weltschmerz - work

New dawn fades

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 21:10:00 +0100

Out with the old; in with the new. Submitted the dissertation today; start work on 3rd October.

Critics of Bayesian confirmation theory point to the problem of old evidence as a weakness of the account. Traditional attempts to resolve the problem include the counterfactual strategy and the humanised Bayesian strategy; I argue that these approaches are not entirely satisfactory. I then turn my attention to plausible reasoning in mathematics, focussing particularly on the problem of old evidence in mathematics, and argue that some form of humanised Bayesianism can contribute to our understanding of confirmation and old evidence in mathematics.

So there.

Update

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:50:00 +0100

General update on various things:

First draft of dissertation is done and under my supervisor's consideration. Fingers crossed that I won't have to change/rewrite/add much.
Taking a break from the Discworld series to read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Most of the way through the first book now, and it's fab! Could those in the know please tell me how it compares to the Harry Potter series, which I've somehow avoided (in book and film form)?
Picked up Twin Cinema by The New Pornographers and I Am Kloot's self-titled at Fopp today. Pleasant surprises all round: I hadn't realised that the latest New Pornographers album was out in the UK already, and it was only a tenner.
The British music press seems to like Stars' Set Yourself On Fire. From the songs I know, I think I prefer Heart (2003), but hopefully they'll perform a mixture of old and new at their gig on 7/9.
Made my first mix in over a year, and it seems to have got a great response -- which is nice!
Started playing regular tennis again.

Bring it on 2 & 3

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:12:42 +0100

Two more papers tomorrow; six hours of pure philosophical pleasure. RSI, here I come!

Bring it on

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 22:10:00 +0100

First paper tomorrow. Anyone up for exam chicken?

Edit: It went fine. Thanks for all the support!

Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:11:45 +0100

My internship at NEF ended on Friday. Michael gave me a bottle of wine, which was sweet of him. I'm not sure I'll ever work there again (though the door has been left open for me), because of the job offer I've accepted and the damned course, but I'll definitely stay in touch and I wish them the best of luck. They ought to make it into the papers with increasing frequency.

I saw a book today, entitled The Selected Prophecies of Nostradamus. Haha!

Any Discworld fans hanging around? I've read The Colour of Magic a number of times and loved it exactly the same number of times, but I've never taken the brave step of trying the other 20+ in the series. Jez recommended that I try out the City Watch books, the first of which is Guards! Guards!. Let me know your recommendation(s).

Great expectations

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 00:05:00 +0100

There have been well-publicised cases of bloggers getting fired for blogging about work, so one ought to do so anonymously. However, I am negating the issue by writing only positive things. Cunning, eh?

I'm doing an internship at New Energy Finance, a startup firm providing specialist financial information on the renewable energy sector. These are exciting times for NEF: on Thursday, the FT ran an article based on an NEF press release. The gist of it is that, according to NEF's index of renewable energy companies, the Kyoto Protocol appears to have boosted firms in participating countries (e.g. Japan, Canada, EU member states) and hurt firms in non-participating countries (e.g. the US, Australia).

Do a quick search, and you'll see that the story has now been picked up all over the place. For instance,

.

And I've made it onto the NEF team page, hurrah!