I'm in a rather interesting situation right now.
You see, I'm about to sign a contract. This contract will mean that I'm working for a company, but I won't be employed by them. In fact, technically I'll be self-employed, but I'll have no customers or clients. So I'll have to declare my own tax information and so on, despite the fact that I'll be receiving a wage.
Except that it won't be a wage, because I'll be working on a basis that precludes the possibility of hourly payment. It's performance-based, but the level of performance isn't measured in anything more than the most cursory way.
On top of all this, if it sounds like I'm not giving much away, that's because the contract also stipulates that I'm not allowed to say anything about the company in question. "Anything" in this case means exactly what it sounds like; taken literally, the text of the contract says that I can't make any form of comment by any medium whatsoever about any aspect of the company for which I don't work but which still pays me a non-performance-based performance-linked not-wage.
Honestly, you make simple enquiries about employment opportunities and before long you're sounding like Jason Bourne...
No, it's not drug-running, prostitution, pornography or anything to do with the security services. Calm down, for goodness' sake.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
It's possible that this [CENSORED] was [REDACTED] from [REMOVED], I suppose
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Picture of the Week: #23
Exams are finally over, which is why I can provide you, dear reader, with this photo. Not hugely interesting to you perhaps, but these three carnations are very significant to me. If you're unfamiliar with Oxford's very odd exam traditions, the first thing that you should know is that they involve wearing formal academic dress, also known as sub fusc. This does have the unfortunate side effect of making all the students look rather like very well-dressed penguins, but it at least means that you're so busy smiling for the tourists as you head for your exam that you aren't worrying about the upcoming terrifying ordeal.
The more immediately relevant tradition involves wearing the carnations you see here - white at first, pink for exams up until and including the penultimate, and a red one to finish. This means that you there is a handy colour code so that you know which random strangers to congratulate. (It does happen...) These rather tired-looking flowers are, then, my reminder that I have now completed my degree, and that I'm shortly going to be the recipient of a rather nice BA certificate, which is extremely bizarre.
If you're interested in what final-year psychology papers look like, I've listed the questions from my three after the cut. Those that I answered are asterisked. Feel free to point this list out to anyone who is under the impression that psychology is not a science...
Multisensory Perception: From the Cockpit to the Dinner Table
Conscious Awareness: Neuropsychology and Psychophysics
Hearing
Thursday, 1 March 2007
The Logic Of Frustration (or, Why Everything Is Microsoft's Fault)
Observation: The code for the last bit of my research project has not yet been debugged and might not work.
Deductions:
- If I had got into the department before it closed, I would have been able to debug the code.
- If I had reached the department one minute earlier than I did, I would have got in.
- If I had not had to wait at the traffic lights, I would have reached the department at least one minute earlier than I did.
- If I had reached the traffic lights 30 seconds earlier, I would not have had to wait.
- If I had left the house 30 seconds earlier, I would have reached the traffic lights 30 seconds earlier.
- If I had not had a brief instant messenger conversation with one of my friends telling her that I couldn't talk as I was about to leave the house, I would have left the house at least 30 seconds earlier.
- If I had not had an IM client running in the first place, I would not have had that conversation.
- If I had not wanted to check my Hotmail account, I would not have needed to start an IM client.
- If Microsoft did not offer Hotmail accounts, I would not have one.
Saturday, 6 January 2007
The worst part is that we spent over £100 on Office, so I feel honour-bound to keep using it
I've talked about this before, but it cannot be said enough; whoever is responsible for making Microsoft Word:
- Move graphs from wherever you originally put them
- Decide that a) hard against the very top of the page, b) hard against the very bottom of the page, or c) right on top of the previous graph you placed are all very sensible places to move your graph
- Steadfastly refuse to let a text box within half a mile of a graph, even if it's patently obvious that you want to group the two together because you did exactly the same thing thirty seconds ago
- Randomly grey-out the "Print only the even pages" box because it feels like it
- Make replies to an email dark blue, and make that default impossible to change in any of the templates
- Decide that one of your documents should actually be a different one, and therefore copy the entire contents of Document A into Document B, deleting the original contents of Document B and insisting that it never existed, while keeping the filesize the same as it was when Document B actually did exist and keeping Document A just the same as it was, therefore necessitating the redoing of about four solid days of work (that actually happened once)
- Vastly inflate filesizes, to the point where a 50-page text document with a few digital photos, none of which could possibly have been more than about 50 KB, takes up 100MB
- Decide that not only are page headers and footers exempt from spell checking, but that this exemption should sometimes and without warning suddenly expand to the entire contents of your document, thus negating one of the very few halfway useful functions of the program
- Despite all of this, hold a frickin' near-monopoly on word processing software
Wednesday, 3 January 2007
The real problem is, it's still not finished...
Ways of starting your practical report when you really don't want to:
Write it as if it were in the King James Version
When man thinkest that he cannot see, and yet may point to an object whensoever he pleases, yea, even though he insisteth that the object be not present; then hast that man the curse of blindsight. Yet may this curse not be only for those unto whom damage to the mind hast been afflicted; verily, he whose eyes see well may also display its vestiges.
Write in the form of poorly-scanning limericks
With the benefit of hindsight
I wouldn't have investigated blindsight.
People say they can't see
But they point straight to me
It's so boring, it's just not a kind sight.
yes, I know "kind sight" doesn't mean anything...what were you expecting, Shakespeare?
Type as fast as you possibly can without ever going back to edit your train of thought or correct your typos
This is rlated to coscious awareness because it can be extended to different sensory modalities, and because it has ramifications for our image of the world. If infomaytion about an oject can exist even of we dfo not hold a specific repreentation of that object, it is proof of parallel visual processing at an early stage. Consciosu awarenss is a way opf findingo ut what is actually there and what we tyhnk is actually htree.
ENSEMBLE DANCE NUMBER!
Yeah you know it's BLIND [clap] SIGHT [twirl]
blind [clap clap] sight [twirl and clap]
We're talkin' about [shimmy to the left] bliiiiiindsiiiiiight!
[drum solo and breakdance section]
[key change!]
When you think that you ain't seein' [hands over eyes]
But you got that conscious feelin' [jazz hands]
Gotta be who you are, gotta be true to yourself [hands on heart] (every teen musical includes this line)
Gonna show you what I mean! Yeah!
