At least when you get up early you get some nice pictures. A full size image is in my pictures directory.
Went up town first thing this morning to do a paper review thing for the local BBC station. Oh the things I do in my continuous quest for fame and fortune. It seemed to go OK, even though I'd only prepared three items and the presenter asked me, live on air, for my fourth one. Ho hum. At least it got me into the office early.
I did a degree ceremony today. By "did" I mean acted as graduand's marshal. This involves telling everyone what to do at the start and then getting the students who have not got their degrees yet (called graduands) down to the stage so that they can go and get their degrees and become graduates.
It is great fun. We use City Hall and, although it can get a bit hot, there is always a fantastic atmosphere in amongst the nervousness.
Today things went OK. Except for one thing. I lost Laura. One of the jobs that I have to do is "slot in" people who register late. This means that they don't have a seat in the main hall, and so they sit down the front, next to me, and it is my job to put them in line in the right place so that they can get their degrees along with all the rest. Laura was one of the students I was due to slot in during the presentations. Things were going well as I fetched down the row into which Laura was due to be placed so I asked her to stand up and get ready to go. Unfortunately I then made a fatal mistake. I looked the other way to see how the queue was going. When I looked back Laura had melted into a sea of students wearing gowns.
Now, put a gown and hat on a bunch of people and they all look rather similar. Add to that my atrocious memory for faces and you have trouble. So I had to start asking people "Are you Laura?" to try and find the right person.
Unfortunately, people who are coming down for their degrees are not actually in a fit state to answer such questions. They are usually concentrating on remembering who they are so that they can walk across the stage at the right time, worrying about curtsying, and generally being a bag of nerves.
I've actually done the graduation thing as a student myself, and all this is quite normal. So when a graduand has someone towering over them asking "Are you Laura?" they immediately think "I'm not sure? Should I be? Why does he want to know?". Panic ensues. Two of the blokes in the queue told me that yes, they were Laura. This baffled me, and we were just entering a downward spiral of confusion when I spotted her and ushered her into the right place. Just in time. I don't think anyone noticed. And Laura went across the stage just fine.
I'm going to claim I was going for an artistic effect...
I was down in City Hall again today doing my degree warmup thing. Warmup is a bit of an understatement, it was like an oven in there during the afternoon. I took a picture of "my lot" in the audience. Unfortunately I forgot to hold the camera still. I know I wasn't shaking from the cold....
Did the final Ace lecture today. Another splendid bunch of students and a good time had by all.
Danni warms up the audience...
Digby the digital dog drives them wild.
I don't know. You spend forty minutes showing off amazing technology, telling wonderfull jokes and so on. Then Digby comes on and kicks a ball and the crowd goes wild!
Anyway, it was great fun. I've put a little page together for those of you what want to have a go at the programming side of things. You can get the program I was writing from here. And you can find out about starting to program here.
It is just too hot and sticky to post blogs at the moment. My room here is like an oven and even the fan (which was cheap from Tesco and sounds like a Jumbo Jet in an echo chamber) doesn't make things much better.
So I'm not going to post tonight. Except that I just have. So this whole blog thing has just not worked at all today.
I hate this weather.
Ace audience
Another day, another ACE talk. Another great audience. I've no idea how Danni does it, but she gets in premium students each time. Anyway, today Digby sort of behaved himself, and of course got more applause than anyone else. I'm thinking about giving him his own blog on this site, but I'm not sure he needs the extra exposure..
Blurry Digby
I'm in the process of saying goodbye to an old friend. I've had a mobile phone with Orange since a long time ago, when black and white screens were cool. But now I'm leaving them and shacking up with T-Mobile. I gave Orange a chance, I spoke to their "Customer Retention" team (which sounds really scary) but at the end of the day they can't offer me what I want.
What I want is unlimited use of the internet on my mobile phone for 7.50 a month. I want to be able to use my mobile to browse the internet, check my email and download the odd file without worrying about the cost (which up until now has been horrendous). T-Mobile will let me do this. Orange won't. The nearest I can get with Orange (and this is a tip folks) is that if I use a Pay As You Go connection I can pay a pound for as much internet as I want for a single day. This is great for trips away and the odd demonstration. But I want the mobile internet as part of my life. So it is goodbye to Orange for a while.
I'm pretty sure that eventually Orange will have to come up with something similar, but I don't particularly want to wait. I've got a taste for mobile email and that means using the internet a lot. And I want it now. So it is goodbye to my Orange contract and hello for a year with T-Mobile.
What a great audience looks like.
I did another talk to a bunch of students from local schools today. The place was packed and it was a bit warm, but the whole thing went really well and the audience were great. For the first time I put Digby (my robot dog) on a black cloth. He loved it, he could find the ball and then fail to kick it really well.
I've hidden a stormtrooper in this picture somewhere. Can you use your powers of observation to find him?
On Sunday sensible people stay in bed for a while, potter about, read the paper and generally relax in preparation for the coming week. They do not spend the day rising at 4:30 am, driving 220 miles to London, walking round a film and comic conference and then driving back again. Horay for sensible people. Meant the place was not so busy, and we got a chance to look around. And see a talk from two of the stars of Serenity, a good film that you really should have seen by now. I've put a whole bunch of pictures up on Flickr.
Some of the audience, apologies to those who arrived after I took the picture...
We had an open day today. In spite (or perhaps because of) the football match we still had a good turnout. Those that came along seemed to have a good time, and they went away with wherewouldyouthink T shirts and a smile. Even though I told some of my jokes.....
Did a talk at an Insight event today. I was telling all about mobile development to a bunch of academics. Great bunch of folks who seemed to enjoy the talk. I never got around to telling the orange for a head joke, but you can Google it if you like. If you were at the talk, I promised a bunch of links and downloads. You can find them in the presentations part of the site here. I got to stay in a proper english hotel room for a change.
For your information, hotel owners of the world, this is what we english expect to see in our rooms when we arrive. Not a minibar loaded with expensive items or a coffee filter thing which only makes one cup of luke warm drink. This is how you do it. And don't forget the biscuits.
Drove down to Kidderminster today in a rented car. I like rented cars. They are always shiny and new and somebody else's problem if they go wrong. Today's car was a shiny Saab. It had loads of buttons, including one labeled ESP which I never dared press. It had separate air conditioning settings for the driver and passenger sides . Number one sun set his to minimum and I maxed mine out in an attempt to create a weather front down the middle of the car as we drove in to work. It also had a feature which reminded me of one of my favourite jokes.
Driver : "I pressed this button and the car instantly drove straight into the sea!"
Mechanic : "That was the cruise control sir".
Anhyoo. Nice car.
I think I'm turming into the comedy equivalent of those birdwatching people who spend all day in a field with a pair of binoculors looking for the great crested whatnot. These folks think nothing of spending a whole day standing in the rain wating to get a glimpse of some rare species or other. They must leave home each day with hope burning in their heart that they will actually catch sight of their goal.
This is now the way that I watch comedy programmes. Last night I sat through a whole episode of "My Family". It must have been in the hope that at some point something funny was going to happen. Of course, it didn't. The audience seemed to think that it was hilarious. The same "joke" was repeated numerous times and they laughed obediently each time. I'm not sure how the BBC management do this:
Scene : TV Studio before recording an episode
Stage hand One : "We've recording a comedy show next"
Stage hand Two: "OK, I'll get a fresh cannister of laughing gas and plug it into the air conditioning"
Stage hand One: "Wait, it's 'My Family', better make that two cannisters"
I can imagine the audience on the way home, having hysterics at their bus tickets and the markings on the road.
I keep seeing adverts for things which contain "good bacteria". Which is apparently better for you than "bad bacteria". How did we get to this?
Meeting at Bacteria HQ:
Bacteria King : "We're in trouble. They keep inventing new ways to kill us. That new Domestos could be the end. Any ideas?"
Bacteria Scientist : "But sire, I have a plan"
Bacteria King : "Do tell.."
Bacteria Scientist : "We train up some of our strongest strains for a top secret operation. We teach them the arts of subterfuge, send them undercover and get them to convince the human scum that they are friendly. Once they are safely established in their yoghurts and health drinks..."
Bacteria King : "..we strike them down. "
(all join in evil laughter)
Remember, you read it here first.
I seem to be living in interesting times. Today I bought a wonderful book (actually I got three - I'll tell you all about them tomorrow).
And I'm setting up some Webcasts which you really must listen to. Details to follow.
And you only have around 18 hours to buy my phone....
Whilst out for the day yesterday I had occasion to wash my hands in an unfamiliar bathroom. Having applied plenty of soap from a pump action dispenser thing I found that my hands did not get soapy in the expected manner. Further inspection revealed that I had in fact put fructose hair conditioner on my hands, which were now soft, manageable and tangle free. Wonderful.
On the way back from visiting number one daughter we went past a farm with a sign outside which said "For Sale: Pet food and accessories".
Unfortunately the place was shut, otherwise I would have dropped in and asked for some spoilers for the hamsters and a couple of go faster stripes for the guinea pigs.
I had my innoculations for the trip to India earlier today. Two injections, one in each arm. Just before she stuck the needles in the nurse asked "Now, which arm do you use the least?". Talk about confidence building.
Some things you just get sucked into. Like watching your national football team play not very well against a country you've never heard of. Trinidad and Tobago? Sounds like a circus double act to me. Or a follow up to "Lilo and Stitch". Anyhoo, I only watched the last ten minutes (which in this game was probably the best thing to do). The thing that struck me, after I'd got over the rather lacklustre display of the our sporting heroes, was the poor quality of the video signal.
Now I know the signal is coming all the way from Germany, but I've seen much better quality than this. It looked like it had been seriously compressed. When the players started running their legs turned into a blocky blurr and when the camera panned quickly the screen really looked rough. I'm pretty sure it is not my telly though, 'cos I've seen some lovely looking pictures in the past.
The cynic in me is wondering if "they" are trying to push us all towards High Definition TV by making the standard offering look bad. Surely not....
I had to get some more photos of me taken today. It is for my free trip to India in August, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Anyhoo, I sat scrunched down in the seat so that my face fitted the oval and was imortalised on film wearing an appropriately grim look.
As I was waiting for the pictures to come out of the slot I got chatting to a little old lady who was sat by the machine, and had watched me go into the booth. "You know", she said, "You can get them done a pound cheaper just over the road". Thanks for that.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
