Emma’s Blog

So, last night with a little help from Dave, I got a little further in the Python adventure. He suggested setting up a Virtual Environment and trying to install the packages there. In the end, I went with numpy 1.2.0, scipy 0.8, matlibplot 1.0 (0.99 seems to have issues on OSX), but hit a brick wall with rpy. The first problem was rpy is old. Very old. The regex used to try and find your R version number only allowed for \d.\d.\d – I am on R 2.11.1, so I fixed the regex and all was well, but I managed to get an awful lot of other warnings/errors. By this time it was 12:20am, and i’d been trying on and off for 12 hours to get this to work.

This morning I took a fresh approach…enter an old windows laptop, no python install, very old R (2.4!). I instaled python 2.5 (from the .msi), numpy 1.1.0 (from .exe), scipy 0.7 (from .exe), matplotlib 0.99 (from .exe), tried importing and scipy claimed it wanted numpy 1.2.0, so installed that (some good version checking there on checking minimum requirements for the script i’m trying to run…). When I tried importing matplotlib it decided it needed win32api, so had a bit of a google and installed PyWin32, which fixed the matplotlib issue. I then installed rpy 1.0.3 (from .exe) which worked!

Had a bit of a faff trying to sort out the paths, it’s been so long since I used windows I had to check where the System Variables thing is, then when I added R and Python they didn’t come up in the path. After some head scratching, I went with path = %PATH%;C:\python26
and then the same for R.

The script is now running…if it works, I might tell you all what it is

Every day now i’ve been getting comment spam (although it doesn’t get through as I have set everything to need approval). Always on the quail post…I wonder if quail is a popular term among spam bots, or whether they’re just set up to go for an older post.

Tomorrow is the MHC Christmas Show, which should be good. It was a pretty big show last year, I got to poke my first tiny baby dwarfs and they put on a nice buffet. We’re also buying an extra hen to try and settle the quail fighting, although I put all the birds in the playpen together last night and they didn’t seem too bothered about each other.

On Thursday I went up to Manchester for a joint conference with their Systems Biology people. The MIB that they’re based in is a lovely building, far nicer than our one. We never did decide who has the best deal, they get more money, a nicer building but we have offices, a shower and tea, coffee, squash and biscuits on tap.

In the evening, we went to San Carlo for a meal. It was very nice, fairly posh (I had monkfish!) and Mike had a Tartufo for pudding that was set on fire with a shot of sambuca (the waste!).

After that we went to the awesome Baa Bar (although it was a bit late, and we only stayed for two drinks (my shots were the storm, and a springbok). We stayed at the Thistle hotel on Picadilly Gardens, which was reasonably comfortable, although hideously overpriced. I was not impressed with their lack of veggie breakfast (yes, I can eat eggs and hash browns, but i’d like a veggie sausage and the knowledge stuff has been fried in seperate pans than you very much!).

Anyway, Friday evening we went to Sinclairs, and one of the Wetherspoons. People are so much politer than in the midlands, a man bumped into me and actually apologised, and a woman held a door open for me on the way to the loo rather than letting it smash into my face! After that, we went to Cafe Rouge…unfortunately we picked a new one, “just off” Deansgate. Its part of a new development, and is the only place open, and is as far off the main road as you can get. We were starting to have doubts when we walked through all the hoardings, but there it was right at the end with happy little balloons outside. We were the only customers, and paid half the bill in Tesco vouchers my Mum had given Mike the day before, but hey…i’m sure the 15 staff that were on enjoyed serving us…

Life has been busy recently, and there are a few things I should probably add, back date etc.

In May, we went to Thorpe Park for Sam’s 21st, which was really good. I’ll steal some pics off Mike and add those.

The start of June I handed in my project, waited to see if I had a viva, then finally got my result. I got a 2.1. We also went to Drayton Manor, which was fun. At the end of the month I returned to Market Research, its just for the summer…its just for the summer.

July, graduation. I am now officially Emma Picot BSc (Hons) Biochemistry. Before that, we had a night in Blackpool, great fun, and saw some red squirrels at Formby.

That’ll do for now.

Mike and I have both hurt our backs. Stop your sniggering, its nothing of the sort. He noticed his was sore last Thursday (but it recovered for the Beer Bus). It started again on Tuesday, I walked straight from the lab to Tesco, and noticed when I got there my back was a bit sore (I assumed from a heavy bag). He was limping, this carried on through Wednesday, and mine stayed as a dull ache. Woke up on Thursday in agony, as did Mike. People in work told him to go home as he was limping so much. He took today off, but I had to go in, thankfully I finished early. Restful weekend it is.

I think we need a new mattress, but bloody hell they’re expensive.

Last night we went on a tour of the black country on a bus, with beer. Apart from it turning up 30 mins late, it wasn’t a bad evening. God knows what the awful beer served on the bus was, but by the time we got into the pubs it was great fun. There’s nothing more hilarious than a bus of drunk people you don’t know.