Thirty-six hours of LSE

Aldwych: view from Connaught House

I had no idea when I arrived on campus at 9 am yesterday that it would be thirty-six hours untill I would leave again, nor that I would be carrying an inflated condom as I did so. What exciting sequence of events could have led to my forgoing my cosy bed for greater temptations? Sadly, it was simply the group project. The deadline was today at 3.

In order to bring things fully up to date, though, we have to go back to the day before yesterday. That would be Wednesday. It started with my missing the third Time Series lecture in a row- and as Time Series comes in one whole-week's-worth-in-one-go-three-hour-chunk, this is really not great. I had a good reason for missing the middle one of the three- I went to a statistics careers fair in Birmingham, but the first and the third I missed through oversleeping. This time I just decided I felt rather tired when I was supposed to get up at 7.30, and made the decision to skip the lecture. Shocking. I wouldn't have done that when I first got here. It's so true what my best friend at school said- miss one class and you end up missing loads as however good your intentions it becomes a possibility. It was the same when I was at UCL- I would start out well then miss one and suddenly be missing a whole lot. Next term I really will try very hard not to let the same thing happen (I did manage for several terms at UCL after some rather bad stretches).

I did however go into college for 12.30, in spite of having no other lectures, as there was a meeting of the anti-Sutherland campaign about the wording of the petition. It was pretty interesting, though much much more time was spent arguing the possible cases than actually deciding anything. We got as far as deciding what the basic content of the petition should be, but didn't have a chance to even start phrasing it. Instead a few people who were free went away to work on it, and send what they came up with round the email list, while I headed off for some group project (coincidentally to the same computer room as the petition writing group- I was quite surprised to see them there when I walked past them on my way to get something). EMCC came over to where I was working some time after they'd sent out the petition and asked if I'd got it, and I said I had, and that I'd looked at it quickly and it seemed good, but that I hadn't really had a chance to look at it properly (I was trying to do about three things at once for the group project), and he said that it was always good to have my input or something like that. I'm not sure whether he actually meant that my contribution had in the past been usefull/ interesting, or whether it was just a case of wanting as many people as possible to have a say on it, and on things in general. I don't think I've made much of a contribution, so I would be inclined to think perhaps the latter- though at the time I took it to mean the former. Actually, it was one of those cases when you don't quite catch what someone says, but answer something hopefully appropriate anyway, and then a few seconds later the sounds rearrange themselves in your head and you suddenly realise what it was they said. So I think I said something like "Mmmmm" in reply, which in context is rather cold, but he'd gone before I could come out with something more appropriate. It was those R functions- my mind was so much on what I was doing that I wasn't processing outside stuff fast enough.

We only did two or three hours' work- one of us had a lecture at 4, and I was meeting Ginger at 5. We wanted to go to the NFT to see one of the films in the Isabelle Huppert season. We went and got the tickets (and I became a member so as to get the discount, but forgot to do the maths- as it's £30, and the discount is £1 a ticket, even though you do get two free tickets when you join, it's possibly not going to be a net saving). Then we went and had supper in a Thai restaurant, and I told her all about the Sutherland protest, which I had somehow neglected to mention before, and showed her the Beaver and London Student which I happened to have with me. Ginger is very keen on newspapers, even ones that make her angry almost to the point of tears like the Daily Mail, so she lapped them up. And of course London Student was a bit of nostalgia trip for her, as for me, since it's the paper of the whole University of London, and thus we got it at UCL too.

Outside the National Film Theatre

The film, Commedie de l'Innocence, was very bizarre. It involved a nine year old boy deciding that Isabelle Huppert wasn't really his mother as he was actually the drowned son of another woman, come back to life. The other woman was also convinced that he was her son, and it was very surreal, especially since in that rather French way no-one reacted very much to anything. It was worth seeing though. And a bonus was to discover from the credits that one of the jobs involved in the sound of the film was Assistant Son- nothing like a good bilingual pun!

Ginger stayed the night, as always, since it'd be pretty late by the time she got back if she had to go all the way home to Kent. I swear anyone looking at the guest signing in log would assume from the fact that she's been my only guest and I've had her over pretty much once a week that we were lovers. Incidentally, that's one reason why I don't always post every day- asking your guest if they mind you ignoring them for an hour or so to work on a blog whose existence you are aiming to keep them in the dark about just doesn't really work somehow. I did manage to check my email though, and had a couple of points to make about the petition- stylistic rather than concerned with content, since that was good, but I hope it was still usefull.

The quality of service I was able to offer as a host was impaired rather by a fire alarm at 2.30am. Of course we had to get up and go all the way downstairs and outside. This wouldn't have been so bad, but then it went off again shortly after we got back. We didn't go down again- I don't always bother for a series of alarms, since if it goes off more than once in quick succession it's almost certainly a fault, and I'm not about to be going continually back and forward, nor to stand outside in the cold for an extra five minutes after it's gone quiet checking that it really is over this time. But although my natural reaction was just to close my eyes and try and drift off to a place where fire alarms could not reach, and thence to sleep, Ginger really couldn't stand it, and had to go out in the corridor, though that wasn't much better. It went on for a long time. Apparently, I found out later, a shower had been leaking into the smoke detector of the room below.

We both had nine o'clock classes the next day (Thursday/ yesterday). We negotiated the complexities of getting a bus with Ginger- she doesn't like Oyster cards after having problems with three, so has to get a ticket which requires change and a walk to a slightly further bus stop that has a machine; luckily we were running with time to spare so we went to Tesco first where I got a croissant for breakfast and with that transaction got the change to lend Ginger for the ticket, then walked back towards the right bus stop (forgetting to stop at the one with the ticket machine on the way) but carried on to the cash machine instead since Ginger wanted to get some money out, partly to pay me back right then (I lent her bus fare yesterday too) though I said she didn't need to, then stopped at a stall for her to get a newspaper, which she wanted anyway, but which gave her change to pay me, then realised we'd missed the chance to go to the ticket machine when we passed it, and went back to get the ticket, then got to the bus stop finally. Things are complicated slightly further by the fact that although LSE and Ginger's law course place are pretty close, there is a different bus for each. So in theory we get whichever comes first and one of us has to walk five minutes or so from the stop where we get off. In practice Ginger's bus always comes first.

My nine o'clock was one that I'd missed the past two weeks. The lecturer sent out an email the day before to check who was still taking the course, and to sort out the coursework- this consists of critiquing an article, so there was a list to choose from. Though I hadn't read any of them, when I saw that Kanazawa's study was on there I knew I had to do that. I'd wanted to have a look at it since I heard about it, and listened to the debate on it at the UGM, and read the Beaver articles. Kanazawa is an LSE academic**, and the paper claims that mortality rates are higher in developing countries not because they have worse healthcare facilities or less health and safety legislation or anything like that, but because people in those countries are more stupid. Of course that doesn't sound right to me, so I would expect to find some pretty major flaws in the article- and I believe that it has been criticised by others in the same field. I thought it would be really interesting to find out if errors are indeed present and what they are, so I jumped at the chance to do it for coursework. But since it's become pretty famous, at LSE or at least among a certain kind of LSE student, if not generally (though I think it was reported in many newspapers), I expected that everyone else would want to do it too, and though I'd got the email as soon as it was sent (being on the computers for the group project), I hadn't looked at it properly for an hour or two (what with the group project taking all my attention), and then lost more time looking at one or two of the other articles online to come up with a second choice. So I thought someone else would have got in first.

But I got it! Kanazawa is mine, I discovered when I checked my email as I settled down for another group project session after the lecture. Of course, when I read it, I shall make sure to do so scientifically and not with a pre-formed conclusion in my mind (as far as that's possible). But since I'm not reading it at this moment I think I can say that I am confident there must be at least one error of proceedure in there somewhere.

We worked on the project till 1. I'd asked whether the others would mind me missing a whole 2 and a half hours of potential project time to go to the UGM and another Sutherland meeting if I made it up by getting the whole write-up put into LaTeX and sorting out the Rhistory file (the list of commands used- we had to submit it with the project) that evening, and they were ok with that. They had a break for lunch too, though only of half an hour or an hour before coming back. I grabbed a sandwich in the Quad on the way to the UGM, and also rather foolishly let myself be tempted into a piece of chocolate cake. Foolish because it came on a paper plate rather than in a bag (makes sense- all the icing would have come off), and so it wasn't really practical to take it all the way to the Old Theatre***, and I had to eat it quickly in the Quad- so quickly that I could feel the chunks pressing on the inside of my throat as they went down and I felt dizzy.

This week's UGM was actually the Annual Budget Meeting, where the Treasurer gave details of the income and expenditure of the Union and we voted to approve each page. So there wasn't much that was controversial- though the Drama society put in a request to have £1 reallocated from the budget of LARA (Lager and Real Ale) to go towards the costs of their show- which was basically just about them getting a chance to speak about why they wanted to do that, and thus getting to plug the show. The request wasn't passed.

The Sutherland meeting (in a rather nice room in Connaught House with a great view of Aldwych) was much more productive than Wednesdays. We covered many many more issued and made a lot of important decisions about the campaign.

Back on the group project, we worked an amazing 8 1/2 hours, untill a security guard came and turfed us out of C120 at roughly midnight. I didn't think it would take us so long (not quite sure why- my past experience of projects should have taught me that it always takes up untill the last moment) and it didn't feel that long. When I got back from the Sutherland meeting, K asked me if I was hungry, and I wasn't, in fact, I felt pretty full. The others went to get some food one at a time. Then an hour or so later I was really hungry, but I couldn't go and get anything. The problem with the project, as far as getting it done on time, is division of labour. K is also good at programming, but the other two are not so hot and did barely any for the project; and K is maybe not quite as good as me (oh dear, that sounds very conceited). In any case, we were using my account so that was where all our functions were stored (though I did send some of them to the others), and I'd already written most of the functions pretty much by myself, with the exception of one or two groups written by K. Once you know one or two of the functions you're writing better than someone else, it's easier for you to write future functions (which may need to use the earlier functions or take them into account in some other way) than for them to, which is why I ended up going from a large amount of input in the first session to writing more than half of them on my own. It's also probably because I took the time to write up what we'd been doing after the earlier sessions- though the fact that it was me doing that was again because I knew the functions best having written them, and because they were stored in my account, rather than laziness/ non-proactivity on the part of the others. What I'm trying to say is that I'm better at programming than two of the others, at any rate, and there is a positive feedback loop that led to my knowing the most about what functions we already had, and in addition the functions were stored in my account. This made it difficult for the others to program without me- they needed to know stuff about what we already had, be sent a copy, or get help with a function that wasn't working (these all apply to K as well- maybe more than the others who as I say didn't really do any programming). As well as that, though K also had experience of LaTeX, it pretty much had to be me putting the write-up into LaTeX because while we were both rusty, I had already got back into it through putting earlier bits of the write-up into LaTeX, and it was therefore much quicker for me to do it rather than for K to repeat the time I'd already spent learning how to do things via internet sites giving manuals (effectively) for LaTeX. And since I was the one who knew most of the functions best it was also easiest for me to be the one to add explanitory comments to them- though in fact the others also did quite a bit of this. So even though M contributed large amounts to the write-up- doing all of the part on the historical figure as well as providing a theoretical explanation for the results we were observing in the simulation questions, and K also did a fair bit of programming (I'm not suggesting they didn't pull their weight), there would be about three or four things I was trying to do at once while they were doing at times one each and at times none- they were chatting and looking at things on the internet while they waited for me to finish sorting out functions or putting the write-up into LaTeX.

Basically, here's what I was trying to do in just the one session:

• Logged into three computers (which became standard after a few sessions on the project as some functions took so long to run), use two of them to run functions to draw some graphs we needed. Go over to each of them at fairly frequent intervals and check whether they'd finished their task, and if not move the mouse and type a few returns and delete them again in a word pad document so as to make sure the computer didn't log me out (theoretically any of the others could have done this, but if I forgot about the computers for too long the others often didn't catch them in time). When something happened after several hours' calculation, try and work out why it had given the wrong answer/ not worked- or if it had actually done the right thing, copy and save the graph and put the computer to the next thing
• 
  Receive bits of write up from M and put them into LaTeX. Look through existing write up and suggest that we (M) write more about the conclusions- it really was necessary as we'd barely commented on quite a few graphs though that may be because they were stored in my account. Answer M's questions about functions/ graphs (in terms of what ones we had) while putting a totally different part into LaTeX, and break off to email him graphs. Look up various things I didn't know how to do on the internet
• 
  Do some bits of write up (that M didn't feel able to tackle) myself
• 
  Get a definitive list of which functions we had actually used for the results presented in the write up and comment them. Include them in the LaTeX version of the write up and make sure no line was too long for the page (LaTeX would normally do that but many lines had no spaces in, which confused the issue quite a bit). Finish off a few bits of programming
• 
  Answer K's questions about existing functions or problems he was encountering with programming, or about results from other functions, and send him various functions. Then when he was tackling the commenting of the functions, send him those and receive them back after a while
• 
  I admit it- keep half an eye on my email in case anything important/ interesting popped up

Anyway, we worked till 12 then got turfed out. We were going to go to the library (open 24 hours- a new feature this year that's only a pilot at the moment) to do some more work but then decided to meet up the next day instead. I was fine with the others going home, but though I didn't say anything, I went off to the library myself. I wanted to carry on working because in order to go to the UGM and the Sutherland meeting I'd promised to finish putting the write up into LaTeX and to have the Rhistory files sorted, and because I was conscious there was still a lot to get through, and I didn't want to be trying to cope with that kind of multi-tasking under very imminent deadline conditions as I knew I would panic and would find it hard to concentrate on any one task because I was so aware that I wasn't doing any of the others.

A rare sight- spare library computers (4.30am)

As always, I logged on to three computers and set two of them running functions. It was actually quite a bit easier working on my own. True, there were some bits of the write-up I couldn't do without asking the others about the interpretation of certain results or other things, but not having to answer questions or send files between times meant I was much more able to concentrate on getting the right LaTeX code, and then sorting out the functions- and then doing both in one when I put the functions into the document. That took hours and hours- I had to get the spacing right by using spacing commands and removing keyboard typed spaces from the beginning of lines, and there were about 8 pages of the things. I also had to change the arrangement of comments and break some lines of the program- they still weren't fitting in the document. And I got into a kind of rhythm, type in LaTeX, compile LaTeX, check on the other two computers, look at PDF version of document, note what needed changing, alter it in LaTeX, compile LaTeX...

The three computers

In the end, I had one of the graphs I needed from one of the extra computers (after several attempts for which the scale was wrong or the title) though not a graph that I could believe was right from the other, I had the whole document so far in LaTeX, with some of the missing interpretation added by me and some having to wait till the next day, and I'd done as much of the Rhistory file as I could without the complete write-up to guide me****. It was 4.30, and I'd been thinking I wouldn't go back to halls- it'd be 5 at the earliest by the time I got back and I'd have to get up at 7.30. If I stayed in the library I could have a nap and not get up till 8.30. I was really hungry, but I was more than ready to pass up the chance to eat in order to get more sleep. I did have a little chocolate in my bag which I ate in the loos as you're not supposed to eat in the library (since you can use mobile phones in the loos I figured you could eat there too though it was a little wierd).

There are some soft chairs on the third floor (maybe elsewhere too), so I went up and found the Beaver reporter who'd been covering our campaign***** sleeping on three of them, but another three unoccupied, though there were a couple of books and some chocolate on one of them. I moved them to a single chair and was just going to stretch out when their owner reappeard so I apologised for moving them and was going to curl up in a sitting position on just one chair (he was going to sit on the end one of my three chairs), but he moved and offered me the whole three, which was very nice of him. He also offered me some chocolate. He was very nice generally, but I fear I may have been too tired to be nice enough in return- I hope not though.



I was woken after an hour by a security guard talking to the Beaver reporter. He then came and spoke to me. He asked me not to stay beyond 6.30 as he would get into trouble if I did (he was really supposed to stop me sleeping there). I thought it was reallyt nice of him not to move me if he was supposed to but I was pretty annoyed by in theory not being allowed to stretch out there and in practice having to only be there for one more hour. I changed the alarm on my phone from 8.30 to 6.30 and dropped off again after a while.

At 6.30, when the alarm went off I managed to silence it after just one quiet beep- that was important as really I think I wasn't supposed to let it make a noise at all. The nice guy with the chocolate said something nice that I can't remember as he was leaving, that I hope I managed to respond nicely to, and I sat up and slept like that. After all, I've slept like that for as much as 3 hours at a time in the same place in the daytime on occasion. Someone did come and ask me if I was ok, but at least no-one asked me to go. It was rather uncomfortable (particularly in the arms which were folded as it was worse with them hanging), compared to the surprisingly extremely comfortable chairs though. I woke up spontaneously at 8.29 which saved letting the alarm go off again, and took a few minutes to reach a condition of being able to get up.

I went and had a croissant and a cup of tea in the Garrick- I really needed both- and then went to Principles and Methods. Amazingly I didn't fall asleep in it. It's quite interesting that I made it to Principles and Methods after about 2 or 3 hours' sleep not even in a proper bed, and to Thursday's lecture after a fire alarm interrupted night, but not to Wednesday's after four hours in a proper bed. But there are simple explanations- with Ginger to stay I couldn't really just go back to sleep, and I was never going to fall so deeply asleep sitting on a chair in the library. And I knew that I couldn't afford to miss meeting to do more group project after Principles and Methods.

We got it done with half an hour to spare, (in another hectic multi-tasking session- this time I got C to proof read the write-up and K to check its notation) though one function just wouldn't perform properly and we had to do something else not as good instead. The graphs all had to be shrunk very small to get it on 20 pages (the strict maximum)- all those functions took up inordinate amounts of space- but they were still legible, just about. The colour printer put a few stripes across some of the pages, which wasn't great, but it didn't stop anything being read. We put the Rhistory and Rdata files on a disk and bought a plastic cover and binder for the project, and a wallet to put it all in. And then we went up to the sixth floor of Colombia House to hand it in. That's not the end of the matter though- we have to give an oral presentation on Tuesday.

Afterwards, three of us went for lunch in the Brunch Bowl- not other people's first choices but they'd stopped serving in the downstairs part of the Garrick. I ended up getting into quite an involved discussion with M who turned out to be a climate change sceptic. He believes that those in power (political or corporate) mostly enjoy manipulating people and making them do things, and need pretexts for this, and that climate change could be a case of this- he really wants to see the data before making his mind up. I asked whether it didn't make sense to reduce emissions even if global warming is unproven as you haven't lost much if it turns out to be unfounded, but if you don't reduce emissions and global warming turns out to be true then the effects would be cataclysmic. He said that global warming being true was such a small risk that it wasn't worth changing. At first this seemed mad to me, but then I realised two things- first this is really the more rational, statistical way to do it- compare probabilities and payoffs and go with the behaviour that gives you the biggest expected payoff, or in this case avoid the behaviour that gives you the smallest expected payoff. With a tiny probability of something bad, it could make sense to go with that rather than a large probability of something only mildly bad. Though I actually think that even if it were as unlikely as he thinks it is that global warming were untrue, this strategy would still lead to cutting emissions as the effects of global warming are huge enough to more than balance out the tiny probability. Anyway, I realised that that rational method is not how I act- I avoid the risk of something fairly bad even if the probability is small enough that the statistical method would say go with it. The other thing I realised is that for him the negative consequences of cutting emissions if it turns out that global warming is a myth are more than just some inconvenience- he would see having been manipulated as a very bad payoff in that case. Probably not as bad as the effects of global warming, but when you take the probabilities into account... He also said that even if climate change were proven (I think it pretty much has been but didn't try to convince him), he wouldn't change his lifestyle to emit less as it wouldn't affect him (he'd be dead first). He doesn't believe the effects would be felt in the next 35 years (I disagree).

I went back to the computer room to prepare slides for my part of the presentation, and in order to do so, looked back over the write-up. I discovered some nasty shocks: one of our sources had somehow been missed off the bibliography, and I'd left out a large part of a formula in the bit where I had a few equations showing why the value of one of the parameters is unimportant. There were also many typos, including of notation. At this point I was a bit annoyed. Yes, it was ultimately all down to my faulty typing in LaTeX. But I'd asked two of them to check for precisely that as I wouldn't have time myself what with also trying to sort all the functions out and finish off the Rhistory file (and probably wouldn't spot things so easily as a fresh pair of eyes). All they'd come back with was things like 'home in' vs 'hone in' where I was sure I had the right usage and they the wrong anyway, plus one comma that needed removing. What really made me a little angry was that while I was fine with them sitting around surfing the net and chatting while I was working flat out when there was nothing they could do- after all, they had already put in work when I wasn't there, for example when I went to the UGM and the Sutherland meeting or when M went away and wrote all about our historical figure one weekend. But in this case, they hadn't done a proper job of something they could help with but had gone through it fairly quickly and had gone back to doing nothing. Still, it would be a shame to spoil our time working together with feelings like that at the end so I tried not to dwell on it, and reminded myself that at the end of the day the mistakes were down to my LaTeX file.


People and Planet had an auction and party for World Aids Day today. The auctioneer was the General Secretary of the Students' Union, who was absolutely brilliant at it, with all the banter and everything. The lots included a signed tie from Jon Snow, signed photos, books or CDs from other celebrities, some of the People and Planet President's brownies (worth the £60+ someone paid for 36 of them), a dinner date with an academic and one with the Societies Officer, as well as dinner with the AIDS campaign team of People and Planet. The last were asked if they could do any party tricks to persuade people to bid higher, and the sole male said he could do an impression of an elephant, and turned his pockets inside out but sadly didn't go any further though people were encouraging him to and even suggesting they bid for it. After the auction there was a jazz band which was a bit different.

The General Secretary acts as auctioneer

There were also many many free condoms. Most of them were blown up into balloons by anybody who wanted to help out which were tied into bunches and used to decorate S.H.A.G (Sexual Health and Guidance [Week]) CRUSH. I, R and another People and Planet girl had a lot of fun blowing them up- our table was deeply covered by empty sachets by the end. The ribbed and dotted ones turned out not to be so good as they expanded near the open end rather than the other end and that didn't leave anywhere to tie a knot, whereas the flavoured ones were good because they were interesting colours. The lubricant was rather unpleasant on the hands though, especially by the end when it had really built up. R and I also played volleyball/ tennis with a stray couple near the end of the evening, and I left with one of them, but spent ages trying to undo its knot as I didn't want to take it on the bus. I also left with four more unopened ones, bringing my cache to 8.

The Residences Officer bids and blows up a condom at the same time

R and I didn't stay for CRUSH, but we decided to go to Leicester Square in search of ice-cream to satisfy certain sudden cravings.****** We found a Haagen Dasz open in spite of it being about 10 or 11 (why I love London), but there was a massive queue to eat in so we bought it to take away. We stood eating it outside one of the cinemas, and a woman and her friend came up and asked me what the 'Ethical Student' on my bag meant, which was rather a bizarre question. R thought it was a drunken bet. The questions she went on to ask made her sound like a reporter, so if it was a drunken bet and therefore impromptu and under the influence of alcohol that was quite impressive. Mind you, I was also answering under the influence of alcohol.

We walked down Regent St and R showed me the very bizarre Christmas Window displays. The bizarrest was Liberty's, off in a side street, but Hamley's ran it a close second.

*I just laugh at it- to be angry is to give it more status and importance than it deserves

**As well as being quite a nice town in western Japan where I got the sleeper train from to Hokkaido on a couple of occasions. It literally means Goldmarsh.

***Technically I think you're not supposed to eat in the Old Theatre (though people often do at the UGM) and I would normally abide by that, but on this case if I hadn't had my sandwich there I would have had to choose between lunch and the UGM (unless I ate it in the computer room which is equally bad)

****The Rhistory files are actually automatically generated when you use R, you just have to save them (and get rid of mistakes and dead ends etc before handing in by editing in word pad or whatever). But so as not to save over the top of previous sessions, and because of running several computers at once, I had somthing like 20 or 30 Rhistory files most of which was stuff we weren't going to use, mistakes, or repetitions of stuff that had been done elsewhere many times. So I decided it was simplest to construct our Rhistory file by hand from a very small one that had the last commands we/I used in them, by typing in the commands needed to produce the results exactly as they appeared in the write-up and in the same order. However I did in one case have to actually type the commands into R- we found a value by the Newton method at one point, something which we later realised was hopeless as it would give a different answer each time due to our statistic being calculated with simulated values, but this meant that we would get a different answer every time. In order to work out what values should be tried in the process of homing in to whatever answer we would get, I actually had to carry out the algorithm, and use the value I got at the end of that in the project.

*****I already knew his name from seeing it by articles in the paper, but at the protest I got to find out what he looked like. He's been part of the protest as well as covering it, though at meetings he's always detached, asking what we want or think as a group or as individuals but not contributing to the debate himself.

******Though I hadn't had supper today either, I strangely wasn't hugely hungry- I think it was the alcohol.