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Too Much Academia Has Disconnected Me From World News

Byrichard

Too much academic research and concentrating on dissertations has cut me off from world news to such an extent that apart from tech goings on I had no clue. I hardly followed the French elections, hardly noticed the death of Yeltsin, hardly noticed the regional elections.

There are three reasons for this. England is a hard news vacuum with it’s slightly islandish mentality (don’t yell at me for this view, I’ve been here a fifth of my life), online news resources, (finding the news I want) and thirdly researching and writing my dissertation.

It’s been a break from the world and it’s coming to an end and I need to resynchronise with the Hard News world once more. It’s going to take a few days of reading news once the disso and work experience folders are handed but I’ll do it.

I also need to decide what to do, whether I stay in London, whether I go travelling and scuba diving to become an underwater cameraman or whether I go back to the beautiful landscapes of Switzerland where my social life is lived through a computer because I am so tired of the motorway to and from Geneva these days.

Another option is getting a motorbike license, getting the scooter and driving as far as I feel like on a daily basis and seeing place after place.

Time will decide of course.

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An Energetic Walk Through London

Byrichard

Today is a day of rest for me. I caught the tube into central London and went for a nice hour long walk through the center of London. Starting from Oxford tube station I walked through the throngs of people, dodging them and trying to fray the quickest path through them as possible without having to cut down on speed. I passed by Pall Mall and the Cabinet War rooms before walking along the South Bank where all the entertainers were

Masses of people were queing for the London eye whilst others were eating at Wagamama, strada and other restaurants. I passed the Tate Modern and saw the guy with the birds, not a pimp, the reptiles that evolved into feathered creatures. He was there with his public.

I pased by a few beggers, some looking worse than others.

There was an opera singing girl under one arch and that did make a change, a nice one. Tired of always seeing the modern artists so seeing a more classical application is more interesting. I didn’t stop, and didn’t hear. I was listening to the i-pod.

I passed by more objects before finally getting to London Bridge. By then I was getting tired, after all when I got down to the tube I had been walking for an hour at my cruising speed, above 8km/H. Think I covered quite a nice distance and saw many sights.

Now I’m content, sitting in my room and I saw that the Digg word stock I bought on trendio went up by 7 points and s

Trendio – A Word-Based Stock Exchange

Byrichard

I’ve just started playing with Trendio which seems like an interesting website. In the past i’ve played on websites where you’re playing the stockmarket with virtual money and you can see how you’re doing without the risk of bankrupcy usually associated with investment.

I’ve only been using it a few hours now and I have yet to make a profit on the search terms but over a short amount of chance there is a chance that I will make virtual credit.

I’ll come back to this topic once I have more experience of it.

A Dummy’s Guide To Conflict Resolution Between Two Appreciators of Beer

Byrichard

Going out is great, especially to an empty night club when friends of yours are present. It immediately becomes less fun when one friend decides to enjoy the freedoms of nature on a fence whilst a police car is rolling past.

At the time I was sitting in a kitchen with my back to the window when I hear the siren go off. What’s the cause of this I wonder and lookout. I spot two people I know and immediately I understand what they were doing. Harmless engineering term, up to you to figure out which one.

A friend standing behind me decides to yell out of the room “stop them, they’re terrorists” which in itself would be a harmless joke except for bored policemen. They decided to give the guy they had interrupted when nature calls an £80 fine. That’s annoying for anyone who’s been fined. You know the feeling.

It became more interesting when those two people came up to see me and ask whether I had caused those problems. Having a clear conscience I answered that I had not been the one to land them in trouble. Ok, who did, was the next response.

This person

Ok, now the situation escalated. At this point, both people knew who was responsible for what and they were willing to fight. I used all of my body strength to come between both individuals because I did not want to see a fight take place when I was a key witness in the unfolding events.

No fight took place but the echauffement definitely did. I was asked to leave the flat although I had done my best to avoid a fight and everyone went their separate ways.

That’s definitely not what I want to have to deal with after spending so much time and effort on the dissertation. When I wake up I’ll spend some more time adding the finishing touches to my dissertation before handing it in.

Goodnight

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Singapore Is the Fastest Walking City

Byrichard

I just noticed that I’d love living in Singapore because that’s the city where people walk the fastest. Copenhaguen is a city I’ve walked in but I didn’t notice it being particularly fast. Berliners walk faster than New Yorkers and Londoners walk slower than all of the above.

I wonder how I’d compare to all these people and how I’d affect the averages. It’ just the type of news story I enjoy. Out of all these cities Malawi is the slowest. It’s 20 seconds slower than the rest.

source

On the Re-Write

Byrichard

I’ve been talking to a lot of people and there is hardly anyone that seems to take the re-write seriously. Most people see the writing phase as the end of the work. There’s a secret I’ve been hiding for some time now.

Re-writing gave me a twenty percent boost in grades. That’s the difference between merit and distinction. That’s the difference between a 2:1 and a distinction for the dissertation. Now take into consideration that the dissertation is worth 45 credits out of 120 for the year. That’s a large enough portion that if you create a good piece of work your grade will increase and your degree may be worth more.

I’ve been talking to people, taking an interest in their work practices and this is what I’ve found. Most people are around the 5-6 thousand word mark whilst four or five are completed. One person is up 23,000 and must cut down on what’s written. Most of these people aim to write from 1-3 thousand words a day and rarely go to see their supervisor. As a result, they’re relying on luck more than other factors.

Luck’s great but when you’re at home and your parents ask, “so how did you do?” the answer won’t be “stop asking me”. Instead, it’ll be. You’ve seen my work, you’ve seen the time and effort I’ve put into it, now let’s just wait and see whether it’s paid off or not.

Of course, pleasing your parents is always rewarding but there’s another motivation. The better the dissertation the more useful it may turn out for when you’re looking for work. Twice I’ve found work thanks to my website… don’t do much for that.

Last year I listened to a journalist and he told the students taking one course to focus their dissertation on a topic that would help them gain employment by demonstrating their in-depth knowledge of a topic, for example on conflict within one region.

It’s 0130am and I pushed myself today. I didn’t feel like writing, I forced myself. I wasted quite a bit of time but whilst I review my results section I can write the key points and write my conclusion according to that section.

Remember, people don’t want to keep flitting back and forth to understand what you mean.

goodnight.

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Digg and Mob Rule

Byrichard

There is a copy and paste culture on the web and I don’t like it. When you go to Digg, to Youtube, to myspace and other websites what you find are short comments. They’re contributing nothing to the debate, in fact they make the online experience online less enjoyable.

There has been quite a vocal outcry from certain people about the HD DVD codec and how forcing articles to be pulled down and deleting user accounts was going against their user rights. In fact, there is nothing of the sort.

It was nice to see that these users would be held accountable for the content they link to and provide.

Adding fuel to the fire Kevin Rose said something in his blog to the effect that since so many people feel so strongly about this issue he would not pull down any more links. I don’t agree with this.

There’s a level of mob rule which I think is counterproductive. There’s all this talk about user-generated content and networking. Ok. Where’s the original and innovative content. Simply digging a story and putting a few remarks is not enough.

Do some journalism, do some research, learn the topic inside out and then post an informed opinion. I’m not going to be part of sites where accountability is irrelevant. It’s irresponsible for them to publish such information.

It’s also given a massive PR boost to Digg.

Digg, Kevin Rose and HD DVD

Just look at how they’ve shot up according to blogpulse’s trend analysis tool.

Last Three Steps Before Handing In My Dissertation

Byrichard

Being at the stage I’m at, and having discussed the work with the tutor there are three things I must make sure to do before handing in the work.

The first task is uniformity. I need to go through two or three sections and make sure that I tie them into the overall structure of the dissertation work. It’s meant to flow from one section to another. That’s something I’ve got to work on.

The second thing I’ve got to work on one or two paragraphs, make sure that the information that I wrote down is comprehensive and there’s no so what question left in the air.

The final task is to make sure that I have a clear dissertation title and write the dissertation conclusion according to this. Once that’s done I’m pretty much done with this most major of assignments and it’s been a great learning curve. I think it’s been the best learning experience overall that I’ve had in University.

I’m Almost Done With Uni

Byrichard

I’m almost done with uni but it’s so hard. I’ve been working on and off on three projects now for at least three weeks and I’ve spent so much time on these projects that today I finally met my saturation point so I left the computer behind and dropped down to the bar for a drink or two and for company.

There were only a few people watching a football match and no media students from my year. They don’t have the luxury I have, of being able to leave everything for an hour or two before coming back to it and I do.

I took one of the booths and sat there thinking of nothing and doing nothing. It was nice to do nothing but rest, the only sound was football and then some music.

When I went outside a very amusing conversation was to be listened to and I laughed, feeling the pressure decline at last and being more sedate once more. It’s so great to think that in a week I’m done, that I have complete freedom. I can’t wait and I could get it within three or four days if I work really hard.

I’m no longer worried about the calendar, no longer worried about the deadline, no longer unable to say dissertation without feeling a sudden excess of stress. Instead, I’m calm, relaxed and it’s really nice.

I just can’t get to writing anymore. I’m going to have to re-write my conclusion taking the main points from my analysis and making sure that it’s clear and concise, a paragraph per point, and a summary for the conclusion. That’s the results and conclusion that I’m talking about.

Long live the end, the end of my academic workload, and the beginning of adulthood once more. Three years in the making.