You may have noticed a slight dip in the quality of my blog this week while I have been away on my so called holidays. The posting have in fact been made by the 'QuipMaster 3000', a program that uses advanced artificial intelligence and third generation humour algorthms to produce output almost indistinguishable from a 1970s episode of the Ken Dodd show. All this will change tomorrow, when I return and fire up the 'Blogmaster 6000' again....
How to look young...... Hang around with very old people.
Today I actually achieved one of my many ambitions. I actually got to ask a horse 'Why the long face?'.
Do skeletons drink their tea out of bone china?
Did you knpw that every year 200 roadsweepers drown in Venice?
This is another test post. What an exciting morning. -- from the pen of Rob Miles' keyboard www.robmiles.com
I've just found a web site that is truly scary:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/11849.aspx
In celebration of this I've added another chapter to the preview directory: /xna-book-downloads/.
Let me know what you think. Someone, please....
Took number one daughter to London today, where she is going to continue her studies. We had a car which was pretty much full of stuff. Parking was a bit restricted, so I stopped the car on someone's garden path and we executed what can only be described as a "reverse burglary", where the contents of the car were transferred into the flat at record speed.
Then, after a trip to Tesco and an impromptu TV purchase it was back to Hull.
It has come to my attention that some shops are stocking DVDs of the "film" Wild Hogs. It might be that people are mistakenly buying them for entertainment purposes, bearing in mind that they are being placed in the entertainment sections of some stores.
Do not buy this film. It is not nice. It manages to be offensive, unoriginal and unfunny in equal measure. I made the mistake of watching it on a 12 hour flight. You might think that in such a situation pretty much anything is preferable to sitting staring at the hands on your watch as they go round much too slowly. This is not true. I would much rather stare at my SPOT watch than this film. In fact I would rather stare at my spots than this film. I only watched it to the end as some kind of bet with myself. Which I lost.
The BBC are doing one of their programs where you can test your intelligence. It stars Anne Robinson. I'm not watching it.
I think that counts as a pass.
We are becoming creatures of habit. Perhaps it's our age. Anyhoo, just like last year we went off to a place near Bridlington, Sewerby Park. It is a big country house, with lovely grounds, just by the side of the sea. There is a tiny zoo, pitch and putt golf and some wonderful walled gardens.If you live in the area you should/must go there. Just like last time they were doing Roman re-enactments. Just like last time I took my camera.
Any parent will be familiar with this domestic scene.
Add your own caption here
My money is on the blokes on the horses
They can do gardening here. Oh yes.
Butterfly
Boat
Bridlington bay
If you want to see a quirky, life affirming film that features one of the coolest watches that I've ever seen (but which you probably can't buy) then get hold of a copy of "Stranger than Fiction". I picked it up on a "semi-whim" when we were out shopping today and we watched it tonight. It is a super little movie. I'd heard good things about it but not got around to seeing it, so when our local supermarket had a copy cheap I was happy to pick one up.
It is a neat romantic comedy/drama thing built around a very clever premise. If you've ever thought your life belonged in a book, then this film is for you.
I've only just got around to playing Colin Mcrae, "Dirt" on my Xbox 360. I got it for my birthday ages ago (at least it seems ages ago) and I've been too busy with other things to have a go. But tonight I put aside a couple of hours for fun (it is Saturday after all) and fired it up.
I love it.
I've not been that keen on Colin Mcrae games in the past because they seemed too focused on technical accuracy and genuine handling for me. (translation: I crashed all the time). But the new one seems to have toned down real life to a level I can cope with, albeit at rookie level, and I think it is great.
I had a go at the truck racing stuff, which seems to have taken several leafs, nay perhaps a whole bunch of chapters, from the PS3 Motorstorm game. It has the same bouncy handling, insane opponents and funky vehicles, but without the charm or sheer improbability of the tracks, which all look a bit dull to me.
But the proper rally championship is another matter. Me and my little Clio have been tearing up a storm, hurtling through very impressive looking locations in the UK, Italy and Germany. The handling is just right, very believable but sensibly forgiving. And the bonnet cam view is wonderful, until you go off the road onto the verge, where I found myself flinching as foot high plants smashed towards my face. One of the best features is the co-driver who calls out instructions as you hurtle towards the next blind jump. Once I'd learnt the grading scheme (the smaller the number the nastier the curve - get that the wrong way round like I did at first and things can get very frightening) he really helped me get the car into position for the next part of the course.
And it was nice to have a rumbly gamepad for a change. For a variety of technical and legal reasons Sony left this out of the PS3 and I see it as a huge omission. Nothing brings home just how hard you've just hit that tree like a controller that suddenly tries to leap out of your hands. I notice from the instructions that Dirt also supports the Xbox force feedback steering wheel, which is looking very tempting.....
Until now I'd regarded the rally mode of Gran Turismo as the ultimate in off road driving fun, but Dirt, with its superior graphics and greater variety, is the new rally king.
I remembered to bring my lunch to work today. But I forgot my glasses.
I would worry about these oversights being due to my advanced age if it was not for the fact that I've been doing stupid things like this for the last forty years.
Went for a check up at the dentist this afternoon. It was slightly enlivened by the fact that I needed to have a couple of X-Rays. And one of them didn't work. So they had to ask me in to take another. The good news is that the second one turned out fine. The bad news is that I have an overactive imagination:
Dental Nurse: "So there's no doubt at all then?"
Dentist: "I'm afraid not. The second X-Ray was quite conclusive."
Dental Nurse: (shudder)"So, how long before it breaks out of his tooth and eats his brain?"
Dentist:"A month, maybe two if he's lucky."
Dental Nurse: (looking over at me in the waiting room, where I'm trying to look relaxed whilst reading a two year old copy of "Top Gear" magazine) "But he seems so young...."
Dentist:"It's better he doesn't know..."
I always put my lunch bag next to my shoes each morning. That way I don't forget it and end up with nothing to eat. Today I decided to wear a different pair of shoes. Which means I'm going on an impromptu diet...
I like silly things. Always have. And the more out and out daft that they are, the better it is for me. Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS is definitely silly. We are talking "FBI style agents with big hair solving problems through history by the use of dance" (including helping someone who looks suspiciously like Leonardo da Vinci get the Mona Lisa). Deeply silly and perhaps a bit strange too.
You control the game with the stylus, using it to tap out beats, follow notes and twirl things around. The action takes place via a sequence of little stories, each of which is illustrated by animated cartoon sequences. There is no reason on earth why any of this should work. But it does.
If you think that video games are designed by percentage players, who use focus groups and cunning market analysis to decide what will sell and what won't, then Elite Beat Agents will come as a bit of a surprise. There is no way that something like this could have come about in that way. Sega must have just locked a bunch of programmers in a room with an X-Files DVD, a pile of manga comics, a copy of Parappa the Rapper and a children's encyclopedia.
If you like silly games, this is for you.
We got off the boat at 8:30 this morning. That's the only snag with the mini-cruise, it ends at a most peculiar time. Anyhoo, we got some almond croissants on the way home (breakfast of champions) and had a most restful day.
In the afternoon we went out to Beverley and had a look in the antiques centre there. If you ever go to the town you must take a look. It is a bit like a mini-museum where you can buy stuff. Although it is rather upsetting to find things that you had as a kid being sold of as antiques.
They had a James Bond Goldfinger Aston Martin, in its original box. I had one of those. It came with a henchman that you could shoot out of the roof using the cars ejector seat. Needless to say, my henchman vanished quite soon after I got the toy. The one in the museum was not only as shiny as new, but it also had henchman and everything. Mind you, you've got to feel something for a kid who got a toy like that and then doesn't seem to have played with it. I ended up using mine to see how far I could flick a Malteser with the ejector seat roof. Great stuff.
After rising bright and early we set off from Europort to the city. I don't know Amsterdam very well and there were some places I wanted to visit. Fortunately I had a plan.
I was going to use my Nokia 770 (a neat little web-terminal thing that I bought cheap a week or so ago) and its matching sat-nav, which was fully loaded with Netherlands maps and had all my destinations carefully favourited. All I had to do was kick the thing into life when we arrived and never be lost. Well, that was the plan.
On the bus as we approached the city I fired up the 770 and the GPS device. Because of the rather stupid software it seems you have to pair the GPS device and the 770 each time you try to use it. On first attempt the navigation software found a Bluetooth device called "Dave" and then crashed. After a reset, and with the faint inklings of foreboding I tried again. This time I found a veritable plethora of Bluetooth partners who all wanted to talk to me. One was called "Land Rover". I looked out of the bus window and sure enough, there it was in the traffic alongside us. Of course the GPS device was nowhere to be found.
By now we had arrived at our dropping off point. My plan was to add this as a favourite so we could easily find our way back to the bus, but things were not going well. The GPS device finally paired with the 770 and told me I was standing in a canal before losing the signal. Not good.
I tried to find my favourites and set the destination, but of course I couldn't see the screen in daylight and the stylus was a pain to use. By now the patience of number one wife was starting to fray a bit. We started walking in order to try and get a better signal and now the direction indicate pointed back the way we'd come and it started to rain on the screen. So that was game over for Mr. Satnav. As I put the whole thing back in my pocket I heard a muffed "At the next intersection turn left.." We bought a map (price 2.5 euros) and used that very successfully for the rest of the day.
The good news is that the GPS device happily paired with my Smartphone and works a treat with Live Search (but I was not going to pay roaming GPRS prices to find my way around Amsterdam).
I'm going to upgrade the Nokia software first chance I get, with a bit of luck this should improve things.
Of course, I'd taken the cameras.
Early morning ships
Actually, these are made of wood
satnav, pah!
Beer marketing with horses
Canal mural
Multi-storey bike park
Container stacking
Industrial Skyline
Down the decks
There are more pictures on Flickr.
I think I may have been a bit harsh on the 770 SatNav. Everything happened in the order I described, but I don't think you have to do the pairing thing every time. I tried it again and it just worked.
Testing with Live Search navigation on the Smartphone has left me thinking that for foot navigation a GPS is not as good as for car. In a car the software knows that you are on a road, and can make deductions using direction of movement about where you are. The fact that you are moving at speed probably helps remove some of the noise from the location values. On foot things get a lot more tricky, particularly if there are buildings around which block the signal. Having said all that, if I go anywhere in the UK I will now take the GPS puck along with the Smartphone, and probably the 770 as well.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
