Puffin Spotting

Note to self. Get longer lens for camera..

This morning we went up to Bempton Cliffs to see if we we could see any puffins. We could.

Whitby and Robin Hood

A good place to eat a "Whitby Kipper". And a nice fish mobile too. But I think they would taste a bit woody.

Last time we went to Whitby it rained. All the time. But we still enjoyed it. So this time we went in the dry. Even better.

Whitby Bay looking good.

I think the captain was just showing off for us.

After we went to Whitby we stopped off at Robin Hoods Bay. No idea why it is called that, but it is a wonderful place.

A view of the bay

This season blue is the new black for fishing nets

Weekend Away

So much for Bliss....

We are having a weekend away. This weekend. So the car has been loaded with essentials and some beer (or is beer an essential?) and we have scooted off to Flamborough, a village on the coast about an hour's drive from our house. Arrived just in time to wander down to North Landing and take some pictures. The evening was very kind to us. The sea was like a mill pond and I got some rather nice shots.

You can't beat a sunset by the sea...

Upstaged by a dog...

Did the final Ace lecture today. Another splendid bunch of students and a good time had by all.

Danni warms up the audience...

Digby the digital dog drives them wild.

I don't know. You spend forty minutes showing off amazing technology, telling wonderfull jokes and so on. Then Digby comes on and kicks a ball and the crowd goes wild!

Anyway, it was great fun. I've put a little page together for those of you what want to have a go at the programming side of things. You can get the program I was writing from here. And you can find out about starting to program here.

Is this a photoblog?

Is this a photoblog?
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Update on 2006-07-07 12:34 by Rob

..and this is stage 2. All I need to do now is figure out where the text I typed has gone, and we are in busines.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Update on 2006-07-07 12:33 by Rob

I'm getting my new mobile phone geared up so that I can post to the blog from anywhere. This is stage one....

Too hot to post..

It is just too hot and sticky to post blogs at the moment. My room here is like an oven and even the fan (which was cheap from Tesco and sounds like a Jumbo Jet in an echo chamber) doesn't make things much better.

So I'm not going to post tonight. Except that I just have. So this whole blog thing has just not worked at all today.

I hate this weather.

As I was saying....

Did my first Webcast tonight.  Never done one before. You feel a bit stupid sitting in a room talking down a phone to a whole bunch of people you can't see, but you get used to it after a while. It is a bit scary though. There is a technique for dealing with presentations where you imagine the audience naked. In this case, they might actually have been - a horrible thought.

I'd very carefully scripted everything so that I knew just what to do and when to do it. So off I went.  Just about everything worked, although I did have to speed up a bit at the end to get to the finish without missing anything.  And I did tell my favourite joke as well, just as I promised. But of course I couldn't hear anybody laugh (so no change there). If you want to watch too, take a look here.

Ace Wednesday

Ace audience

Another day, another ACE talk.  Another great audience. I've no idea how Danni does it, but she gets in premium students each time. Anyway, today Digby sort of behaved himself, and of course got more applause than anyone else. I'm thinking about giving him his own blog on this site, but I'm not sure he needs the extra exposure..

Blurry Digby

Bye Bye Orange

I'm in the process of saying goodbye to an old friend. I've had a mobile phone with Orange since a long time ago, when black and white screens were cool. But now I'm leaving them and shacking up with T-Mobile. I gave Orange a chance, I spoke to their "Customer Retention" team (which sounds really scary) but at the end of the day they can't offer me what I want.

What I want is unlimited use of the internet on my mobile phone for 7.50 a month. I want to be able to use my mobile to browse the internet, check my email and download the odd file without worrying about the cost (which up until now has been horrendous). T-Mobile will let me do this. Orange won't. The nearest I can get with Orange (and this is a tip folks) is that if I use a Pay As You Go connection I can pay a pound for as much internet as I want for a single day. This is great for trips away and the odd demonstration. But I want the mobile internet as part of my life. So it is goodbye to Orange for a while.

I'm pretty sure that eventually Orange will have to come up with something similar, but I don't particularly want to wait. I've got a taste for mobile email and that means using the internet  a lot.  And I want it  now. So it is goodbye to my Orange contract and hello for a year with T-Mobile.

Lilies

Taken fresh this morning.

Why do I find this funny?

Today I got my new Lego mail order catalogue though the post.  (You think this is strange for some reason? Shame on you.) Anyhoo, I found the description for set 7880 "Duplo Big Pirate Ship" to be really funny. At the end it says "Includes four pirates and a monkey." For some reason that I can't explain I just find this amusing.

Hot Stuff for ACE week

 
What a great audience looks like.

I did another talk to a bunch of students from local schools today. The place was packed and it was a bit warm, but the whole thing went really well and the audience were great. For the first time I put Digby (my robot dog) on a black cloth. He loved it, he could find the ball and then fail to kick it really well.

Non-sensible Sunday

I've hidden a stormtrooper in this picture somewhere. Can you use your powers of observation to find him?

On Sunday sensible people stay in bed for a while, potter about, read the paper and generally relax in preparation for the coming week. They do not spend the day rising at 4:30 am, driving 220 miles to London, walking round a film and comic conference and then driving back again. Horay for sensible people. Meant the place was not so busy, and we got a chance to look around. And see a talk from two of the stars of Serenity, a good film that you really should have seen by now. I've put a whole bunch of pictures up on Flickr.

Open Day

Some of the audience, apologies to those who arrived after I took the picture...

We had an open day today. In spite (or perhaps because of) the football match we still had a good turnout. Those that came along seemed to have a good time, and they went away with wherewouldyouthink T shirts and a smile. Even though I told some of my jokes.....

Cool Photos

You find some amazing things on the internet. How about pictures taken with a lens made of ice?

Insight Insight

Did a talk at an Insight event today. I was telling all about mobile development to a bunch of academics. Great bunch of folks who seemed to enjoy the talk. I never got around to telling the orange for a head joke, but you can Google it if you like.  If you were at the talk, I promised a bunch of links and downloads. You can find them in the presentations part of the site here.  I got to stay in a proper english hotel room for a change.

For your information, hotel owners of the world, this is what we english expect to see in our rooms when we arrive. Not a minibar loaded with expensive items or a coffee filter thing which only makes one cup of luke warm drink. This is how you do it.  And don't forget the biscuits.

Saabarama

Drove down to Kidderminster today in a rented car. I like rented cars. They are always shiny and new and somebody else's problem if they go wrong. Today's car was a shiny Saab. It had loads of buttons, including one labeled ESP which I never dared press. It had separate air conditioning settings for the driver and passenger sides . Number one sun set his to minimum and I maxed mine out in an attempt to create a weather front down the middle of the car as we drove in to work.  It also had a feature which reminded me of one of my favourite jokes.

Driver : "I pressed this button and the car instantly drove straight into the sea!"
Mechanic : "That was the cruise control sir".

Anhyoo. Nice car.

CSI Wonderfullness

Best line in CSI tonight:

"You'll have to excuse me. I need to go calibrate a hot tub."

Jokewatching

I think I'm turming into the comedy equivalent of those birdwatching people who spend all day in a field with a pair of binoculors looking for the great crested whatnot. These folks think nothing of spending a whole day standing in the rain wating to get a glimpse of some rare species or other. They must leave home each day with hope burning in their heart that they will actually catch sight of their goal.

This is now the way that I watch comedy programmes. Last night I sat through a whole episode of "My Family". It must have been in the hope that at some point something funny was going to happen. Of course, it didn't. The audience seemed to think that it was hilarious. The same "joke" was repeated numerous times and they laughed obediently each time. I'm not sure how the BBC management do this:

Scene : TV Studio before recording an episode

Stage hand One :  "We've recording a comedy show next"
Stage hand Two: "OK, I'll get a fresh cannister of laughing gas and plug it into the air conditioning"
Stage hand One: "Wait, it's 'My Family', better make that two cannisters"

I can imagine the audience on the way home, having hysterics at their bus tickets and the markings on the road.