Grim up North Heath

Tag: life

  • Pet B

    Pet B

    Write about your first computer.

    There are two ‘first computers’ for me. The first one I used was when I was at Thurso High School. This was the school’s 8K Commodore PET that was available to book for lunchtime use. I was at the school from ‘81 to ‘82 before we moved to England. I don’t know that I learned very much; some programming in BASIC but no guidance, played a text adventure game and perhaps gained an awareness that computers were a thing that would feature in my future.

    Commodore PET from about 1980.

    The second was a BBC B that was a Christmas present to the family in 1983. Transferring data and uploading was a challenge using cassette tape recorder. It could take half an hour to load games, along with the clanking racket of data transfer and you’d come back from your tea to find the load had failed. Jealous of a neighbour (an engineer) who had a floppy disc drive and he could load a game in under a minute! He’d also expanded the BBC B’s 32K RAM to an unbelievable 128K.

    The power!

    Having a BBC C at home was handy, because this was the machine I used for ‘O’ level computer studies. In theory I could have transferred work between school and home, but data transfer wasn’t really viable and we only did a small amount of programming during the course.

    Inevitably games were played on the BBC at home, once we hooked it up to a spare telly. Elite was my favourite, a space adventure game with trading commodities and the occasional space battle. I also have fond memories of my dad playing ‘Estra’, a collect-the-pieces game that took ages to load. But while it loaded, it played ‘Entry of the Gladiators’1, which was fun.

    You can play Estra here, and listen in awe to the theme music.

    After O levels, I didn’t use computers much for a number of years. I first heard about email in 1990, when I was at uni in Loughborough. One of my tutors told us that he could send a message from his computer2 to a friend at Portsmouth and get a reply later that day. Much faster than letters and less intrusive than a phone call.

    Mrs S and I didn’t own a computer at home until about 2000, after we had bought our first flat. The mainly so that I could work at home on my PhD. I had to run an extension line right across the flat to get dial-up internet and it was honestly easier and quicker (and possibly cheaper given the cost of phone calls back then) to take a bus up to the university (from central Bath) and get journal articles from the library than it was to try and download them at home. But I did write my thesis on it, so it served its primary objective.

    I can’t remember the specs, but I do know it was quite an expensive bit of kit for us at the time. Given its cost, we shipped it over to Australia in 2003 and back again in 2005. We still have it in the loft, gathering dust and awaiting possible resurrection so I can play Quake III Arena again.

    1. The circus music. ↩︎
    2. He had a computer in his office! ↩︎
  • Call and response

    Call and response

    Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

    Most families have in jokes, like most friendship groups. This is why your brother is the funniest person you know, though your sister is a successful stand-up comedian. Well, maybe not your brother, but it’s a tale I’ve heard comedians tell.

    Growing up, we had a few stock phrases in my family, it was usually my dad who used these. Every time someone went to the barbers:

    What’s the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut? Two weeks.

    Every. Time.

    I do miss him.

    One he borrowed from a work colleague:

    I want to see it on a concrete piece of paper.

    As a family, we find it difficult to say goodbye on phone calls. Mrs S laughs when I talk to my mum, we will say goodbye and it will be another ten minutes before we hang up. When we visit, mum always stands at the door waving until we’re out of sight.

    Now we have a family of our own, we have a few traditions and stock phrases. The most important one is letting people know when you’re finished in the bathroom. Lifted directly from “The Young Ones” episode Nasty.

    Rik letting Neil know that he’d finished in the bathroom. Very socially responsible of him.

    Bathroom’s free!

    Unlike the country under the Thatcherite junta!

    Over the years, the adjective for the junta has changed. It’s currently Starmerite, it has been Sunkakian, Trussite (very briefly), Johnsonian, Mayite, Carmeronion, Brownian and Blairite in its time. But the important thing is that we know the bathroom is free.

  • Confessions of a serial degree taker

    Daily writing prompt
    What colleges have you attended?
    View all responses

    I’m taking ‘college’ to mean ‘university’, since I have only been to one college – a 6th form college (16-18 years old) where I did my A levels.

    In my time I have got degrees from four universities and a diploma from a fifth.

    I did my first degree (Chemistry) at Loughborough University, a mid-range university and high-level pronunciation test for non-natives. This is the most important college/ university because that’s where I met Mrs S.

    After Loughborough I worked at Liverpool University, where I also studied part-time to get a Masters in geosciences. I learned how to use Excel (version 5.1) to model isotope fractionation in carbonate minerals.

    My next job was at Bath University, still a low-level lab tech. After a couple of years there I was offered the chance to do a PhD. Since my career was otherwise stalled (departmental politics) I said ‘yes’. I finished my study of the surface chemistry of pharmaceutical cellulose excipients in 2002, graduating in 2003. More importantly, Mrs S and I got married during my studies.

    2003 was also the year we moved to Australia and in 2004 we became parents. In 2005 we moved back to the UK, where I started work for the company I would be with for 19 years before being laid off in late 2024.

    During that time I did another part-time masters (I’d intended doing a Diploma, but the course was pretty interesting and useful). This one was run by De Montfort University in Leicester, on Quality by Design in the Pharmaceutical Industry. I also found time to do a Diploma in Innovation at the Saïd Business School (Oxford)in early 2024. Both of these were remote, so I don’t know if I can say I ‘attended’ them.

    So lots of pieces of paper and academic experience. I think they’ve been worthwhile, even though I still don’t have a regular job that uses any of them!

  • Good morning, Smithers-Jones

    Good morning, Smithers-Jones

    This song has been going through my head recently, with good reason.

    Smithers-Jones by The Jam. A story of a man getting laid off.

    To summarise, it’s about a man who goes to work on Monday morning and has a meeting with his boss. And, rather than the promotion he’s been hoping for, he gets laid off.

    It’s the refrain that goes through my head when I leave the office (which was once half of the garage) and have a break from what I’m doing.

    Put on your slippers, turn on the TV

    It’s all a part of feeling groovy

    Now, in the song Smithers-Jones has worked his arse off. I doubt anyone would accuse me of that, but the overall feeling of ennui and having been disposed of is one I can understand. I’ve been feeling a bit of that myself. The worst day was when I had to call IT services to be shut off from the work system, over a month before my gardening leave ended. A few days later my email stopped, too. It did feel as if 19 years of my work life had been chucked in the skip.

    Thinking rationally, it hadn’t – all the work is still there, but I’m no longer a part of it.

    Job search

    So I have been looking for work over the last few months, but there isn’t a lot that’s suitable.

    An annoying aspect that wasn’t around when I was last looking for work (1997) is the rise of Data Science as a job. More than three-quarters of the jobs I see or am recommended for as a ‘Principal Scientist’ are actually looking for experienced data scientists. I don’t have at least two years experience in SQL, Python etc or a PhD in Large language Models. Wish I did, the pay is fantastic!

    Training in Excel

    I’m well into a course on Excel supplied by Reed, one of many employment websites. I’ve been using Excel for 30 years, ever since I was working at Liverpool University. We had Excel 5 (I think) and we used this to collate data from the mass spec. I also used it for my Masters as a matrix calculator to estimate isotope fractionation from spectroscopic data1.

    Excel has expanded since then. Like most regular users, I was aware that there are many features that I don’t use and don’t know how to use, or even never knew existed (Format Paint, anyone?) but never had the time or impetus to investigate. But I now have the time and, yes, there are features I wish I had known about earlier that would have made some things easier.

    The course also has an introduction to VBA, which I was aware of but never explored. I’d always wondered how to make Entry Forms, and now I know.

    Still, this might stand me in good stead to get a job as an admin somewhere. Or I might design an Excel course and see if I can make money from that.

    Applications

    So far the table for applications is:

    Applied for13
    Rejections4
    Heard nothing9

    It’s this last one that’s the most galling. When I was in charge of recruitment I made sure to respond to every applicant and let them know when they would expect to hear from us.

    I’ve applied for jobs in London as well as more local to Horsham. I’d be willing to work for less than I was on if it means I don’t have the hour long2 commute each way. London would mean taking the train and perhaps two hours total travel, which would not be great, but at least I’m not driving.

    More jobs seem to be coming, though. One I was rejected from (overqualified) was in formulation, which is what I was doing before I was laid off. Today I saw another formulation position, this one in Finsbury Park (1hr 30m by train) but I’d be spending all my wages on train fares.

    So I will keep going. It’s not like I don’t have anything to do, what with the Excel training and learning Blender and, now that the weather is improving, garden and home maintenance to do.

    Maybe I’ll turn the TV on and feel groovy instead.

    1. I can do a blog post on this if anyone’s interested. ↩︎
    2. Mrs S still works for the company. It took her three hours to get home the other day. Two hours to do about a mile because Guildford was gridlocked. ↩︎

  • Blender part 2

    Blender part 2

    I started a course and, unusually for me, I paid actual money for it. It’s presented by Grant Abbitt, some of whose free video tutorials I’ve seen. I did finish the low poly well, it took me a few days (no idea how many hours) and I was pleased with the result.

    Not sure where such low poly work would find a home, but it’s good to do something creative that I think will lead to better 3D prints. I just need access to a 3D printer.

    Learned quickly how to change materials and do lighting so that you get these great effects with transparent materials. This was done on the second day of the course, maybe four hours to get this far.

    What’s so good about this course is that Grant takes you through the steps to make a thing. This isn’t unique, but I see a lot of courses that show you how to use tools in Blender and other programs (Excel, for example), but there is no context.

    What he also avoids is the “Draw the rest of the fucking owl” trap that I see so often. You’ll be shown how to design something, then magically it’s all lit with a background, multiple lights and a camera fly-round.

    The original “Draw the rest of the fucking owl” meme. Original artist unknown, but it’s been around since 2010. Which is medieval by internet standards.

    I got the course through Udemy, it may be available elsewhere. It’s called “Complete Blender Creator” and I reckon it’s been worth the £15. If I was making stuff in real life it would cost me at least that much to buy some clay or paper and paints.

    More to follow. There’s a lot to learn, but I’ve got time while I’m on gardening leave. I can’t spend all day looking for work when there’s no suitable jobs.