Letters from Andrew - IV A rather belated installment in Andrew's letters from the U.K. Well I think its close to six months since the last letter so this will be a fairly concise picking of what I can remember (not much) combined with what was newsworthy (not a great deal). In the time since I last wrote, the university calender, which like it or not, I am strongly tied to, has moved from the end of the final term of the year, through the "end of year" frivolities, summer break, the various beginning of year rituals, the beginning of (academic) year and almost to the completion of the first term. In this time the British weather has gone from the final burst of spring, into a fairly good (by local account) summer, a spectacular, if disjointed, Autumn and is now plummeting into a frosty Christmas. The sun was rising and setting at sensible times there for a while, in the height of summer, it was not setting until 10PM (wonderful stuff!) and now, sadly, we are barely seeing 8 hours of daylight, the sun setting around 4/5PM with the height of winter (and the shortest day) still to come. The British population in this time has done the spring cleaning, put away the winter clothes and got out all the summer ones, had holidays or day trips or whatever it is the British population does in summer (if the weather keeps up, there is talk of the continent going through a "British tourist" drought, because the weather in Britain at summer has simple been too good to leave for many). The population has returned from the Seychelles or Blackpool or where-ever and commenced the new academic year (for school as well as University) and found the winter clothes have been pulled out, the summer light weights put away and so on. My workplace has moved from busy-busy exam preparations to busy-busy exam marking, to busy-busy "must fit a holiday in here" or "I had all this work to catch up on" and then on to busy-busy preparation for the new term. The new term (first of three for the year) itself has simply whirled past and will conclude in the coming week. In this time, yours truly has had visitors: family and friends, has seen at least one foreign country and seen a bit more of London and England. I have also seen a lot more of the surrounding things, lost contact with some friends (as they finish their academic year) and gained some new ones (as they commence theirs). I started work on some more material and have looked at what I may be doing in a few years time as well as assuring my position for the coming years time. And lastly although not least I have been doing the great accommodation chase, with reasonable conclusion. Well lets start with visitors ----------------------------- In a roughly chronological order I have had visits from Romayne (a relative), Rupert (a friend), Grant (another friend), Mum and Dad, Chris (a friend), and Nick (brother). As a direct result of these visits I have taken the opportunity to see some of the local and London sights I had not got around to, in addition to seeing several Cambridge sites/sights several times over. I am told I fit into the tourist guide role, well that gives me an alternative career should everything else turn sour. (Yes, that was a joke.) Having visitors has been down right wonderful, so thanks to all who made the time/effort. Events ------ Well over the past (almost) 6 months I seem to have done stunningly little (except work), but some of the events I have participated in include: The Trinity May ball, a ridiculously indulgent evening of dancing and feasting and all round silliness. The may balls, all held in a single week, commemorate the end of the final term. Trinity are famous for having the largest ball, although not always the best. Fortunately I was lucky and the ball was a great deal of fun. A large group of friends went along and we had the obligatory dancing (four "venues" through the college grounds, running such things as a rock thing, a Scottish ceilidh, an orchestra playing popular selections from Bach through to Britten, jazz, bop and so on) and punting (at 2am) and eating and drinking and there were games to be played (a sort of miniature monopoly money casino, a fair ground, etc). All stupidly extravagant but a lot of fun. Most colleges run an event at this time of the year, although not everybody runs such an event every year. The college I am associated with, Corpus Christi, runs a Ball every alternative year and this seems a more common practice among all but the largest of the colleges. Next.... It was a work related event, but I went to a workshop at Trinity College, Dublin (not to be confused with Trinity College, Cambridge). This was just fantastic. I stayed at Trinity College, Dublin itself in some very nice college accommodation (which included, among other things, a shower, strange how the little things become important.) and was in Dublin a half day early, which gave me the opportunity to take the time to look around this city. Several of you will have received postcards from when I was there, so you realise it was a while ago, but no less an interesting place to be. Dublin is not what could be described as a beautiful city, it has its beauty without a doubt, but the city has real purpose with few areas "wasted" on tourism and the seaport (the major industry) and the brewery (the major leasure activity) dominate the city culture. I did not realise it until I was there but the Guinness Brewery takes its symbol from that of the city of Dublin and with one bound strongly into the culture of the other (it has to be seen to be believed) this discovery did not surprise me at all. While staying at Trinity College, Dublin I took the opportunity to look through various of the buildings (the library containing the Book of Kells) and displays, all interesting stuff. Dublin has no shortage of pubs and no shortage of literary heritage, a comment often made (for the benefit of tourists I have no doubt) was that the pubs of Dublin seemed to have been full of inspired, alcoholic, depressed writers, particularly earlier this century. Other novelties I noticed included seeing how a "well behaved" member of the European Union acts. The U.K. is well known to (for many reasons well beyond the scope of a simple letter) be a badly behaved member of the EU, well in comparison Ireland is the model citizen. This EU-ness was somewhat amplified by Ireland being the incumbent president and host nation of the EU for the next 2/3/4/? years, and considerable preparation being made to make all the EU operation welcome in Dublin. (The presidency of the EU is moved on a rota from host nation to host nation, all very fair and equitable). EU symbols were everywhere, EU flags flew on all the major buildings and so on. After talking with our hosts the reason for the enthusiastic embracing of the EU became more apparent. Ireland gets substantial handouts from the EU for one thing and another, as a result they are hardly likely to bite the hand that keeps them fed. By the way, the workshop was pretty good too. Recently there have been numerous Guy Fawkes nights, the city runs one, the college runs one, various people in the lab run one (each on a different night I note). I think the latent pyromaniac contained in each of us comes out on Guy Fawkes night, a very odd evening although the fireworks themselves are always popular. Work ---- Well my office is not only fully furnished but also fully populated (14) in a large open plan style office. The English are still the majority but most other continents also get a representative... French, Australian, English, English, Nigerian, Mauritian, Korean, English, America (US), British, empty , English, Scottish, Chinese. Humm, more English than I thought. We have been promised phones soon (any moment) but since that is the same promise since January I am not holding my breath. Instead we have a common phone shared among as and another room which makes for interesting times. Work itself has been trundling along, I have been approved for another 12 months of work in the U.K. by the foreign affairs department and now only need approval of the home office. Hopefully this will go without a hitch and I will have this all sorted out by the end of this week. What this means is that I will be employed until the 31st of December 1997. (techno speak begins, skip to the next ---'s I wont be upset) ------------------------------------------------------------- Work itself has changed direction a little. The distributed control of ATM switches project is moving swiftly along with the principal designers attempting to lodge patents on the core technologies (so I won't describe them in details, actually I wouldn't be able to as I really have had nothing to do with their development and don't know what its all about anyway.) This has moved the project away from using the experimental equipment in the laboratory and onto commercial switch equipment, as a result my skills are being used on a related project that is using the same equipment. My main task each day is still programming, although at the moment I am not writing programs for the ATM switch systems themselves, usually I am writing software to generate traffic with particular characteristics (pseudo-random exponential, pseudo-random geometric, periodic, periodic-burst and so on). A direct result of this work is my understanding of statistics may have increased, although at times I realise a lot of work still remains to be done in this area. Once a traffic trace (a set of traffic usually taking the form of times between ATM cells) is taken, I then, using software developed by others in the laboratory, measure characteristics of this trace of cells as it is sent through an ATM network. [An aside for those non-ATM types persevering... a cell is a burst of data, fixed in length, data is transferred through the ATM network in cells] An ATM network will lose cells, cause changes in the way cells are spaced and in general mess around with whatever characteristics you originally had in place. These changes are measured and become a set of graphs of (for example) the percent of cells lost versus the number of sources (of a particular type) of traffic in a network. This project is not quite as interesting as it may sound (it didn't sound interesting at all ?? now where is your pioneering spirit!), unfortunately I have been working with some grouchy old software and hardware that is in desperate need of being replaced. This is the other major task myself and a coworker have been working towards. Eventually we wish to replace the software we are using, but project deadlines have meant I have had to learn the old (and theoretically never to be used) system so as we can get some interim results ready. Its all go in work land... Work II ------- Recently one of the other projects was required to spend a substantial amount of its equipment budget in a short space of time. (The way budgets are run in these particular projects means its advantageous to spend everything the moment the project cheque clears the bank.) The end result is the potential purchase of numerous "toys" such as - camera's TV's etc (not unreasonable, the project relates to video) - devices to send and receive video/audio over ATM networks - network bits and pieces - a CD-ROM writer - a decent Capuccino machine and my personal favourite - "test pattern generators" a lovely euphemism for Games machines (play-stations for those that care) along with several different "test patterns" (games for the uninitiated.) Of course these things must be approved before purchase, but stranger things have been purchased before. Amusing Cambridge story ----------------------- Okay the first amusing Cambridge story relates to the University bank. I mentioned in the last letter (don't worry you won't need it) about proctors, the university policemen. Well these people are also responsible for the University treasury and one of the traditional items of office is the set of keys to the University chest (back in the days when there was .A. university chest.) Well the keys have been lost, apparently they have been lost for "years and years" (which for us probably means "centuries and centuries", who knows), but frankly it didn't instill much confidence in the office of Proctor to learn this. On a related money story.... The official bank of the university is Barcalys Bank. Recently the University's pro-vice Chancellor was taken to lunch by the manager responsible for the University account (the university wanted to change this or that). The manager responsible is (by tradition, what else?) the general manager of Barcalys Bank itself. I guess for us little people, when we want something from the bank we take the manager to lunch, when institutions like the university wants something the bank takes it out to lunch. During the relating of this story, I learned, Barcalys had no record of when the University had become a client of the bank. Now the university predates the bank by some 500 years, but sadly the University has no record either. For all intents and purposes the moment Barcalys came into existence the University was a client, which of course may very well have been the case anyway. The second Cambridge story relates to one of the buildings on the "New Museum site" (the place were the building I work in is situated.) Apart from being the home a 16th century order of monks (giving rise to a nearby pub called the bath, supposedly on the site of the bathhouse itself), the New Museum site houses the old Cavendish laboratories. Old Cavendish labs were the place were many discoveries related to the atomic world were made, these included the splitting of the atom, weighing electrons and so on. Well until this past year one whole floor of a building (a large distance from where I work!) has been closed. This was because until this past year, the floor of the building (not just the floor as such, but the walls, furniture, etc) had such a high level of background radiation as to constitute a major health hazard. One of the (many) items carted from the recently reopened floor of the building was Rutherford's original desk. It had such a high level of radiation associated with it, that it was taken (along with many other items) to be buried in a low-level radiation dump and to not be uncovered for at least 1,000 years. One can only guess at the sort of items that would have been placed on that desk at one time or another. I should quickly note, quelling any concern, that I do not work in or near this building, through some cruel twist of fate, it is the residence of the School of Social and Political Sciences, a group with which I am completely unrelated. 1997 and beyond --------------- Well some of you will know this but many will not. I was recently asked by the laboratory if I would like to apply for a PhD. While this had been a "background" goal I was quite excited for the department to be actively encouraging me to apply. The application process is two parts, the University (well, the laboratory, but thats the university) has to accept an applicant and the applicant has to be able to demonstrate that they can afford everything, most usually this is done by having a scholarship (or two) or being independently wealthy. Well I am not independently wealthy, so I have made all the scholarship application noises I need to have. In a most unusual (but practical) system, the university will not give me information about scholarships for which I am eligible (and for which it will apply on my behalf) until after the university has approved the application itself. There are however other scholarships (well one at least) which do not follow this model of application. I have applied for both and have most things crossed I can cross. I will find out results both for one of the scholarships and for the university application in January, probably late January. If I was to succeed in this application I would start studying in October, cutting my employment off several months early (at this stage I have employment until the end of 1997.) The October start seems important as this is the start of the University year and not starting at this time can cause a bit of fracturing from the university activities (orientation things in addition to more social activities.) So late January 1997 and I will know more. Housing ------- I had some bizarre experiences with getting housing for the coming year. When I originally moved into Barton Rd I was told I would have to move out in September, this accommodation is reserved for graduate students and I was not a graduate student (Corpus Christi is one of the few colleges that can guarantee all graduate students accommodation for the "natural term" of their degree, the result is they need all the accommodation they can get their hands on.) This was a very reasonable constraint on the accommodation and one I was willing to live with. Well I had enjoyed living in the Leckhampton complex, it was a pleasant environment and the contact with others was really great, it would be very sad to loose that. I started looking around and instantly realised if I wanted to live over that side of Cambridge it would cost a great deal of money, or be in a terrible place (or both!) so I started looking at places I could afford. ... to cut a rather tedious and long story short ... on the day I was to sign a lease for a new place, I was offered accommodation in the place I had been in all year. The reason given was that graduate admissions numbers were down (apparently some scholarship support had been reduced.) Well I was only too happy to stay put. While at the moment I could afford a nicer place to stay I was well aware that I would probably have to move again in 12 months time when I turned (hopefully) from worker into student. Additionally the place I am staying in is quite close to Leckhampton, and that was a bonus too. The drawback of not having a shower still remains, but as I have mentioned this is such a common lack of facility elsewhere that its less of a drawback than you would first imagine. The final thing that turned the decision was that my house had a washing machine/tumble drier. This sold me as the place I was looking at had no such facilities and the nearest were 20 minutes walk away. Sad really, I selected a place because of a washing machine. Christmas --------- Well as most of you know, Nick (brother) is here and will be in England for Christmas. I am glad to have someone here with me for Christmas it will be a very different time from those previously, they have always been great gathering of families and will be sorely missed. Nick and I plan to join a more distant relative for Christmas day and plan to have a good time too, although family and friends will be sorely missed. I hope the Holiday season sees all of you in good health, thank you all for the many letters, the multitude of kind wishes and all the good thoughts. My best wishes for the holiday season, Christmas and the New Year to you all, Andrew. I make no promises about my abilities to return letters or write good thoughts, I am sure they will continue to be tardy and apologise in advance, if its any consolation, I'll continue to think the good thoughts on time. Andrew Moore 88 Barton Road Cambridge, CB3 9LH UK 01-223-368-851 (home) Andrew Moore University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory New Museum Site Pembroke Street Cambridge, CB2 3QG UK 01-223-334-644 (work) 01-223-334-678 (fax) andrew.moore(AT)cl.cam.ac.uk