Buzz off!

There has been a great increase in flies in the last few days. Presumably due to the warmer weather. Living next to a cow field, you expect a fly or two. However, the number at the moment is just, just...just buzz off!

Gadget Shopping List

1. MoGo Mouse


2. Suitcase for handluggage: less than 56cm x 45cm x 25cm. Any suggestions?


3. Garden Shredder
   
   Why don't these seem very gadgety any more? Am I getting old...?

RSS

Like most new technologies, it took me a little while to discover RSS, but I've been using RSS for a couple of years now. It's such a useful little thing that I am always surprised other people don't.

In case you also don't know what RSS is...it's a way of getting automatic updates about websites, news, blogs, etc.

Most web browsers, email clients etc can read RSS; just click on the little icon in your browser that looks like this: .

However, one of the most useful ways to read RSS is using google. You can setup a web page with lots of RSS feeds on it so you can keep up to date when people post blog entries, with news updates etc.



I can really recommend this technology. If you have not tried it...why not have a go now?

The first computer

According to the Easyjet inflight magazine (which I happened to be reading today during a particularly boring flight to Madrid):

Manchester boasts that "The world’s first computer was built in Manchester in 1948. A working replica is housed in the city's Museum of Science and Industry."

A few pages later, Sofia, Bulgaria has a similar claim to fame: "The inventor of the first electronic computer John Vincent Atanasoff is of Bulgarian origin. He and Clifford Berry tackled this task at Iowa State University, between 1939 and 1942."

So which one is right? (And why didn't the same person proof-read the whole magazine?)

I'm sure that I remember something about the Z1 in 1936.

And exams aren't getting easier...

1 mark for spelling and 1 for an inspirational insight.

Planes, trains and spaghetti

I have travelled quite a lot, in Europe at least, but never have I had such a stressful nor disastrous trip as my most recent to Venice, Italy.

I don't know whether I am lucky to be finally waiting in the airport lounge for the return trip, or unlucky that I had such a hard time to get here. My glass is generally half-full so I'll go for the first option.

It should have been a nice week at Ada Europe, a small conference for people who care that software works correctly, in a beautiful city and lots of good food.

Instead, this trip involved manning a booth without a booth (at first at least), flooding (in Venice!), a projector that broke just before I gave a technical presentation (yes, I dictated source code and waved graphs with my arms), missing the last train of the day, being stranded on a motorway (on foot) three miles from the hotel at 1am and carrying a 30kg box from Venice to Mestre on a 30'C day.

However, the food was indeed good and apparently the presentation was actually quite memorable, there's certainly a novelty about an oral code review.

This trip also broke the jinx of the emergency exit...on Easyjet you get to choose your own seat.

The best pizza

Despite what the Italians say, the best pizza I have ever eaten was a Hoi-sin Duck pizza.

This pizza is basically your typical Chinese restaurant aromatic crispy duck (with hoi-sin sauce, spring onion on cucumber) on a pizza base (instead of the pancakes) with coriander and a light touch of cheese.

I had it at Felicini's Bakewell and thoroughly recommend it!

Bindweed

I didn't recognise this pretty flower quickly enough last year....now we have an infection of this invasive nuisance weed! Every 24 hours I am pulling up handfuls of new shoots.

Apparently, at best, I will be doing this for at least two more years (more drastic method such as digging out the soil to at least 5 metres deep might reduce this to one year).

On the other hand,  I might just introduce it to the back garden, see if I can kill of that horrible conifer hedge...

Emergency Exit

On an aeroplane I usually sit at the emergency exit seat. I really don't know why I do, it just seems to be that way. Today makes the 6th consecutive plane journey in the emergency exit seat.

I'm not tall, I don't need the leg room, and I much prefer to be able to keep my bag under the seat in front of me (which you can't do in the exit seat).

This trip, I double-checked at check-in that I wasn't in the exit seat. "No problem sir, you're in 9, the exit is 11". It turns out that 9 is the exit.

The last trip, they allocated me the exit seat, but I changed it at check-in. However, on boarding the plane the staff take me aside and ask if I will swap tickets with someone...so that I can operate the exit in an emergency.

Bovinophobia

When we moved in, at the bottom of our garden was:

1. 2 metre high wooden fence
2. Barbed wire
3. 2.5 metre high hawthorn hedge, about 1 metre deep
4. Holly hedge

What was this high security perimeter for? I can only assume that it was to stop the cows in the field behind us looking in the garden for greener pastures.

What were the previous occupants thinking? Should the cows manage to scale the fence (without getting caught on the barbed wire) and survive the vicious spikes in the hawthorn then the holly would put them off...

I have now removed most of the features from the bottom of the garden, reclaiming a good 8 square metres of garden and a pleasant view of a few friendly cows.

Railway Sleeper

When my neighbour offered to take one of the railway sleepers we happened to inherit when we bought our house, I did not imagine quite what he would be doing with it.

He did mention that it would be a nice training tool for his Tai Chi training, but while I was imagining him doing "Karate Chops" or perhaps wax-on/wax-off for a nice bench...

These things are heavy, especially the water-logged ones I had. I can barely move them.

Apparently the Tai Chi exercise he had in mind (and then demonstrated) was effectively letting it fall from the vertical onto one of his forearms and pushing it back up again.

Suddenly feeling rather insignificant, I silently vowed to do some weight-lifting.

Like a diamond in the sky

While playing "Super Shape Challenge" game (for two year olds):

Mummy: "What shape is this?"
Child: "Errr.."
Mummy: "T....."
Mummy: "Tr...."
Mummy: "Tri..."
Child: "Triangle!"
Child: "Look! I've found a Rhombus over here!"

I can just imagine in a year or so "unlearning" the name for an equilateral parallelogram at nursery or infant school:

Teacher: "What shape is this?"
Child: "A Rhombus"
Teacher: "It's diamond!"

Venetian Blind

I had always, naively, assumed that there was some technical logic in the sizes of ready-made blinds. I now believe that there is absolutely no forethought or design, whatsoever, in choosing the range of sizes for blinds.

For example...

We have a window that is 126.5cm wide and we decided that we would fit a Venetian blind. The range of Venetian blinds that we choose includes 120cm and 150cm wide blinds.

We tried the 120cm blind, it being almost right. However, with a 3(.25)cm gap at each side, it did look a bit silly. So I exchanged it for the next size up, 150cm, so that we could shorten it to exactly the right size, just as I had done quite easily for another window (just clamp, hacksaw and then file the corners).

It turns out that due to the placement of the cords, the cord catch and the twiddly thing that adjusts the blind, that the minimum width that this 150cm blind can ever (without serious modification) be adjusted to is 131cm.

I have spent almost three hours fitting this blind tonight. And it's still not finished. Further modification, requiring a tower drill or drill stand, is still needed before it will adequately fit my simple 126.5cm window.

The conclusions?
1. There is no sane logic to the sizes of ready-made Venetian blinds
2. Buy made to measure next time.

Administrator Woes

Well, our new employee seems to be everything we hoped for. All is going really great and I've had a few days of actual software-related work to do.

I'd forgotten how good it is to get your teeth into a real technical problem. In this case: making every byte in every file identical across all platforms including different big-endian and little-endian architectures. (Actually it's quite painful, but a welcome change.)

So the woes? The problem is that when I was doing every little odd-job that needed doing, my day was full of standing up, sitting down, reaching, answering phones, lifting, walking, fetching and carrying. This week, I've sat still in my chair, working hard on the computer.

I've got slight eye-strain and a back ache.

How can I force myself to take breaks and move around when my job has suddenly got so exciting?

Administrator

We take on a new member of staff next week, a professional at handling much of the company's administrative work that I seem to end up doing.

Now, what was that software stuff about? that thing that I learned about when I was young?

Sewing is not woodwork

I have always managed to get by with a needle and thread, mending clothes from time to time, but faced with shortening two pairs of curtain by hand, I decided to buy a sewing machine.

Sewing with a machine is fantastic! You can get intricate, accurate stitches (in a straight line), quickly and easily.

My new curtains are the perfect length, and an old pair of trousers are also mended (because I can...).

How did people ever make any non-trivial items of clothing/linen/curtains before the computer-controlled sewing machine was invented?

I liken the experience to the first time that you use a circular saw - perfect straight cuts with no effort.

However, there are two important differences compared to cutting wood.

1. Fabric stretches. Draw a straight line on a piece of wood and you know what you have. Draw a straight line on a piece of fabric and depending on how you happened to place the curtains on the bench/floor, you could have drawn any piece of modern art.

2. You can un-pick stitches a lot easier than you can undo any kind of woodwork.

Babysitting relief

We went out last, intending to leave Jonathan in the capable hands of two terrified friends who kindly offered to babysit, even though they knew that they would have to put him to bed.

As it happens, he was so tired (aka grumpy) that we put him to bed before we left. I'm not sure whether our babysitters were quietly relieved or disappointed at having missed the opportunity.

Personally I'm just shocked at how (after having a child) I'd forgotten how refreshing the Guzzler is.

Early Riser

A couple of days ago, for the first time in months, it was almost dawn when I got up for work. In fact, apparently the sunrise tomorrow is at 6:46am. On the 9th March, I will be getting up exactly at sunrise and then after that, it will already be light when I wake up!

When we lived in York, I had the luxury of getting up at whatever time I liked. It was a short cycle to work, and flexible working hours. This was a luxury that I took full advantage of!

At that time, I was around some very respected and influential people who were early risers. They were people who seemed to be in the office and full of energy before everyone else in (my) world were awake. They were generally knocking off, having done a full day's work, about the same time that I was just getting my brain warmed up.

At one point, I began to wonder what was wrong with me! I really wanted to get up earlier. I could see all the practical reasons why I should! However, despite trying to convince myself that I was going to get early, when the alarm goes off I always re-convinced myself that going back to sleep was always more sensible.

When we moved further away from work, I did it with the full knowledge, slight excitement and a very real fear that the bus timetable is little lean, the only practical bus to work leaving at 7:30am. Would I be able to do it?

Looking back, the change was remarkably easy. When you don't have a choice (get up now, or don't go to work at all), you get up. And you soon get into a rhythm. It all seems similar to this approach to becoming an early riser. I am not sure that I would have had the motivation to do it without an external influence, but the principle is the same.

I am now an early riser and I wish I had done it years ago.

Good night.

Olive Ice

After protestations from Spanish people around the world when I planted an olive tree in our garden last year ("It won't grow in your cold English weather") I can confirm that not only did it survive the winter, but that it even produced a crop of olives in the autumn.

I admit that the olives were only the size of peas, but I didn't really expect to harvest any once I realised that you can't eat them off the tree - they take lots of preparation.

Insurance refund

It is a pity that I didn't take a photograph of our car. I can describe it however. It has two windows (off-side), a V-shaped roof and a rather odd-shaped front. Oh and apparently it was upside down.

The insurance company were very nice and gave us some money to buy a new car.

So, we bought a nice new car and updated the insurance policy so we could drive it.

The insurance premium actually went down. What a nice surprise.