Spider Bite Confusion

I was reading the paper over breakfast this morning and there was a rather amusing article about all the horrible things that there are around the world which can make bad things happen to unwary travelers. Just the thing to read when you are safely back home from  a trip away.

In amongst descriptions of various ticks, snakes and jellyfish was an item about the Australian Black Funnel Web Spider. This is a truly nasty piece of work which has no fear of humans (but then why should it) and really poisonous venom. If you get bitten by this baby you can look forward to turning blue, foaming at the mouth, your hair standing on end and, mysteriously, depression.

I'm a bit unsure as to why they added depression to the list. It implies that of all the bad things on the page that could happen to you, a bite from the spider is the only one that would make you unhappy. Or that there are are spiders which make you happy when they bite you.

I'm confused.

Imagine that Live Writer Plugin

I've just made a plugin for Windows Live Writer which lets me easily post my Flickr pictures. There is a proper plugin available as well as mine, but mine does exactly what I want, which is quickly find the images and then add them to the post in the correct size. And anyway, I wanted to write my own to see how easy it is. So there.

One thing that I have learnt from the exercise is just how darned easy it is to string things together these days. Figuring out how to write the plugin wasn't too hard, and writing a .NET program to pull pictures off Flickr turned out to be much easier than I expected. So, without further ado, lets import some snaps:

 
This is one of the dancers at the Imagine Cup party in Agra

This is outside the hotel lobby. I just love those white cars

And this is your room, after the room tidying faries have been round..

Update on 2006-08-23 16:12 by Rob

I've put the files for the plugin into the Downloads area of this site. I'll post the source later, once I've tidied it up a bit.

Update on 2006-08-25 08:56 by Rob

The source is now available too. Enjoy.

Update on 2006-08-30 11:23 by Rob

The new ink enabled plugin is now available here.  You need a Tablet PC (of course) and there is no installer yet. But it does work....

My First Post from Live Writer

This is my first post using Windows Live Writer Beta. It is a program which lets you prepare blog entries off line and then submit them from your computer. I might use it a bit because it is somewhat easier to use than the interface on my usual provider, and it lets me write stuff when I'm not connected to the internet. It found the settings of my slightly non-standard blogging service straight off the bat, and so far I'm impressed. Although I've not actually pressed the publish button yet.

There is also an API which lets you develop blogging applications

Of course, what I really want is a version of this program which runs on my Pocket PC. Perhaps later...

Woksoever Forever

Had a wedding anniversary today.  Twenty four years of wedded bliss(tm). I bought my wife a romantic novel. She bought me a copy of the ACME Catalogue. We know each other pretty well by now.

As part of the celebrations we went out for a meal. We went to a place in Cottingham called WokSoEver.  You can see a video of it here. As the name implies, it is chinese, and they use a wok for cooking. The first thing we noticed when we walked through the door was the large proportion of chinese guests chowing down. We reckoned that this, and the fact that the place was pretty busy on a Monday night, was a good omen.

And so it turned out. The food was wonderful. We had the set banquet for two (there was actually enough for three) and everything was great. I always have difficulty putting names to any kind of dish more complicated than burger and chips, so I've no idea what some of the stuff was called.  But the ribs were great, the chicken things on sticks were great and the prawn toast was the best I've ever tasted.

The service was attentive and polite, the food was presented with style, and if you get there before half past seven they are presently doing a special deal which gets you a wonderful meal for less than ten quid a head.

If you live in this area and you like chinese food (or even if you don't) you should go there. Great place for students to take mum and dad when they visit. They have a lunch time menu too. And they'e won awards.

I suppose I'd better tell everyone

Every now and then you get a juicy bit of news which is of great advantage to those hearing of it. I've just got one of these and the urge to be a nice person and share it has got the better of me. If you are into teaching and computer science and stuff (and therefore in kind of competition with us at Hull I guess) you really should go and have a look here.

I reckon that it is a wonderful development that any computer science department should grab with both hands and run with.  We are soooo going to try and do just that...

Running Shoes

Note: This post is vaguely disgusting. Sorry, but it is.

When we signed up for the India trip I mentioned to Margot that I would need to take anti-malaria pills.

"They'll make you ill" she said

How right she was.  I've just stopped taking them and by jove I feel better.  In the list of side effects for the particular tablets I was using was a complaint which might give rise to a need for the items mentioned in the title of this post (not to put too fine a point on it). I got that all right. Fortunately, amongst the armoury of medications I had taken with me was a preparation which was intended to resolve this issue.

Imodium Plus. What a wonderful marketing name. Im from Immobilise, od from commode, and ium to make it sound vaguely scientific. Then add a plus to emphasise the power of the stuff.  Didn't do anything for me though (or perhaps it did - and the consequences of not taking it would have been much worse). One thing I found mildly amusing was an entry on the list of side-effects for Imodium. Apparently it can cause constipation. If only.

The rehydration stuff was wonderful though.  If you are going abroad you must take some. Only problem was that I got the "multi-flavour" pack, which included banana flavoured salty water. This is an experience you want to be only once in a lifetime.

The good news is that my affliction didn't actually stop me from doing anything,  and now that I've stopped taking the tablets I can feel things returning to normal.  The other good news is that all the time I was abroad I didn't get bitten by a single mosquito. Mind you, I was wearing the ultra strong repellent which also managed to dissolve my watch strap. I found this rather encouraging. If it can do that to plastic, it must do even more horrible things to insects.

Actually, thinking about it, I reckon I got off rather lightly. Even with all the fun and games with chemicals, it was still well worth it. And I would go again (but I might try a different malaria pill).

Quick Dry

I'm not sure if there is a Guiness Book of World Records category for tumble drier purchase, but if there is I want to submit an entry.

Our tumble drier broke last night. We've had it 21 years and it goes and fails on us.  Actually the drier itself is fine, but the bit which makes it stop was broken. We found this out after it had tumbled a bunch of clothes for three hours. Ooops.

Anyhoo, having been told in a couple of shops that they didn't have what we wanted (I reckon the bigger the store the less chance of it actually having the thing you went in for) we found a place that did. So we swooped. Into the shop, pick it up, take it to the till, pay for it, less than five minutes.

And it works. And it stops. Wonderful.

Pinball

We were driving back up to Hull today and I was listening to BBC Radio 2 (not a thing I do lightly - unless Terry Wogan is on). They have this feature where people get to pick their favourite tracks. This week it has been Harry Shearer, who is one of the voices of The Simpsons (he does Mr. Burns, Smithers and a whole bunch of others).

And one of the tracks that he picked was Pinball by Brian Protheroe. One of my all time favourites.  Got the single in the loft. What are the chances?

Of course as soon as I got home and on line it was time to try and track down the track. Google and Ebay have provided me with links to his new home page and a cheap copy of his greatest hits. And Napster now have one of his albums on there as well. Amazing.

(Oh, and you really must hear his track "Never Join the Fire Brigade" as well - wonderful stuff)

Good Weather for Ducks

On holiday today. Went to Slimbridge, a duck sanctury. On the way there it rained. And I mean really rained. We were driving through flooded roads and everything. Real frontier stuff. I was almost wishing I had one of those horrid 4x4 type cars that some people think are cool.  Almost, but not quite.

When we got there the place was pretty packed. Lots of little kids in shiny (but not for long) wellies. Lots of parents looking out of the restaurant window at the driving rain and wondering what on earth to do for the next three hours. As we walked in they announced our arrival with a fire alarm. Which was nice, and did make the queue for the food a lot shorter.

Fortunately, and for reasons that I can't fully explain, the weather brightened as I ate my baked potato with cheese (and very nice cheese too) so after our meal we were able to go out and take some pictures of the birds. I was trying a new "down and dirty" technique with the photographs which involves holding the camera very close to the ground. Makes the snaps a little more interesting.

Some birds (no idea of the names)

Some Flamingos (pretty sure on this one)

Probably ducks, and pretty big ones too

New fave shirt logo

New fave shirt logo
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Goodbye Mark

A few weeks ago Mark Johnston of Microsoft told us he was moving on from the Academic beat and going into to something to do with development. Very sad. Microsoft people do move around within the company rather a lot, it is just the way they do things.

We have worked with Mark for quite a while, definitely one of the good guys, and it will be quite a wrench to see him move on. Anyhoo, best wishes for the future Mark.

As a mark of respect I have sent him a set of "24 Top Trumps" cards.  There is no higher honour.

Carrying the Q1 UMPC

My Samsung Q1 is presently my bestest mate (this might change quickly, I'm very fickle). Wtih it's dinky keyboard and tiny size I keep getting it out and saying to myself  "Complete PC here you know, even running XP Professional". Now I've added extra memory it will let me do just about all the things I want it to. Lovely.

I got the little case and keyboard, but carrying it around was a problem, in that I wanted a bag for it. I got one but it was not quite right, so I've gone and got a Crumpler "McBaines Baby -M" which is a perfect (if rather snug) fit.

If you've not come across Crumpler bags they are worth investigating. I got one for number one daughter over a year ago when she got her first portable computer, and it has stood up amazingly well. She now uses it as her "everything" bag, just throwing in all the stuff she needs for lectures (including the PC) before she rushes out of her room.

Crumpler bags are tough, well made and have the most amazing things written on the labels. If you are after a nice bag for your shiny UMPC you could do a lot worse.

UMPC on the road

I said earlier that I was taking a Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC to India, in place of my tablet PC. I also said that I would let folks know how I got on with it.

The answers is, very well. When using it the biggest problem is the small screen. This is a major irritation and, although it doesn't actually stop you from doing anything, it does slow you down a bit and make it a bit harder to get things done. However, I don't really think that this is a problem. The whole point of the UMPC is that you would have it with you in situations where you would not want to have to carry a laptop, so in reality it is competing with nothing, not a notebook.

As a general computing device it is absolutely fine. Rock solid. More than responsive enough for general work and watching films. The little fan turns on every now and then to keep things cool, and from a hardware point of view it is absolutely top notch.  I bought the case and keyboard with goes with it, which makes using it in the field a lot easier. The keyboard has one of those pointing things in the middle which you can use as a mouse, and this works very well. I've not had one of these before, but I'm kind of a convert now. The only problem was that for the first hour or so I kept hitting the mouse buttons below the space bar, but I learned not to after a while.

I was able to use mains for most of the trip, but when I couldn't I was easily getting 2 hours of battery life out of the machine. That was whilst using WIFI and with no particular powersaving options set.

One the way back I was forced to put the device into my suitcase rather than carry it onto the plane. I was much more relaxed about doing this with the Q1; the device weighs so little it would not really be able to damage itself if it moved around in the case. As it turned out I was right, no trouble at all.

I really like the Q1 very much. When I got back to the UK the RAM upgrade that I had ordered was in the pile of post and I have now upgraded it to 1GB of memory. This is very easy to do and makes a huge difference to performance. I would be quite happy to have this as my main computer. I have monitors and keyboards at work and home and carrying the Q1 between the two is much easier than transporting the tablet I usually lug around. Only the slightly small 40GB disk makes this a bit tricky, but at present I'm considering how I'm going to manage all the PCs I seem to own, and put into place some kind of file sharing/sycnchronisation technology to address storage anyway.

One thing I have not done much, but will in the future, is use the UMPC as a lifestyle type device. I've put the Slingplayer software on it, so I can use it to watch TV as a client to my Slingbox (this works a treat) and I'm loading it up with some videos and music.  I'm also going to try out the tablet nature of the device and play with the touch keyboard. Great stuf.

Miles Roberts?

Today is the day we go home. We started early, very early, having heard terrible stories of delays at the airport. Our flight was delayed a bit, but fortunately not by much. The bad news for me was that lots of my precious toys had been placed in my unreliable suitcase, the one that likes to travel the world by itself. I was pretty much convinced that it would decide to visit some more interesting parts of the world and take all my stuff with it.

Anyhoo, you do what the safety instructions tell you. Or perhaps you don't. Having been given dire warnings of the consequences of taking any kind of hand baggage onto the plane, with just my passport, wallet and a paperback in my possession,  I was more than miffed to see people boarding the plane with rucksacks, laptop bags, you name it. 

So we settled down in our seats and waited as the plane pulled back from its stand and made ready for takeoff. And then it stopped for a minute. Then five minutes. Then the captain came on the intercom.

"I'm afraid we have to return to the stand and open up the hold. There is a problem with some of the luggage"

Drat. Triple drat. What kind of an idiot is causing delays? What kind of fool is holding everyone up? If I find out who it is I'll..... The intercom crackled again.

"Is there a Miles Roberts on the plane? Would Miles Roberts please make himself known to the cabin staff?"

Blarst. Could they mean me? I raised my hand. Turned out that the system had spotted three bags in the hold belonging to "Miles Roberts". Somewhere along the line my name and initials had got scrambled to make another person, who was not on the plane but who had his baggage in the hold.  I gave the purser my passport with the luggage numbers on it, which sorted that out and we were able to get airborne. Curse that suitcase.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, if you except the one hour wait at Heathrow for a place to disembark, and I was able to catch the tube to Kings Cross and then walk straight onto a wonderful Hull Trains locomotive for a very pleasant three hour ride up to Hull and home.

...and the winners are...

Today was the ground announcement of the winners of the software deveopment competition.  In the end the team from Norway came third, Brazil was second and Italy came first.  Well done folks, and good look with your applications in the future.

Joe Wilson and the winning teams

After that there was the grand Imagine Cup party, but unfortunatly I was feeling a little too fragile and anyway we needed to be on the road at 3:00 the following morning, so I thought I'd stay in the hotel room and sample a little Delhi hospitality. So I ordered a burger from room service. After 20 minutes there was a knock at the door. An immaculately dressed waiter with white gloves handed me his business card and then deployed what I can only descibe as the best presented burger I have ever seen. It arrived on a trolley, with four different kinds of mustard, proper HP sauce and all the trimmings. And coke. Talk about a morale booster.

Delhi for burger

It was delicious.  So, after packing all my precious electronic goodies into my suitcase (there is a security alert on at the moment and I won't be able to take any toys into the plane) I was able to turn in feeling extremely well fed.

Dash to Delhi

Today was the day of the dash to Delhi. When we leave our lovely hotel in Agra and head of to a, hopefully equally lovely, hotel in Delhi. I'll miss this place. Everyone has been really nice to us, and it has the best bowling ally I've ever been on. We had to get up at 4:30 am to get on the bus. The organisers rather thoughtfully set off all the phones at 4:20, 4:25 and 4:35. Thanks folks.

The journey back was much smoother than the journey out. This driver didn't use his horn anything like as much as the other guy, and this seemed to make us go faster. The slowest bit was the road around Delhi to the hotel. This was the busiest road I've ever seen, with all the drivers ignoring just about every rule of the road and camel powered trailers mixing it with luxury coaches, motorbikes, mopeds, Mercedes cars, cows and pedestrians.

Family transport

Then we got to the hotel and my luggage decided to go walkabout. My suitcase has a kind of wanderlust. Everywhere I go it finds a way to escape from me. It has been around Los Angeles and Las Vegas and I am now more surprised to see it than not. This time it vanished from the coach. Fortunatly it turned up in time for tea, and a change of clothes.

In the afternoon we watched the Software Development presentations. By gum, but some of them were wonderful. What young people with drive and imagination can achieve is amazing. Whenever I go to one of these things I reflect that the the future is actually in quite safe hands. And the presentation skills of these people are highly impressive. To have such confidence in front of an audience is just amazing.  We didn't find out who the winner is, that comes tomorrow. I tried to stay for the presentation design and short film parts of the competition, but the early hour and the lure of the most luxurious room I've ever had got the better of me and so I caught the shuttle bus back to my hotel and turned in.

Hard Bargaining

We had a special party event tonight. There were dancers, puppets, stalls, even someone selling magic tricks (I bought three). The atmosphere was great.

Party night

There was a chap selling small bags. Since I've not got anything for the ladies back home I thought I'd take a look. I picked up a couple of likely looking specimens.

"How much" I asked, handing the bags to him.
"You want?" he said, putting them into a carrier bag ready for me to take. Then he named a price.
"I've not got enough money" I said. This was true. I'd blown it all on magic tricks. Story of my life.
"How much have you got?" he asked. I opened my wallet to show him. He deftly removed the notes he wanted, left me around 50 rupees which I could use for tipping purposes, and let me go on my way.

What a salesman!

Taj Mahal

OK. Let’s try a few words out for size. Huge. Beautiful. Awesome. Blimey. Hmm. Let’s start again. In England we think we can do impressive buildings. We’ve got a few lying around which are pretty cute. I’ve been to some of them, Castle Howard, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Millennium Dome, etc etc. But now I’ve been to the Taj Mahal and, sorry guys, this one caps you all.

It is not just the scale, the colours, the materials, but it is the design of the place. This will probably seems bonkers to you, but if you want to look at something where design is everything, go see the Taj Mahal. The design of the place is doing things with your mind before you even know it.

When you arrive the only way you can get your first view of the Taj is through a particular gate in the redstone courtyard. The arch is carefully proportioned to give you the perfect view of the dome which unfolds before you and then recedes slightly in a way which seems magical, but is actually some very clever manipulation of your viewpoint as you move through the gate.

When you get your breath back you can begin to take in the shape and proportions of the dome and the balance of light and shade as it falls on the carefully positioned marble and semi-precious stones laid into it. If you stand and watch, as the sun moves through the sky the shadows on the surface change slightly, so that it looks different.

Look away for a few minutes and then look again and you will see a yet another Taj Mahal. When the mists roll in from the river at the rear of the Taj Mahal it appears to float above the ground because of the way it is built on a platform above the grounds. In the moonlight it is said that it appears to glow. (we didn’t get to see this unfortunately, but one day I’m going to go back and check).

The redstone buildings around the Taj Mahal are apparently designed to be the imported “ugly sisters” that you would place around your daughter so that she is the one that gets picked by a calling suitor. I must admit the guide invented this analogy, not me. Of course any one of them on its own would be pretty special, but next to the Taj Mahal…

The architect has used every trick in the book to make a building just look beautiful in every sense. By design.

Of course I took a bunch of pictures and of course they don’t do the place justice, but here they are anyway.

The money shot

One of the “ugly” sisters

Side view

Another ugly sister

View of the river

Akbar’s Tomb

Today was the big day. Taj day. Been looking forward to this for a while. It isn't every day that you go to see one of the seven wonders of the world (and if it was, the following week would be pretty lacklustre I guess). Anyhoo, today is the day that we were see the Taj (which I think means "crown" by the way).

Now with any great dish it is important to have an appetiser, to get things started. It just so happens that the Imagine Cup organisers had set one up for us. But we would have to work for it. Just outside Agra, where we have been staying, is another mausoleum called Akbar's Tomb. The tomb was built in the 1600’s and word was that it was in need of a little restoration, so to speak. Microsoft had volunteered the services of a whole bunch of students and mentors, i.e. us. So after breakfast we piled onto busses to drive out to Sikandra and the tomb, to go and give a hand.

I was a bit concerned about this; a place can get a bit overgrown and dusty in 400 years. However, I needn’t have worried. When we arrived the group was split into four teams, sweepers, gardeners, cleaners and restorers. The sweepers team looked a little depleted, so myself, Andy and Mark joined up with them and off we went.

Andy and Mark hard at work. Or something

It took me back to my days of vacation work in a frozen pea factory, where I arrived at sunrise, was given a brush and told to sweep up, spent most of the day hiding from the foreman and then returned my still clean brush at the end of the shift. It seems that I still have those skiving skills and they have now become a kind of reflex, and so I was able to give the appearance of doing something useful whilst probably not achieving a great deal. The problem was that I had to keep stopping and taking photographs (not something I used to do in the pea factory). The place was beautiful, and on a scale that was breathtaking.

The entrance to the mausoleum

There were lush gardens, peacocks, monkeys, a beautiful courtyard, etc ,etc. It was truly wonderful. The heat was quite oppressive though, and I was glad for the chance to take a break from my non work and get a drink. The restorers had been really busy, you could see the stonework where they had dug out the old mortar and replaced it with new. I felt a bit guilty about not doing that task, I’ve a feeling that the wind has  probably already undone most of my brushwork, but now a little piece of an Indian monument is forever Imagine Cup thanks to them.

Monkeys finding shade

One corner

View from the top

After the break we climbed wearily back into the bus for the ride back to the hotel. I lay down on my bed for a couple of seconds of rest. Two hours later I woke up and it was time for the Taj.

Some you win....

Well, today was the day when we found out whether Team 3 Pair had made it into the final 12 students. After spending the morning presenting their idea in the expo part of the competition we all went in to the large hall to find out who had been picked. Sadly, 3 Pair was not one of the names that was called out, so for the UK the 2006 competition is over

Rather sad really. This evening we were in the bar pondering life, the universe and everything,  I did feel it necessary to remind everyone that life hasn't been that unkind. Staying in one of the best hotels in India, drinking free beer, with a trip to the Taj Mahal tomorrow, if this is hard times, give me more...

Team 3 Pair did a first rate job. The code they wrote, the presentations they gave, the passion that they brought to the project all do them enormous credit. I am soo proud of all of them. But they didn't make it. Such is life. For them and all the teams that didn't make it today I give you a couple of lines from If, a poem by Rudyard Kipling, one of my favourites.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...