Open for Open Day

Just done an Open Day talk. Thanks for coming folks. Around a third of the people there had not been to Hull before. Hope you like the place. The campus was looking super splendid in the sun.

Wore my new glasses to give the talk. These are varifocals. This means that the front row were just a blur as far as I could tell. So if you were trying to get my attention at any point I'm sorry if I didn't spot it.

Anyway, if you did come by, thanks for being a good audience.

War of the Worlds. And why not.

Went to see War of the Worlds tonight. It is a Stephen Spielberg film with Tom Cruise. There, I've just about said it all. If you are after a moving and complex narrative where characters develop amongst sparkling dialogue, with a sprinkling of romance and comedy, then you can leave the building now.

If you are after exploding buildings, gung ho action and plenty of screaming, then you might want to take a look. Two things I didn't like. Firstly the name on the tin is wrong. It is not a war. It is 100 minutes of being ground underfoot by the nasty aliens followed by a sudden happy ending (hope this isn't giving too much away folks). When I go abroad I make sure I've had all my injections. You'd think that when they go to another world the invaders would have done the same.

The second thing I didn't like was Tom's "daughter". She has obviously been to the old "Dr. Who assistant" school of acting, and took her role of not doing what dad said, gettiing into trouble as a result, screaming loudly, very loudly, and being rescued, extremely seriously. Rather tiresome I thought. Makes you appreciate Billy Piper in the new Dr. Who.

As an action film summer blockbuster "The War of the Worlds" is OK. But deep it is not. And nothing like as good as the book or the Jeff Wayne musical version (which quite literally rocks).

A Good Day at Work

You know you've had a good day at work when you can't remember what you were doing. As far as I can recall I was preparing delegate lists for Slide5, updating web sites, counting session preferences, sorting out presentation timings, designing and printing CD label artwork and some other stuff I forgot.

A great day.

The Wild Bunch of HETA

The Wild Bunch
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Just done a talk at HETA. Took along the Media Centre, wrote some C# with the audience and took a picture and blogged during the session. You were a good bunch. I'm sorry I called you all idiots. Only the ones who actually thought that bricks are intelligent are the idiots. And I'm glad you liked the dog.

Will Code for Beer

Asahi Beer. Never drunk any myself. Seen lots of bottles of it though. And the labels. Some years ago I wrote a system (in embedded C) which controls the laser date marking systems at the Asahi Brewery in Japan. My software controls a device which moves metal disks in front of the marking laser. Thing is, the disks run out of characters after a while and so they need to be changed, along with the controlling software.

So tonight I was re-discovering the joys of code that I wrote quite a few years ago. Quite fun using a program which displays 24 lines of 80 characters on my 17 inch monitor. Whoa. Those letters are big. And it is surprising how all the keyboard shortcuts came back to me. Did the changes, blew the EPROMS and sent them off. If a few weeks they should be in the machines in Japan. And my software will be marking beer for another five years or so.

Not my favourite embedded job though. One day I'll tell you all about my toilet flushing program.....

Dreamcast Delights

The Dreamcast is a neat machine. The graphics are good enough for solid gameplay, and Sega have gameplay in shed loads. Number one son has given Soul Calibur a thrashing and I've caught four pretend fish playin Sega Bass Fishing. Underneath my telly is starting to look a little crowded. I've since found out that you can get Dreamcasts from ebay, in good nick with a bunch of games, for around 20 quid or so. Even if you have to pay around a tenner for the postage that is still a whole hunk of fun for the money.

Life on the Ice

Alan looked out of his igloo, across the ice towards the lake. The night was very cold and very dark. He wandered out, shivering slightly, and noticed a knot of villagers by the lake's edge, huddled together and pointing at the sky. "What do you think it means?" one of them asked. Alan looked up. Where normally there was inky blackness he could make out a new star where none had been before. It hadn't been there yesterday and now there it was. It was a strange colour and he found it vaguely unsettling. As he watched he thought he noticed it getting bigger. He blinked and looked again. Yes. Definitely bigger. A frightening thought occured to him. He was just about to shout a warning to the rest of the group when he and his entire civilsation was pulverised into dust by a massive explosion.

And the headlines read:

"Worldwide telescopes analyze NASA's comet collision "

Voyages in Sound

A couple of weeks ago I decided to embark on a journey. I thought I'd start my Media Centre at the very first track on the disk, "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" by the Stranglers and go all the way through to "Zoo Station" by U2. In order. Well, it helps to pass the time and it relieves me of the responsibility of having to choose what to listen to.

After a bunch of tracks who's names start with brackets and dots, a few [Untitled Tracks] the machine started on all the ones that have the track number in the name. I'm presently up to "07 - Not So Manic Now" by Dubstar and I've had to stop for a break to listen to some Pink Floyd. I saw them live last night on "Live 8" and now I'm going to work through their stuff (best album "Wish you were here") before continuing. It was wonderful to see "the Floyd" together again and sounding like it was only last week they recorded the stuff. Instead of over twenty years ago. Kind of give me hope for the future.....

I've found some interesting tracks on the journey that I forgotten I had, and a few I didn't even know were there. Perhaps I'll continue again in a little while.

The Voice of Reason and Upstairs Fishing

Now that number one son is back at the ranch for a while I'm kind of relieved to have someone to go up town with me and stop me from buying more gadgets and computer games. So, today I set off shopping with a slightly lighter heart than usual, knowing that a restraining influence was present to keep me in check.

So when we got home with the second hand Sega Dreamcast console that we subsequently bought, with Soul Calibur (number one son says it is the best ever Dreamcast game) and Sega Bass Fishing (complete with computerised fishing rod) I was able to reflect on how well that plan had worked.

The console itself is in good nick, and works well. And the fishing is fun, if a bit silly. We had the windows open 'cos it was a bit warm. I hope that the neighbours weren't too confused by the loud cries of "Get that fish over there", and "Quick, reel him in, not too tight, you'll break the line"....

Hellooooooo

The cold is getting better. The good news is that it has left me with a wonderfully deep and butch sounding voice. Kind of like Leslie Phillips and Terry Thomas, with an added bit of "Pot Noodle Horn" thrown in. I've been going round saying "Helloooooo" and impressing all and sundry with my masculine tones. I suppose I could have this kind of voice all the time, all I'd have to do is smoke 20 Woodbines a day.

(if you don't understand the reference to "Pot Noodle Horn" don't worry. The latest promotion for the "lumpy dried soup in a plastic cup - just add boiling water" which are Pot Noodles involves a suggestive voice asking questions like "Do you have the Pot Noodle Horn?", a reference to a competition of some kind.)

Stinking Cold

Hottest days of the year, month, millennium etc etc.

Me with stinking cold. Most unfair. Only got rid of one around a month back and now it seems to have returned. I'm once more carrying around fists full of full tissues, sneezing in meetings and wondering why my brain runs out of... of... thingy right in the midle of.... of.... thingy.

Margot's new car

Margot's new car
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.
Margot came to see us all a-flutter today. Seems she went out to buy a bag of sugar (or something like that) and came back with a brand new car. As one does. Apparently it "dragged her across the garage forecourt and forced her to buy it".

I'm inclined to agree with this. It does look kind of cute.

It's in the wrist action

Actually got Portia to fit onto the docking station today. Once you figure out the little twizzle you have to give her as you fit it on the back panel (which I can now do two out of four times) it is kind of easy. And I am well pleased.

Hmmm. Little things please little minds, but then again if I had a big mind I wouldn't be able to do anything to please it......

Edit: It has occurred to me that if I did have a bigger mind I might be able to think of bigger things that I could do to please it. I wonder if this means my mind is growing. Heaven forfend.

The Only Man In A Suit

Went to a Teaching Fellowship event today. The university has given me a Teaching Fellowship award to do some work in improving the learning environment for our students. With a bit of luck and a following wind I want to get customisable student learning resources and Tablet PC marking in place for next session. Go me.

I was just about the only person wearing a suit, apart from the big boss (or Deputy Vice Chancellor). Oh, and I've found out that Vice Chancellor isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds.

Anyhoo, going from last week's Imagine Cup final, where I was the only person not wearing a suit, to being one of the few sharp dressed guys does imply a kind of symetric nature to fate I suppose. My line on this is that when people are giving me money, I turn up in a suit to collect it....

Pack that Backpack on your Back

Geoff came round today to pick up a laptop backpack. I used it precisely once when I went through my "Cycling to work might be fun" phase. This lasted one trip. Three things must you know about riding a bike:

When it is hot you are hot.
When it is cold you are cold.
When it is wet you fall off.

Perhaps if my bike wasn't made of the same material they use for anchors and paperweights I might be more inclined to use it. It also has super knobbly tyres which make it very hard to pedal. Actually, with its mostly flat nature, Hull is very good for bike riding. But not good enough for me.

The Sound of Silence

Found a lovely feature on the BBC coverage of Wimbledon today. If you use the fancy match selection thingy you can sometimes find a game with no commentary. No people saying things like:

"He must really regret missing that serve"
or
"I'm no expert, but I don't think he meant to do that"
or
"If he doesn't win the next game, he might not win the match"

I watched an hour or so of play and it was wonderful. Just the players and the game and the score. Even the crowd was well behaved. One of the players was Spanish and the other was Greek (I think) and so they didn't quite know who to root for.

I've never quite understood the need for commentary. If you go to see the game live you don't get it and we don't get people commentating on other things:

"..and here comes Miles into the lecture theatre now. Running only two minutes late, a record for him. And yes, he's going for the laptop. Let's see if it will boot first time, or if he'll have that blue screen problem like he did back in 2002 in that memorable data structures seminar. I think that was also the time that his green marker pen ran out, but I may be wrong on that one. Anyway, I see he's found the remote for the video projector, and turned it on at only the third press. I think we could be in for a good session here. The students on the back row have opened their copies of The Sun already in anticipation of a glorious display of teaching at its finest. What do you think Graham...."

A week with Portia

I've had my new tablet PC for nearly a week now. I got it from Max after advising him to buy it. So far it has worked fine. I've loaded a bunch of software on and I have had no problems at all. Love it. In fact I've decided to call her Portia the Portege. The docking station I am going to call "The Devil".

It is as if at Toshiba they had a meeting and asked the engineers to line up, smartest on the left, dumbest on the right. All the engineers on the left went off to build Portia. All the engineers on the right went off to build the docking station. When Max was showing me how horrid the docking station was I noticed that he had to roll his sleeves up prior to beginning the process of putting the machine onto it. You do. The process goes like this:

1. Shut the tablet down.
2. Close the tablet so that the screen is not facing you; i.e. it is in the position where you would not want to use it on a docking station.
3. Remove the dangly bit from the docking station.
4. Insert the left hand docking fitting into the left hand peg on the dangly bit.
5. Insert the right hand docking fitting into the right hand peg on the dangly bit.
6. Notice that the left hand peg has now come out, so return to step 3 and repeat a few times.
7. Now that you have got both pegs lined up and are fairly confident that the things are sort of lined up, apply sufficient pressure to force the tablet onto the dangly bit. You have to push hard to get all those tiny gold pins to fit together, more than hard enough to bend one or two of them I suppose.
8. Assuming your nerve has not failed, and you now have the tablet clipped on to the dangly bit, attach the dangly bit to the main base, making sure to line it up carefully or the whole thing will crash to the floor, smashing the tablet and pulling the cable off the end of the dangly bit. Oh, and be careful not to accidentally twizzle the thing into the landscape mode as this makes it hard to handle and, if the tablet is not properly fitted, will also cause it to plummet to the floor.
9. Remember that you really wanted to see the screen, so get the dangly bit back off the base station and turn the tablet round and then put it back.
10. Turn on the power and wait for the tablet to boot, all the while hoping that the connections are good.
11. Note that the display is now the wrong way up but the tablet pen has X and Y transposed. Spend a mind mangling two mintes trying to press the correct button to log in and have the screen sort itself out.
12. To remove the tablet, first press the special release button and wait for it to go green before continuing or Bad Things (tm) will happen. Then pull the mystery lever, just like the one that lets you rotate the tablet around but on the other side, to have the precious device catapulted into your lap.

This is in sharp contrast to my previous docking station for the Fujitsu tablet, which had a fitting procedure which went like this:

1. Put the tablet on the docking station.
2. Pull the lever.

The good news is that I am going to practice on this until it I've beaten it. The better news is that with Portia having a keyboard of her own there is no particular need for the docking station at the moment. Perhaps I could sell it on eBay to people who've never seen one...

Depressed of Wimbledon

Watched a bit of tennis on the telly today. A english player got beaten. It seemed like he was having difficultly coping with the fact that the other guy was a better player then him. And the crowd, watching weren't much better.

When I was a lad (gosh I sound old) the audience at Wimbledon viewed the game in respectful silence, allowing themselves a sharp intake of breath and perhaps a ripple of clapping at a particularly excellent piece of play by either person on the court. This rabble cheered every time the english player got a ball back and applauded wildly whenever his opponent hit a ball out of the court or double faulted. I ended up rooting for the other guy. And he won.

Once the game was over there was non of the "...and now moving over to the game on court number one.." business of the old days. We had to have an interview with the winner, asking him how he feels about winning (my guess would be pretty pleased - but I'm not a professional tennis commentator). I left the room before they had the interview with the bloke who lost so they could ask him how he feels.

There seems to be an obsession with finding out how people feel these days. Not impressed. I want to watch people playing tennis, not explore the feelings of someone I'm never likely to meet. Ho hum. And I do miss Dan Maskell.

Verity Stob Lives

Went to Foyles today. Spent far too much on books. One book I just had to buy. The collected writings of Verity Stob. She is a legend. Many years ago a new magazine called .EXE, written by programmers for programmers, hit the stands with a regular column by the aformentioned Ms. I remember looking forward to the magazine just to turn straight to the back and read her bit.

Very clever, very funny and very clever (have I mentioned that she is very clever). She now writes for Dr. Dobbs. And you can buy a book of earlier writings. If you have any computer leanings you should read her stuff. And you will laugh. And you will thank me. So go. Follow that link now. Shoo.

Back here? Sorry about that. The Dobbs people stop you from reading much. Never mind, there is always here for a little bit more. I guess you'll have to buy the book. After all, I'm afraid I'm not going to lend you mine.

A Cup of Imagination

I've been sort of associated with the Microsoft Imagine Cup student programming competition since it started a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago I had the great pleasure of seeing a team of Hull students give their all in the competition and come third in the world. Today I saw another set of keen and knowledgable folk strutting their technical stuff in search of glory.

And one of them is number one son. I'm a bit concerned. I've taught him everything I know (took a surprisingly short time) and this might not be enough.

Needn't have worried. The lad done good. Not a winner, but pretty darned impressive (and I say this as an unbiased parent) and a very good start in the business. I think he will be around again next year...

I took a load of pictures. The event took place on top of the BT tower and I think I made a bit of a fool of myself at the event with my big camera and the 130 photographcs I took. Ho hum. I've put some of the better ones on my flickr account (just click on the moving picture thing on the right of this page to find your way there).

Then back to Kings Cross to my little hotel. Meeting up with number one son tomorrow to go to the best bookshop in the world and also the Gizmondo shop.