... but for how long...
I'm doing some camera shuffling again using eBay. This means taking pictures, packing boxes and posting things. I hope it all ends well. It seems to have got a lot easier to send things abroad now, one of my cameras is heading off to Spain, but I only have to worry about getting it as far as the eBay transit place, which is really nice. I just hope Manu likes it.
We had our final Saturday applicant day of the year today. Thanks for coming folks. Some had driven mighty long ways to sample the delights of Hull. I hope we made the trip worth while.
As usual, you can click through the picture above to find the Flickr version where you can see yourself in "slightly larger vision.."
Two or three time a week I do a bit of rowing. And I've managed to "loop" the distance counter on the rowing machine, so that I've now rowed over a thousand kilometres.
Quite literally, go me.
Spent today mostly writing stuff, which meant that nothing happened which is worthy of blogging. But I did find a nice picture for the day though.
Went to York today. Took a picture. Apparently.
If you want to see a higher quality version of the picture, and find yourself on it, you can click though the image to the version on Flickr
Another hyper-busy open day today. Thank you all so much for coming to see us, hope that it was worth the trip. Everybody left clutching their free copy of the "Bananas" edition of the C# Yellow Book that we are using with the First Year at the moment. On the right you can see an exclusive image of the latest printing of the book, with the hyper-realistic 3D rendered cover art.
Cottingham station at 6:30 am. Looks more model than real.
Monday was not a great day. I staggered home after my last lecture and went straight to bed. And stayed there. Mostly. Yesterday I found out that the same thing had happened to number one son. And we'd both eaten at the same burger place on Saturday.
Oh well.
I'm back at work now, which is nice, frantically trying to catch up with two days of this'n'that.
But getting better.
Just go. Go now. It has a little while to run. You can book tickets and find out more here. We went today. It is a breathtaking exhibition. They've got some stunning things to see, including the actual capsule used by the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova. It looks more like a wrecking ball than a spacecraft, covered with insulating material and with a hole where you get in and out.
There are things I wasn't sure were still even around, prototypes of satellites and lunar landers and some completely awesome artwork and drawings. I'm just about old enough to remember some of this when it was happening and I find it amazing that all these years later we can go and see the actual stuff. The only snag (for me) is that you aren't allowed to take pictures. But you'll bring back a whole bunch of great memories.
(and a few postcards and T shirts - which are half price at the moment)
We're selling an old Singer hand cranked sewing machine. I got it out to take some pictures for eBay. t's rather strange to come across a technology from the past which I know nothing about.
I can figure out what the screwdriver and the bobbins are for, but everything else leaves me baffled.
You can view a larger version of this image on Flickr by clicking through it
We had another open day today. Truly, 'tis the season for visits and tours. Another big turnout, which was great, and some properly good discussion during the day. Hope you all felt that the trip was worth it, even though the weather wasn't showing Hull at its best.
I bought a little TV today. It's a "Smart" TV and rather nice. I plugged it in and did the setup thing. It started by asking for a network connection and, once connected, quizzed me about my name, address and lots of other things before doing the tuning thing and finally showing me a picture.
I guess this is the way the world is these days. If I watch loads of DIY shows then perhaps I'll start getting emails from paint companies, or seeing adverts for orbital sanders appearing around the web pages I visit. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. But it is definitely a thing. We are going to be surrounded by lots of devices that are spying on us and sending stuff back to build up the ever growing databases that are held on each of us.
I wonder how much of the attractively low price I paid for the TV is subsidised by cross-marketing deals that the manufacturer has in place for all this information they are planning to gather. I didn't have the nerve to select "Not agree" to any of the licence terms that I encountered on my way to BBC 1. Perhaps if I had rejected some of the conditions I'd be asked to stump up some cash to pay for me opting out and wanting a little privacy.
I kind of hanker for the days when things where everything was dumb and nobody knew (or cared) what you were watching. Perhaps in the future you'll be able to buy a "personality" remote control that you can leave by the telly when you go out. This will select all the posh channels you'd like people to think you watch so that you can watch a few episodes of "Man vs Food" without your TV thinking ill of you.
Mobile banking is wonderful. The way that you can send money to a distant account by just tapping a button is really nice (once you've done the shenanigans with the card reader thingy and set up the account first of course).
However, I always fret that one wayward digit might result in me sending the plumber's payment to some other lucky person. I wonder what the legal situation is if this happens?
Anyhoo, no worries, and all is paid for. I am now the certified owner of a properly shiny boiler.
Doesn't this make you want to go and find out what might be inside? Even though it might be a Starbucks....
Well, the blog's back up and the heating is working. I never thought I'd be so pleased to be back where I was eight days ago....
It's one of those existential questions on a par with "How do you throw away an old dustbin?". My blog has been a bit broken over the last few days and I'm not sure how to write about it.
Having given this some consideration I think the answer to the question "How do you blog about a broken blog?" is that you do it afterwards.....
Another big exam today. Another two or so hours walking back and forth looking stern. I suppose it's quite good exercise though...
We had our big First Year exam this morning. Around 250 students took the exam at the same time. Thanks to Septa, Amadou, Kevin, Nicholas, Xinhui and David for helping to run the affair.
Before the exam I carefully wrote a briefing document and made sure that everyone knew the username and password to unlock the test. Bearing in mind the Yellow Book theme this year I thought a username of "bananas" and a password of "custard" would work well.
Thing is, that's not what I typed in the briefing document. I missed the s off bananas, and so people were tying to start the exam with a single banana. Which didn't work. Fortunately I'd also put my phone number in the briefing document, so as soon as the exam started my phone lit up with folks ringing through from the exam locations around camps. We sorted out the problem in double quick time and everyone was able to get on and answer the 50 questions.
Home hints for the handyman: What to do if your central heating breaks.
Go out somewhere nice and warm for lunch. Stay there as long as possible.
It worked for us.
Pretty much all of these parts are worn out in our boiler
What is it with gas boilers? You buy one and then, twenty years later, you have to buy one again. The plumber who was kind enough to turn out today took one look at the bits of bent metal stuck on the wall of our garage and, after a sharp intake of breath (always an expensive sound in my experience) told us that it was pretty much worn out. We could replace the bit that might be broken and then find that it either works for a while or something else, that can't be replaced, is also broken. It looks like it might be new boiler time. This could put on hold any camera upgrades for a while.
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.
A proper developer conference in Hull. Find out more here.
