Someone left an old copy of The Sun (from 15-Sep-2009) in the changing room at work, and one of the stories caught my eye:

"HIVE A HEADACHE

Scientists in Leeds are studying if the honey bee decline is due the queen bee's boring sex life."
Leaving aside the poor grammar, this struck me as a rather odd theory. It implies that the queens aren't ( Read more... )

Tonight I went off to watch Ratatouille at the cinema, which I really enjoyed. The short film at the start ("Lifted") is very funny; it's really just slapstick humour rather than anything more sophisticated, but since one of my favourite films is Weekend at Bernie's that's fine by me. The main film is a bit more thoughtful: there are funny scenes, ( Read more... )

This weekend I was off on a beekeeping course (as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago). I enjoyed it, and I think it's something I'm interested in pursuing further.

( More details and a couple of photos )

It's been quite a busy weekend for me so far, between SJA and work commitments.

Yesterday I was out at A Country Affair in Morden Hall Park (like last year). It was a long day, but quite a pleasant duty, particularly once it warmed up. I didn't bother with most of the stalls/exhibitions, since I saw them last year, but I did go to see Wimbledon ( Read more... )

Well, it's been quite a busy week. I wound up going to bed at 10pm last night and sleeping until 11:30 this morning ( Read more... )

Today has been quite a busy day ( Read more... )

This morning was my final presentation for the MSc project. It went ok - certainly better than last year's (I turned up early rather than late, wasn't gasping for breath, had slides prepared, and an application to demonstrate). A few minor hiccups though...

( Read more... )

The project's going ok. I'm not going to have time to achieve everything I set out to do, but I think that the best approach is to have a well-written report that covers what I have done, and a simulation with limited functionality that does what it does well, rather than handing in a bunch of stuff that's incomplete (like last year ( Read more... )

Well, it's been a busy few days, and I've been averaging about 5 hours sleep a night so far this week. Between the project (second progress report due tomorrow), making daily visits to Croydon, and - oh yeah - my actual job, there just aren't really enough hours in the day ( Read more... )

In a change of pace from my recent posts, I've been making some more progress on my MSc project. Since the last screenshot I posted here, I've mainly been focussing on the outside of the hive, specifically foraging behaviour. I think I've actually come out with something that's quite pretty, if not hypnotic:

( Screenshot )