Friday 23 September 2011

New things

It's been quite a busy few months. After handing in my PhD thesis at the end of June, I did manage to have some time off, but as is always the case, I ended up involved with some new projects and the inevitable job search that followed afterwards.

Some smaller, nice things first. I had one of my pictures exhibited at the Duke of York's Picturehouse during August as I've previously mentioned. Back then, at the time of writing, I hadn't actually seen the finished framed result. I had a custom frame made for me by the nice folks down at Spectrum Photo in Hove, and they did a great job. For a pretty reasonable price I got an archival dibond mount and frame. Here's a particularly rubbish picture of it because it's hard to not have anything reflecting in it when you take the shot.



Then, at the beginning of September, thanks to the invitation from Ollie Glass, I installed a modified version of my PixelWorms simulation at the after-party of Update 2011, which was hosted in Brighton Museum at night (which was very cool). Rather than the simulation being based on the weather as before, I made it into a hands-off game where visitors could pop their name in via a website, and then the worms would roam, breed and fight on the display. Judging by the number of people hanging out near it on the night, it seemed to go down pretty well. The log file that PixelWorms generated that night is available here if you fancy having a look through it. There was one brilliant benefit to having made something; the Royal Banquet at Brighton Pavilion on Sunday night, of which I got two complimentary tickets. It was just incredible, and this 360 degree panorama doesn't need too many words.

Shortly after, I got another year older. Rebecca made me an awesome cake.


I'm also happy to say that after a fairly gruelling few months of job interviews, considering commutes (and some were really epic commutes), companies, academia and industry, I chose to take up a position at Brandwatch. Out of all of the places I went, and there were a few, I couldn't find any that gave me the same "this is right" feeling. Plus, I walk to work and it takes me about 15 minutes. And there's pastry Mondays. And Fridays. And 20% personal project time. And private healthcare. And free food and drinks. And there's a bunch of smart folk there. All in all, bon oeufs.

My PhD viva is lined up for the 14th October, so that's the next thing in the pipeline. The Winter issue of ACM XRDS has wrapped up and the Fall issue has just been published. Here's to a good rest of the year, because it All Worked Out Fine In The End.

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