Ross’ PhD Blog Memex

• Currently Listening to: Bernard Fanning — Songbird

So Christmas arrived, and I managed to secure a Nintendo Wii (thanks Nikky). I’ve been a crazy Nintendo fan ever since that fateful day I got my first NES back in about 1989. I shamelessly wear geeky Mario-emblazoned t-shirts and have engaged in countless fruitless “which console is better” debates with friends and enemies. Shigeru Miyamoto is an idol of mine. And every new Nintendo console has been a special occasion.

Mark receives the thrashing of a lifetime!

Wii Sports is the very definition of a “killer app.” On the surface so simple, but containing surprising levels of depth and nuance. Once a friend has hit their first home run or cross-court volley, they’re hooked, and in most cases, go home wanting one. A number of times now a friend has taken a break from flailing their arms around to remark, wide eyed, things like “It’s amazingly accurate”, and “The speaker in the controller is a really good idea!”. Yes. I know.

While chasing my dog around today I was marvelling at her natural instincts to want to run around the whole time. It’s a game for her, and probably her favourite thing to do apart from tearing the house to shreds. The developing problem we’ve got as a species is that we got too goddamned good at building things that are even funner than basic locomotion. The Wii is a very smart move back in the opposite direction.

• Currently Listening to: The Walker Brothers — Make It Easy On Yourself

’Cause… breaking up is so… very hard to do. Due to the imminent destruction of the good ol’ Computer Science (…and Informatics) building, the SRG have upped and left to new environs this week. (Moving photos here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) Gone are our homely offices in favour of a new cubicled open-plan office space, the towering partitions between desks a few inches shy of the walls that encircle the Vatican.

Did anybody else come in today? Who knows!

Granted, at least they’re not pumping white noise in through the ceiling, and I can still look out the window and discern what time of day it is, which makes this a sight better than my time in IBM.

Crazy skies all wild above me now
Winter howling at my face
And everything I held so dear
Disappeared without a trace

So it was around this day last year that I joined up with the rest of the SRG to start on the merry road to this thing we call a PhD. It’s been a great year; in many ways, it was the fifth year of college that I so desired when my four years were up last September. I’ve bashed out two papers, done some travelling, worked with Intel briefly, and become ensconced with a terrific band of smart, interesting people. And a few goons.

It took a lot of prodding and empty promises, but our two new arrivals this year mark the culmination of Marko’s plan to get all the old gang together into postgraduate studies.

My research area is pretty well defined, and can be summed up as “The visualisation of autonomic systems.” As part of our year one requirements we all had to write up our hypotheses and plan for the future, which I feel is pretty solid, though doubtless will change drastically. Autonomics as a field is fairly young, the term having only been coined by IBM in 1990s and still being ill-defined. So there’s plenty of stuff that could be done.

My biggest weakness at the moment is that I have struggled somewhat into getting into the mode of paper reading. As I was trying to explain to Aaron earlier this week, it has taken me a long time to attune to the paper-reading process. So used am I to getting the latest techniques daily through weblogs in four paragraph bursts, that facing into a ten page — possibly very boring — academic paper has been a challenge, and the main thing I aim to fix in the next few months.

You better learn it fast; you better learn it young,
'Cause, "someday" never comes.

• Currently Listening to: Albert Niland — Wuthering Heights

Say hello to my little friends.

I got word in April that my first paper, the alluringly-titled “Collaborating in Context: Immersive Visualisation Environments” which I submitted in March to the Context in Advanced Interfaces workshop at AVI06, had been accepted. So, Mark, Mike and I headed off to Venice for the week to watch presentations, ride around on boats and eat octopuses.

The paper concerns the design and development of our unique visualization lab here in UCD. My presentation at the workshop went fairly well, considering I had completed a cross-city dash minutes before starting (Venice is a big place!). My slides are available with the others at the workshop’s results page. My paper has been published in the ACM digital library.

AVI 06 proper was an excellent conference, with plenty of interesting work going on, and people to meet. My trip report is available:

Trip Report: AVI 2006 May 23–26, Venice Italy

Our own photos are online, and you can also check out the very lovely Geoffrey Ellis’ AVI photos (spot the goons!).

• Currently Listening to: Vast — We Will Meet Again

A number of the SRG volunteered were conscripted for active service as helping hands for Pervasive 2006 this week, which was chaired by Aaron and Paddy. The conference was really well managed, and I think can confidentally be called a great success, our two fearless leaders being the apotheosis of cool under pressure (Lorcan on Paddy: “I don’t think he knows how to sweat.”).

While being a volunteer was tough going, seeing my first conference from behind the scenes has been a very interesting experience. The SRG gang really gelled together well, and our ranks were further bolstered by a complement of other great volunteers, who we had a terrific time with.

We have the official photo gallery. The man William “Richie” Hazlewood — who can down a carbomb like nobody else I’ve ever met — has also uploaded a great set of photos from the conference (and the after-party…).

Celebrating a job well done!