Open Daze

We had an open day at the university today. Before hand we went up town to buy a few bits and bobs (I got two DVD collections - one six pounds and the other four - quality stuff). The light was good and I took the camera.

This is a view of the Hammonds Department Store. Impressive architecture when you notice it...

Then it was up to the university to give an open day talk. Before the talk Jon showed me this which was in a recent Develop magazine.

Quite cheering really, the quote is from a Microsoft XNA person.

Then we had a huuge turnout for people who want to see what we do. So many that they were sharing the glasses in the Hive (Hull Immersive Visual Environment). I took a picture of the audience with their 3D specs on...

Those shades really suit you.....

Thanks for coming folks, hope you enjoyed the presentations. Remember, if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.

Cars and Horses

A car is a device which will take you from A to B. You turn a wheel and the machinery in it makes the car go in the desired direction. A horse is an animal which will let you sit on its back and might take you where you want to go. If you pull the reigns on a horse, and it agrees with that direction, it will go there. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a horse will just take off. Or refuse to move.

I used to use a Toshiba M200 Tablet PC. This computer is a car. It does what I ask, when I ask. It just works. Lovely. Emboldened by this I then move on to a Toshiba M400 device. This computer is a horse. When it works, and you have the wind in your hair (metaphorically speaking) it is wonderful.

But every now and then it misbehaves. The screen goes dark and refuses to light up again. It freezes (usually in the middle of a presentation) and needs to be rebooted. Sometimes it slows down for no good reason. Some bits just don't work. At the moment it is just useful enough for me to live with the foibles. But if it locks up in the middle of a Software Engineering lecture again I may have to rethink its place in my life.....

Party Masters

After Thursday's party for the first year, tonight it was the turn of the Masters students to sample our beer tokens. We followed the same pattern as last time, although this time I varied the presentation a bit by having the tablet PC battery go flat just as we were going through the quiz answers. Note to self, don't leave home without the power supply.

These are the quiz winners, note the slightly larger prize this time.

After the quiz, and a lot of dicussion about the answer to the last question (it is on the screen above - can you figure out what the question actually was?) we went on to more Guitar Hero and other silly stuff.

We had a guy turn up who was awesome on this. He played some of the tracks on "expert" mode. What a performance.

Then we tried to find out how far you could get from an XBOX 360 and still play Geometry Wars. (the answer is a very impressive 75 feet - then you lose sight of the screen and crash). Those remote controllers let you get pretty remote..

Hi for Collectormania

And so it was another Sunday of rising at 4:30 am and the zooming off down the motorway to mingle with the stars and buy silly bits of overpriced plastic at the Collectormania in Milton Keynes. We've been going to these for a while, initially to meet up with hobbits and the like, but now more likely to have a drift around the many stands selling all sorts of stuff. Of course I took a camera (or two)

..of course it is cool - I'm there

Maggie Grace signs her name

Amber Benson tries to get us to sign it for her

They have Krispy Kreme donuts at Milton Keynes now. "A heart attack with a hole in it". And free samples. Yay!

It was very tempting, but it wouldn't fit in our toilet and 60 quid is a bit expensive. I've no idea what the thing on the right is.

Then it was back into the car to trundle back to Hull.

To Durham. And Back.

Took number one son to Durham today for him to resume his studies. Then brought him back to Hull. All rather complicated. Tomorrow we are heading off for Collectormania (one of my dafter pursuits) and as he would like to go too, we are performing this rather strange shuffling of student and stuff.

Means a fair bit of driving though. I reckon that my average speed over the entire weekend will be around 20 miles per hour....

Shiny Doncaster

Went to Doncaster today for a presentation. The university has a relationship with Doncaster College, where we accredit two of their degree courses. The students are based and taught at Doncaster but we award the degree.

Anyhoo, I went down to say hello to the Business Computing crew and give a presentation about final year projects. They are a nice bunch and the talk seemed to go OK, although I may have spoiled the atmosphere a little by telling the undertaker joke right at the end.

The brand new Doncaster campus is very shiny - and this is just the back of the college

Jane Eyre vs Aeon Flux

Tonight in the Miles household, for your viewing pleasure:

• Downstairs number one wife was watching improving cultural content based on literary classic : Jane Eyre
• Upstairs I was watching brain rotting science fiction tosh : Aeon Flux

I've seen Jane Eyre a few times. Once you have worked out that her surname is actually pronounced "Air" and reached the four magic words "Reader, I married him" (hope this doesn't give to much away folks) you have taken pretty much everything away from the story that you need.

Although, having said that, and sat through Aeon Flux (which also has its pronunciation problems) I have noticed some similarities between the two:

Male Lead : both of them have a male protagonist who may/may not be a baddie (you guess). Both males have equally dodgy hairstyles and stupid names. Rochester sounds like something from a sixties heist movie ("Tonight we steal the Rochester Diamonds...") and don't get me started about having an evil overload with the first name Trevor. Both of them looked like they were thinking of getting sideburns too.

Plot : Actually there isn't that much in common here. However, they do both have big explosions now and then. And both of the male leads have crazy people trying to kill them.

Female Lead : OK, so Jane Eyre doesn't have skin tight leather clothing and access to futuristic weaponry. But she does wear those dresses that reach all the way to the floor and let her move about like a Dalek with no obvious means of propulsion. I just hope that she can climb stairs. Of course Aeon Flux doesn't actually climb stairs at all, she would use a double somersault flip with a half twist up the banister rail in case the stairs vanished when she was half way up them.

Happy Ending : (plot spoiler alert - though if you read the bold bit it is probably too late) Both have a happy ending. Despite being shot a great deal (but missed an improbably huge number of times) Aeon ends up in a happy clinch with her man. In Jane Eyre something equally unlikely happens, when her new husband mysteriously regains his sight after having married her.

So there you are. Stay tuned for more cultural insights. Once I've finished watching the Simpsons.

Evil Jag Drivers

Boy did it rain this afternoon. Heavy stuff. The little dimple in the road near our house filled up with water to make a mini-ford. There was a Fiesta parked in it. A Ford in a ford. How poetic. Not that that poetry was really on my mind as I trudged up the road to the chip shop to fetch Friday tea.

As I was walking along the pavement, trying to avoid the puddles that actually went over my shoes, I noticed a big Jaguar car approaching. The driver wasn't slowing down for the dimple in the road, in fact he was speeding up. Just as he reached me the awful truth dawned. He was heading for a pool of water in the gutter that I was just passing. He went past at speed and with the evident intention of soaking me to the skin.

Which he nearly succeeded in doing. Fortunately, thanks to some fancy footwork on my part, he only managed to drench my trousers. The only good thing that came out of this was that he then drove at speed into our little ford, sending a jet into the air reminiscent of the water splash at Disney world. Unfortunately his car kept going, but I hope it was a nasty shock for him.

Moosaic Takes Shape

One of "Robert's Rules" is:

Any software development takes longer than you think, even if you allow for this.

Of course, having a day job as well has kind of hampered development...

So I've not finished the Moosaic program just yet. But it is looking quite tidy:

Coming to a setup program near you....

I've got the image download and the grid selection just about sorted, Now I just need to get the tile output done and we will be in business.

At it again

Came in tonight with an urge to write some code. Just as soon as I'd finished watching "Harvey". Wonderful old film staring James Stewart. Anyhoo, I'm going to write another Flickr program, this time to create lots of little images from a single Flickr picture. The idea is that you can make mosaics to have printed out on little cards.  I've called it my "Moosaic" program (not my idea I'm afraid).

I've got so far and run out of steam for tonight(must be my age). Should have it going tomorrow.....

Time Travel

I'm slowly going back through the days last week and posting what we did and some pictures. I've no real idea why I do this, but for the sake of completeness I just like to have an entry for each day. Anyhoo, feel free to browse backwards into my holiday past.

Speed Meeting

We had a staff meeting today. Over in fifty minutes. Amazing. Kudos to the chairman, and the idea of sending out all the reports electronically in advance. I'd taken the Tablet PC in so that I could even have the notes on the screen (and doodle on them, just like in the old days with paper). I thought I was being high tech and kewl.

So much for being ahead of the game. I counted four other tablets and laptops in use during the meeting. At least I'd turned the sound down on mine, heh.

Return of the Rob

Well, I'm back from my holidays. Went loads of places, took lots of pictures, a good time was had. And now I'm back. And raring to go.

Heading for Hols

We're heading off on our hols for a week. Number one wife has been assembling bags full of food, clothes and other essentials.

I've packed the Lego.

Space Invaders

You've probably seen this space invaders implementation before. But it made me smile.

Oblivion with Cars

One of the wonderful things about the XBOX 360 is the way that you can download demos of games. Actually, this is probably not wonderful, more like expensive. I've already bought a couple of games on the back of this "feature". Darn it.

In the old days I had to wait until a magazine with a coverdisk came out. Nowadays I just leave the machine chugging for a couple of hours whilst the next potential wallet buster comes down the wires.

And so, I downloaded the demo of Test Drive Unlimited. This is a driving game. Actually, game is probably a bit of an understatement. It is more like a better version of life. You start off with a massive house in Hawii and a few cars in the garage. You look a lot cooler than you really do (at least in my case), and you seem to have a lot more spare time.

So you go for a drive. You can drive anywhere on the island. Happen you'll meet up with another driver, who may or may not be a real person. Happen you'll have a race. Happen you'll go the wrong way round the track, get hopelessly lost and embarras yourself. Or you might be more lucky than me. Anyway, if you win, money changes hands and you can save up for a new, even shinier car.

And so it goes on. The weather changes, the time of day changes. The road goes on, seemingly for ever. There are no loading screens. There is no slowdown. You can use your GPS to find things of interest and you can also meet up with your chums for races. When you sit in the car, you sit in the car. You can even make the windows go up and down.  

The car handling is realistic enough to be annoying. You can crash into things and do damage to them, but not apparently to yourself. If you are sufficiently naughty the police might want to take you to task. If you are feeling brave you can get on a motorbike instead.

When I first played Oblivion, the massive XBOX 360 roleplaying game, I was impressed by the way that the world was totally believable, and massive. Test Drive Unlimited is like that, but with cars and no loading delays at all. Folks, this is proper next generation gaming. Not a flashier version of an existing game, but a whole new immersive experience. If you have an XBOX 360 you should at least get hold of the demo of this game. Then, like me, you can start saving for the real thing...

Roman Holiday

Last week I bought a new camera. I really shouldn't have. But this was a real bargain and so I liquidated all my ebay assets and sallied forth to Currys to make the purchase. I wanted the camera because it has a very long zoom lens.

So today we went off to Sewerby Park, where they were doing some Roman re-enactments. And out came the camera...

Sewerby House looking good

A local parrot

They do have some superb gardens here.

Bridlington Bay

And looking the other way..

Apparently it is rather hard to shoot an arrow from horseback.

Testing the troops

Running Shoes

Note: This post is vaguely disgusting. Sorry, but it is.

When we signed up for the India trip I mentioned to Margot that I would need to take anti-malaria pills.

"They'll make you ill" she said

How right she was.  I've just stopped taking them and by jove I feel better.  In the list of side effects for the particular tablets I was using was a complaint which might give rise to a need for the items mentioned in the title of this post (not to put too fine a point on it). I got that all right. Fortunately, amongst the armoury of medications I had taken with me was a preparation which was intended to resolve this issue.

Imodium Plus. What a wonderful marketing name. Im from Immobilise, od from commode, and ium to make it sound vaguely scientific. Then add a plus to emphasise the power of the stuff.  Didn't do anything for me though (or perhaps it did - and the consequences of not taking it would have been much worse). One thing I found mildly amusing was an entry on the list of side-effects for Imodium. Apparently it can cause constipation. If only.

The rehydration stuff was wonderful though.  If you are going abroad you must take some. Only problem was that I got the "multi-flavour" pack, which included banana flavoured salty water. This is an experience you want to be only once in a lifetime.

The good news is that my affliction didn't actually stop me from doing anything,  and now that I've stopped taking the tablets I can feel things returning to normal.  The other good news is that all the time I was abroad I didn't get bitten by a single mosquito. Mind you, I was wearing the ultra strong repellent which also managed to dissolve my watch strap. I found this rather encouraging. If it can do that to plastic, it must do even more horrible things to insects.

Actually, thinking about it, I reckon I got off rather lightly. Even with all the fun and games with chemicals, it was still well worth it. And I would go again (but I might try a different malaria pill).

Quick Dry

I'm not sure if there is a Guiness Book of World Records category for tumble drier purchase, but if there is I want to submit an entry.

Our tumble drier broke last night. We've had it 21 years and it goes and fails on us.  Actually the drier itself is fine, but the bit which makes it stop was broken. We found this out after it had tumbled a bunch of clothes for three hours. Ooops.

Anyhoo, having been told in a couple of shops that they didn't have what we wanted (I reckon the bigger the store the less chance of it actually having the thing you went in for) we found a place that did. So we swooped. Into the shop, pick it up, take it to the till, pay for it, less than five minutes.

And it works. And it stops. Wonderful.

Pinball

We were driving back up to Hull today and I was listening to BBC Radio 2 (not a thing I do lightly - unless Terry Wogan is on). They have this feature where people get to pick their favourite tracks. This week it has been Harry Shearer, who is one of the voices of The Simpsons (he does Mr. Burns, Smithers and a whole bunch of others).

And one of the tracks that he picked was Pinball by Brian Protheroe. One of my all time favourites.  Got the single in the loft. What are the chances?

Of course as soon as I got home and on line it was time to try and track down the track. Google and Ebay have provided me with links to his new home page and a cheap copy of his greatest hits. And Napster now have one of his albums on there as well. Amazing.

(Oh, and you really must hear his track "Never Join the Fire Brigade" as well - wonderful stuff)