New Trip Hazard Installment

There is now a new Trip Hazard installment. Enjoy.

Film Pitch

I've had this idea for a film about a Country and Western singer who starts out by singing on kitchen floors.

I'm going to call it "Walk the Lino".

He who Dares Loses

In an effort to stop my Archos AV500 from becoming a paperweight in a week or so when all the protected content stops working I today put the pedal to the metal and made it into a paperweight a bit early. The idea was that perhaps a complete formatting might make it work as a Windows Media device. I'd still have to retransfer all my protected content over, but at least I would know where I stood....

Wrong. My Archos just took the formatting in its stride, destroyed all my content and then refused to work anyway.  I feel like one of those high priests who have just despatched a couple of virgins to the gods and found that it is still raining. Blarst.

Archos technical support are adamant that it is a hardware problem and are suggesting I take it back to the shop. I think this is because they have a sadistic desire to see me tangle with Dixons customer support. Or perhaps they are rather cunningly inviting me to live with the problem.  Not sure what to do now.

.NET Micro Framework

This is the technology which powered my wayword Sumo robot. If only I'd calibrated those servos correctly......

Anyhoo,  I've set up a resource centre for this lovely new device on these hallowed pages. You can find it here.

Managed Code Archos

My portable media player thingy is misbehaving. It won't let me synchronise with Napster. This is a potentially serious problem, in that if it doesn't get to say Hi to mom every now and then all the protected content on the disk will stop working.  This is where the idea of renting access to music rather than actually buying it once and for all starts to come to bits.  I've surfed the internet and quite a few people have the same problem as me, but nobody knows how to fix it. I've been in contact with Archos technical support and they asked if the cable was plugged in correctly. Which was rather irritating.

Seems to me that every now and then a progam in the device goes loopy and tromps all over memory, corrupting things. Sometimes the machine will stop for no reason, or the screen will change colour without being asked. I can live with these problems, but if it won't play my music that is another matter. What they need is managed code. This is a layer between the vulnerable system and the program which is running. One of the jobs of a managed code environment is to stop a program from going bananas and writing into random areas of memory.  If this happens the managed bit just stops the program from doing any damage, like mum would stop you from putting your hand into the gas fire. 

It looks as if I will have to wipe the entire machine and start over. And then live in fear of it happening again with no guarantee that it won't. Or start buying records that I really like and stop renting.

Touch of Glass

Quite like the pig

Today finds us in full on tourist mode as we visit a glass centre. They make stained glass and all manor of good stuff.  Very interesting and skillfull. I buy some earings (but not for me). In the afternoon we try to take in Flamborough North Landing, but the amount of fun you can have (and photographs you can take) is somewhat limited by horizontal rain.

Looks good even in drizzle

Whetby

Whitby Harbour Entrance

We went to Whitby today. A lovely place. Even when it rains all the time. Whitby is a good place to visit for fish and chips, an amazing Abbey, bracing air, old style sweetshops. And Dracula. The best time to go is when they are having a Goth festival. They weren't having one today, but we did find some fun goth stuff in some of the shops. My favourite was a sticker which read "Heaven won't have me and Hell is afraid I'll take over". Nearly bought one for the minister.

Improve your Satnav

We went away for the weekend today. Margot lent us her place in a little seaside village and so we packed up our bucket and spades and headed off into the sunset. (actually we went east, but you get the idea).

We used the Gizmondo to find our way to our destination. Sadly the Gizmondo company is no more (someone will have to make a film about what went on there - probably starring Euan McGregor) but the device itself works very well. It can be fitted with a SatNav program which works nicely. But satnav is not perfect. Whilst the system is quite happy to give friendly route advice in a very ladylike voice when it can tell where it is, when the location signal dissappears the device goes eerily silent. I don't like this. It causes you to career wildly off course - working on the basis that "she would have said something if we were going wrong". I'd much prefer it if she said:

"Sorry, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank at the moment, you do what you think is right and I'll get back to you later."

- when the going gets tough. Whilst we are on with improvements, I'd also like her to give me supportive advice as I drive along to the next junction where I have to change direction.  Rather than just counting down the distance she should say things like :

"No, don't turn down there. It leads to a farmyard where a bloke in a tractor will laugh at you whilst you fail to perform a three point turn in front of a herd of Fresians. "

- just to keep me happy. And when her battery goes flat she should say something like:

"I'm going out now. I may be some time." before shutting down, rather than falling silent and causing us to go the wrong way round Bridlington.

Anyhoo, we are here now. And the weather forecast is rubbish.

Filming the Imagine Cup

 
Tiny camera on big tripod. Apparently this is the right way round to do it...

Microsoft came to see us today in the persons of Mark and Kevin. We had some high level discussions (well, we were on the third floor for some of them) and Mark took some video of the Imagine Cup Team for a Channel 9 video he is making.  Great fun.

Instant Beans on Toast?

The press is all agog about how there are plans to make that old instant meal, beans on toast, even more instant. There were lots of anguished comment in the papers about how people are now getting so lazy that even opening a tin, emptying the contents into a pan,  heating the beans and then adding them to some toast is now beyond them.

So the plan is to make something you whack into the toaster and then just eat.  I'm not sure how they can stop the beans from all sliding off the bread into the innards of the toaster, but they must have some kind of super, techno, way that they are dealing with this.  I've a horrible feeling it will end up being like a Pop Tart but with beans in. Which is deeply scary.

Everybody seems to be taking a "galloping laziness" view on this one, but I think the truth is different. The thing about the new age beans on toast is that one person can cook enough for themselves,  at the time when they personally want to eat. 

When we had beans on toast it was as a family. Mum would come home from work and open the tin and make tea whilst dad sat next door reading the paper and making sure he was well versed in world events (the role of fathers everywhere it seemed to me). Then we would all pile into the kitchen and consume the bounty that mother nature and Heinz had provided for us. I would get told off for not wanting my beans actually on the toast (I prefer to eat it separately - OK?) and then mum and I would wash up whilst dad and sister sat next door watching TV and making sure they were well versed in events in Crossroads.

This new version of the food means that you can feed you, yourself, at any time you like. The individual portions mean that there is no need for everyone to sit around the table at the same time. Instead family members can scuttle down into the kitchen in a convenient commercial break, prepare the stuff and then zoom back to their own telly or computer screen.  This removes the need for conversations like:

"How was it at school today Rob?"
"Don't ask.."

.. and so on. Sometimes I fear for the future.

Building a better ToDo

I seem to have lots of things to do since I got back from MEDC.  For me personally, the standard method for dealing with things to do is to make a todo list.  The snag is that the list is getting rather long. It has occurred to me that it might be quicker to make a "not to do" list and then just do everything else. This is going rather well.

Rob Miles Not To Do List

• Appear on Big Brother
• Write another Visual Basic Program (unless the money is really good)
• Get a personalised number plate on my BMW
• Get a BMW
• Start buying water in bottles
• Start buying wine costing more than a fiver a bottle. No, make that four quid.
• Sign up for Sky Sports
• Watch Big Brother

And I can be absolutely sure that none of these is going to get done. Probably a bit like some of the things that are on my ToDo list.....

That rings a bell

I was sitting in my office today when the phone rang. So I picked it up and answered it. But it continued to ring. I pressed a few buttons on it and was mildly annoyed to hear the dialing tone. I seem to have an office phone which is both ringing and also giving me the dial tone. Most mysterious.

I was just trying to wrap my head around this concept when the ringing stopped. Thank goodness. I picked up my mobile phone and glanced at the display out of idle curiosity. I seemed to have missed a call recently. Interesting. I'm sure I would have heard it ring.......

I'm blaming jetlag for this. That and the fact I've got new mobile and office phones recently.

Re-arming

 
..but don't leave it loaded

I was most upset when my gun broke. I've hardly used it.  Instead of making a healthy "thwack" when I pull the trigger all I get now is a weedy "twang". Not right. I'm not really into guns. Unless they are five quid from Tesco and fire foam bullets you can use to shoot at Channel 4 presenters.  Of course I've taken the gun to bits. I found that a small part of the trigger locking had failed. The plastic had just given way. I put it down to my habit of leaving the gun loaded, ready for action, at all times. After all, you never know when Davina McCall is going to pop up next. Unfortunately this stresses the trigger and so after a while the gun breaks itself.

So today I got another gun. Same type, so I can reuse the ammo. This one is going to be left unloaded. If you arm the mechanism it becomes a bit like one of those Samurai swords which have to be blooded once you have taken them from their sheath.  Fortunately, with Big Brother on the horizon I'm not going to be short of targets.

Home

Back home today. Me, a couple of cases, a bag of washing and a whole heap of jetlag. It is nice to be back, even though the cloud was so low that any lower and it would have been underneath the runway. Which would have made the landing even more exciting than it was.

Heading Home

Will I ever stay anywhere as posh again?

Well, today I packed up all my stuff ready for the journey back. Every time I go abroad I end up buying a new bag to take stuff home with me. This trip was no exception. I got a rather racy red number (should show up well on the luggage belt) for 14 dollars into which I can put all the presents that I bought for the folks back home. Just to make sure that they are sincerely pleased to see me.

Then, having purchased the jelly beans for number on daughter, it was off to the airport. 

This is the 'Vegas arrivals. Note how there are slot machines so that you can gamble even as you wait for your suitcase to appear.

I took me a while to time this photograph correctly, but take a close look at the screen at the far end and....

 
Imogen Heap is playing 'Vegas!

Very surprised (and impressed) to see that Imogen Heap is playing 'Vegas. We saw her live in York a few weeks back and she was jolly good. If you are in 'Vegas you should drop by. Or you could save the travel and just buy the album "Speak for Yourself".

After that surprise it was onto the plane for the journey back. I've found a way to survive long journeys. It is called the Archos AV500 and Veronica Mars technique. I managed to watch five episodes whilst waiting on various planes and in airports. If you have not seen it before, I'd advise you to take a look. Take a bit of Buffy, a pinch of OC and add just a smidgeon of Twin Peaks and you have Veronica Mars. Snappy, sassy and set in a High School campus.  More stereotypes than an advertising excutives handbook, but quite fun nonetheless.

And then back home for blessed sleep.

Bus Trip

 
Being on top of a bus does have its advantages...

On the final day of my visit to 'Vegas I thought I'd take a trip around. Now, I always try to make use of public transport when I go abroad. In the 'states this is usually a good deal because taxis can be expensive and you do see a lot more of the local life by catching a bus.  So I did. I bought a five dollar ticket which entitled me to a day's worth of travel and set off to take in the sights. And the Las Vegas Outlet Mall where I planned to buy some trousers. What a jetset lifestyle I have eh?

Anyhoo, I got on the bus, driven by someone whose nametag said was called "Jimmy". Jimmy obviously went to the "Attilla the Hun" school of customer relations. He contrived to be rude, unhelpful and unpleasant in around five words and three gestures. Then someone on the bus took a bit of a turn and had to go and sit down for a while at the stop I got on. Jimmy first ignored the problem, then went outside and shouted at them for being unwell, then, when the person had wandered off in search of a cool drink, called for an ambulance, stopped his bus and threw us all off onto the pavement.  Nobody liked Jimmy much. He seemed to me to have had a very unhappy childhood. At least, I hope he did.

His replacement, who was so efficient I've forgotten his name, turned up in a virtually empty bus a couple of minutes later.  And the really good news was that I got to sit on the top deck, in the front, with a wonderful view of the strip. And a camera.  I took loads (and I mean loads) of pictures. There are a bunch on my Flickr site.  Didn't buy any trousers though. Such is life. When evening came I went out again with my cameras, just to get a few final snaps.

 
The view outside my hotel at night

I made it as far as the Harley Davidson Cafe before I caught a bus back. Not driven by Jimmy.

Sumo Loser

My robot doing what it does best: running away.

For the last couple of days I've been working away on my Sumo robot. I got the kit on Monday and tonight we had the finals. The robots are really neat. You can program them using C# and they are powered by the rinky dink .NET Micro Framework. I wasn't sure about winning on the performance front, so I thought I'd go for style. A moving graphical display looked like it might hit the spot and so I got one and strapped it on the top of my competitor.

Turned out that style was the only point on which I had any chance of scoring. In the competition my robot did something that it had never done in the many seconds of intensive testing that I did before the event. It developed a taste for just piling out of the circle as quickly as possible. Perhaps it was obeying some higher "survival" programming which I was unaware of. At any rate it meant that for me, the game was over very quickly. It is perhaps just as well, some of the competitors looked to be deeply scary, pouncing on their prey and forcing them out of the ring.

The good news is that I got together with a bunch of fellow "second placers" and we set up a kind of "off piste" fighting arena where we just turned them loose. This was great fun to watch, even though my robot never actually won anything, it did manage to lose with a certain style…..

Robot Brawling

The Hand of Fate

I've always found probability interesting. Last week in the paper someone was writing about the way that things always even out, but over the very long run. You would expect that if you toss a coin 100 times you would get 50 heads and 50 tails but apparently this is very unlikely to be the case. In fact, you could find that you get many more heads than tails. And yet, just because you've had more tails this does not meant that the next toss is more likely to be heads (because it is "their turn") or tails (because they are popular at the moment).

I've been thinking about this and it makes a kind of sense. If you could use the fact that there have been 50 heads and 49 tails to predict that the 100^th coin toss will definitely produce a tail then the coin toss is not random, and therefore something is wrong with fate. I even got to thinking that some part of the universe keeps track of the ups and downs of randomness and makes sure that things level out over the long run. Actually, this is unlikely to be the case, in that what is really going on is that stuff is just happening, and we are trying to draw conclusions from what we see. At the moment I'm in Las Vegas, a town built on probability, and it is interesting to see that all the roulette wheels have displays which show the most recent results to "help" the player decide which number is going to turn up next. As if.

Anyhoo, I got an even bigger does of probability today when I picked up a raffle ticket for a prize draw at one of the events here. I loudly told everyone around me that I might as well tear the ticket up right now because I never, ever win raffles. A fact that struck me as particularly unfair as the prize was a pretty good one – a shiny mobile phone. Of course, I ended up winning. The only snag is that the phone doesn’t actually work properly back home in England, but there is always ebay……

Rob Speaks

Do you have those "What on earth am I doing here?" or "How did I get into this?" kind of moments very often. I don't have too many and fortunately, being of a literal frame of mind, I can usually answer the questions with "Giving a talk" and "Via the lobby". I had one of those today though, just before I gave my presentation. I've met people who say airily "Oh, I never get nervous before I give a talk". Well I do. I regard it as part of the preparation process. I reckon that a certain amount of concern about the way that things are going to turn out does tend to improve the final product. When I fly home on Friday I want the pilot to be fretting to some degree about the success of the take off and landing parts.

So there's nothing wrong with getting nervous, although I have found that if you turn into a quivering wreck on stage this can cause the audience to lose some of their respect for you. I reckon the key to nailing presentation nerves is preparation. If you have confidence in your knowledge of what you are going to speak about, have tested all the props and demos, and have contingency plans if they don't work, then you can just get on and do the job. So, after some pacing of the stage, the appointed time comes and off we go. And just about everything works. And the audience seem to like it. And I finish on time (always a plan if yours is a session immediately before lunch). And they even clapped at one point. Thanks folks.

MEDC 2006 Gets Going

Went to the keynote of MEDC 2006 today. The first thing that caught my eye was the way that Platform Builder has now been tied very neatly into Visual Studio 2005. Platform Builder is the tool that you use to buld platforms (well - duh). More specifically, it lets you create a custom version of Windows CE for the particular target device. You use it to select which features (Media Player, Compact Framework etc etc) and it then builds the stuff that you put into your device to make it work. Previously this has been a slightly mysterious affair, with strange incantations and tools being required. But now it is looking a lot simpler with a new project option for studio (is there nothing this tool can't do) that does most of the grunt work and some very nice editing tools to help you with the rest of the job.

Startup Slide

Then it was on to a demonstration of how easy it is to build embedded systems these days, with a Point of Sale cash till being created on the fly out of various components. The next thing they mentioned was pure music to my ears. The .NET Micro Framework was announced. This is not going to be micro. Quite the reverse. It is a continuation of a development which started a couple of years ago, when a small company took the technology that makes the Spot watch work and then deployed it as a general purpose controller that you could program in C#. At the time I got very excited about this technology, but they unfortunately it all went quiet. But now it is back with a whack and Microsoft properly behind it. They were even giving away robots powered by .NET micro (I managed to get one and it will be taking part in the robot sumo competition on Wed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this technology is going to be very big indeed and will be super for teaching.

Camera's eye view of the keynote

After that, the stuff about the new Mobile Patterns and Practices was a little less exciting, but it is none the less very useful. One of the things that it provides is a set of libraries which allow you to create completely different layouts for different screen sizes and orientations. These are selected automatically as required, and should mean the end of things on the screen getting into a mess when you change the orienation of your device from landscape to portait.

My robot, ready for action.