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Showing posts from May, 2018

My Gut has Gotta Go

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I have a terrible relationship with food, my childhood was pained with my mothers dreadful attempts at cooking (nearly everything was either burnt or tasteless, and the menu variety was dismal) which resulted in my binging on sugary treats, cheeses or bowls of cereal to make up the deficit in calories, fine when one was training Karate four times a week and burning the rest off in walking places as I had no car.  But a problem as I reached my thirties, with two broken ankles Karate left the options list and furnished with terrible eating habits the weight came on board. Even the good-food I ate as a child, notably my Grandad's cooking, was heaped on me "big eats" was one of his favourite sayings, fine when I was a growing child, but later in life this feeling of needing to eat stayed with me. Combine all this with a clear genetic predisposition to be a big lad - my Fathers side of the family are all rotund - and a sedentary job in software I'm now approaching the big

Welcome Italian Viewers

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Today marks an interesting day, we're a little after 11am my time and Italy has rocketed, for the first time, into my top ten source viewers company, equalling the United States... Welcome Italy! I also see their near neighbour across the waters Serbia on the list for the first time!... What are you all reading?

Is Alexa Illegally Wire Tapping Now?

My post about Google doing this was quite popular, today however the BBC have utterly trumped that measly post with this revelation... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44248122

Introduction to C++ : Starting C++ Series Part 1

A few of you maybe aware of the book on Python I wrote , and published, last year?  And I've had at least one reader get in touch for a second part.  Unfortunately my gaze has passed over Python and returned to where I live.  The world of C++. I have a particular problem with the C++ developers I'm meeting of late, they're either simply not C++ programmers, being an actual mix of good and bad C programmers or just not programmers at all (in one case).  Then even when they are very good C Programmers, there's been a mix of the up-take on ideas and feature benefits of modern C++ itself. Its to and for these fair folk I have begun to write about C++, a new book, based on my own real experience but tempered with where I believe teams and individuals are going wrong when converting their skills to modern C++. For the programmers reading here now, it starts with a chapter zero... Lets take a sneak-peek.... Chapter 0: Introducing C++ It is incredibly hard to introduce the C++

Google Illegal Wire Tapping?

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I find this truly disturbing... I have literally just disabled my microphone.

V.E. Day

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Seventy Three years ago, I know roughly where and what all four of my grand parents were doing... All were variously occupied fighting as part of the British effort of World War Two, I do not know whether they were aware of the cease fire or impending Victory in Europe, and indeed for one of my Grandfathers the war was not over; as he was aboard HMS Belfast, just refitting for redeployment to the far east and the on going war with the desperate but crumbling Empire of Japan. In this post, I'll cover what little I know, to share that nugget of who these people where and what they were doing.  So from oldest to youngest. We have my Nan, or Nanna, Kath.  She was a young woman by the end of the war, from a child at the out break, a hard beginning in life in the care system with both parents gone by wars end she was in the Land Army working the fields of Norfolk, though a native of London.  She was born in the shadow of Portobello Road, and to this day (despite living in Nottingham for

Donald Trump hits Rock Bottom

Just watching this travesty.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44017172 What he fails to mention is that when everyone has a gun they hang out of casino hotel windows gunning down festival goers, kids kill kids in the hall ways of schools and colleges, that murder suicide is through the roof and you can be shot dead for as little as looking at someone in the wrong way. Donald Trump and especially the NRA have this attitude utterly and totally wrong, and I can't begin to express how god awful this man is. But then, let us remember, he is "leader" of a country where we report mass shootings as "the worse in" and insert very short amounts of time.  This however is glossed over in US reporting of this to it's citizens.  Where as we hear that Stephen Paddock killed 58 people, " the worst mass shooting in the US since 1991 ". The CNN version states " the deadliest mass shooting in modern US History ".... Define Modern Mr Trump and Ms CN

Control Minecraft with only your Eyes

A beautiful story, really liked this.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-43998773/i-play-minecraft-with-my-eyes

The Best and the Worst : Working with Genius Programmers

A long time ago, in an office far away from where I now sit, I once worked with a chap I still refer to as the best programmer I've ever met. This was a guy who could take the whole code base, in Delphi, home and over a single weekend re-write it in Java. This was a guy who I saw, from scratch, write a C controller for an embedded PIC to capture an image from a supposedly incompatible TTL driven camera and then an analyzer for the captured images which would detect and show motion, making for our common employer their best ever selling product a cheap security motion detection system, which didn't rely on relatively expensive high resolution cameras. It was awe inspiring as a newly graduated programmer, whom had a huge background in DOS programming, but whom had never worked in Enterprise level development before. I sat next to what I still regard as near genius. This very same chap was also the worst programmer I've ever worked with. Because he was so highly functioning he