Confused of Hull

I'm confused. This is why. Say we lived in an age where restaurants are new and fangled. People have just discovered the option of eating out and they like it. So I decide to open a new restaurant. Only mine is special. It gives the food away.

Not surprisingly, once word gets out my little restaurant is going great guns. Queues around the block. At this point things get a bit weird. One of the other restaurants in the neighborhood (it doesn't serve food quite like mine, and it is making quite a good profit at the moment) decides to buy me out for a huge sum of money, and then let me keep going giving my food away.

I get given a huuge wad of cash for starting a food business with no obvious means of support. The other restaurant gets something which may never be profitable, but at least somebody else hasn't got their hands on it.

In case you hadn't spotted it, I'm really talking about YouTube and Google. I use both of them. Google quite a bit. YouTube now and then.

I just can't think of a way in which I could ever be persuaded to pay for what YouTube has to offer. Even if they only charged me mini-bucks to watch the videos I'd find something else which was free to do in my lunch hour. In my opinion the only business plan which could possibly have worked for the YouTube folks was to get famous and hope that somebody rich bought them up before their money ran out. Which, fortunately for them, was just what happened.

Google have just spent literally billions getting their hands on YouTube, and I'm baffled as to why they have done this.

(for some reason the Microsoft LiveWriter spell checker suggests Outnumber as a replacement for YouTube - this just confuses me even more)

Code Monkey

Brian put me on to this video. It is very good, although I don't like the name of his boss....

Man Flu

I'm ill. My nose is not running. It is sprinting. I'm surrounded by tissues. My head feels as if someone has inflated a balloon full of porridge inside it. (not sure how I know this, but it does) 

I told number one wife that I was ill. Then I told her again as she brought me a cup of tea. She looked at me appraisingly. Apparently I have what is called "man flu". This is an illness which reduces a man to a useless, moaning wimp but has no effect whatsoever on women, who manage to just shrug off such minor afflictions and carry on regardless.

I was going to disagree. I was going to tell her never mind "Man Flu", that I was only keeping going at this restricted level thanks to my incredible mental strength and resilience. I was going to tell her that if she had what I've got she too would be laid out on the sofa and moaning.

But I didn't feel up to it. I just sipped my tea and asked for a chocolate biscuit.

I'm ill.

(but not too ill to write. I've just posted the latest episode of Trip Hazard. Book now for the movie..)

Busy Busy

Had a fairly quiet Sunday. Managed to mow the lawns (not sure why, every time I cut the grass the darned stuff grows back) and finished off the Moosaic program (I actually got my free samples from Moo last week and they are quite neat - next I'm going to make a 100 picture mosaic and see what it looks like). The program is working OK and I've got an installer too, but I have a rule that I play with my programs on a bunch of different machines before I send them out into the outside world, so it will be a couple of days before you can have a go at making your own Flickr mosaics...

Oh, and I've been dealing with a steady stream of emails from people who came to see us yesterday. Thank you for all the kind words, and if you haven't had a reply from me yet, I will get around to you tomorrow. We will also post out all the C# books then too.

Open Daze

We had an open day at the university today. Before hand we went up town to buy a few bits and bobs (I got two DVD collections - one six pounds and the other four - quality stuff). The light was good and I took the camera.

This is a view of the Hammonds Department Store. Impressive architecture when you notice it...

Then it was up to the university to give an open day talk. Before the talk Jon showed me this which was in a recent Develop magazine.

Quite cheering really, the quote is from a Microsoft XNA person.

Then we had a huuge turnout for people who want to see what we do. So many that they were sharing the glasses in the Hive (Hull Immersive Visual Environment). I took a picture of the audience with their 3D specs on...

Those shades really suit you.....

Thanks for coming folks, hope you enjoyed the presentations. Remember, if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.