Starting a Diary

If there's one thing I hate, it's making the same mistake twice. Doing something stupid once is bad enough, but repeating it is really silly. One of the reasons why I blog is so that I can find answers to questions that I have that I've already made once. I've had the experience of searching for information about a problem and finding my own blob post about the subject a couple of times now. Very strange. 

Doesn't stop me making more mistakes though....

Anyhoo, as I'm building my HullPixelbot robots I've found it very useful to keep a diary of the process. It turns out that doing the same thing 7 times is a great way to learn how to do it.  And I keep forgetting the best way to build the device and then discovering it again.

So I'm writing a diary of the project. I'm finding this kind of useful, and I'd advise anyone building something to do the same. Proper engineers have log books where they write down what they've done and, more importantly, why they did it. My diary isn't quite as ambitious, but it is good enough to be useful, which is nice.

Gotta Love Jetlag

What's the worst thing you can do when you have jetlag?

Everything. 

Back in the UK

And we are back. Thanks to Manchester airport for a specially British welcome, making us wait for an hour for our luggage without telling us why or how long we'd be stood there. 

Flying Home

Rather sad. Today we have to fly home. We had a final Seattle breakfast in Ada's. They have a table with loads of compasses let into it. Somehow appropriate. 

Living Computer Museum Grand Opening

I'm impressed that people could actually use these lights to understand what the machine was doing 

Another favourite place of mine. The Living Computer Museum in Seattle has a fantastic collection of computers, both large and small, going back to the days of valves. And, as the name implies, many of them are working machines, including some mainframes. 

I first went there a year ago, and I really wanted to go back again. So we did. They were having a grand opening of some new exhibits, and it was awesome. They now have robots, cubelets, embedded stuff, they have a full size computer controlled car and of course all the computers that I know and love. If you are in Seattle you really, really should visit. I'd go every week. 

This is what I learned to program on. No. Really.

Space Needle Meal

Another achievement unlocked. Today we went for a meal at the Space Needle restaurant. The most expensive meal we've ever had. 

Totally worth it. 

You go around the needle once every 49 minutes or so. We'd arrived around sunset on a rather nice day, which made for some awesome views. 

Boeing Factory Tour

Apparently Disneyland would fit in here

A major holiday highlight today. We went to see airplanes  being made on the Boeing Factory Tour.  Most impressive. All the numbers are big. From the size of the plant to the price of the product (at least 200 million dollars). On the factory floor we saw five planes in different stages of construction. That's a billion dollars, right there. And they are making up to forty of these in a month in one plant. 

Within the constraints of the business (they've got a lot of planes to make) the tour was excellent. We weren't allowed to take cameras into the factory (shame) but we did get a feel for just what they do there. Highly recommended. 

Seattle Auto Show

My next car?

We're in Seattle. They have a big Auto Show running at the moment. Do I have to draw you a map? And of course I took the camera.

There were a lot of cars. And people. 

Plenty'o'engine....

Some cars I can actually afford.....

Flying Icelandic

They have the Northern Lights built into their planes

I've not used Icelandic Air before. But I will again. First up, their flights to Seattle are a bit shorter, since they fly further over the poles. And they found me legroom seats, which was very nice, But the most important thing to be aware of if you fly Icelandic is that there are no free meals and only free soft drinks. I don't actually have a problem with this. It does mean that I get the food that I want and that my brain is not strained deciding between "Chicken or Pasta".

An Idiot on eBay

Can you work out what's in these two packages? Neither can I. 

I've been raising funds for the purchase of a Playstation VR (of which more later). Part of this involved selling some computers that I deemed surplus to requirements. So I took lots of pictures and, being a clever person, I boxed the computers before advertising them. Good plan.

Then I sent the wrong box to one of my customers. Less good plan.

It just goes to show that my capacity for stupidity is expanding all the time. As I taped them up I reflected on whether or not I should label each box so that I would know what is in it. I thought there'd be no way I could make a mistake, which of course is the reason why I did. 

Fortunately my customers are being understanding and it should all be sorted soon.

Another boring day...

Went to Castle Howard. Took a picture of a tree. Came home. Appeared on TV for 15 seconds talking about internet security. As you do. 

Then spent the evening writing the session for Future Decoded tomorrow. I've also packed the robots.....

Broken Wire Bonding

Thanks to number one son for the picture

Nothing like a bit of father/son bonding over a soldering iron (in my case not  a very good iron). 

Number one son drove up to see us this weekend and on the journey discovered that the remote lock for his car tailgate didn't work any more. A quick search of the interwebs suggested that the cause might be a broken wire. Indeed. And it turns out that the rear wiper on our car had broken for what was probably the same reason. 

So, what with it being a nice day and all, we went outside and peeled back a couple of rubber boots. As it were. Turns out we were both right. In my case doubly so as two wires had snapped. So we passed the soldering iron back and forth rather like a pipe of peace as we made good the damage. 

I find it really surprising that the wire can fail like this, and that car manufacturers are happy for it to happen. After all, we haven't actually spent days on end opening and closing the tailgates of our cars, these have broken after fairly light use. Oh well, as long as they last through the warranty, I guess that is what counts here....

Lofty Ambitions

So, I spent today taking things out of the loft and taking them to the tip. Basically, throwing things away that I should have thrown away 10 years ago. 

Floordown

I've no idea why the world needs updates on my home improvements. But it's my blog, and so here's a picture of the floor, pretty much finished. I'm going to run cable trunking round the edge of the laminate in lieu of edging, that way it'll look neat and I can send power and data around the room without having any trailing cables.  

It begins...

Fired with the success I had mending the pinball machine yesterday I'm now moving on to bigger things. Like decorating my workroom. Since step one is take all the computers to bits and move them somewhere else this means that blog posts might be few and far between over the next few days....

Compelling Jigsaws

I bought number one wife a jigsaw for her birthday, what with both of us having sort of retired from proper jobs. It was kind of a joke, but it turns out that there is something strangely compelling about them.....

Old Tapes and Tidy Code

Did some tidying up today. The experience with my office has taught me a valuable lesson. 

"If you don't know you've got something, you might as well not have it"

I've been looking for things I didn't know I had, and then chucking them out. It's going quite well, what with two trips to the tip so far. 

This is one thing that I definitely know I have, and so I'll be keeping forever. It's my prized Sony TC-270 tape recorder. It might not look much, but thanks to its snap on speakers and ability to play music for several hours non stop (and quite loudly) it made me, if not a god amongst men, at least someone who could get the party started in my younger days. 

Apparently it was made at a time when all silicon transistors was something to brag about. It contains about twenty or so. 

Update: Done some digging. Just 18 transistors and 4 diodes. Your phone probably has several million. And they're silicon too.  

Hull Scooterists

There were some scooters down at the Hull Marina today. The Hull Scooterists were heading off on a charity run and they'd gathered in the sunshine before setting off. Some of the scooters were awesome. I took some pictures and of course the shot I really wanted to get came out blurred.

Note to self. Just because it looks sharp on the camera screen doesn't mean that it is actually sharp. 

But these lights came out OK. 

In one era and out the other

Well, that's it. My office is eerily empty. I've filled around thirty bags with rubbish and I've handed my keys in. Technically I'm still on the payroll of the university until the end of the month, but I'm not really working here any more. It's been very strange to watch the people around me planning for a whole bunch of things that I'm not going to be part of. 

I'm going to miss so many things about the university, particularly the staff in Computer Science and our amazing students, but I've got one or two silly plans (some of them involving cheese) and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when I start with them.

Of course I'll still be blogging. And maybe even the odd podcast and other things. The new C# Yellow Book will be out next week (apologies for the delay, it's been a busy week) and I've got some other ideas in the pipeline. It's going to be rather liberating to be able to spend time on stuff that I find interesting, and you can be sure that I'll be writing all about it. 

Leaving Do

Click through for the full 360 degree experience....

We had my "leaving do" today. Organised by Helen with her customary efficiency and good humour. There was tea. And cake. And great people. I been working at the University of Hull. But the folks I've been working with are what has made it worth sticking around for 38 years. 

They are all awesome. I made this point as I said thanks to everyone for my lovely leaving gifts (posh pens, a silver photo frame and a lump of credit to spend on gadgets at Amazon. They know me well...

Some things in life I worry about. But as long as we have such a wonderful bunch of folks who care about what they are doing, the future of Computer Science in Hull is in great hands.