Watched a carry on film this afternoon. The Carry On team took on the Anthony and Cleopatra tale. It has one of the best lines of all time:
Caesar: (being pursued by an angry mob) "Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me.."
Wonderful.
This morning number one wife mentioned that she thought the dishwasher was leaking. The basis of her argument was that the carpet underneath it was wet. This premise was to me far too flimsy. There were lots of other reasons why the carpet might be wet, and so I took upon myself to investigate all of them first.
So, having dismantled the plumbing outside the house and run several tests on the washing machine I was able to conclude, to my satisfaction, that the dishwasher was indeed leaking.
I'm left wondering if as you get older you just assume that things people tell you are wrong, or whether this is something that I've been arrogantly doing all through my life.
The only good news was that the repair, cleaning the door seal, was actually very easy.
You can now get an Xbox 360, with a 60G hard disk, for less than 200 pounds. Twenty pounds less if you go to Amazon, where they are doing them for 180. This is quite frankly an incredible price. Over 10 years ago, when money was really worth something, I got a Playstation 1 for 400 pounds. Now you can get something far more powerful, which will also work as a media centre and has a genuinely useful sized storage capacity, for a fraction of that. And of course with XNA you can write your own programs for it. For free if you are a student.
Amazing.
For the last few days I've been working at home on some XNA stuff. The idea was that I'd get a lot done by shutting myself away with no distractions. Apparently J.K. Rowling managed to finish writing the last Harry Potter novel by locking herself in a hotel room with a word processor and not coming out until it was finished. I can't afford a hotel, so I'm all alone at home trying to do something similar.
It did not go too well to be honest. It is unbelievable the number of different things that you suddenly find to do when you have to do some writing. Particularly at home, where there is always something to tidy up, put into alphabetical order, move to a different position, or eat.
I actually enjoy the creative process once I get started. I don't think that it is writer's block that I suffer from, more like a torrent of different ideas, each of which has to be kicked in our out of the project and then shuffled into its proper place. And I can tell when I'm near finishing, as I have a strong urge to take the whole thing to bits and start again. I also start to question the very tenets on which the whole thing is based.
I think on that basis I'm just about done....
If my years on this planet have taught me one thing, it is that the secret to true happiness is properly managing your expectations. I had high expectations of the new Batman movie, and that paid off. I had somewhat lower expectations of the new Mummy movie (and I guess that the next Hellboy release fits somewhere between these two, expectation wise).
Anyhoo, I think was just about right. The first Mummy was a great film. This one grates a bit, but is generally OK. There are some nice lines and reasonable set pieces, and it is quite relaxing to go and see a film where you can predict the happy ending after around fifteen minutes into the picture. Trust me, Batman is not like that. I got the impression that this one was done a bit on the cheap, but perhaps the lush visuals of the Dark Knight have spoiled me a bit in this respect.
There is talk at the moment about plans to stop serving popcorn in movie theatres as it makes a bit of a mess and is thought to be somewhat downmarket in these sophisticated times. That would be a pity, as it is the perfect thing to eat during films like this.
When I was younger (and even better looking - if that is possible) there was a band called Go West. They released a couple of good albums and then seemed to vanish. I later found out that they'd gone to the 'states and were writing music for films, which was nice for them, but it meant that the flow of music releases dried up.
Until now. They've just released another album, futurenow. Such is my respect for the band that I grabbed a copy as soon as I heard about it. And it was worth it. Very much a return to form. I've only really found one naff track on the album (although that track is really, really bad). If you like poppy, upbreat music with strong vocals then it is well worth a listen, especially the first track, which is brilliant.
We've just had an "away weekend'. Part of this involved being away. At the weekend.
We stayed at the Purple Hotel in Tewksbury. I'm new to Purple hotels. They are springing up around the country (there is even one in Doncaster). They are actually quite nice. Very good prices and a little more too them that places like Travelodges. Breakfast on Sunday was particularly nice. And everyone on the staff seemed keen to make sure that our stay was as pleasant as possible. Recommended.
I was watching the Olympic opening ceremony last week when I believe I uncovered a great truth. If I suddenly vanish after this post, and it is mysteriously erased (well, you won't be able to read it, but anyway) then you will know that I have uncovered one of the greatest secrets of the age.
I think the Olympics is actually secretly run by the Walt Disney corporation. Consider the facts:
Olympic rings, or Mickey Mouse Ears?
Similar handwriting, eh?
Just think of it. All that TV time, advertising, merchandising, how can they not be doing it. I think the whole thing is actually being filmed in a big warehouse in Florida, with Pixar doing the animation for the outside shots. Every night a team of crack scriptwriters gets together and decides who wins each medal. It makes perfect sense. I just hope they are going to use the same approach for 2012.
Number one son has left home. He's done it before, during his university career, but each time it was with the expectation that he would come back.
Not so this time.
He has gainful employment, a new place to live and lots of good times to come.
Good luck son, it will not be the same at home without you.
We went to see the Dark Knight last night. And it was dark. What are the chances eh?
We were lucky enough to see it at IMAX in Bradford, on the huuuuuge screen. And it was great. A bit bleak perhaps, although there were some points where the finer aspects of human nature rose to the fore they tended to be slapped down again by the generally better organised forces of evil. They seemed to have unlimited supplies of barrels full of explosive that they could move around Gotham city and wire up at will.
Batman as a character doesn't really get the chance to do much but those around him more than make up for this, with a truly astounding  performance by Heath Ledger who doesn't much seem to perform the role of the joker as inhabit it.Â
They seemed determined to give good value to the cinema goer, with set piece after set piece and some really cracking scenes. This perhaps made the film a little overlong, but the pace never lets up. And the sound is worthy of special mention, with very impressive bangs and crashes that really packed a punch.
It is very violent, particularly given the 12A rating, but you really should see it.
Actually, it turns out that this is not actually very good strawberry flavoured milk. The absolute best is from Marks and Spencers ("Not just strawberry flavoured milk.....") with second place going to Sainsburys.Â
I was wondering about setting up a Strawberry Flavoured Milk group on Facebook. We could exchange tips (two for two pounds at Sainsburys) and recipes (Strawberry milk marshmallow surprise) and experiments (I wonder what happens if you make Yorkshire pudding with strawberry flavoured milk?). Then again, there might already be one...
This morning on the radio they were saying that the best way to see the new Batman film is on the super large IMAX cinema screen.
Like we are doing this evening.
I mentioned to number one son how lucky he is to be able to hang around with me, what with me being a person who does so many cool things.
"Yeah." he replied. "Like opening the fridge door...."
I'm really going to miss him.
When I was younger I used buy single records on 7" plastic. I've got a whole load in a box up in the loft, alongside the turntable that I used to play them on. Occasionally I get one out, look at the tiny wavy groove on it and shake my head in amazement that we actually used to store music that way.
Last week I really fancied hearing one of my old singles again ("Living by Numbers" by New Musik). So I searched out the YouTube video and had a very retro TV experience, even down to the blurred picture and muffled sound we used to get on our telly back in 1982. And then I wondered if I could still buy it. And it turns out I can. Amazon have links with vendors that sell all kinds of old stuff and so earlier this week the CD with the entire album ("From A to B") turned up in the post. (great album. Starts with a very convincing doorbell sound which actually had us checking the front door......)
This is called "long tail" marketing. There are probably not that many fans of New Musik out there, but there are enough worldwide to make it worth someone keeping a bunch of copies of the disk and sending one out every now and then.
Now I'm looking for some albums by Synergy.....
I am sad. And weak. And I go through phases where I buy new computers. I also sell slightly older ones on ebay, and so it kind of balances out. Today I bought another computer.
Last week I sold my Asus EEEPC 701 because although it was lovely and implausibly cheap I never really used it much. And besides I needed the money to pay for yet another computer that I seemed to have bought, of which more later when I actually get my hands on it.
Anyhoo, having sold lots of things on ebay for more than I expected I found that I could afford to buy the computer that I've got today (I hope you are all keeping up).
The 701 sold me on the idea of a mini-laptop, it was just that I wanted one that was genuinely useful. And to me that means running Windows. I quite like Linux, but it turns out that most of what I want to do has a Microsoft flavour. We managed to get the 701 to run XP quite successfully, but the small screen size made using it a bit of a pain, and the lack of a proper keyboard was also somewhat irritating. And to put all the software I wanted on the device would have filled the solid state memory several times over. So off it went.
What I actually wanted was a mini-laptop with a proper keyboard, a slightly larger screen, a hard disk and running Windows XP. And it turns out that you can get exactly that in PC World, for only sixty pounds more than the original device.
The Advent 4211 is a re-badged MSI Wind. This is one of the newer mini-laptops with one of the latest Intel Atom processors. It comes with 1G of memory, a 90G hard disk, a lovely 10" display delivering a very useable 1024x600 resolution and it works a treat with Windows XP. It is nowhere near as funky looking as some of the mini-laptops, being a rather somber black, but it goes like a rocket. And it only costs 280 quid, which to me is a major bargain.
This afternoon I put Visual Studio Express and XNA Game Studio on it and was soon running some of my XNA demos with no problems at all. It won't have the grunt to do the 3D stuff, but for simple programs it is well up to the job. Windows XP on the Atom seems to zoom along very satisfactorily. The keyboard is nice to use with good sized keys and the screen looks great. It also plays movie files extremely competently, the only let down is the rather poor quality of the internal speakers (but you can of course add headphones or an external amplifier).
It actually comes with a copy of Microsoft Works on the hard disk which means that you can be writing documents and spreadsheeting to your hearts content straight out of the box. I've not had a chance to test out the battery life yet, but from the reviews I reckon that a couple of hours should be tenable. And there is also a high capacity battery available.
If you are in the market for a dirt cheap, and very portable, laptop then I don't think you should look any further.
Whilst looking in the fridge for my ration of strawberry flavoured milk I noticed that we had some "Thousand Island Dressing" in there. I started to wonder (always a bad thing) how the name came about:
Marketing Drone 1: "We've got this new pink stuff that you can put on salads"
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. Is it anything to do with the sea?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Nope"
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. Ships?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Nope"
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. Landfall?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Nope"
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. How about 'Island Dressing'?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Nah. Not impactfull enough."
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. How about 'Hundred Island Dressing'?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Nah. Too small fry."
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. How about 'Million Island Dressing'?"
Marketing Drone 1: "Now you're just taking the piss."
Marketing Drone 2: "OK. 'Thousand Island Dressing' it is then."
Actually it turns out that it was named by actress Mary Irwin, at a posh dinner party in a hotel. But I guess you already know that.
I've been watching the weather forecasts again. I watch them for one reason really, to find out if it is going to rain on me or not. This is kind of annoying, in that most of a weather forecast these days is taken up with telling me what weather has already happened in places where I'm not. Usually focusing on conditions in London. However, I have become quite good at decoding what their sayings mean in respect of the question "Will it rain on me?":
"scattered showers": we don't know
"outbreaks of rain in some areas": we don't know
"changeable": we really don't know
"unsettled": we really don't know, and don't rule out hurricanes
I think, actually, that perhaps the best job to have is weather forecaster. You get paid whether you are right or not. And apparently if you just say "The weather today will be the same as yesterday" you are correct more often than not.
There is something rather surreal about listening to number one son playing Soul Calibur IV over a background of number one wife watching "Last Choir Standing" on TV.
Just got back from the X-Files movie. I was expecting lights in the sky, backlit gray aliens and lines like "You're dealing with powers beyond your comprehension". What I got was a somewhat grisly movie with a sub-1950s horror story plot and a whole boat load of angst.
Much has been made of the way that the film breaks away from the original X-Files staples of global conspiracy, alien invasion and strange goings on from "out there". Unfortunately it seems to also have jettisoned original plotlines and anything particularly engaging about Mulder and Sculley, who spent a lot of time grappling with "issues" and pulling unhappy expressions.
If you are a fan of the TV show and the earlier movie I can't particularly recommend it. If you have never seen the X-Files before I don't think you will particularly enjoy it either.
Simon just sent me this link:
http://fantasticcontraption.com/
It is a puzzle game very like the Physics Illustrator in the Tablet PC Power Toys but with directed challenges. Great lunchtime fun.
I'm writing some new teaching material at the moment. It is going roughly half as fast as I expected, which is about right in my experience.
Anyhoo, I'm doing casting, where you tell the compiler to convert from one type to another by putting the type in front:
int i, j;
float factor = (float) i / j;
I have to cast i to floating point in the sum, otherwise I get an integer division and no fractional part.
In other words, in the above code if the value of i is 1 and the value of j is 2 I want the value of factor (1/2) to be 0.5 (floating point division) rather than 0 (integer division). I get this result by casting i to float in the sum. C# uses floating point division with floating point operands, and everything comes out OK.
This is a standard computing thing, most languages provide support for casting. And I started to wonder why it is called casting? Popular wisdom seems to be that it is related to casting things in a foundry, where you pour liquid metal into a mould of a particular shape. The shape of the mould determines the result of the cast. So by casting you can change one thing into another.
However, I've thought of another way to look at it. You can think of casting as making a movie. You take an actor (Christian Bale) and cast him as a character (Batman). For the duration of the film the character will behave in terms of the role they have been cast into. This even works when we consider stupid casts. In C# you can't do things like cast a string into an integer. In films you can't do things like cast Christian Bale as City Hall. I quite like this way of looking things, but one thing does worry me. Maybe this is the original meaning, and it has taken me years to figure it out.....
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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