Dirty hands

Last week, finally, I was able to gain some practical experience in the pilot laboratory. The biomass fuel was easily combustible and convenient to handle as pellets. However I am in the ridiculous situation of relying on the technician transferring data to his portable pc via usb output since the data logging pc does not have a usb port. It isn't exactly difficult to connect a pc to the campus network. Except that our infamous it department do not keep stock of cables longer than 5 metres! However they do have money to install a large lcd/plasma tv in the reception...

Now I have some data (albeit only 1 hour in a 1 day! :) ) to include in the forthcoming progress review meeting.

Assuming I am deemed to have made satisfactory progress I should be free to pursue my next target: municipal waste combustion sample preparation.

e-mail hell

I never thought, with technology of today, that an organisation be capable of: losing messages; employing untrained "support staff", such that a basic request to use an e-mail client cannot be resolved. In the end, have given up using the university mail network altogether.

Since the last post I was hoping to have finally conducted some experimental work. Unfortunately, no. Further equipment failure, higher priority of other personnel and a mini holiday season have all contributed to additional delay.

In the meantime, I've managed to complete the postgraduate skills record and a draft document for a an imminent annual review, all using tex for further practical experience. I have also had some fun trying to remember my school level calculus. I'd been thinking: "where are all my school books now?!"; "how is it possible for my brain to be able to remember those differentiation/integration procedures after reading a maths book again, after so many years?"; "why didn't my maths teachers make this topic more relevant to my interests". Or maybe they did but I was busy not listening...