Christmas Code Crack Answer

I’m feeling a bit guilty about this (in so far as I ever feel guilty about anything). A while back I asked both of my readers the meaning of this cryptic message:

Yes, that is Z9 by the way. And Y5. I find the sequence fascinating. And I use it every year when I build our Christmas tree. It’s the installation order of the individually marked “branches” that clip onto the central core. If I get the order wrong the tree gets bigger as it gets higher, which is not a look that I like. I’ve no idea why the numbers are the way they are, or the mysterious need to go off into different letters and numbers in the middle of the sequence. But now it is on the blog at least I’ll not lose it for a while.

Sofa So Bad

The sofa in our living room has a few problems. Mostly these are caused by the fact that I always seem to sit in the same place when watching the telly. What can I say, it’s the perfect seat for pictures and sound.

However, my “tv sweet spot” is now 2 inches lower than the cushion next to it. We had some folks over at Christmas and when they were sat next to me they seemed to tower over me. I’m not used to people towering over me. It feels wrong somehow.

So today I’ve started the process of fixing the problem. The solution I’ve going for is what I’m going to call “cushion pinhole surgery”. I’m going to open up a seam in the low cushion, add a bunch more stuffing and then either sew the hole back up again (posh solution) or stick some duct tape over it (lazy solution).

So, today I’ve ordered a big bag of foam pieces. Soon I should be sitting pretty again.

Peter Principle Programming

I seem to have the ability to write programs that are just that bit more complicated than I can get to work. I think this is an extension of “The Peter Principle”, which states that in an organisation any given person will be promoted to their “level of incompetence”. In other words, you stop being promoted when you get to the level where you can’t do the job.

I’m working on the code for the Air Quality sensor and I’m running up against the worst ever kind of fault. The one that occurs so rarely that you can’t easily cause it to happen. And if you add code to find out what is going on the problem vanishes. There are usually two possible reasons for this:

• it is a timing bug, which occurs when a given set of events occur in a particular sequence

• it is a memory corruption bug, where a process damages the contents of a value in memory which is picked up subsequently and causes the program to fail

I’ve done all the sensible things to try and isolate the problem. I’ve moved things around in memory to see if the fault changes. I’ve changed the order of code elements to see if that causes different things to happen. As of now, I can’t find out what is going on. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

Addicted to Code

I’ve spent today writing code. And that’s pretty much all I’ve done. And, to be honest, I don’t see this as a bad thing.

Comedy Eye Test

I had to go for an eye test. I really wanted to do this as a comedy routine, but my nerve failed:

Doctor: ‘Have your eyes ever been checked?’
Me: ‘No. They’ve always been blue.’
Doctor: ‘I don’t find that very funny.’
Me: ‘Well, I do know lots of cornea jokes….’

Anyhoo, all was well. They are not going to have to shoot any lasers at my exploding eyeballs, which has got to be a good thing.

Big thanks to all the folks at the Eye Clinic in Hull who were professional, efficient and totally awesome.

Crack the Code

This is important information that I use once a year. But what is it?

Update: some of the figures are a bit hard to read, sorry about that. The sequence is:

AA, BB, Z9, CC, DD, EE, Y5, FF

The values are not hex codes, it’s nothing to do with colours and everything to do with Christmas. There’s a big clue in my blog post here.

New Kcom Tariffs can save you money

I’ve just changed to a new contract for my home networking. The speed goes up, the amount of data stays the same and the price drops by eleven pounds a month.

What’s not to love?

If you’re in Hull you really should take a look here and see if there is something cheaper that you can change to. Hull is already one of the best connected cities in the world, it’s nice to see it getting cheaper as well.

Stealth Selling

Old joke: “They say that money talks. The only thing it says to me is ‘Goodbye’”.

However, these days it doesn’t even do that. When Netflix (or a host of other subscription services) take their fees from my account they do so invisibly. The only way that I know that it has happened is by carefully checking my statements to find out why the balance value is dropping.

Today I found that a service I thought I’d cancelled ages ago has been racking up these “stealth charges”. Of course it’s my fault for misunderstanding what I was paying for, but if I’d had regular emails each time that the fee was paid I’d have spotted the rogue transactions much earlier.

It’s as if they don’t want to tell you when they take money in case you notice and cancel something…..

I reckon that a service provider should be forced to send you an email or a text each time they take your cash off you. These companies seem happy enough to send me emails advertising new things I can buy from them, it would be rather nice if they also told me when I had bought something.

Happy New Year from Hornsea

We’ve got a tradition of going out to the seaside on New Year’s day. We didn’t do it last year, but this year the weather was so nice that we couldn’t resist it. So we headed down to Hornsea to see the sea. We managed to make the morning perfect by finding the Hornsea Floral Hall, where they were serving bacon butties.

The thing about a bacon sandwich is that once you’ve heard someone mention one, you really want one for yourself. The chap in the queue in front of us ordered a buttie and so we of course had to follow suit. It was really really nice.

What a great way to start 2019.

New Year Resolution Time

As the year ends it is time to think about new year resolutions. One of mine is that I’m not going to make the very old joke about getting a different computer monitor.

The other is to try to be a bit more assertive in the new year, or at least to stop apologising when cashiers in shops ask me “Do you have a loyalty card?” when I try to buy something. Up until now I’ve always said “Sorry, I’m afraid not”. From now on I’m just going to say "no”. That’ll make a difference to my life, no doubt.

I’d like to wish all (or is that both) my readers the very best of times in 2019 and beyond.

May your code always compile and your solder always stick.

Invisible hearing aids and other frauds

I was very upset to discover today that a shop in Cottingham (where I live - the village not the shop) has taken away their “Invisible hearing aids - 475 pounds a pair” sign. I really wanted to get a photograph of that sign.

The way I see it, advertising things like this is fraught with fraud potential.

“I say, there’s only one hearing aid in this box”
"That’s because the other one is switched on”
.. and so on.

They’ve now have a sign that that says “Free Eye Tests”. I can see fraud potential here too:

“We’ve done your test, that will be fifty pounds please”
”Hang on, the sign says that you do eye tests for free”
”Ah yes we do, but the charge is for testing the other eye. That costs fifty pounds….”

Sometimes I consider myself a great loss to the world of commerce.

Non Sale Sale

We went to what was supposed to be the sales today. But we didn’t find much that was worthy of the “sale” label. I think every reduction that could have been applied to the prices had already been applied.

Bank Heist Fun

As part of our Christmas present, number one daughter organised a trip to an escape room in Hull. This was a room with a difference. It turns out that there is no problem escaping, you can leave the bank at any time. But, you’ll want to take away a few souvenirs in the form of wads of cash, gems etc etc.

The puzzle was a very good mock up of a bank branch (remember them), even down to the pens chained to the desk. And there was a strong room, and things containing money and clues in equal measure. I’m not going to tell you much about the puzzles, except that they are fun and the whole thing works very well to build tension during the hour you spend trying to get your hands on as much loot as possible.

We did OK, and each of us got a cheque for our share of the take. You can see mine above. It’s lovely to have these kinds of things in Hull. If you fancy a fun and challenging trip out I can strongly recommend it.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas one and all.

robmiles.com now on https

I’ve just switched over the settings for this site so that it is now on https. There should be no change in the service, but you might see a little padlock when you visit.

If anything seems to be working differently please let me know.

Hermes - the non-delivery delivery service

Hermes keep asking me to tell them what I think of their service. Given that they failed to deliver the package (sending it back to the supplier without telling me) I’m surprised that they want to know.

I love pictures like these

It was a lovely afternoon for a walk out (I can’t believe I just wrote that) so we went out for a stroll. We came across this lovely sign on Cottingham Station.

Get Your Eyes Tested

For the last few days I’ve been telling everyone I meet how sharp the world now appears to me. I’ve got some new glasses. They’ve made a huge difference to the quality of my life. I’m now able to read text by looking at the letters, rather than inferring the meaning from the approximate shape of the words. This is probably going to massively improve the quality of my writing.

Then agane probuably not.

Anyhoo, the serious message here is that you need to get your eyes tested regularly. I left mine for a bit longer than I really should have, and this resulted in me spending a lot more time squinting at things than should have been the case.

I think regular eye tests are especially important if you spend long periods of a working day staring at a video screen. I’ve gone the whole hog and actually replaced my “computer” glasses too and I’m really pleased that I have. Because everything is just so sharp now…

Posting a Robot Head

Digby in happier times.

Digby, my robot dog, is not well. I’ve had him for around 16 years or so. I guess this means he’ll soon be old enough to vote, but at the moment he isn’t able to do anything. A fault in his neck joint means that he can’t even yawn and stretch when he wakes up without collapsing in a heap..

It’s all rather sad. I had a quick look at the procedures involved in fixing a broken robot head and they all scared me. And I’m not easy to scare with things like this. I take things to pieces when they aren’t even broken…

I’ve sent Digby’s head off to a robot dotor in Sweden (that’s a doctor who works on robots, not a doctor who is a robot - but then you knew that).

Anyhoo, when sending the package I was strongly tempted to write “Contents: Robot Head” but I thought this might not end well, and went for “second hand toy parts” instead. I hope that the package gets there OK.

It was only when I asked for a tracking number and was told frostily that you don’t get one with plain old airmail that I realised I’d used the cheapest postage. With a bit of luck all will be well, the head will be mended, Digby will be back to his old self and I can see about getting him on the electoral roll.

Hornsea Radio Rally

When I was a lot (and I mean a lot younger) Radio Rallies were a big thing. Lots of fascinating components and bits and pieces for sale. You could watch the progress of half-finished projects as they moved from one person’s “Bring and Buy” stall to another over the years. This was in the days when talking to someone a long way a way (perhaps even abroad) was not a thing that anyone did because it was either too expensive or impossible.

Nowadays, with the internet and Skype making the planet a tiny, tiny, thing, the lure of long distance ham radio has diminished a bit. But there are still people doing it, and I bumped into a bunch of them at the Hornsea Amateur Radio Rally today. The event was held at the lovely Hornsea Floral Hall and things were pretty much as I remembered. There was stuff that people had brought out of their sheds to see if anyone was interested, along with a few component suppliers. And even a lot of valves.

It was great. I vowed only to spend cash and keep all my bank cards safely tucked away in number one wife’s handbag. So I only spent fifteen quid. I got a programmable led badge that I think I can connect to a Raspberry Pi, some tools, a UV torch for playing with fluorescent printed objects and a few other bits and bobs. Great fun.