I’ve been editing the chapters of the new book. Today I sent Chapter 9 through with my edits in place. Folks were pleased, but confused. I hadn’t sent them Chapter 8. Turns out that there is a difference between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. I thought I’d sent it through but it seems I only thought about sending it.
Anyhoo, the chapter has now been sent and I’ve only got three more to edit before the book is completely complete.
We’re still having regular Hardware Meetups at the MakerSpace in Hull Central Library. First Wednesday of the month. Start around 6:00pm. Bring hardware to show off or problems you want to talk about.
Today Martin brought along some nifty Bluetooth location tracking hardware to show us. The device on the end of the stick (in the picture) is being tracked by four carefully positioned devices on the table. We could wave it around and the laptop showed the realtime position. It was awesome. To think this is being done using radio is amazing. One day we might use it to find our way around airports and public buildings.
I took along my big camera (took 1 picture) and a robot dog. Great fun was had.
Very excited. Managed to bag myself a flat bed scanner that can handle large images. This is a big thing. It turns out that you don’t get optimal photographic goodness by photographing negatives lying on your iPad screen. The new (to me but actually around 15 years old) device is huge and I’m going to have to drive over to Leeds and pick it up because I’m scared of what might happen if it is posted. But still, yay!
Today I received a letter from British Gas saying that they had been unable to fit a Smart Meter because they couldn’t get access to my meter.
No.
As the person who spent two hours clearing a path through the garage I know this is not the case. Also, the engineer told me that the reason I couldn’t have a Smart Meter was that my electricity meter was a SMET 1 smart meter. He was supposed to be sorting out an upgrade of my electricity meter but it turns out that E.ON don’t do upgrades. So I’m stuck.
I’ve come to the decision that neither of these companies deserve my business any more. So I’ve switched to Octopus for gas and leccy. The switch was suspiciously easy. Just one email and a web form to set up the bank details. I know that my readers live for my posts about gas meters, so I’ll be sure to bring you updates as to how it all turns out.
Today I have taken a bunch of photographs. It’s been great. I’ll post them off tomorrow. By the end of the week I’ll should have something back. A lot of them will not be very good. But they will be my kind of “not very good” which works for me.
Hmmm. I wasn’t expecting that. Or perhaps I was. Anyhoo, I’ve bought another camera. I seem to be converting my gadgets from musical instruments into cameras. Expect some frantic synthesizer selling soon.
Anyhoo, I only went into the shop to talk about this and that. Then I might have asked them to show me a Mamiya 645 that I’d seen on their website. And they produced this. It looked awesome. Like new. Only around fifty years old. And that was that. It takes 15 pictures on 120 roll film. Each picture is around 2.5 times the size of a 35 mm negative. The body is solid metal with leather stuck on and it is beautifully made. It also takes photographs. There’s a hugely satisfying “clunk” when you press the shutter release. I’ve popped a film in and I’m going to run through it as fast as possible so that I can get the pictures processed and make sure all is well.
When I said it might be a fun idea to record video walkthroughs for all the “Make Something Happen” exercises in the new book I really should have considered what this involves. I’m now up to 40 videos and counting. They’ve been fun to make though. You can find them here.
Today, having queried E.ON about their policy of not upgrading Smart Meters I get this final badly worded response from the company.
..we would only upgrade your meter when your current meter started to fail, ie stops providing electric.
Oh well.
Just got a reply to my request for a Smart Meter upgrade (so that I can have a smart gas meter).
Unfortunately, we are currently not upgrading SMET 1 smart meters. It is something that is in the works, but this would be in the future.
I think this means that E.ON are not in possession of a time machine. Otherwise they could upgrade my meter in the past.
…you get mistaken for a 92 year old. To be fair, it was at a distance and I did have a hat on.
Today was going to be the day they installed our new smart meter so that we can watch our money go up in smoke in real time from the comfort of the kitchen. So I was up first thing in the garage throwing stuff into the car to clear a path to the meter ready for the swap.
The installer turns up, takes one look at the electricity meter and says he can’t fit a smart gas meter. Apparently my electricity meter is smart, but not smart enough. It is a SMET 1 when it needs to be a SMET 2. He leaves having done nothing and I headed off glumly to the tip .
I have really no idea why the installation of a smart gas meter is dependent on the electricity meter. I’m also annoyed because I deliberately waited until I knew that SMET 2 meters were being installed before getting our electricity meter done. Then they installed a SMET 1 meter anyway. I guess they had a warehouse full of the things.
Anyhoo, I’ve emailed the electricity company to ask for a meter upgrade. Let’s see how that turns out.
I’ve decided to do another Red Nose Day Lecture in Rhyme. This time it’s all about Software Engineering and objects. It might be useful if you are learning to program, or if you just want a few laughs. This one will have a song at the end. So you’ll know when I’ve finished because I’ll start singing. More details later.
Been walking round the house with a camera taking pictures of Lego. This is part of my camera testing program. The nice thing about taking pictures of Lego figures is that generally speaking they are already smiling.
Took some pictures today with a really old Polaroid camera. I thought I knew best, and twiddled the dial to increase the exposure and brighten things up a bit. Then the pictures turned out over-exposed. Oh well.
Spending quite a bit of time watching Pokemon TV shows at the moment. This might be something to do with having a 6 year old visitor to stay.
Went to Harlow Carr today. I seem to be rediscovering the joy of taking a picture (or three) merging them together and then image processing them within an inch of their lives. Great fun.
You know those shops that you thought had all disappeared? The ones with lots of stock and sales staff who know what they are talking about. And interesting second-hand bits and bobs that you didn’t know you needed until you found one?
Well, Beverley Camera Centre is like that. They have loads of photography stuff including cameras new and old, accessories, bags, tripods, lots of film - including instant - and even chemicals for home developing. I was in there today for a quick visit and I’m looking forward to going back and having a proper look round. The most important thing to know about the place is that it is closed Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, so if you turn up then all you’ll be able to do is stare through the window at the fun stuff within. If you are into photography or want to get started (using film is currently a trendy thing to do apparently) then go down and have a look at what they’ve got.
I’m printing a 4x5 print camera. I fancy some hand held large format camera action. I started the printing around 7:30 am this morning. We are now eleven and a half hours into the print. It is supposed take around 14 hours, but I’ll be very surprised if it is finished before we go to bed. The good news is that all is well so far. I put some glue onto the print bed (just a thin layer of Pritt stick) and that seems to have stopped the corners from lifting too much, which is nice.
White might not be the most sensible colour for a camera, but the plan is to line the inside with black felt to reduce reflections and keep the light out. And it should look cool…
A while back I was given a lovely lens. Today I’m starting the process of 3D printing a camera to go behind it. I’m using the Will Travel design from Morten Kolve. This looks like an excellent starting point. Morten was kind enough to send me through the designs for a build which will match my lens.
Today I put the designs into Cura and sliced them for Edna the Ender to print. This showed a print time of 23 hours. Which Is quite a long time. And I’m not keen on running a printer overnight. So I tried slicing them for Una the Ultimaker and got a time of 13 hours, which was a worthwhile saving. Even if it took me 5 hours to get Una going I’d still be ahead of the game.
Unu is an original Ultimaker 1 which I first built 2012. I’ve built her again several times since then, most recently when I swapped the the print head for one from an Ultimaker 2. However, once I got the Edna the Ender-3 I’ve not used Una that much because Edna is a bit better at detail. However, I don’t really care about detail for this print. I just want a camera body. So I spent a few minutes cleaning Una up and making ready and off she went. So far she is working rather well. I’ll do the big print tomorrow, which should be fun.
I’ve played a lot of golf recently. Or something. Most weeks you’ll find us firing up Walkabout golf for nine holes of fun and games. Today I got to find out if any of my Oculus Quest skills have transferred to the real world when we met up for a round of real crazy golf at Puttstars Leeds. I think my practice has made me a bit better, I can swing and hit the ball at a repeatable angle, which is nice. The major difficulty was that the greens played a lot slower, so lots of my shots fell short.
But it was still great fun. I can recommend Putstars Leeds, the folks there were friendly and they also had a whole bunch of video games. Great fun.
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.
