Clever Person vs Clever Idiot

Clever Person:

Switches to bulbs that should last for ever.

Clever Idiot:

Switches to bulbs that should last for ever. And buys a spare set.

Great book for the Teenage Engineering OP-Z

There are some great videos about the Teenage Engineering OP-Z synthesizer. I can strongly recommend ones from Cuckoo. However, I rather like having a proper book to look at. And that’s where SynthDawg come in. They’ve written some lovely books, including an OP-Z one. Their prices are very reasonable, the books are supplied as pdf documents that you can read on any device or print out if you fancy real old school bookery.

GameGo looks like fun and games

Derek put me onto this. It’s a GameGo. Underneath the rubberised case is a little device that can run JavaScript games written using the Microsoft MakeCode framework. There’s a rather nice particle demo that you can see running above. The device is a great way to entice people into game coding as it is a properly portable toy that you can fill up with your own creations. I’m looking forwards to having time to play with it.

Murder in the name of charity

Ages ago I used to enjoy murder mystery parties. Of course you can’t do this kind of thing any more because someone might end up properly dead. But MacMillan Cancer Support have had a neat idea. They’ve packaged up a murder mystery and invited people to hold a sponsored virtual event. We’re holding ours next week. Looks like fun.

Teenage Engineering OP-Z

The Teenage Engineering OP-Z is an amazing little device. In around the same space as a remote control (see above) it packs in a bunch of synthesizers, a sequencer, a sampler, a DMX lighting controller and and a 3D video controller that talks to Unity. You can use it as a midi host or client, plug it into your PC and add samples and pull back recordings of pieces you have stored or just listen through the tiny speaker. It’s battery powered, so you can write tunes on the bus if you wish. In my case that might even help with social distancing….

There is no display. You can use a phone or tablet to see what it is doing, but the coloured leds in the buttons means that once you get your head around the fundamentals it isn’t too hard to see what is going on, especially if you have a programming bent. I’m not sure if its cleverness can compensate for a lack of musical talent, but I’m having a lot of fun trying to bash out silly tunes with it.

Visual Micro is worth the money

A few years ago I bought a licence for Visual Micro. Today I’ve bought another. If you are serious about Arduino development you should take a look at it. It is the best way to make code for the Arduino and has a really good terminal, all accessible inside Visual Studio.

Tidy Mindfulness

I was getting complaints about the huge pile of disorganised magazines that seems to have appeared beside the bed. Apparently they are a mess. So I’ve taken action. Behold. The magazines are now organised by title and in chronological order. Win.

Expensive family trip

We actually managed to go out today and visit family members. Very strange. Everything is still there, but most of it is shut. It was rather like driving round the latest version of Forza Horizons which includes some places I’ve actually been to. In the game you can see shops, offices and buildings that you can’t go into. Just like today.

Anyhoo, we had a socially distanced gathering which was so much fun that I forgot to sell my turnips in Animal Crossing. They go rotten tomorrow. Oh well. Totally worth it.

Online banking in actually quite good shock

Today I had some banking duties to perform. I had to change the contact details for an account. I was a bit worried about doing it. These kinds of escapades usually involve a trip to the bank, standing in a queue and then waving around lots of bits of paper. This was an especially unattractive proposition in the current situation, particularly as the local branch is presently shut.

Anyhoo, after a bit of fun and games with a little keypad thingy that I’d been sent a while back I managed to get it all sorted via my phone. I love it when things just work.

Brave Rob

Not sure if I should feel brave about actually going out and posting a parcel. But I do.

MVP Renewed

Here’s a scary thought. I’ve spent more than a quarter of my life as a Microsoft MVP. Amazing. I found out today that I’ve been re-awarded again which is wonderful. Thanks very much, greatly appreciated.

New Technology Paper Review

In the olden days I used to get up specially early, drive up town and review the papers with Radio Humberside. Nowadays I get up at the usual time, stagger over to my computer, put on my headphones and connect to them. I’ve just done that. The station has upgraded their on-line act so that we can now converse over Skype rather than the phone and it sounds rather like I’m in the studio.

Anyhoo, it was great fun and thanks for inviting me.

Times Table Tester now live

As part of chapter 6 (loops) of Begin to Code with JavaScript I’ve made a times table tester. The left hand button makes a mostly correct times table. The right button checks it for you. You can pay with it live here.

Back to Chapter 6

I’ve kind of had a week off writing; what with having guests and building gazebos, so today is all about writing some more of chapter 6. We’re improving our “Theme Park Ride Selector” program with the use of loops and colours.

M5 Stickc with big Tailbat

This is another device from the M5Stack people. This has an 1860C rechargeable battery which can run an M5Stickc for a couple of days (depending on what it is is doing). With careful use of sleep mode it could be even longer. And it makes the device look a bit like a wand, which is nice.

M5 Atom and Tailbat

The M5 Atom is a neat little ESP32 based device. They now do a version with 25 multi-coloured leds on it which is rather nice. You can also get a battery pack with the wonderful name of the “Tailbat” to plug into it and keep it going. You can program the device in Arduino C++, use MicroPython or even the UiFlow block based environment, all over the air from a browser.

Great fun and loads of potential.

Distant Gazebo Building

Yesterday we drove to Leeds and built a gazebo. As you do.

Making high dynamic range pictures from one photograph

I’ve always liked making High Dynamic Range photographs. These are created by merging several different pictures with different exposures. The idea is that the combined picture has a great range of light and dark. However, making the images can be a bit of a pain. You have to take three or more shots and then use a program to combine them. And if things in the picture move, for example a tree blown by the wind, you can get some annoying artefacts.

So yesterday I tried a simpler approach. I deliberately under exposed each picture to make sure that I captured the sky detail and then made the dark parts of the picture lighter using Lightroom. I’m quite pleased with the results.

Day out in Dalby Forest

Today we actually went somewhere other than upstairs. We went to Dalby Forest. This is one of my favourite places in the whole wide world and today it was on fine form. Plenty of room for social distancing and facilities that were the cleanest I’ve ever seen them. We had a smashing time. I took a lens that I got just before lockdown that I’ve been waiting to play with for ages. The weather was kind to us, with interesting clouds in the sky and I’m very happy with the way the pictures came out.

I’m starting to like the outdoors again….

Overthinking MIDI Connections

I want to connect my venerable QY-100 to the computer, and so I’ve got myself a USB to MIDI connector cable. The design is quite simple. One wire plugs into a USB port on the computer and there are two MIDI plugs labelled IN and OUT on the other end. The QY-100 has two MIDI sockets, also labelled IN and OUT. So it should be simple to plug them together…..

And then my brain started overworking. Are the plugs labelled with their role, or are the markings on them telling me which socket to plug them into?

Fortunately it doesn’t do any damage if you plug them in the wrong way round, but after some experimentation I can confirm that a plug that is labelled IN is an input and should be plugged into an output. And vice versa. And now I need a lie down.