Shoot Sessions

While it's only been three weeks since I properly stepped away from the Ivory Tower of Academia to start my new job in the infamous Private Sector, it's already apparent what the biggest differentiator will be between the two worlds: Shoot Sessions (aka Communication).

To be fair, I've always loved the solitude associated with academic work. Interference from others was minimal, apart from the odd group meeting here and there. The project was solely mine to handle and while the responsibility does befall you alone, it also gives greater flexibility in terms of the pace, timing and structuring of your approach. And then of course, there's the somewhat romantic notion of the lone brain stewing on a problem for hours on end, kicked back in slacks on a swivel chair behind a messy desk, surrounded by hundreds of reference books and a dozen empty tea-cups. And at least the delusion of grandeur.

These last three weeks, I have had to adjust both pace and methodology. I need to constantly force myself to consult colleagues when I get stuck on a problem, rather than simply engrossing myself in its solution for however long it takes me to figure it out. In the Private Sector and especially Consultancy, time matters. If an hour isn't billable to a client, it's technically an hour wasted. So efficiency is of the essence.

We have regular "Shoot Sessions" at work. Moments in which you and your colleagues sit down together for a few minutes to check the progress of the project, realign the recent ideas and basically brainstorm about the next few steps. This is an entirely new concept to me. I'm used to going off on my own, work out ideas to the finishing stages and only then presenting them to the Prof for feedback. These sessions happened once a month at university. Here, they occur several times a day. And I think it's brilliant. Simply looking at how quickly ideas evolve and take on different shapes because of the continued fresh input from several different angles... it's amazing how much can be done in a short space of time.

I feel like a wild horse at times, in that I need to be reeled back in from my enthusiasm to go on little solitary explorations at every stumbling block I encounter. Academics have days, weeks, even months, to explore concepts and ideas. To get to grips with new things and to go off on random tangents. What I am learning now, is focus. Efficiency. And I think this will be a highly valuable tool to acquire. I am in awe of the efficiency of my work colleagues. And while I would love to retain my random exploratory quests in my private life, I seriously hope my work mind will become as efficient as theirs is.

PS: A Shoot session incidentally is nothing less than a bit of a Brain Storm sesh, and a wee bird's informed me that in the UK it is now no longer PC to talk about "brain storms" as they might be considered somewhat insulting to Epileptic patients. The term "Brain Storm" is to be replaced by the term "Thought Shower". Talk about passive vocabulary.

Hierarchy on its way out

A friend introduced me to del.icio.us a few weeks back and while I was initially a bit hesitant to use it (unlike her I'm not an early adaptor), I am now absolutely besotted by the concept.

Del.icio.us is a webbased feature which lets you store you favorite links and bookmarks online on the basis of semantic categories. Most of us organise our computer files and links in a hierarchical manner: we create files and subfiles to store them under.

For instance, if I am trying to hunt down a picture of a friend's party a while back, I would open a file called "LePew" then "Pictures" then "Olympus Camera" and then I need to rack my brains to remember when exactly this party took place, because I have stored all my private pictures by month. So if the party was in August 2005 I'd have to click on a file called "08-2005" to locate it. It's a bit of an effort, to say the least.

My weblinks were stored in a comparable manner. But del.icio.us now allows you to tag your links. For instance, if I was to store my own blog as a favorite, it would first of all be stored under its own name "Ubiquitous" and then instead of placing it in a file or subfile, I would simply attach tags to it: "blog, Pew, science, entertainment, ubiquitous, lesbian, Ghent, physics, life" etc... whichever term I would associate with this link. When I next try to find the link, I merely need to type in a few key-words to hunt it down, instead of trawling through a hierarchically structured directory.

What makes it easy, is that this type of storage is based on semantic and associative thinking. You don't need to remember dates or filenames. You simply think of keywords that naturally spring to mind when you yourself think of that file. And I'm becoming increasingly aware of just how associative my brain thinks. I rarely remember exact facts (which can be frustrating at times). But I do remember concepts, ideas, keywords,... that link into and out of others to connect the general dots and to see connections between otherwise unrelated or distantiated topics. I guess this is a common characteristic for people used to interdisciplinary environments and for conceptual thinkers. But what strikes me, is how different my keyword structures are from other people's.

Del.icio.us allows one to make "Tag Clouds" which is a visual representation of all your keywords. I've browsed the del.icio.us pages of several friends and they are generally very succinct and logical it seems, with keywords such as "blog", "music" or "fun". Whereas my tag cloud... well... see for yourself:

Thru the Lens

I started my new job just a little over 10 days ago now and I'm still trying to find some sort of rhythm that will allow me to fit all my normal activities in and around my new work-shedule. It'll take a while before I'll successfully strike the right balance, and so I will have to ask you to bear with me on this, both in terms of blogging and social contact. I crammed as many social events into my after-work hours last week and it still feels like I've got major catching up to do. But the new workload is challenging and intense, and because I'd like to make a good contribution to the team as soon as possible, I feel like I (for a while at least) need to devote a few hours after work to catch up with all the new things I've been introduced to at work. So I don't loose grip on things until I've been properly trained up.

I have some personal news to tell you all and have mentally drafted 4 non-personal blog topics as well, all of which I'd like to jot down when I find some spare time later this weekend or week. Suffice it to say that I love the job, and that I'm confident some sort of new structure of social life/ work/ blogging/ personal stuff will emerge before too long, which will allow me to take everything on board as usual.

The quickest way to document things right now, is by using my camera phone for easy snapshots. My Fisheye Lens got scratched and I've yet to find a good replacement, so my stencil-shots are taken with a standard lens at the moment.

- Life In Transit -

- Pigeon Domination -

I'm sure most of you have at one time or other been witness to one of my infamous pigeon rants. You know the one: That I have a sneaky paranoid suspicion that pigeons are secretly plotting world domination. Because if you think about it, it all adds up. They have strategically positioned themselves in all our open spaces (easy mass-attack positions), they persistently shit on all our important landmarks and monuments (acts of rebellion), they embody breeding grounds for all sort of nasties and evil germs to which our own immune systems have yet to build resistance (mass production of biological weapons) and well, they look downright shifty what with their beady eyes snapping back and forth constantly on those freakishly dislocated heads of theirs. So I'm convinced pigeons are evil creatures plotting world domination.

Needless to say the recent emergence of pigeon-based stencils around Ghent is making me feel a little uneasy. They are everywhere. This one was positioned right next to an ATM machine. Call me paranoid, but I'd say the Pigeons have stepped up their plotting a notch. I am highly in favor of initiatives such as those taken by Faits Divers (a resto in Ghent), where you are promised a free beverage if you successfully snap the neck of one of the pigeons on their terrace.

[Disclaimer: A highly squeamish individual myself, I would never dream of wringing a pigeon's neck (despite the allure), so all you treehuggers: Back Off!]

- Don't Hold Back for My Benefit -

- Ghent Stencils -

- Cracks in the Foundation -

The Sunday Struggle #7

1. Not a Look-Alike

Photographer Francois Brunelle decided to hunt down and document people that are not genetically related, but do look alike. Some of the images and their stories are downright eerie. The two women below are no relation to each other, but were born on the same day, one hour apart. Both studied dance, moved to Montreal and got tattoos from the same shop. After they met, they realised they also lived in the same building... You couldn't make it up if you tried. For more non-genetic "twins", see here.


2. Jo Whiley's Live Lounge

Following a conversation last weekend, I decided to hunt down some of the Jo Whiley Live Lounge sessions (BBC Radio 1). The Live Lounge used to be my favorite item on her show, for the sole reason that artists were always asked to perform a their own take on someone else's song. I decided to upload my favorite one to the widget box below. If you fancy a wee listen, simply click the song-title. I doubt that anyone will ever be able to top KT Tunstall's take on Missy Elliot's Get Your Freak On, it's potentially the best cover I've ever heard. Other brilliant tracks include: Keane - With or Without You (U2 Cover) and The Kooks - Crazy (Gnarls Barkley Cover). Easily hunted down for free on Limewire.






3. Typorganism and Diggs Lab

A web-based project on kinetic typography (cool to play around with) and an alternative way to visually represent what people are Digging in terms of news.


4. Global Rich List

Want to feel good about your salary? And reconfirm just how privileged you are? Try this site. It tells you just how rich you are compared to the rest of the world.


5. Buddha Bowl

I think I may actually splash out on a few of these, they look so perfect for that delightful Sunday Cuppa. Not too keen on the color but they seem to come in a few other shades as well.


6. Air Guitar Nation

Me thinks one would have to be SERIOUSLY bored before one would actually even consider slipping this into the DVD player, but erm... it takes all sorts I guess.

Excessive Happiness Alert

Stick a fork in me, I'm done *happy grin*

Not only did I have a fab first few days at my new job, I also got to spend my weekend with a totally hot babe AND I'm chomping on one DELICIOUS chocolate egg as we speak. *buzzzz* Would be hard-pressed to beat a moment like this ;)

My very first workday was interesting to say the least. You all know what it's like. A bit of a restless night beforehand, three cups of coffee in the morning instead of a proper breakfast because you feel like you may just throw up, you're that excited. And then of course, you've had so much caffeine down yer system, you have to stop at every other petrol station for a quick wee. If then, due to a lapse in focus, you also accidentally end up on the wrong motorway and don't realise so till you're well stuck in its snail-paced traffic, the wee voice in yer head going "you're SO fired before you've even started" becomes a tad hard to crush.

But I DID eventually make it onto the right motorway and into work and instead of being told off, I received the warmest welcome anyone could possibly hope for. Gran's notorious juice and biscuit overdose simply fades by comparison. My new colleagues are warm, interesting and clever, the boss has a humongous array of experience and expertise to tap into and seems focused on trying to bring out the best in all of us. The work itself is varied and challenging. I am slowly getting a better grasp on what it is exactly a job as Scientific Management Consultant entails. It appears to be a very nice blend of "detective work", background research, content design, writing, high-level data processing, strategic management and expertise provision. And while most people assume I'd resent the long drive to work (110kms), I find myself actually motivated to start my day and am happily tired at the end of it.

I can feel you're all gradually getting the urge to strangle me for my display of excessive happiness but before you all start loading up yer guns to shoot the dopey happy grin right off my face, let me just up the ante a bit. I'm thinking big kick-ass Kalashnikovs here.

So, not only did I have a fab first few days at work, I got to spend my weekend in the company of downright sexy cheekiness. The whole thing was extremely random and impulsive, but it's Tuesday and I've STILL got a moronic grin on my face, which surely is testimony to a lucky hit. While it seems totally superfluous to err on the side of caution with just how much I divulge about it all just now, I intend to fully enjoy the ride and report on it properly in due course. (And yes, this totally explains the absence of the latest Sunday Struggle)

On a slightly different note, I ended up at Sfeer this weekend in Flanders Expo, and can I just warn anyone thinking of going not to waste their precious 12 euros on what basically is a megalomaniac amalgamation of Carpetland and Brico clones. The lack of innovative design was simply appalling and the only fun feature was trying to score freebies to gain back those wasted euros. Although, I hardly think a few chocolates, a chunk of Parmesan cheese and a waffle tally up to 12 euros.

And to round up this grin-fest, I'd like to leave you with a sneak preview of the new Scottish I-Pod (Via Jo)

The Sunday Struggle #6

I've had a very relaxed week and weekend so far, so I doubt this Sunday will be much of a struggle, but here's this week's hot tips:

(1) MindPicnic: This site is highly addictive. It will show you a tiny section of the Google Earth maps and asks you to pin-point/guess where exactly on Earth this image was taken from. It then tells you by how many miles you guessed wrong. I discovered last night that it's an excellent chat game: find yourself a competitive chat-mate and challenge them to beat your closest mileage. (Beware of competitive swearing *cough* Jo *cough*)

(2) When Objects Work: A Belgian company attempting return to Minimalism. Successfully so. I particularly like Yindigo Monchizuki's design:

(3) God's Debris: Disco sent me this link as a Sunday Struggle suggestion and this is exactly what I will be doing for the rest of the day: finishing the book. It can be downloaded for free here. A synopsis of the book:

"Imagine that you meet a very old man who—you eventually realize—knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what’s wrong with the old man’s explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage."

( 4) Andreas Gefeller Photography: This is absolutely stunning photography and most definitely the kind I would place on my wall. Birdseye perspectives rendered into entirely new visuals.

(5) Sunday quote to entertain my fellow physicists: "Physics is to Math what Sex is to Masturbation" by the legendary Richard Feynman ;-)

(6) My RSS feed list has grown expansively the last two weeks and for those of you looking for good blogs out there to follow on a regular basis, here's my suggestions:

FlyBottle
excellent, down-to-earth, philosophy blog

Apparent Dip
brilliant blog kept by a geologist with a broad interest.

Science Freak
comprehensive and fun Physics blog

Experimental Philosophy
scientific/neurobiological take on philosophy

Better Living Thru Design
the latest design features

Olelog
blog on Earth Science, aimed at a more scientific audience.

Cosmic Variance
particle physics collective blogging with a twist

Eureka Alert
current events newsflash on just about any field of science.
(warning: this site blogs about 15 posts per day on average, so highly time-consuming)

The Meaning of Liff

"In Life, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.Our job, as we see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society."

-Douglas Adams & John Lloyd-

I know this is old grub and I suspect most of you have read at least parts of the Meaning of Liff, but the topic of language and ideas came up in an intriguing conversation last night, and it instantly reminded me of the Meaning of Liff.

We talked about how certain terms are hijacked by a subset of people (or organisations) and taint the concepts related to the terms in such a way that people will instantly categorise them when they hear it. Take, for instance, the terms "energy" or "flow". Many people will instantly link these terms to new age concepts or "hippy-esque" ideologies, while in fact, the concepts behind these terms are universal and uncoloured by any ideology. So we discussed the importance of the evolution of language. How language needs to continuously be enriched. How concepts need to be defined by words that keep them approachable for anyone. How terminology needs to be altered so that the concepts themselves aren't instantly incorrectly categorized.

Language can be both rich and inadequate and I do believe we need to conciously and subconsciously work at its adaptations and growth.

The Meaning of Liff is a playful example of this. Do we have a word for that feeling of sitting down on a chair after someone else has just sat on it. You know... sitting down on that warmth left by a previous owner? Nope. Well, the Meaning of Liff conjures up a new word for it. And hundreds more. Fascinating and fun. You can buy the "dictionary" here.

Attential to Detail

OK, apparently I missed a really good newspaper snippet on that Independent Link from my previous post:

"Strewth! Australia rocked by 'lesbian' koala revelation"

(Thx Jo for yer keen eye *grin*)

Pew The Professional

It's a lovely rainy day in Vienna and I've just enjoyed one of my last weekday lie-ins for a while to come. Because yes, ladies and gents, Dr.Pew is about to turn professional. After 9 years of university dwindeling I'm cutting up my studentcard. I've hung up my travelling cloak for temporary safe storage and as of March 14th, I will become an official member of the daily rat-race. And you've no idea just how stoked I am.

After a successful interview two weeks ago, I have accepted a joboffer from a lovely, small but dynamic company in the northern realms of Belgium. To respect the privacy of my colleagues and the company, I do not intent to blog on work-related matters, unless the matter at hand is appropriately distantiated blogmaterial.

As of next wednesday, I'll start work as a Scientific Management Consultant and I think the job will be nicely challenging. It will combine work and experience in three very diverse fields (science, biz and communication), so I doubt I will get bored. I have to admit that I am slightly nervous. It's been years since I've had to function within a more rigid structure and I am curious as to what the transition will be like. But the team looks fun and interesting and I think I've a lot to learn from them all. Fingers crossed I can live up to the standards!

Mt.Ruapehu Collapse

I'm in Vienna at the moment for a wee family visit and while I normally read the newspaper over breakie, it takes more than one strong coffee in the morning before I dare attempt ploughing my way through a german newspaper. So I am always greatful if others cut my struggle short by pointing out the significant events for me (thx dad):

Mount Ruapehu Collapse Imminent

Last October, I spent 10 days in Taupo (NZ) whilst waiting for the snowstorm at the Tongariro Crossing to clear. The first signs of renewed activity at Mt.Ruapehu broke out on the day of my arrival there and I had somewhat foolishly hoped that this would herald a wee miniature natural disaster for me to explore while I was there.

While Mt.Ruapehu is one of the world's most active volcanoes, the issue at hand is not the risk of a sudden violent lava eruption but rather the overspilling of its crater lake. These last two decades, the Ruapehu crater (which is about the size of 23 football fields) has filled up with water and volcanic debris, and the walls of the crater now look set to collapse. When this happens, it will trigger what is known as a Lahar.

"A Lahar is a type of mudflow composed of pyroclastic material and water that flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. They have the consistency of concrete: fluid when moving, then solid when stopped." (source: Wiki)

New Zealand is absolutely geared towards professional monitoring of its volcanic landmarks and the installment of early-warning systems will allow documentary makers to record the event when it happens. This will undoubtedly lead to some spectaculair footage and valuable scientific data. I can hardly wait. *Psyched*

- Mt.Ruapehu (The Calmer Days, 5/10/06) -

For more of my volcanic piccies click here, here or here

Trivial Intermezzo

Due to a few too many captivating late-night chats this week, my brain's totally gone to mush. I racked my brains for a blogtopic today, and came up totally empty. Don't we just love a bit of writer's block?!

Anyway, I found this online and figured it'd be a nice little time-filler (sense the pun) (Thanx Jo for pointing this out ;-)

Caught up with time

Well, if all had gone according to plan, I would have been back from my fully completed RTW-trip today. The two parallel tracks fall back onto one and it seems I have caught up with time again ;-)

Appreciate directness

Ahhhhhhh *contented sigh*, I've chosen my friends well clearly. In my inbox this morning:

"I hope you're ok over there?! Any reason for not being in touch,
other than a chronic case of slackness on your part?! ;) "

I do love a bit of directness in a friend! *grin*

PS: Yes Will, I'm totally OK. Shall do my best to catch up with my slackness this afternoon! ;-)

The Sunday Struggle #5

Bored today? You could...

- Go outside (keep reading ;)

- Jot down any weird questions that pop up in your head during the long workweek and submit them to the Mad Scientist's Network (preferably no questions in the Biophysics field or they may ask me to answer them and I'm on holidays next week ;). Here's a good example to get your creative juices going: How could/would you burp in Zero Gravity?

- Take a moment to appreciate some homegrown architecture & design with a high drool-factor: Glenn Sestig Architects. I would however, NOT recommend a visit to the Glenn Sestig Restaurant (Kortedagsteeg, Ghent) as the food's disproportionately overpriced in terms of its quality. Or to quote a Dutch proverb: "Schoenmaker blijf bij je leest". Especially when one does the latter so exceedingly well.

- Or for the PhD Students who've not collected enough data of their own yet: Play with other people's data and create your own weird conclusions.

- Roll your eyes at a bit of excellent geek humor ;)

- You could bookmark 3191 : Two female photographers, living 3191 miles apart, share 1 photo blog.

- Plan your next underground party

- Or help me track down the parameters of The Awesome Floating Bed: I have searched everywhere for more specifics. As a PhD in Magnetism (well... kind of) I would really like to know the weight of the bed and the actual magnetic material (I suspect it's a composite)... so I could spend my own Sunday struggling through calculations of the magnetic field strengths needed to repel the bed from the base-magnet. I seriously doubt it's safe to have credit cards, pacemakers or mobile phones nearby, but man does it look impressive!! *grin*

- Or, to round it all off, we could indulge in a bit of Civil Engineer-bashing (an all-time favorite amongst us "cool" physicists;) .... The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster

-Cartoons courtesy of XkCd (thanks Oirish!)-

The Brits and their Alcohol

Was watching Graham Norton on BBC2 this evening and he played around with worldmapper (brilliant site by the way!)...

The map above demonstrates the alcohol consumption per country depicted by adjusting the relative territories of each country accordingly *grin*

Media Ownership

I'm thinking quite a few countries could do with following the US's Federal Communications Commission's attempts to reshape a few Media Ownership Rules.

"The FCC gathers public comment as it considers revising its media ownership rules, which help protect viewpoint diversity by limiting the number of newspapers, TV and radio stations a single company may own or control."

I'd say Italy, for starters, could certainly do with such regulations. For a full list of who owns what in the UK, please follow this link. (I'm still trying to track down a list for Belgium... bare with me)

(Via Reclaim The Media)

Invites

To get your invite to this weekend's Fais La Fête te Séduit, click here.

(Thx to Matt for this tip)

Skunk!!!!... in Boots

Dr.Jim's shop-o-holic other half Louise came over for a visit last weekend and as logic would suggest, we hit the shops big time. Unfortunately, neither of us were in "The Zone" much, so the spending spree was rather limited. Louise, however, is uncannily good at goading me into doing things. After we'd walked into some random shoe-shop, she strutted up to me with a pair of VERY girlie boots and with a defiant look on her face, said: "Go on. Get in!!" Now, I don't know what it is about girls with Yorkshire accents, but my resistance simply melts like snow in the sun and of course, I got in.

Partly to get Louise off my back but largely because I knew she was right, I decided to buy the boots. And today was my first opp to try them on. I had a meeting in Antwerp (what one wouldn't do for a bit of networking), so I decided to smarten up a little, strapped on my boots and added about an inch to my height. I'm still not sure I understand how you girlies get into to those things. It took me about 10 minutes just to slip on the one boot.

Anyway, for future reference, it's best to boot up AFTER you've taken the 30-odd stair-steps down to your garage. And when you release the clutch while driving, it's best to unhook the tip of your boot from the car frame. I stumbled twice during the meeting. Or, as a friend of mine so eloquently put it: "Seriously Sar, it was like watching Bambi trying to walk on ice!" But I'm sure she's just stolen that reference from an old Friends episode. Ten points to the person who knows which.

Anyway, after checking the mirror, I realise I'd better take in my trousers a bit, because while the ruffled up jeans look goes well with my normal shoes, it's not exactly classy on boots. But hurray to the lesbian for trying right?!?! ;)