Norfolk, a new beginning

Well I’ve got to say, it has certainly been an exciting couple of days.  Since I last wrote I’ve been to Denmark and back for Doug’s wedding and I’ve packed up all my belongings and have moved out of Nottingham after a graduating.  Tomorrow brings a trip to Manchester on the train so that I can go on holiday with Liz and her family to Cornwall for the week.

So yes, Denmark was an odd experience indeed.  Once I had got over the crap-ness that was the magic of RyanAir; which essential came across as a bunch of Irish pikeys that are willing to grab any penny you may have on you at any opportunity.  Although if you can tell me why a flight going between Stansted and Bilund wont accept Sterling or Kroner and want you to pay for refreshments in Euros, then you are obviously better at business than myself.  Once in Denmark and we actually got the car to start (taking 10 minutes, as you need to have your foot on the clutch and the brake before you can turn the key) we set off to the wedding.  Unfortunately, the 3 junctions or about 8 miles of motorway took us 3 and a 1/2 hours due to a lorry ploughing across the central reservation causing mayhem and 7 1/2 mile tailbacks.  Apparently Danish radio was telling everyone to avoid the road as the accident had happened about 8 hours earlier and they were in the repair process.  However, no one in our car spoke any more Danish than beer, chicken, cheese, ham, sandwich (everything you really need in a foreign country).

The wedding was a good laugh with much boozing, dancing, swimming in a seriously cold sea, more booze, danish food, booze, a wedding, bouncy castle, dodge the rain.  You know, everything you want from a wedding.  The reception was very silly as me, Amy and Lady E played the “try and get as much crap as possible into everybody else’s drink while they arent paying attention” game which had the others on the table looking at us in disgust but we were enjoying ourselves.  We were also introduced to the Danish traditions that if everybody scratchs their plate the bride and groom have to get up on their chairs and kiss for as long as the scratchs go on; and secondly if the groom leaves the room all the men in the room have to go kiss the bride before he gets back and vica versa for the bride.

A quick RyanAir flight back (with eternal interuptions to see if I wanted refreshments, perfumes, cosmetics, bus tickets to London, landing passes, raffle tickets, lottery tickets and charity tickets) and then a blast North got us back to Nottingham.

2 days went by of silly, supposed packing.  Wednesday was graduation day, the parents turned up with a laughably huge van for all my stuff, most of which was packed in an hour.  We then walked over to the Chemistry lunch to have a lavish meal that obviously was made for with my tution fees but heyho.  Lady E was suitably stressed when the award ceremony ran late, which my father just giggled at.  But we got to graduation in time and I had my 6 seconds of fame on stage.  So now officially and forever I shall be a Master of Science.  Which is not bad at all.

An emotionally goodbye was said to Lady E as it dawned on me just how much I’d miss her in the time to come.  But things in life are forever changing, and we like everything have to adapt.

I dont know, not much feeling the blogging vibe today anymore, so I shall sign off for now.  And maybe add another post later.


This page previously appeared on morganbye.net[^1][^2][^3]

[^1:] http://morganbye.net/norfolk-a-new-beginning [^2:] http://morganbye.net/2009/07/norfolk-a-new-beginning) [^3:] http://morganbye.net/blog/?p=15

Older post

House hunting

Newer post

Holidays I

What distinguishes you from other developers?

I've built data pipelines across 3 continents at petabyte scales, for over 15 years. But the data doesn't matter if we don't solve the human problems first - an AI solution that nobody uses is worthless.

Are the robots going to kill us all?

Not any time soon. At least not in the way that you've got imagined thanks to the Terminator movies. Sure somebody with a DARPA grant is always going to strap a knife/gun/flamethrower on the side of a robot - but just like in Dr.Who - right now, that robot will struggle to even get out of the room, let alone up some stairs.

But AI is going to steal my job, right?

A year ago, the whole world was convinced that AI was going to steal their job. Now, the reality is that most people are thinking 'I wish this POC at work would go a bit faster to scan these PDFs'.

When am I going to get my self-driving car?

Humans are complicated. If we invented driving today - there's NO WAY IN HELL we'd let humans do it. They get distracted. They text their friends. They drink. They make mistakes. But the reality is, all of our streets, cities (and even legal systems) have been built around these limitations. It would be surprisingly easy to build self-driving cars if there were no humans on the road. But today no one wants to take liability. If a self-driving company kills someone, who's responsible? The manufacturer? The insurance company? The software developer?