It Felt Like a Kiss

Adam Curtis makes scary documentaries. Not “Man coming up behind you and shouting ‘Boo!’” scary, but “How on earth did we get ourselves into this mess?” scary.

Now he has made something which is a mix of both kinds of scary. In an office block in Manchester. It Felt Like a Kiss is a walk through interactive event with a movie in the middle. Number one son and myself made it all the way to the end and I must admit it was a fascinating way to spend a couple of hours, with some really scary bits here and there. It tells you things you didn’t know about the way the world works and gives you the odd fright, including one bit where a man with a chainsaw chases you down a darkened corridor…

Graduation Daze

Did a couple of graduation ceremonies as Graduands Marshal today. I was helped out by Bernie, who is learning the trade.  I hope he didn’t mind when I referred to him as my “glamorous assistant”.

I took a camera along and had a go at taking pictures of the graduates. The audience is pretty much in darkness, but you might be able to pick out yourself amongst the noisy pixels.

Ceremony 3 : 10:30
 

Ceremony 4: 2:30

Musical Family

Number one daughter has bought a ukulele. It actually looks quite fun to play, but I have yet to find macho pose that works when playing it.

Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory is a sitcom. It is a kind of “Nerds meets Friends” kind of format, where the blokes are all nerdy in different ways. Number one daughter got me the first season on DVD and it is great. If you like sharply written American comedy then this one is for you. Great stuff.

Open Day

Today we had a university Open Day. I like giving talks at these, and despite my condition (which you really, really don’t want to know about) I went along to do my bit.I took a picture of the audience at the start. We were in the vertigo inducing Physics lecture theatre.

Thanks very much to those who turned up, I hope you enjoyed the visit.

Oh Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear

Every cloud might have a silver lining, but that is not the colour I’m seeing at the moment.

Oh Dear Oh Dear

I’m really not liking this.

Oh Dear

I’m not going to like this.

Imagine Cup Presentation

I’ve seen some things in my time. No, really. Now I’ve also seen an awards ceremony in the shadow of the pyramids. I’m not sure that the pharaohs, as they laid their plans for their final resting places, were also thinking “And you know what? This would be a great place to hold a the awards ceremony of the Imagine Cup in a few thousand years….”. Either way it worked.

When we arrived the sun was just going down.

Postcard Shot

The Backdrop

The stage

The winners of the Software Development Challenge, Romania, with second placed Russia and third placed Brazil. I helped judge these, all worthy entrants – well done folks!

A whole bunch of happy people.

The Imagine Cup has been, as ever, amazing. The venue, the events, the attention to detail. And, of course, the students. Thanks to Microsoft for making it possible, making it work, and letting me come along.

Park for Tea

After the visit to the pyramids it was back to the hotel to freshen up, and then out again to a park near The Citadel. We arrived just as the sun was setting, which was rather nice.

On the way in they had these chaps in whirly skirts to welcome us.

The view of the sunset was rather nice.

A nice place to have tea

Pretty flower.

Then, back home to bed. It is the desert finals tomorrow in front of the pyramids. Can’t wait.

Pyramids

I’ve been told that however much you prepare for the experience, seeing the pyramids for the first time will blow you away. And it does.

The first glimpse

They really are impressive. Close up they are beyond huge, and when you reflect who made them, and how, you just get even more impressed.

Not small

The key is 52 degrees apparently. Anything else falls down.

Antiquities Police

Obligatory tourist shot

Finals Time

Today we did the final presentations. For me that meant sitting with the distinguished judges and watching six presentations, and then coming up with the top three. Before I did that I thought I’d watch some of the other finals, starting with Game Development. They have set up mini-studios and are projecting the presentations into halls around the complex.

This is the UK team beginning their presentation. Good job guys.

In the afternoon it was me and the other judges in the mini-studio, and an assembled multitude outside hearing me ask my, hopefully not stupid, questions. After that it was time for judgely deliberations.

  

Posh food in the judges room.

After that it was a walk back to the room to get ready for the evening meal.

How not to photograph a mirror.

The meal was at the top floor of the shopping centre next door, which is huge.

Sitting down together.

You could also go outside to take in the views of the city at night.

This is part of the hotel complex.

Then it was home for an early night. Tomorrow we are leaving at 7:30 am for the pyramids, and I don’t want to miss that.

Judgement Day at the Imagine Cup

Today was the first round of judging in the Software Development competition here in Cairo. All the judges had to be formed into groups and then sent out to watch presentations from the 68 or so teams from all over the world. Each team had to give a 20 minute presentation, with 10 minutes after that set aside for questions. Then we had to note down some comments, grade the work, hand the judging sheet in and repeat. This made for rather an intense time, but I really like watching students strut their stuff, and so for me it was great fun.

I even took on a bit of overtime, by helping out with the judging in the Imagine Cup Interoperability. Then, after all of this, a list of the top 12 teams out was assembled, and each of them had to repeat their presentations in front of more judges so that we could arrive at the top six for the finals tomorrow.

Joe Wilson announced the finalists for all the categories, and it was particularly nice for me because the UK made it into the next round for both Software Development and the Game Development competitions.

Joe with some of the finalists.

After the judging we all staggered back to our rooms and collapsed. I’ve got some more to do tomorrow, as I’m also one of the distinguished judges for the Software Development final, which should be fun.

Imagine Cup Open for Business

Today the Imagine Cup 2009 started properly. I've been involved with this competition for a very long time, since computers filled entire rooms, and were programmed using punched cards.

Actually no. But I did attend the first World Final in 2003. Lots of things have changed since them of course. The competition has gone from 14 teams to 70, and it now takes on many forms with strands involving such things as robotics, embedded, photography and short film.  My favourite part has always been the original contest, which is the Software Development one. Nowadays I'm involved as a judge, as well as promoting the competition to students back at Hull, and I really love taking part and seeing just what enthusiastic people can do with technology.

Tomorrow is when all the judging actually starts, but today we had the opening ceremony which took place at the citadel in Cairo. We even had Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Technology officer give a presentation to the students, which was a great thing to see. That the guy who took over from Bill Gates reckons the competition is worth taking seriously is an indication of just how important Microsoft takes this contest. I took a camera a long (of course) and got a few pictures.

Outside the Citadel

 Inside the Citadel

The ceiling is fantastic

Joe Wilson gets things started.

The view on the way out.

Blogging the Imagine Cup with Flickr

I’m trying a new approach to blogging the Imagine Cup this time. I’ll be putting bits and bobs up on these hallowed pages (of course) but I’ll be also putting up shed loads (if you can load a shed onto a server) of pictures on Flickr, with the usual insightful comments.

From what I’ve seen of Cairo this is going to be great, follow the magic at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertmiles/

Update on 2009-07-02 09:47 by Rob

.. and of course I'll try to remember to tweet as much as I can: http://twitter.com/RobMiles

Welcome to Heathrow Terminal 3

You can't beat a low ceiling for adding atmosphere....

everything breaks

I was pretty much set for the trip to Cairo for the Imagine Cup. I'd squeezed all the required bits into the case and finished agonizing about taking the big camera (decided not to in the end) and all was well. I opened the laptop for my final email check. It was dead. Very dead. Take the battery out and it still won't work dead. Not good. In fact very bad. It had all the things on it I needed, plus a bunch of stuff I was going to work on. Wah!

The only good news was that if it had done this a day later I would have been totally stuck. And I had taken a backup the day before (perhaps that is what caused the problem).

Anyhoo, I'm presently sitting in Terminal 3 at Heathrow with my trusty NetBook in my bag. It has most of what I need on it, thanks to some feverish installing last night. I'm always nervous about going away, but fine once I get on the road. I've never been to Egypt before. This should be fun.

Learn All About HTTPS

If you want a really, and I mean really, in depth description of just what happens when you visit a secure website you should take a look here:

http://www.moserware.com/2009/06/first-few-milliseconds-of-https.html

Fantastic.

Little Weighton Steam Fair

Went to a steam fair today. I love the smell of steam engines, and there were a lot there, along with assorted classic cars, tractors, models and all sorts.

The weather was kind to us and a good time was had by all.

Klaus at Pixel Creations

Many years ago I used to work with Klaus. This was when robots were wildly fashionable. You wouldn’t think that things like engineering research have fashions, but they do. Klaus was doing things like making robots weigh chocolate bars, figure out where they were and all sorts. Great fun.

That was a while back, and I met him today when he was buying a flash gun. As was I. I’ve not done any flash photography for a long time. The first flash gun I ever bought was a Sunpak DC3. This was solid state, made a fantastic whistling noise like the scary bit at the end of the Silence of the Lambs, and was very optimistically rated by the manufacturer. So much so that the first roll of, very expensive, colour slide film that I used it with just showed lots of pictures of eyes and teeth glinting in the darkness. I’ve not been that keen on flash photography ever since. But I’m told that the new flashguns can do very fangled things by talking to the camera and you can use them for fill in effects and all sorts. So I thought I’d get one.

Klaus was buying one for his business. He now works as a professional photographer and is really enjoying his work. You can find him at http://www.pixelcreations.co.uk/.