Turns out that no matter how many times a seven year old promises not to spray you if you hand them the hosepipe, they still end up spraying you. Although it was apparently “accidental”.
However, it was extremely funny and great fun. And we do now have a much cleaner car. And I did get my own back…
Many years ago I got a robot guinea pig. He’s been languishing in the conservatory with a broken battery for a while. Today I thought I’d order him a replacement and we could see if he could live again.
Today I dug up a big plant in the garden and threw it in the bin. I just hope it was the right one.
Went to York today and took a bunch of pictures. But I won’t be able to show them to you until I’ve finished the roll…..
It has always struck me as strange how a piece of software can know when a deadline is fast approaching and then choose that moment to fail in new and completely unamusing ways… Oh well.
I took my little car into the dealers for its MOT test yesterday. This is an annual British ritual where you find out just how dangerous that thing is you’ve been driving around in all year. My car passed (which is nice) although it did need two new tyres. They gave me a loaner car to play with which was huge (and according to the form I signed worth about 60,000 pounds). This was deeply scary but also great fun. I’m almost looking forward to the test next year…
Now, where is P?
Bought a typewriter yesterday for number one granddaughter. It was in a charity shop calling for me. After I’d walked past it twice I decided that it was actually for me. Kind of nostalgic. Just like the one I used when I was a student nearly fifty years ago. And of course it still works. Number one granddaughter was fascinated. The idea that you can directly make marks on paper with something mechanical was quite new to her. Within a few minutes she was happily bashing out letters and learning that there is no delete key……..
Great fun.
It’s starting to wear off a bit I’m afraid
Perks of being a grandad number 101: Got my first tattoo today. I don’t think it will stick around but it was expertly applied with plenty of glue…
I don’t think it was my mending that broke it
My mouse has broken. I’ve had it ages. It’s a Microsoft Sculpt Comfort mouse and I really like it. Everything works but the scroll wheel. This has happened before so I took it apart and cleaned it. And it is still broken. This is a big thing. I’ve had it for ages. It came with a keyboard/mouse pack from which the keyboard has long gone. I’m now making do with a flat mouse and looking at horribly expensive “new-old” stock.
Pro tip. If you find a keyboard or a mouse that you really like you should buy a couple of them and pop one away for the future….
This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this post. I just like how it came out.
One of the best bits of DDD yesterday was getting together with some students to talk about plans for the future. Boss had organised a bunch of speakers to have a word with a bunch of students. For me it was great to hear folks echoing what I used to tell students all those years ago. All of the speakers had great stories and I chipped in occasionally too. But I think all the advice can really be summed up very simply:
Do stuff and tell people about it.
People who might fancy hiring you will expect you to have completed your studies successfully. But if the only “war stories” that you have to tell are about your assessments you will find yourself at a disadvantage. You need to have other things you have made, done or failed at to talk about. And they don’t necessarily have to be in software. You should form a policy of finding things to do and ways in which you can use them to your advantage. If you take care of that you might find that your future will take care of itself.
It comes with a snazzy case as well
It has to be said that I don’t usually put toothbrush recommendations in this blog. But yesterday m dental hygienist insisted that I get a new toothbrush and even wrote down the make and model. It arrived this morning and I must admit it is rather good. It lights up when I press too hard and even tells me how much time to spend on each quadrant of my mouth (before today I didn’t even know that my mouth had quadrants).
My dentist is leaving Hull. Very sad. I hope it’s nothing I did. Looking into my mouth for seven years must take some kind of toll I suppose. Anyhoo, I wish her all the best for the future. And now somebody else will have to say things like “You’ve got good teeth - for your age” to me.
At least I hope that’s what they are going to say.
The kit was beautiflly presented in every other respect…
Spent some of today trying to build a “birthday present robot” for an important guest. Fell massively at the first fence when it turned out that our kit was lacking the P8 axle you can see above. We had two P6’s, but that doesn’t really help. The good news is that there are lots of these kinds of kits and they are quite cheap. The replacement should arrive tomorrow.
I just hope it works…
I’ve got backups of all my pictures. Obviously. But it would be a pain to have to go and find them. And when the power supply for the drive that holds 3 terrabytes of images suddenly goes pop you can forgive me a certain amount of nervousness.
I’ve ordered a replacement.
I put my OP-1 up for sale earlier in the week. I’ve now sold it, which is good news because I’ve already bought the camera it is helping to pay for…..
It doesn’t look a bit like a murder weapon…
I bought a rubber hammer today. I used to have one, but it must have bounced away somewhere. I’ve got some shelves coming today that you just put together with a rubber hammer and so I thought I’d get one. Perhaps the best 3.50 I’ve spent in a while.
When the shelves arrive I plan to answer the door with the hammer in my hand and say “Aha! At last you’re here. Now I can begin…”
Then again, perhaps not.
You know you want it
I bought my Teenage Engineering OP-1 few years back when I thought I might be a musician. This has turned out not to be the case (through no fault of the device itself). I now think I might be a photographer (so stay tuned for a few years hence when I think I might be something else and start selling all my cameras).
Anyhoo, in a bid to fund my photographic excess I’ve popped my OP-1 on eBay. I’ve hardly used it much (it is like new) and I think the price is reasonable. If I decide I want to get back into music I can always sell a couple of cameras and buy another one. You can find it here.
Vive la France
Went out for a French themed meal this evening. It was really, really, nice. If it was me running the gig I’d have had pictures of the Eiffel Tower everywhere, loud accordion music playing and the servers smoking Gauloises cigarettes and being surly. But they didn’t. Just great food and drink. Which was probably for the best.
Thanks again Dal-e
On Radio Humberside talking about cold batteries. Apparently Tick Tockers (whatever they are) have been noticing that they can’t make as many videos on their phone in the cold weather. This is what I said:
Low temperature increases the “internal resistance” of the battery. This limits the amount of power you can get from it. It also means that to get a certain level of performance it takes more power out of the battery.
Electric cars are affected too. They heat up the battery in cold weather. If you have the car plugged in at home you can “pre-condition” the battery to warm it up. This can improve the range, which is a good idea in winter because cold substantially reduces range (at least by a third).
Always Be Charging. There’s no advantage in running your lithium battery right down before charging it (in fact flattening a lithium battery can destroy it). Keep your battery charged every chance you get. The only reason to let the battery run down is so that the phone can work out the battery life.
Keep your phone in an inside pocket so that you keep it warm.
If you give your phone something hard to do this will warm it up (although of course it will also flatten the battery). There are even “hand-warmer” apps that do this – but they are not a particularly good idea.
Charge the battery when it is warmer.
Warm your phone up before you do something that consumes a lot of power.
Nice work Dal-E. Not sure about the number of door handles though….
Our Nissan Cube is getting on a bit. As are we all. He’s not perfect, but he is good enough to pass the MOT test for another year. I’m going to get his underside comprehensively clarted with wax and whatnot to try and stave of the inevitable onset of rust (poetic prose) but it is nice to have him around for at least one more year.
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.
Make your own programming language. Find out more here.
