eggfriedrice.com

Sup!

OK, so Teeny rumbled me.  Dammit!  Blogging took a back seat for the past couple of weeks, I seem to have been busy.  The problem with todo lists is there are always things on them…

Stuff that I’ve done in the past fortnight:

• Attending a family wedding in some tidy place near York.  Or “getting pissed and calling it a gathering”.  Being locked in a hotel for a weekend with a bunch of family I don’t really know could have been quite a painful experience.  Luckily they’re all properly barmy so it was entertaining enough.  On the down side I’ve discovered that all of my family heirlooms are from the pound shop.
• Attended a Dorbot Alba Workshop.  WTF?  Dork what??  Good question.  I’m still pretty unclear as to what it was I actually went to, I’m not even sure where it was (I was definitely under the Forest Cafe but possibly also under a Uni building of some kind).  The workshop was a nice gathering of odd people who either understand a bit of electronics and mechanics or want a hand from those that do.  It started out with introductions (hello I’m Al, and I’m an LEDaholic etc) and then the people who wanted help with their projects brought out what they had and said what they’d like it to do.  The art student girl sat next to me opened her bag and got out a toilet roll holder.  Then a small motor and gear box.  Then announced “I’d like this to spin”.  Now that’s my sort of project!  Between us and with some guidance from a guy called Gandalf we got it to work.  Self dispensing bog roll, the sort of project solved in a basement in Edinburgh.
• Did Highers Prelims.  Joyous they were (Maths needs work, in case you hadn’t already guessed).
• Saw Hot Fuzz.  An awesome moving picture.  Gets 10/10 on the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost comedy small town violence scale.  I’ll never be able to shop in a Somerfield with a straight face again.  Not that I’d want to though…
• Got attacked by a blood sucking vampire dressed as a nurse (photo credit SUB Photography, it’s surprisingly difficult to photograph your own arm).
• Went to Ikea.  We managed to buy stuff that we actually needed rather than just picking up the nearest piece of useless junk or buying the thing with the stupidest name.

And that’s about it.  Doesn’t sound too much when it’s written down but it seemed busy at the time!

Tonight I screwed our new Rationell to the inside of a kitchen cupboard (it’s a weird combination of over and under engineering but it does work!) and listened to A Night at the Opera very loudly (hence the title).

See you in a couple of weeks…

Today I had higher computing. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been doing the course work part of the course which they just sprung on us. I had no idea there was coursework, or that it was worth 60%! This coursework is pretty much piss easy bollocks (that’s a series of technical terms). On Tuesday’s we do the programming side of it (faking up a user interface in C) and on Thursday we do the other part (researching stuff for an airline to buy). All well and good. Until today when I actually read part of the question.

For part two we are to find and compare two wireless digital video cameras, two video editing packages and two “wireless monitors”. Video editing packages: Amazon -> Adobe Premier Pro and Elements -> Done. Wireless cameras -> Tricky, can’t really find what they’re after but I can probably fake something up. Wireless monitors -> minor problem, they’re not yet commercially available.

Now a blind monkey high on crack could probably do most of this coursework (I’m not good at being awake at nine AM so I operate at about the level of a blind monkey high on crack and so far I’ve done about half of this stuff), but I think most people would have a problem if asked to find something that doesn’t exist! A wireless monitor would be cool, just think, you could take it off your desk for a walk and although you wouldn’t be able to type on your computer you’d be able to watch it do nothing!  How cool would that be?!

There’s a reason wireless monitors don’t exist, well there’s two.  Firstly, bandwidth.  Video produces a lot of data, unlicensed band wireless communication technology at the moment isn’t fast enough to transmit full screen, pixel sharp video.  Secondly, you can buy a Wifi enabled laptop for £300.  That makes developing wireless monitors a pretty pointless exercise.  Which is why they don’t exist (just in case anyone from the SQA is reading).

In other news I don’t have much news.  I’ve just got a load more cheap LEDs off eBay from the beautifully named Amigo-of-China store.  Yes, I’m the friend of a whole country!  I think more stuff is going to get illuminated.  I also bought a Handspring Visor Edge in rather natty metallic blue for £8 from Shelter on Nicholson Street.  I think that’s getting put down as bargain of the week.  And of course I have a practical use for it and it’s not just another toy to play with!  I’ll let you know when I think of that use…