Potty Page

April 20, 2005

OK, so it could...

Upon arriving at Birmingham New Street I somehow managed to get lost going out of the station... well it's not that I couldn't find my way out of the station... it's just that when I was out of it I didn't know where I was. I couldn't find any of the road names on my lovely map I'd printed.

So... I hunted down a map on the side of the road... I found one of these quite easily to be honest... and I found where I was and everything. Now... it was obvious where I was... but for some reason unbeknown to myself I looked at the arrows on the road, showing the one way ness... and noticed that vehicles were going contra to this... so I decided to instead of trusting that I should be going right... went left. (I'm guessing that as all the vehicles I based this wanky decision on were busses, they are allowed to go the wrong way down this particular road)

This, as it happens, took me off the edge of my map. Arse. Instead of being sensible and thinking about this I carried on, going 'shit my hands hurt a log'.

Eventually a guy realised I was a bit lost, noticing me looking at the pedestrian direction signs in a flummux. He pointed in the general directiion I wanted to walk in.

"Bollocks to this for a game of cards, I'm going to be well chuffing late if I walk...", I think to myself. I give in and get a taxi.

The event itself appeared to be running some what late. Which was good to be honest!

It was quite interesting to bump into one guy who I'd emailed about things on his stand. Mainly because I didn't even think he company would be there.

What's more interesting is that he did a similar PhD to me (albeit years before), has read many of my tutors papers. What's more amazing is that he was effectivly sponsored by the same (unrelated to electronics at all) company!

The most rewarding part of the day for me was the photometrics workshop which I'd signed up to. I got to learn all about the CIE Chromaticity Diagram, which is something which has baffled me since I ever started looking at coloured light!

In workshop I was amazed to hear that nobody seemed to know (these are all like 40+ year old electronic engineer types) the reason why some units abbreviations begin with a capital letter and some do not. It's hardly rocket science. If the unit is named after a person then it's capitalised! A volt is named after Volta and hence the abbreviation, V, should be captialsed. The second is named after nobody, hence, little s.

His example wasn't as good as mine.

James Watt invented the steam engine, and therefore Joules is a capital J.

Yeah... nothing to do with James Joule then.

Luckily, after a humourous lecture given via VoIP from China I escaped to the station :-) Train was delayed a bit, but not too badly.

To give me something to do on the train I'm writing this down in what might become my offline blog pad. For adding to the blog whilst things are fresh in my mind. It's sad, I know.

What's more sad is the fact that I'm activly hiding what I'm writing from the people who site at the table around me (all of which are complete strangers). Why!? I'm typing it up now for anyone on the web to read! How silly!?

Ah well. How lucky I get to do all this lark again tomorrow. Hopefully, with none of the falling down, missing buses, missing trains or getting lost lark. I think I'll prolly be taxing it again...

The post about ice skating can damn well wait until tomorrow. I've got to be up again in not that long! I'll write it on the train on the way in... :-)

Oh yeah... my WAP updatey thing broke... sorry to the people who subscribe to the blog update texts for getting the pointless "test" post message!

Posted by Ed at April 20, 2005 11:49 PM | PhD | Trips |