tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59185532024-09-10T04:56:02.875+02:00Bob Powell's External MonologueInsightful, profound, generous, witty, genius; all words that might be used somewhere in this blog.Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.comBlogger586125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-59167206625549685672014-07-11T10:59:00.000+02:002014-07-11T10:59:20.716+02:00Changes comingI have nothing else to do and so I'm going on an adventure. I'm packing up for a walking tour of Europe and will do that for as long as I can hold out.
I'll begin posting information as I go.
Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-63165531818841168652014-06-30T08:46:00.000+02:002014-06-30T08:46:03.026+02:00Today is my last day...Life has dealt me some strange cards recently. The girl I fell in love with so long ago has taken herself out of my life and decided to do things her way. Understandably for a while this drove me a tiny bit bonkers. I still love her but we are unable to share that together for the moment.
Chrissy's departure and all the stress that it has caused has allowed me to take a step back from my life Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-47765790858642158912014-05-29T14:38:00.001+02:002014-05-29T14:43:50.087+02:00Some progress anyway.
Yesterday, after walking about holding my trousers up all day long I went to the store and bought new jeans. Not long ago I found 44 inch jeans tight. Yesterday I bought 38 waist trousers and they are a tiny bit too large. A drop of 4 sizes is pretty good and I am winning the weight loss challenge at work.
Down by 3 stones now.
Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-82657715576206440902014-05-21T11:15:00.000+02:002014-05-21T11:16:01.366+02:00New dimensionsBeing a fat bastard sucks!It eats away at your life, your energy and your mood.Being a programmer with a sedentary job doesn't help either. My blood pressure has been consistently in the 170/110 range for many years and my weight far to high.Making an effort of late has gone a long way to rectify that. I have dropped 15 kilos, 33 lbs in old units. That is more than 2 stones for the English Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-69846011562427721432014-03-05T23:10:00.000+01:002014-03-05T23:10:39.974+01:00More ones and zerosI have long held the belief that ones and zeros are all you need t know when dealing with computing of all styles. The almost religious zeal with which some programmers defend their chosen platforms is of little or no consequence when we find ourselves in a world where there is an android phone in your pocket, an iPad beside the bed, a PC in the office and a Mac in the living room we don't Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-15925209745005961332014-02-15T01:18:00.001+01:002014-02-15T01:18:42.639+01:00DiversityThis is so bizarre, I was a staunch supporter of all things Microsoft for many years. Since 1992 when I first got an MSDN subscription. Now, through no particular effort on my part, Microsoft, the Windows platform, the whole ecosystem is becoming less and less important to me.
Why is this? Well, I think to be honest that I am an early adopter and I tend to chase what is around other people's Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-69773487953614727892014-02-05T22:19:00.002+01:002014-02-05T22:21:12.832+01:00Binaries.My apologies to the folks who have used my site and found the binary downloads missing.
Last time I updated the site these got missed out for some reason. They are back up again:
http://www.bobpowell.net/Downloads.aspxBob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-58390328473418664492014-02-05T19:44:00.000+01:002014-02-05T19:44:26.503+01:00Why the lack of posts Bob?Well, wow, what can I say? I have radically changed my life and have become so involved in coolness that I have had zero time to do do other stuff. I am currently working in the coolest job I have had in years in the automotive industry. I am writing hardware test software which if you think isn't technologically challenging or inspiring then think again.
I have become a Raspberry Pi fan in a bigBob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-51043294674420652142014-02-05T19:34:00.001+01:002014-02-05T19:34:13.260+01:00WPF Toolkit Chart Line ColorAfter struggling for some time with the problem of being unable to select a colour (yes, I know I spelled it differently in the title, people are more likely to search for the programming term than the concept) for the line chart I discovered that one should select the BACKGROUND colour of the LineSeries in order to change the stroke colour of the line. Nicely logical eh?Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-17469262777347400872013-11-12T23:44:00.000+01:002013-11-13T00:11:27.453+01:00The new dogma.If you say to someone "I like science" then they often respond "yeah.. Me too"
If you say "I'm really keen on theoretical physics" then people say " ohh-kaay.. Hmm, interesting, you mean like atoms and shit?"
If you say "I have developed a serious and plausible contender to both string-theory and the standard model and what's more I can make it work right back as far as the precise moment of Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-46882476218490553652013-10-16T23:07:00.001+02:002013-10-16T23:07:46.319+02:00Google Anti-Trust?I have the following settings in my Google Chrome startup page:
None of my Chrome installs on _any_ of my devices will show this as a home page.
Go figure!
Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-71522458281599374292013-10-16T22:42:00.000+02:002013-10-16T22:42:01.196+02:00East EndersToday I have learned about pre-cambrian fossilised arthropod brains, seen how the angular projection of Voyager 2 is comparable to the size of an e-coli bacteria when projected onto the ground, read how the biggest star ever discovered is tearing itself apart and seen how a big piece of a russian meteorite has been found in a lake.
I have never watched an episode of East Enders or Breaking Bad Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-57558017490975354112013-10-15T22:45:00.000+02:002013-10-15T22:45:34.654+02:00Doing the mathI'm sorry to keep harping on about this now but I have just had another sort of epiphany regarding math.
It seems to me that math has become the be-all and end-all of physics simply because making a mathematical approximation of something that works to n decimal places is deemed to be good enough.
Well, here's the thing. Schrodinger made a shitload of pretty math that describes electron Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-84093476339170916812013-10-15T22:23:00.001+02:002013-10-15T22:23:13.876+02:00Conspiracy theory?So I have given up using iGoogle as my favoured home-page and have gone back to my.Yahoo
The odd thing is that Chrome seems to ignore the fact that I have set my homepage to Yahoo!. Is this grounds for an anti-trust case?Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-91631085994217948532013-10-15T00:18:00.000+02:002013-10-15T00:18:23.522+02:00Higgs BogonThe Nobel prize for physics is as much of a disappointment this year as the peace prize.
The committee have awarded Peter Higgs for the prediction of his eponymous particle that "confers mass on matter"
Well, actually the results show a "particle", in an energy range that did not correspond to Higgs' first choice of ballpark figures and that has no recognised function. This is like awarding an Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-23656187024171140962013-10-13T23:21:00.001+02:002013-10-13T23:21:12.413+02:00Nobel Peace Prize is bullshit.Over the last few years I have been astounded at the Nobel Committee's unflinching and shameful pandering to political pressure and inability to nominate a peace-prize winner who truly makes a difference.
The nomination of Barak Obama, despite my admiration for the man as an intelligent force for progress in a country that needs progress more than most, was a weak and sorry excuse that Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-4036278843623868042013-10-13T22:52:00.000+02:002013-10-13T22:52:10.271+02:00Goodbye to GoogleI switched to iGoogle as a home page many years ago and have been using it every day and indeed every time I hit the web ever since.
Before that I had a Yahoo! page that I had various news and science widgets installed on.
Recently I've been looking for an alternative to my iGoogle page and logged in to my old Yahoo! one to find settings from a decade ago still there and still usable. It was Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-89979764148097839282013-10-12T19:13:00.000+02:002013-10-12T19:13:30.895+02:00Back up at long lastPoor old Octogig has stood in a corner unused for about four months. Today I managed to get it installed at the hackspace and I have my own four square feet of desk!
The network is nice and quick so I updated the web site with some minor cosmetic changes and now I actually have Windows dev tools again I will be able to do some proper work!
Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-83443353968235874642013-10-09T00:02:00.001+02:002013-10-09T00:02:44.024+02:002hack or /2hack = trueI just joined a hackspace!
I've been living in a tiny house for the last few months and I've been used to having a big workshop, a man-cave style shed and room to put all my projects and electronic junk wherever I liked.
I hadn't realised just how much actual room I needed for an electronic workbench, oscilloscopes, test meters, screens and dev kit!
There is a hacker-space near to me and so Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-88476645579456942172013-09-25T00:56:00.000+02:002013-09-25T00:56:40.534+02:00Is this the real one?I've been giving a lot of thought to virtualization recently. Some while ago I wrote a Z80 emulator and the experience taught me some interesting things.
I think that an algorithm, given the correct system of inquiry, can ascertain that it is an algorithm.
I think however that an algorithm cannot discover the structure of the machine that ultimately underlies it's embodiment.
This is to say Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-81661705774940896622013-09-21T16:25:00.002+02:002013-09-21T16:25:48.441+02:00Not enough dangerToday, a parent will say to a child; "Do (insert something here)" and the usual response is "Why should I"
It used to be that the Father would say "Climb that tree!" or mum would say "Don't touch that" and before the child had the chance to stop and ask "Wh..........." something large and dangerous would have ripped the little bugger's head off and be chewing on their genitals or the kid would Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-44874213435008496762013-09-16T21:46:00.002+02:002013-09-16T21:46:45.204+02:00Oracle and Entity Framework a bad mixI've been working with entity framework since it came out. For so long in fact that I wrote my first EDMX file by hand instead of using the designer which wasn't finished. I get along ok with EF but for the first time this year I've been using it on an Oracle database. What a miserable experience that is!
I was unable to begin with a Code-First approach because our local DB guru created a Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-63218411277798629952013-08-31T23:53:00.002+02:002013-08-31T23:53:53.750+02:00A month without WindowsI've used Windows at work this month because I do programming on that platform but since moving house, poor old Octogig has sat in the corner and has not been powered up at-all. I've used Apple devices, the Mac Mini, the Air and various iPads and iPhones for all my computing needs, even writing a quick app in Xamarin Studio to fiddle with some graphics.
This is the first time since the late Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-43437897463548888372013-07-27T07:07:00.000+02:002013-07-27T07:07:26.127+02:00Second thoughtsTen years is too much to throw away. Publish and be damned. There is much more to come. Thanks to those of you who were kind enough to say that I would be missed and that you read this. One anonymous person commented and a bunch of you sent e-mail of a more personal nature which I greatly appreciate.Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918553.post-38558223458640400382013-07-22T08:20:00.001+02:002013-07-22T08:20:41.817+02:00Ten yearsI've been writing this blog on and off for ten years.
I'm bored of it.
Goodbye.Bob Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17689155105239387051noreply@blogger.com2