Customer Impressions

I love my job. Today has been uber busy. Updating the XNA presentation, giving a couple of lectures, attending a mid-semester review meeting with the second year (we had loads of students turn up - and some really good discussion about how we do what we do).

And acting as a customer in our Software Engineering project. At first I was not looking forward to this. We usually try to get people to do this who the students doing the work are not familiar with. I've been giving lectures to this group for a while, and in this respect I'm quite well known.

But for the project I have to be "just a customer". But actually it is quite fun. Some of the people who have come to see me have asked jaw droppingly sensible questions that I would not have thought of asking if I was doing the job, which is great. And I quite like being unhelpful and uncommunicative for a change. At least, I think it is a change......

Only Human

I've been fretting about all the typos that students keep finding in my Orange C# Book (remember, you can get your own personal copy here folks). At the same time I've been reading the Charles Petzold book "Applications = Code+Markup". And this has cheered me up a bit.

Hull Culture

If you live in Hull, and haven't been to Ferens Art Gallery, then shame on you. It is free to get in, they have a nice coffee shop and there are some stunning paintings in there. At the moment they have a special exhibition called "Darkness Visible" which is easily the equal of ones that I've seen at Tate Modern (that is to say that I didn't understand some of these exhibits either).

But that doesn't mean that I won't be going back. It really is a nice place. Right in the middle of town it is an oasis of peace and quiet and paintings and sculptures and installations.

I try to make a point of going into art galleries when I go places. Not because I am particularly artistic (obviously) but because it gives you a nice insight into the local area. Hull has some splendid galleries and museums and can really hold its head up with pride in this respect.

Students, a good place to take your parents if they insist on you showing them the neighbourhood. You can leave them with the impression that you are acquiring culture, which is always a good thing.

Prada and Profundity

Since that horrible Horizon program on Wednesday about artificial intelligence I've been pondering on what is really going to happen in the future, when megabrain computers are loaded with the minds of our greatest scientists.

Now, I don't know much about this stuff, but it seems to me that us ignorant humans have managed to prove that:

• some things you just can't predict (Quantum Theory)
• some things you have to take on trust (Godel)

In other words, no matter how clever you are there is a limit to the number of things you can work out using pure brain power.

Which means that our super intelligent machines are going to be in a bit of a fix because they won't be able draw any conclusions at the end of all this wonderful thought they will be doing.

And then it came to me; they will do what us humans do when we have nothing better to do. They will dabble in things like fashion.

Scene : Singularity Sixty Seven - outpost seventy three of hive mind five

Consciousness Alpha Four: "..then I said to him that recurring decimals were so last season and that all the really serious fraction action this year has got to be down with the vulgar's..."
Consciousness Beta One: "You are so right. Do you think my brain looks big in this?"

Working for the Borg

Just received a note about the Pay Modernisation framework the university is putting into place. One of the headings is "Assimilation Panels". Just what I suspected....

Madness I tell you

If you go to the MSN home page at the moment you can see an advert for satnav for a Buick car. The tagline for Buick would seem to be "Beyond Precision".

What rubbish. How can you be more precise than precise? This sort of advertising really annoys me.  I really dislike it when people mess up with English. How on earth did they get to this?

Scene : Advertising Agency

Drone 1: "They say that this satnav is precise."
Drone 2: "And precise is good, right?"
Drone 1: "..and so more than precise would be even better?"
Drone 2:"I've always liked 'beyond'....."
Drone 1:"So, 'Beyond Precision' it is then. Send them a bill for fifty thousand as usual."

shudder

Useful Hull Web Sites

My mate Geoff has made a couple of very useful web sites for people who live in Hull. One gives you a list of what is on at the local Cineworld and the other the weather forecast. They both go onto web sites to scrape the data and then present a page just right for viewing on a mobile device:

http://www.geoff.org.uk/cinema.php

http://www.geoff.org.uk/weather.php

Worth adding to your mobile favourites.

When someone rings me a penguin dances

One of my students very kindly sent me a Firebox.com voucher after I helped her debug her program (not sure how this figures in the scheme of things bribery + corruption wise, but since the voucher has a cash redemption value of 0.001 pence I don't think I necessarily have to inform the authorities).

Anyhoo, it was off down to the Firebox web site to see what goodies they had in store. I got the latest version of 20Q - which is even more impressive than the original - and a bunch of mopods for me and the ladies in my family (they won't work for number one son 'cos he is on 3G - but you can't have everything). Actually, the voucher only covered a small part of the total price - but since I was saving money I was quite happy about this....

Mopods are fun. They are a little figure in a tiny glass jar and when your phone rings they dance. I got the penguin one which is quite neat. In the unlikely event of someone ringing me up (although it did happen in a lecture today....) he spins on the spot and lights flash. For a fiver they are quite good value.  Actually, I get quite a bit of dance action because he also detects when my phone connects to ActiveSync email and does a little dance then too.

The Big Cheese is Coming

For some time my newspaper of choice (The Guardian)has been giving out wallcharts depicting different varieties of things. It started with things like fossils and animals, but they seem to have been running out of steam recently, having to resort to footling things like apples and salad vegatables to keep going.

Until now.

Tomorrow they are giving away a cheese wallchart. Oh yes. One for the office wall methinks.

Note: I know that cheese is essentially a lump of fat with good PR, but I still like it.

Sunset and Steak Pies

We went out for tea tonight. On the way to the Ferguson Fawcett in Walkington (they do really good food) we went past a rather nice sunset.

Worth going out for

Give Blood In Style

Rather an unusual request first thing in the morning.

"Do you have a spare 'wherewouldyouthink.com' T shirt, as I'm giving blood today?"

Apparently if you wear a long sleeved shirt, as Simon was doing, they can't easily stick the needle in. Fortunately I had one left (we are having another batch printed soon) and so he was able to go and take part with maximum style.

He offered me the shirt back afterwards. Er, thanks, but no thanks....

Which puts me in mind of a joke:

First Cannibal: "Sorry if this tastes a bit dry, but I caught him just as he was leaving the Blood Bank".
Second Cannibal : "It's alright, I've always rather liked Donor Kebabs"

From Hero to Zero

I'm getting cross with my Guitar Hero game now. Although playing the game is great fun it does seem to have the knack of losing all my saved data. For the second time it has forgotten everything and lost all my hard earned progress. I'm pretty sure the game is at fault, in that the save file is there on the memory card (and I can copy it around and stuff) but the game just refuses to recognise it. Most annoying.

I think I'm going to put my PS2 version up for sale and then get the XBOX 360 version when it comes out.

Hull Fair

We went to Hull Fair tonight. We tried to go last year but it was pretty much full. So this time we set out early. We took the camera along, but minimal funds - just to be on the safe side.

The Freak Out ride. Scary, and one of the smaller ones

I just love the classy artwork on this one.

More "Hook a Pooh" than "Hook a Duck"

What you win if you aren't careful

I think this is my favourite fair picture

The one ride I actually went on. Note the attractive price and the fact that it does not seem capable of leaving the ground.

Or not

Look carefully. I'm third from the left. Yeah. Right.

We managed to escape only nine pounds down on the trip. But a cuddly monkey, four donuts, some nougat and some peanut brittle up. And it was a great night.

Shopping Thoughts

Went up town today (big surprise). I find that strange thoughts come to me as I wander round the shops.

We bought some shampoo for the guinea pigs. They have long hair (don't ask) and we have to keep it shiny clean. I was wondering if it had been tested on animals.

Then I went past the Early Learning Centre, where you can now buy a "Castle of Doom" for your tiny tots to play with. Only seventy quid. What kind message does this send to our newest citizens?

Scene : Christmas Morn

(FX : Sound of frantic unwrapping)

Child : "Oh daddy, it is just what I've always wanted. A dank place of total despair where all who enter can suffer torture and and a lingering death."
Father:  "Well, son, I just hope you'll play nicely with it."

Foggy Morning

A bit foggy this morning. But sunny. Fortunately I had the camera with me....

A view across the sports field

A walk through the woods....

The back of our large lecture theatre

Just some trees

The back of our building

I love autumn.

Spell with flickr

You might not have seen this before. Seldom has Rob Miles looked better.

Confused of Hull

I'm confused. This is why. Say we lived in an age where restaurants are new and fangled. People have just discovered the option of eating out and they like it. So I decide to open a new restaurant. Only mine is special. It gives the food away.

Not surprisingly, once word gets out my little restaurant is going great guns. Queues around the block. At this point things get a bit weird. One of the other restaurants in the neighborhood (it doesn't serve food quite like mine, and it is making quite a good profit at the moment) decides to buy me out for a huge sum of money, and then let me keep going giving my food away.

I get given a huuge wad of cash for starting a food business with no obvious means of support. The other restaurant gets something which may never be profitable, but at least somebody else hasn't got their hands on it.

In case you hadn't spotted it, I'm really talking about YouTube and Google. I use both of them. Google quite a bit. YouTube now and then.

I just can't think of a way in which I could ever be persuaded to pay for what YouTube has to offer. Even if they only charged me mini-bucks to watch the videos I'd find something else which was free to do in my lunch hour. In my opinion the only business plan which could possibly have worked for the YouTube folks was to get famous and hope that somebody rich bought them up before their money ran out. Which, fortunately for them, was just what happened.

Google have just spent literally billions getting their hands on YouTube, and I'm baffled as to why they have done this.

(for some reason the Microsoft LiveWriter spell checker suggests Outnumber as a replacement for YouTube - this just confuses me even more)

Code Monkey

Brian put me on to this video. It is very good, although I don't like the name of his boss....

Man Flu

I'm ill. My nose is not running. It is sprinting. I'm surrounded by tissues. My head feels as if someone has inflated a balloon full of porridge inside it. (not sure how I know this, but it does) 

I told number one wife that I was ill. Then I told her again as she brought me a cup of tea. She looked at me appraisingly. Apparently I have what is called "man flu". This is an illness which reduces a man to a useless, moaning wimp but has no effect whatsoever on women, who manage to just shrug off such minor afflictions and carry on regardless.

I was going to disagree. I was going to tell her never mind "Man Flu", that I was only keeping going at this restricted level thanks to my incredible mental strength and resilience. I was going to tell her that if she had what I've got she too would be laid out on the sofa and moaning.

But I didn't feel up to it. I just sipped my tea and asked for a chocolate biscuit.

I'm ill.

(but not too ill to write. I've just posted the latest episode of Trip Hazard. Book now for the movie..)

Busy Busy

Had a fairly quiet Sunday. Managed to mow the lawns (not sure why, every time I cut the grass the darned stuff grows back) and finished off the Moosaic program (I actually got my free samples from Moo last week and they are quite neat - next I'm going to make a 100 picture mosaic and see what it looks like). The program is working OK and I've got an installer too, but I have a rule that I play with my programs on a bunch of different machines before I send them out into the outside world, so it will be a couple of days before you can have a go at making your own Flickr mosaics...

Oh, and I've been dealing with a steady stream of emails from people who came to see us yesterday. Thank you for all the kind words, and if you haven't had a reply from me yet, I will get around to you tomorrow. We will also post out all the C# books then too.