Author Archives: Joe

Labour’s Corbyn election – ten thoughts.

Posted on 13 July, 2016 by Joe

Riiiight so both Corbyn and Angela Eagle can run for Labour Leader, so the election’s on. Labour’s turn to agonise about runners, riders, the gap between party members, the MPs who they volunteer for, and the public who might (or … Continue reading →

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On schools testing

Posted on 13 July, 2016 by Joe

Schools testing has been in the news again recently… are SATS etc useful objective measures of a school’s performance? Or do they add unnecessary stress and bureaucracy? Well I think we can all agree more objectivity and less stress are … Continue reading →

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Why aren’t we benchmarking bioinformatics?

Posted on 20 April, 2016 by Joe

Talk presented at the #bench16 (benchmarking) symposium at KCL, London, Wed 20th April 2016. Funded by the SSI. Slides (Slideshare – cc-by-nd) Tweet this Digg Post to LinkedIn Slashdot Stumble This

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More MinION – the ‘1D rapid’ prep

Posted on 29 March, 2016 by Joe

My last MinION post described our first experiments with this really cool new technology. I mentioned then that their standard library prep was fairly involved, and we heard that the manufacturers, Oxford Nanopore, were working on a faster, simpler library prep. We … Continue reading →

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Copying LOADS of files from a folder of LOADS *AND* LOADS more in OSX

Posted on 18 March, 2016 by Joe

Quick one this, as it’s a tricky problem I keep having to Google/SO. So I’m posting here for others but mainly myself too! Here’s the situation: you have a folder (with, ooh, let’s say 140,000 separate MinION reads, for instance…) … Continue reading →

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How to fake an OSX theme appearance in Linux Ubuntu MATE

Posted on 3 February, 2016 by Joe

I’ve recently been fiddling about and trying to fake an OSX-style GUI appearance in Linux Ubuntu MATE (15.04). This is partly because I prefer the OSX GUI (let’s be honest) and partly because most of my colleagues are also Mac … Continue reading →

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Messing about with the MinION

Posted on 20 December, 2015 by Joe

Molecular phylogenetics – uncovering the history of evolution using signals in organisms’ genetic sequences – is a powerful science, the latest expression of the human desire to understand our common origins. But for all its achievements, I’d always felt something … Continue reading →

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Real-time Phylogenomics

Posted on 2 November, 2015 by Joe

General science talk about the potential of real-time phylogenomics, delivered at the Jodrell Lecture Theatre, Kew Gardens, November 2nd 2015 Slides [SlideShare]: cc-by-nc-nd Tweet this Digg Post to LinkedIn Slashdot Stumble This

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Cheat on your exams

Posted on 26 October, 2015 by Joe

Had a heated discussion with a friend the other day. I went to a school, where ‘exam techniques’ were part of the standard toolkit given to students to get them the best possible grades at GCSE, A-levels, and beyond. She … Continue reading →

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An appalling, terrible, borderline-criminal proposal from Westminster Council

Posted on 12 October, 2015 by Joe

I’ve just seen the proposal from Westminster Council on a section of the Quietway Grid in their patch from Covent Garden to Waterloo Bridge. A patch, lest we forget that’s used by a lot of bikes: I’m really pushed for time … Continue reading →

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