Final MSP Event

Well, that's it.

I am no longer a Microsoft Student Partner - and for the next two weeks I have no official ties with the company at all! Scary that it's just two weeks till I start my first professional job (albeit, as an intern).

So, the final MSP event - which was based around Microsoft Research, in Cambridge, and was possibly the best of all the events. Though, they were all pretty win, in their own way.

I'm not sure which bits of the cool stuff we heard about inside MSR I'm allowed to tell you about, as I turned up a little late, so I didn't hear anyone mention what was, and what wasn't covered by the NDA I signed at the start of the year, so I'm afraid I just won't be telling you much.

We got a very cool talk on machine learning, where the AI failed to learn from my mistakes and actually did worse at Project Gotham than me, and another on Surface Computing, which you may remember from that link.

We also got a very interesting talk about how technology in the home - and got to see some of the fun experiments Microsoft are carrying out on the people of Cambridge. There was also a great video I'll put up in a post after this we got shown, love it. Also, I now know why pornography on demand on your mobile phone isn't likely to take off, and you don't. Mwahaha.

I was late, by the way, because apparently lightning hit the railway tracks near Cardiff - so all trains out were cancelled. As such I racked up quite the travel expenses (~£100) for MS to pay, getting a National Express coach to London Victoria, tube to Kings Cross, train to Cambridge and taxi to MSR. So, I left home (Cardiff) at 6.30am, but didn't arrive till 1pm, just in time to miss lunch. Emma, however, heroically saved me a plate of goodies, though she then voided her claims to credit by putting Brie on it. I managed to get a very crowded train home at least.

Anyhow, the real fun started once we'd left MSR, and moved onto La Grazia for a very nice three course meal. There was a moment of panic when the waitress informed us we didn't have a bar tab, but this was soon rectified and we were all happily drinking, inbetween, during, before and after every course. We then moved onto a very chic bar called La Raza, where they were playing 'urban jazz beats' - which is pretty much what it sounds like, including lots of original versions of melodies and beats you'd recognize from modern hip-hop songs that sampled them, and even some of Herbie Hancock's early fusion - Nice.

Cocktails here were expensive, though wonderfully made and stuffed with alcohol, so we were a little tipsy when we left to find somewhere a bit cheaper, where everyone else wasn't better dressed and drinking champagne. Matt (Duffin) paid a tramp £2 to direct us to the nearest open bar, but the advice proved to be dud, and we discovered that Cambridge doesn't even have any nightlife directly after exams and results, it really must be pretty boring living there.

As such, we piled back into Emma's room - I'm not very confident I can give you any more details, as I'd rather like to keep my job, but watch this space for the one picture I suppose I can share.


_{Emma entertains 9 men in her double room, gets looked at rather funnily when checking out.}

Today we went punting on the river in teams, with a set of questions to answer each. This was brilliant fun, though with all our dubious methodolgies and wild punting, I'm not sure we'll be welcome there again. I say again because I doubt they'll let us back in that hotel either. I will however point out that the last sentence probably sounds slightly worse than it is intended to.

Although my team came last, possibly because we cheated, stole paddles from other teams, two of our members walked the last half of the river home, and the two other (Will Perry and I) arrived back in someone else's boat. Will rather more wetly than me, having fallen in the river near the end, after many near misses. It also didn't help that we used our clipboard to paddle with and lost our answers sheet.

A BBQ and some strawberries and cream later, along with a mystery £150 bar tab that no-one could explain (though, no complaints) and it was time to say goodbye. I'll miss being an MSP, and I'll likely only see Amin and Emma again, though I hope to bump into some of the others, possibly in the halls of Microsoft. I'll try and keep in touch via the portal though, they're good guys, thanks to all for a very, very enjoyable year :)