Lego Star Wars Battle of Hoth

Lego Star Wars Battle of Hoth is a neat little game which they say is for up to four players but works best with just two, light against dark. You take it in turns to move and attack your little Lego snow speeders and AT-ATs in an attempt to wipe out your opponents or storm their defences. It was getting quite strategic until number one son had a run of phenomenal  luck (I suspect the force) and I lost.

Probably not worth the asking price really unless you are a Star Wars fanatic. You could spend around the same amount of money on the Creationary game which has a lot more to it. Having said that, if you have someone little in your family who is a Star Wars nut and you want to get them used to strategy games, perhaps on the way to chess, then it is a good starting point. And being Lego they encourage you to change the rules and board shape to make it more interesting.

Degrees of Fun

Did my Graduands Marshal thing this morning. As usual I took a picture of the audience and it mostly came out OK, sorry if you are in the blurry part of the audience… There are some more of the other ceremonies on Flickr. Click on the right to find my photostream and take a look. I should have set a faster shutter speed really. I tend to fret about noise (which you get when you make the camera more sensitive to light) whereas I should remember that you can always get rid of noise, but you can’t do anything if the picture is blurred….

Both ceremonies were really good ones, I hope you had a good time if you were there. For me one of the the best bits was finding the chap next to me had a Nokia Lumia 800, and was liking it.

Read Verity Stob

I have a few hero/heroines in my life. One of them is Verity Stob. She has been writing about computers for about as long as I’ve been playing with them. I’ve mentioned her before, and now I’ve discovered to my great joy that she is still writing for The Register. Her piece on exceptions is one of the best I’ve read on the subject. If you have any interest in computers you should read her stuff and treasure it.

Hull Digital for Breakfast

Had a chat with Jon Moss today. He’s one of the movers and shakers behind Hull Digital. I’ve been to a few of their events, which are usually (and very sensibly) held at one of my favourite eating places in Hull, Fudge in Princes Ave. If you want to sync up with what’s happening with developers in Hull they are a great way to do this.

Jon was telling me about future events, including a regular programme of Digital Breakfast MeetUps, where  like minded folk get together for “the most important meal of the day” every month. The next one is on Friday this week, which is a shame for me because I’m not able to go. I’m helping out with the Graduation Ceremony on the Hull campus. However, if you want to go along and meet up with digital folk - if you see what I mean- and enjoy some fantastic food (my advice, go for the omelette) then you should pop along.

Jon was also telling me about TEDx at Hull, which brings together a bunch of interesting folk for a day of discussion and debate about the future of, well, everything..

What with that and Platform Expo coming along it looks like it is going to be an interesting few months around here.

Chapter 12 is finished

If you’ve wondered where I’ve been for a week. Or why I’ve suddenly just had time to suddenly produce seven blog updates (ahem) it’s because I’ve been writing. Book stuff. Twelve chapters on having fun with your Kinect using the Kinect SDK and your PC. I’ve been squashing pretend bugs with virtual mallets, taking pictures of ghosts and creating all kinds of funky pictures. I even made the computer talk to itself.

The book will be out in late spring. And now I’ve written all the words.