Christmas Bash 2012 is Coming

We will be having our Christmas Bash on Wednesday 12th of December in the department. There will be hastily set up video games, food ordered at the last minute, and staff arriving just in time to be beaten at Team Fortress and whatever other gaming goodies that we can find, including a Wii U or two if we can get them to work. There will also be a last minute wordsearch with a prize that we will only just have had time to buy. In fact, this event is so "thrown together" that we've had to use the artwork from a couple of years ago.

But it will be fun for all that. Tickets are available from the departmental office. The fun starts at 4:30 pm in the Design Lab. And yes, we will be setting up the famous “Pink Christmas trees” once we’ve found them in the office stores.

Cottingham Lights

Cottingham has really good Christmas Lights. So tonight I took the big camera out for a walk and tried to capture them. Next time I’ll take the tripod too.

This is the middle of the village

And this is Santa.

Watching Progress Bars

I’ve bought a replacement disk for the SSD that has failed. I’ve got a Samsung one instead of the OCZ one that I used to have. It went into the desktop at around lunchtime and by mid afternoon I had Windows 8 back and running fine. Now I’ve been re-installing all the software and trying to remember just what I used to have on the machine.

And don’t tell me I should have made a backup – I had done, but Windows 8 refuses to recognise it. I made the stupid mistake of thinking that the Windows 7 backup tools that are present in Windows 8 could be used to restore a backup into Windows 8. What I probably should have done (although I’ve no way of knowing this) is install Windows 7 and then restore the Windows 8 backup from that.

Mending Stuff

I’m now officially fit enough to mend things. Today it was the turn of the doorbell. I did ask someone to come round and fix it but that didn’t end well. Apparently they turned up earlier this week but didn’t think there was anyone home (Old Joke Alert).

I’ve replaced the batteries in both ends and now it seems to work. Of course what I really want is one of the new fancy doorbells that plays MP3 files when someone presses the button. I could have some real fun with that….

The Evils of Solid State Disks

You’d think that a solid state disk would be more reliable than one which contains tiny moving parts that whizz around in close proximity to each other, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And with solid state disks you don’t get any warning.

With hard disks I’m quite good at detecting when something is amiss. Files that take a long time to arrive, clicking noises from the box, all give warning of bad stuff to come. But with an SSD they can just fail. And not just one track or sector, but the whole thing at once. At least my SSD went a bit wobbly before it finally expired. It worked fine when cold, and failed when it had warmed up. The good news is that ebuyer sent me direct replacement of the broken disk. The bad news is that the replacement is way too identical to the original. It doesn’t work either. And the ebuyer system seems to come unstuck if you try to return a return.

Ho hum.

Therapeutic Pottering

I’m definitely getting better. It’s rather strange. I’m perfectly happy to dash around the place, running errands and fetching things, but I have real problems sitting down and doing stuff, especially at a computer. I mentioned that I didn’t feel “normal” last week to the doctor, and he made the perfectly reasonable response “Just what is normal anyway?”. Fair point.

Anyhoo, at the moment I’m just pottering around the house doing bits and bobs and taking every excuse to go out for a walk.

My First Cake (mostly)

Number one daughter is very keen on cooking, and some of this is rubbing off on me. This afternoon we made a cake (see above). I’m not saying I did all the making, but I did melt the chocolate and help with the stirring. Great fun, and turned out rather well if I do say so myself.

Getting Better All the Time

As you can see, I’m now eating a much healthier diet…

I’m definitely on the mend. I’ve been out for drinkies (that was not my drink above – promise), and even managed to make my first lump of bread.

And yes, that is cheese on top…..

Update on 2012-11-29 22:42 by Rob

And I would like to say thanks to all those who have wished me well. Means a lot.

Eye and other Tests

Two for one on Advent calendars. Which would you choose?

Went to the doctor this morning. Everything seems to be coming along fine, which is nice. Thought I’d double up and go for an eye test in the afternoon. Didn’t get the chance to use my optician gags:

Optician: “Tell me, have your eyes ever been checked?”
Me: “No, they’ve always been blue.”

or

Optician: “Can you see the eye chart on the wall over there?”
Me: “What wall?”

Anyhoo, my eyes seem to be around the same as they were last time, which means I am quite a bit up on the day, what with not having to buy any new glasses.

So Much for Solid State Disks

This is not good news. I fired up my computer (not to do any work, honest) and I saw this screen, among lots of other depressing ones. I think that my super fast SSD has broken itself.  The good news is that this provided a reason for another brisk walk (I’m very good at brisk walks at the moment) up to the Post Office to send the thing back to Expanys. The better news, I suppose, is that I can’t do anything much with my computer at the moment.

Christmas Lights

The Christmas lights are going up in Cottingham at the moment. They are being switched on tomorrow. If you get the chance, you should take a walk through the village after dark. I’ll try to take some pictures later.

Out and About

[Note: These posts are being made retrospectively. At the time I didn’t really feel like writing much, but I really want to get this stuff down just so I can remember it later.]

We went out today for a walk. Apparently walking is good for me. And cheese probably isn’t. Such is life. We went over to Manna in Cottingham, who do a really impressive hot chocolate, among other things.

Broken Hearted Rob

Well, that was fun. What I’ve had is referred to as an “elective percutaneous coronary intervention” The doctors used lots of these medical terms as they were working on me. I asked about this and they told me not to worry about what they were saying.

Unless one of them said “Oh shit”.

Anyhoo, it looks like it was a “find the problem”, “fix the problem” kind of procedure. One of the arteries in my heart was pretty much blocked apparently and the piece of stainless steel chicken wire that they inserted (actually a 2.75x32 Promus Element Plus drug eluting stent) seems to be working. I’ve now got a “non-tight feeling” in my chest which is actually rather strange. I’m back home now with a list of things that might go wrong in the 7 days and stuff not to do.

I’m going to be off work for a week or two, but hopefully when I get back I won’t be using the lift as much.

Water Good Joke

In the middle of the first year programming lecture this afternoon, for no reason that I can think of I said:

“Did you know that every year 2,000 road sweepers drown in Venice?”

Total silence.

I think it was the way I told it.

Smart Glass Fun and Games

I fired up my Windows 8 mobile and used it to talk to my Xbox this evening. I used the new Smart Glass application and was able to find and stream music very handily. I’m on the monthly pass thing which used to be called Zune, but now probably isn’t. This means that I can have “all I can eat” music and store the stuff on 4 devices. I can also stream content onto other devices things too, including the Xbox. The range of music has got nice and wide, I even managed to find all the albums by Brian Protheroe, a particular favourite of mine in the ‘70s. (search out the single “Pinball” if you want to hear some really good stuff).

Buying Hardware

Building the PiArcade table is turning out to be quite fun. It is also giving me an excuse to go out and buy some more tools. Yesterday we went down to ToolStation for some bits and bobs as James had mentioned that their prices are very good.

They are. Their stuff is a lot cheaper than places like B and Q (does anyone actually know what the B and the Q stand for?). The only real problem is that you can’t just wander down their aisles looking at stuff to buy, instead you have to dig out all the part numbers and then write them down. But if you are after some no frills hardware they are worth a look.

Campus Open Day (again)

 

We had our second autumn open day today. The weather started a bit grey, but it soon brightened up a bit and by the time I left the campus the place was looking very shiny. Two great audiences, thanks to everyone for coming to see us. I mentioned some links in my talk. Here they are if you didn’t get to note them down at the time.

Hull CompSci blog: http://hullcompsciblogs.com/

C# Yellow Book download: http://www.csharpcourse.com/

Departmental Website: http://www2.hull.ac.uk/science/computer_science.aspx

Where Would You Think: http://www.wherewouldyouthink.com/

My blog: /

No Gas

At least we have electricity

Came home tonight to no gas. Which in my case (gas central heating) means cold house. A water leak had somehow got into the gas supply and as a result it had shut down.  They are having to dig up the road to find out where the problem is and we’ve turned on the PS3 and are watching Fringe to try and warm up.

Fringe is absolutely top notch telly. Where else do you get lines of dialogue like “So why do you think shape shifting soldiers from a parallel universe are stealing frozen heads?”. Why indeed?

Update on 2012-10-14 08:14 by Rob

We got our gas back at 8:00 on Friday.

Hull College Come to See Us

Please note that this is not all of Hull College, just the ones that came to see us.

I did one of my “well planned” sessions today. Well planned right up to the point that I found that it wasn’t where I thought it was (Two Lecture Theatre A’s on the same campus? Who’d have thought?) and that the place where it really was has a video project that doesn’t work with my lovely tablet.

Fortunately Martin was there to save my bacon and do his bit before I did my bit, so I had time to go get the less lovely, but actually working, laptop. And I got some laughs, which is always nice. Especially if they are in the places I’m expecting…..

Rob at the Round Table

 

You can’t say I’m not versatile. A couple of weeks ago it was Cottingham Women’s Institute, tonight it was the local Round Table who had invited me to speak. So, in my smart suit (but not quite as smart as the folks above) I turned up at the Hallmark Hotel to try my hand at after dinner speaking. Or in my case, after apple crumble speaking as I didn’t get there in time to eat the whole meal….

I’ve not done this kind of thing before (I hope this didn’t show too much). I’d carefully prepared some notes that I thought might go down OK, but thanks to SkyDrive not synchronising them properly (can you see a pattern forming here?) I’d not had as much time to work on them as I was planning too.

Anyhoo, thanks to a great audience, who even managed to laugh at quite a few of the the jokes, I made it through around 20 minutes of “not quite as well prepared as it might have been” mayhem. Thanks for inviting me folks. And the apple crumble, to say nothing of the entertainment that followed my talk, was splendid.