Sorting things out (by sarah)

I'm currently sorting things out for a fun weekend of family wedding and meeting up with people - there have been a few hicups already ie getting the wronge weekend for the wedding in Al's diary and concequently issues with his dad's visit!

A friends just had a baby so I'm bring some things down for her as well and have made the wedding presant and card.

I have also been sorting out paper work and my craft supplies and through talking to the local arts and craft people have been instilled with the idea of selling the cards I've been making.

Generally I've had people saying I really should be displaying my art work and things but I just don't know how to do this and have no money to join anything or hire galleries etc...

As Alaric said in hind sight giving up the art classes and writing group to go back to my course right at the point lots of things fell to pieces for me (Alex dying, mum's last lot of cancer and the realisation that we had miss understood/miscalculated money issues plus the situation with being stuffed by my main client) was a bad trade off.

I'm not even sure if I blogged back in the autum that one of my pictures was on display locally thanks to the art teacher.

This is leading me to thinking though - I love science and geology and feel it is part of me but it is easier with pain flare ups and tummy stuff to be at home writing, making websites and doing arty things - but what will make me happy?

I have never react well to having to choose between the two Art and Science. They are not even distinct in my mind but then I have a slightly odd take on things and veiw it all as creative.

I want to try and finish at least the first year of my course but it means more money we don't have but on the other hand if I don't we loose that money already invested in it.

And then the art world is so uncertain - publishing is going through the mill at the moment - big changes the industry are failing to cope with and so traditional avenues are closed but I have noticed new ones opening up - but I am beginner at this game and have no idea how to muscel my way in.

I interact with an extended communitee of writers on twitter but mainly we discuess our kids and the like. I also have science friends on there and a healthy dose of computer people and a few arty crafties but this is only making my dissusions harder.

I am all of these things but modern society doesn't really allow for Jack of all trades especially one who has intermitent health. And so by not choosing I risk achieving nothing.

But I don't think I can choose - my life feels unbalance when I do not have a mix of things.

And at the same time I feel that the house and Jean are priority - I get sick even for a few days and the house descends into chaos and I can not really allow this and so I feel an instinct to nest build until it is all easy to maintain with out me looking over everyones shoulders all the time.

I started this post thinking I was going somewhere and that I had sorted part of my life out but realised as I was writing it that it is all still open questions and discuissions to be made.

The Dr pointed out that I was one person and one person only - I am trying to take this into account with what I plan to do next.

And Dead People! (by sarah)

A conversation we had with Jean concerning eating meat:

Jean "look cows daddy - I like cows!'

Alaric "I like cows too Jean, but you like them in a slightly different way to me."

Jean enquiring look

Alaric "You eat them as well"

Jean "No I don't"

Alaric "Yes you do Jean"

Jean "I don't! Do I mummy?"

Sarah "Yes you do Jeany, thats what burgers are - remember its like the cats? When those cows die they are made into burgers"

Jean "No their not silly mummy!"

Alaric "Yes they are"

Sarah "Its like the vegitables in the garden Jean - we water and feed them and then when they are big enough we dig them up and chop them into cassaroles and stuff. Well thats what happens with the animals and thats what burgers and suasages are."

Jean "I eat cows!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And Piggies?!"

US "Yes Jean"

Jean "And sheeps?!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And chick chicks?!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And dead people?!"

Us "No Jean!" LAUGHTER

Sarah "Not in our society anyway"

Jean "Why?"

Alaric "Well for several reasons - firstly there is disease - what ever the person dies of might be passed onto you if you eat them, secondly all the freinds and relatives of the person might get a bit upset as they wouldn't like the idea of their friend being eaten."

Sarah "Thirdly it would be against some peoples beliefs"

Jean "Oh ok"

Alaric "Well thats the sort of comment they are bound to come out with whilst talking to a teatcher or social working and perants go - argggKKK!"

All I can say is Soylent Green anybody?

Twitterization (by sarah)

There was a RT (retweet) on twitter with this URL its I found myself writing a longish response to it as I was already planning to write a post about something similair. Anyway here is the response I wrote:

A new interface, a new language, a different way to form thoughts and therefore have thoughts formed - this equals more diversity and possibly leading to new innovations. Weather that is good or bad is like saying is an emotion good or bad - they are amoral it is how you choose to react/use them that holds the good or bad and as with any new system things are likely to act in a chaotic/stoccastic way leading to behaviour we can not yet predict. (At least not fully)

It is also yet another system, more information needing to be processes/learned and therefore risks ostrasization of those who can not pick it up. Then the question becomes one of accessiblity and how far should we 'dumb things down'. What I was thinking was of interest is that with the hash tags and the like it becomes easy to trace the path of memes to see how they evolve and their migration. From a sociology point of view I think that would be quiet an interesting project though it could turn into a nasty can of worms.

Perceptions (by sarah)

This morning there was an incident that shook me quiet badly and has me wondering about my reactions and what I should have done. We where in the outskirts of Cheltenham near the Morrisons when we became stuck in traffic, there was a long line of at least twenty cars but just when we considered turning around the traffic bagain to move albeit slowely.

We then saw there was a car at a 45 degree angle in the ditch, we looked and there appeared to be someone in the car but someone was talking to them and about 5 people where on phones - there were another two cars at crazy angles making the road into a sharlum.

This slowed the traffic. There were some poeple sitting on the grass shaking but again there were people on phones. I assumed that everything was under control - we were stuck in the middle of the line of traffic - when a man came up and started shouting at us for stopping to look and that one person was dead.

He mainly shouted at mum, and it frightened her, as the traffic moved again and the shouting man moved off mum kept saying he must have been in shock.

But it made me think - I had assumed that with all those people around that I would just get in the way even though I am a trained first aider but with what the man said I suddenly realised that the number off people around - they could have all come out of the cars in the accident.

I was looking to see if anyone did need help and didn't see anything obviously needing a first aider but that looking at the scene was mistaken as 'sight seeing'. But at the same time my reaction to the man shouting at us wasn't this guy is in shock which he obviously was but I thought - a nut case is attacking us.

I am also wondering now if any of the cars infront of us had offered any help? We hadn't ment to end up in line of traffic going through a chaotic accident scene but once in the narrow band of traffic there wasn't alot we could do - this must have looked really heartless and uncaring to the victims though.

I can almost see the head lines now - 'No Good Samaritian for Road Side Fatality'. I feel really bad that I didn't think to ask - I just saw people on phones and thought - oh they've got it under control and by the time I had even processed what was actually happening we were past the scene and mum was being upset.

I really hope that no one was seriously hurt 🙁

The perceptions of people in chaotic situations is so warped I don't think that anyone even with lots of training is ever going to be able to fully assess a situation like that. People seem hostile and scary, anger runs high and people are having 'knee jurk' reactions. Also when we compared 'notes' it was almost as if the three of us had seen three different things which is quiet scary in its self.

But I still should have asked 🙁

Using the Electron Mircoprobe (by sarah)

Today I went into the lab once more and place the lunar sample into the machine - this time instead of blasting it with x-rays to get element maps I was picking out specific points to hit with an electron beam and see what they are made off.

First off we picked a selection of elements that I wanted to get proportions of and then I picked the points I wanted to know about specifically. From the element maps and the back scatter image I had taken previously I knew that I apparently had several minerals (I had trudged through four large tomes of mineralogy and lunar/planetary stuff to find out what sort of things I might have lurking in the sample. I had then taken the element maps and compared them - drawn faint scetches of them and then working out what elements I had in conjection where drew on mineral areas with coloured pens onto a printout of the backscatter image. (He told me this was actually an x-ray map just not element specific so I need to check whats what with him I think).

They seemed quiet impressed that I had done this but it seemed like the only way to make things clear to me personally. I was becoming frustrated that I couldn't work out the actual proportions and therefore the exact minerals from the elelment maps and that I could only narrow things down. Fortunatly this is what today was actually about so I worked out how many samples I wanted and were to take the measurements - unfortunatly becuase there is a bad polish on the sample I had to be careful and was highly restricted in where I could take measurements.

But I selected 101 points each point was going to take about 9 minutes to analyse but I specifically went in early to get it all going and as it turned out had plenty of time.

I had also narrowed down the minerals really far more accuratly that I thought I had and I had worked out stuff about my 'dirty' quartz that that does seem to be correct which is very cool and makes me feel like I might just have a chance of doing this.

The only thing is I found myself baulkin at the interface of data and computers - there are situations that I just see no reason not to have a computer automate and I think they should be relatively easy to implement and yet there is nothing! This keeps happening every where I turn in geology and earth sciences there is just huge gaps that computers could feel reducing monkey work and increasing the amount of research that can be analysis in depth!

Other issues that I have had is finding information barred to me - this is painful when I would happily pay say £10 for an e-book of the phase diagrams I needed or even just the chapters I needed - then and there I may even have gone up to £20 but it is only avalible as a book and at around $300 which sucks big time.

Can anyone tell me what the restrictions would be on me finding data in papers and ploting my own graphs/diagrams and then putting them on the internet for free so that people like me don't get stuck like this? I just needed a guid to see if I was on the right path. The question of science on the net has been interesting me alot in the past year and I wonder lots about hwo things are going - I like sharing info and I think it helps move projects and science as a whole on but there are those who tell me that I sholdn't talk about my projects and ideas incase they are published by other first.

Also there is the question of funding and where the money is coming from to do the research - I find myself pondering over the wole peer review system and how a nice fast version could apply to articles on line - making the turn around of science much faster without loosing the reliablity.

It is a thorny problem and I feel slightly swamped in it.

Oh well I'm sure I'll sort it all out eventually 🙂

The only scary thing about todays stuff was that if I want to go out of the lab I have to remember to press a button that puts an alunium or copper block infront of my electron beam so that it doesn't burn a whole in the sample - this made me quiet nervous!