I asked number one wife what she thought about the the world cup. She shrugged and replied “Humm. England are around 8th or 9th in the world. Quarter Finals if we are lucky”.
I think that’s about all that needs to be said on the subject. Me, I’ve got boxed sets of “How I Met Your Mother”, “30 Rock”, “Chuck” and “Big Bang Theory”. Should be a great one….
Yes, it’s that time again. In fact, it is very nearly too late. Because of exam timetabling issues and marking we will be holding our Summer Bash on the very last Friday of the semester starting at 4:30 pm in the department.
We will be having all the usual fun and games, including Rock Band, Wii Sports, Buzz Quiz, Team Fortess 2, Fizzy Drinks, Pizza and those little cup cakes with the icing on top. You know, the ones that you like so much.
Anyhoo, If there is anyone left in Hull who fancies a break from packing, then you can get your tickets (priced at an economical 2 pounds each) from the departmental office from 2:15 pm tomorrow.
Now, I don’t make many demands of my readers. In fact I’m perpetually surprised how many people keep coming back and reading my stuff. (I really must stop being perpetually surprised though, it is very hard on the eyebrows).
Anyhoo, I don’t ask much of you, dear reader, except every now and then. This is one such situation. Number one daughter, who you can see above doing something daring, is doing something daring again. For money. (at least I taught her that much…)
It is in a very good cause, and I’d be most gratified if you would swing along to her donation site and drop her a little something. They take Paypal, and if you are a UK tax payer you can get the Inland Revenue to bump up your contribution. You can find the site here:
Choose your weapon….
Just spent a couple of hours invigilating. It was a law paper, and looked deeply scary. Then again, Computer Science papers probably look scary to lawyers…..
One game that seems made for the iPad is Plants vs. Zombies It is a bit like a tower defence game, but with fantastic graphics and beautifully paced gameplay. Number one son put me on to it, and I’m very glad he did.
Great fun.
Calling a start to the event in noisy style..
Andy Sithers of Microsoft and a few Hull students got mention in an article in this month’s Edge magazine about some recent 48 hour game development competitions. This is where a bunch of teams are given a theme, 48 hours and a lot of pizza to make a game. XNA is a brilliant tool to use for this kind of thing, and Microsoft set up a couple of competitions this year.
Some students from Hull took part and while they didn’t win anything this year (having got a “Cheesiest Game” award last time) they did have a great time. I’d love to take part in one of these one day.
I think I’ve fixed the iPad WIFI now. Thank goodness. I had to reset all the network settings and then I’ve told my home network to always give it the same IP address whenever it connects. The device itself is lovely. I’ve put a few games on it and the user experience really is great.
Some old gadgets. And a new one.
Been clearing out the cupboard in my office as part of a stocktaking exercise. Somewhat nostalgic. Do you remember all these?
Spent pretty much all of today marking. I’m half way through my first red pen.
In between gardening and feeling very warm I wrote a custom content importer for XNA 4.0 today. This is the way that you can bring in your own content into an XNA game. I’m playing around with some game ideas and I needed to get a bunch of data into my game engine so I can twiddle with it.
Turned out to be a lot easier to do than I thought it would be. Actually, the whole content setup is lovely to use in XNA. If you ever want to do this, you can find a really great start here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb447754.aspx
The stuff seems to work fine in Windows Phone too. I really know how to enjoy myself in summer…..
We were talking about different versions of Windows today and I mentioned that in Number 10 Downing Street they still use Windows XP on their systems. I told everyone that I’d seen it on the “historic” pictures taken inside the Prime Ministers’ residence during the election aftermath.
For some reason knowing this was regarded as sad…
See rule 5
It was my “big” exam yesterday. Two hours of panic for the students. Four days of marking for me. So, nobody comes out of it particularly happy I suppose. For any academics out there I present Rob’s guide to marking.
Thanks to Ginny for the link via Twitter. Find out more here.
If you want more insight into what makes developers tick and how to motivate them this video from underbelly is good too. The points that are made right at the end about interesting products are right on the money.
Last week I paid off the wrong credit card by mistake and I now have a positive amount of money on it. I’m going to sign up for a balance transfer and see if it brings down the entire banking system.
Been in the labs marking for the last three days. Today I did the last few presentations before I sit down and enter the whole lot into our system. Students have been making games or banking applications. I have seen some lovely stuff. It’s very hard work, I must have asked “..and what does this bit do?” loads of times. But great fun. Thanks to the first year for turning up on time and to Simon and Mike for sharing the work.
According to The Guardian children are now taking 3D glasses, popping the lenses out and wearing them in the playground as fashion accessories. As you can see from above, I’ve been ahead of this particular trend for years.
Today we walked across the Humber Bridge for money. The money wasn’t for us, it was for the Christian Aid appeal that has organised these sponsored crossings for several years. We’ve done the walk many times. The first time, with very young kids and a pushchair we managed to cross the bridge four times. Since then the weather has been nowhere near as good, but today it was bright and just a bit blustery so we managed to get over the bridge and back again. Of course I took the big camera and the wide lens.
That windmill used to be used to grind chalk.
Obligatory tower shot.
I got some bad news over the weekend. Jake has passed away. He came to see us way back in 2005 and I grabbed a snap of him which has turned up in my XNA books and lots of talks and demos I’ve done. He was the nicest dog I’ve ever met.
Bought a steam engine today. It was a reduced price bargain. And it has a generator. And lights. So buying it actually made perfect sense. Took it home, got it out of the box and then dropped it on the floor.
Idiot.
Fortunately not much harm was done, except that the “very important pin” that the piston pushes seems to have born the brunt of the landing and is now slightly bent. I’ve straightened it to the best of my ability and it seems to work OK. The whole thing makes a pleasing chugging noise as it runs, and the lights even come on. Great stuff. I’m now wondering if I could power a .NET Micro Framework device from it.
Along with sticking new pictures on my walls, I’m also getting rid of a bunch of books that I have had for a while. If you are after any Java books feel free to drop round to my office and take a look.
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.
