Forty two years ago I wrote my first bit of software on a BBC Micro in the Code Club at Fitzmaurice Primary School. My bestie Branwen Munn and I were encouraged by our teacher, Mr. Jackson as we typed our first instructions which looked something like this:
10 PRINT "HAPPY CHRISTMAS" 20 GOTO 10 RUN
Variations of this BASIC loop introduced millions of school children like us to computing, especially those lucky enough to have access to a strange new machine called a COMPUTER which had just arrived in our school.
So it was great to sit down with one of the two main designers of the BBC Micro (Steve Furber) earlier this year and talk about his career in Computing over the last 50 years, as he retired from 33 years of service at the University of Manchester.
Some things we discussed when we spoke:
What he and many of his 36 PhD students struggled with most in their research. From his first (Nigel Paver) to his last: what advice would he offer his former self and fellow students?
Computing by post, with punched cards from the Manchester Grammar School in the sixties
How joining Cambridge University Gliding Club helped his interest in Computing take off
What he would do if he were appointed the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester instead of Duncan Ivison?
Why 2001: A Space Odyssey is his favourite film, The Moody Blues are his favourite band and music is important to him
If you’ve any long journeys by planes, train & automobiles over the holidays, you can download and enjoy this extended episode telling some of Steve’s remarkable story. You can listen to the interview by searching for Coding Your Future on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts and at www.cdyf.me/steve
Wishing you a happy holiday and a prosperous new year.
Published this year by Oxford University Press, How to Get Your PhD: A Handbook for the Journey by Gavin Brown [1] is essential reading for anyone thinking of doing, or trying to get through, a PhD. I wish I’d had this book when I was doing mine, here’s why:
I thoroughly enjoyed my PhD and given the chance I’d do it all again. I was lucky to be able to do research guided by a great supervisor (Robert Stevens) and it was rewarding being part of a big and friendly lab. There were loads of opportunities to get involved in all sorts of other projects along the way. Thankfully, I also had some good mentors and met tonnes of interesting people from all over the world. I am very grateful to Robert, Carole Goble and everyone else who made it possible.
Despite all the good stuff, there’s plenty I could have done better. Hindsight is a great teacher. Gavin’s book would have helped me do a better PhD but hadn’t been written at that time – I wish it had been. I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger. [2]
Alongside serious technical advice on the mechanics of doing a PhD, Gavin’s book provides a good overview of some the psychological and emotional hurdles every PhD will encounter. Unlike a lot of similar books (there’s already tonnes of self-help PhD guides out there), this one is written in first person singular which makes for a more engaging and shorter read. Serious advice is balanced by the books light hearted tone, with plenty of humour, such as the game of PhD Bingo, shown in the picture on the right. Like most students, I ticked all those boxes (BINGO!) apart from the “you will read this book” box. Don’t be that person, Read The Friendly Manual! RTFM. Read THIS Friendly Manual!
So if you’re wondering about doing a PhD, or you’re currently doing one, go and read Gavins book. I’m not just saying that because (disclaimer) Gavin is a colleague of mine. I’m saying that because I wish this book had existed back when I did my PhD. It’s packed full of sound advice and I heartily recommend you read it!
During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times. Amazing that it works at all, frankly. Computer generated cross section 3D model of the human heart via Wikimedia Commons by DrJanaOfficial at w.wiki/36zc
So what happened was, I’d been having some chest pains for a while and sleeping badly but didn’t think too much of it. Like many parents, we were struggling to balance the competing demands of two full-time jobs with an extra one called homeschooling small children. [1] It was stressful but we were trying, as you do in a pandemic, to get through it one day at a time. My wearable technology reckoned my resting heart rate was higher than it normally was. Not surprising really. I’m no athlete but try to look after my physical and mental health. Thanks to parkrun, I’ve rediscovered running and have continued to run 5km or 10km every other day in order to stay fit, sane and get out of the house during lockdown. I never expected my heart would give me problems.
One night as I was getting ready for bed, I started having palpatations and my heart rate accelerated like Usain Bolt hearing a cardiac starting pistol. As I lay down, I felt short of breath and dizzy and watched my heart rate soar. So I phoned the National Health Service support line (NHS 111) who quickly told me to get down to my local Accident and Emergency (A&E) sharpish.
As a passenger on the drive to hospital I wondered if I was having (or had I had) some kind of heart attack? WTF? I seriously wondered if my time was up. OMG. On arriving at the hospital, a well organised team of people dealt with me efficiently and with a minimum of fuss:
The nurses did an electrocardiogram, before my bottom even had a chance to park itself on the big red chair
The A&E nurses plastered me with electrodes and hooked me up to one of those beeping heart rate monitors like they have on hospital dramas. Beep beep beep…
The X-ray operator zapped me with high energy electromagnetic radiation
The nurse swabbed me for viral infections (ouch!) – “Your heart is swollen and its probably caused by a virus”… you mean coronavirus? … “we’re trying to find out”
The nurses took samples of blood, monitored my blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation levels through the night and day
The hospital porters ferried me around between destinations on a wheelie-bed
The medical staff ran the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) where I was transferred to for the rest of the night (which was long, dark and sleepless) and the following day
The stream of junior and senior doctors came to examine, question and diagnose me
The catering staff served me breakfast, lunch and dinner
The nurses re-assured and comforted me through the night
The cardiologist interrogated me, outlined the prognosis and discharged me
The pharmacist gave me a big bag of drugs to enjoy from the comfort of my own home 💊💊💊
Hospitals can be scary places. What makes them even scarier at the moment is that you’re not allowed visitors because of social distancing. This means when you arrive at A&E you wave goodbye to your family wondering if you’ll see them again. You can phone them thankfully, but they aren’t allowed in the hospital.
Making the hospital less scary was an expert team of dedicated professionals. It was a barrage of names. I can only remember one of them: Theresa. Thanks Theresa and the rest of the team to Stepping Hill hospital. It is reassuring to know that medical staff like you are doing their jobs under challenging circumstances, despite the risks of infecting yourselves and your families.
It’s reassuring that when so many things in society feel like they need reinventing or fixing, that hospitals keep functioning normally. While education, high street retail, the internet, politics, the performing arts, culture and pretty much everything in society struggles with the pandemic, there is one thing that’s working well without any fuss or fanfare. A&E departments. Possibly the only thing I’ve interacted with in the last year that hasn’t felt a bit broken, compromised or vulnerable.
It was a sobering experience in the Acute Medical Unit. People in my part of the AMU had all experienced “cardiac events” of some kind or other. Some people didn’t make it through that long night to see the light of day. So:
Jess Wade, editor extraordinaire, in 2017. Portrait by Dave Guttridge via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA
Today Jess Wade published her one thousandth new Wikipedia article, a wiki-biography of Sylvie Briand. This biography joins 999 others Jess has written at a rate of one per day since September 2017. All of these articles have been about people from under represented groups, with a particular focus on women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Passing the 1k milestone is a fantastic achievement in its own right, but also something we should all be grateful for because:
She has significantly improved Wikipedia. Wikipedia is undoubtedly one of the Seven Wonders of the World Wide Web but it also has well known limitations. The gender of editors on Wikipedia is notoriously unbalanced and coverage of many people and topics is incomplete or non-existent. For example, according to the Wikidata Human…
Last month I attended a three day Training of Trainers (ToT) course at the University of Glasgow. Run as an interactive workshop, the course was designed to help leaders of Wikipedia training events to improve their delivery and organisation. Having participated and run several Wikipedia events in the past, such an Ada Lovelace event earlier this year, I was keen to learn how do things better. Here’s a report on the workshop, with some bonus extra curricular Glasgow goodies thrown in for good measure. Thanks again Sara Thomas and Bhavesh Patel for organising and delivering the course.
… work in partnership with organisations from the cultural and education sectors and beyond in order to unlock content, remove barriers to knowledge, develop new ways of engaging with the public and enable learners to benefit fully from the educational potential of the Wikimedia projects.
Most of the workshop participants (pictured top right) were from Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) institutions and a few educational and charitable ones too. Over the three days, here is what we covered:
The second day revisited design skills while touching on delivery skills and group work. This covered elocution, voice projection, body language and an examination the range of experiential activities that can be utilised in workshops. We also discussed aspects of Dave Meier’s accelerated learning (with feedback) and finished the day up with teams preparing for activities for day three.
Day three: The Show Must Go On
The final day of the course finished with the participants divided into four small teams. Each presented a on hour mini-session and had it critiqued by peers. This enabled us to learn from;
Our own mistakes
Other peoples mistakes
Copying / stealing other peoples good ideas, of which there were plenty. Thanks Abd, Daria, Doug, Eoin, Ian, Tara, Ian, Madeleine, Marianne, Saeeda, Tore, Sara and Bhav!
Overall, this was a really useful and memorable training course, one of the best training courses I’ve been on. The content, participants, location were all great and I felt empowered by taking the course as well as making useful contacts from a range of different organisations. It had a clearly defined purpose, well chosen activities and participants, with nothing irrelevant presented. There were tonnes of practical ideas to put into practice straight away which I look forward to doing in 2020. If you’d like to do the course, get in touch with Wikimedia UK.
While in Glasgow, it would be rude not to take advantage of all the bonus extra curricular activities the city has to offer:
Bonus 1: People Make Glasgow Hospitable 🏴
They say that People Make Glasgow, and Glaswegians are very hospitable. In between training sessions our host Sara showed us around the city, including the University cloisters (etc), Inn Deep on the banks of the River Kelvin and Curlers Rest in the West End. Sara’s impressive knowledge of Glasgow and its history is wikipedian in its depth and breadth.
Bonus 2: Glaswegian-Mancunian connections 🇬🇧
To me, Glasgow and Manchester feel like sibling cities separated at birth. If you’re English, Glasgow can feel like a Scottish Manchester. Perhaps Manchester feels like an English Glasgow to the Scots? Here is the case:
Second city syndrome 🥈: As second cities, both Glasgow and Manchester live in the shadow of their more famous capitals, Edinburgh and London. Both cities are the “belly and guts” of their respective nations. Glasgow had its docks, Manchester had its cotton. While both trades are long gone, they leave similar post-industrial legacies on the culture and infrastructure of their respective cities.
Shipping 🚢: Ships, shipping, docks, ports, quays and wharfs run deep in both cities. Glasgow built ships on the River Clyde while Manchester used ships for export and import of goods on its Ship Canal.
Football ⚽: Love it or loathe it, the fitbaw connection between Glasgow and Manchester is strong [1,2]. Scrolling through the list of Manchester United managers I count not just one, two or even three but FOUR Glaswegians. Matt Busby (Belshill is basically Glasgow), Tommy Docherty, Alex Ferguson and David Moyes. Is this a coincidence or catholicism? [1,2] Who knows, but my hypothesis is that being shouted at in a strong Glaswegian accent can make teams perform better (although it didn’t work very well for Moyes). I wonder how many Glasgow kisses Alex Ferguson gave his overpaid prima donna squad to keep them in line? Strangely, the fitbaw manager connection isn’t reciprocated: I can’t find any Mancunians in the list of Celtic managers or the list of Rangers managers
Bonus 3: King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut 🎸
Glasgow is home to the legendary King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut. This humble venue, relatively small with a capacity of only 300, has hosted an impressive range artists including Coldplay, Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, you name it, they’ve played King Tut’s. Curious to find out what all the fuss was about, I arranged to meetup with an old Glaswegian friend for a drink at the venue. Assuming the gig that night would be sold out we asked at the bar who was playing. Turns out they had a handful of tickets left, so we spontaneously bought a pair to see Blanco White. Mixing Andalusian and Latin American influences, Blanco White play melancholic but beautiful tunes using a variety of instruments including the Charango [3]. Part of the reason King Tut’s is legendary is Glaswegian audiences are lively, and it was fun to see the band visibly moved by what Josh Edwards, the lead singer told us was: “easily the best reception we’ve had in months of touring”.
Bonus 4: Like a Brudge over troubled water 🌊
Looking for a walk, run or ride in Glasgow? There are some great routes around the city like the Glasgow River Clyde Bridges, with at least 21 bridges to cross the Clyde on. On an early morning run, I couldn’t find any of the “bridges”, but there were plenty of “brudges” and some fantastic scenery along the Clyde. Och aye!
Jess Wade, editor extraordinaire, in 2017. Portrait by Dave Guttridge via Wikimedia Commons 
O'Really? 
