Another profound question

Do people who write smoke signals work under a "nom de plume"?

Repeat Offenders

We had another open day today. Some of the candidates that turned up had been at our earlier one in November. I fretted a bit about using the same appalling jokes as on their earlier visit, so I took special care to add some new and untried material to my bit. Oh well. Although the ET joke seemed to go down OK. Thank you for coming folks, and I hope you all enjoyed the day.

I also went up town first thing, and took the little camera. The light was very good.

Right in the middle of Queen Victoria Square. What are the chances eh?

View from the car park

Profound Question

Do inoffensive shoes have the sole of tact?

Black Marble XNA Followup

I said to the folk at the XNA talk last night I'd post some followup material. You can find the presentation here and the program files here.

After the talk I had a great chat with some students about the business of computer science. I said I'd make some notes in my blog about the subject, but instead I've added the material to our Where Would You Think community site. You can find my thoughts, plus links to the books that I mentioned, here.

Vistafied

Got a spare quid? Near a newsagent? Nip in and buy a copy of "Windows Vista - The Official Magazine". It is only 99p, so you'll even get change. Then open the magazine to page 86. And there I am. Some time back I got a request for some "picture tips" for the magazine. And a photo of me looking suitably heroic. And they've printed my mugshot and one of the tips. Wowzer. Fame at last. They've even put my blog URL on the page. (if you have read the magazine and followed the link here, well done and feel free to stick around - take a look at Trip Hazard next - new episode coming soon)

I've been using Vista for a while and really rather like it. Every now and then I find something new and wonderful that it does (like the search feature in explorer. I've just found 2194 files of mine that contain the word cheese. Took six seconds to do the search- fantastic).

Since I'm now supposed to be a Vista expert I'll post the odd Vista tip as I find it.

Black Marble XNA

Today I've been on the road, over to Leeds to give a talk about XNA as part of a Black Marble Community event. Thanks for inviting me folks. I'm going to put a bunch of XNA resources up tomorrow, for now I'm off to bed..

PS/3? Perhaps Not for Me.

So the PS/3 launch date has been announced. And the price. For the privilege of getting the machine five months late we suckers in the UK are having to pay nearly half as much again as people in other, luckier, parts of the world.

I was talking to a chap in one of the Game shops on Friday. He reckons that they will have to open the shop up early and get us to queue first thing in the morning just to reserve the thing. Not to buy it. So that means two early mornings and a whole slab of cash to play slightly better looking racing games than ones I have already. And do you know, for the first time in a long history of early adopting, I might not bother.

I've bought launch versions of both of the previous to Playstations. And the PSP. I have a "Sony reflex" which means that if I'm shopping for electronic goodies the Sony one is usually what I end up with. I really like their stuff. I even got one of their dogs for heaven's sake (and then they stopped making the Aibo - something I've never forgiven them for). But the PS/3 isn't really floating my boat just at the moment.  I know that the power is awesome. I know that it will play Blu-Ray movies in HD. I know that Sony are losing a fortune on each box that they sell.  And I know that it will be successful (in Japan at any rate).

But at the moment I'm OK for consoles. The XBOX 360 lets me play good quality, high definition, games. The Wii lets me just have fun. And as things stand I'm not sure what the PS/3 would bring to the party, apart from a bigger hole in my bank balance. Once I've bought the console, an extra controller, an HD lead and some movies and games I'm going to be out around 700 quid and I'm not sure that I'm up for that. Plus I know that I'm being ripped off just for living in the wrong country, and it will only get cheaper in the future....

Ho hum. Perhaps I'll change my mind. I'm keeping my name on the list, and I'm going to start a sort of PS/3 sinking fund and sell a few bits on ebay. But at the moment I just don't feel that motivated.

The Busiest Man in the World?

Been mucho busio today(o?). All our new modules start this week, and I've not yet finished marking exams and coursework from last semester. So it was give a bunch of lectures, mark a load of exam scripts and then stagger home to write some more on the Micro Framework book.

Sometimes I wish there were more than one of me, so that I could share the work out amongst us (there have been movies about this kind of idea). I'd be the best  looking and smartest version of course.

I thought that everyone had musical socks

Some discussion around the place about musical socks. Apparently not everyone knows what they are. How surprising. Perhaps the rest of the world has not reached the heights of culture and refinement that we take for granted at Chateaux Miles.

Musical socks have a small piezo sounder and a little circuit that allows them to play a reedy, square wave, rendition of some out of copyright ditty or other. My socks play the one that goes "Dee dah dah dah, dah dah dah...". When you squeeze one part of the little plastic envelope they are sealed into this wonderful music issues forth. Mine tend to go off when I cross my legs for some reason.

And this is why you should not wear them in bed, no matter how cold your feet get. Being woken up at 2 am by a muffled, eery tune wafting out of the bottom of the duvet is not an experience you'll want. Take it from me.

Rules for Life no. 545 of 1099

Never go to bed wearing musical socks.

Graduation Daze

Did a couple of graduation ceremonies today. I'm the chap who stands up at the start and gives a 10 minute spiel on how to behave, when to stand up, sit down, wear your hat etc etc. Great fun. Had two very well behaved audiences who did everything right. Thanks folks. We also had a couple of really good honorary graduates; Jane Tomlinson and Michael Apted.

Free food and drink for our graduands

I think I'm going to have to retire my opening joke that I use at the graduation ceremonies. It never gets a laugh and I think it might be turning audiences against me. I'm not going to reproduce it here, ask a Hull graduate if you want to find out what it is.....

After the show is over

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.

Name In Print

My name is actually now on the web page for the book that I'm involved with. And I've also signed and sent off the contracts. All I have to do now is the writing part......

Snow on the Road

..and so there is

Email Etiquette

I sent some emails out last week and got no reply. Nothing.

There is a difficult etiquette issue here. Do I assume that the message has not got through? Do I assume that the person who received it does not think the message worthy of reply or would rather not talk to me?

This is tricky. If I send a further message saying "Did you get my email?" I force them into responding when they'd probably rather not. If I do nothing, and the mail didn't get through, then they might think me rude for not getting in touch, or I miss out on a conversation which may benefit both of us.

In the end I solved the problem by checking my junk email folder. Which of course is where the responses had ended up. I'm no further forward on the etiquette issue, but I'm going to check through my junk email more frequently....

New Soul

One of my favourite books since forever is "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. It recounts the story of an attempt by a bunch of engineers to build a new microcomputer for an ungrateful company.

Whilst the technology described is now very elderly (the book was originally published in 1981) the story of what drives engineers to create is still bang up to date. So, get the book and read it. Even (or perhaps especially) if you know nothing about computers.

Then spool forward 26 years in time and read Dreaming in Code. I've not got it yet myself yet, but a review which compares it to "Soul" is good enough to get me onto the Amazon site and flashing my credit card.

Building the Future

We had an admissions Open Day today. As is our won't on such occasions, we put on a hearty buffet and sat around with candidates and their parents eating sandwiches and chewing the fat.

One of the parents made the point that he thought Computer Scientists were an enviable bunch because we are "building the future". I nodded and smiled, and managed to avoid mentioning the half a day I spent a while back trying to get Aero Glass running on Vista, so my windows would have semi-transparent borders.

"It is an awesome responsibility" I managed to reply eventually. And then changed the subject.

Eight Hours Driving

Well, we were on the road at 6:00 am, over the Humber Bridge at 6:20 and in our first traffic jam at 6:35. Fortunately we managed to get around this road closure (I felt sorry for the big trucks that had no chance of turning round) and make it with a few minutes to spare.

It was nice to see some people that we haven't seen in a while, the circumstances were not the happiest, but the weather was kind to us, there were lots of flowers, and the service was a celebration of a good life lived to the full, which is how it should be.

And then it was time to get back into the car for another four hour drive back to the homestead.

Best Laid Plans

We had to be somewhere else today. Not a particularly happy somewhere else, in that we are attending a funeral, but a somewhere else nonetheless.

Unfortunately the weather had other ideas. We set off as planned for our overnight stop and we turned the radio to the traffic news, as you do. At the Humber Bridge we stopped to have another listen. The RDS system that automatically flips between travel news on different stations was having a field day. We didn't manage to hear the end of four different reports. And all of them were telling us that today was a bad day to travel. Basically, all the roads between where we were and where we wanted to be were full/broken.

So we went home and had some fish and chips. It will mean an early start tomorrow to get where we want to be, but I don't think tonight was meant for traveling.

The Earth in Your Pocket

Where I work. All it took was the search term you see.

If you have a Windows Mobile device, and are lucky enough to be on an "all you can eat" GPRS tariff, you really should get a copy of Virtual Earth Mobile. It is a free download from here. It lets you search for places anywhere in the world and then display them in map or aerial photo view. What is really impressive for me is that the search facility works really well. I banged in my home address and it took me straight to a view of our house. With my car in the drive.

Performance over GPRS is a tad slow, but the pictures are worth waiting for. It will also do route planning and connect to a GPS device (although I've not tried that). And all for free. How can you go wrong?