A Special Place in Hell

They should have a special place in hell for people who drive close behind you. The dammed should be followed at all times by a specially chosen demon with hot bad breath who has been trained to stay exactly one inch behind them and crash into them whenever they stop walking.

I was driving along today on a surface that I wasn't entirely sure of, in my shiny new car. And a buffoon comes up behind me in a BMW and decides to see if they can actually see themselves in my rear view mirror. If I had needed to brake I'm sure we would have had an unpleasant and expensive "two become one" moment. Fool.

In the Good Old Days (tm) we had a Ford Cortina which had a towing bracket on the back made of angle iron. Think the kind of stuff they use to hold up the girders in buildings. In this situation we were without fear. When somebody drove into to the back there would be an enormous crash and a cloud of steam from their shattered radiator. We'd get out and notice a tiny scratch on the ironwork. They'd have to buy a whole new car front. And quite right too.

Exciting Life

Some people find excitement by climbing mountains, driving at high speed, and sailing across oceans (although probably not all on the same day).

I can get to maximum excitement levels by simply forgetting to put the wheely bin out the night before the dustmen are due. Then I have the thrill of leaping out of bed, sprinting downstairs, skidding over ice covered tarmac dragging a large plastic container full of the week's refuse and then the breath taking wait to find out whether or not the lorry has been yet. And all the time with the nerve tingling threat of painful sanctions from number one wife if it turns out that I've failed to get the rubbish out on time.

Fortunately all is well, and the bin is empty again. I wonder if I can build a robot to do this for me?

Forbidden Cake

Tis nearly the season to be jolly, and in keeping with the festive season forward planning policy implemented by number one wife, it is the season to be making christmas cake. In fact, three cakes are to be provided for various grateful parts of the family, which means that at this time of year the house is full of the glorious smell of cake baking. And I can't eat any of them. This is so unfair. I've made arguments along the lines of quality control "We need to make sure that they are as good as last years" and been rebuffed. I've also been told that any evidence of cake tampering will be severely dealt with.

Never mind, only four more weeks.

Why does this work?

We don't get very good radio reception in our kitchen. If we want to listen to Radio 2 and actually hear the programmes we have to open the dishwasher door.

I've no idea why this is the case, but it is. And no, we don't keep the radio on the dishwasher.

Trader Rob Goes Karting

Traded in a couple of naff Nintendo DS games today and swapped them for a peach. Game trading is quite a nice way to get hold of things without parting with large sums of cash. I was surprised how much I got for the two that I handed over (I'm too embarrassed to tell you what they were). The good news was that Mario Kart DS ended up costing me only eight quid.

And what a game it is. Colourful and smooth graphics. Great kart handling and devious weapons. And I can actually do this one - unlike the dratted TOCA Racing for the PSP which nearly drove me up the wall. The only snag at the moment is that I can't get the much touted WIFI ability of the game to work at the moment, but this might be down to my naughty Access Point. Pity that, I was looking forward to taking on somebody from the other side of the world - even though they will almost certainly beat me hollow.

Update: I've got the thing going now. All I had to do was replace the Wireless Access Point with one that actually works. And I did manage to join a game. And they did beat me hollow. I'm not sure if this is an advance or not..

Make every mistake exactly once

Woa. Spent just about all day marking. We gave some useful feedback, and I saw some very neat code. But a whole day of it is a bit heavy going, and I feel sorry for the students who had to wait around to get stuff dealt with.

Last year, for some reason, it seemed to go more quickly. I think we had more to talk about with this lab, which is a good thing.

One of the things that I have learnt in this life is that it is probably OK to get things wrong in some way once, but if you do it twice you are an idiot (and I may be a bit crazy - but I am not quite an idiot)

Last time our marking worked by just getting around people. This year, because we took longer to mark it did not work this way. Next time I will have a timetable for the students with slots to fill in and proper appointments. It may take a bit of setting up, but it will stop the waste of time.

And with that I'm off for a lie down....

Is Marking Fun?

Spent a big chunk of the day marking. And loving it. I was going around looking at student code and I really like doing this. Some of the ideas that I saw were well clever, one or two I reckoned were models of simplicity and good design. In fact, in every one that I got to take a look at, there was real evidence that the person who wrote it has learned something from our programming course. I reckon I've marked around 30 or so today, on a one to one basis, and it has left me kind of zonked. But I'll be back doing it again tomorrow, and I should think I'll have just as much fun again.

Carried away

We had another bit of fun today. This time we got together and wrote programs which played against each other in a little game. You can read all about it here, so there is no need for me to repeat it.

Sadly, I probably got a bit carried away. You see the program that I wrote was, more by luck than judgement, slightly better than the ones that some other people had made. Which meant that it tended to win a bit. In fact a lot. In fact it rocked. And I was well pleased with this at the time. So, if you were offended by me going "In your face, in your face!" as my bit of code scored a couple more points than your bit of code, I apologise.

But it did rock though.

Ho for Harrogate

Off in a bus today to Harrogate. And I'm driving.

These fourteen souls have placed their lives in my hands. Very brave of them. Especially as I then tried to cut the top of the minibus by the rather cunning use of an underground carpark.

Fortunately I noticed in time, and thanks to the very helpful parking people at Harrogate Conference Centre, we got parked up and in with minimal fuss. The conference was very good (for a more considered appraisal take a look at my Spoke blog, which is where the techie stuff lives).

I love it when a gadget comes good. Today two of my little machines did the business. Firstly the Gizmondo used its satellite navigation feature to take us right to the doors of the conference center with no fus, and then direct us back again. And my Imate Jasjar let me check my email and even update software on my office machine by a cunning use of WIFI and Remote Desktop.

And then back to Hull, where Andy, Tom, David and I took Tesco by storm in search for drinks and nibbles for our software challenge event tomorrow.....

Cottingham Lights 2005

We went out to look at the lights tonight. Our village is kind of known for the quality of the lights that it puts up, and so they have a big switch on - which this year was tonight. Jolly cold out there, but for the benefit of my blog readers (yes - both of you) I went out and took a couple of photographs...

Conventional Version

Unconventional Version

(as usual you can get larger versions of these pictures by clicking on them)

Yo Len!

Met up with Len today. He asked me what a "blog" is. I told him, and he doesn't believe that I write a bit every day. I said I'd mention him so "Yo Len!".

I am not a number

Went over to York today to visit number one daughter. We had a trawl around the shops and, by jiminey if I didn't come across a complete set of "The Prisoner", a sixties TV series of some renown, which I remember watching in short trousers many years ago. Priced very well as it was second hand, and so I couldn't resist.

Also bought a copy of a magazine called The Chap. I think I'm probably too young to take all of this to heart. But I do find it very funny.

Oh, and I took the camera along and the weather was kind to us.

Goodbye to Rich

Just said goodbye to Rich. He was a student I interviewed when he applied to the department (he reminded me of this - I'd completely forgotten). He came here, got a first class degree in Computer Science, won a departmental prize, did one of the best MSc by research projects that I've ever seen.

And now he is leaving to work at Southampton, right at the sharp end of his chosen field.

I'm going to miss him coming into my office and asking me questions I don't know the answer to.

Good luck sir, and keep in touch.

Shiny Car and Food

Finally got my new car today. It is ever so shiny. They put it in the showroom for me to admire before collection, and so I did. It has taken four weeks from buying it to actually getting it, and bearing in mind that I only get a new car every eight years or so, this was quite an emptional experience.

We took it out for a meal (that is we did the eating - the car does not run well on Chicken in mushroom sauce) and had a very nice time. A tip for readers, the Fergusen Fawcett in Walkington does excellent pub grub at really good prices and, although it can get very busy at weekends, on a Thursday night it seems fairly quiet (at least it did tonight).

Nanny MacPhee - warts and all

Crazy Rob as film reviewer....

Went to see Nanny MacPhee tonight. Not actually my kind of film, but seeing that number one wife has accompanied me to a large number of space opera type stuff over the years (and actually managed to sleep through most of the battle scenes) I thought it only fair.

It is a childrens film. Nothing wrong with that, so is "The Best Film that Rob Has Ever Seen" (tm) - Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit since you asked.

However it has children in it, which can be a problem. Furthermore, whilst number one wife had the charms of Colin Firth to admire, all I had was the warty visage of the Nanny hersef. Except right at the end, where her wart all drop off, she loses ten stone, has her teeth fixed and wanders off into the sunset. (I found this very hard to understand - if by some quirk of fate I ever become good looking the last thing I'm going to do is leave town)

It has to be said that everyone plays their parts with gusto and that there is a lot of visual flair to the scenery and costumes. But it was a bit too worthy for me, and the children changed from evil imps into little angels a little too readily to match with my experience. If you like kids films (or are a kid yourself) you could well love it - after all it has the word "fart" in it a few times - once even said by a baby - but even so I can only give it six or so out of ten.

Oh and I have just had a wonderful idea for a film where a warty old women comes to your house, sorts out your kids and then clears your computer of virus infection. Book now for seats at Nanny McAfee.

Don't Ask Me That Question

Did a revision lecture today with the first year programming class. We did all sorts, exceptions, file handling, method parameters, references. I offered to take any question about the course material... Then I got one that I couldn't answer. Ho hum. But then again, I only offered to take the question, not answer it...

Note: The question concerned the use of files in append mode. It is the kind of thing that interactive help systems are made for, and therefore beneath someone with brain power like mine. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.....

Ear Bending

I spent a goodly chunk of last night chatting over Skype with Rory Blyth. Skype is very good. Rory lives in somewhere in America and I live in somewhere in England, but from the quality of the communication you would not have know it. I was expecting lots of lag and "Can you hear me" stuff but it just worked, and worked well. We were recording an episode of his Tiny Things podcast, and it is all about me.

If you want to find out what I really sound like, and how to use the phrase "rat up a drainpipe" effectively in a conversation, then take a listen here.

Been Around the World

Went to see dad today. He has just come back from a "land cruise" (I called it a bus tour) of America. He had taken his video camera with him. It is a special camera which contains a time travel device which makes the films seem to take longer to watch than the duration of his stay away.

He had some pictures from Hawai and bits of the Grand Canyon and Vegas and LA and I was suitably rude about all of them. I wonder if he'll figure out that I'm just jealous.

Sorry Maddy

I was watching Madonna last night on a chat show. She was asked the secret of a long lasting marriage. She said that the secret was that you have to be ready to say "Sorry" when you don't really mean it.

I looked at her and wondered if she has ever said "Sorry" and actually meant it.

It Came Off in my Hand

Oh, and I forgot to mention that during our visit to number one son we swapped his working MP3 player for one with a duff battery and then broke his toilet.

When we met up he seemed pleased to see us.

He won't do that again.

Holy Guitar of Durham

Went to Durham today to visit number one son. He seems to be doing OK. Not sure about the guitar above though.

Told him about Trip Hazard. I think he is somewhat unconvinced of the concept at the moment. Actually, I'm wondering why nobody has commented on my deathless prose. Having writers angst about suitability of material, and whether or not it is actually worth bothering with any more. Should Trip be left for ever lying in an abandoned building, with the love of his life kidnapped by his sworn enemy? Do tell.

Twagging

Snuck out of work half an hour early today and sat at home consumed with guilt (oh yes). In this part of the world they use the wonderful word "twagging" to describe taking time off when you aren't supposed to:

"Is Wayne coming to school today?"
"Nah. He's twaggin'"

Of course, as soon as I get home I normally fire up the PC and bounce into the work system to see if anything important has happened in the twenty minutes it took me to drive home....

Battling in the Twilight Zone

I nearly got into the Twilight Zone tonight. I was within one door panel when the top left hand flipper stopped working. It turned out that the connecting pin had come off and disconnected it from the soleniod. As you can't hit the piano without that flipper this turned out to be fatal.

But I reckon that if the pinball machine is now having to actually break to stop me, then I must have it seriously worried....

Local Hero

This is Tom from BBC Look North. He came up to our HIVE environment to record a tiny bit of telly with me on it. I was talking about leap seconds, and their effect on computer systems.

It went out tonight. I've not dared watch it. Perhaps when I've had a few drinks.....

Happy Half Century, and a nice Wilton

Went to Ian's tonight to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Had a great time. Here is a picture of his carpet.

Trip Hazard in "They Die by Moonlight" : Episode 1

If you are new to Trip Hazard (and who isn't) take a look here. Episodes will appear when I can be bothered to write them, or when I think of something funny.

Trip Hazard in "They Die By MoonLight : Part 1 - The Beginning"

As I heard the shot ring out and felt the bullet thud into the wall by my face I breathed a sigh of relief. I remembered the words of good old Sergeant Murphy “You never hear the one that hits you” I recalled him saying on that first day of training. What a guy. With his ready smile and endless supply of ammunition he was just the man to tell us the truth about life on the dangerous streets. “The streets are dangerous” he once told us. How true that was.

If he hadn’t been killed on the junction of 53rd and 7th by that falling piano he would be dispensing his mix of street smarts and heavy artillery even now. But that was all in the past. Before I discovered the meaning of true love and then lost everything, my badge, my career, my hopes, my dreams, and also a rather nice cashmere sweater that I got for my birthday.

I shook those unhappy memories from my head and concentrated on the job in hand. From the sound of the shot and the angle the brick particles made as they spattered into my face from the impact I made a rough guess that the sniper was 125.7 meters away at an angle of 46 degrees north and an elevation of 27 degrees. I turned in that direction, bringing my gun out and up in a single smooth, well practiced, motion. Nothing.

I silently cursed myself for failing to allow for the local wind speed and turned further to the left. Just above the empty bookstore, across from the abandoned warehouse above the vacant lot I caught a movement in a broken window. The streetlights glinted off the barrel of the gun as it swung round to aim. Now was the time to move…

I started running towards the entrance in the building in front of me spraying fire up towards the window as bullets kicked up clouds of dust all around me. “There must be half a dozen men up there with a gun each” I thought to myself as I hurtled across the concrete. “Or three men with two guns”. I was just pondering the possibility of a single man with six guns strapped to him as I made it to the opening.

As I paused to catch my breath I used the time to wonder who might be so keen to see me dead. After all, it was two hours to the ransom drop, the drug bust wasn’t until Tuesday, and I didn’t have any library books overdue at the moment. Whoever it was, they were going to pay for this, in blood if necessary. Although I also take most major credit cards.

This building had definitely seen better times. Water ran down the walls and the stench of rotting garbage was overpowering. A rusty stairway led up to a dingy landing and above me I could hear feet moving as the gunmen changed position to prepare for my ascent. From the sounds I counted seven men, one with a club foot and another with a nasty ingrowing tonail. “He really ought to get that treated” I thought to myself as I shoved another clip of bullets into my Schnieder and Beefcake 45 and prepared once again to fight for my life.

Then I heard a familiar voice, which sent shivers down my spine.

“Good afternoon Trip” said Archibald Nemisis.

“You sound pretty lively, for a dead man” I replied, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Ah yes, my so called death” he responded smoothly. “It turns out that being shot through the head, electrocuted and dropped into a pool of sharks isn’t always fatal”

Of course not, how could I have been so stupid. The bullet could have snagged on the side of specially designed titanium spectacle frames, hidden carbon fibres in his suit could have redirected the electric current and the sharks could have been specially bred vegetarians.

“You see” he continued “my spectacles were actually…”

“Yeah, yeah, I figured” I interrupted, trying to get the right amount of boredom into my voice. “What do you want?”

“I want you Trip” came the reply. “More specifically, I just want you to do a few little jobs for me. Then kill a bunch of people”.

I heard a clang as something dropped down at my feet. A gas canister with a note wrapped around it. Through the gathering smoke I managed to read “Kill Mayor, then pick up laundry”

“What makes you think I’ll do your dirty work?” I spluttered, feeling in my pockets for a handkerchief to put over my mouth.

“Oh, you’ll do it all right. Otherwise I’ll have to kill someone myself”.

Then I heard a sound that chilled me to the very core.

“Trip” she called. It was Beverley.

“Trip, I’m so sorry, he took me by surprise. He’s promised not to hurt me, as long as you do what he asks”

Beverley. The love of my life. Someone I would gladly die or kill for. As the choking fumes swirled around me I vowed that I would rescue her if it was the last thing I did. Preferably it wouldn’t be, but at least I would die happy. Then Archibald spoke again.

“And just to show how serious I am, here’s a little token of my esteem”

Something small and damp fell at my feet, I looked at it, blinking tears away from my burning eyes. It looked like it had once been a cashmere sweater. And it seemed horrifyingly familiar. My head began to swim as the gas started to really get to me.

“I’ve taken good care of it” he rasped “In fact I’ve just boil washed it”

“Nooooooooooooooo” I howled. And with that, the darkness closed around me and I slumped to the floor.

Searching for Mastermind

On Saturday I went up town looking for a proper copy of the Mastermind game (the entire first year will understand why). They had a copy of a new, posh, one in ToysRUs for thirteen quid. Sorry folks, I can't run to that kind of money just for a software project.....

Shop looked good though....

Handy Tip for Phone Users

If you have been trying to get hold of someone for, like ages, and they've not answered and you've got their answering machine which costs you a fortune and just tells you that they are not there when you know that they are not there anyway, here is a very handy tip for phone management.

Just before you dial the number, fill your mouth with chewing gum, gobstoppers or sticky toffee (my personal favourite is a couple of Pear Drops). Then, when you are somewhat unable to speak, you are guaranteed to get an answer. Try it. Works every time, or as I should say "Worbs ebwuaryy tyyme".

Where in the World?

I've found this web thingy which is quite interesting. Whenever you read my site a little server thing updates and now I can plot my readers around the globe.

I'm planning to use this technology to turn up on your doorstep and say "You read my blog - therefore you owe me lunch......"

I'm not quite sure how it works, and it seems a bit random to me (it put Sheffield in the middle of America) but it is quite fun. Take a look here to find out if you've been tracked.

Science Club Exploding Programs

The audience, as they were arriving...

Today I did a Science Club talk about exploding programs. The crux of the talk is that programmers (at least the better ones) should spend a lot of time worrying about what can go wrong with their programs, rather than just making them work. We took a simple application (pay the money out from a cash dispenser) and then had some fun finding out how it can go wrong, and what the programmer must do if it breaks. If you are a programming sort you can find the code here. I particularly like the sound that you get with a warning.

The sound it made when things went wrong was considerably enlivened by a fault in the playback method. It was supposed to just play an explosion sound effect, but for some reason it went a bit beyond that, making some amazing buzzing and crackling sounds. Fortunately the program kept going (it would have been rather embarrasing if the thing had crashed during a talk on software errors) and a good time was had by all.

If you give a talk at the Science Club the organisers give you a free box of Maltesers. Thanks folks, like getting sweets for having fun.

Preston Foster On The Road

Went down to David's tonight for a Preston Foster Appreciation Society away meeting. David lives in a village near York and so we motored over after work. Whilst number one wife was buying Christmas cards in a good cause and discussing the price of Daleks (on the rise apparently) we were down in the village pub (rather a low ceiling) discussing everything else.

A very good time was had by all, and we motored back in time for bed at midnight.

There's No Place Like Rome

Watched the first episode of "Rome" last night. It is a tale of epic proportions about an epic story set in epic locations epically. All the usual suspects are there, Mark Anthony (why did they give him two first names?), Julius Caeser (famous salad inventor), Brutus (who later moved into aftershave) etc etc.

Very graphic. A lot of writhing, nubile, bodies and swords going through people. And yet it is still shaping up like any other big budget soap:

Flawed hero: check
Principled but doomed bloke: check
Scheming woman: check
Doomed lovers: check
Powerful and ruthless leader: check
Another Powerful and ruthelss leader to take him on: check
Headstrong and ultimately evil younger bloke: check
Patterned Hearthrug: check (actually I made this one up)

We are still going to watch it I suppose, after all, Cleopatra will probably be turning up later. And I wouldn't want to miss that.

Do I?

One thing which is guaranteed to take the spring out of your step is being told you look ill. Someone said it to me this morning, with the best of intentions, and I was forced to admit that I don't at the moment feel that unwell. Admittedly this twiddling round with the hour that we do for British summer time does upset my delicate constitution slightly, and this week has been quite busy (although I can't really remember what I've been doing) but I don't consider myself ill at the moment.

This has been known to happen to me in the past, I feel quite tickety boo, but rest of world seems to consider me not so. Perhaps my binge drinking (apparently if you have more than two pints in a session you are now a binge drinker) yesterday has caught up with me (I had three pints). Whatever.

But then having pondered the matter, I've decided that there is only one thing worse. That is when you feel truly awful and everyone tells you how fit you are looking. I'm pretty sure I'd hate that.

Feet of Clay

I've always kind of wondered whether, as we get older, we don't turn into all those things that, as youngsters, we despised in other people.

I've always kind of seen myself as an easy going kind of fellow, anxious not to upset other people and not inclined to get worked up in a crisis. (you can laugh now if you like)

However, yesterday I got all upset when lots of stuff went wrong and found that through stupidity and inaction I had contrived to upset somebody else. Ho hum. Sorry folks.