I think PhD students go through a range of feelings towards their theses, beginning with excitement and some trepidation when they start a blank text file, progressing through despair in the mandatory mid-cycle slough, to eventually being completely fed up and just wanting it out the door. Now that I’ve gone through all that and seen the finished product in lovely blue serge cloth, the only thing left to do was to put it online.

So the final, corrected version of my thesis is now available at the arXiv. I’m not expecting anyone to actually go read the thing but when I have lost or mislaid my copy at least I’ll be able to download it.

Jack of Kent is going to give his analysis of the ruling over the weekend, starting here.

This is only one case however and the need for reform of the libel laws is still as pressing as ever. Jack Straw has outlined Labour’s plans for reform if they win the election. With the general election due in a few weeks, now is the time to put pressure on all politicians by signing the petition at libelreform.org.

I use the Beamer package for LaTeX which is a great way to include mathematics in your slides, and is pretty straightforward to use if you are proficient with LaTeX.
The default settings in Beamer are quite pretty but after a few days of a physics conference they can become quite repetitive. I like to make my slides at least somewhat different to all the others out there, and try to use my customisations to keep the attention of my audience.

One main change I think is useful with beamer is to make the equations use a serif font like a normal paper would, and not the sans-serif font used by default. This is achieved by having the following command
before \begin{document}:

\usefonttheme[onlymath]{serif}

To get rid of the navigation symbols at the bottom right of each slide I use

\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

and the template I use is given by

\usetheme{Frankfurt}
\usecolortheme{rose}
\usecolortheme{seahorse}

I don’t like all the clutter that’s normally at the top of each slide
(contents, title etc) so I use the “plain” option for each frame:

\begin{frame}[plain]
...
\end{frame}

To do the black background with white text is slightly tricky but the
template below should work. Just be aware that the curly brackets
outside all the other commands are required to limit the change to
just one frame.

{
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=black}
\setbeamercolor{whitetext}{fg=white}
\begin{frame}[plain]{}
\begin{center}
{\usebeamercolor[fg]{whitetext}

INSERT TEXT HERE

}
 \end{center}

\end{frame}
}

These are pretty simple changes but used judiciously they can have a striking effect. I think the most useful is the change of maths text to be serif, in line with the standard used in academic print. The sans-serif maths font just looks a little odd in comparison.

The slides for the talk are available as a pdf or through the embedded widget below. My style for talks is heavily skewed towards minimalist slides with lots of verbal explanation so without having me beside you to guide you through them they might be hard to understand. Perhaps one day I will get around to recording the audio for a talk as well.

Slideshare:

The deadline for registering your interest in attending or giving a talk is tomorrow the 16th. Funding is being provided for travel costs and PhD students and postdocs are especially encouraged to apply to speak. More information about the programme and location is on the meeting webpage.