We were up bright and early this morning to head off to Milton Keynes for Collectormania again. Not quite so early this time, as I wasn't chasing autographs, but early-ish, and still fairly bright. We were really just going for the atmosphere, although I did manage to pick up a couple of import blu-ray disks which was nice. I also took the camera.
This picture is crying out for a caption
Bargain hunting Daleks
Pick a card...
...and a badge
Today has been busy. Oh yes. It started with an unexpected lecture. We are now in week 11 of the semester, with teaching supposed to have finished at the end of week 10. But the first year students wanted more, and so I went off at 9:15 to deliver. Actually, it worked quite well, in that I was able to go through the quiz that I set last week.
Then it was back to the labs to get ready for our XNA event. Andy Sithers from Microsoft had come over to formally hand over the XBOX 360s they have given us to help with our XNA teaching in the first year. We had to set them up in the lab for the pictures, and get some stuff working. Simon Dickson and Phil Cluff from our first year came in to show of what they have been doing.
Then, after a quick lunch the presentation tool place. We all contorted ourselves into the best position for the perfect shot for the papers. Danielle Cod from Radio Humberside interviewed our head of department, Andy, Simon and Phil and finally me, in search of the perfect soundbyte. You can grab the resulting two minute piece here. Much to my dismay they seem to have left Andy and Warren on the cutting room floor.....
This picture kind of captures the event. In the back Warren Viant, our head of department, is being recorded whilst Andy Sithers ponders the code and Simon grapples with debugging and being interviewed all at the same time....
After all this we had to dash off to an event that I had pretentiously entitled our "Software Symposium". (Did you know that symposium used to mean drinking session?). Anyhoo, the event started with a double headed presentation from Robert Hogg of software developers Black Marble and Ed Gibson who is Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK. The topic was safety and computers.
I'd heard bits of it before at the Black Marble event last year, but it was obviously news to the audience, who sat silently as Robert and Ed laid it on the line about just how scary things are. I managed to be both petrified about what was going on out there and relieved that Robert and Ed are going around spreading the word and engaging budding software developers with the problems posed by the wonderful connected world we live in.
The point they made forcefully and effectively is that the big problems are not down to technology, they are down to people. If we don't keep our software up to date and we allow ourselves to be bamboozled into giving passwords to cunning callers then no amount of code is going to help.
Next, and on a somewhat lighter note, the Seedlings, our Imagine Cup winning team, gave us a presentation of their entry. The First Programming Language they are working on is aimed to engage everyone with the kind of problem solving techniques that will allow them to use a computer to best advantage, whether or not they end up writing programs.
Then after a closing address from Andy Sithers of Microsoft, about the value of competition and the usefulness to students of just plain taking part, it was time to zoom off and try to find a recorder for the radio broadcast.....
Busy day.
I love this time of year. The blossom is out down our street.
Vanilla?
Strawberry?
Most of the writing is now done. Just a few bits left to add. So we went to the seaside. I really like Hornsea. It has a faded charm that I find really attractive. Number one son and I took our cameras, and we were dead lucky because the light was lovely for photographs.
Beach front
Asset stripped
Indoor amusements
Windmills
Hornsea Mere Tea Rooms. Fantastic.
This pike is over 100 years old.
I once got a hole in one here. Snag is, it was the wrong hole....
Boats
Indeed she does. Very well. Number one son spotted that she was appearing in York, and so off we toddled. I took the big camera, but I might as well have not bothered. The lights were a bit low and even with the camera gain turned up to 11 it was hard to get any good photos.
Laura in red (and that is a sock over the microphone)
She played mostly new stuff, which was alright by me. She does have an amazing voice and her band were absolutely top notch.
My father in law has style. He showed this by getting out some of his record collection:
Ying Tong indeed
This is the sleeve from a Goons EP that he bought many moons ago. He still has the record too. Great stuff.
Then it was back onto the motorway for the journey home. On the way we passed a lorry loaded with stuff which the sign on the back referred to as "Equestrian Bedding". We think they mean straw.
I always know exactly what to do when you have a crashing deadline looming. You go on holiday for a couple of days. So we have. We've rumbled down to Bristol to meet up with the inlaws. And, as is our wont, we've gone to look at some ducks.
But first some nice flowers
..swan of those days
Slimbridge Mission Control
If the birds learn to read we are all in trouble
There's a kingfisher in the middle of this. Yes, really.
Lovely plumage
Then it was back to the ranch. I did get around to writing a few pages though...
The university is looking wonderful at the moment. I took the biggish camera in to work specially to celebrate this.
Nice Flowers
Big Library
I've put some more on my Flickr account.
So, after getting up bright and early we headed onto the coach for the trip to Reading and our moment of truth...
"Team Pizza" with their bag. Seems about the right size.....
Ready for the off
Photo Op
The Seedlings shaping up
Is this a secret weapon?
Team Roundtrack
The "Pizza Eaters" doing some product placement
Team "404 File not Found" and their poster
Kevin from Microsoft gets things going
It was great to see James and Tom again. They were in last year's team and I went with them to Delhi for the world final. They now work for Content Master and had been given leave to come and tell us about the experience.
James in full flow
Tom watching....
..is this what Tom is thinking?
Nibbles
The food was good, and they just kept delivering it.
Halfway through the day the top three teams were selected to give their presentations. Sadly my team, "The Irresponsible Pizza Eaters", were not in the top three, but kudos to them for quality and commitment. You rocked.
Team "404 File not found" were selected for special commendation and "The Seedlings", another Hull team, were one of the three finalists. So, at this stage in the competition we had one commended and one in the top three. Not bad.
The Seedlings, preparing for the off
The pitch.
After the presentations and considerable deliberation the judges revealed the winner. None of this drum rolls and long pauses rubbish. Just a simple slide:
Hull Wins!
The Seedlings had prevailed. Huge congratulations to James Alexander, Michelle Goddard, Matthew Steel and Matthew Steeples. And also to their mentor from Black Marble, Rob Hogg. They all get to go to Seoul later this year to take on the world.
Flying the flag
That makes 3 out of the 5 Microsoft Imagine Cup UK Software Design Challenge competitions have been won by teams from Hull. Go us!
There are some more pictures on my Flickr site.
Yesterday we had our little games fest. The folks from Hull ComSoc set it up and we had XBOXes, a Wii and a PS3 all getting some hammer. Apparently, although I'm not an expert, 8 player Gears of War is a blast. And you can chop people up with chain saws as well. Of course, I'm too mature to do that kind of thing. That, and I'm pretty sure that I'd be the one in pieces on the floor. I took the camera along and grabbed some snaps.
Everyone seems far too relaxed at the moment. Must be loading...
I made my way back today. I started bright and early. Again. 
There's a bloke at Portugal airport who takes his cappuccinos very seriously. Even at 5 in the morning.
Airport sunrise
Later today we had an XBOX 360 multi-player Gears of War fest which was fun. I'll dig out the pictures tomorrow.
I'm only in Portugal for around 16 hours. I took loads of pictures from the taxi on the way from the airport to the conference centre. The taxi driver thought I was mad at first, but after a while he was pointing things out for me. Great stuff.
View from the Taxi
Nice Stadium
Love the colours
Aqueduct
Lisbon has a nice bridge too
The TechDays in a break
At the end of the bill. Or is that top billing?
The audience. What a great bunch
..until I told the Orange for a Head joke.....
A great bunch of MSPs
Some more students. That chap in the middle needs a haircut...
Nice bridge by night
You may have gathered by now that I like San Francisco. Even though the streets are very sloping, I still loved walking around. I've taken more pictures in the last week than I have in the last six months. And I'm pleased with every one of them. Lovely place. But today we had to leave. Although there was time for a little shopping trip and a few more snaps.
Love the color
Inside the Apple store
Art Expo
Reflections
We did a lot of walking
A saint for every occasion
Can you see Jon Purdy in this picture?
Nice view after we had seen 300
Well, the conference has finished. I just thought I'd put down in words what I've managed to learn from my time in out here, at the various sessions and on the exhibition floor:
And with those profound thoughts floating out there into the ether, time for the Friday photos.
Dusk.
We didn't bother with steak in the end
..'cos Lori's had pinball
I just love this back screen. The rightmost zero is just stuck in there to make all the scores seem bigger...
Thanks to help from Kieran at Rare, Jon and I managed to snag invites to the XNA party, which was held at a really swish nightclub.
We had to pick up the bus outside the Metreon centre
As soon as we got to the club, had our ticket taken, hand stamped and passport checked (no - really, it was that exclusive) we grabbed some free food and drink and, old people that we are, headed for the chill out zone. Which was really, er, cool.
The blue ceiling was amazing
Microsoft do parties well. Very well. Sitting watching the world go by with people bringing you free drink and food works for me. After a while though, we thought we'd explore the place.
Blue with XBOXes
We wandered into one room and found a band playing.
Forget the "Wedding Singer" looks. These guys were seriously good. And loud.
And they had even more XBOXes for gameplay whilst you party
Finally, we went upstairs and took a look at the winners of the XNA Express challenge. These people had spent the last few days at the show creating a video game from scratch using only XNA Express Edition. The winner looked very snazzy, with real time lighting and all sorts. If the competition runs next year there will be somebody from Hull in the mix, you mark my words.
XNA Winners
Then, having drunk and eaten our fill, and with the band ringing in our ears it was out into the chill night for a brisk walk back up the hill to the hotel.
We started the day bright and early. At 9:00 we were learning how to use shaders at an XNA lab.
Plenty of nice monitors for the XNA lab..
It has to be said that I'm not actually a great video game programmer. But after today I'm a lot happier writing shader code. Even if it looks a lot like C++. Once we'd got our flashy music player working I bailed out of the lab and headed for the next keynote. I really wanted to see the next man speak.
Building Mr Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto is a true video gaming legend. The man behind Mario and a host of other Nintendo classics last came to GDC 8 years ago, and today he was back to give another presentation. The slant was broadly similar to the Sony pitch yesterday. Community is good. Games which are fun are good. And we now have games which can bring in people who up until now have never played games. Including Mrs. Miyamoto. The presentation ended with some mouth watering footage of Super Mario Galaxy.
Coming to a Wii near you soon
At lunchtime I took a bunch of pictures.
Reflections on a city square
Flowers
Another nice day
Later on there was another community themed talk, this time by the brains behind EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz. It seems to me that games are getting more and more mainstream, and soon they will be part of life for pretty much everyone. Later we went for another wander.
567 Pine
Grant
More nice lumpy streets
Today was the day that the conference really got going. The exhibition was open and we had the first keynote presentation.
Crowd pleasing football
Before the presentation we played a kind of football, bouncing a large ball into goals each side of the auditorium. Our side lost. Then it was on with the show. This one was from Sony, who make the awesomely powerful (so they keep telling us) PS3. Very little that I've seen of the PS3 has convinced me of this power.
With the exception of MotorStorm and some tech demos there has been little that has impressed me about this machine so far. Namco should be singled out for an especially big kicking at this point, their PS3 versions of Tekken and Ridge Racer are a textbook exercise in lazy launch coding. I can understand the pressures that they must be under, but I still can't see an excuse for serving up poor rehashes of previously great games. Anyhoo, I digress.
Fortunately today the talk was not pixel pushing power, but community. Things kicked off with a description of the Home service. This is not an old BBC radio channel, but a virtual world of take on your personal space on the PS3.
Coming to a life near you
You can wander through an advertising adorned 3D environment, select and position furniture and Sony products around the place and generally make your pretend existence and appearance better than the one you have at home. There is a community area too where you can play pool better than in real life, and a place to put the trophies from all the games you've bought.
There was no evidence of a world between these virtual spaces, so whether you can walk across rolling hills and ford babbling brooks to get to your friends pad for a spot of low quality Tekken remains to be seen, but if Sony get their act together on this one I can see property values in Second Life taking a bit of a downturn.
A virtual world worth visiting
At the end of the talk was the best bit. The game "Little Big Planet" takes social gameplay, realtime physics and the rendering power of the PS3 and creates a really fun place to be where you can build and modify the game environment as you play the game. This did look good, and had a Nintendo like appeal, in that I could actually see a game that was using the technology to make new kinds of gameplay experience.
At the end of the presentation I must admit that I'm now quite happy to be getting a PS3, something that I wasn't too sure of when I went in...
Today was the day that Jon and I sang for our supper, so to speak. We were the "international" part of an international discussion of computer games and curriculum. I talked about XNA and Jon talked about Skill Set Accreditation. We both only had five minutes to fill, which is both a blessing and a curse. Not much time for bad things to happen, but hard to fit everything in. In the end it all went swimmingly. And there are pictures.
Gathering for the conference
Need a haircut
Had a haircut
A bit of abstract stuff
Flags
Off for a walk
This is what makes the cable cars work....
Nice Church
Wires
Refueling
Bikes
I love this kind of stuff...
Down on the wharf. Ask Jon about the lens he nearly bought...
Work that lens....
I've no idea what the boat is called. But it looks nice
"Love Songs" album cover shot....
Our hotel is about under that flag...
Nice sky
..and just one more...
Did some proper work today. We saw some very good presentations about the way in which games are made, and what games makers do. There was also some good stuff on gameplay.
I'll put up a more lengthy discourse on this later, for now you'll have to do with some pictures:
A great place for lunch
This is the Cheesecake Factory atop Macy's
It has a great bar. The temptation to start at one end and work our way along was hard to resist...
..but this is the view from the balcony. And the main reason I went.
Star and Stars and Stripes
Jon waits patiently. Enjoying his coffee......
Back to ground level
Flowers
Night streets
Managed to stay up to 8:00 pm today. Maybe even later tomorrow....
The good news (I guess) is that after today the conference will start, which will mean an end to sight seeing and a great reduction in the picture count. However, until then....
Having got this wide angle lens thingy I though I'd have a play with it. So we set off downtown in search of shiny things to buy and photo opportunities.
What happens when you don't use the fisheye correctly
What happens when you do...
Yummy
We found this shop which sells amazing tellies for amazing prices. If I could get one to work in the UK I'd bring one home on Saturday. There were flat screens built into all kinds of really detailed models. Curse you NTSC...
Stylish TVs are us
Love the colours
If we ain't got it, it means you don't need it..
I've bought mine, comrade..
I love these models, I really wanted a Jane Austen action figure for number one wife, but they don't seem to do that one
More wideangle misuse
..and again
Some captions write themselves
Whenever we go back to the hotel, it is always uphill.....
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
A proper developer conference in Hull. Find out more here.
