These people are selling Snoopy Calendars. This takes me back. When I was a student we all had ones which we printed on the university mainframe line printer. The best time to print them was at night, otherwise you might get told off for wasting resources. Unfortunately they seem to have sold out. The good news is that I have written a program to create calendars (any year you like). The bad news is that I seem to have lost the punched cards I wrote it on…..
If I’d not held my hand half an inch too low as I reached over to the toaster I’d not have knocked my coffee cup over.
If I’d not knocked the coffee cup over I’d not have had to grab a cloth to stop the coffee from going everywhere.
If I’d not had to grab a cloth I wouldn’t have moved the milk jug I was holding in the other hand.
If I’d not moved the jug I wouldn’t have sprayed hot milk up the front of the coffee machine.
If I’d not sprayed hot milk up the front of the coffee machine I’d not have had to give it a good clean.
If I’d not cleaned the coffee machine I’d not have jogged a dial that sets the machine to expect ground coffee.
If the machine expects ground coffee it refuses to work until you give it some.
If you try to use the machine and it refuses to work you think it is broken and set about mending it.
If all attempts to mend the machine fail you eventually get around to reading the manual (last resort of the barely competent).
If you read the manual you find that the error display is telling exactly what happens and what you need to do to fix it. Hurrah.
Oh well, at least the coffee machine is cleaner now than it has been for a very long time.
I was going to write a post about how irritating it is that when I go onto YouTube I mostly see adverts for SquareSpace (which I’ve been using since 2006). Having thought about it though, I now rather like the idea. At least I won’t be encouraged to buy new things if all I see is messages about something I already own.
Spent today in PowerPoint writing slides. And fiddling with pictures of red leaves.
Today I discovered (after fifteen minutes of total panic) that using the wrong test code in a device you are building will cause that device to appear broken.
There’s a scene in most superhero movies where the would-be hero does something while unaware of the incredible strength they now have. The results are things like baseballs going into orbit, cars flying in the air and really unpleasant handshakes.
I’ve just had that experience myself. I was taking my morning row when there was an almighty bang and the rowing machine fell into two pieces. Obviously my super-strength was the problem. I tracked it down to the above bolt which I have managed to snap after only 9 years of regular use. It seems that every rowing stroke bent the bolt slightly and eventually it failed. I wasn’t too worried about this. I’ve repaired the machine several times. I looked up the availability of bolts and found a suitable replacement. Then I took a look at the fitting it goes into on the machine. The head of the bolt had been welded into place. I’ve no idea why. It makes it impossible to for me to replace and increases the chances of the bolt failing in the first place.
So, it was onto the internet and a search for a replacement machine (I don’t want to stop rowing). I took the old one down to the tip and bid it a fond farewell. The new machine arrived this afternoon (thanks Argos). I hope it lasts as long as its predecessor.
They had a unicorn there.
We went to Comicon today. It was great fun. Although the Covid protection measures were laughable. Our carefully printed COVID passes were checked by someone who could apparently read QR codes by just glancing at them. Social distancing was non-existent, the place was more packed than I've ever seen it and we were pretty much the only people wearing facemasks that weren't part of a costume. It seems that "mask friendly" means that they won't throw you out if you are wearing one. Oh well. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much more. And we still went and had a good time.
The halls at the NEC are pretty big with high ceilings. And we didn't stay in one place for very long. With a bit of luck we’ll be OK. Although I'm not convinced that hope really counts as a pandemic management solution.
Google search is still broken for me. And a few other people too. Apparently the search team is looking into it. I just hope they can get access to their pages.
This really brings home to me the benefit of paying for services. If I was paying for a search service I’d have proper leverage with the supplier. It would be directly in their interest not to upset their customers. And I would know exactly how my service was being paid for. As it is, they seem to have made the call that giving the problem a proper level of priority isn’t worth it.
I don’t use Google search that much. The search built into Edge does most of what I want. And for really hard stuff I use duckduckgo. But recently I don’t use Google at all. When I go to google.com I get the above error. I’ve tried it on different machines and I get the same error. I think it might be something to do with my Google account, although mail works fine, as to other Google services.
When I was at Tech Week on Tuesday I made the mistake of trying to read my Gmail on a machine I hadn’t used for a while and when I tried to sign in it offered me the chance to complete the process on a device that I didn’t have with me. Which was tricky. The process failed, I got an email telling me that someone was trying to access my account (yes! it was me!) and ever since I’ve had this problem accessing the site. I think it is having a form of digital sulk.
I really like this way of authentication. To me it seems like magic. You try and use one thing (in my case Onedrive) and a message pops up on another thing (your phone) that lets you authenticate it.
I was limbering up to go and find my password and the laboriously type it in, and it just worked.
My push buttons have arrived from Ali-Express. Lovely colours. Now I need to make something that uses them…..
I found this camera that I really wanted. But I really shouldn’t buy it as buying cameras is a waste of money. Really.
So I decided to raise the cash by selling some stuff that I don’t need any more, which includes a couple of home entertainment receivers I seem to have accumulated. So today I spent a happy afternoon plugging them in, making sure that they work and then wondering why I replaced them in the first place……
They will be on eBay next week…. As for the camera, I’ve already bought it - so I really hope these things sell……
I like Iceland. I’ve even been there once. Windows 10 thinks I live there. For some reason all the weather forecasts and whatnot that I get are for Reykjavik. I’m sure there’s a way I can fix it, but I really don’t want to. It lets me think I’m out and about when I’m really stuck at my desk.
Much to my surprise, I’m still doing my piano practice every day. I’m using the Simply Piano app which works very well for me. Up until recently I was able to coast a bit, what with being made to play the piano when I was much younger. But now I’m learning stuff that is properly new to me and making a tiny bit of progress every day.
Anyhoo, Simply Piano has got hold of the rights to a bunch of Disney tunes for me to practice which has been great fun. The way they arrange the exercises it sounds like you’re part of a performance with singers and full accompaniment (although I’m always a bit sorry for the person who has to sing along with my playing). Good playing gets you stars for each piece. Eighteen stars and you’re a performing princess. Twenty four stars (a perfect performance in everything) and you get to be a prince. Not sure if I’m going to make it, but I’m enjoying trying.
It’s a nice day. Why not go to Burnby Hall and take some pictures. Why not indeed.
Potting shed. With pots.
I think that the true reason for the existence of the internet is so that you can share pictures of your shed. Here’s mine. I didn’t build it. Neil came round and in the space of a couple of hours managed to do well what it would have taken me a day to do badly.
I’ve had a really splendid day writing code. I’ve got loads of video games and other stuff to play with, but I’ve ignored all of them in favour of making some Circuit Python. With occasional stops for tea breaks of course.
Took a bunch of stuff to the tip again today. I wonder if council tips have “frequent tipper” schemes. If so, I’d probably be up for a silver award.
Actually we don’t own a shed as such just yet. Rather, we’ve got a collection of pieces of wood which one day (hopefully sooner rather than later) will be fixed together to form a shed-type building. The pieces arrived this morning at 6:45 am. At 6:55 it started to rain for the first time in a while. So I was out in the wet before breakfast trying to cover over the really big bits of wood so that they would remain dry enough for painting.
Fortunately I seemed to manage it and later on in the day when the rain had stopped and the sun came out I was able to give all the woodwork two coats of hopefully waterproof paint.
A week or so we were wondering where all the butterflies have got to this year. It seems that they have just turned up..
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.
