Moving On ....

Well, after 5 years the time has finally come to move on from my job at Imperial. I knew this was likely to happen ever since I finished my PhD last year, but thought it might take a while longer to find a new job. However, the Open University decided to appoint me a lecturer so I am going to start my new job there on Oct 2nd.

Leaving Imperial after so long - I have spent a total of 9 years on this campus if you count my time as an undergraduate - is a bit of a wrench. I will definitely miss the people and even to some extent the familiarity of the labyrinthine corridors of the Department of Computing here. However, it is not so bad because I am involved in a couple of collabarative projects which will give me ample opportunity to visit regularly.

The job at the Open University is exciting in many ways. First it is a lectureship, which promises a whole new range of tasks and responsibilities. Second, it involves moving to Milton Keynes which means a new house and new neighbourhood to get used to. Both Uthpala and I are really looking forward to settling in our new place.

I have a week off in between jobs at the moment and the majority of the free time is likely to be spent on packing up our flat. This is a little tricky to do beacuse we don't have a firm moving date yet. I am hoping the last of the legal paperwork is completed early next week and we can make more definite plans. Keeping all fingers crossed! ....

Personal webpages from Google ...

Came across this handy little project by GoogleLabs (check out pages.google.com) which allows people to set up and host some basic web pages (upto 100MB of content). The online editor is quite good and allowed me to set up this basic home page with less than 1 hour of effort. Looking forward to Google making this a permanent offerring :-)

Laugh of the week ...

An old university buddy sent me a link to a webpage containing the text of a commencement address given to Yale students by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison:

Although the story is a satirical spoof and it is pretty old, I hadn't come across it before and it definitely makes for some hilarious reading. Especially the bit where Ellison 'tells' the new graduates:

"Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.

In fact, as I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers."

LoL - The full article is definitely worth a read :-)