Best Cafe in the World

I've found the best cafe in the world. It is in York station and the coffee is good, but everything there is annotated in a most amusing way.

Message coated sugars

I know that all the slogans and clever artwork were actually concocted by a bunch of soul-less advertising executives for a franchise owned by an uncaring global corporation working out of an anonynous office somewhere in Slough, but I still think they are neat.

Indeed it is, but we got one anyway

York station looking good.

Surviving Marking with the Gitaroo Man

I've found a way to survive marking. It goes like this.

• Mark 10 scripts
• Play a round of Gitaroo Man Lives on the PSP
• Repeat

Seems to work a treat.

Only got to level 3 so far, but great fun

If you've got a PSP you ought to get this game. Recommended by number one son (there is no higher recommendation, believe me) it is worth getting just for the frantic Japanese music and the look of the thing. I picked it up for ten quid last weekend. You should too (except for the last weekend bit - which would require a time machine).

My Marking Hell

Back to work today. And more marking.

A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step...

Feed the Pigs

With number one wife out on a boat trip, the job of feeding the animals falls to me. Of course, I take the camera along.

A banquet fit for a pig

The diners. Can you guess which one is called Fluffy? And which way she is facing...

Hull Photos

Went up town today. Took the tiny camera as it was nice weather. Actually I always take the camera, in case something interesting happens. Nothing interesting, but a few pictures turned out OK.

One of our better logos...

Neat sculpture

Water Polo by the shops

Collectormania Again

We were up bright and early this morning to head off to Milton Keynes for Collectormania again. Not quite so early this time, as I wasn't chasing autographs, but early-ish, and still fairly bright. We were really just going for the atmosphere, although I did manage to pick up a couple of import blu-ray disks which was nice. I also took the camera.

This picture is crying out for a caption

Bargain hunting Daleks

Pick a card...

...and a badge

Lectures, Scary Security, FPL, XNA and Sound Bites

Today has been busy. Oh yes. It started with an unexpected lecture. We are now in week 11 of the semester, with teaching supposed to have finished at the end of week 10. But the first year students wanted more, and so I went off at 9:15 to deliver. Actually, it worked quite well, in that I was able to go through the quiz that I set last week.

Then it was back to the labs to get ready for our XNA event. Andy Sithers from Microsoft had come over to formally hand over the XBOX 360s they have given us to help with our XNA teaching in the first year. We had to set them up in the lab for the pictures, and get some stuff working. Simon Dickson and Phil Cluff from our first year came in to show of what they have been doing.

Then, after a quick lunch the presentation tool place. We all contorted ourselves into the best position for the perfect shot for the papers. Danielle Cod from Radio Humberside interviewed our head of department, Andy, Simon and Phil and finally me, in search of the perfect soundbyte. You can grab the resulting two minute piece here. Much to my dismay they seem to have left Andy and Warren on the cutting room floor.....

This picture kind of captures the event. In the back Warren Viant, our head of department, is being recorded whilst Andy Sithers ponders the code and Simon grapples with debugging and being interviewed all at the same time....

After all this we had to dash off to an event that I had pretentiously entitled our "Software Symposium". (Did you know that symposium used to mean drinking session?). Anyhoo, the event started with a double headed presentation from Robert Hogg of software developers Black Marble and Ed Gibson who is Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK. The topic was safety and computers.

I'd heard bits of it before at the Black Marble event last year, but it was obviously news to the audience, who sat silently as Robert and Ed laid it on the line about just how scary things are. I managed to be both petrified about what was going on out there and relieved that Robert and Ed are going around spreading the word and engaging budding software developers with the problems posed by the wonderful connected world we live in.

The point they made forcefully and effectively is that the big problems are not down to technology, they are down to people. If we don't keep our software up to date and we allow ourselves to be bamboozled into giving passwords to cunning callers then no amount of code is going to help.

Next, and on a somewhat lighter note, the Seedlings, our Imagine Cup winning team, gave us a presentation of their entry. The First Programming Language they are working on is aimed to engage everyone with the kind of problem solving techniques that will allow them to use a computer to best advantage, whether or not they end up writing programs.

Then after a closing address from Andy Sithers of Microsoft, about the value of competition and the usefulness to students of just plain taking part, it was time to zoom off and try to find a recorder for the radio broadcast.....

Busy day.

Blossom

I love this time of year. The blossom is out down our street.

Vanilla?

Strawberry?

Gone to the beach

Most of the writing is now done. Just a few bits left to add. So we went to the seaside. I really like Hornsea. It has a faded charm that I find really attractive. Number one son and I took our cameras, and we were dead lucky because the light was lovely for photographs.

Beach front

Asset stripped

Indoor amusements

Windmills

Hornsea Mere Tea Rooms. Fantastic.

This pike is over 100 years old.

I once got a hole in one here. Snag is, it was the wrong hole....

Boats

Laura Viers Sings

Indeed she does. Very well. Number one son spotted that she was appearing in York, and so off we toddled. I took the big camera, but I might as well have not bothered. The lights were a bit low and even with the camera gain turned up to 11 it was hard to get any good photos.

Laura in red (and that is a sock over the microphone)

She played mostly new stuff, which was alright by me. She does have an amazing voice and her band were absolutely top notch.

Respect

My father in law has style. He showed this by getting out some of his record collection:

Ying Tong indeed

This is the sleeve from a Goons EP that he bought many moons ago. He still has the record too. Great stuff.

Then it was back onto the motorway for the journey home. On the way we passed a lorry loaded with stuff which the sign on the back referred to as "Equestrian Bedding". We think they mean straw.

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...

Good Looking University

The university is looking wonderful at the moment. I took the biggish camera in to work specially to celebrate this.

Nice Flowers

Big Library

I've put some more on my Flickr account.

Imagine Cup UK Final

So, after getting up bright and early we headed onto the coach for the trip to Reading and our moment of truth...

"Team Pizza" with their bag. Seems about the right size.....

Ready for the off

Photo Op

The Seedlings shaping up

Is this a secret weapon?

Team Roundtrack

The "Pizza Eaters" doing some product placement

Team "404 File not Found" and their poster

Kevin from Microsoft gets things going

It was great to see James and Tom again. They were in last year's team and I went with them to Delhi for the world final. They now work for Content Master and had been given leave to come and tell us about the experience.

James in full flow

Tom watching....

..is this what Tom is thinking?

Nibbles

The food was good, and they just kept delivering it.

Halfway through the day the top three teams were selected to give their presentations. Sadly my team, "The Irresponsible Pizza Eaters", were not in the top three, but kudos to them for quality and commitment. You rocked.

Team "404 File not found" were selected for special commendation and "The Seedlings", another Hull team, were one of the three finalists. So, at this stage in the competition we had one commended and one in the top three. Not bad.

The Seedlings, preparing for the off

The pitch.

After the presentations and considerable deliberation the judges revealed the winner. None of this drum rolls and long pauses rubbish. Just a simple slide:

Hull Wins!

The Seedlings had prevailed. Huge congratulations to James Alexander, Michelle Goddard, Matthew Steel and Matthew Steeples. And also to their mentor from Black Marble, Rob Hogg. They all get to go to Seoul later this year to take on the world.

Flying the flag

That makes 3 out of the 5 Microsoft Imagine Cup UK Software Design Challenge competitions have been won by teams from Hull. Go us!

There are some more pictures on my Flickr site.

Game Fest

Yesterday we had our little games fest. The folks from Hull ComSoc set it up and we had XBOXes, a Wii and a PS3 all getting some hammer. Apparently, although I'm not an expert, 8 player Gears of War is a blast. And you can chop people up with chain saws as well. Of course, I'm too mature to do that kind of thing. That, and I'm pretty sure that I'd be the one in pieces on the floor. I took the camera along and grabbed some snaps.

Everyone seems far too relaxed at the moment. Must be loading...

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.

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

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...

XNA Party Time

Thanks to help from Kieran at Rare, Jon and I managed to snag invites to the XNA party, which was held at a really swish nightclub.

We had to pick up the bus outside the Metreon centre

As soon as we got to  the club, had our ticket taken, hand stamped and passport checked (no - really, it was that exclusive) we grabbed some free food and drink and, old people that we are, headed for the chill out zone. Which was really, er, cool.

The blue ceiling was amazing

Microsoft do parties well. Very well. Sitting watching the world go by with people bringing you free drink and food works for me. After a while though, we thought we'd explore the place.

Blue with XBOXes

We wandered into one room and found a band playing.

Forget the "Wedding Singer" looks. These guys were seriously good. And loud.

And they had even more XBOXes for gameplay whilst you party

Finally, we went upstairs and took a look at the winners of the XNA Express challenge. These people had spent the last few days at the show creating a video game from scratch using only XNA Express Edition. The winner looked very snazzy, with real time lighting and all sorts. If the competition runs next year there will be somebody from Hull in the mix, you mark my words.

XNA Winners

Then, having drunk and eaten our fill, and with the band ringing in our ears it was out into the chill night for a brisk walk back up the hill to the hotel.