Pauly's Soapbox

Further robot house progress

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:09:10 GMT

I have rewritten the web server on my arduino ethernet shield, to actually support different routes (pages) and respond differently to GET and POST requests. Previously I just had example code on there that did little more than the hello world example you get on nodejs.org that gives the same response no matter what request you send.

I only spent about an hour on this yesterday though, hard to find the time, I will try and do more in my next week off. Since my last update I have got the native android app actually sending the requests needed. It's such a tiny step to get it working now, I need an infrared led and a little more programming and I'll have a proper working demo turning the house lights on and off. This last tiny step is quite intimidat1ng though.

This on the day the man who invented the remote control dies.

mocha and should are fouling everything up suddenly

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:28:05 GMT

var mocha = require('mocha');


var should = require('should');

describe( 'mocha', function( ) {

  it( 'should not foul everything up', function( ) {

    var foo = "test";

    foo.should.eql( 'test' );

  } );

} );


&#10006; 1 of 1 tests failed:

1) mocha should not foul everything up:

  AssertionError: expected { '0': 't', '1': 'e', '2': 's', '3': 't' } to equal 'test'

WHAT is going on? Why does this test not pass?

Turkey 2012 - we ate a lot

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:45:11 GMT

Food was amazing on holiday. I can't over-emphasise how big and good the buffet was in the Hotel Turquoise. We had breakfast there every day and were faced a buffet inside that was the length of about forty work desks (I'm looking around the room now trying to work it out) covering things like fruit and cereals and bread and so on, plus odd things like olives and pickles and things, and hot buffet including ham, various types of eggs, sausage type things, some unusual foreign hot things that I didn't even investigate too closely, then my own favourites of tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and potatoes. NOT CHIPS, the trays did say "french fries" but they were fried potatoes, this is a perfectly normal thing to have for breakfast. Then outside in the "show" bit there were crepes and omelettes cooked to order, and a place where you could cook your own eggs the way you liked them. This was a big breakfast.

Lunch we mostly had in the "snack bar" which was a nice covered area outdoors, with a long bar offering kebab type treats. These were the same every day, various kebab meats, burgers, chips, pide (Turkish pizza) and so on, then a big salad bar too, then a baked potato bar on top of that. Not actually on top, but as well.

Dinner was equally massive, there was a theme each evening, but lots of standards. It's the same place as the breakfast buffet, but slightly bigger, more different things on in the show buffet. So not for me, but impressive looking, whole spit roast animals, bread and pizza ovens on the go, traditional Turkish bread making staks, grills, and various other food demonstrations.

As a vegan I was well served by there just being so much choice, I could have some of this veg, some of that salad and so on, I did well. Here is a sample plate, I probably had two of these per meal. That was from the only time I accidentally had a meat dish I think, I picked up some innocuous looking courgette fritters - shredded courgette shallow fried in batter. Actually shredded courgette wrapped around a meat patty... why would you do that?

There were masses of puddings too, but I don't eat puddings. They looked very impressive but mostly tasted the same apparently.

Man we ate a lot. I weighed myself at various times, I think I went up about three kilos but worked some of it of with walking and things. I have not come back too much fatter.

Most automated dorm room

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:02:22 GMT

I missed this while I was on holiday! Look out the wife, this is the future!

Did some more work on my robot house project on my day off yesterday. Just tried to demo it at work, FAIL! Back to the drawing board...

Definitely baby birds in our bird box

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:30:27 GMT

The parents are in and out of the box constantly with food, and I'm sure I can hear tweeting from inside.

What a shame I feel like a tool for saying tweeting. Damn you internets!

Turquoise Hotel Hit Parade 2012

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:00:09 GMT

I just found a bit of paper left over from our holiday, in the bar one night we had to vote for our favourite songs or something. But you could only choose from this list of fourteen songs, and then you could somehow win something. Not sure what it was all about actually. This is the list anyway, it kind of makes it look like I'm lying when I say it was quite a classy place:

[*] Boney M - Rivers Of Babylon

[*] Maroon 5 - Moves Like Jagger (my holiday earworm)

[*] Don Omar - Danza Kuduro

[*] DJ Otzi - Hey Baby

[*] Los Del Rio - Macarena

[*] Vaya Con Dios - Nah Neh Nah

[*] Franz Bouwer - Heb Je Even Foor Mij

[*] Michel Telo - Aiseut Pego

[*] Kaoma - Lambada

[*] Lou Bega - Mambo Number 5

[*] Wolfgang Petry - Verlieben Verloren

[*] King of Africa - La Bomba

[*] REM - Losing My Religion

[*] Tarkan - Dudu

One of those songs stands out from the others for me as not being a chicken song holiday bonkers type number...

Bonus gardening day [img]

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:49:49 GMT

Mum and Dad were in Boston yesterday, so they thought they'd pop in on their way home... Not that Boston, but Boston in Lincolnshire... hmm, still is not that local is it? Still very good to see them, a bonus visit for us and for Harry. So of course we put them to work! We were planning a trip to buy some plants anyway, so they helped choose and then did most of the planting when we got back. The garden is looking lovely:

Now I'm looking at micro+irrigation systems, maybe to control with an arduino... So I don't want the full kit that I know I can get from homebase etc, but thinking of buying the bits separately.

Bonus day off for me today too. No-one else to look after Harry so me and he are spending the day together.

Arduino + nodejs (again)

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:55:13 GMT

Some good stuff via javascriptweekly.com.

Turkey 2012 - We walked to some historic sites [img]

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:24:02 GMT

Turkey is scattered with history. I suppose everywhere is, but it's noticeable when it's pillars and stuff. The most visually striking thing we saw was Temple of Apollo (below). It's out "on the end" of Side and looks great. I am sure I could see metal reinforcing rods in the base of this bit that is standing, which makes me think it's been reconstructed from bits. It would be very suspicious if the rest of it fell down and just this chunk was still standing neatly anyway. It's on a nice little artificial harbour, where some nice bars and restaurants were too. We came in to Side on our first full day on holiday for a look around, on the bus. Very brave I thought, getting a local bus, but they're brilliant, it's one or two Lira for the journey and they're very frequent. We heard from the guide or in a book or something that they'd be busy and would probably have goats, but we saw no goats. The bus station is just outside the town so there's a little walk along a road of ruins up to the town gate.

Clare and I walked in again along the beach one evening. It's a really nice walk but Clare found it a bit hard going because of the soft sand. We stopped in the Apollo bar, the one nearest to the temple as we knew it was a nice spot to watch the sun set. The bar seems to have cheekily annexed part of the ruin, and they have some chunks of ancient pillars and so on propping up some of the bar.

We went back in to the restaurant where we'd stopped for a drink on our first visit as it was nice. Clare had lamb shank on the recommendation of the chief waiter (or did he say chef waiter) Sezgin. I had the vegetable stew, most Turkish main courses are not ideal for vegans, but it was very good.

We got the bus back to the hotel this time round, I walked back along the beach on another afternoon...

Madrid trip

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:10:55 GMT

Just had a couple of these emails, it's rubbish of course, this is the danger of someone hacking your email account:

I made a trip to Madrid, Spain for a program and i have lost my cash, mobile phone and credit cards. I've made contact with my bank but they need more time to come up with a new one. I need you to lend me some money to sort my self out of this predicament, will pay back once I get this over with. Right now I need about 900 euro to cover my expenses. Please let me know if you can help me.

Hi

Just hoping this email reaches you well, I'm sorry for this emergency but I just have to let you know my present predicament. I made an urgent trip to Madrid, Spain. Everything was fine until I was attacked on my way back to the hotel, I wasn't hurt but I lost my money, bank cards, mobile phone and my bag in the course of this attack. I immediately contacted my bank in order to block my cards and also made a report at the nearest police station. I've been to the embassy and they are helping me with my documentation so i can fly out but I'm urgently in need of some money to pay for my hotel bills and my flight ticket home, will PAY BACK as soon as i get back home.

Kindly let me know if you would be able to help me out so I can forward you the details required for a wire transfer. I will expect your response soon.

The person whose email it is is safely at home and tired of people phoning her about this...

Turkey 2012 - we flew with Thomas Cook

Fri, 18 May 2012 06:49:19 GMT

Was a super early start as our flight was 7am or something? Maybe before. Anyway we ended up getting up at about 2am, to leave at 3am. We were going to try and transfer Harry to the car, but he woke up OK and was fine with it. Online check-in worked ok, so I had time to go in the pub at the airport. That's the best bit about holidays, going to the pub at stupid o'clock. I'm not a fan of flying, particularly not that early, but it went fairly smoothly, only a short delay. Harry was fine with it all, took the whole thing in his stride, we weren't sure how he'd be with an aeroplane. Only thing is, he fell asleep while we were taxiing, so missed take off.

The plane was a manky old crate, leg room was awful, and there were no TV screens. Man I hate flying at the best of times, this was a bit rubbish. Food on the plane was not that bad, I took a picture. I think Jim booked this as an extra, and at least it was vegan.

I tried to take a few pictures while we were flying, as visibility out of the window was great, and it looked as if the GPS in the camera was going to kick in, but they did not work out.

We landed safely.

You need a visa to get in to Turkey, it's just a case of queueing up and paying cash on arrival though.

Transfer to the hotel was a bit long, over an hour, and the driver seemed to get lost once, but was alright. Then this is where the previous blog post picks up...

Turkey 2012 - we stayed at Hotel Turquoise

Fri, 18 May 2012 06:39:11 GMT

We are just back from holiday (nearly a week now, where has my tan gone?) and it was smashing. We went to Side on the South coast of Turkey, ten days all inclusive at Hotel Turquoise. Transfer to the resort was not bad either, it was long (over an hour on a bus) but the driver only got lost once. Then in to our resort and a welcoming glass of champagne (or something like it - everything in Turkey seems to be a copy).

No wristbands for the all inclusiveness here, is that a sign of it being a particularly posh one? I like to think so. We tested it with a glass of wine at the bar right away and it works! Particularly handy to be able to pick up bottles of mineral water whenever you like, no having to cart a slab of them back from the shop every day or anything. Checked in, bags dropped off in room, and out the door to explore! Hmm, not quite, Clare wanted to unpack properly... Come on let's go!

The resort was great. Maybe slightly incongruous that it was a solid preformed massive block of luxury dumped on the coast with dust and nothingness to the rear and on in to "normal" Turkey, but that is the way of beach resorts like this I suppose. You couldn't build something this big in the middle of a village. Our rooms were in blocks nearest to the beach and pool, which were to one side of the resort. Not loud enough to notice any noise, or maybe I just slept well. Lots of different types of rooms available, we had two room family suites, but I think there were rooms and suites and maybe some little villas. There is one private house near to where we were, strange but lovely place to live. The resort was "deeper" than it is wide, so it'd take you longer to walk from the main gate down to the beach front than it would to take you to walk from side to side. I think. Can't really verify this by looking on a map, as it is mostly covered with trees. Some guests were delivered to their rooms by golf buggy. But not us. No we did not attempt to steal a golf buggy.

There's plenty to do at the resort, food is amazing (more later), lots of bars, lots of pools, lots and lots of staff to help you out. Not many English people, it's not in the Thomas Cook brochure for this year so maybe they're not marketing it to English any more? Lots of Swedish, Dutch, German, Russian, all sorts. There was karaoke one night, which I was not tempted but but it turns out I would clearly have aced. There was a Michael Jackson tribute show, am I making it sound tacky? It's not really... anyway the Michael Jackson show was postponed at the last minute as it had rained when they were meant to be setting up for it, so they replaced it with a big old quiz. OH YEAH, we won it! Prize was a bottle of wine, that'll come in handy on an all inclusive holiday then...

Anyway, smashing resort and I recommend it.

I just bought a Raspberry Pi

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:12:05 GMT

What's the betting it spends most of its live gathering dust on the desk, like my Arduino does..?

Due in 3 weeks...

The future of luggage

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:00:59 GMT

The future of luggage

I have seen the future of travel, it is suitcases / bags that have built in scales. For starters, weighing your travel bags is getting more important. Never would have occurred to me before (I never take much) but on this trip Clare wanted a spare kitchen sink (just in case) so we were quite heavily laden. Then because we were travelling with Thomas Cook and their luggage limit was a less than generous 15kg each, we struggled a bit. The suitcases we had borrowed weighed nearly that on their own, so here's my advice dump your samsonite suitcases now! It's going to become more and more important to have super lightweight travel bags.

Ah damnit I thought I had invented the self weighing suitcase while on holiday but there are loads some... hmm not as many as I thought, maybe this has got legs.

Don't carry one like this in your hand luggage though, Mother-in-law had hers confiscated at Turkish security (though they then relented and returned them. Something to do with the massive hook I suppose.

Turkey 2012 [img]

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:59:26 GMT

On our holiday to Side on the South coast of Turkey:

[*] We flew with Thomas Cook

[*] We stayed at Hotel Turquoise

[*] We walked to some historic sites

[*] We ate a lot

[*] We did some sports

[*] We shopped

[*] We swam

[*] We read

[*] We even saw a film

I will be back to cover all these points in multiple boring posts later. Meanwhile, we have lovely pictures: