Mark Snaith |

Caledonian Sleeper

Posted Tue, 04/10/2011 - 22:06 by Mark

Here in the UK, overnight sleeper trains used to be all the rage, allowing people to fall asleep in Aberdeen and wake up in places as far afield as Plymouth.

ICCSW 2011

Posted Tue, 04/10/2011 - 21:47 by Mark

Last week, I attended the first Imperial College Computing Student Workshop (ICCSW) at (funnily enough!) Imperial College, London.

The purpose of the workshop was to provide a venue for PhD students in computing to informally present their work. I presented a paper on the work I've been carrying out on argument revision, which seemed to go well with a couple of interesting questions.

The (many) dangers of Twitter

Posted Fri, 12/08/2011 - 15:00 by Mark

The recent riots across England have shown both the evil and good sides of social networking sites, such as Twitter. One one hand, the rioters were using it to bring people together with the intent of looting and causing disruption; on the other, it was used by those wanting to fight back by cleaning the streets that had been left in a state of devastation.

Slightly closer to home, our local bus company National Express Dundee Tweeted this afternoon:

Due to a shooting incident in town all serv. are severely disrupted

New phone

Posted Wed, 25/05/2011 - 15:36 by Mark

It's amazing how things can change in the space of a couple of hours.

I'd phoned Orange to find out if I could pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S2 with the new deal they offered me. I was told no, and that it wasn't possible for me to have been offered a deal because, until they get the phones, they've no way of calculating what people should be paying.

Eh?

Phone capers (2)

Posted Thu, 12/05/2011 - 14:54 by Mark

This is more of an update to yesterday's post, although it does have a more general point to it.

I nipped into town at lunchtime and was near an Orange store. Now, I'm the impatient type who will happily pay extra if it means getting something I'm wanting either now, or as quickly as possible (so buying off the high street, or paying for next day delivery). So I wondered if it would be possible to get my new phone in-store with the same deal I was offered.

No.

Phone capers

Posted Wed, 11/05/2011 - 11:42 by Mark

My mobile phone contract (with Orange) runs out next month, so I'd been looking to upgrade. Having had an iPhone 3GS, my immediate reaction was to just go for the iPhone 4, available for £229 if I renewed at the same monthly amount for the next 18 months. So I did go for it, and to avoid the inevitable "would you like this 100 year insurance plan" type of conversation, I did it online instead of in-store.

Linux for a month

Posted Tue, 22/02/2011 - 01:02 by Mark

I've always used Windows. Well, no, I tell a lie; I've always used Windows on my desktop PCs. I happily use Linux for servers, because it's pretty straightforward to set up and administer. But I've never got round to using it on a regular basis for my day-to-day computing.

Sure, I've played about with it and installed Ubuntu on an old laptop, but it then sat in the corner gathering dust. The fact that it wasn't the best laptop in the first place, meaning the experience was slow and visually unappealing, is what's probably put me off being more bold and installing it on a main PC.

COMMA 2010

Posted Fri, 17/09/2010 - 15:54 by Mark

I'm a bit late in posting this, but I've had quite a bit to catch up on in the past week.

Last week (8-10 September) I attended the 3rd International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA 2010), hosted by the University of Brescia and held in Desenzano del Garda, Italy.

Digital switchover reaches Dundee

Posted Mon, 02/08/2010 - 21:33 by Mark

Tomorrow night, the first phase of the digital switchover will take place at the Angus group of transmitters. This will see BBC2 analogue go off-air, to be replaced by STV. The frequency then previously occupied by STV will start broadcasting the new "PSB1" digital multiplex at full-power.

Anyone wanting to still watch BBC2 will need to buy a Freeview box, or some other digital service such as Sky, Freesat or Virgin Media.

ODET2010 & OD2010

Posted Fri, 02/07/2010 - 21:23 by Mark

This week, I've been in Leeds attending the 4th International Conference on Online Deliberation where I presented a paper with Chris Reed entitled "Mixed initiative argument in public deliberation" (also co-authored by John Lawrence; PDF coming soon).

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