The Force is Strong in these Bricks

Bought another video game today (am I sad or what? - don't answer). I'd heard good things about "Lego Star Wars" and so when I saw a copy cheap I thought I might as well invest.

It is very good. Star Wars, in Lego, in real time. Nobody dies as such, they just fall to pieces. And you can use your forceful powers to rerrange bricks to make them into bridges and stuff. I know full well it is a kids game but I like this because it makes it less likely I'll get stuck or killed. The game is full of nice touches which seem to have been put there for the fun of it (how else do you explain the dancing chairs?). Not played it for long (I have mucho work to do) but I've enjoyed it so far.

Thought for the Day

Do catholic priests get incense phone calls?

Shake Rattle and Roll

The car is making a rattling noise. This is worrying. It is not rattling as much as it was (which is probably more worrying since I've not done anything to fix it). However, it still rattles. At the moment I've found a workable, if probably temporary solution.

I've turned the music up.

Poster Power

I'm presenting a poster at a programming conference next week. I've been told that just taking the Thurderbirds movie one down from my office and toddling off to Oxford is not how it is done. So I'm grappling with graphics programs and words in equal measure. How about:

"The teaching process at Hull is best described as: 'A Metadata Driven, Test Oriented, Algorithms First Approach'"

Kind of rolls off the tongue doesn't it? True too. But what shade of orange to print it in?

Blow Your Mind

So I'm sitting upstairs playing with some code. I'm doing a conversion of a little tank battle game from Pocket PC to Smartphone. It will hopefully be the basis of an MSDN article. Anyway, I'm playing the game to see what it does. My little tank manages to hit the computer's little tank.....

Well, I didn't know I'd got the speakers turned right up loud. It's not my fault that my media centre output is a bit low. The good news is that my Logitech speakers delivered the resulting explosion very efficiently. The bad news is that the sound nearly blew me off my seat. Downstairs number one daughter was left thinking that I had spontaneously combusted.

I think I'll start using that sample as a ring tone on the phone.....

The Seven Signs of Aging

There's a really irritating advert for face cream on the telly which goes on about the "Seven Signs of Aging". I've been wondering for ages what the signs might be, and speculating that there might be a sign of age for each deadly sin (would make job interviews and the like much easier if there were).

Interviewer: "Mr Jones, I see your skin is all blotchy. According to my notes that means you are a liar"
Mr. Jones: "No I'm not!"
Interviewer: "Aha!!"

Anyhoo, on one of the more recent adverts they actually gave the seven signs. They shot past in an instant, but thanks to the miracle that is Sky+ I managed to get them. They are:

1. Pores
2. Blotches
3. Tone
4. Texture
5. Radiance
6. Dryness
7. Lines and Wrinkles

So there you have it people. I'm sure that these "signs" were derived by white coated professors with qualifications in "Wrinkleology" and "Toneness", and not by some empty headed marketing types. Oh yes.

But what on earth is radiance? The way I see it having too much radiance may be regarded as a bad thing, glowing in the dark not usually being associated with healthy living.....

Would You Want a Car that can Drive Itself?

With all the driving I've been doing recently I've been wondering when we get cars that can drive themselves. Now that the Global Positioning System can pinpoint your location to within a couple of feet and computers can read car number plates and road markings and stuff it can't be long before we get self driving cars.

Or will it?

It occurs to me that we may never get them. The car makers may never let them be built. How can they go on about the "smooth accelleration", "great driving experience", "fantastic roadholding" that their car gives if the human on board is not driving. When a car becomes just a tin box that automatically takes you where you want to go in the fastest and safest possible way, what will the difference be between the brands?

What Do They Have In Their Vans?

We drove up to Durham today to deposit number one son back amongst his studies. On the way we drove past loads of RAC vans. In the old days (I can talk about the old days now because I am officially old) an RAC van was a little affair. Nowadays the vans are enormous.

I wonder why they are so big. It is not as if new cars can be repaired. All the old cars needed was a pair ofold tights and a wad of chewing gum to get them working again when something broke. New cars might as well not have bonnets for all the good you can do mending them if they go wrong. Perhaps the vans hold complete new cars which they can assemble at the kerbside if yours fails.

Tulips from Hull

The university this fine morning.

Jack Dee Joke

Heard this at a Jack Dee thing last week. Just got to share it with you...

"Why are pirates called pirates?"

"Because they arrrrrrr"

The Interpreter speaks my language

Went to see "The Interpreter" tonight. It is a UN flavoured adventure yarn with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. The plot was twisty and complex, but I was much more absorbed in the hairstyles of the two leads. Nicole (playing an interpreter who has so many language skills that she can completely change her accent in the middle of a conversation) had a wispy fringe type thing at the front which kept covering up one eye. It was so mobile that it even moved by itself during scenes, adopting a different pose from one shot to the next. Sean on the other hand had a hairstyle which seemed to have been carved out of black marble. it never moved. I was expecting him to get blown through a wall at one point, and see a perfect outline of his hair in the remaining bricks.

There were lots of moody shots, some running down corridors, some shouting and a large explosion. There was also a baddy that you would have to have been blind not to spot and everything was resolved comparatively satisfactorily. I reckon it is worth a visit. But try to resist the urge to shout "Just brush that hair away dammit!" at the screen.

Note: The google spell checker wants to replace "hairstyle" with "horsetail". I'm getting more respect for that program every day.

Product Placement

Went down to Matrix Multimedia today. They make teaching materials and are enlightened enough to employ me to write some of their stuff. No, really. I was quite inspired by a rack with a whole bunch of my course CDs. Fame at last.

Quality Controllers

Got a call from Comet today. They sent a man around to mend my microwave and so now want to know how he got on. I said he did a very good job (which he did) and that I'd buy from Comet again on the strength of the service (which I would).

It got me to wondering if our students get calls from some university quality machine. And worrying about the possible questions.

"What standard were the jokes?"
"Could you read his writing on the board?"

and, most scarily perhaps

"Did you learn anything from the course"

We do have a quality thing of course. Last week Peter sat in on one of my lectures and, after he had stopped gibbering and trying to eat the doorframe, I asked him how it went.

Apparently I did fine. But he had heard the jokes before....

Mobile Services that Never Caught On

Find my Dearest: finds the most expensive garage/resteraunt which is close to me.

Find my Furthest: finds the garage/resteraunt as close to opposite me on the planet as possible.

Find my Lovenest: finds the nearest hotel which rents rooms by the hour.

Find my StayPrest: locates the nearest supplier of crimplene slacks.

Suit You Sir

Got my new suit today. It now no longer fits like a glove. It fits like a suit.

They've actually done a really good job in the end, even though it needed some adjustments. I'm just not used to wearing things that fit this well. Now all I need is a suitable occasion to wear it.

Just a Stalker

Nobody wants to hire Trip Hazard. He is presently crusing the mean streets with no mission. He is finding this a bit upsetting. After all, a Private Investigator without a case is just a stalker.

I Look Silly with a Small Umbrella

When I got back to work this lunchtime it was raining. "No problem" I thought, I'll use number one wife's umbrella which is in my car. But when I got out, I realised that I look very silly with a small umbrellas. On me it looked like a parasol. Very silly. So I used the little umbrella to get round to the back of the car and got out my industrial grade golfing one from the back.

So, if you were watching me change from one to the other in the car park, don't worry. I'm not mad. I just look silly with a small umbrella.

Oh, and based on the above you should be able to work out the answer to the question:

"What will go up a chimney down, but won't go down a chimney up?"

Who Needs Omens Like These?

Prior to a meeting with a customer this morning (yes, I do meet customers every now and then) we went down to the coffee machine to get a drink each. The machine delivered the beverages for Chris and Peter with no fuss, then for my choco-express (I have a deliberate policy of ordering the drink which does not try to taste like anything else) it made an unhappy buzzing sound and then poured my 40 pence worth of frothy brown liquid straight through into the waste thing. "That's my life in a capsule" I remarked as we wandered back to the meeting.

Fortunately it was not an omen, the meeting went well and I'm now back in harness as a programmer of sorts.

Ten Word Poem

"Bugger" thought the mugger,
"It seems this guy plays rugger"

Private Investigator For Hire

I've been looking at all the yellow notices that have suddenly appeared in our stairwells at work. They warn about things which have been there for ages, but are suddenly so dangerous that we have to be told about them. It ocurrs to me that "Trip Hazard" would be a great name for a Private Investigator. I'm thinking seventies style here, wearing a black roll neck sweater, houndstooth pattern jacket, crimplene slacks and loafers. He would drive his open topped red Ford Mustang around the mean streets of California solving mysteries and tracking down bad guys for shootouts in old warehouses by the docks.

If you have a mystery that you want Trip Hazard to investigate on your behalf, let me know.

Plate Spinning

I seem to have a lot on at the moment. I spent half an hour this morning just trying to remember all the things that I'm supposed to do and making up delivery dates for them so that I can enter them into my task list. Number one task is still "make a proper task list".

I feel a bit like those plate spinner people, where they have a bunch of plates spinning on sticks and they have to dash from one to another to keep them all going. I fire off a bunch of emails to people to move projects along and then have to respond to the ones that come back, and so on.

I'm kind of worrying that I'm going to turn my back for a second and hear an enormous crash as all the best crockery comes down to earth....

Don't Let It Go Flat

Wonderful things pocket computers. I've got one, number one son has an even better one and my mate Chris has a super special Sony one. But they all have one major problem. If you leave them alone for more than a couple of weeks they forget everything you ever told them. And I mean everything. It is rather fortunate that books are not like this. It would be a bit of a pain to pick out my copy of "A History of Mr Polly" by HG Wells (a wonderful book by the way) and find that all the pages had suddenly gone blank.

Chris used to have a navigation program on his pocket computer. He has spent the last month trying to find it, when it vanished into silicon oblivion around eight weeks ago. I've put all the programs and stuff back onto it and left him with instructions to charge at all costs.

Staring at the ceiling

We had our final, final Admissions Open Day today. This was a large one, where all the departments on campus are open and I get a free lunch. Since it was the last talk of the year I thought I'd try to video tape it. I reckoned that if the thing came out OK it would be a nice way of giving people the "Hull Experience" without them having to come here and get it. One reason why I'm was tempted is that videos of my lecture in rhyme have been flying off the web site like nobody's business.

So I got out my little tripod, set the camera on it and left it running. As I gave my talk I noticed that the camera was slowly tipping backwards until, at the end, it was pointing nearly straight up. I watched it through, and it is quite funny to see me gradually slide out of the frame, as if the place is sinking. The last part, where you can stare at a ceiling tile to the accompaniment of a disembodied voice talking about the great employment record of our graduates, is a particular highlight.

Man with Toys

John came to see us today. He bought loads of lovely electrical devices. Lights that flash, switches that do something and a phone you can program. Wonderful stuff. I hope I never reach the age where I fail to be impressed by such things.

Motorway Lag

Think I've got drivers lag. Got in last night just before midnight having driven for five hours back from Reading. I think my average speed over the last 36 hours must be around 25 miles per hour. It certainly feels like that. My brain seems to be shutting down and messing around in most annoying ways. I keep forgetting the word for.....thingy..... and walking into rooms and going "I wonder why I went in here" (and it was a lecture too). I was quite worried about impending mental fragility utill I bumped into David, who travelled down with me and is suffering similar symptoms. Here's hoping that tomorrow I'll be back to full strength mental power.

Who Uses The Trouserpress?

Stayed in a hotel last night, in preparation for a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (I am one) Open Day today.

The hotel, like all well appointed ones of its ilk, had a trouser press. Why? I've never, ever used one of these. Nobody I saw around the hotel today looks as if they did either. Perhaps they are a relic of a bygone age, when creases were important. I was going to have a go but I wasn't sure if jeans with a razor sharp crease might have given off the wrong (or perhaps mixed) message.

The Open Day itself was very interesting. I can't say too much, since I signed an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). All I will say is that if the **** gets on with the **** like it looks at it will do then the **** will well and truly hit the *** big time.

Note: We didn't actually discuss anything secret at all, but I put that in to make me seem even more valuable and important.

Searching for the meaning

The microwave man came today, with the right part, and fixed the beast. We can now see what it is doing. I believe in praise where praise is due and so kudus Comet, who did exactly what they said they were going to do, when they said they were going to do it.

I now also realise that I should be a bit more literal when making sense of what people are saying. When the lady on the phone said "We'll send someone round to take a look at it" that is exactly what she meant. A man came round and looked at it. The mending bit took a bit longer.

I'm going to use this technique in dealing with members of the family:

"I'd really like to give you a hundred pounds"
"Gosh, thanks dad"
"No, I mean I would like to give you the money, but I don't have it....."

The Choice is Yours

Spent a big chunk of today inventing multiple choice questions. They are to be used to help our C# students get up to speed on their revison by hilighting the bits they don't know.

They are really hard to write. You have to have:

1. An answer which is obviously rubbish.
2. An answer which might be right.
3. An answer which is right.
4. An answer which is either right, or complete rubbish.
5. An answer which is irrelevant.

And then you have to decide which is going to be the winning answer. And then repeat 20 times.

My head hurts now, I'm off to bed.

The Microwave Man Cometh

The microwave man came last week. Having been told by me that it was broken he took one look at the machine and said "It's broken". Of course he had not brought any spares. I think this because he suspected that I might have lied when I called them up. A replacement bit is on order. I hope it is the right bit.

At Last Some Sunshine

For the last week we have had no sunshine at all. The sky has remained as grey and uninspring as an uninspring grey thing (see what I mean). Today things got a bit brighter and so I dashed off a quick piccy of Hull Marina looking good. I don't own any of the boats in the picture. And I'm not allowed on any of the grass you can see either.

April Fool?

If you had been reading this before 12:00 on the 1st of April you would have found a really funny joke here. But I've taken it down now to maintain the proper April Fool tradition.

Book now for next year.