The Crazy World (tm) of Rob Miles

Where's Rob?

2006-05-19T16:48:00.000+01:00

Rob is moving about a bit. He is in the middle of sliding his blog and just about everything else over to www.robmiles.com. The reasons for this are many and varied, mainly that he can put resources and tags and feeds and things into his new home. For the last week or so he has been triple blogging and the strain is beginning to tell. Bottom line, for the latest in Rob's Bloggy Goodness you should head over to the mother lode above.

Heading Home

2006-05-12T10:34:00.000+01:00

Will I ever stay anywhere as posh again?

Well, today I packed up all my stuff ready for the journey back. Every time I go abroad I end up buying a new bag to take stuff home with me. This trip was no exception. I got a rather racy red number (should show up well on the luggage belt) for 14 dollars into which I can put all the presents that I bought for the folks back home. Just to make sure that they are sincerely pleased to see me.

Then, having purchased the jelly beans for number on daughter, it was off to the airport.

This is the 'Vegas arrivals. Note how there are slot machines so that you can gamble even as you wait for your suitcase to appear.

I took me a while to time this photograph correctly, but take a close look at the screen at the far end and....

Imogen Heap is playing 'Vegas!

Very surprised (and impressed) to see that Imogen Heap is playing 'Vegas. We saw her live in York a few weeks back and she was jolly good. If you are in 'Vegas you should drop by. Or you could save the travel and just buy the album "Speak for Yourself".

After that surprise it was onto the plane for the journey back. I've found a way to survive long journeys. It is called the Archos AV500 and Veronica Mars technique. I managed to watch five episodes whilst waiting on various planes and in airports. If you have not seen it before, I'd advise you to take a look. Take a bit of Buffy, a pinch of OC and add just a smidgeon of Twin Peaks and you have Veronica Mars. Snappy, sassy and set in a High School campus. More stereotypes than an advertising excutives handbook, but quite fun nonetheless.

And then back home for blessed sleep.

Bus Trip

2006-05-11T21:03:00.000+01:00

Being on top of a bus does have its advantages...

On the final day of my visit to 'Vegas I thought I'd take a trip around. Now, I always try to make use of public transport when I go abroad. In the 'states this is usually a good deal because taxis can be expensive and you do see a lot more of the local life by catching a bus. So I did. I bought a five dollar ticket which entitled me to a day's worth of travel and set off to take in the sights. And the Las Vegas Outlet Mall where I planned to buy some trousers. What a jet set lifestyle I have eh?

Anyhoo, I got on the bus, driven by someone whose nametag said was called "Jimmy". Jimmy obviously went to the "Attilla the Hun" school of customer relations. He contrived to be rude, unhelpful and unpleasant in around five words and three gestures. Then someone on the bus took a bit of a turn and had to go and sit down for a while at the stop. Jimmy first ignored the problem, then went outside and shouted at them for being unwell, then, when the person had wandered off in search of a cool drink, called for an ambulance, stopped the bus service called and threw us all off onto the pavement. Nobody liked Jimmy. His replacement, who was so efficient I've forgotten his name, turned up in a virtually empty bus a couple of minutes later. And the really good news was that I got to sit on the top deck, in the front, with a wonderful view of the strip. And a camera. I took loads (and I mean loads) of pictures. There are a bunch on my Flickr site. Didn't buy any trousers though. Such is life. When evening came I went out again with my cameras, just to get a few final snaps.

The view outside my hotel at night

I made it as far as the Harley Davidson Cafe before I caught a bus back. Not driven by Jimmy.

Sumo Loser

2006-05-10T23:44:00.000+01:00

My robot doing what it does best: running away.

For the last couple of days I've been working away on my Sumo robot. I got the kit on Monday and tonight we had the finals. The robots are really neat. You can program them using C# and they are powered by the rinky dink .NET Micro Framework. I wasn't sure about winning on the performance front, so I thought I'd go for style. A moving graphical display looked like it might hit the spot and so I got one and strapped it on the top of my competitor.

Turned out that style was the only point on which I had any chance of scoring. In the competition my robot did something that it had never done in the many seconds of intensive testing that I did before the event. It developed a taste for just piling out of the circle as quickly as possible. Perhaps it was obeying some higher "survival" programming which I was unaware of. At any rate it meant that for me, the game was over very quickly. It is perhaps just as well, some of the competitors looked to be deeply scary, pouncing on their prey and forcing them out of the ring.

The good news is that I got together with a bunch of fellow "second placers" and we set up a kind of "off piste" fighting arena where we just turned them loose. This was great fun to watch, even though my robot never actually won anything, it did manage to lose with a certain style…..

Robot Brawling

The Hand of Fate

2006-05-10T14:41:00.000+01:00

I've always found probability interesting. Last week in the paper someone was writing about the way that things always even out, but over the very long run. You would expect that if you toss a coin 100 times you would get 50 heads and 50 tails but apparently this is very unlikely to be the case. In fact, you could find that you get many more heads than tails. And yet, just because you've had more tails this does not meant that the next toss is more likely to be heads (because it is "their turn") or tails (because they are popular at the moment).

I've been thinking about this and it makes a kind of sense. If you could use the fact that there have been 50 heads and 49 tails to predict that the 100^th coin toss will definitely produce a tail then the coin toss is not random, and therefore something is wrong with fate. I even got to thinking that some part of the universe keeps track of the ups and downs of randomness and makes sure that things level out over the long run. Actually, this is unlikely to be the case, in that what is really going on is that stuff is just happening, and we are trying to draw conclusions from what we see. At the moment I'm in Las Vegas, a town built on probability, and it is interesting to see that all the roulette wheels have displays which show the most recent results to "help" the player decide which number is going to turn up next. As if.

Anyhoo, I got an even bigger does of probability today when I picked up a raffle ticket for a prize draw at one of the events here. I loudly told everyone around me that I might as well tear the ticket up right now because I never, ever win raffles. A fact that struck me as particularly unfair as the prize was a pretty good one – a shiny mobile phone. Of course, I ended up winning. The only snag is that the phone doesn’t actually work properly back home in England, but there is always ebay……

Rob Speaks

2006-05-09T18:36:00.000+01:00

Do you have those "What on earth am I doing here?" or "How did I get into this?" kind of moments very often. I don't have too many and fortunately, being of a literal frame of mind, I can usually answer the questions with "Giving a talk" and "Via the lobby". I had one of those today though, just before I gave my presentation. I've met people who say airily "Oh, I never get nervous before I give a talk". Well I do. I regard it as part of the preparation process. I reckon that a certain amount of concern about the way that things are going to turn out does tend to improve the final product. When I fly home on Friday I want the pilot to be fretting to some degree about the success of the take off and landing parts.

So there's nothing wrong with getting nervous, although I have found that if you turn into a quivering wreck on stage this can cause the audience to lose some of their respect for you. I reckon the key to nailing presentation nerves is preparation. If you have confidence in your knowledge of what you are going to speak about, have tested all the props and demos, and have contingency plans if they don't work, then you can just get on and do the job. So, after some pacing of the stage, the appointed time comes and off we go. And just about everything works. And the audience seem to like it. And I finish on time (always a plan if yours is a session immediately before lunch). And they even clapped at one point. Thanks folks.

MEDC 2006 Gets Going

2006-05-09T09:12:00.000+01:00

Went to the keynote of MEDC 2006 today. The first thing that caught my eye was the way that Platform Builder has now been tied very neatly into Visual Studio 2005. Platform Builder is the tool that you use to buld platforms (well - duh). More specifically, it lets you create a custom version of Windows CE for the particular target device. You use it to select which features (Media Player, Compact Framework etc etc) and it then builds the stuff that you put into your device to make it work. Previously this has been a slightly mysterious affair, with strange incantations and tools being required. But now it is looking a lot simpler with a new project option for studio (is there nothing this tool can't do) that does most of the grunt work and some very nice editing tools to help you with the rest of the job.

Startup Slide

Then it was on to a demonstration of how easy it is to build embedded systems these days, with a Point of Sale cash till being created on the fly out of various components. The next thing they mentioned was pure music to my ears. The .NET Micro Framework was announced. This is not going to be micro. Quite the reverse. It is a continuation of a development which started a couple of years ago, when a small company took the technology that makes the Spot watch work and then deployed it as a general purpose controller that you could program in C#. At the time I got very excited about this technology, but they unfortunately it all went quiet. But now it is back with a whack and Microsoft properly behind it. They were even giving away robots powered by .NET micro (I managed to get one and it will be taking part in the robot sumo competition on Wed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this technology is going to be very big indeed and will be super for teaching.

Camera's eye view of the keynote

After that, the stuff about the new Mobile Patterns and Practices was a little less exciting, but it is none the less very useful. One of the things that it provides is a set of libraries which allow you to create completely different layouts for different screen sizes and orientations. These are selected automatically as required, and should mean the end of things on the screen getting into a mess when you change the orienation of your device from landscape to portait.

My robot, ready for action.

Getting Started at MEDC

2006-05-08T21:47:00.000+01:00

Today I got my conference bag. One of my rituals is to empty it out and see what swag I've got

Not bad. Of course only a really sad person would post a picture of their entry badge as well...

Now promise that you won't copy it and take over my identity.

In 'Vegas even the lifts have chandeliers in them.

I'm not sure if they had one of these in Venice. But they have one here.

At the end of this beautiful corridor there are some slot machines. A lot of slot machines.

A view of my hotel from the walkway.

The only way to get in or out this hotel is via the moving stairway. Apparently this broke down last month and twenty people were trapped on it for two days. (I have used this gag before, but I still like it).

I got this lovely sumo kit. You get to make a .NET Embedded controlled robot, which you can program in C#. Wonderful. On Wed. we get to make them fight each other. But first I have to build it.

I'm doing session 2. Scary eh? More tomorrow.

Venetian Luxury

2006-05-08T07:59:00.000+01:00

Neat view. I wonder if I could hit the pool from here.....

But now I am in 'Vegas, and staying at one of the poshest hotels in the city thanks to a Microsoft discount deal (I dread to think how much this place would cost if I was paying full price). I'm here to talk at the Microsoft MEDC (Mobile and Embedded DevCon) 2006. My talk is on Tuesday about casual game development (the games are casual, not the development).

My luggage has found me. I gave the case a serious telling off. I went and fetched it from customer services, and was comprehensively snubbed by the chap that I saw in the lift. I think he was of the opinion that anyone actually carrying a largish item of luggage must be staff, and in my case not even very well dressed staff.

My goodness this place is posh. Last time I was in the 'states I had room at a Howard Johnston motel in San Jose. This worked fine for me, although when I was talking to one bloke I mentioned where I was staying and he said "How interesting.." in a way which made me think that I'd just told him I was recently released from prison.

However, posh as this place is (and it is very posh – I'll post some pictures later) Howard Johnson does have the edge in several important respects.

Mirrors: the Howard Johnston bathroom contained precisely one mirror, which was easy to avoid. In my current bathroom there are five. Five. That means that when I stagger out of the shower feeling particularly fragile (as I just have) it is impossible to turn so that I can't see the lanky, white, pot-bellied creature which has just emerged. And to make things worse, some of the mirrors are on opposite walls and reflect each other, so that I can actually see hundreds of pasty me's, disappearing off to into the distance. Must do wonders for the recruitment at the fitness spar. Does nothing for me.

Shampoo: in the Howard Johnston there was a single soap dispenser in the bathroom which dispensed a multi-purpose concoction good for cleaning your hands, face, hair and shoes. In the Venetian there are a number of different bottles which contain different lotions, most of which involve cucumber for some reason. However, they are all very similar in colour and all very hard to use. I had to squeeze the conditioner bottle so hard that it flew out of my hands and then proceeded to ricochet around the shower cubical for a few noisy seconds. Later I found I have conditioned my hair with body balm.

Coffee: in Howard Johnston's a room contains a percolator and enough bits and bobs to make a few drinks (it also contains a fridge – which was so efficient in Warren's room that it froze his can of Pepsi rock solid – but we'll pass over that). In the Venetian there is nothing of the sort. Instead there is a well stocked minbar which is squatting in the corner daring me to take something off its sensor laden shelves so that I can make even more money for the establishment. I'm going to make precisely one purchase (a jar of Venetian banded jelly beans ($9.00) on the last day for number one daugher. So there.

WIFI: Howard Johnston had free WIFI. True, I'm not actually sure it was operated by them, but it did work and was free. The Venetian seems to have nothing of the sort. There are a bunch of networks with enticing names but nothing that seems to work. The room guide talks about internet access but no details are available. Then again, perhaps people who come to 'Vegas and then have an urge to surf the web would be regarded by the resort operators as a lost cause from a profit point of view.

Access: I could get to my Howard Johnston room straight from the car park. As could lots of other people I suppose, but at least entry was quick and immediate. To get to my room here I have to use two lifts and pass a bunch of security guards. Actually, I quite like this, as in the HJ I had to put things into the little floor safe all the time, which meant kneeling on the area of carpet which was damp when we arrived and never stopped smelling funny. I did wonder if they had been cleaning off the chalk outline that is drawn around dead bodies in CSI. Or perhaps it was a dropped jar of pickles. Anyhoo, I reckon that the Venetian wins here, as I've looked around carefully but I've found no evidence of such things. Or any pickles for that matter.

However, having said all this, I do really like this room. I just wished I earned enough to be able to afford it properly.

Off to 'Vegas

2006-05-07T21:37:00.000+01:00

At least this plane doesn't have hydraulics.

Here's a little tip for travellers. If you are travelling via Amsterdam airport (or Schipol) make sure that in your hand baggage you include enough clothes to get you through the night after you arrive. Don't just think about doing this, like I did. This means that when (and I do mean when) your luggage gets lost you can at least have something to change into when you finally reach your hotel room at twenty eleven o'clock or whatever time it was that I finally got here. Having forgotten this step I was stuck with the clothes I was standing in. Which after around 20 hours of travelling are probably actually capable of standing up by themselves.

The very helpful lady at Las Vegas airport just went "Ah, Amsterdam" like it happens all the time. The other interesting thing about Amsterdam is that you can land at a runway which seems to be at the other side of the city. Once we had touched down we must have spent around twenty minutes motoring along to get to the terminal. We even stopped at two pedestrian crossings (this is not actually true, but it would be so neat if you could have planes waiting while you crossed the road). The whole thing reminded me very much of a World War 2 flying game from way back. We discovered that if you didn't leave the ground you could taxi all the way to the target at 200 miles an hour (including over the channel) drop your bombs with total accuracy and then rumble home without a scratch on the plane. These days of course you would get caught by loads of speed cameras.

Anyway, apart from losing my luggage, and the plane breaking down as it was taxiing onto the runway to take off, it was a fairly uneventful journey. I used to have an Austin Mini, a car made up of roughly equal parts rust and filler. One day, as I was approaching a junction, I put my foot on the brake to slow down a bit and the pedal went all the way down the floor without (and this is the worrying bit) having any affect on the speed whatsoever. Scary stuff. The pilot of our plane out of Minneapolis must have had roughly the same sensation as he discovered that one of his hydraulic systems did not actually have any fluid in it (which turned out to be what was wrong with my Mini too). So we had to find a none-broken aircraft which added an extra 90 minutes (but a lot of excitement) to the final leg of the journey.

The best plan with jetlag (I've been told) is to force yourself to stay up as late as possible so that you quickly get used to the new timings of day and night. It is now 9:30 pm. The heck with the best plan. I'm off to bed.

A too familiar name at the airport

2006-05-07T08:49:00.000+01:00

Blossom

2006-05-04T19:57:00.000+01:00

I love the spring time. Even when it is late. The trees on our road are in blossom at the moment, so it was out with the big camera....

I don't think captions could add much.

Feeling good about not buying a dalek

2006-05-03T22:52:00.000+01:00

I nearly did you know. They had one of the new ones at Collectormania. All gold and beautiful. And reduced too. It called from me from inside it's shiny box. And I was sore tempted for a while. Until number one son broke the spell with a firm "You only need one dalek you idiot".

I disagree. When push comes to shove I think it is those of us with the most daleks which will win out. And it didn't help that Rachel bought one.

Did by a robot car though. I'll post some pictures when I've worked out how to transform it.

All Powerful Jack

2006-05-02T19:48:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I also managed to get a real prize. A set of "24" Top Trumps cards. Most of the cast are there. Of course, if you get hold of Jack you are pretty much unbeatable:

..which is pretty much how it should be.

Worry about an angel

2006-05-01T21:34:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we had a kind of competition. We all had five pounds and the name of the game was to find the most naff trinket from the stuff assembled at Collectormania. I was pretty sure I was in with a good chance with my talking Mr. T keychain and talking Smegal. But number one daughter comprehensively thrashed our efforts with the twin power of her smelly "Pup Pourri" and "Worry Angel". What's more, she rubbed our noses in it by also being able to afford some chocolate stick things. But they tasted quite nice apparently, and so were not in the running.

And here is the worry angel message, for you all to enjoy.

I want fifty. Industrial strength ones.

Call Collect

2006-04-30T22:08:00.000+01:00

I like Collectormania. A chance to get up early (4:15am) and drive down the motorway to Milton Keynes in search of strange stuff and star scrawls.

...but at least you do get to see a nice sunrise.

This is Mira Furlan, of Babylon 5 and Lost fame. I still find it amazing that we can we can meet up with such people when we've seen them in so many episodes.

This is Ron Glass of Serenity fame....

..and this is Alan Tudyk, who was in the same movie, and also played good roles in A Knight's Tale and Dodgeball. The chap on the left is number one son.

You could also have your photo taken alongside the Robocop car, next to a model of the clockwork lawman himself. Snag is that the car is a very ordinary looking saloon. And you'd think if they were rebuilding you they'd take the opportunity to make you more than five foot tall...

There are some more pictures on the Flickr account on the right, with pseudo-witty captions..

Pigs and Bliss

2006-04-29T20:37:00.000+01:00

We went out to get some pigs today. These are pedigree. Oh yes.

Can't you tell? We are currently working on names. Bubble and Squeak?

On the way out of the garden centre I noticed that the landscape was definitely "Bliss replacement material".

From my shiny phone

2006-04-28T16:08:00.000+01:00

This is being posted from my phone. So now there really is no escape from the crazy world of rob.

Laser Eyes

2006-04-27T19:36:00.000+01:00

Just got an email offering me cut price laser eye surgery. Not keen. Someone I know was talking about this and they said that it was easy peasy. No pain, no hassle, treatment went like a dream. Only thing was that, during the surgery you could actually smell your eyes burning.

All together now.... Eawwwwwwww.

Routemasters - a great way to travel

2006-04-26T20:16:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I heard a very good piece of radio drama. Laugh out loud funny. It is called Routemasters and is about a time travelling bus. You might be able to find it here, it is usually broadcast on Saturday. Well worth tracking down.

Way to make a fool of myself

2006-04-25T22:32:00.000+01:00

I was having coffee today when my phone rang.

"Do you want a mobile phone upgrade?" said the voice over the babble of a distant call centre.

No I don't. Just got a new phone as it happens. And about six months on my contract until I can get another one. I told the chap this as politely as possible and put the phone back in my pocket.

Five minutes later it rings again. Same babble in the background, similar voice asking if I was Mr Miles (if not I suppose I must be a phone thief I thought to myself grimly).

"Look" I said, with the air of a man barely supressing his patience. "I don't want a new phone, and if I do I'll go and get one. OK?" . It was all I could do to restrain the urge to press the red button and end the call.

Silence. Followed by "Sorry, it's just the garage calling to let you know your car is ready". Darn, darn, darn. I firmly believe that life just sets these things up for me specially, to ensure I look as much like an idiot as possible, as often as possible.

Freeview TV

2006-04-24T21:44:00.000+01:00

Bought a Freeview box yesterday. I had this cunning plan to record Channel 5 programs onto one of my mobile gadgets. The box is very nice (and was startlingly cheap). Recieves loads of channels that I don't particularly want to watch. But not Channel 5. At the moment the aerial is in the loft. I think it probably needs to be stuck on the chimney. Unfortunately I have no head for heights (or desire to plummet to an early death). So I think I will have to pay someone else to risk life and limb for me.

Agent of Change

2006-04-23T23:59:00.000+01:00

Some things you have to do because they are your job. At just before midnight tonight I was out making lots of people unhappy. Some years ago myself and Ian created the instation software for the Humber Bridge toll management system. It is our code which tots up the amounts paid and prints out all the shift summaries. And tonight the tolls go up. The system is designed to take this in its stride, and automatically upgrade to the new values when the old ones expire.

But because the tolls have not changed for a while it has not been used in anger for a few years. So tonight I went in so that I could watch some numbers update and convince myself that all was well.

These are the numbers before they go up.

This is the view from the control room.

..and this is the view as I went back to my car. The update went fine, but I'm glad that I went anyway. Perhaps next time I'll trust it to work by itself...

Numb Gums

2006-04-22T20:50:00.000+01:00

Bought a new toothbrush today. Oh, the fast moving, globe trotting, lifestyle that I lead eh?

But this one is special. It vibrates. This is designed to loosen the ingrained plaque and stuff which my mouth is full of.

They were half price and had batteries in them. How could I go wrong? I've found out how. They make your mouth go numb. Oh yes. The vibration is quite high pitched and after twenty seconds or so you can't feel your lips or tongue. Very strange. Number one wife asked me how well the brush worked.

"Maykes yur mowf go mummm" I replied as best I could.

Driving Hell

2006-04-21T21:38:00.000+01:00

Drove back home today. I say drove. More like crawled. Suffice it to say that the M1 was not kind to us. Why do other people have to use the roads when I want to? No fair. It is not as if I do a lot of driving. Perhaps infrequent drivers like me could be given a special pass which lets us use the inside lane (or all of them) at any time and force BMW drivers off the road. And they should put some special hardware into lorries so that when one doing 60.000001 mph decides to overtake one doing 60.0 mph the engine promptly explodes or the steering jams hard left causing both of the stupid things to hurtle off the motorway and smash into the nearest solid object, leaving the way clear for me stuck behind them. And those speed limit signs are a waste of time too. There are few things more annoying than being sat stationary for 20 minutes underneath a sign saying "maximum speed limit 60".