MPhil Graduation

After about 9 months the MPhil at Cambridge came to an end. A very formal and traditional end I might say.

Cambridge has a very old tradition to award the degrees. It dates from the early days of the University probably. We were dressed up in gowns and hoods (see some photos on Facebook), each one wearing the colours of the degree to be conferred. Each college has an allocated time in the ceremony, when all the students about to graduate enter the Senate House (a large building in the city center). From there some of the officials say Latin phrases after which we have a kind of blessing.

Once the formal part is over each college makes a party for its graduands. We were received with a great banquet, which they called High Tea.

Scotland

A while ago we decided that it would be nice to visit the north part of the UK island (aka Scotland). So we rented a car and for about 7 days we made a tour, starting from Edinburgh, then through Iverness and Loch Ness, and finally through Glasgow.

Probably many things to see in less than a week, but I can tell that most of the things we've seen were beautiful.

Edinburgh was probably the nicest city among all those visited. They have a nice castle/museum where you can easily spend an entire day if you want to read about all the Scottish history and achievements (much more than I initially thought).

On the landscape side, I would say Loch Ness was the most impressive place. Not only because Nessie is hiding somewhere there, but all the area around the lake is very nice. Another very nice place to visit is Oban. A small city within a bay, with many islands around and one of the oldest Scottish distilleries (from 1794).

I could say much more but I will stop here. Go to Scotland if you want to find more, and check our website for some photos:

http://danasiomar.shutterfly.com/

(also available on Facebook for friends)

Google Felloship (aka scholarship) for PhD

So many news to tell after being free from the MPhil pressure. Well, I'll start with the best. Recently I have received one of the European Google Felloships for my PhD. This means that Google will finance my studies for the next years, so thanks a lot Google. For more details please see the official blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/google-phd-fellowships-go-international.html

Also thanks to all the people supporting me including those at my current lab in Cambridge but also my old friends from IRIT (Toulouse, France).

Matter and Anti-Matter (and God)

I've just seen some news about a discovery on the matter vs anti-matter topic here.

The results seem to show that matter particles are slightly more predominant than the anti-matter counterparts and this is how we came to existence.

However what is more interesting in that page are the comments that have been generated. I've been reading some of them. I found very interesting the replies to "read the Bible GOOF BALLS". It seems that there are still some believers out there (I am one of them) but also people that would use the Bible to wipe out their ass.

I don't know if such discoveries will ever be able to actually proof the origin of our universe or our own existence but they certainly encourage people to forget about God and restrict themselves only to science theories. It remains to be seen what will be the impact of this research.

Facebook privacy

A few days ago Yahoo has published a guide to help people in making the right settings on Facebook. That guide is a good place to learn about the bunch of settings needed to protect your Facebook profile from unwanted access.

However, today I found out of a great tool that does all the necessary checks for you and allows you to fix all the problems by simply clicking a button. The tool is available here. You don't need to be a guru to use it. Just copy a link into your bookmark bar, log in to Facebook and click the bookmar link. The rest is piece of cake.

I am just a bit worried about the extra stuff this tool might do. However they provide the source code on their website and many magazines seem to write well about the tool. But I am still wondering if the actual button does more than just fixing your privacy issues. If anyone has made a full test of the code (I just don't have time to do it now) please let me know.

Romanian Easter and Others

I know it has been a long time without posts and the Orthodox Easter has passed a few weeks ago.

I haven't posted in a while because of work stuff. I just had the last exam of this term today. Now it just remains to go on with the project.

With the occasion of the Orthodox Easter we went back to Romania for 10 days. As usual, trips to Dana's grand parents, Bran and some other activities. Time went too fast to understand much of the trip.

Oh yes... I also got the prize for the best player of my football team. Who would've think of :)

Xavi Alonso style

This is a one-more post on the football topic. I know I've put already a few posts about this but... it's the first time I score a goal in a real game from the half of the field. It was also the goal that probably confirmed our victory on the league.

Just a few comments on that game:

"Omar spotted their keeper off his line and launched an exquisite looping 45-yard shot towards goal, which dipped at the last minute to leave their goalie with no hope. You could also describe it as a hoof from the half way line, but the result was the same - 2-0"

"Not forgetting Omar's 'I must break you' moment which resulted in his

sending off..." (that happened as well... but just trying to protect the score :D).

"Just as well he scored the winning goal Xavi Alonso style, from our own half."