Rob Miles University Lecturer and Microsoft MVP. And tall.
January 1, 2021 4:29 pm
I didn’t get a marble run for Christmas. But I know someone who did. She wanted a marble run that was taller than her. Happy to oblige. And especially proud of the way that the run collects the marbles and returns them to the box. Hope you all have a marvellous New Year. With or without marbles… Read more →
December 31, 2020 3:49 pm
I’ve had a 3D printer around the place since 2012. A couple of weeks ago I got my second one. The decision was driven by the results that I’d seen it was capable of, and the unhappy realisation that I would never be able to get my Ultimaker to print to the same quality. This is my favourite picture of Una my Ultimaker original. I took it in 2012 when I Una and I delivered a seminar about 3D printi… Read more →
December 30, 2020 3:32 pm
Dominion is a “deck building” game. Each player starts with the same set of cards and at each turn they can use the powers on those cards to do stuff, buy new cards and hopefully a few victory points. As the turns go round you cycle through your deck which means that the you get to use the good cards you have got, along with any bad cards like curses which other players inflict upon you. In real l… Read more →
December 29, 2020 11:58 am
When I build code I try to work in a “zero warnings” mode. That is, when I build the code I don’t see any mutterings about stuff the compiler things might think is stupid. However, sometimes I get errors that I don’t think I deserve. For example, I tend to do things like this:char * name;name = “Rob”;I know what I’m doing here. I’m creating a character pointer and then making it refer to a string… Read more →
December 28, 2020 5:17 pm
I’m loving my new M1 powered MacBook Air. The hardware makes a perfect laptop. It just works, goes very fast and is always there. The battery life is more like an iPad than a laptop. It doesn’t run Windows 10, so it isn’t perfect, but I’m slowly getting my head around Mac OS (WHY IS FOLDER NAVIGATION SO HARD???) . I’m still using the Microsoft tools I use most of the time - Visual Studio Code, Wor… Read more →
December 27, 2020 5:25 pm
The video of my session at DDD202 is now available. You can watch it above. You can find all the videos neatly arranged in playlists here. Read more →
December 26, 2020 5:09 pm
Having spent a happy day fiddling with 3D printers (among other things) I’m going to have to think of some kind of dice game that we can pay with all the calibration cubes that we seem to have printed…. Read more →
December 25, 2020 5:04 pm
Happy Christmas to all my readers. I hope the season brings you joy, peace and not too many repeats on TV. Read more →
December 24, 2020 5:02 pm
I’ve made some “names in lights” as Christmas presents. I hope people like them. Read more →
December 23, 2020 4:38 pm
I really, and I mean really, like the Wemos D1 mini. Part of this is because I can get them for under two pounds each, but I do reckon that they make the best connected embedded platform you can get. Unless you need Bluetooth, or want to talk using secure sockets. Or you fancy writing a MicroPython program longer than a few lines. Then you need an ESP32. Up until recently my weapon of choice for E… Read more →