It's extremely good having Jane working full time on this project, because I keep seeming to get bogged down in other things and forgetting about it.  Lots and lots of student-related things, which is a bit frightening as this is supposed to have been the term where I have very little teaching and so can get on with research stuff.  So I'm absolutely not looking forward to coming back in the new year.

But enough of my woes.  The GPS failure was my fault as I'd left the charger in my desk drawer (which is full of bits of electronica both useful and massively obsolete) and forgotten to give it to Jane.  But it does reiterate the point that this is a right pain to sort out at times as there are so many things to keep charged / switch on when walking. 

I have been playing with shading the paths on the website maps to give a sense of direction being walked, which I think works quite well - I particularly like the pale to dark blue which seems to fit nicely with the underlying colours of the google maps.  Cartographic experimentation, it's a bit like proper geography!

Going to simplify things a bit in the new year as the tablet PC has proved not to be particularly useful in terms of a prompt.  In fairness it was always a bit of a stretch to see whether people would be interested in watching their progress around the map in 'real time' (or with a minute or so delay between screen refreshes).  But we've proved that this is something that could be done in principle - particularly if the person running the interview is pretty happy faffing about with GIS.  Something to be expanded on in a future project probably.  It gave an opportunity to rethink how we use technology in the field at least.  Nonetheless I'm sure Jane will be delighted at not having to heft around a heavy computer on her walks.

Other piece of good news was that the ambient noise recorder has finally turned up (only three months after it was ordered!) so James & I are going to go out in the new year and sample some of the sounds of Eastside as they currently exist.  Doubtless I'll connect these to a google map in some fashion (ah, the joys of google mapping) and James has talked about persuading a friend of his to connect these into some dance beats, a bit like the Birmingham Frequencies project by Biosphere and Higher Intelligence Agency.

In the meantime, however, I'm going to fiddle with some more of next term's lectures and contemplate my stack of Xmas marking.  Joy to the world, good will to wo/men etc.