:: Afrikanscientist.com ::

So it’s been a while since I my last pearls of wisdom….. *ahem*….. A lot has happened in the past 2 months. Bit crazy really. I'’ve left openbox, an awesome software development firm and joined a small water treatment company in Johannesburg. While I’m sad to leave openbox and Cape Town, it’s fantastic to be back in chemistry. Actually putting my phd to good use , go figure. For now it’s mostly analytical chemistry which is cool because of the gadgets. But shortly it’ll involve modelling which is when things become really interesting.

Well, back to ironing out the water problems….. as in iron chemistry. Ha. I make a (bad) joke

I was copying some files off a remote server and got the usual “xyz minutes remaining” message box, which took more like x*y^z minutes to download. Urgh!!!

Anyway it got me thinking and I realised why Microsoft minutes differ from actual minutes: when you have that massive amount of money it distorts spacetime - hence those outside Microsoft’s reference frame will perceive the delivery as late when in fact, they’re early! *ahem*

No time to blog recently because a new addition to the family - Amélie Marie Simpson! A whole 1 and a half weeks old already. Being a parent is the most awesome experience I have ever had. Loving every minute of it - even the 3am feeds

I’ve discovered an unwelcome side effect of having a Ph.D. - suddenly people think you’re always right and all knowing. Ok, within reason. This weekend a very simple problem came up and I stated the solution was X and my dear old mom disagreed saying it was Y. Everyone automatically agreed with me without giving it much thought. Shortly thereafter my mom was proven correct. The reason they agreed with me? ‘The Doc’ must be right.

It’s a lesson well learnt for people standing on both sides of the fence. Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn’t mean you’re always right and just because someone has a Ph.D. doesn’t mean they’re always right.

So, the best Christmas present I received this year was one of humility.

End note: I dislike being addressed as ‘doctor’. I don’t believe addressing someone with a Ph.D. adds any value to society other than stroking the person’s ego. On the other hand, addressing a GP as ‘Doctor’ is useful as they can be easily identifiable in a time of crisis “Is there a doctor in the house?”. I only reserve the title for dealing with the banking or telesales personnel and estate agents who just rattle my cage. Unless you fall into either of these categories, please drop the ‘dr’. Thanks.

I’m the proud owner of a shinny new Ph.D. in computational chemistry.

A very big Thank You to my family (especially my parents and wife), colleagues in the lab and at work and my supervisor Prof Kevin J. Naidoo, for their support and commitment to ensuring that this day was possible.

When I started my post grad studies at UCT Wolfgang was a brilliant senior Ph.D. student. No one doubted his ability and he was clearly one of the brightest students the department had seen for a while (and then came Rob). Well that was my opinion as a new and impressionable post grad student.

Wolfgang took up a postdoc position in the middle of that year at Yale before he had finished writing up. To this day Wolfgang has yet to finish writing up and it’s highly unlikely that he ever will submit his thesis. What a pity - all that effort and knowledge lost and never to be published.

When I took up a full time development post before I had completed writing up, I promised myself that I would not become the next Wolfgang and I would complete my thesis no matter how much effort and sacrifices were required. On Tuesday I finally handed in the corrected copies of my thesis and will be graduating next Wednesday. I wonder how much easier it would have been to give up if had never known Wolfgang?

A recent posting on physorg refers to a presentation by Bill Gates at the Supercomputing 2005 conference. What’s all the fuss about? Microsoft have released a beta 2 version of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 which “is designed to combine the analytical power of varied computers in a network that acts as a single powerful server”.

So what? There are loads of Linux packages for setting up Beowulf clusters or you can do it from scratch without too much pain. Well that’s a lie - you can DIY if you want, but you will feel the pain (talking from personal experience here).

Personally I think this is awesome - I don’t see a downside to this. Will Microsoft squash Linux - hell no! But a little competition can do wonders. Secondly they (Microsoft) are pumping serious cash into R&D in this field. What I liked the most was “Gates urged software designers to collaborate with academics and government agencies to make technical computing easier and more productive.”

Not so long ago I was a “Linux is the path to Nirvana, Microsoft is the Devil” campaigner. Then I started working for an MS development house and began using MS’s development tools. I’m still a great supporter of Linux and FreeBSD but I don’t think MS is evil at all. The speed at which one can develop applications using Visual Studio and the .Net environment is simply spectacular. And it’s only going to get better. Sure there are development suites available for Linux but none as impressive as VS.

Take a look at Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003: Frequently Asked Questions for some uh… frequently asked questions including questions of MS MPI, licensing, running Linux/Unix apps on MS CCS, supported programming languages, networking issues… etc.

I stumbled across Greater Good SA while taking a look at Make Christmas Matter.

“The site’s mission is to make it easy for you to find out more about, and support, a charity of your personal choice”

There’s a huge selection of charities that need support. Money isn’t the only thing that you can offer. For example, do you have scuba diving equipment lying around that you don’t use? Probably not, but if you know of someone, send them to this link and let the Table Mountain National Parks put it to good use.

I heard about MakeChristmasMatter on the radio this morning. Sounds like an awesome initiative. Have a look and spread the word.

The following article appeared in physorg.com :

“Ohio State University researchers have invented a new organic polymer tunnel diode – an electronic component that could one day lead to flexible, low power plastic computer memory and plastic logic circuits on computer chips. ”

Apparently titantium oxide is the magic component. Not only that but it’s the method that it’s deposited on the surface - if you just dump it on then nothing happens but if you carefully oxidise the surface of a Ti layer, bob’s your aunty.

Does this mean plastic chips will replace silicon chips? Not according to Paul Berger from Ohio State Uni. He believes plastic will augment silicon.