26 Nov 2003 salmoni   » (Master)

SalStat

I haven't done much work lately except for a brief investigation into writing my own graphing module. Yeah, there's plenty out there, but none of them do what I need in the way that I want. All have been made with particular purposes in mind, all of which are different from my aims. The process would be quite simple (maybe a couple of days dedicated hacking at most), so I'll take the idea seriously (please, nobody say "don't reinvent the wheel" - if we didn't reinvent the wheel, all our wheels would be made of stone. Ego is the mother of reinvention anyway, so you haven't got a chance).

Not much else done on the multivariate stuff except for looking at a generic design matrix module. I have some code for it already, but it's not suitable.

Phd

Guess what folks! Disaster has struck.

All the written work for the last four years of my Ph.D was kept in a filing cabinet in my office. I have been working from home lately (because I didn't have a computer and the office I was in was being redecorated). I went in yesterday to pick up my stuff and move it home (because I am due to leave the office in a months time), but I find out that someone has thrown everything out. Every test I performed, every questionnaire, every piece of raw data.

All in a landfill somewhere. Four years of flippin' work. Now being trodden underneath the stealthy feet of rats.

Luckily, I transcribed all the data into electronic format using a speadsheet, but I cannot now go back and check my data if a query is raised about it.

I'm really not sure what to make of it, and I'm a bit shocked. My supervisor was obviously not happy about this, because in science, data are sacrosanct and should be preserved. I've never seen him angry before, and like he said to me, I was remarkably restrained considering.

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