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My final year project report is officially "bullshit."

 
  

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Ria
16:13 / 06.06.02
hey, sorry MC. you can't really rely on other people's validation in the end.
 
 
that
16:38 / 06.06.02
No...but when other people's validation is what gets you your degree... well...
 
 
Mourne Kransky
17:02 / 06.06.02
Good for you MC!

You'll find the OU much more to your liking I suspect and your positivity in the face of the agricultural metaphor is heartening. & I speak as the worst student in the world who moved on a few times, till it all clicked into place. They were politer in the 70's and just wrote this is verbiage on one submission of mine.

btw, have made a very lifelike voodoo doll by dint of using a picture of a friend's arse for the head and have left it waiting expectantly in the cat litter tray.
 
 
The Monkey
17:20 / 06.06.02
Mordant,

Sounds like you've been ill-handled by a crack team of ignorant bastards. I have no doubt you possess both the intelligence and the resilience to get up, get on, and prosper in the process.
Never let the bastards get you down.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
19:35 / 06.06.02
I refuse to apologise for them. It would be redundant when their whole fucking LIVES are clearly an apology. Genital maggots to the lot of them.

Come down to Southampton and get wasted with us. It will not fix things, but it will make them beautifully blurry...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:46 / 06.06.02
(BTW: the project in question is my laser harp. I may not have the grades I want but I still have my lasers. Bwahahahaha.)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:13 / 06.06.02
Even by the often deliberately soul-destroying standards of the acdemic world this sounds completely harsh, incompetent and unreasonable... Hugs, MC.
 
 
Oresa delta 20
22:49 / 06.06.02
This whole "fuck 'em, they're only students" mentality is why i'm taking a year out: i desperately want to find something worthwhile to do, rather than ending up at university, pissing away all my money, probably ending up with fewer qualifications than i had when i arrived. hands up who wants to come and live with me in my special commune?? We'll just sit around for a while, and drink lots of tea. Then we might go for a walk when it starts to get dark, and we'll all sleep on the roof, under blankets made of moss (don't worry about the bugs - we'll be sure to get them out first). Then, when we have a large enough following, we'll start our own university, so we can all get the qualifications we want. Then, Mordant, when you have every qualification known to man, you can become leader of the world, and have those pesky academics transferred to the Janitorial department. Then we can drink some more tea, and go for another walk......
 
 
the Fool
01:47 / 07.06.02
You know Mordant, this is just a stepping stone to popstar hyperglamour that you have always been destined for. These small minded creatures are obviously jealous of your growing aura of wonder, and their lack of anything resembling a life.

I had similar issues with my tutors in my final thesis. I did what I wanted and am still proud of the result even though my marks were very average. Most of the people I did architecture with tried to do projects that would get marks or please tutors and felt in hindsight that they had wasted the only opportunity they had to explore design.
 
 
grant
15:40 / 07.06.02
The Federal Express corporation, if I remember right, was started as a business class final project that got flunked because "it could never work."

And that guy, the CEO, he didn't have lasers.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:54 / 07.06.02
There you are then. Not only do I have lasers, but I have nummy writey goodness to spare.

Now would be a good time for the editor of some major and very flashy publication to give me my own weekly column and a voluminous expenses budget.

*Waits*

Sigh.....
 
 
grant
22:30 / 07.06.02
Start pamphleting, you.

And send me pictures of this harp thing. Because it sounds almost as cool as a brainwave machine.
 
 
grant
22:31 / 07.06.02
And probably easier to build.

Unless you'd care to sell a model....
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:17 / 08.06.02
It isn't finished yet. The circuitry works but the thing isn't in a frame, and I haven't sorted out the beam-splitters. When I have it up and running, you shall all have pix.
 
 
Mr Ed
12:57 / 08.06.02
It sounds like a really cool project and to be honest, as the entire point of a degree is to learn stuff, all you need to do is show the right people the finished harp and stuff will happen.

Personally, I'd say at least write a letter/email of complaint and leave it at that.

If the bastards thought your project was invalid they should have said at the start.

Incompetence, especially when it fucks with someone's life should never go unpunished, and people who get away with that sort of shit tend to do it a lot.
 
 
Thjatsi
15:32 / 08.06.02
What does the laser harp do?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:42 / 08.06.02
What it is, basically, is a bunch of light-sensitive resistors that are placed in the beams of the lasers, so when you break the laser-beam there's a change in voltage. Then there's another pile of circuitry that registers the change and outputs the result as digital information. The digital data then gets converted to MIDI by a microcontroller. At least, that's the plan- I don't have the MIDI bit working yet 'cause they didn't order the microcontroller till a couple of weeks back (despite the fact that I asked for it in fucking April. )

Anyway, most of the circuit works, and I intened to complete the thing in my own time. I have some ideas for modifications that I'd like to implement later on.
 
 
Thjatsi
01:50 / 09.06.02
That's really impressive, what kind of modifications?
 
 
Turk
03:43 / 09.06.02
It could always be worse my friend.
When it's all said and done at least right now at this very second you aren't in the audience of a Brian Conley show. Be counting your blessings.
 
 
luminocity
11:45 / 09.06.02
Would this class in a glass project be remotely mass producable? I'd buy one and, I suspect, so would the many thousands of people who go to places like the Gadget Shop. Maybe you could do solder-your-own kits?
 
 
Bill Posters
12:58 / 09.06.02
I've got in late but sorry, Mordant. I don't think it reflects on you generally 'cos methinks you are both clever and very witty with it. So don't let the bastards get ya down, yeah?!
 
 
Ganesh
14:36 / 09.06.02
Genuinely sorry to hear they've been lacking in the basic competence, imagination and vision to appreciate what sounds like the most fabulous application of laser technology since, ooh, Frankie Said Relax. Sounds a little like a modern theremin...

Keep your pecker up, Mordant.
 
 
Ellis says:
16:50 / 09.06.02
Am very sorry to hear that MC.

It sounds so cool too...
 
 
Ariadne
16:57 / 09.06.02
It sounds wonderful - I'd love one. Good luck with it.

Your tutor ought to have been following what you were doing and should have pointed out that you were in the 'wrong' direction, if it's so far from what they feel able to mark. So I'd think you have grounds for complaint there.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:49 / 09.06.02
Well, it wasn't the project they didn't like, it was the report I'd written about it that was the problem- they reckoned there weren't enough practical results. (My contention is that if the lab staff had ordered me the vital componants when I bloody asked for them instead of sitting around chatting or watching the footie, I might have had a few practical results to put in my effing writeup.)

As to marketing the laser harp: Well, the idea is not original to me; I think the first one came out in the 70's, and Jean Michel Jarre uses one in his stage show (tho' I harbour dark suspicions about whether his actually works or not), and I belive there are kits availiable now. However, I belive that my design is more sophisticated, more musician-freindly, and most importantly cooler-looking. So yeah, if I sort out the glitches it'll be floggable.

Thanx again for the support, folks. I have my dream OU degree picked out already, and tho' I'm disappointed I'm also glad to be out of the whole ghastly mess.
 
  

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