Personal
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If you're going to forget an anniversary, let it be the one for your first engagement with social media. The very definition of a victimless crime. I just remembered that it was back in June 2006 when I started this blog (the welcome post was on June 19th, 2006, so I didn't miss it by much). It's been quite the ride… 2021 posts over 15 years, at an average of about 2.6 posts per week, rain or shine. I always set myself the goal of 3 posts per week, but in recent years that's dropped back to 2 or so.…
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Yes, it's Star Wars Day, once again. My kids have all gone off to school in their favourite Star Wars T-shirts, while I've stayed at home in my slippers. Over the weekend I did a little preparation, getting around to building my latest birthday gift. Are you having some fun today, yourself? Happy May the 4th!
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Like many of you, I have the immense privilege of having incredible women in my life. For me, today is about recognising this privilege, but also remembering that despite more than a century having passed since the original suffragettes started their organised fight against sex-based discrimination, there's still important work to be done. (In fact I genuinely feel that in recent years we've seen a regression in some women's rights, something that I desperately want to see corrected over the coming years.) It's important for me to see our daughters (and yes, especially my own beloved daughter, of course) getting…
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We've reached the end of a much-needed week off up in the mountains. I've actually spent a bunch of time fooling around with getting RetroPie working on a Raspberry Pi 400 I bought for the kids (ahem). We've been having lots of fun playing Zelda on the NES and Super-NES, Sonic on the Megadrive, and Runn 'n' Gunn on the C64. Before leaving to come up, I did record an additional episode of Floppy Friday, although in fairness no floppy was harmed (or used) in the making of this particular episode: we take a look at three C64 games I…
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I'm currently up in the mountains with my family, enjoying the annual school closure for the kids' "ski week". I recognise we're especially lucky, this year, given that a) Swiss ski resorts are open and b) our kids are at school physically rather than remotely. Spring seems to be hitting early, this year, but even if the snow's a little soft, the sun is very welcome. Here's a shot where we're sitting at the top of a run as a rescue helicopter takes off (this is never good to see, but it is often impressive): Yesterday we went to another…
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This is a big week for 1980s computing. Wednesday marked the 40th birthday of the BBC Microcomputer, the machine that helped launch thousands of software development careers (including mine) in the UK. This was such an important machine, in so many ways: it was really well engineered, with great performance, but also – due to government subsidies – available in the majority of schools in the UK. For my Computer Science A-level I used some networked Beebs to automate a hypothetical fast food restaurant: from touchpad-driven ordering by customers to printing of receipts and stock control. Here's an image of…
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Over the weeks since AU, I've been heads-down with writing a chapter for a book that's due to be published in this summer. The book is about innovation in the construction industry, and my chapter will talk about opportunities related to digital twins and generative design. Which means I haven't had much time to write "serious" posts for this blog, of late. I did want to put pen to paper in this new year about the sheer joy I've been getting from recording Floppy Fridays, though. It's clear there's been a strong "retro" trend in recent years. I'd probably argue…
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This year's Halloween was destined to disappoint: we'd held out some hope until the 30th that the kids (which just means our youngest, at this point) would end up being able to go trick-or-treating in our village. Understandably – but disappointingly – the announcement came that any kind of trick-or-treating was off the cards for this Halloween. Stricter rules about groups of people were also announced, but with effect from today. From today onwards any kind of public or private event can have a maximum of 5 people present. Given the acceleration of cases in Switzerland, this is completely appropriate.…
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The situation in Switzerland regarding the pandemic is looking bleak, at the moment (and no, yodelling isn't helping). The number of cases per-capita is currently ahead of the US, and the critical infrastructure in my home canton is starting to get overwhelmed, hence us being put on "red alert". I'm expecting our kids to be sent home any day now, but we'll see what the authorities decide. Anyway, this has definitely been at the forefront of my thinking, of late, when it comes to what we'll end up doing to keep busy during the upcoming confinement. People who follow me…
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Our children have been off school for the last two weeks, so I've been alternating between preparing my Autodesk University 2020 material and going on excursions with the family. We had planned to visit Kosovo during this break, but as it was on Switzerland's quarantine list we chose to cancel our flights. Somewhat frustratingly – just the week after – the Swiss Confederation added 15 new countries to the quarantine list and removed only one: Kosovo. So we could have gone, after all. Argh. That said, when we'd planned the trip back in July, I hadn't realised the timeframe for…