An Exercise in Irrelevance

The workshop has today been discussing cross cutting issues between neurosciences and systems biology. Funnily enough, many of them seem fairly familiar: how to visualise complex, multi-dimensional data; how to combine and standardise the representation of data; how to combine models; how to enable scientists to work cross-disciplinary; and, how to train students to work in the area in the future.

One of the main differences seems to be a cultural differences: if you put two bioinformaticians into a room, they will publish a database; in neuroinformatics this tendency doesn’t appear to be there. I think that part of the reason for this is the lack of an obvious common standard representation. In bioinformatics, we worked from the DNA and protein sequence outward.

Originally published on my old blog site.

At a workshop in Edinburgh today. Thought it would be a good ideas; the CARMEN project is coming up so having some understanding of neuroinformatics. As for systems biology, thought I’d like to fail to understand some more people telling me what it actually is.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Yes, now I am 35. Years ending in 5 and 0 are always difficult ones. This one makes me, now, well on the way to middle age.

Ah, well, there’s nothing that I can do about it, so why worry?

Originally published on my old blog site.

While I was out walking yesterday, up around Northumbria with my friend, Ian, I realised two things: first was that Ian and myself hadn’t been on a walk together since before I went to Edinburgh, more than fifteen years ago; second, that I didn’t know how to clean the pipe of a water skin. These things are great in general, but can be tricky to clean, and you have to remember to empty the water and dry them. Last time I walked, I left some water trapped in the pipe and it went green. How to clean it?

So, here is my solution: cut a piece of cotton thread about three times the length of the pipe; about half way down tie a small piece (about 2cm) of hemp string or something similar; feed the end of the thread into the pipe — getting a couple of cm’s is easy, more is hard; now, dribble water through the pipe. The point is that the flowing water removes the friction between the thread and the edge of the pipe, and slowly pulls the thread through; you just have to feed the slack. When it’s all the way through, you can pull the string into the pipe; again, keep the water flowing or at least full of water. You can use the string to scrub the insides.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Bought a copy of Bend it like Beckham a while back; personally, I disagree. I’d rather be able to cook Aloo Gobi than kick a curve ball. Fortunately, I can, I did. Yeah, it was alright.

Originally published on my old blog site.

I’ve only ever seen the last five minutes of this film about a decade ago. I hadn’t realised that it was written by Meera Syal. Great film; funny, with nice observed social commentary and a few bits of the bizarre. It feels slightly dated now, but seems to improve with age; it now reminds me of history as well.

After that, I watched the X-Men 1 film; perhaps a strange choice; it shares one thing, though, with Bhajee on the Beach which is an excellent ensemble cast. I think I prefer this sort of film to the big star vehicle which is too common these days.

Originally published on my old blog site.