Good Service, and then there's the Dummies

Every now and then you get examples of amazing service. These are few and far between, but worth documenting I reckon. On Thursday at 5:15 pm I posted a cheque and an order for a mains power supply for my little digital radio. This morning it arrived in the post. This means that everything must have happened at maximum speed. And Perstel didn't even wait for my cheque to clear. Brave fellows.

And so to Puss'N'Boots, the new CD from the Crash Test Dummies. Always been a favourite of mine these folks. Even got to see them live a few years ago. I reckon that they peaked at the "difficult" second album -"A Worm's Life". However, they are one of the two groups who's CDs I just buy out of reflex. (the other one is Steely Dan if you must know). The last "dummies" CD, "Give Yourself a Hand", which wasn't even released in the UK, was a bit of a disappointment, but the new one is a big step in the right direction in all kinds of ways. Good tunes which stand repeated listening.

 

Big Trouble in the Galaxy

The president has declared martial law. The Dark Forces (tm) are massing at the edge of known space and all is confusion as the different alien races war amongst themselves. In the midst of the turmoil stands one man, fighting for what he knows is right. Bit like my life really....

On the other hand, Babylon 5 is getting really interesting. I'm told by those who know that series 4, due out soon, is even better. Can't wait.

They did a survey about words some time back. Apparently the favourite word of most people is "serendipity". It is my favourite word too. Just found out by mistake that the Crash Test Dummies have a new album out. Actually, they released it in September last year but neglected to tell me. So, that is a must buy tomorrow. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Ian, one of my regular readers, was actually at our admissions afternoon on Thursday but didn't have time to say hello. Sorry about that Ian. I think we ought to work on a special secret handshake or signal so that members of the "Preston Foster Appreciation Society" (as followers of these pages are formally known) can identify themselves to each other without alerting the rest of the population. But I draw the line at leather aprons and hats with bells... If you want to know who Preston Foster is, and why he is so important take a look here.

As to the question to the answer. A famous children's TV presenter (no names, no pack drill) was asked how she used to amuse herself during long boring shifts at a colour TV factory in Wales. And the answer was that she used to stick boiled sweets inside the sets as she put them together. Lovely.

 

Boiled Sweets?

Good admissions day today. Just the right size of turnout and everyone asked sensible questions. And someone nearly finished the word search.

The answer to yesterday's lyric question (do I sound like a naff DJ or what?) was "Watching the Detectives by Elvis Costello". I remember buying this one and marvelling at the amazing drum roll at the beginning which always sounded distorted on my stereo. At the time I put this down to a poor setup of my record deck (anybody remember vinyl?) and spent many happy hours adjusting things to try and improve matters. When I finally got a CD player one of the first CDs I bought was by Elvis so that I could hear the drum roll in its full glory. Of course, it is distorted on the CD as well....

I've just realised that question/answer on a blog doesn't work very well, since people who read the thing in reverse order don't have any kind of a challenge - they get the answer first. So, in attempt to remedy this, what is the question to this answer:

"She used to stick boiled sweets in the TVs that she was making"

Question tomorrow.

 

Treacly Sounds

Been using my Digital Radio to listen to a station called Smooth (multiplex 12A MXR Yorkshire). Nothing but smooth sounds (I have now reached the age where the term Easy Listening can be applied to some of the music I used to buy when I was a lad).

After a while the display looks all blurry....

Very nice in small doses this station, quite relaxing. However, if you listen for more than half an hour you feel that someone has just filled your head with treacle. I've been listening to the Stranglers in the car on the way home as a kind of antidote (and not in a Golden Brown kind of way). Favourite Stranglers track has one of my all time favourite lyrics in it:

"Creature from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on a guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"

Priceless. Another great line (from around the same era):

"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake......"

I'll name the track tomorrow. Exciting eh?

 

The Price is Right, and back to lecturing

I found out the price of the "car like mine" I saw for sale yesterday. Fortunately it is reassuringly expensive, and so I'll stick with mine for now. Of course, if it had been priced at around fifty quid I'd probably have bought it and used it as spares. I quite like the idea of having a spare car in the boot - although this is is dimensionally rather tricky.

And so back to lecturing. Did the first lecture of the Software Engineering course. The subject is quite fun (well, at least I think so). In my opinion the basic ethos (posh word) behind Software Engineering is making sure that the sh*t doesn't ever hit the f*n. And if it does hit the f*n the resulting mess ends up all over somebody else. To do this you make sure that you worry a lot about specification and risks and you never believe what the customer tells you. At least not the first time they say it. Then on to First Year Java, where we are starting to play with object hierarchies. Great fun.

Oh, and if you are following my Smartphone games programming course here I've just added a new chapter. In the next one that I've just finished writing we will finally get to implement the "Bonus Ham (tm)"....

 

Car For Sale

Each morning on the way to work I drive past a used car lot. I sit and look at the collection of "low mileage, reliable etc etc" labeled vehicles and think about the chap in a sheepskin jacket who runs the place and would do me a really sweet deal on a 15 year old Volvo - because he likes the look of me.. (none of this is necessarily true, but it is what I think about) Today was a bit different, in that there was a car for sale which looked exactly like the one which I was sitting in. Same age and everything. I've had my car since it was brand new, many years ago, and I've been very happy with it, with no urge to change whatsoever. Until now. I fully realise that a new car car would do nothing for me that the old one doesn't (except make me even poorer). But I still fancy one. Ho hum. I think I'm just a born consumer.

 

Letting the Smoke Out

There is a popular theory that all electronic equipment is actually worked by smoke. This theory is backed by the observation that if you ever let the smoke out of a device it will never work again. Well, today I put this theory to the test and it seems to work really well.

Yesterday, as well as my useless toolkit I also bought a little digital radio. This has nothing to do with the fact that David has just bought one, oh no. Anyhoo, I bought this lovely little BlueNote device from Perstel. It works a treat (although the BBC signals are a bit faint in my area) and has opened up a whole gamut of new radio stations. This got me to thinking about using my Psion Wavefinder (which I have had for a while) on my computer. The wavefinder is quite a neat device which plugs into your computer and uses it to play digital radio. I've not used it much because it never seemed to hold onto signals very well. But then I read somewhere that the mains adapter as supplied is a bit flaky, and a more stable one makes it work much better.

So I very carefully checked the voltages and the polarity of the connections, found a suitable supply and connector and plugged the wavefinder in. And let all the smoke out of it. I'm now highly confused. And I have a wavefinder paperweight. I think, although my electronics is a bit rusty, that I didn't give voltage regulator in the device enough volts (but plenty of current as it happened) and it showed its displeasure by letting out all its smoke. This raises the hope that I might be able to repair the device by taking the back off and fitting a replacement regulator. But of course none of my tools (including my shiny new kit bought yesterday) enable me to get the back off.

There is probably a lesson here for us all but I'm at a loss as to what it is at the moment.