A timely electronics rant
Tuesday, February 05, 2008

It's been a short while since my last blog entry; I have been hurriedly coding my monstrous hunk of a new website, Auction Earners. In between frantic key bashing I have also partaken in Christmas festivities, settled in at work (carefully omitting keywords to prevent this being flagged in a Google Alert), turned 23 and grown a little overweight. Who'd have thought that typing was not sufficient daily exercise to keep one healthy? When it gets a little warmer those calories will be burnt off as I take to a regime of sun tanning and cycling.

Now, in taking a break from my still unready ad service, I feel that I need to rant about a couple of things. Come New Year and my splendid get-together come shindig in my flat – (with Tex-Mexican niceties (tacos, enchiladas, dips, chilli con carne) spread among 8), whilst purchasing the tasty treats I decided to embark on a Freeview adventure. Back in November I bought myself a Philips Freeview box (a DTR220, digital terrestrial receiver) for £35. Plugging it into the aerial atop of my flat lead to the discovery of 40 channels, with an almighty 3 of these being viewable (bid up TV, sky three and a radio station), the rest degrading into some sort of glitch-ridden madness. This didn't bother me too much; I took the box back and grabbed my refund from Curry's, one hour after purchase. In late December I picked up my signal booster from Bristol, bought the same box again and hey presto – 40 viewable channels.

It's been a month or so since I got the box, and a number of things have started to annoy me. The main niggle is the constant crashing of the firmware – I'll be merrily flicking through channels and all of a sudden it will turn itself off and on again, experience a control freeze up (the TV signal shall continue but all control is removed – forcing me to switch the unit off and on at the switch) or suddenly cease rendering the background image elements for the EPG and info bar – which again do not return until a reset. Temporary in-viewing problems also include a periodical five to ten seconds of black and white, cross channel interference (particularly annoying if the invading channel has scrolling text) and all on top of the ugly low signal digital pausing and image distortion that occurs during bad weather. The remote control interface is also entirely unintuitive, although it is slick – if I had to give a positive point to this pseudo review.

In conclusion, do not buy the Philips DTR220, it is a hunk of junk with a brand name.

To continue in the same vein, my television comes equipped with a solitary SCART connector. I regularly switch between my Xbox 360, Wii, PC output and Freeview box. This wouldn't be a problem if an affordable yet decent switch-able multi SCART adapter existed. Finding a manual switching device that doesn't use automatic signals to change the display is difficult enough – given that my PC is on all the time this isn't an option. Robert and Dyas do stock one, a 4 connector with push button switch – fantastic. Up until the point you plug it in and get hideous interference between all the SCART channels and incessant screen flickering. Product returned and I'm still looking.

Ideally I would upgrade my 20 inch CRT to a flat screen LCD, but the TV isn't that old and it does its job well enough – except when it comes to Xbox 360 gaming, but that isn't its fault. Of the 4 games I have, only one has legible on-screen text – the others all result in tiny blurred text that is impossible to read – rendering it useless. This is entirely a design flaw – expecting all users to own an LCD is an outrageous assumption that continues to thwart me. Gah!

Ok, electronics rant over, time to get back to fixing some session stuff.

Cursed Week for British Sport
Sunday, October 21, 2007

Last weekend we were revelling in it. England had knocked out France in the Rugby World Cup final and they were on their way to a Saturday show down in Paris with South Africa. Lewis Hamilton was top of the F1 Championship leader board with one race to go and the Scotland and England football teams were minutes away from Euro 2008 qualification.

Come Sunday evening and we've got nothing.

England dramatically lost 2-1 to Russia away from home due to a poor penalty call and some shoddy goal-keeping and defending. Putting qualification out of England's control, and relying on a Russian falter against Israel. Scotland meanwhile left themselves the task of needing to beat Italy at home to qualify, after their torrid display in Georgia, losing 2-0. This all happened on Wednesday. Next up is Saturday, and with thousands of English fans, the rugby team are in Paris for the World Cup Final. Whilst a gallant and brave performance, a demoralising disallowed try and some lack of discipline and BAM, the final is lost. Now our nation's hopes of a great victory fall to the young rookie Lewis Hamilton, with a second place position on the starting grid in Brazil for the last race of the season. Things quickly go wrong as Hamilton falls to the back of the pack with car problems, finishing the race in 7th, resulting in a Raikkonen race and championship win.

It seems I was lucky enough to have the pleasant distraction of going to Leicester for the weekend for Samantha's birthday, drawing me away from such shattering realisations. So whilst England lost - left, right and centre, I merrily drank wine, ate Risotto and sampled fine Hotel Chocolat delights. It seems I was lovingly spared this time around, gifted with a wonderfully relaxing long weekend. On this occasion I am thankful to have missed out on all the sporting commotion.

My New Flat in St Albans
Thursday, September 13, 2007

... TV, Wii and plant ...

... a table and another sofa thing ...

... door and drawers ...

... bedroom and double bed ...

... a spangly tiled bathroom ...

... and checkered floor for chess ...

... kitchen with microwave, toaster and washing machine ...

... fridge, freezer, cooker ...

... and acres of worktop space ...

... and finally my well constructed desk!

Hoorah!

Amateur Alumni Adventures
Thursday, September 13, 2007

So, recently I graduated, spent some time at home over the dismally wet summer and looked for a job. The job hunting aspect pretty much dominated my time. It started out with two or three phones calls a day from recruitment agencies with a number of roles they thought I might be interested in, including throughout my holiday to Plymouth - everything from Control systems sales to supply chain management - I selected the roles that interested me most to pursue - this transformed into a multitude of interviews and tests. I travelled to London, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire and more, completing no more than 9 separate interviews. These interviews included aptitude tests, intelligence tests, reasoning abilities, problem solving tasks, data analysis tasks, group exercises and other such nasties. For the sake of prosperity, these were with such companies as Unilever, Data Connexion, GE Sensing (they do not refund travel expenses), Smiths Aerospace and Ocado. Both Ocado and Smiths offered me a job, and I opted for the more interesting and superior offer from Ocado, based in Hatfield.

Whilst not looking for jobs or houses I turned on the TV, linked it to an AV output from the PC and watched some X-files or Twin Peaks to fill me up on my mystery-weirdness fix for the year. I am about half way through season 2 of Twin Peaks now. Agent Cooper is my hero. Anyway, moving onwards. With a job confirmed and a start date of September 10th I had 3 weeks to arrange viewings, partake in viewings, make a decision and sort out all the fine print, on a single solitary residence. I arranged six viewings, two in Welwyn Garden City, two in Hatfield and two in St Albans for the bank holiday weekend in August.

I can't be bothered to find pictures of all of them, and to be honest, I want to forget a few of them, they were that awful. In fact the last one we saw needed a light on in every room in order to see anything... this being at 2 pm on a cloudless day with the sun high in the sky. It was also disgusting with a shoddy door, the whole thing was tacked onto the back of a house - they wanted £625 a month for it!

Here is the second best candidate - a one bedroom 'mini' house. This was in walking distance from where I work and was a strong contender at £650 a month. Although in the end we decided the nearby amenities weren't great and living in Hatfield wasn't the nicest of options.



My third arranged viewing for a studio flat in Hatfield fell through, and in that spare hour we roamed the streets of St Albans, popping in every estate agents we came across on London Road. Eventually one such agent had two apartments we could look at straight away, one just (the day before) coming back onto the market after a previous deal had fallen through. The first of these was an atrocious annex in London Colney, it was damp, smelled of wet and was pretty much a shed. We left (the family and Sam) as fast as we possibly could. The second was a one bedroom flat for £725. This was like a breath of fresh air. It was clean, spacious, light, secure, well-appointed and very close to both rail stations, the town centre, a supermarket and retail park, a large park with golf course et al. and a bus route to get into work. It was perfect except for the price. We continued looking at our other appointments - except for one cancelled two-bedroom viewing which nastily clashed with a much needed toilet stop on my part. The flat was always on our minds and at 3pm we decided that I should go for it - and cancelled any further viewings, the extra price was decided reasonable for the distinguished improvements that it offered.

Having settled that matter we spent the afternoon drinking in a nearby pub, watching the football results (which were also amicable). I remember having a lovely large glass of Newcastle Brown Ale, before moving on to Wetherspoons to have Steak for dinner. It was a nice evening all around. We were there for the weekend, so on Sunday we had a picnic in Verulamium Park - right next to my new flat. Crispy fresh baguette, pasta and salad selections and a Mars bar to cap it off. Activities also included "playing catch in the park", buying expensive chilli chocolate, a tour of the lake, excitement over the kiddies water park feature, remote control boats and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks pub. Then we headed back to Bristol, with Sam going north. I would move in on September 3rd, the next Monday.

In the week following I spent some time learning Java, managing my websites and frantically sorting out the huge deposit and one month's rental payment (£1800) to be made available in only four working days (bank holiday issues) in cleared funds! That was a laugh. On the Friday I watched Knocked Up at the cinema with Mum and Stu, post scrumptious Chiquito Lazy Boi starter. I also watched the Bristol Rovers vs. West Ham game on Sky as well as a number of the England vs. India ODI's, including the stunning 8th wicket partnership of 99 runs to seal a win, which we celebrated whilst eating chips on the way back from visiting my Aunt (avec graduation photos).

With only one car the packing needed to be ruthless and precise. Fitting a computer, tv, all the clothes I will need for a number of months, crockery, cooking pans and utensils, duvet and sheets and any additional entertainment I decided to bring was akin to those crazy Christmas toys that involve arranging shapes into a cube.

* Chocolate Muffin Break *

Mum and I arrived in good time via M4 and M25, signed the contracts, picked up the keys and moved in, with Sam quickly behind us with her odds and ends and a much needed set of drawers. Then we set about with the ickle things - arranging internet and phone installation, sorting out water, gas and electricity, television license, finding myself a computer desk, filling my cupboards with food (Sainsbury's is very expensive!), unpacking and making myself feel at home. Mum left the next day, to return to work, it was a sad goodbye, and I had that melancholy feeling all day.

I think that is enough of the tale, I have now been here ten days and obviously the internet has been installed (20mbit, woo!) and once again I have spent too long writing this, it is late and I must go to bed to get up for work tomorrow. All I have left to say is thank you so much to Mum, Sam and Stu - your help was invaluable, I couldn't have done it all without your help.

Now for the academics - My marks
Thursday, July 19, 2007

1st Year (83.4% average)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
ES155	Design and Computer Techniques	15	80
ES156	Professional Studies	15	79
ES157	Mathematics for Engineers	15	82
ES160	Materials and Production	15	82
ES161	Engineering Mechanics	15	81
ES162	Modelling and System Dynamics	15	85
ES163	Electrical and Electronic Systems	15	92
ES164	Fluids and Energy	15	86

2nd Year ( 81.4% average, 20% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
CG203	Systems and Control	15	85
CG204	Signal Processing and Communications	15	94
ES21J	Analogue Design	15	81
ES21L	Applied Linear Algebra	7.5	92
ES21Q	Design of Measurement Systems	7.5	70
ES21R	Digital Design	15	80
ES21T	Electronic Systems	7.5	79
ES22E	Software Development	15	92
IB229	Starting a Business for Engineers	7.5	58
PX258	ULSI MOS Devices and Technologies	15	70

3rd Year (85% average including 7.5 over CATS, 40% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
CG351	Digital Signal Processing	15	75
ES316	Analogue and Digital System Design 1	15	91
ES327	Project	30	78
ES335	Communication Systems	15	86
ES372	Automation and Robotics	15	86
ES379	Finance and Accounting	15	88
ES390	VLSI Design 1	15	83
PX317	New Concepts in Electronics	7.5	74

4th Year (89.3% average including 30 over CATS, 40% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
ES312	Systems Modelling and Simulation	15	85
ES330	Control 1	15	92
ES410	Group Project	30	75
ES425	Engineering Business Management 1	15	76
ES436	Directed Reading for Electronics	15	78
ES462	High Integrity Systems	15	87
LL130	Learning Chinese 1	30	82
PX400	Future Electronics	15	72

Overall Degree calculated as: 86%
First Class Honours

The end of an era
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Well, that's it, done and dusted. University life is now officially over - I am no longer a student. My four years studying a Masters in Electronic Engineering at Warwick University have come to a fruitful end. It's odd thinking of the very first day when I moved into Rootes with my big boxes, going up the stairs for the first time, seeing that awful bright yellow paint, unpacking and chatting with Sam and Kayte for the first time. Good memories.

This final year was spent in Redfern campus accommodation, with old friend Steven and new flatmates Jo, Madhumita and Robert. It has been a great year. Here is a short but happy-memory inducing list. Ten pin bowling - both real and Wii based, massive marathon video game conquests (Burnout Revenge, Katamari, Bomberman, Wii Sports, Red Star), birthday celebrations, the adventures of Bobby Green and Snowy Bob, talkative fridge magnet nonsense, watching Planet Earth, fridge and freezer space mayhem, the rotting celeriac, Madhumita's bell ringing and superstitions, the donkey-film fiasco (and the associated eeyore jokes), New Year celebrations, Christmas decorations, Madhumita's quotes and blue tac sculptures, outings to Zizi's and Piccolini's "I could be a vampire - but you're vegetarian", eating two meals at once in Wetherspoons after Oceans 13, sharing artsy fartsy films with Jo, going on walks around Heronbank (to my secret pond), taking trips to the perfect Arts Centre Cinema (£2.50 student ticket for films such as Zodiac, This is England, Infamous and others), buying bargain £3 DVDs from the now defunct Fopp, juggling in the kitchen (3 ball, 4 ball, mill's mess, 5 on the floor), the faulty Xbox 360 issues, completing that Mars EBM assignment, Future Electronics "big time" and "for sure", kitchen visiting sparrows, woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels and a single fox, Warwick Art Centre's tuna jacket potatoes with salad garnish, my internet ban and resulting scrubs marathon, basement lab concrete slab testing for hours on end, painful all nighters on 300 page project report and poster, my poor tummy and appendicitis, rewarding revision marathons (and missing the Bristol Rovers promotion), learning mandarin chinese, the lunar eclipse on the night of Steven's birthday meal and wii competition, watching Liverpool knock out Chelsea on HD projectors outside in the garden after feasting on a BBQ, reading Graeme's friday evening "weekend joy" texts and laser/smell of burning eye stories, eating fresh French baguette and Camembert after returning on a long hard bike trip to Tescos, the mounting rust problems my bike suffered as a result of being left outside in the rain, the magpies attacking the bin bags, the "cost-cutter" chime, the incredibly wet summer, playing Frisbee on the green outside, watching films with the TV at the foot of the bed, watching the cleaner rotation as ours was off sick again, building up recyclable skyscrapers in blue bags, playing corridor golf with the plastic golf set and Steven losing his ball under my bed, playing long range corridor darts and skittles, being solemn as Madhumita rushes away for the last time, doing that 1000 piece puzzle on top of my drawers, buying fans and creating custom made wasp nets, seeing Madhumita play Halo, boiling up the kettle and having a nice coffee and croissant breakfast before starting revision, playing Scattergories and LOTR Risk (too geeky?), rearing my grape found caterpillar to a full fledged moth, indoctrinating Sam in the ways of BSG, taking down my posters for the last time, Jo's regular parsnip-carrot and mince meal, Steven's toad in the hole and chips, Roberts plastic cutlery and balloon antics (see: Madhumita's cupboard), Madhumita's smelly night time thing and yoghurts left in the microwave, the 2 for £3 tesco pizzas that got me through, weekend trips to Leicester to visit Sam where we would shop at Fenwicks or on the off chance go to Riley's or cook something wonderful and inspired. And taking pictures for the last time as I pack up the car and prepare to go home.

Music Vision
Tuesday, June 05, 2007

I found a stats site that takes Last.fm data to produce a tidy graph showing listening trends over a set period. Here's my resultant PDF from September 2004 until this month, June 2007, with a minimum of 10 plays required to trigger an artist being shown:
My Listening Trends PDF

Preview of my March 2007 listening trend:


The site is called LastGraph and it was built using Processing.

My Own Personal Appendectomy
Saturday, May 12, 2007

Warning, pictures of surgery below (not graphic, because I normally squirm at these things).

Come night time Wednesday 2nd May, my day had gone well, revision was on schedule, I was trying a new mouth wash and all was sweet and well. The hard grind of revision, project work and coursework was under way and uni life was as any hectic third term normally is. I think I'd just released my latest fb2k config that day also. At 5 am I was awoken with awful stomach pains; a horrible gripping feeling as though my digestive sack was being used as a stress ball by an over worked underpaid office employee. I couldn't sleep through it so I grabbed some crackers and made some quick fb2k updates until I felt duly capable of heading back to the land of nod.

Thursday was much the same, only worse. I'd hoped the pain would have left me; maybe it was just me lying awkwardly or some bad sausages from the champions league BBQ. I set about revision as normal, struggling to get anything done, some Ibuprofen helped and I continued through until the afternoon thinking I had past the worst of it. With late afternoon the painkillers rescinded and I was thrown full-whack back into the torment of having my digestive tract deciding it wanted to leave my body by turning itself into a truncheon and beating its way out from the inside. Gaviscon stomach sweets failed, as did all the anti-acids and little tricks like drinking Milk or eating dried foods. With the doctors now shut and at a loss for what to do, I tried to simply just rest, sit back and watch a film - I chose one I wouldn't particularly care if I enjoyed or not (My Super Ex-Girlfriend - don't watch this). By the end of the film my intestinal baton had grown spikes in a stepped up bid to escape. I was bent double and in agony with a stomach pain that hadn't caused sickness. I called NHS Direct (with my mum's advice and diligence in finding a Skype compatible number) and they soon advised me to get myself checked out ASAP, just as a precaution. With the walk-in centre shut it was off to accident and emergency.

My very kind accommodation warden drove my friend and I there where we started to wait. One hour later I saw the triage and enjoyed blood sugar tests, blood pressure tests and the usual check-up mumbo jumbo. With intensifying pain, growing hunger and tiredness the two hour wait to see a doctor was horrible. Mid-wait my official accom' warden, Adam, turned up and swapped shifts, bringing crossword entertainment, although we never completed a single one. Both wardens were especially helpful and I wish to thank them both very much for their efforts and care. At 1am I was called into see the doctor, he prodded me and asked where the pain was, whether I'd been ill, etc. He did a blood test and issued an abdomen X-ray. Half an hour later, lying on my back, I was wheeled into the X-ray room and wheeled back out again moments later.

Lying on a bed had its benefits and coping with the wait was not as bad, though just as painful. It wasn't until 4:30 am that someone came to see me and tell me I was heading to the critical decision unit where a surgeon would later see me. At 5 am they decided to keep me in for the night until next morning's breakfast, see how I was then after some food and take it from there. With this news both my friend (thanks Steven!) and warden were relieved to be able to go home whilst I tried to get whatever kip I could. Come 8 am I was up and ready for brekkie! Whilst the patients around me were being served up Weetabix and porridge an important looking fellow associated with the university (with a number of students around him) informed me that I did indeed have Appendicits and that I would be needing surgery sometime during the day.

Whilst in the process of letting whoever I could know what was going on a bubbly anaesthetist explained the procedure to me and said I would be prep'd for surgery within half an hour. And that was that, before I knew it an IV was being put in, pads stuck on and general anesthetic administered, "You'll be asleep within 20 seconds"... I remember thinking, "I don't feel tired".

That's a traditional appendectomy, I didn't get this done (thank goodness), I was given a modern keyhole laparoscopic surgery which is "minimally invasive", at least this seems to be the case given the size of my wound.

Here's a video of a keyhole appendectomy, not mine I might add:


I woke up at about 12:30pm in the recovery ward, dreamy and blissfully enjoying my deep sleep and distinct lack of pain. About half an hour later I was fully awake and another cheery nurse wheeled me to my ward. As the anaesthetic wore off some pain returned (including a sore throat because of the tubes they had to give me) but I was much more comfortable than before, I was soon happy to see my grandpa, sister and girlfriend shortly followed by Steven and my warden.

My recovery was (mostly) a smooth one. For the duration of my stay the IV remained attached, through which I was fed and administered the necessary antibiotics. 4-hourly pulse, temperature and blood pressure tests were given; my temperature was high each time ( 37.5) and I was given paracetamol to bring it down. The only problem I had was a growingly uncomfortable and soon to be painful feeling which mounted in the hours after surgery; in short I was having problems taking a piss. The nurse suggested I may need a catheter but before getting one did a quick ultrasound to check if my bladder was full, her response upon seeing the result was quite comic and she soon returned tubes in hand. My bladder was so full it was putting enormous amounts of pressure on my back, wound and abdomen, which suffice to say, hurt a lot. The bladder can typically hold 0.6 litres, within 15 minutes of the catheter being added the bag was up to 1.5 litres, and reached 2 litres before the hour mark. Time for the great British pun, "that really takes the piss". A catheter is quite uncomfortable and it dramatically reduces your mobility, even when you're tied down to an IV, its removal was also quite painful. Getting it put in wasn't too bad, but I was probably still seeing the influences of some anaesthetic.

All this took place at the brand new University Hospital (UHCW) outside of Coventry. It really is a beautifully new, clean and impressive place. I particularly enjoyed their bed-entertainment suite, which, for £3.20, gave me 24 hours of freeview digital letting me watch the morning football round-up, some Jeeves and Worcester and quite painfully with stifled laughter "Have I Got News for You".

It's been about a week since my discharge and despite having a busy week, catching up with work, etc., I am making a good recovery.
My stitches are all internal and set to "dissolve" in the next few days, hopefully I'll be right as rain in no time. This is my wound as it stands (oooh skin!) - doesn't look too bad.

That wound is just on the belt line which has meant this past week I've had to wear my trousers like all those hip boxer showing kids do these days.

Labels: Life