Console-ation

posted by Breadmower on Thu 15th Nov, 07 at 15:26:03

What's going on in Bread-land? Well, I've splashed out on a luxury item - a shiny PS3 for myself. Have to say two things: (1) it's rather nice, (2) I apologise in advance for the fact that the Codex scoring update will be delayed for the next month ;-) (No, only joking).

In other console based news, I almost managed to order a Wii earlier, but in my excitement (because I'd found some stocks), I put the wrong credit card details in, and had to cancel the order. Of course, by the time I'd got it all sorted, they'd all gone. I've been using the rather marvellous wii-consoles.co.uk site, which tracks stock on the major retailers sites, but have realised that it's only of use if you're at a computer. Hmmm... what to do? One of the good things about being a programmer is that if you're ever in a situation like this, you can always just hack together a quick program to solve the problem. So, a short while later, I'd made a nice little "Wii in stock SMS alert" app, which does a similar job to wii-consoles.co.uk, but sends me a text instead of showing a message on-screen. Most handy :-) I'd love to let you guys use it, but it'd cost me an absolute packet in SMS charges (I'm not set up for a "charge the SMS recipient" kind of system). Sorry :-/ 

The cake is a lie!

posted by Breadmower on Wed 10th Oct, 07 at 15:27:39

Just a quick one - I've just had a break from working to play Portal, which came out this morning. It's a first person puzzle kind of game (look at the trailer, as it'll explain it better than I can in a couple of lines). It's quite short (I've actually finished it now), but was good fun. The main thing is that it's got the best ending I've ever seen in a game. It's great.

Anyway, this cake is great - it's so delicious and moist.

May? Has it really been that long?

posted by Breadmower on Fri 21st Sep, 07 at 19:55:43

Evening all,

Seems as if it's been, like, a third of a year since I've posted anything here. Ah, wait...

Anyway, as ever, the excuse is that I've been busy - not busy saving the world (as mentioned in the previous post), but busy doing work and stuff. How very boring. Highlights: doing stuff to Codex (which if you're not playing, you should get over there and have a game), doing a big update to this site (not quite ready), and something exciting (but as yet secret-ish) to do with phones. The most interesting thing, however, was that Pete and I ventured off on a Survival Weekend last month, which I still haven't got around to writing about.

You're expecting me to talk about that now, aren't you? Well, I'm afraid that instead, I'm just going make a vague implication that I'll do it in the near future. Oh, come on - you didn't think that the first post in four months was going to have some real content to it, did you? 

Oh, one final thing that I've done: following a rum-induced conversation around a campfire in the middle of nowhere, I've registered www.consumethebovine.net, but haven't thought of anything interesting to put there yet. Any suggestions? 

Busy saving the world

posted by Breadmower on Thu 17th May, 07 at 23:09:58

Evening all,

Just in case you're wondering why I'm quiet at the moment, it's because I'm busy helping to save the world - further details over here.

Lost might be the best thing on TV, but Perplex City is the best thing off TV :-)

Something for your blogroll...

posted by Breadmower on Tue 1st May, 07 at 16:09:08

Some of you might know my good friend Mr.Waddy. Seems that he and his lovely lady are off on a bit of travelling - visiting Thailand, New Zealand, Seattle and Canada. Fortunately for those of us who aren't quite as adventurous, he's set up a blog where we'll be able to track his progress.

Head over to http://travel.mattwaddy.com/ to see how things are going.

Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!

posted by Breadmower on Mon 23rd Apr, 07 at 20:29:43

I was intending to write something meaninful in here this morning, but work kind of ran away with me. Anyway, better late than never, right?

So, first things first - Happy St Georges Day! Hopefully all of you who are old enough have taken the opportunity to enjoy a responsible pint of Bombardier. Regrettably, I haven't, though I'm hoping to sneak up to the pub tomorrow and have a swift one.

Not much of interest going on in Bread Land - doing a bit of work on the site, doing a bit of freelance work, and doing a bit of day job. Have been trying to expand my musical horizons (music whilst programming is the way forward) courtesy of several recommendations by Laura (am currently listening to Hellogoodbye, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and +44).

Also have been playing a little Command and Conquer 3, which was quite novel, but not as addictive as this little thing: Boomshine. No really, go try it - it's great.

That's it, really. Bit of a pathetic blog post, but at least I haven't started doing "not dead" posts yet, eh?

Last edited: Mon 23rd Apr, 07 at 20:32:06

Salmonella, Startups and the Slow march of time

posted by Breadmower on Tue 27th Mar, 07 at 22:12:52

So, three interesting things since last time (which I've made a pathetic attempt to alliterate in the title).

First, went out for Mothers Day (well, not me, obviously - I mean went out with my mum for Mothers Day), and came back with food poisoning. Seems like standard salmonella and was over in about four days, but wasn't very pleasant. Have spoken to Environmental Health, and they're looking into doing an investigation. It's for that reason that I've got a rather suspicious looking cardboard box sat downstairs that I need to send off to the local Path Lab tomorrow. That's enough detail on that, I think...

Secondly, I'm now officially self employed (in the eyes of the 'Revenue), which is cool (especially so considering that I'm almost at the end of the three month grace period that they let you have before registering). Have been on a bit of a roll today, and not only have I registered with HMRC, I've also been looking into where to get a business bank account and all that. Feeling very professional :-)

Finally, today's my birthday ("Successfully not dying since 1981", as I'm currently tagged on Messenger). Don't feel much older, to be honest. As for wiser, well I'll let you know on Thursday, as I've got a Vista exam then. Have had a nice day not working too hard, had a few presents, and have had dinner with my parents. Pretty nice, really. Just finishing off a little work now (and writing this blog :-) ), then I'll go and have a celebratory nap, I think :-)

Trying to set a good example...

posted by Breadmower on Sat 17th Mar, 07 at 09:54:41

A few days ago, someone pointed out that I never seem to blog much (well, excluding the weekly stuff in Four Black Pegs and a few other development bits and pieces). It's a good point - the last post in this blog was over a month ago. I expect that you could do some kind of psychoanalysis of it... what kind of person codes a blog system, and then hardly ever posts to it. Probably means that I've got ADHD or something, who knows?

Anyway, things of vague interest that have happened recently (just in case you're someone that I don't see much, and are reading this to find out what I'm up to). Part time working is going OK - workload isn't entirely consistent, but I'm making enough money each month to be better off than I was before I started. Doing an interesting little project to do with eBay at the moment (pulling stuff out of their database using XML-RPC (sort of)). Pretty much done with that (it was only, like, a two hour thing), but some of the stuff that I've learnt for it will come in useful for a little req.co.uk project I'm going to do shortly.

One thing that I do need to sort out is some kind of business name - problem is that all of the cool sounding names are stuff like "Thingy Networks" or "Something Systems", which won't really work as whilst I'm doing programming and networking, I'm also hoping to deliver some training, so I need a name that would work for that to do. Any suggestions? Leave a comment below (as I always say in the Mastermind newsletter!).

Involuntary disconnection

posted by Breadmower on Fri 9th Feb, 07 at 22:11:20

Evening all. I'll level with you straight away, and tell you that this blog post is a pathetic attempt by me to feel like I'm not unplugged. See, the snow's been pretty bad here today, and it's caused problems with the Virgin Media network in my area. Translation: no phone, no TV, no net... and so I'm forced to spend some time in meatspace again.

People always think I'm a bit strange when I talk about it like it's a major thing, but what you've got to bear in mind is that my work (and a large portion of everything else I do) involves me having to sift through masses of data for hours on end... then something like this happens, and it's not there. I'm not quite so bad that I'll compare it to losing one of my senses, but you could think of it as a mild version of that. The constant stream of data that is normally flowing into my brain isn't there, and it feels... disconcerting.

In fact, I think that they recently gave this thing a name - something like Information Widthdrawl Symptom, so obviously it must be at least slightly common. Yeah, it must happen to other people... I'm not a sad weirdo... If I say it enough, then that'll make it true ;-)



Oh, and in case you're wondering how I posted this if I have no net access, it's because I'm so desperate to get a fix that I've hooked up my computer to my mobile's slow, expensive data connection so I can post to my blog. Sad, eh?

Disrupting your autopilot

posted by Breadmower on Sat 3rd Feb, 07 at 13:09:15

Isn't it strange how your body can get so used to performing a task, that when you try to do it in a different way, your body almost fights against you? Like when you start driving a new car, and reverse is in a different place on the gearstick - at first, when you try to put it into reverse, your body automatically tries to move the gearstick to the old (wrong) place. Then, without you even noticing it, your body adjusts, and you stop thinking about it.

I find that I have a similar problem with typing. At some point over the last few years, I learnt to touch-type without really noticing. That's cool - I can deal with that, it's useful. I've now started to notice that my hands have begun to a kind of predictive text thing, where I'll try to type a word (like "text"), but as soon as I get as far as typing "te", the predictive text takes over and writes the word "test". Presumably I write "test" a lot (I'm guessing it's probably something to do with testing things like this). It's a bit crazy - even though I'm thinking of the correct word, and my head-voice is saying the correct word, my hands just type what they think I'm going to write. In fact, it's just happened in that sentence - every time I tried to type the word "word", I ended up typing "work" instead.

Anyway, I expect you're wondering where I'm going with this, and if I'm going to make some kind of profound statement. Well, to tell you the truth, I'm only writing stuff to get used to the new keyboard that I've just bought. It's a litte more ergonomic than my previous ergonomic keyboard, so I keep hitting the wrong keys, as my autopilot hasn't had chance to adjust yet. That's it. Nothing profound. Sorry if I've disappointed you ;-)