Diary 09-03-07

It's been a little while since I updated, so I put 'blog' on my to-do list for today, not least since this allows me to put off other things on my to-do list while still feeling productive. Hey, it still beats playing kdice (an addiction which I seem to have cut down to a manageable level of an hour or so per day).

The term is nearly over and the lecture courses are all winding down - there's a couple more Genes sessions to go and then it's terribly quiet until the exams. Well, aside from voluntary talks of course (I'm going to a Pharmacology tea-club talk this afternoon for example...)

Today looks likely to be quite busy though - the PSU on my desktop packed in (almost certainly - the symptoms are nearly identical to the previous PSU failure) so I've had a new one shipped from Dabs (20 quid for a 480W PSU - I love DabsValue) which arrived today. First task is to get that fitted, then I can upload the Tattoo Crazy website that Laura and I have been working on. I'm fairly proud of it, it looks nice and swishy ;)

I submitted an idea ('Manifold Blistering') to the Orion's Arm mailing list and got a pleasingly positive initial response, plus the promise of a review from a physicist who contributes there, so I'm rather chuffed with that. OA appeals to me on various levels, despite the fact that I rather dislike the idea of qualitative Singularities, which smell unavoidably of techno-mysticism. Nonetheless they generally try quite hard to be plausible and do really quite a good job, at least from the perspective of someone with my complete lack of hard physics training.

I'm waiting for a grant cheque to clear into my bank account so I can finalise various plans related to L's birthday which have been in limbo since approximately December. Nonetheless I think they'll be worth the wait. She's 25 so I'm determined to make the occasion memorable (if belated, thanks to her Mum's visit - they're off in the Celtic Fringe right now).

I've been meditating rather more regularly and it seems to be having a definite positive effect on my ability to concentrate (on things other than meditating). I'm quite pleased and surprised by this.

I was reading through some of my notes from Forum 2006 in Oxford and was reminded of Nick Baylis, Cambridge's resident Happy Psychologist. I didn't realise at the time, but in hindsight his attitude and approach are nearly identical to those I've been picking up from studying Buddhism. I wonder why he never mentions the connection (he can't really fail to be aware of it).

I've nearly finished working my way through the Hitchhiker's Guide omnibus - I read the first book ages ago, but never got around to following the series through. I have to say (risking a serious chewing-out from my dad) that I'm not especially impressed with the first three books; they're funny but not extraordinarily so. So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, on the other hand, is brilliant, and oozes feel-good in a way that I find quite amenable right now.

At any rate, that's quite enough blogging - time to grab some of last night's cottage pie and bust open the computer.