Yet More Hull Imagine Cup Success

Last snow picture for a while. actually taken on Friday on the way to fetch the Fish and Chips (note capitals) for tea.

The Imagine Cup is a programming competition run by Microsoft. We at Hull are quite good at taking part. Last Friday the six teams that have made it to the UK finals were announced, and two of them come from our university. Well done folks. We'll have team details and what they are up to later this month, when the students come back and we start up the new semester.

In the meantime, if you want to take part in the competition, do your bit for charity and cost Microsoft some money (and who doesn’t) you can still sign up for the other competitions at the UK Imagine Cup web site. Microsoft have pledged a pound to charity for everyone who gets involved.

Power Mad

In Tesco yesterday I nearly bought one of these power monitor type things.  You strap a little sensor to your mains supply and a receiver box in the house gives you a second by second readout of how much your electricity is costing you. I was tempted, but in the end I didn’t invest. Not because I don’t think it is a good idea, but that I think in wrong hands (i.e. mine) such a thing would prove highly dangerous.

I know that as soon as I started getting live data from the device I’d turn into a power crazed madman, searching for hidden mains adapters and wincing whenever the kettle was turned on. I’d become obsessed with getting the thing to read zero pence at all times (which I know is impossible) and lie awake at night trying to work out where that thing which is costing me ten pence a day actually lurks.  I’d probably end up stressing about how much power the monitor itself consumes, and set up a treadmill somewhere which is attached to a generator.

I strongly agree with energy conservation, (that’s how come my loft is always so cold) and I’ve got loads of energy saving lamps all over the place.  Although (and I wonder if I’m the first person to notice this) when you turn on one of these fancy expensive bulbs they actually seem to make the room darker. I think this is because when they first come on the starter circuit gives a brief flash of bright light. This is then replaced by the dim glow produced by the tube itself which, if you are lucky and the bulb is less than a few months old, will eventually become bright enough to read by.

Anyhoo, in the light of all these things I’ve decided to give the energy monitor a miss for now. Perhaps in summer…

Bayonetta Review

Hull in the snow

Bayonetta is bonkers. But great fun. I got a copy today and have spent a couple of hours playing it and I’m hooked. You play the role of the last surviving witch doing battles against avenging angels in a quest to  uncover your past . Or something. It is a third person fighting game with amazing special combat moves that defy explanation.

Bayonetta herself comes across as a kind of “Steam Punk Lara Croft on Acid” with a nice line in laconic dialog. You get your special moves by learning particular button combinations (or you go for the Easy mode where it figures out what button to press for you) and they let you do incredible things to your enemies, including lob them into torture chambers that you can conjure up out of thin air.

The action and the story zip along at quite a rate, and to be honest I’ve not got that much of an idea what is going on. However, I’ll keep playing to find out how it ends.

Help me lower my bounce rate

I spent some time this lunch-hour playing with Google Analytics. I use it to track access to this site. I take a great interest in visitors here. In fact, even as you read this I’m actually looking at you. That’s me,  behind the third window along in the building above…..

Actually no, but every year or so I check on how the site is doing. I do have some readers (which is nice – thanks for coming) but I also have a “bounce rate” greater than 60%. Anything more than 20% is bad so they say. Of course, once I found this out I had to do something about it. The first thing I had to do was find out what “bounce rate” actually means.  It means the visitors that have been tracked as just arriving at the site, looking at one page and then disappearing.

From a business point of view this is probably not a good thing. It means that around two thirds of my visitors take one look at the place and then go no further. So, in order to make the Google machine happier, I ask you, dear reader, to stick around a bit more. Take a look at Trip Hazard. (New episode coming soon eventually). Discover the terrifying tale of  the Little Brown Ikea Pencil of Doom. Download some free software or a book. Even try to find some funny stuff from the archives.

How to be a Great Weather Forecaster

In the time honoured tradition of “Shoot the messenger” I bring you my guide to weather prediction…

1. Spend the first two thirds of the forecast talking about weather that has already happened. It is unlikely you will be particularly wrong about this bit.
2. Say that the weather today will be about the same as yesterday. But use more words. Since this is the case around 60% of the time you are probably going to be more accurate than all the complicated computer programs presently being used.
3. Make good use of “for the time of year”. Since nobody remembers what on earth that is, everyone will believe that what happens is what was supposed to happen.
4. If something you didn’t predict happens make good use of “since records began”. This implies that nobody else has seen this happen and so you shouldn’t be expected to anticipate it either. Don’t make the mistake of adding that the records you are referring to are the notes you made on a napkin a week or so ago.
5. Use words like “intermittent” and “scattered”, particularly in respect of things like rain and sunny periods. That way, if people don’t get that kind of weather where they are it can be rationalised as bad luck on their part.
6. Use a higher pitched voice for good weather, with a rising inflection at the end of sentences. Use a lower pitched voice for bad weather, with a falling inflection at the end of sentences.  And stare straight at the camera for the really bad bits.
7. Check out of the window before each forecast.