Travels with a GPS Logger

I'm writing some software which works with GPS. It is for the .NET Micro Framework book and will let you use a Micro Framework based device to log and display location information (assuming I can find a copyright free source of aerial maps).

Anyhoo, it occurred to me that I'm going to need some test data for the system so today, as we drove about East Yorkshire dropping people off and getting free food of friends and family, we took the Samsung Q1 with the Microsoft GPS sensor and a little program to capture the data stream. If you want to relive last night's epic journey from Howden to York you will soon be able to do this. Oh yes.

Your Brain and How To Use It?

The Sunday Times has been advertising a new feature aimed at improving the mental prowess of the nation. On Sunday you will get a free DVD which will let you measure your brain power. Whoopee.

I hate things like this. I hate IQ tests, I think they are silly. If you get a low score you get upset because you think you are thick. If you get a high score in one of these tests you get upset because you are not running the country (not that this is necessarily an advert for cleverness).

Of course the real reason that I hate the tests is because I get very confused/irritated by them. When confronted by a "pick the right answer/odd one out/next in sequence" kind of question I can usually think of a whole bunch of reasons why any one of them could be the correct one, depending on the whim of the person setting the test. So what I'm really finding out is if my interpretation of the situation is the same as someone else. Who presumably has a "gold standard" of cleverness in their office.

You might find it strange that someone who often has to measure how good people are at something by setting exams and exercises dislikes IQ tests so much. I think the thing is that what I try to assess is how useful somebody would be. Given a bunch of learning outcomes (which is what courses have these days) I'm going to set questions that will try to find out how useful you can be with the knowledge that you are supposed to have.

I'll start by asking a few things which will determine whether or not you have taken the trouble to learn the fundamentals of the subject and then give you a bunch of situations where you can demonstrate that you can use this understanding to achieve things. Finally, I'm going to try and get you into a place where you can say "There are no right answers here, just different compromises which reflect different priorities" and then tell me all about these.

Of course not everything can be nailed down like this, and I'm also going to want to see how well you can present your understanding (which is why we get the first year students to demonstrate their programs), but it is a good start.

I've nothing against doing stuff which keeps your brain agile (I love the little brain power games for the Nintendo DS). But I am strongly against dodgy pseudo-scientific tests which don't really prove anything useful.

Leeds Bargain Hunter

Leeds future sky

Went to Leeds today to look out for cheap clothes in the "Shop for strangely shaped people that cares not for style, quality or its customers". A tip, oh managers of such shops. Bearing in mind that the aim of a retail establishment is to entice shoppers inside to part with funds for goods, do not put something eerily tasteless in orange and brown directly inside the front door. Things did not improve much once we got further inside. A duffle coat that looked good in a picture turned out to be made of fuzzy felt and one of the buttons fell off as I tried it on.

However, we did manage to find a couple of tasteful items worthy of investment (thank heavens for Ben Sherman shirts) and so the trip was not a complete waste. And we did get to to go Ikea for meatballs.

In Praise of Insomnia

I've started waking up in the night every now and then (last night it was easy because number one son and daughter got up at some ungodly hour to go to London). Quite often I find it hard to get back to sleep, but this is sometimes a bonus because I do have some of my better ideas at that time (or perhaps it is because my critical faculties are asleep at that time as well).

Anyhoo, last night I had a neat idea for the "Flashlight for the Fiftieth Century" (US version) or "Posh Torch" (UK version) that I'm developing as a worked example for the .NET Micro Framework book I'm presently writing. Yesterday I got a GPS interface sort of working. As I was lying in bed it occurred to me that it would be nice to add some mapping features to the software. So now I'm going to download some map images so that the device can have a "you are here" kind of display for certain areas. 

Mouse Waggling

Many years ago I got hold of the first version of Windows NT (Version 3.1 for some strange, marketing related, reason). This was the beginning of "proper" 32 bit operating systems underneath Windows, a trend which has continued all the way to Windows XP and finally Vista.

However, as it was based on an Intel 486 chip with only 64 MBytes of memory the operating system used to struggle a bit. We used to have a game called "mouse waggling", where you would fire up the performance counter and see how much CPU load you could create just by moving the mouse pointer around the screen. Sad but fun (particularly on somebody else's computer). A good player could get up to 50 or 60%.

I tried the game today on Vista (it has some really nice performance displays in the sidebar). Except this time I was dragging a window, complete with contents, over a large and complex desktop.  The needle does move, but nothing like as far as it used to. I guess this is down to the use of the graphics hardware to underpin the display system, either way it is impressive.