Direction tip

If you are thinking about doing something, ask yourself whether it will move you forwards, backwards or sideways. If the answer isn’t forwards, don’t do it.

Eat an apple while standing on one leg

Apparently standing on one leg is healthy. And so is eating an apple. So I’m trying to do both at the same time as part of my lunchtime fitness regime.

Survival Technique

The World Cup is coming. We’ve just signed up for Paramount+ at half price in the Black Friday sale. They’ll be winning ball games. We’ll be on a star ship saving the universe.

Stickers

Is putting stickers on their laptop something that a person of nearly pensionable age should be doing?

Oh yes.

The curse of the greedy iPhone

Once upon a time there was a greedy iphone. One day it decided to eat all its memory. “Yum yum” it said as gobbled up the last gigabyte for no discernible reason. The master of the iphone was very upset by this behaviour. Particularly as nothing now worked and he couldn’t run any programs or save any pictures. So he went on a journey on the internet to find out what kind of magic could cure his phone. He was even more upset when he discovered that even the greatest seers in the kingdom came back with “Thou must wipeth the whole thing and starteth again”. The master wondered why such a fundamental problem didn’t have a much simpler solution. Then he remembered that the wizards who had made the phone were probably busy adding tiny incremental features to the next version of the phone so that everyone in the kingdom could be persuaded to go out and buy it. This was much more lucrative work that fixing issues with phones that had already been sold.

So it came to pass that the master did indeed wipe his phone, removing everything and requiring a whole heap of re-configuration and re-registering of services. And eventually the master got a phone that was a lot less needy than before and all was well. Until the next time.

Maths City Rocks

What do you do if you find yourself in Leeds with a small person to entertain? You take them to Maths City. It’s full of puzzles games and great things to do if you are interested in maths and if you like strangely shaped (and enormous) bubbles. We spent a happy hour and a bit there working our way around the different exercises. Great fun.

Putting the clocks back..

I carefully set all the clocks back last night. Except for the two most important ones, the alarm and the heating controller. The heating controller appears to be able to look after itself. So, when I wound it back it this morning this did not end particularly well. All fixed now, although grinding through complicated menus on the clock radio at six thirty to stop the alarm from going off at the wrong time kind of took the shine off the extra hour in bed…

Greedy iPhone

Mosty of the time the devices around us just work. Which makes the occasions when they go wrong all the more scary. Yesterday my iphone started moaning about being short of memory. Which was surprising, bearing in mind I don’t do things like record videos or put lots of huge games on the device. I thought I’d sorted out the problem by deleting a few movies I had downloaded but today it ran out again. Something in my phone is eating all the memory. Searches online list a bunch of things you can do to try and fix this which end with the action “wipe the phone and restore everything”. Ugh.

New boots

Got some new boots today. The previous pair lasted ages. They started leaking during one of the damper parts of emf this year and that was it for them. The new pair were pleasingly inexpensive and seem to keep the water out.

Instant Camera Fixations

When I write a book I usually develop an obsession with something or other. It helps me take my mind off class constructor syntax or whatever I’m grappling with. For the Python book it turned out to be electronic music devices. For the JavaScript book it turned out to be robot dogs. this time it seems to be instant cameras. I’ve spent most of today writing chapter 7 and taking quick breaks to read all about the Mint TL70.

Lost my ideas

I try to keep a list of ideas for blog posts. I’ve just discovered that I’ve lost it. So this will have to do for today…

Thanks O2

Had a strange experience today. Something was broken, we contacted the provider, they were responsive and polite and sorted out. It’s a bit sad that I expect this outcome to be the exception rather than the rule, but it was nice anyway.

Flu Jab

Went for my flu jab today. I’m not saying it was fun, but it was mostly painless.

Fun and Games at Netgames

Our online gaming group, which was convened in the depths of the pandemic, seems to be lasting beyond covid. We had a hilarious (an hilarious?) time playing netgames this evening. First we had a go at Secret Hitler, which was fun, and then we had a go at Codewords. The implementation is spot on and the games work well, even if you are not in the same room. Worth a look.

No gardening for me

This is not my garden.

Yet more writing today. Plus feeling guilty about not gardening. But then again, chapter 6 is looking pretty good just now, which has got to be a win.

Harlow Carr for the win

There is nothing better than sitting in a nice place eating sandwiches in the rain with a couple of people who mean the world to you. Oh, and taking the odd photograph.

Road Warrior

It’s a while since I’ve done anything like this. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the Arndale Centre in Manchester updating the blog while on the road. I’m in Manchester for a Dot Net North talk I’m giving.

I’ve just thought. It would be awesome if the post in the laptop screen was this post. Oh well. Maybe on the next trip.

Dolls House

I never thought I’d one day spend a happy half hour helping someone play with a doll’s house. But there you go.

Writing and will power

Spent today writing pages and not buying cameras. Go me.

Fun with SoundTrackers

Spent a tiny bit of time today playing with soundtrackers. Great fun and bringing back all kinds of memories.