York Pictures

Went to York today. The weather was great for photographs, although it did change very rapidly.

We parked in the engine sheds near the station. I found this wall very interesting for some reason.

Blossom near York walls

York Treasure House gardens.

Steam tubes in York Railway Museum.

More Steam, and new Heroes

 
Ada Lovelace, a woman ahead of her time, from the wonderful  http://2dgoggles.com/

If you have not yet discovered The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage then you are in for a treat. Fantastic drawing and actual historical quotes thrown together with outrageous plots to make something quite unique. Kudos to number one son for the link.

..now I really want a steam powered computer..

Steaming Idiot

Bought a steam engine today. It was a reduced price bargain. And it has a generator. And lights. So buying it actually made perfect sense. Took it home, got it out of the box and then dropped it on the floor.

Idiot.

Fortunately not much harm was done, except that the “very important pin” that the piston pushes seems to have born the brunt of the landing and is now slightly bent. I’ve straightened it to the best of my ability and it seems to work OK. The whole thing makes a pleasing chugging noise as it runs, and the lights even come on. Great stuff. I’m now wondering if I could power a .NET Micro Framework device from it.

VS 2010 Windows Phone Refresh

A student gave me a Mars Bar at the end of my last lecture of the session. It is kind of a running joke thing, in that I keep promising the class Mars Bars and never delivering. Anyhoo, thanks very much. It was delicious.

The  next version of the Windows Phone 7 CTP is now available for download.  This version plays nicely with the release version of Visual Studio 2010. Some folks have been reporting fun and games updating but, for some reason, my update went fine.  The only issue I’ve hit is when opening an old Windows Phone project I was told I needed to add some lines to one of the configuration files. Unfortunately the lines can’t be copied out of the message for some reason, so if you need them you can cut them from here..

<Capabilities>
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_NETWORKING" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_LOCATION" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_SENSORS" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_MICROPHONE" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_MEDIALIB" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_GAMERSERVICES" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_PHONEDIALER" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_PUSH_NOTIFICATION" />
    <Capability Name="ID_CAP_WEBBROWSERCOMPONENT" />
</Capabilities>

Hull Digital TechMesh Meetup

Today’s Hull Digital MeetUp was interesting. We had a presentation from TechMesh, who provide networking (of the human kind) between like-minded IT and Telecoms business in the area, a talk from Nick Riley from Hull University Logistics Institute about the use of RFID and a few words from MediaSat3. And very nice free food and drink.

Hull Digital are organising a very interesting event next month. Hull Digital Question Time brings together a bunch of experts, including the Vice Chancellor of the university, and invites the audience to ask questions. Should be fun.