Open Day Saturday

Had another Admissions Open Day today. Went very well. We had people from all over the country, places as far afield as South Wales, Reading and Chester to name a few. I tried out the "X-Ray Girlfriend" joke and it seemed to go down OK. Or perhaps everyone was being polite.

Simon has sent me an image showing his score of 325.5 at the penguin game. Well done sir. But don't go putting it on your CV.

And Oliver tells me that there is a girl in Russia who really does have X-Ray eyes. She is being tested at the moment. Presumably before being sent over here to buy a whole load of Lottery scratch cards.....

 

Penguin Bashing

The students have been playing this silly penguin game. Apparently it has been around for a while. You can find it here. Click once to make him jump, and again to hit him. The word on the street is that 323.5 is the best you can get. I'll settle for this then:

Had some fun with the First Year Java Course. Last semester they handed in their practical work and a few keen people had done more than was requested. I've noticed this before with programmers, they tend to do more than they need because they find it interesting... This is expensive in terms of effort, and potentially dangerous. If someone pays me to paint their fence I'm not going to do the porch as well. The same should be true when you write programs. Find out what is required, specify it and then hit that specification right on the nose. Any bright ideas that you have should be shown to the customer and added to the spec. (and hopefully the bill).

Oh, and on a lighter note a friend of mine has just started going out with a girl who has X-Ray eyes. I've no idea what she sees in him.

 

Long Service Meddle

This is deeply scary. But I can't keep it a secret anyway. I've just heard from the Personnel Department (sorry, Human Resources Directorate) that I am invited to attend a Long Service Award Ceremony in March. And not as an observer. I have been in the employ of the university for 25 years (please note that I started working here when I was 7) and the university wishes to recognise this astounding feat with a certificate and a presentation (not to mention light refreshments). Free food huh? I'll be there.

When I first came to Hull the university had precisely one computer. Now we have at least four (those are just the ones on my desk). I'm pretty sure there are some others out there as well. We used to feed the computer punched cards and go and visit it in its' lair underneath the library. On a good day you could get your program run four times. I never thought I'd be one of these folks that goes on about how things used to be. But I will if you annoy me enough.

Talking of growing old, I recall taking my son out and showing him some rolling meadows around the back of the university campus. "I can remember when all this was green fields" I said nostalgically. "It still is" he answered. "Well", I replied, "At least my brain hasn't gone just yet then..."

 

Media Juggernaut

Got another reader, hi Carol. I'm not sure if people who ever read my blog come back at any point, but you never know. I've also had one expression of interest in a Preston Foster sweatshirt, so the bandwagon is rolling. I just don't know where it is going.

Having a blog is a bit strange in that folks think that they already know me because they read all my innermost thoughts and feelings online. However, I'm sure that there is more to me than I write in the blog.

More good news for Hull University from the Imagine Cup. Seven of our students made it through to the last 150 for the programming challenge. Here's hoping that they make it into the finals later this year. I'm going to be a mentor down in the secret programming bunker, and if my team wins I get to go to Rio for the world finals. Go team! You can get a complete list of winners here.

Ian has remembered one of the things that we were talking about in the pub on Tuesday. Which is more than I usually can. It seems that we are in the midst of solar activity of epic proportions. Even things like the Global Positioning Satellites are losing their bearings because their atomic clocks are being knocked out. My question in these situations is always "Is the situation so bad that I can use it as an excuse for not doing something?" , as in "Sorry I didn't get round to doing my ironing, this was due to the M5 solar flare on January 17th from Active Region 540 disrupting the thermal control systems in the iron". The word is that we are not quite there yet, but we might be soon. You can find out more here.

 

Preston Foster Appreciation Society

A day at work, followed by another meeting of the "Preston Foster Appreciation Society", which was not a drinking session, oh no. We are thinking of having sweatshirts made (courtesy of a computerised embroidery device which one of our number has access to). However, we also discussed going to Mars (one way) and a number of other issues which seemed highly important (and amusing) at the time but I have now completely forgotten. If you would like a "Preston Foster" sweatshirt, let me know. They are going to be very unique and exclusive....

 

The Coming of the Bonus Ham(tm)

Spent the day sorting out some marking and writing some practical stuff for the .NET MSc. Then managed to add another part to the Smartphone course. We now have the Bonus Ham(tm) and the game is actually quite diverting for a few minutes at least. I always find it interesting that just a few lines of code will make a game which people will quite happily play. The really interesting (if somewhat annoying) thing is that they quickly get a lot better than I am at the game, and tell me all these tricks and techniques which I was completely unaware of when I wrote the thing. Ho hum. Next stop is a pretty background and some sound.

Should we play safe with the cheese, or take a chance and go for the Bonus Ham(tm)?

 

Quiet Sunday

Quiet Sunday, ending with a trip to Los Parentos. Finally got Dad's DVD writer to work with Pinnacle 8 (apparently the program is very fussy about what it will talk to). Solved the problem by replacing the writer itself - but what the hey, it is a solution which worked....