Once more for the ducks

I always know exactly what to do when you have a crashing deadline looming. You go on holiday for a couple of days. So we have. We've rumbled down to Bristol to meet up with the inlaws. And, as is our wont, we've gone to look at some ducks.

But first some nice flowers

..swan of those days

Slimbridge Mission Control

If the birds learn to read we are all in trouble

There's a kingfisher in the middle of this. Yes, really.

Lovely plumage

Then it was back to the ranch. I did get around to writing a few pages though...

Making my way home

I made my way back today. I started bright and early. Again.
There's a bloke at Portugal airport who takes his cappuccinos very seriously. Even at 5 in the morning.

Airport sunrise

Later today we had an XBOX 360 multi-player Gears of War fest which was fun. I'll dig out the pictures tomorrow.

Anonymous Food

So, I'm sitting in my hotel room feeling peckish. Lacking the energy to go downstairs and actually find some food, I turn to the room service menu. It is very decadent, but the prices are reasonable and the menu inviting, so I ring up and order a sandwich and some chips. "Fifteen minutes" says the man. "Fine" I reply.

Fifteen minutes go by. then another fifteen minutes. No food. We english have a problem with complaining. We hardly ever do. Anyhoo, after 45 minutes hunger gets the better of me and I ring back.

The chap on the other end of the phone assures me that the food is on its way even as we speak. At the end of the call, almost as an aside, he asks "What room are you in?".

The penny drops. When I called the first time I assumed the hotel had one of those fangled things where the phone system tells the receptionist who is calling. The first time I experienced this it was really scary. I was jetlagged in a hotel and at 3:00 am I rang up to ask for a network cable so that I could connect to some people who were as awake as I seemed to be. "Good morning Mr. Miles" said the person at the other end. "Have we met?" I blurted out, before I figured out what was going on. This caused much confusion at the other end, as the poor desk porter tried to figure out why someone would ring them up at 3:00 to find out if they had met them. Anyhoo, I digress.

The first time I called for my food it did not occur to me to tell the chap at the other end where I was. Which gave them a problem.  They had a beef sandwich and a plate of chips and no idea of where to send them. All the could do was wait until I rang back and complained, which with me being english, took a while.

The good news is that the food was excellent.

Tech Days 07

car-airport-plane-airport-plane-airport-taxi-conference centre-hotel

Well, that was my day. How about yours?

Some time back I got an email offering me a chance to speak at a student conference in Portugal. The date was a long way away, and I was pretty sure it was out of term time, my boss said it was OK,  so I agreed to go. What with the Imagine Cup effort at Hull, and my term dates being messed up, I very nearly didn't make it. But I'm glad I did. Even if it meant getting up at 4:00 am and a couple of flights to get here, Lisbon is worth the effort. I was expecting to speak to a room full of students.

Well, there was a room, and it was pretty full, but it was a bit more than I expected. Tech Days is essentially TechEd for Portugal only. I'm rather jealous. I wish there was something like this in the UK.

TechDays has everything that TechEd does, speakers shirts, timetable of interesting sessions, plush venue. And loads of keen delegates, including several hundred students who are given a day pass to the most interesting sessions. One of which was mine....

I was talking about XNA, the way that you can write games in C# for your XBOX 360. It is a subject that I like talking about, and the audience seemed happy to hear about it too. Even putting up with the jokes... I was a bit worried whether or not my particular brand of humour would go OK with a Portuguese audience. But in the end everyone seemed to have a good time, and a bunch of students even stayed behind at the end to hear the famous "Orange for a Head" joke. And then promptly wished they hadn't.

I would very much have liked to stay longer. I only managed to get to one session, about the Microsoft Robotics Studio. This is something I'd love to have more time to get to grips with. It is a fantastic way to start programming robots, with a proper simulated physics environment and an interface to lots of robot platforms, including the new Lego Mindstorms. Maybe when I get back I'll set aside an afternoon as robot playtime and see what we can make.

At the end of the day I staggered back to my room in a very nice hotel, and just flaked out.

Anyway, thanks very much to Microsoft Portugal for inviting me and making me so welcome, for the audience for making the trip worthwhile, and to KLM for actually finding me some seats on the plane with legroom. I've only been in Portugal for around 16 hours, I can promise that I will be back, and that next time it will be for a proper look round.

Portugal Pictures

I'm only in Portugal for around 16 hours. I took loads of pictures from the taxi on the way from the airport to the conference centre. The taxi driver thought I was mad at first, but after a while he was pointing things out for me. Great stuff.

View from the Taxi

Nice Stadium

Love the colours

Aqueduct

Lisbon has a nice bridge too

The TechDays in a break

At the end of the bill. Or is that top billing?

The audience. What a great bunch

..until I told the Orange for a Head joke.....

A great bunch of MSPs

Some more students. That chap in the middle needs a haircut...

Nice bridge by night

Traveling At Speed

I'm away again tomorrow for a whistle stop trip to Portugal. I've been invited to give a talk at TechDays07 there, but I don't really have time. So tomorrow I get up at 4:15 and fly to Lisbon. Then on Wed. morning I'm going to get up at 4:15 and fly back. I reckon that my average speed over the next day will be around 100 miles an hour....

Heading for Home

You may have gathered by now that I like San Francisco. Even though the streets are very sloping, I still loved walking around. I've taken more pictures in the last week than I have in the last six months. And I'm pleased with every one of them. Lovely place. But today we had to leave. Although there was time for a little shopping trip and a few more snaps.

Love the color

Inside the Apple store

Art Expo

Reflections

We did a lot of walking

A saint for every occasion

Can you see Jon Purdy in this picture?

Ending Up

Nice view after we had seen 300

Well, the conference has finished. I just thought I'd put down in words what I've managed to learn from my time in out here, at the various sessions and on the exhibition floor:

• Sony are starting to do some sensible things with the PS/3. I hope it is in time.
• Community is the new buzzword for everything. That and getting your wife to play computer games (I'm looking forward to that one)
• Writing a shader is actually quite easy. (especially if you just fill in the blanks in a Microsoft lab)
• The Nintendo Wii controller is just as hard to program with as I thought it would be. Probably more so.
• XNA Express is even better than I thought. The tutorial on it was a model of clarity and fun.
• The Motion LS800 is a truly wonderful portable computer (I plan to write a whole item about this lovely device)
• Computer games writers take incredible pride in their work, and the games that you take for granted contain huge amounts of technical ability, imagination and passion. You think there is passion in a Ferrari? Take a look at something like Motorstorm, or Gears of War. These people love their work and it shows when you hear them talk about it.
• Computer games should be taken at least as seriously as other media fields such as TV and film.
• The film "300" sucks.
• San Francisco might be my favourite place on earth. Maybe even better than Hull (although the bridge is a bit smaller).

And with those profound thoughts floating out there into the ether, time for the Friday photos.

Dusk.

We didn't bother with steak in the end

..'cos Lori's had pinball

I just love this back screen. The rightmost zero is just stuck in there to make all the scores seem bigger...

A planet you are going to want

Today was the day that the conference really got going. The exhibition was open and we had the first keynote presentation.

Crowd pleasing football

Before the presentation we played a kind of football, bouncing a large ball into goals each side of the auditorium. Our side lost. Then  it was on with the show. This one was from Sony, who make the awesomely powerful (so they keep telling us) PS3. Very little that I've seen of the PS3 has convinced me of this power.

With the exception of MotorStorm and some tech demos there has been little that has impressed  me about this machine so far. Namco should be singled out for an especially big kicking at this point, their PS3 versions of Tekken and Ridge Racer are a textbook exercise in lazy launch coding. I can understand the pressures that they must be under, but I still can't see  an excuse for serving up poor rehashes of previously great games. Anyhoo, I digress.

Fortunately today the talk was not pixel pushing power, but community. Things kicked off with a description of the Home service. This is not an old BBC radio channel, but a virtual world of take on your personal space on the PS3.

Coming to a life near you

You can wander through an advertising adorned 3D environment, select and position furniture and Sony products around the place and generally make your pretend existence and appearance better than the one you have at home. There is a community area too where you can play pool better than in real life, and a place to put the trophies from all the games you've bought.

There was no evidence of a world between these virtual spaces, so whether you can walk across rolling hills and ford babbling brooks to get to your friends pad for a spot of low quality Tekken remains to be seen, but if Sony get their act together on this one I can see property values in Second Life taking a bit of a downturn.

A virtual world worth visiting

At the end of the talk was the best bit. The game "Little Big Planet" takes social gameplay, realtime physics and the rendering power of the PS3 and creates a really fun place to be where you can build and modify the game environment as you play the game. This did look good, and had a Nintendo like appeal, in that I could actually see a game that was using the technology to make new kinds of gameplay experience.

At the end of the presentation I must admit that I'm now quite happy to be getting a PS3, something that I wasn't too sure of when I went in...

Lori's Diner

Great Place to Eat

We've found a great place for tea. Good food, amazing milkshakes (a meal in themselves), good service...

..and an Edsel

500 Sutter St. if you are ever in San Francisco.

The Art of Selling

"Do you want to buy a 1 gigabyte memory card for your camera for 10 dollars?".

The question was appealing. The cards normally cost a good bit more than that. So we wandered into the camera shop at Fisherman's Wharf to complete the transaction. A minion was dispatched to find the relevant component. Whilst I waited, conversation turned to the camera hanging around my neck.

"Do you have a wide angle adapter?". Why, yes I do.

"Can I see it?". A confusing request, he works in a photo shop for heaven's sake, he must have plenty of his own lenses to look at. "No need, I'm quite happy with it".  

"How much did you pay for your camera?". Now, this is sensitive information. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a massive bargain, but I was happy with what it cost.

"I can do you the same model for 250 dollars". This is irritating, that is around half what I paid and frankly an unbelievable price. And besides, I've already got one, and good though it is, I'm not sure why I'd need two. And where's that memory card?

Meanwhile, another salesman is working on Jon. Zoom lenses are being produced and snapped on and off camera bodies. Demonstration pictures are being taken and pored over. And more unbelievable prices are being bandied around. Finally a price is named that is so unbelievable that Jon decides to take the plunge.

"I'll take it". Stuff happens quickly. You don't need the box. You do need a lens filter (and an amazingly expensive one at that). Better yet, why don't you let me sell you an even more powerful lens and a converter. More money, but well worth it. We'll give you an even better price if you pay cash. Not got the cash? We have a machine over there just itching to eat your card and give you money to give us. Jon walked over to the machine. Then something snapped.

Without a word he turned and left the shop, I followed. Much clamour behind us about the bargains we have missed out on.

And I never did get my ten dollar memory card.

Later we shopped a little further down. A friendly and helpful assistant found things in the right sizes, kept them by the till for me and was friendly and polite all the way through. And she got a sale.

The Rob and Jon Show

Today was the day that Jon and I sang for our supper, so to speak. We were the "international" part of an international discussion of computer games and curriculum. I talked about XNA and Jon talked about Skill Set Accreditation. We both only had five minutes to fill, which is both a blessing and a curse. Not much time for bad things to happen, but hard to fit everything in. In the end it all went swimmingly. And there are pictures.

Gathering for the conference

Need a haircut

Had a haircut

A bit of abstract stuff

Flags

Off for a walk

This is what makes the cable cars work....

Nice Church

Wires

Refueling

Bikes

I love this kind of stuff...

Down on the wharf. Ask Jon about the lens he nearly bought...

Work that lens....

I've no idea what the boat is called. But it looks nice

"Love Songs" album cover shot....

Our hotel is about under that flag...

Nice sky

..and just one more...

Teaching Fun and Games

Did some proper work today. We saw some very good presentations about the way in which games are made, and what games makers do. There was also some good stuff on gameplay.

I'll put up a more lengthy discourse on this later, for now you'll have to do with some pictures:

A great place for lunch

This is the Cheesecake Factory atop Macy's

It has a great bar. The temptation to start at one end and work our way along was hard to resist...

..but this is the view from the balcony. And the main reason I went.

Star and Stars and Stripes

Jon waits patiently. Enjoying his coffee......

Back to ground level

Flowers

Night streets

Managed to stay up to 8:00 pm today. Maybe even later tomorrow....

SF Shopping

The good news (I guess) is that after today the conference will start, which will mean an end to sight seeing and a great reduction in the picture count. However, until then....

Having got this wide angle lens thingy I though I'd have a play with it. So we set off downtown in search of shiny things to buy and photo opportunities.

What happens when you don't use the fisheye correctly

What happens when you do...

Yummy

We found this shop which sells amazing tellies for amazing prices. If I could get one to work in the UK I'd bring one home on Saturday. There were flat screens built into all kinds of really detailed models. Curse you NTSC...

Stylish TVs are us

Love the colours

If we ain't got it, it means you don't need it..

I've bought mine, comrade..

I love these models, I really wanted a Jane Austen action figure for number one wife, but they don't seem to do that one

More wideangle misuse

..and again

Some captions write themselves

Whenever we go back to the hotel, it is always uphill.....

SF Sightseeing

Authors Note: this is another graphics heavy post. Sorry about that.  But there are some nice pictures (and I've put even more on Flickr)

Some things you just have to do. If you go to San Francisco you have to go see the bridge. So we did. Boarded a boat trip at 10:00 in the morning (which was very quiet, we had the run of the top deck) and away we went.

Tour Boats

Setting Sail

Bridge and Boat

Flying without flapping

Bridge and Bigger Boat

Where's Purdy?

Not as big as ours, but quite impressive non the less

Contre Jour

Heading Back

I bought a sensible hat. Or did I?

Look at those two gulls taking aim.....

Gulls and Bridge and Flag

Sailing

"The Rock"

Jon "I'd have cracked out of there in week" Purdy

So there...

Jolly boating weather

Pier 39

Fancy a pedal? We got the boat in the end

Tulips

Boats

Basking case

Yep. It's a real one

Lumpy lanscape

At this point the memory card in the camera was full, and so you are all spared the bucket of frogs that Jon wanted me to take a picture of. However, there is always tomorrow....

Chinese New Year in San Francisco

So we were walking down the street, and wondering if it was normal in San Francisco for people to stand at the side of the road and watch the traffic go past. I mean, they've had cars in America for quite a while, right? And the novelty must have worn off by now you would have thought. We asked someone what was going on and they told us that New Year Parade was just about to go past. I'm pretty sure it wasn't laid on just for us, but it felt like it.

Waiting for the parade

Here they come...

All together now: "Y M C A".....

Horse Power

"Did you vote for me? Did you?"

Cool Outfits

Coolest Car

Flying the flag

Insert "tender behind" joke here

Of course, we were all really waiting for some dragons

We were not disappointed

Does he have a dentist?

I hope these say nice things.

And so into the sunset

Colourfull news

Back to the hotel

A nice shot to end on

Chinatown, where it all goes down

Author's note 1: I'm fiddling with the time and dates of posts to make things seem in sequence. And this post is very graphics heavy.

I think I may have used up all my luck for the rest of the year. We arrived and found that the hotel is right on the edge of Chinatown. So there are loads of wonderful shops and stalls to look at, just around the corner. And then we got to see the Chinese New Year parade. And I had my new camera to play with....

Wonderful.

Author's note 2: Most of my pictures also feature some part of Jon Purdy, perhaps a bit of a shiny head or patch of tasteful shirt. See if you can spot him in these shots. There are even more on Flickr for you to refine your Purdy spotting skills.

Calibration shot for "Where's Purdy" competition. I didn't ask him to smile, which is probably just as well...

On the way to the hotel (that is not Jon in the foreground)

Hotel Lobby roof

Down California Road

Chinatown

My kinda store. I'm taking orders......

Balcony

Nice brickwork

Soul Men Sounding Good

"Win one for me daddy..."

More stalls

All set for the Crazy Taxi racing

Just make sure you use it for the forces of good...

Open Wide

For some time I've been after a wide angle view for my photographs. I found a shop which had a whole bunch of these. Having negotiated a really good price (no - really) I bought this thing to whack on the front of the camera which gives it an almost-fisheye effect (hence the round edges). This was the test shot in the shop. You might see this used to some effect in later snaps.

If you are going to make a bronze statue, why would  you make it doing that?

More later.

Travel in Hope and Pain

I've managed to wangle a trip to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco California. Not quite sure how I did it, but very pleased to be going. Anyhoo, we made trip today. We started in Humberside airport at 5:00 am and thence (posh prose) we moved  on to Amsterdam.

Starting from Schipol

"The Dammed" assemble

The plane was full. And I mean full.  And since it was the "nerd express" to the conference everybody had used their internet skills to bag all the best seats by booking online. This meant that there was not a tall seat for Rob. The cabin staff were very sorry. I was even sorrier.

Legoom, KLM style

There should be a rule requiring airlines to hold the legroom seats for tall blokes like me who really need it. Perhaps I should start an e-petition... Mind you, winging about slightly uncomfortable seats on a free trip to California sounds a bit rich to me, so perhaps I'll keep quiet.

The girl in the window seat took a picture for me

Anyhoo, we got there OK and on time, and had a smooth taxi ride to the hotel.

First view of SF

We are going to freshen up (whatever that means) and then go for a wander round town. For the first time ever, I'm staying in a city with a proper middle (as opposed to a bunch of malls) and so it should be fun.

Game On with Bing

Yesterday we went off to London courtesy of Electronic Arts, who had arranged an all expenses paid (perhaps my favourite three words) trip to the Game On exhibition at the Science Museum with free beer (perhaps my favourite two words) and a talk from Bing Gordon, EA's Chief Creative Officer.

Just before we boarded the magic bus

We set off at 10:30 prompt, bound for London. The M1 was kind to us, so we got to the big city in good time. I'd taken the big camera, so it was time to go off and take some snaps.

The Natural History Museum looking good

We piled into the tube and took a ride up to Oxford Street.

Oxford Circus

Fruit and Veg

Then, at 6:30 the doors opened and it was, quite literally, Game on.

EA had set up some gamer pods around the museum. That big shiny thing at the back is the wing of a Spitfire plane.

Bigging Up Bing

First up was the talk from Bing Gordon. Very interesting. Some good comments about life, followed by some more specific discussion of video games.

Health note: these are pulled from my recollections, if anyone who was there remembers differently then I apologise in advance.

From the life point of view:

• Find out what you really enjoy doing and then try to get to do that as your day job.
• Don't be afraid to fail.
• Set yourself big goals (but make them testable so that you can decide when/whether you reach them)
• Maximise your learning opportunities
• Set very high standards and give everyone who fails to meet them a really hard time. There is nothing more demoralising than a boss who accepts poor quality work.

This is all good stuff. For me what was also interesting was that one of Bing's heroes is a chap called David Ogilvy. He was an advertising executive who ran some of the most successful campaigns of all time and went on to set up one of the largest Ad agencies in the world. I remember reading one of his books a long time ago (I've always found the advertising field fascinating) and I would advise you to take a look as well. Then the talk turned to games. More from Bing:

• Games are becoming hobbies (people play them in the same way that they would build model railways, or go fishing)
• Games are including things like searching, trading and community..
• .. and search engines and other tools are starting to behave like games
• By around 2012 we can look forward to movie level realism in games

There was a very good question and answer session at the end, and then the doors to the Game On exhibition were thrown open and it was time to get in there and start playing.

..but first a drink

Game On indeed

Not the kind of high score I'd take a picture of, but there you are

Jon Purdy gets back to basics

One of my all time favourites, Ridge Racer

Not sure quite what this is, but it looks fun.

I used to own quite a few of these....

Then, at 10:00 we all clambered onto the magic bus and headed back to Hull (I had a kind of bet with David Byrne from EA that all our students would turn up on time - and they did. Kudos guys).

Many thanks to the highway engineers who added around an hour to our journey back just because they wanted to play with their big Meccano near one of the bridges. I finally managed to hit the sack around 4:30 am, just as the birds were starting to sing. But it was a good trip.

Thanks to EA for setting it up and making us so welcome.

Darned Efficiency

It seems that the time synchronisation betweeen diary and time zones has just about been sorted out. I know this because I set my alarm an hour early on my PDA to allow for the fact that I am in a different time zone, set my PDA to the correct time zone and then got my wake up call an hour early.

Drat.