01.Blogs :
RobMiles  
Programming, gadgets and life as a lecturer in a UK university.

November 2004 - Posts

Certificate Winner
Monday, November 29, 2004 11:11 PM
Taken me a bit of time to get around to posting this, blame the day job. But anyhoo, congratulations iaskew, you have won the first ever Certificate of Undying Appreciation. It will be winging it's way towards you tomorrow. I'm using your Spoke avatar
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posted  by  RobMiles  (Comments Off) 

Sticking Your Tongue Out in the Rain
Sunday, November 28, 2004 8:26 PM
Have you noticed that if you go out in the rain and stick your tongue out your tongue never seems to get wet, even if the rest of you gets soaked.I hadn't thought of this until last week when someome mentioned it to me. I've done some tests and they seem
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Finished Halo 2!
Saturday, November 27, 2004 8:02 PM
Last night I finished Halo 2. Yep, got right to the end. I realise that proper gameplayers did this only a few hours after they bought the game (and they didn't play it on "Easy"). However, I still regard this as something of an accomplishment.I probably
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I Love Marking
Friday, November 26, 2004 7:08 PM
Spent a big chunck of yesterday and today marking first year programming work. And loving it! Marking is usually hard work. Grinding through item after item in my office. But the marking I've just been doing is different. I've been sitting down watching
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Time Machines
Thursday, November 25, 2004 12:16 PM
OK. First ever "Certified Puzzle". First correct answer gets a "Certificate of Undying Appreciation" from me.The question is:"I'm thinking of starting a business making Time Machines. How many do I have to make so that everybody in the world can have
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The Smell of Good Code
Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:58 PM
If you have not seen this stuff before, then I reccommend that you take a look. The pages on Unconscious Incompetence are worth a look as well:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CodeSmellIn fact, this whole wiki is wonderful, particularly the stuff on design patterns
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posted  by  RobMiles  (Comments Off) 

Thanks for the memories
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 11:29 AM
I got the extra memory for my new notebook yesterday. My programs now luxuriate in 750MB of glorious memory space. Once I'd fitted the chips I looked around for a decent memory tester just to make sure that the new devices were compatible. I've not had
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posted  by  RobMiles  (Comments Off) 

Certificates of Undying Appreciation...
Monday, November 22, 2004 9:30 AM
I've decided to slightly formalise the Thursday Puzzle. From now on the puzzle will be published on Thursday morning UK time and the answer revealed on Monday morning (UK time again). I will be picking a winner each week who will recieve a personalised
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Not a Wet Eye in the House
Sunday, November 21, 2004 8:28 PM
I've spent some more time playing Halo 2. I've discovered that I seem to get so into the game that I forget to blink! After around 10 minutes or so I have to remember to blink a few times or my eyes get very dry. Has anybody else noticed this?
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Trip to York
Saturday, November 20, 2004 10:43 PM
Went to York today to pick up a few christmas presents. I took the camera too:It seems that my Digby my Aibo dog is now running a clothing shop...Mum! That building has no clothes on!You get some nice clouds and sky this time of year.
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Cheap Laptops
Friday, November 19, 2004 8:08 PM
I've just put a copy of this article on our community site www.wherewouldyouthink.com. I thought that Spoke readers might find it interesting as well..I just can't resist a bargain. And sometimes this gets the better of me. A lot of students have
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Hackaday
Friday, November 19, 2004 4:19 PM
If you've not seen this site I commend it to you: http://www.hackaday.com/ It has given me lots of ideas for projects. I particularly like the cryogenic storage chamber in your mouse idea here.
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Survival Puzzle
Thursday, November 18, 2004 10:26 PM
Simple survival puzzle today folks: Would you rather a crocodile attack you or an alligator?
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Bridget Jones
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:03 PM
Just got back from seeing "Bridget Jones, the Edge of Reason". I wasn't that keen on going to see it. I have somewhat unhappy memories of being the only bloke in the cinema when we went to see the preceding film. I'd heard that it was an OK kind of thing,
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This Book
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:38 PM
Did you know that St. John's Wood is the only station on the London Undergound whose name doesn't contain any of the letters from the word 'mackerel'.Nope.Neither did I until I got hold of a copy of "This Book" by Mitchell Symons. It is just full of meaningless
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Less is More (with added beer)
Monday, November 15, 2004 1:31 PM
When I got my Portable Media Centre I was a bit worried that it only (only!) has a 20GB hard disk. My previous device was twice that size and I was concerned that I would not be able to fit all my music on it.How wrong I was. With the smaller machine
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Halo Day
Sunday, November 14, 2004 8:40 PM
Hmm. Spent quite a few hours today playing Halo 2. Captivating stuff. I'm playing it on "easy",which means that I can actually make progress through the game. The whole thing is hugely impressive. The attention to detail, the way that the opponents respond
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posted  by  RobMiles  (Comments Off) 

Durham Town
Saturday, November 13, 2004 8:24 PM
Went do Durham to see number one son at university. He seemed genuinely pleased to see us. Perhaps the fact that we were carrying a monitor, XBOX and copy of Halo 2 had something to do with it... Then he took us on a tour of where he lives. This view
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posted  by  RobMiles  (Comments Off) 

Cute Service
Friday, November 12, 2004 8:51 PM
I've not seen this before, and I reckon it is cute. Go to: http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm and the system will tell you where in the world you are. And it is pretty good. It put me in Hull, which is right. It works for other IP addresses too..
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Thursday Sailing Puzzle
Thursday, November 11, 2004 3:38 PM
You are in a boat in the middle of one of the seven seas. You get a message that another ship is in trouble 150 miles due east of your present position. Speed is of the esscence. Should you sail east?
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Busy, Busy, Busy
Wednesday, November 10, 2004 8:49 PM
Been a busy boy today.The Games Programming Club is coming along nicely. We seem to have crystalised down to a "hard core" of folks who are now starting to get their ideas into running code. Great stuff.Today I got my new office machine. It is like the
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Top Tablet Toys
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 1:07 PM
If you have a Tablet PC there are a couple of neat downloads you can get for free:The Blue Energy Theme pack is quite rinky dink and makes it look like you just got a new machine. Which is nice. The Physics Illustrator is wonderful. I kept a whole room
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Digby the reluctant star
Monday, November 08, 2004 7:25 PM
I took Digby, my Aibo, to do the school visit. I thought that the kids would like to see a robot dog strut his stuff to illustrate my talk about intelligent devices. Actually, I would have liked to see him do that too. The thing is that the software which
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The Road to Nowhere
Monday, November 08, 2004 12:50 PM
I'm doing a school visit this afternoon. I pulled a route off the web so that I can find the place. I thought I'd share it with you:
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Album cover art
Monday, November 08, 2004 9:39 AM
I've started downloading my music into my portable media centre (wonderful device by the way). It can show album cover art as it plays the music. Which means that, obsessive that I am, I want every one of my albums to have the right artwork. The problem
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Food and Drink
Saturday, November 06, 2004 11:20 PM
Just got back from a a very nice evening out. Conversation turned to soft drinks. We all agreed that Lucozade (a bright orange british health drink thing) only tastes nice when you are ill. When you get beter it tastes horrid. And they don't make Dandelion
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Magnum Opus
Friday, November 05, 2004 8:58 PM
Ha. Finished them. I've been working for the last week on the notes for our C# course. And now they are done. 85 pages of deathless prose. I've sent them off to be printed up. I'm thinking of offering a bottle of Budweiser to the first person to find
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Thursday Picture Puzzle
Thursday, November 04, 2004 9:49 AM
This week's puzzle is less of a puzzle and more of a plea for help. I bought this rather nice Microsoft .NET bag earlier this year. It has a kind of elastic thingy on the side. This week's question: What is the thingy for?(sorry about all the fringes
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Well, would you?
Wednesday, November 03, 2004 1:42 PM
In the pub last night the talk turned to whisky. Ian had just come back from a trip to Edinburgh in Scotland. During his visit he went round a whisky shop (good move I reckon). He had a tiny dram which cost him a fiver. But the shop also had a bottle
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Things I Love
Tuesday, November 02, 2004 2:02 PM
I've got an appointment at quarter past the hour. My Smartphone and my computer both went "bing" on the hour to remind me at exactly the same time. Is it sad to love things like this?
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Time Management
Tuesday, November 02, 2004 8:59 AM
The clocks went back on Sunday morning. Six o'clock in the evening became five o'clock and so on. So it gets dark much sooner now. This means that the whole of england never gets to see their house in daylight during the week so that a couple of Scottish
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