On the mend

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I’ve been putting off this post for a while because of the possibility of headlines like:

“Only hours after posting how well he was recovering from a recent illness, Rob Miles was today hit by a falling piano while out for a walk….”

Of course this would never happen. There would be no headlines. Anyhoo, I’ m feeling a lot better. I’m having a nap every day and only spending an hour or so on the computer. I’ll be back soon with lurid tales of daring do and brain scans (at least they managed to find one).

Pick a card

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I’ve spent a huge chunk of today installing new debit card and credit cards. The new debit card is very fancy. It is only printed on one side, has a fancy colour scheme and a different number. The credit card has the “old fashioned” relief letters but the number is also changed. Which means I have to go through all my accounts and change the details.

It’s actually proved quite a useful exercise. I’ve moved lots of subscriptions onto my debit card so that I can see them go out on the main statement. I’ve also realized how many things I pay for each month. Scary.

Elden Ring

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I was very surprised when number one son suggested that I might like to have a go at Elden Ring. I’d put it in the category known as “Too difficult for Rob”, especially in my brain damaged state. But he was serious. Apparently you don’t have to win fights to progress and the world is so vast and intricate that you can have endless fun just exploring. And you get a horse you can use to run away from anything really nasty.

Well, I’ve got the game and I agree with him. I’ve even beaten a few people (usually by sneaking up and stabbing them in the back - but hey, a kills a kill). I’ve also died lots. But this is how the game works. Being made dead is part of life. You just get put back in the game and then have to stump off and find the money that you dropped with you died.

The environment is awesome, the options deep and the whole thing is very impressive. Fighting is interesting, in that you go from having no idea how to beat something, to building theories about when to attack and when to retreat and finally to winning the battle and wondering why it seemed so hard at the start. Very strongly recommended by me and just about everyone else who’s played it.

Post surgical piano

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During my recent hospital stay I really wanted to do the violin gag:

Rob: “After my treatment, will I be able to play the violin"?”

Doctor: “I don’t see why not”

Rob: “Great, I can’t at the moment and I’ve always wanted to”

Unfortunately, the occasion never presented itself, and I didn’t really want to give them more things to worry about than just my headaches. Anyhoo, today I was able to try some piano practice to see if the treatment has had any affect on my keyboard skills. The good news is that I’m no worse than I was at playing “The Entertainer”. The bad news is that I don’t seem to have acquired any extra skills.

Brain Surgery for Rob

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I’ve been having headaches for a while. Last Sunday I found out why. The technical term is“ chronic subdural haematoma”. The upshot was three holes in the skull and a bit of drainage action.

The NHS is completely wonderful. In the midst of a pandemic I had scans and whole bunch of focused professionals finding the fix and applying it. I had surgery on Monday evening and I’m now back home with strict instructions to stay away from keyboards. Which I’m obviously following to the letter.

I’ll be back after a rest.

Home

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There is no better way to start the day than with a chap pulling pipes out of your head and then stitching up the holes. I’d been on regular doses of pain killers, so I didn’t notice that much though. One major hospital tip: If they offer you painkillers take them. At one point I thought I’d show everyone I was a real man and could manage without the drugs. This turned out to be a bad plan, so the next time I was asked I gave a hearty “Yes please” to everything.

In the morning we had the “ward rounds” when consultants, doctors, nurses and students all gather round your bed and discuss how you’re doing. The best bit was when they said that I’d be able to go home today.

After lunch a charming nurse came to see me and ran through a test to make sure that my brain still worked. This involved drawing a clock face and remembering five words. I can still remember the words even now, which is very pleasing. I thought I might be able to impress her if I ever see her again by reeling them off. Unfortunately I’ll never be able to do this because I’ve completely forgotten her name or what she looks like. The best bit of the test was when she asked me to list as many words as I could that began with the letter “f”. Well, that was fun. As I am now “Wordle trained” I went off like a rocket and she had trouble keeping up with them all. Apparently I have a wide vocabulary for my age.

The best part of the day was heading home. Nothing like your own TV remote control. And bed.

Ward life

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Being in hospital has a lot in common with going on a long distance flight. The best way to cope is to totally give yourself over to the system for the duration of the journey and just go with the flow. The staff here are all awesome. I found myself chatting with the the various people who came to change bits of things attached to me and take readings and the stories were very similar. One chap was just finishing his fourth 12 hour shift in a row. Another nurse had come in on what should have been her rest day because she wanted to make sure that things were OK on the ward. I feel genuinely humbled to be around these folks. And angry with the way that society seems to reward hedge fund managers (who do nothing more than convert sums of money into larger sums of money by breaking things) more than these people.

The policy on mobile phones and whatnot is great. You can just use them and being in a big high hospital seems to result in good signal strength. I’d taken the precaution of taking my headphones and phone with me, along with a large rechargeable battery. I was able to watch movies and buy things on the internet with no problems, which got me through the day nicely.

They are hoping to remove the the drains soon, which means that I’ll lose my “borg” attachments and begin the process of turning back into a normal human.

I need this like a hole in the head

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Today started with scans. First a CT scan followed by an MRI scan that seemed to go on for ever. Then a discussion about what may have caused the problem and what to do about it. A while back I was cleaning the stairs in what turned out to be a horribly dangerous way. The result was that a vacuum cleaner fell on my head, knocking me down to the bottom. At the time I thought I’d got away with a cut and a feeling of intense stupidity, but it may well be that I’d done more damage than that. I’m now known to the doctors here as “Dyson man”.

Anyhoo, I decided to go for an operation to fix it. All they had to do was drill three holes in my skull, attach some drains and let the fluid out. I was relived to find that I’d be knocked out for this procedure. The idea of sitting there while someone takes a Dremel(tm) to my head was a bit frightening. The wonderful thing is that they were actually able to get a team together and do this right in the middle of Covid and a healthcare crisis.

I had the operation late afternoon and woke up in the recovery room a couple of hours later. They had the radio tuned to one of these “Eighties hits” station and about the first tune I heard, no word of a lie, was “I’m still standing” by Elton John. Talk about omens. Loved it. Things got even better when they took me down to the ward and gave me tea and biscuits. Both custard cream and bourbons were present and correct. Awesome.

It’s a bit hard to sleep when you’ve got two tubes attached to your head and connected to collection bags, but I think I’ll manage.

My brain hurts

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The doctor probably expected me to be more upset than I was. After all, he'd just told me I had a "subdural haematoma", which translates to blood in the head around the brain. For me this was actually good news. They had found something that might be causing the horrendous headaches I'd been having. I was thinking that the worst thing they could have told me was that they could find nothing wrong. Then I'd really have been in trouble.

I'd gone into casualty after dialling 111, the UK patient advice service.. After a brief delay they'd shoved my head into a CT scanner left me in a room for a while before coming and giving me the news. More scans tomorrow when they’ll decide what to do.

Presentation tips

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In the old days it was considered useful to be able to do things like make fire and slay mammoths. These skills are in less demand these days. But an ability to present well in front of an audience is something that is always going to come in handy. Here are my tips:

  • Decide what you want your presentation to achieve:

    • Leave them knowing something

    • Get them to do something

    • Change the way that they think about something

  • Try to pull out five or so really important things that you want the audience to take away. Don't try and do too many. Say what they are at the start, do each one and then say what they were at the end.

  • Make acting on the outcome of the presentation as easy as possible.

  • Never apologise at the start. It will only lower expectations.

  • Don't expect to enjoy giving your first presentation, but don't be surprised if you get a taste for it.

  • Do not try too hard to judge how your presentation went. What you think was a bad presentation might well go down a storm with the audience. And, unfortunately, vice-versa.

  • If you think you're having more fun than the audience, stop at once.

  • Don't expect things that are important to you to be important to your audience as well.

  • Expect to have to sell your subject, so try to put it in a context that works for your audience.

  • Don't think that you have to show off your knowledge to impress the audience. They are going to be more engaged if they can see how what you're telling them will improve their lives.

  • The ultimate sin for a presenter is to overrun. Underrunning is fine. I find it easier to pad out a bit with things that I'd like to say than chop stuff out on the fly to hit the end time. Although I've done both.

  • Always take questions. Make it clear when/how this is will happen.

  • If a question only seems relevant to the questioner, take it offline. Some questioners like to ask things to show that they know more than you. Allow them to do this (you look a lot bigger that way). Don't start trading points. If the answer is a matter of opinion, take it offline.

  • Never argue with the audience, and never set the audience up against a questioner.

  • Don't be afraid to be wrong in front of the audience.

  • The audience will be more inclined to follow you if you are amusing/interesting but they will be very inclined to follow you if they think what you are saying is useful/valuable to them. So make sure you tell them why the content is important. And use their words.

  • Make sure you have a backup plan in case everything breaks. Test the backup.

  • Don't write down everything you are planning to say but do have something that you can look at if you need inspiration. Me, I love a good slide deck, but I may be out of fashion. Bullet points are a good compromise.

  • A rehearsal won't do any harm, particularly in respect of getting the timing right.

  • Having something fun you can look forward to (a trip to the bar, etc etc) that you will definitely be doing after the presentation, whether it goes well or badly.

HALF-PRICE OFFER

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I’ve got a special offer for anyone too busy to come along to my Lecture in Rhyme this Friday. You can remove any guilt you might feel about letting me down on this special occasion by simply sponsoring the event for just twice as much money as you would normally give.

This means that anyone turning up on Friday at 7:00 PM GMT is getting their presentation at half price. And you get a chance to win prizes, play silly games and laugh at both of my jokes. What’s not to love?

Improving user interfaces

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I’ve been using my PICO Pomodoro timer and I’ve decided that the user interface is rubbish. When I designed the system I thought it would be cool to use the control knob as an input button. That way you can turn the knob to set a value and then press it in to make a selection. Clever eh?

Actually no. Why? Because when a user sees something with a button on it the first thing they will do is press the button. They will expect the button to do things. When it doesn’t do anything they turn the knob. But the user has to know that the knob can be pressed in to make a selection. If they don’t have that crucial fact the whole device is useless to them.

I’ve upgraded the code to version 2.0. This lets you press the button or the knob to make a selection. If you press the button when the time is set to 0 the device now shows a message saying “turn the knob to select a time”. The device still works like it used to, but now it is much easier to get started with it.

In my experience this is how user interface design goes. Things that you think are intuitive frequently aren’t. If I’d shown this to someone before I shipped it they’d have come straight back with the obvious question “Why doesn’t the button do anything?” and I could have fixed it. So the lesson is to show what you’ve made to other people as much as you can.

Update: The original title for this post was “Stupid user interface design by Rob”. After some thought I’ve changed this title and edited this post to remove the word “stupid”. I try not to call people stupid. So I shouldn’t call myself stupid either.