Dr Laura James's writings

It's a little over 3 years since I submitted my PhD thesis. It seems so long ago! This beautiful summary is provided by Wordle . Ah, those were the days.

I realised this week that I am juggling multiple projects more than ever before. At work at CARET , I am managing a range of nascent (and production!) software and strategic projects, from CamTools and Talks.cam , to newer JISC projects on curriculum design, technology to support teaching administration, and more. I'm also working on a business plan for a possible startup company; why stop just because the global economy is falling apart? If you have contacts in health or social care in the UK public sector, or have money you would like to remove from a bank and put to work growing a company, get in touch! I'm also helping out with Serious Change - a campaign to lobby for rational government responses to climate change. Sign up! We're going to try to save the world. You should also read David MacKay 's book, Sustainable energy without the hot air , which is now out, and downloadable (and free) here : a very pragmatic analysis of where energy comes from and where it g...

Holidays are great. I recently returned from this one.

One often spots display screens, particularly in railway stations, which have suffered from peculiar Microsoft faults and are displaying error windows on top of the information one is trying to read, or which have abandoned informing altogether and are showing just a blue screen of error codes. I was, therefore, perversely satisfied to spot this giant iPhone model with a "which WiFi network would you like?" popup window, illustrating that even OS X can fall prey to this kind of thing. Good thin clients must be the right solution here...

Our office coffee machine has had a bad week. It broke; wanting always to be rinsed, not being any happier after rinsing, and never making coffee. The repairman visited and told us off for abusing the machine. He fixed it up and left, and the coffee machine worked for about 40 minutes. Then the machine got taken away for repairs. In its place was our warning sign for when the machine is busy with other things and cannot make coffee; gradually, people added magnetic poetry. This morning the machine was back, complete with shiny new pump, and an admission from the workshop that they do not know what was wrong with it. It is still working. For now.

We spent last weekend relaxing on the Wirral and catching up with my parents. The Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool was impressive, although the high tech audio guides (iPod Touches) suffered a variety of failure modes on our visit, at the end of the penultimate day of the exhibition, so we had to make do without. Michael has put some pics up, of a walk at West Kirby Marine Lake and beach, attempts to find superlambananas (not as successful as we had hoped), a rather wet walk up Caldy Hill, and a tricycle we spotted at the M6 toll road services en route back to Cambridge.

This was on Botolph Lane this lunchtime. I've spotted a few similar things around the area; earlier this week there were boards near the Pitt Building on Trumpington Street with cryptic phrases and some maths concepts.

This, in Corpus Christi College on the corner of Kings Parade and Bene't Street, will soon be the home of the new Clock, part of the Library Court project . This clock will be incredible in a number of ways, but mostly stands out at the moment as a monument to the pre-web age, because I can't find any reference to it online. I remember that I read an article about it on paper some time ago, talking about the traditional mechanism and amazing art that will surround it, and now I can see where it's going to be, I'm really excited.

Before the intense rain and thunder last night, Dominic and I sat outside at the Pickerel in the sunshine. He was sporting the new AlertMe customer support team fleece - very smart! We managed to stay outside under the nice green umbrella through most of the storm, and I didn't get too wet cycling home afterwards. It sounds as if Dominic, and James (who joined us later) and everyone else are doing a great job. Thanks to all for the (rather belated) leaving present, too!

Last Friday, it was BarCamb time again, with BarCamb2 being held at the Sanger Centre. Michael has put some photos up, and I blogged the event for work . Highlights included being one of a select handful of presenters who have given talks at both BarCambs to date; Simon Ford's mbed update "embedded can do the internet too", including mention of their terrific Mashed08 demo of Packet Network ; and a programme with a mix of biotech, community, software, and technology talks. The afternoon's panel session confirmed my view that git is the latest&greatest thing (either that, or it just happens to make people terribly evangelical) and that at work we should probably have a review of whether it's worth migrating from SVN , and maybe a tutorial session. Once more , thanks to Matt Wood for doing a sterling job organising a barcamp !

Video of Cory's recent talk - the first of the Cambridge Business Lectures - here . I enjoyed his lively presentation, although I felt the audience was more techies/hackers (a traditional Cory audience) than the business types I might expect for this talks series in general. The business-minded section of the Cambridge entrepreneurial community would probably have benefited from Cory's ideas.

It's not the best abbreviation, but the APPEITG (All Party Parliamentary Engineering and IT Group) do host a pleasant meal. The group exists to promote the role of engineering and the future of engineering in the UK, and I've been happy to see that they are keen to involve younger engineers (like me!) as well as the usual grey-haired examples. I look forward to being more involved, and perhaps to more delicious lunches on the beautiful House of Lords terrace. At the lunch in mid-July, Sir David King spoke about the challenges of climate change and how engineers should be stepping up to tackle these. His key points were not particularly novel but bear repeating, in the context of a call to arms for engineers (and others). The "City big bang" should be a drive for the UK science, engineering and technology sector to deliver new solutions for climate change It should be possible to hit the carbon reduction targets set for mid-century, and still grow GDP Engineering skil...

Cambridge was full of buskers today, in unusual places (outside the Chop House on Kings Parade, or here, outside Carluccio's by the Grand Arcade / Lion Yard). These guys were pretty good.

From our fascinating tour of Tate Modern 's oil tanks.

In the bathroom of my room at Keele University, where I was for the JISC Innovation Forum.

If this worked, this photo is tagged with a location on flickr.com :) I couldn't resist playing. Sent from Michael's iPhone

The Local Government Association says that the following are " non-words ." I find this very encouraging, and look forward to seeing some clear communications from local public service organisations in the future, as this list is adopted. Although at a first look, words such as "welcome" seem quite innocuous, when I recall how they are used in some official documents, I can see why the LGA picked them out. Ambassador; Agencies; Beacon; Best practice; Bottom-up; CAAs; Can do culture; Capacity; Capacity building; Cascading; Cautiously welcome; Champion; Citizen empowerment; Community engagement; Conditionality; Consensual; Contestability; Core Message; Core value; Coterminosity; Coterminous; Cross-cutting; Customer; Democratic mandate/legitimacy; Distorts spending priorities; Early Win; Empowerment; Engagement; Engaging users; Enhance; Evidence base; External challenge; Facilitate; Fast-track; Flexibilities and freedoms; Framework; Fulcrum; Good practice; Governanc...

I was at NESTA last night for a debate about the future of the web. Sir Tim was at NESTA to launch the web science research initiative . I won't bother blogging most of the talk content or the WSRI as I'm sure this is better covered elsewhere. You are spared my mediocre camera work, as conveniently Bill Thompson was sitting in front of me, and did a good job of recording the event with his superior tiny camera. I was too awed by the beautiful character sketches of the speakers and audience being produced by my neighbour, Chris Meade, from if:book , to take many photos myself. TBL's presentation was given in Firefox, which made a nice change, and contained quite a number of typos. Either that, or he's invented a new field called Electroncis. His strongest analogy was comparing the ecosystem of the web with the blob of gunk which you find when you unblock your sink - full of historical items like fishbones and niches where new bits can settle. Nice. There was no answe...

Unusual sweets, kindly sent by Steffi some weeks ago

A lot of companies are bringing out green gadgetry of all kinds at the moment. I often feel it's a little strange to be buying yet another gizmo to try to help combat climate change, but anti-consumerism isn't flavour of the month in the UK yet. Energy metering seems to be the latest thing; and I do wonder if in fact loans are the way to go for these bits of kit, as HICCA (Histon and Impington Climate Change Action) are offering. Most people aren't going to keep an eye on an energy meter every day or week, however pretty it is, and even if they do, I wonder how effective mild personal guilt is at changing ingrained comfortable behaviour patterns. However power-hungry you tell me my washing machine is, I'm still going to wash clothes; yes, on the lowest temperature setting, and the shortest wash, still using a lot of power, but you aren't going to get me bashing clothes in a sink full of water any time soon. I might turn off lights, put a jumper on and turn down the...

I'm talking about AlertMe on this week 's BBC Digital Planet . Listen whilst you can... Thanks Bill Thompson and Anna Lacey for putting together such a great piece!

Undoubtedly, many readers will already know that it's challenging to make computing/electronic hardware, compared to just producing software. But I have observed a number of challenges that I would not have anticipated until I actually tried to do it myself. Disclaimer: I've met lots of lovely technical people who understand the challenges of hardware and the business world, but I have also met some arrogant and annoying people who don't, and who won't accept that they don't know everything about everything to do with technology. Luckily, they are a minority, and us hardware-aware types are tenacious and hard to put off... Firstly, when you decide to make some hardware, you need to commit some time (just as you would to write software), but you also need to set aside some funds to buy actual physical goods. (You will also need a computer for most projects, but let's assume you already have one.) In addition even though you are making hardware, you will most prob...

I've been working at AlertMe for 2.5 years now, and it's been a great ride going from a back-of-the-envelope idea (broadband home security) to a real product selling in volume to genuine customers. But I decided it was time to move on. I'm leaving AlertMe today, and will be starting a new job on Monday: a project at CARET to look at embedding emerging technology into the university (amongst other things). I'm looking forward to a fresh start in a different field; everyone I've told has been very encouraging, and I've been surprised by how many diverse folk have contacted me with suggestions of people to talk to in my new role. One benefit of a job change is a welcome chance to clear out crud from my computer, and blithely to delete emails and files I'll not need again. My desk drawers are empty now, too, and I'm hoping that in my two days of unemployment this week I will find time to go through their former contents, along with sorting out long-neglecte...

A fascinating debate last night at Wolfson about Nick Davies's new book, Flat Earth News, discussing the underbelly of UK newspaper reporting. I'll have to add it to my reading list! Photos from Michael here . I'd had a busy day, and so need longer to properly absorb the contents of the debate fully...

Snaps here .

Last weekend Michael and I were up in Disley for another NESTA Crucible workshop. The best bit was jamming on the Saturday night; first time I've played maracas in ages. Duncan Lockerby - our star fluid mechanics expert - entertained us with one of his own compositions, a delightful Newtonian song . Worth a listen, because there aren't anywhere near enough physics-themed songs in the world. Tom Webb also demonstrated extensive musical talent, but I don't have any mp3s of him to hand...

For a few days more, see the Royal Academy of Engineering on University Challenge, via iPlayer.

Little blogging of late - more of a story is told by my facebook status feed, or perhaps now twitter ... The undercover economist is a good speaker, with excellent pacing and tone; but his appearance at the Cambridge WordFest suffered a little from the classic problem of book talks, in that he didn't really have a point to get across, just a series of anecdotes. And why was he wearing a jumper with sleeves far too short for him? Birmingham Rep's "She stoops to conquer" was splendid at the Arts Theatre last week. Goldsmith's poetical intro and epilogue were revived, with his original tirade against sentimental comedy replaced with a plea for more live theatre attendance. A modern spin at the outset saw the fourth wall broken down, with a pair of ushers having a shouting match before the curtain went up, then leaping onto stage, slipping into rhyming couplets, and blending into the cast. At the end, the ushers returned, with the tongue-tied male making a Dylanesqu...

Yesterday I was at the Science Museum in London, helping out with the first FaraDay (groan), where school groups who have tried the IET Faraday activities online came together to celebrate their work, and learn about engineering advances in the field of technology for life. You can read my official report over on the Faraday blog .

Having only ever heard of the wonders of Katamari before, I'm delighted to see that there's a version coming out soon for the XBox 360. I played the demo last night, and had no idea what was going on, but it was fun, and extremely pretty. The style is psychedelic 1960s, similar to Amped3; who'd've thought that would be in this year? When I returned from holidays on Monday, my colleague Nik mentioned that he'd been up late watching the SuperBowl. I always like to keep up with the state of the art in expensive TV advertising, and as ever, you can see the ads online .

All being well, our online shop will be open on Monday. Exciting times!

Yesterday, I spotted the wonderful Cambridge Joy parkour video: It turns out that one of the stars is from the Wirral, like me! Indeed, the Wirral is evidently a hotbed of urban sports; there's also a nice YouTube video of some young skateboarders in Morrisons car park in West Kirby. These kids are just amazing.

Yesterday, Amyas let his tea get cold on his desk. I mentioned that a USB cup warmer would stop this happening; Amyas, being a sensible chap, seemed surprised that such a thing existed. Well, I knew I'd seen them somewhere, and I thought I might purchase one for fun. I looked on the internet... and there were USB cup warmers . Great. But it isn't that simple. You can pay anything from £2 to £20, it seems, for a single warmer. You can choose between silver, white, black, gold, all in different shapes and sizes. You can get a USB cup warmer with integrated 4-port USB hub. Some cup warmers come with cups. Or stainless steel cups with lids. Some are flat-topped, some have round indents, some have on-off switches and LEDs. Some - very rare, this kind - have LCD clocks and temperature readouts! Some offer 50-60C warming; some 40C to 80C, from outer edge to centre. I'm overwhelmed by the variety! I am awed that so many people should have designed these gizmos and had them manufa...

I haven't drawn anything for a very, very long time. Yesterday I sketched a bluetit, and today a robin, which I then watercoloured. I think the bluetit is better.

We talked about backup solutions for our data. Michael said that by now, 5 years ago he would have expected to give his credit card and some words to a software agent, and it would go off and find the right thing online, and a box would just show up at the house with a backup solution in it. I said that the agent would actually be off looking at kitten pictures; Joy of Tech said so in their Web N.0 predictions . Michael said he didn't know about kittens, but that some of his friends are into cat pictures with captions of the form "I am in your blah, blahhing your blah" and that these were deemed extremely funny. We had to look it up. Apparently, the concept is called Lolcatz. We found a nice, clear definition , which says: an LOLCAT is any photo of a cute cat along with an irony-free caption... An LOLCATZ is a photo similar in content, but one that captures the aggressive stupidity found in some parts of the Internet, such as 12-year-old boys who grew with the Internet t...