Our good dog Bluey died today, aged sixteen years. He was a gentle, good natured dog with a deep interest in black socks.
Like most dogs he also loved to eat, although when his sister was around he would only get what she allowed him. His most favourite food of all, however, was whatever you happened to be eating at the time. I have strong memories of Bluey sitting at my feet, watching every mouthful of toast or chips or whatever, fully believing that this time I wasn’t going to give him any. Of course I always did. This is important, I think. A boy needs a dog to share his crusts with.
He lived a long and happy life but I suppose he missed his sister.
I just received a notification that my first Kiva loan has been repaid! Kiva is a micro-lending website where you can make loans directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world. You can see who I am lending to on my Lender Page.
It’s a great way to help people improve life for themselves and it gives you a real connection with the people you lend to in interesting places around the world. So far I have made micro-loans to people in Kenya, Tajikistan, Peru and Cambodia.
Wilma stayed with us on New Year’s eve and she was a very well behaved little monkey. In the morning we went for a walk along the river before Jonathan and Louise collected her.
In the afternoon we had our traditional Afternoon Tea on New Year’s Day, although this year it was at the Lanesborough as the Savoy is closed for a year for refurbishment.
The Lanesborough turned out to be excellent. We had a table by the fire and the scones were particularly good. There is simply no more civilised way to see in the New Year.
On the weekend we went to a CCO party at Hywel’s place and, it being (nearly) the 5th November, fireworks were involved.
Alan had originally planned to bring just a few sparklers along but once he got to the firework shop he couldn’t resist purchasing a small arsenal of rockets, roman candles and something that looked like an anti-tank mine. Sanchia also brought some rockets along so there was no shortage of things that go bang.
We were a little nervous about setting off these things in Hywel’s fairly small decking at the back of his house, especially the ones with directions to light the fuse and then retire at least twenty-five metres away. But the ghost of Guy Fawkes was smiling on us and it turned out that Dylan was a qualified fireworks technician so everyone sat back and let him run the show. He assured us that they only say twenty-five metres in case the thing tips over and starts strafing the onlookers with white-hot pyrotechnic stars but it was ok because we were putting them in a big pot filled with cat litter.
It was awesome. Especially the anti-tank mine. And by awesome I mean, you know, terrifying.
Ever since I got back from the MySQL Users Conference in California I’ve been wondering how soon I could convince work to send me on another one. It seems every second post in my blogroll is about some conference or another. And it’s not just the cool conferences like JavaOne, either. I find myself reading about the Open Source Business Conference described as:
a great conference for managers, CIOs, execs, investors, lawyers
and I catch myself thinking, “you know, that sounds pretty neat”. Hmmm. I’m sure I’ll get over it.
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: MSc CS project prize
Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 11:59:01 +0100
From: Szabolcs
Gentlemen,
As you may know, each year we choose the best MSc CS project.
This year, your projects were shortlisted.
Well done to all of you and congratulations to David for the win.
David, could you please send me your current address so that
I can send you the prize (a cheque for £100).
Hopefully, you will find the comments below useful.
Regards, Szabolcs
>
> I’ve now had the opportunity to read each of the three M.Sc. Project
> Reports which you kindly sent me. As in previous years, these were
> extensive, well presented, and covered an interesting range of topics.
> In judging which should receive the prize, I evaluated each of the
> reports on four critieria:
>
> - importance of the problem addressed
> - quality and originality of the project work,
> - discussion of related research and development work, and
> - results achieved.
>
> Once again, competition was close but a clear winner emerged. I would
> therefore like announce _David Keen_ as the overall winner, and
> congratulate him warmly on his achievement.
>
>
> AJUDICATOR’S NOTE:
> Each of the finalists had included useful background information and
> bibliography. However, it was disappointing find that little effort
> had been made to give an effective context for each project by
> reviewing related work and examples of comparable existing
> implementations. Simple Google searches revealed the existence of
> numerous similar implementations which might usefully have been
> discussed. Since awareness of the “competitive” environment is
> essential both in commercial projects and in the research world, and
> usually improves the value of the work done, this should be an
> essential element of any project report.
>
>
> Attached are brief comments on each of the projects, for distribution
> to their authors. I will arrange for the documents to be returned to
> you in due course.
>
> Sincere regards,
>
> Dr Geoff Sharman FBCS CITP
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science, Birkbeck College, London
>
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
[snip]
> _David Keen, “A Mobile Phone Instrument Tuner”_
>
> The idea of a mobile telephone providing the functions of a hand-held
> metronome/instrument tuner seems stunningly obvious (in
> retrospect), and has clear relevance to musicians who frequently play
> away from home. But it appears to be an original idea since I was
> able to find only one reference to a similar implementation on a
> mobile phone:
>
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/software/item/InTune_musical_instrument_tuner1.php
(although
> there are a number implementations available for use on a PC). This
> clearly has less functionality than the implementation described in
> this project, which would seem to meet the needs of most musicians.
>
> The author has provided a very useful summary of musical notation, its
> relationship to harmonic waveforms, and the Fourier Transform method
> of analysing waveforms which is used to detect pitch. This enables a
> clear understanding of how the proposed function is intended to work,
> and is coupled with a description of the MMAPI services of J2ME which
> formed the basis of the implementation. The approach taken is also
> clearly described, together with the design for the Instrument Tuner
> which enables the frequency spectrum of the sampled sound to be
> displayed on the mobile phone handset. There is also a very useful
> description of the challenges encountered in testing this function on
> a range of mobile hardware emulators.
>
> I was unable to test the function provided but I am satisfied that the
> objectives of this project have been achieved in almost all respects.
> (It might be useful to provide a URL giving access to a simulation of
> the function, together with the opportunity to download the function
> to a mobile phone for those who wish to evaluate it in detail.) The
> resulting functionality is not only useful but potentially has
> commercial value and I would strongly advise the author to seek
> intellectual property protection for his invention, if he has not done
> so already.
The waiting is finally over. I slept in this morning as I needed to recover from an all-nighter working at the colo on Thursday night and as I stumbled to the shower I saw the envelope from Birkbeck lying on the floor. After reading the first paragraph I did a little jump. Here is what it says:
Dear Mr Keen,
I am happy to inform you that the Examination Board has recommended to the University that you be awarded the degree of MSc in Computer Science, with a Mark of Distinction. These are not commonly awarded and reflect your very high level of attainment in the examinations.
I’m pretty proud of myself. I know it sounds corny but for someone who didn’t even do any maths or science in year 12 to get a Distinction in an MSc proves that if you work really hard at something you can achieve what you might never have thought possible.
It took a lot of effort. Every step of the way I was always unsure whether I had what it takes. I didn’t know if I should even apply for the course, but I did; I didn’t know if I’d be accepted, but I was; I didn’t know if I could pass an exam, but I did with high marks.
It was really tiring. Studying part time while working full time was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Some terms I was out four nights a week and I learned how to get through the week on five hours sleep a night. This was hard on Kathryn too but she was always completely supportive and a great help to me.
My graduation ceremony is on 20 March. I wonder if will need to get one of those gowns…
Our good dog Bluey died today, aged sixteen years. He was a gentle, good natured dog with a deep interest in black socks. 
