excitement of Object Orientated Programming, Distrubuted GIS and Remote Sensing is driving me for the next five weeks into the exams and the potential of a Christmas Break. I think this is the earliest I have ever thought of Christmas.

The trip to Kindrogan was for project management. It was to see how we would cope under a certain amount of pressure which would be directly linked to how organised we were before the trip and how our strategies held up under real life situations.

I didn't get to take as many photographs as I would have liked when I was away, but that wasn't really the point of the trip. I did get a few candid and posed photographs though. I am open to captions for some of these :-)

Read this if you want to take great photogrpahs

May 29, 2015

A great read authored by Henry Carroll: Read this if you want to take great photographs. Excellent read for those new to photography and a must read for those that need to remind themselves of the basics. Henry takes you throughout he very basics of how to use your camera and what makes a great photograph drawing from amazing photographers such as Ansel Adams, Elaine Constantine, Bill Brandtto name but a few.

No jargon or technical diagrams just the fundamentals of taking good photographs. Especially good for new users of DSLR's RRP of £12.95 but available for £8.95 from Amazon.

Also, look out for his next book Read this if you want to take great photographs of people. Available from 7 Sep 2015 on Amazon.