There's always a catch in it...

One of the reasons why I like writing software is that I always find doing things in the "real world" much harder. Simple tasks can take on a life of their own. Take our kitchen door lock for example. We're doing some painting, which involved removing the handle. When I tried to put it back together I discovered that the catch mechanism had completely collapsed. Of course, I only found this out once I'd closed the door and then couldn't open it, which required some fancy shenanigans just to get the door back open. 

Once I'd isolated the broken part I was very pleased to find that I can get a new lock mechanism from ScrewFix for just 79 pence. I was somewhat less pleased to find that this replacement was a tiny bit too big for the hole in the door, so I had to spend a fiver on a smaller one. Which it turned out didn't fit either. I think our house was built in a time when the inch was slightly smaller than it is now. 

Anyhoo, the proper way to make the lock fit would have been to reach into my toolkit and produce a shiny, sharp chisel of exactly the right size and cut out the excess wood. Of course, that's not going to happen in my house, so I ended up using an electric drill to just enlarge the edges of the hole until it was big enough. We now have a door with a handle that works, having done only around three times as much work as I thought I'd have to....

HullPixelBot planning at C4DI

We had another of our hardware hacking group meetings last night. Plenty of great discussion, a lot of it focused on the HullPixelBot. Robin had assembled one and added some sensors that allowed it to chase light. Which mostly worked. We're planning a "bot assembly" evening on the 16th of June. I'm going to print out a bunch of chassis and anyone who fancies a bot of their own can come along and build it with us. Then we'll try to get them all going. You can find the build instructions on the Hull PixelBot microsite here. They include how to get all the part's you'll need. It shouldn't cost you more than ten pounds or so. 

We also have a Google group about matters Hull PixelBot. If you want the details ping me a message (or add a comment) and I'll get you registered. 

Floppy disks and missiles in the "i"

I was very pleased to find that my little article about floppy disks has now made it into print in a national newspaper. Go me. If you are quick you could conceivably nip out and buy a copy of the "i". Alternatively you can find the text of the article here. 

Sunshine Examining

I spent a big part of today looking at student work, and then talking about it. Maybe not your idea of fun, but I quite enjoyed it. And the sunshine definitely helped. 

Hello Dundee

It's kind of annoying when, having spent a huge amount of time and cash trying to get the best camera you can you press your phone up against the train window and get this...

I'm in Dundee for a couple of days, doing external examining things for Abertay. The weather here is wonderful. I'm assured that it is like this all year round. 

Had tea at this lovely place which had a Fiat in the window. 

Betajester get a place in the Tranfuzer programme

I've known BetaJester since before they were BetaJester. They've been Three Thing Game stalwarts since forever. And, like quite a few TTG alumni, they've become quite successful. Latest success is winning a place in the Tranzfuser talent development programme. As the press release says:

"Successful applicants have been awarded a £5,000 budget paid in stages to replicate the real world for them to allocate to allowable costs throughout the 10-week long competition. At the showcase event later this year, selected teams will be invited to pitch for follow-on funding of up to £25k from the UK Games Fund (also operated by UKGTF) to commercialise their game and launch a company."

Well done. Onward to victory.

Rob on BBC Radio 5 Live

Well, that was exciting. I got a call on Friday to ask if I'd like to talk about floppy disks and nuclear weapons on Radio 5 Live's Hit List program which lists the top 40 internet stories of the week. I said yes.

Floppy disks came in at number 31 or so. You can find the program by clicking the image above. Then move forwards to 24 minutes 50 or so and you get five minutes of me, in which I manage to invent a new word and make my own sound effects. Awesome fun.

Tulips

Busy day having fun today. Here's a picture of some tulips. 

Moving On

The University of Hull has been part of my life for over forty years. I arrived at the place in 1975 in tastefully flared trousers and I've been here ever since as student, duty programmer, computer manager and lecturer. And today I've begun the process of moving on from the university.

I guess it stated nearly a year ago, with congratulations from LinkedIn about my 37 years in employment at Hull. I'd never done the maths before and the number shocked me a bit. It was like a bit of grit that you get in your shoe, It irked,

As the year went by and I did my various jobs I began to reflect that I've been doing the same kind of thing for a long time and, fun though it is, maybe there are other things I might like to do which would be fun too. And maybe it would be interesting to find out. The little bit of grit in my shoe got too big to ignore. 

So, today I formally informed the university that I'd like to move on from the institution on the 30th of September this year. I'll be around for the next four months, setting up courses and getting things as sorted as I can for the next session, so I'm not going just yet. But moving on I am.

It's going to be a wrench, but it had to happen sooner or later, and I really hope I'll be able to retain some links with this fabulous institution, maybe they'll let me come back and run the odd competition and deliver the occasional Rather Useful Seminar.

I've not made any firm plans going forward. With a bit of luck I'll be able to speak at a conference every now and then, and of course robmiles.com will rumble on. My book will be out later this year and I might think about "C# Yellow Book - the Movie", but we'll have to see. 

I've got tons of toys that I've not had time to play with, I plan to spend some time fiddling with them and writing about what happens. I've decided to re brand myself "Technical Author" just for now... Definitely not retired.

I've had a wonderful time at Hull University and I want to thank my colleagues in Computer Science and of course all the wonderful students that we've had over the years. I'm actually quite nervous about the future, but I'm also rather excited. 

Floppy Disks and Nuclear Missiles

I like writing stuff for The Conversation. They take my mangled prose and turn it into really nice articles. I've just written another one for them. You can find it here. It's all about legacy systems. 

Above you can see a legacy system I helped to make. We installed it quite a while back and saw it go from "Advanced Touchscreen Magic" to "hard to find the hardware drivers" to "replaced" over twenty years or so. I'm quite proud of the fact that I don't recall it ever crashing. Except that one time that when a chap blew up all the power supplies in the building when he was testing the UPS. And that wasn't really our fault.

Cube Floormat Excitement

Ordered some new floormats for my Cube .  Both surprised and pleased to find you can still get them at a reasonable price. Quite excited about getting them really.

Which should probably be worrying. 

The Shaper Origin is Amazing

This thing is completely amazing. So want one.

HDR Projects 4 Professional for Twenty Quid

Whitby Abbey looking good

StackSocial is a place where they sell stuff at nice prices. I first came across them when they were selling Lytro Illum cameras at a very knock down price. But only in America, chiz chiz (chiz is a Nigel Molesworth word meaning cheat or swindle - as any fule kno). 

Anyhoo, I've bought a couple of items of software from them at very attractive discount, the latest being HDR Projects 4 Professional. The software is very, very, good. HDR usually needs several images which are taken at different exposure. But this software will also take a single exposure and do a tone mapping job which is almost as good as using multiple shots. It has lots of presets and works very well. 

If you are interested in making your pictures that bit more awesome, and particularly if you use Photoshop and Lightroom, this package represents great value at only twenty quid. 

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

I know, don't I ever, that nobody really cares that today I managed to get our mirror on the wall but I really like it.

I saw this thing on a home improvement show where they advised putting a mirror opposite a window to spread the light around a bit. So we got one and, after last week's failure, today we (thanks Chris) managed to fit the little hooks on the mirror onto a couple of overly sturdy bolts stuck in the wall. 

Bond Movie Soundtracks on Vinyl

I don't know who thought of it, but it's a brilliant idea. One of the best things about Bond movies has always been their soundtrack. And they've just released the soundtracks for a bunch of the early Bond films on 12 inch vinyl LPs. I found a bunch of them when I was up town today and for a moment I thought I'd dropped through a time warp. They've got proper, printed, card sleeves with the original artwork. I'm tempted to get one just for old time's sake. You can also get high definition digital versions too. Click on the image above to find out more. 

Bit of a stinker if you've been watching your treasured, collectable originals go up in value over the years, but great for the rest of us who can remember when Bond was proper cool. 

Voice Powered Pizza Picking

I've been playing with the Voice Response in Windows 10. It works very well. The latest libraries allow you to write code that recognises one of a number of phrases. I've been working on this as part of "Begin To Code With C#", the book which, even as we speak is taking shape. 

I've written a "Snap" (one of my pre-built software components) that makes it dead easy to create your own voice controlled software. Above is a screen shot from the "Voice Enabled Pizza Picker" that I'm building. 

Fun fact: The word "Pepperoni" seems to be recognised very well, but for some reason "Vegetarian" doesn't get picked up half as well....

We should stay in Europe

I'm going to post some of my favourite European pictures over the next few weeks

Now, I'm not a particularly political sort. My line on politics is that no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. But every now and then I feel that I have to say something. Not that I think what I say matters particularly; it's just that I feel better having said it. 

There's a lot of kerfuffle going on about Europe at the moment. Should we stay? Should we leave? I'm strongly in favour of staying in. Very strongly. I think that leaving would be a very bad plan. There's a saying that goes "Prediction is very hard, especially about the future", so I'm not really basing my opinion on any particular "facts" going forward. It's just that I like being in Europe. I like going to abroad and feeling part of the place. I like the idea that we have some common purpose across the continent. I like the way that people come into this country and pick up bits of our culture, and bring us some of theirs. I even enjoyed the Eurovision song contest this time round (but mainly because it was very, very well done).  

Leaving Europe just seems such a cold, pointless thing to do. Are we so uncertain of our national identity that we have to prove we can go it alone? I have this image in my mind of a bunch of wagons in a circle with bears and wolves roaming around outside, and the idea that one wagon would suddenly up sticks and head out into the wilderness on its own seems unnecessary and dangerous.

So I think we shouldn't do that. 

One thing I am keen on though, is making sure that everyone has their say in this. It really is a rather important decision. If you haven't registered to vote (and you should, which ever way you feel about it) then register here. 

Captain America Civil War - worth the trip

We nearly didn't go and see "Captain America Civil War", but I'm rather glad we did. Even though you know that the plot is the cinematic equivalent of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, it is still worth your time. The story is good, just about everyone plays their part well (although I do worry about the non-super members of the team whenever they go into battle) and there are some great one-liners.

Ant Man and Spiderman turn up and add to the mix and everything is set up nicely for the next movie(s) in the franchise. Which I think is probably what this film was really all about. 

I genuinely marvel (no pun intended) at the way they can turn these movies out on a regular basis. In the olden days (i.e. seventies Superman) we'd have a superhero film every couple of years, each of which had a few little fight sequences leading up to a grand finale. Nowadays a film with open with a huge set piece, and then has two or three more leading up to a really big one at the end. Computer graphics help a lot, but when you consider that all the fight sequences had to be choreographed, shot and then integrated into a whole, it's hard not to be impressed. 

Worth a trip I reckon. 

Out of touch?

I hate it when people tell me absolute whoppers. I find it rather offensive that they think I might be daft enough to believe them. I was in conversation with someone whose company had rather dropped the ball and was messing us about a bit, and the other person said "We've been trying to contact you for a while..."

How? What with? Were they shouting on street corners, writing slogans on walls, sending out carrier pigeons, trying remote Vulcan mind melds? They've got my mobile and home numbers, plus email address. How could they try and get in touch and not have me notice? 

Well, really. 

Scott Guthrie at Azurecraft UK

Scott Guthrie is one of my heroes. Proper developer chops and the ability to deliver a really good presentation. I've seen him speak a couple of times and event had the pleasure to present at TechDays in the session before his. So I guess you could say I was once his warm-up man. 

Anyhoo, he's speaking in the UK on a couple of dates in early June. Once in London and once in Reading. I'm not going to be able to make it unfortunately, what with examinerish type things happening around then, but if you get the chance you really should go. 

Find out more and sign up here.