Today saw us up at the crack of dawn and haring down the motorway to Milton Keynes to take part in another Collectormaina. Well, at least it is a trip out.
So, who is this chap?
..or this lass?
The "throng"
I don't think this is a family portrait as such....
Any nightclub owners out there?
A Lego shop opposite an Apple shop. Seems somehow appropriate.
The Milton Keynes Tree. And some concrete cows.
Downstairs I have a copy of GTA4. Nico has been out on a date, taken my cousin bowling and killed a few times ("But they were all bad people"). And today, in my so called leisure time, I've spent a few hours writing C#. And having at least as much fun as I did with the video game.
Perhaps it is a control thing. When I'm writing code I not only have complete knowledge of what I'm doing, but I also created the thing I'm working within. I don't know, I'll leave the finer points of character analysis to those who already think I'm a bit strange, and move on.
Anyhoo, the code is coming along nicely. I'm finishing off (or at least moving on a bit) a thing I started ages ago. It uses a Tablet PC to help you mark class work. You fill in a form with comments, grades and suggestions and the program stores all this (including ink) in an XML file. You can then use this to generate a custom web page or set of report images you can send to the students. I've got all the storage and editing story sorted and I'm just finishing off the reporting.
When I've got the system working I'll post it for anyone to play with.
In the meantime I'm having a bunch of fun making it.
Got a code in the node. I feel kind of bad because I've spent the last couple of days in the labs looking at student work and presumably breathing germs on everyone who has shown me their software. Oh well. According to a study (always the prelude to some enormous whopper or other) young folk today fall prey to all kinds of nasties because they aren't exposed to enough things to challenge their immune system as they grow up. So now I see my sneezing as a kind of social service.
Anyhoo, I really enjoyed the marking. The general standard was excellent. Students could either make a bank application or a game, and the split was around 50:50 over the cohort. I saw some "production quality" banks, with excellent code and some highly playable games.
Good work folks, and I hope I haven't made you too ill.
Last night I either dreamed I had toothache or I laid awake with toothache for some time and then woke up with no toothache. Most confusing.
I feel terrible. Today I bunked off using the Wii fit (which is excellent by the way) so that I could play Grand Theft Auto IV instead. Now I know that the fitness program is going to give me a hard time when I next use it. Mind you, I'd back Nico against a weighing machine in any kind of fight. Oh yes.
I'm doing two sessions at DevDays in Holland next month. They asked me to make a video about them.
So I did.
I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks working with my final year project students and their reports. They've been sending me drafts and I've been adding comments. This year has been great, because most of them have really engaged with the process, coming to regular meetings and responding very well to what I've said. It has been nice to see the drafts improving in quality with each pass.
The actual hand in date is this Thursday, and I'm quite looking forward to seeing the finished results. If you are writing something it is very important that you go through this review phase, and you allow time to do it. I reckon that a properly written report can add ten percent to a project mark so it is worth the effort.
Saw this T-shirt today. I really, really want one:
For some reason known only to Primark they've used a system diagram which includes PDP and VAX computers and all kinds of things that I used to manage (RD54 disks anyone) as the logo. I sooo want one of these in XL. I just hope they are not only kids sizes (and that you can still get them).
Ha. Managed to get one. I happened to be up town early today (getting a copy of a certain video game now in its fourth incarnation) and so I nipped into Primark and found they still had some. In fact, bearing in mind they were only three pounds each, I got two.
I managed to get myself a copy of Rock Band for the PS3 (that is the one which works in the UK). All I had to do was travel to Seattle, got to Fry's, cart the thing back to my hotel room, unpack it and cram it into my suitcase (it just fitted) and then carry it back.
Easy.
(I left all the empty boxes in the hotel room. I feel a bit bad about this, they might think I've left them a copy of the game to play with, when all they find is a bunch of cardboard and packing.)
Anyhoo, I got the thing home and it is worth the effort. Particularly if you look at how much they are going to charge for the game upon UK release. I've worked my way through Easy mode on drums and I'm now moving on to Normal. It really does feel like drumming and we had a quick go at multi players and the impression of being in a band really is there.
The only slight snag is that the drumpads are a bit noisy when you hit them. So I've bought some felt which I'm going to use to damp the drums. I'm going to get a circle cutter and some foam and hope to make a proper job of damping them down a bit. In the meantime I'm going to use a time-honoured technique for making sure I can't hear the drum pads.
Turn the music up.
Today was the (sniff) final meeting of the Friday Afternoon Club. Talk about going out with a bang. We did Threads, and tried to crash Vista by starting off 1,000 at once. Of course it just kept going (but the CPU usage in Task Manager did max out quite dramatically).
I took a couple of pictures.
You can click on them for larger versions from Flickr. I really enjoyed the lecture and I hope that you lot did as well. See you for Software Engineering next semester.
We went to see a movie tonight. We sort of have to pick the films based on the time they start, and on that basis we went to see "Fools Gold". This is a south sea caper with buried treasure, murderous rappers and a non "will they-won't they" romance strand. The characters are a bit one dimensional, the treasure plot is over complicated and Donald Sutherland's accent atrocious. But I can think of much more unpleasant ways to spend a few hours in a cinema. "There Will Be Blood" for example.
I've had a rush of creativity. No, really.
This is a screenshot of the Simple Simon Project at Very Silly Games. It will eventually be a pattern matching game remarkably like another game named after a pieman.
I've only written the first bit for now, with some questions that you can use to brush up your programming smarts. Study the code and answer them and we will see about moving onto the next phase of the development.
I've just remembered. We never get to know the name of the pieman. Just the person who met him.
Back to work today. Plenty of business and stuff. The jetlag keeps switching my brain off at inopportune momen
I don't remember much of today.
Which is probably just as well.
Before flying back we had our last "Breakfast in America" at our favourite diner. Which has very shiny stools. Then it was up to the airport to be crammed into a metal tube for 9 hours.
At the airport they had this lovely little thing. Sort of robbery target and getaway vehicle all in one.
I didn't get any extra space on the long flight. But the bloke who was sat next to me, who must have been all of four feet tall, had one of the precious legroom seats. And my in-flight entertainment thingy didn't work. Oh how I suffered.
Went out for a meal with Andy and Andrew tonight. Andy suggested a place where they come to the table and cook your food in front of you.
We had "The Chef in the Green Hat". He was very cool. And the food was delicious.
The right way to burn an onion...
A great place to eat
Cunning use of minimal space on the ground. But I wouldn't like to live there...
Today we went for a boat trip out from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, which is around half an hour away. There was nothing particular on the island we wanted to see, but it was a nice trip nonetheless.
On the Boat
Seattle from the bay
The weather could have been nicer, but the views were excellent. It just made me more determined to come back here in sunnier times.
Today was the last day of the summit proper, and we had keynote addresses from Ray Ozzie and Steve Balmer
Gathering for the keynote
Ray Ozzie was first to speak and take questions.
Steve Balmer arrived looking like this:
..and left dressed like this
I think we had better find a University of Hull sweatshirt to give him next time.
I've never heard Steve talk before, and I must say I'm impressed. He was knowledgeable, smart, self aware and, above all, funny. A great way to end a very interesting four days.
You've got to be careful in hotels. They put mirrors all over the place. There are a whole bunch in the bathroom, which in my opinion (and my condition) is a really bad place to put a mirror. They also have them on the lift doors. I was alone in the lift travelling down to the lobby and, staring at my reflection, thought I'd have a go at gurning to pass the time. As you do.
I just managed to pull a truly deformed face (not, admittedly much of a stretch for me) when of course the doors slid open to reveal a rather well dressed couple who were on their way out to some posh do or other. They managed not to actually recoil at the sight of me, but they did seem slightly worried as they got into the lift and the three of us made it the rest of the way down in rather stony silence. Oh well.
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.
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