The return of Piano Practice

Music lessons were one of the less fun parts of growing up for me. For a while I was learning the violin (mainly so that when I took the violin case into school I could pretend to be a Chicago gangster). But then I got bored with that. And, once that my friends discovered that all I had in the case was a violin, and not a sub-machine gun, they got bored with it too. I got out of that practice regime by the neat trick of being really bad at it. Truly, I put the vile into violin. After complaints from the neighbours in the next town I gave that up and returned to what was supposed to be my first love, the piano. A substantial part of my childhood was spent hoping that mum and dad wouldn’t remember that I hadn’t done my practice that day.

Anyhoo, as things do, piano practice has now returned to my life. This time I’m using the Simply Piano app to keep track of my efforts and I must admit that I’m rather enjoying it. I’ve connected the iPad to my new piano and so it can tell what keys I’ve pressed and track my progress. The app has lots of content, including versions of tunes I quite like. It runs on subscription, but it is much cheaper than proper lessons.

The nice thing about learning an instrument (which of course completely passed me by when I was younger) is that when you are practicing you really can’t think of anything else. You are too busy focusing on why your hands won’t do what you want them to. So if you want to escape from the worries of the world for a while you can just go in there and do battle with something that you can’t play yet but would like to. Today I had a go at playing Beethoven. Beethoven won, but I’ll be back for another go tomorrow.

Chromebook 11 for 99 pounds - well worth it

So my “mistakenly cheap” Chromebook 11 arrived this week and I’ve been playing with it. I’m actually very impressed. It just works. The keyboard is OK (although it is missing a row of function keys at the top) and the trackpad is useable and responsive. The screen is a bit of a weak spot, in that it has a big thick bezel and the contrast could be better, but the browsing experience is good. The battery life is very good, especially the standby time.

I’ve not added any programs to it just yet, but I did have a go at using Chrome to talk to a Connected Little Box processor (an ESP8266). To my surprise, it mostly worked. I can use the terminal program to talk to a device and the program uploader runs to completion, but the uploaded code doesn’t seem to stick. It is probably something to do with the way that the browser disconnects from the device after upload. I’ll have to take a look.

For the price I paid (99 pounds) it was a steal. It looks pretty sturdy and would be a great first machine for school use. It seems to run my Begin to Code with JavaScript (available at the end of the month - order your copy here ) sample code just fine. If it could run Visual Studio Code it would be completely perfect. Apparently it is possible to install Edge (my browser of choice) on the machine, but this involves setting up a trial version of the Linux environment which I’m a bit too lazy to do just now.

I can’t see how anyone involved in selling this machine can make a profit, which means that it must somehow be part of Google’s world domination strategy, but if you want something you can just throw into a bag to take away with you, and you don’t want to have to worry too much about losing/breaking it, this would fit the bill perfectly.

Tax Paid

Paid the second half of my Income Tax Self Assessment thingy today. At least if you are paying tax it means that you’ve earned something I suppose.

Best ever comment on the C# Yellow Book

Just had the best ever comment on the content of my C# Yellow Book from Jakeb. In the book I mention that programmers have to be responsible people, and I use the quote “With great power comes great responsibility” from Spiderman’s uncle.

Jakeb tells me this is wrong. It should be "Spider-Man’s uncle”. He even sent me an illustration to prove the point. Thanks for that. I’ll make sure it is fixed in the next version of the text.

Lights in Names on GitHub

If you want to make your own “Lights in Names” device you can now download the Python script that runs inside FreeCAD to make your own designs. I’ve put the code in GitHub, along with a wiring and construction howto. You can find it here.

Lights in Names

Spent a very happy chunk of today taking pictures of some of my “Lights in Names” boxes. If your name is in there the box might be for you…..

Making Hauga

We are in the final phase of our domestic renovations; assembling new furniture. We’ve gone for some Hagua units from Ikea. I quite like assembling Ikea furniture. I’ve not done it for a while and they’ve found a way to make it even simpler and quicker now. Panels just slot together and the huge number of little nails that you used to have to use to put the back on have been replaced with a few push-fit plastic things.

Ikea seem to have minimised furniture to make it cheaper in the same way that aircraft designers minimise planes to reduce weigh. There was nothing in the kit that didn’t absolutely need to be there.

Cut Price Chromebook

I got an email today from HP telling me that they have reduced the price of their Chromebook 11 by 65 pounds, to 99 pounds. Then later I got another email from them saying that the price reduction was an error. But it was too late. I’d already ordered mine. I’ve been after a Chromebook for a while so that I can test the example code in “Begin to Code with Javascipt” (in all good bookshops on 29th August, order your copy here)

It arrives later this week, which will be interesting.

Portable Games in HackSpace Magazine

My Portable Games article is now available in HackSpace Magazine. Page 88. The rest of the magazine is really good too.

Long streak of moves...

This happened while we were on holiday early this month. I’m really rather proud of it.

Birthday carpet and piano

As they used to say in the A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together. Today a whole sequence of DIY, decorating and carpetry (if that is a word) comes to a head. The carpet fitters are due in the morning and the piano arrives in the afternoon. And it’s my birthday.

It all worked carpets duly in place we headed out for lunch at the wonderful Bluebell Pub and then staggered home to wait for the piano to arrive. Which it duly did, right on time. Happy birthday me.

More woodwork

Shelf slicing today. Made some shelves into slightly narrower shelves so that they fit in the newly modified unit. Quietly impressed by the way that I managed to find nearly all the tools that I needed. Pro-tip for the day: If you want a nice edge to cuts in laminated or veneered materials put some sticky tape along the line you are cutting and then cut through that. It protects the edge and reduces the damage to the surface.

Hidden wiring

Slight change of pace today, mowed the lawns (both of them) and then fiddled with speaker which will be going under the carpets (which should arrive on Friday). Had great fun with this. Seem to be moving from "every wire is visible" to "no wires are visible", which I think is a good direction.

Carpet capers

Continuing with the DIY theme from yesterday by pulling up all the carpet from the living room and taking it all to the same tip as yesterday. And this without checking if the replacement carpet has arrived. Truly, living on the edge.

Woodwork and tip trips

Started the week by moving the shelf supports in the TV unit so that the centre speaker can actually be in the centre. This seemed to go well, so next I took a shelving unit apart and took the bits I don't want to a tip in Beverley. The rest has gone in the garage. My watch is very impressed with the amount of physical work I'm doing at the moment. Me, less so.

Pictures from the lake

I used my iPhone to take all the pictures of our holiday last week. It does a very good job, although all the results do look like they were taken with an iPhone. They look great on a phone screen but when you enlarge them to take a proper look you do start to notice all the processing that has been going on. Anyhoo, one added benefit of using the phone is that each picture is geotagged with the location of the place it was taken. Although, as you can see above, this is not exact. I’m sure I’d have remembered taking these shots from the middle of the lake….

Bought a piano

I’d taken all the sensible precautions. I had number one wife and number one son present in the shop to stop me from doing anything silly. And I was only going to take a look at the thing. And then, of course, I bought it. I was expecting my family safety net to kick in and tell me not to be so silly. But instead they told me to just go for it.

There are two possible reasons for this. Either it is a really good deal and will do just what we want. Or they knew that saying no would just lead to further visits to keyboard shops, searching on eBay and earnest discussions of the best thing to get. Anyhoo, it arrives once we have carpet in the room to stand it on. Rather excited.

Back home to my biggest fans

We drove home today from the lakes and spent the afternoon fitting ceiling fans. As you do. I’d rather like the fan makers to know that this step is actually a lot more tricky than it looks. You are supposed to be able to just slide the infra-red receiver into the gap in the bracket. But the diagram doesn’t show the thick bunches of cables in the bracket and coming up from the fan. And when you’re reading the instructions you forget that the whole thing is attached to the ceiling at this point. It turns out that it is possible, but requires the use of a lot of language I’m not particularly proud of.

Walk number 6

Last day today. Wah. We drove up to Wray Castle and then took a walk around the side of the lake.

Walk number 5

Todays’ walk was in Grizedale, which is a wonderful place. Like all the places around here.