Neil Mitchell

I got into work yesterday, to discover that someone had tidied my desk. They had shuffled paper into piles, moved some bits of paper around and generally tidied it up. It's kinda creepy - why would someone do this? My list of suspects (in no particular order):

1) My housemate, who has kind of cleaning OCD. I ask him, and he didn't do it - plus his desk is the other side of the building, so it would be rather random.

2) My desk mates, who might object to piles of untidy paper. I asked them, and they didn't do it.

3) Cleaning staff. But I can't see why they would have bothered - its not part of their job.

4) Someone looking for something I borrowed, such as a journal article or book. Possible, but they would have probably told me they if they took something back, or asked for it if they couldn't find it.

5) Nutcase ex-girlfriend, rummaging through my stuff. Possible, and it wouldn't be the first time, but it has been a while now.

6) Your idea here!

I just got this message from the computer services at York:

---

If you are leaving the University at the end of the summer term, your
computing username will be set to expire shortly after degree day in July.
For information about forwarding email, applying for an extension, etc,
please see: www.york.ac.uk/services/cserv/advice/desk/leavers.htm

If you are not leaving the University this summer, please ignore this
message.

---

I'm not leaving at the end of the summer term, I'm leaving three months after that - and I had to pay £120 for the privilege of continuing my registration until then. Of course, its not really relevant when I'm leaving, what's relevant is when the system thinks I'm leaving, which could well be the end of the summer term. So in essence:

1) Any email that starts "if" is poor. You have a big old database you grabbed my name out of, run a bit of a filter on it first.

2) Do not send emails saying "please ignore this message". It's the equivalent of knocking on someones door and running off.

3) How the hell do I figure out if they are going to kill my account before they actually kill it. I've been here once before (4 years ago), and despite filling in all the necessary forms, they deleted all my emails without warning.

I like croissants, typically with margarine, and ideally flakey and crisp. Unfortunately, a flakey croissant is difficult to butter, since the flakes usually come off with the marge. Yesterday my girlfriend solved this problem in a very ingeneous way - you apply spread to the bottom of the croissant. This is pure genius.

I have just been to visit various family members in Harrogate, with my sister. A common theme I got while there was that they think I am rich. Of course, having not had any income for the last year, this is a bit of an exaggeration. My sister was shocked to see that my TV was not a wide-screen brand-new plasma TV (as she had been told), but in fact a reasonable second-hand TV I'd bought for £10. All my relatives commented on how much money I had with my vast income, the money my parents were giving me, and the work I was doing. I haven't received anything from my parents for 4 years (and I am still owed 1 Christmas and 1 Birthday present). My income is fairly low, a little bit of demonstrating work.

Last year everyone thought I was just about to head off to America for a job. This year everyone thinks I am rich. I wonder what next year's misguided snipped of information will be...

I'm just finishing off the first draft of my thesis. It's nearly all there, but will require many revisions. The one thing I'm having difficulty on is my acknowledgements...

I am fairly certain that I have to acknowledge my current girlfriend (Emily) - that seems to be acknowledgement law. The problem is that I've only been with Emily for the last 6 months, so for a substantial portion of my PhD I was with my ex-girlfriend (Siti). By writing an acknowledgement to Emily, for something sappy like "support through my PhD", its kind of being a bit fraudulent, as it would be more accurate to acknowledge Siti. Of course, I much prefer Emily, and want to be with her for the future, but the acknowledgement is kind of about acknowledging the past, and the PhD. However, at the same time I pretty much loathe Siti, so have no desire to acknowledge her.

My current acknowledgements are:


While doing a PhD, I have appreciated the presence of many friends -- including all the members of the York University Karate Club, and the many residents of 232 Melrosegate. [Sentence here] Lastly, thanks to my parents, who have given me the freedom to make my own decisions, and an occasional email to check on my wellbeing.


Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write the [Sentence here] bit acknowledging girlfriend related matters.

Just a random musing:

Worthless: Lacking worth; of no use or value. (=0)

Worth less: Less worth than something else. (<n)

It's weird how one little space, which has no audible difference, changes the meaning so much.

(Of course, the context should make it clear, as you have to supply an n in the second case.)

I just tried to send a text message on my mobile phone using the percent character (%). Turns out, on my phone at least, I can't insert a percent - although I can insert a Yen, a copyright symbol, a registered trademark, a degree symbol and an enter symbol. Why not a percent? Is this just my phone, or are text messages restricted to exclude the percent character?

Fortunately the person I was sending to is a LaTeX user, so \perc worked just fine.

Update: I just got a reply from them, saying "Thanks, I didn't know how to insert a % into latex". So not only were they unaware of \perc, or \%, they also know how to add % to a text message!

Drastic times call for drastic measures. I intend to finish my thesis. This isn't something I've contemplated doing with much seriousness to date, but now I am getting towards the end(TM). As such, I have enacted a number of changes:

* In the office 9am-5pm. If I am late getting in, I stay that amount after. i.e. I got in at 9:35 today because my housemate was in the shower, so stayed until 5:35.

* Working on nothing but my thesis - no necessary tools, no programming at all - just thesis writing and arranging. All tools can be done at home after.

* No reading emails, apart from a 10 minute period after lunch. No responding to emails unless actually urgent.

* No newsy distractions, including Facebook, Reddit, Google Reader etc.

I followed these rules today, and got an awful lot done. I reckon that if I manage to keep this up, I may actually have an early first draft (complete with lots of todo annotations) of my thesis by the end of the week.

I've been working hard on writing two papers for ICFP, and on Wednesday at 9pm I submitted them both. For the last month, I've been working very hard, flipping between 2 different topics. On the last day, I probably flipped between the papers about 20 times, correcting one of them while discussing the other with my supervisor. Getting drafts etc.

Anyway, after 1 month of fairly deep concentration, a mild lack of sleep, plus brain switching at unhealthy levels, I've totally lost all concentration. Since Wednesday the only thing I've been able to focus on for more than about 20 mins is sleeping. My brain is wandering all over the place. To take an example, I'm writing this post in the middle of an episode of Peep Show, which is only about 25 minutes long.

Anyway, I am sure with a good weekend getting drunk, and plenty of sleep and trashy DVD's (next in line: Bachelor Party Massacre) I'll be back to normal.

A package recently arrived at my house, addressed to my girl friend, which was too large to fit through the letter box. So the package was returned to the central sorting office in York, near the train station, where it could be picked up. The little form you get when you are out advises that you will need ID in the name of the person the package is addressed to. They say a drivers license of bank card will do.

So down I go to the sorting office. My girlfriend is not in York, but I do have her Nectar card (supermarket loyalty card), so figure I might as well try with that. I get to the sorting office, get to the front of the queue, get asked for ID and drop the Nectar card on the counter. I realise that a Nectar card isn't the same kind of trustworthy ID as a drivers license, or a bank card, but I figure it might work. Then I look at the Nectar card on the desk, and alas, realise that while it is her Nectar card, it doesn't have any name on it! Doh!

Fortunately I also brought a letter from my estate agents with my name and my housemates on, addressed to the same address. For them that was sufficient. I didn't have to prove that the letter was real (it was on headed notepaper, but a couple of seconds work on a colour printer), I didn't even have to suggest that I was one of the people the letter was addressed to, I gave no ID that I was, or even knew, the person the original package was addressed to.

So, basically, I think they are happy to give the package to anyone who has the form they post through the letter box - which is fair enough, as if I can get that form I can probably get their mail anyway. However, they also want me to jump through one additional security hoop. The hoop is trivial to fake, and provides no additional security. I suspect one person decided additional ID was required, and a different person decided what forms of ID count. Random decisions with little basis in logic, yay!