Finding the chase and cutting to it

I love the two Ronnies but the best encounter with them has to be “I know my place” which was written by Marty Feldman/John Law.

I know my place

I first saw it when I was 12, back in 1985, and really wasn’t sure what it was taking about.  The industrial action of the late 70’s really passed me by and the recession of that time also seemed to be wanning.  But I was reminded of the sketch while overhearing a conversation as I walked through a market today.

It also made me think that it doesn’t really apply anymore.  Many articles have abounded the past year about the traditional upper classes not being able to afford to send their off-spring to public school while people on modest incomes seem to think this is the only way to guarantee their off-spring a decent chance in life!

I believe that this is changing.  Long after the grammar schools were abolished and were a guarantee, if you took the advantages, of achieving a better life than your parents, the ability to achieve what you can has been granted by the internet.  Information is there for the taking – if you are interested in the “Social structure of Britain” you can go and find it: perhaps not the latest figures and facts but definitely ones two years old.

Information is there for the taking and that is making a difference. Times are going to be hard for everyone over the next two years but I think the world has the chance of making itself better at the end of this recession and hopefully, very peacefully.

OK, this is a little trip down memory lane and one I am more than happy to share. It is not meant to be a “follow this and reap the rewards” more a comparison of how things used to be…

Basics

My first programme was

10 print “Sam”
20 goto 10

it produced a screen full of Sam’s in a mix of lower and upper case – not rocket science but needed a little thought with a Commodore 64.

My second programme built on that – taking somone’s input and writing it across the screen. Trivial and instant, and understandable. I branched on to a translation programme for my first French homework and by the time I’d coded up the third really appreciated why that approach wasn’t going to work. I started playing with maths instead… but that’s a different story.

I got magazines and books talking about how to achieve movable sprites, moving things by joystick instead of mouse and got into interesting things like learning how to switch off the basic interpreter. My mum, dad and I worked out how to achieve what we wanted with the machine and thought about what more we could do. It was relatively easy, frustrating, time consuming and fun.

We learnt how to manipulate the graphics and the sound chips (SID and VIC to you and me).

My folks spent the best part of a day making a birthday card which would draw your name across a birthday cake drawn across the page and play happy birthday to you in the background. They spent the morning working out the tune on a recorder and encoded the tune they’d worked out. My uncle visited us that day just as it was all coming together and told them they’d got the wrong key – I’ve never seen my parents shoot such a dirty look at someone.

I was begining to work out just what could be done and played with computer programming as a career and that’s really the end of the story.

Only it isn’t – I learnt everything I could about how people responded to programmes and how they worked within operating systems. I learnt how operating systems worked by trying new things and still find the exploration fun.

But I don’t envy the people coming into the profession now. Learning is not as easy, everything is covered up, black boxed and intensely complicated.

How do you learn to programme now?

money for God’s sake… The life of any web page has always been judged on three things:

1. accessibility of information
2. ease on the mind
3. ease on the mouse

anything else is a bonus.  Image my surprise then when Cuil was launched.  Black is the new white it seems…

I mean, Google won users by being empty – no garish logos, no loud adverts, no distrations.  White was stark in comparison to most sites at the time, but suitable and easy to live with.  The mind could easily wander over the page.

Cuil by comparison contains large amounts of black space.  Empty, infathomable black space. Not surprisingly, I love this.  The colours are very 1980’s (Commodore C64) and it works.  Not in a trying to be clever kind of way, but just because it isn’t.

The beeb have responded in kind, with their front page now sporting the black top bar.  Where will it end?  Watch this space…

I’m guessing lots. I got an eyefull of the new Sony eBook reader today and was seriously impressed – but I’m not convinced it’s something I would rush out to buy. Maybe I’m not their target audience – to me a book is something I can lounge in a boiling hot tub with and I’m not sure the eBook is up to it (happy to be wrong here).

To be fair, it’s not doing anything that’s particularly unique either, modern phones and internet tablets are now performing this kind of media presentation very nicely now. Screens are now cheap (thanks to the Xo maybe) and I firmly believe that Apple have contributed by making this kind of gadget simple to use.

And maybe that’s why the dedicated device has it’s day today. Who knows what the future will bring?

Hi, I know, it’s been a while. We’ve had some major changes here due to economic climate change (no, really, it’s real and it’s here)…

It’s been slowly rolling on but the main disruption we had, was the loss of our broadband access and this site. Painful. People, broadband is essential: we coped (just) by buying a 3G USB dongle until the service was reinstated. Yet that couldn’t provide my beloved site (OK – I appreciate it’s not the prettiest nor the brightest and may not be the quickest but it’s my kid, so be kind!).

Part of my job is writing about the changes Web 2 has had in the work place – but actually, I use it as much at home. Imagine being incommunicado for two weeks – that was my life.

But normality has been restored: after a pause – router setup help apparently comes in different dialects. We now speak two.

I’ve lost my broadband connection: I know, careless really. Given that fixed line broadband takes five working days to install, I was nearly going out of my mind. I was given a lot of help by my friends in how to restablish my status – thank you all but I ended up getting a stop gap…

It’s as long as a credit card, about ²/₃ the height and the thickness of a wallet full. It plugs in via a USB cord and just works. Top-up with a voucher and away you surf. I have to say the weirdest thing is how 3’s user interface is completely geared up for phones, while most of its customers are like me – surf hoppers.

And I have to say, that’s exactly how I feel – after bashing my head against fixed line reinstatement, this is a breeze.

Bye, bye lines. Except, I am now watching my bytes – it’s a return to making every bit count, turning off images and styling in an effort to keep down to the minimum and that makes it all really quick. Really, amazingly quick. So I’m thinking of rebuilding my laptop with a linux building to work once the cable is live again and wander free around the planet!

OK, I’ve gone back to work having taken a week as leave and realise just how creepy Michael Marshall Smith’s “What you make it” really is!

It’s beautifully written (my favourite story is the “Man who drew cats”) it’s all believable and tangible and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it would be easier to read if it wasn’t.

All I’m saying is be happy before you read, be at peace with the world otherwise this may be the piece that drives you to the tipping point!

I like to play games: mostly card games, but I can do the Rubik’s Cube and I am reasonably good at various forms of solitaire including Mahjong and Sudoku.

I like games which, once mastered happen quickly so I don’t like Civilisation though I adore Age of Empires. Chess has always eluded me but draughts is awesome. Chinese checkers too though I wouldn’t necessarily play my dad too often. It’s nice to have a chance of winning if only occasionally!

A game should have entertainment and moments of joy and delight as well as small moments of frustration and reaching reserves you never knew you had. I like honorable battle.

I don’t like some of the games people play which include causing people pain – I don’t like one person running the game where they can be the only winner as they’re the only ones in control of the rules.

If games are not fun for all, what’s the point?

Sam with her pump on the first day

Since 8th Dec 2001, I have been the very proud owner of an insulin pump. A full 24 years after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus, I had the chance of not having long acting insulin.

This is an important distinction: the pump gives me a human analogue insulin – in other words an insulin which is fundamentally identical to human insulin. It has a very short life span as a result and therefore is ideally suited to Continuous Subcutaneous Insulin Infusion (the proper name for an insulin pump). But it means freedom from long acting insulin – a real bonus as the unpredictability disappears from dose calculations.

Being a constant companion, the pump not only makes life so much more flexible (and dare I say, easier (ok, it has it’s own set of problems, but on the whole)) it is always there. It feels like it’s a part of me.

So, I hate swapping the pump out. My latest one has developed a very small hitch and needs to be checked and I feel like I am losing an arm! Tomorrow, I am sending off this one off and swapping in a different pump.

Strange how you get attached to things.

Casio fx-7000GA emulator– I have a confession to make – I miss my old programmable calculator. I think I could make an emulator, maybe web based.

I plan to start with the language and the graphical functions then mimic the UI.