Never too late to learn

One of the great parts of post Christmas TV are the Royal Institution Christmas lectures. Something I generally always want to watch and generally over the years have missed the majority of the week long series. This year they're all based on computing, and currently looking at how microprocessors work and are made.

Having worked in computing for the past 5 years and done a degree in Software engineering there is still a huge amount of detail related to the hardware that I would have to admit to being sketchy on. I know enough to be dangerous and am fairly happy to muck about with the innards of a modern PC, but it's still nice to sit here of an evening learning how they make things and where the current limitations lie.

Tomorrow's on Human Computer Interaction will be worth a watch as well...

First day in the office

There are certain things that happen whenever you start a new job, so having them happen when you've been working for a company for 5 years is a bit surreal. I'm currently the owner of a new ID badge for the site and have a new office (albeit temporary) for the work we're here for over the next few weeks.

Plans are being made and the work looks to be a lot of fun even though there appears to be a lot of it, and once I get over the jet lag things should be a lot smoother. Also driving is getting easier, at least now I go to the correct side of the car to get in and I don't feel quite so nervous about going around the place.

Englishman in New York (State)

At 5am on a dark autumnal morning the taxi arrived that would take me up to Heathrow ready for the trip out to New York. Having done all this before there weren't quite so many nerves with having to do the whole travelling thing and only having to do one flight made things a lot more straight forward.

The flight itself was fine, watched lots of films and ate what was claimed to be breakfast and lunch (actually the pizza wasn't too bad). Upon arrival made it through immigration with no problems, mentioning that you work for IBM still has a couple of advantages. Heading into the arrivals lounge Zippe and Debbie were there to say hello (and have a chat and a coffee) before they had to head out to someone sunnier and I had to pick up the hire car.

Having already driven in the states on a previous trip being on the wrong side of the car and not having to change gear didn't really phase me. Having been forced to hire the smallest class, I was expecting something I might struggle to fit in, however the Honda Accord feels bigger than my normal car. Being on the wrong side of the road wasn't a problem due to driving on major roads and them being in effect motorways (albeit with a slightly slower speed limit). Cruise control is my favourite toy when in the states, press a couple of buttons and all you've got to do is point the car in the right direction.

The drive itself was quite pretty, ignoring the rain and after a quick tour around the town having missed the turning for the hotel (there are houses with white picket fences) I got all checked into a quite frankly huge suite which will be home for the next four weeks (photos below). A very nice goody bag was presented on arrival and the bottle of wine will most likely come in very handy as the project goes on.

America for a month

After some last minute decisions work have allowed me to go out to Poughkeepsie, NY for 4 weeks to write a technical book based around the product I work on. This is very cool as it's something I've been wanting to do for a while plus has the advantage of allowing me to work in another country.

I fly out on Saturday morning, land at JFK airport, and once I've had some lunch/tea/whatever it is by that time it'll be time to drive up to the hotel that will be home for the four weeks I'm out there. The driving shouldn't be a problem given my holiday jaunts around Orlando last year (another work related trip) though the distance is a bit greater. I'm also hoping to see a bit more of New York city than just JFK airport.

Expect touristy type updates here, plus possibly one or two pictures.

Who are these people?

So after a silly prank phone call which caused 2 complaints after it was initially aired, a week later after the papers had got hold of it there are 30,000 complaints. The fallout is massive with resignations and suspensions and questions being asked in parliament. Ok, the phone calls weren't funny, and yes they probably shouldn't have been aired but this was a pre-recorded show and the producer decided it would be ok.

Fast forward to today, the new series of Top Gear starts with a feature on how hard it is to be a truck driver. Clarkson makes a couple of jokes based off some urban myths which weren't necessarily in the best of taste, but in the context of the program and the persona he projects not entirely unsurprising. As of this morning there were less than 200 complaints, by the end of the afternoon there were over 500 and people were calling for him to be sacked.

Now if you see something that is genuinely offensive you are well within your rights to complain, I don't want to take that away from people but I think you do need to have been there at the time of the incident to be truly offended. The fact that the number of complaints grows after the event seems to indicate that there are people who are just looking to complain because there's something to complain about, which of course begs the question why? Head outside and enjoy the wonderful countryside we have and think about all the huge things that are going on in the world that need to be fought against rather than some throw away joke from a motormouth television journalist.

It should also be mentioned that of the millions of people that watch Top Gear there have been only 500 complaints so in comparison there are a disproportionately larger group of people who watched the program and enjoyed it. Let's not forget these people (including me) who are likely to be lost in the moral outrage of the over vocal minority.

Things that you don't want to find out

The office lights go off at 7.28pm every night regardless of whether you're still in it or not.

Not been the best start to the week.

Are you kidding me Steve

I've got into using Macs over the last couple of years. I'm sat on my sofa using my Macbook whilst upstairs the Mac Mini is chugging away keeping track of my email and being available for when I need to sit at a desk.

I'm not a zealot on the things, but I have convinced at least one or two other people to use them mainly on the idea that they just work, which they do. Spending most of the day at work trying to get computers to do what we need them to do means I'm less keen to do the same at home when all I want to do is play a few games, read blogs and check out Facebook.

Recently I've noticed that the laptop isn't performing as well as the desktop, and figured it's down to having slightly less memory into the laptop. Ok, not a problem, perfectly possible to upgrade the parts so I toddle off to Apple store to see what the cost is.

Imagine my shock when I spot they're looking to charge £120 for the upgrade. Seemed a bit pricey so I checked out some other sites who offered the same kit for about a quarter of the price. Now I'm not sure how they can justify the mark up on it but needless to say I won't be buying it from them at that price.

It's the end of the world as we know it?

So it's been all over the news today, that CERN has fired up it's Large Hadron Collider and send a stream of particles all the way round. While this isn't the dangerous part, once they get two streams going in the opposite direction all sorts of interesting things might happen. Anti-matter, black holes, end of the world type stuff (or so the hype might have us believe).

So if you're at all concerned may I suggest the following website
http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/
which help waylay some concerns.

Everyone sing along now

So this came out a while back and yet again Joss Whedon delivered something brilliant and funny that has become a hit with the fans (including myself). Hopefully the download version will be available through iTunes over here soon but in the mean times the soundtrack has been made available and has pride of place on my iPod. I'm currently averaging one listen through a day and it still isn't losing the appeal.

If you missed it the first time, keep an eye out and try and catch it as soon as you can.

Well everyone else has done it...

Wait, what is this place, seems vaguely familiar, oh yeah a blog.

The bank holiday weekend has been and gone, and as with previous years I spent it stewarding at Greenbelt in Cheltenham. Working on the Support Team gives plenty of opportunities for doing many and varied things around the festival, from the fairly mundane of walking around a campsite or the village, to driving a golf buggy full of stewards or escorting people away from the beer tent.

This year did seem a lot quieter than previous years, but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, wandering around there was plenty of time to chat with the greenbelters who were there for the festival (and get the occasional cup of tea, slice of cake) or the other stewarding teams who were looking after the venues or site.

There were some key highlights though, Squeak getting caught twice by Zippie and Merlin doing something unusual in the first hour of our last shift, encouraging Cola (one of the new members) to lick a sweet before giving it to Handbag (yes we all have weird names) and coming off the last shift and sitting around having a relaxed drink and chat.

Can't say I saw a huge amount of the festival but when you're sleeping till midday and then working till 3am there's only so much you can do whilst trying not to overdose on caffiene or sugar.

Regardless of what happened I'll be applying for next year, and wondering what random things we'll be getting involved with then.