The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:27am on Monday, 20th January, 2025:
Anecdote
10:14am on Sunday, 19th January, 2025:
Anecdote
After I'd turned my old Christmas cards into Christmas gift tags, my younger daughter brought around some of her own cards for similar recycling. Here's one of the results:
There's a star in front of the moon.
Christmas truly is a magical time of year.
9:27am on Saturday, 18th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Most of the cartoons I've reead from Victorian editions of Punch are too much of their era to be amusing to a modern audience, but several of them are interesting enough to keep or to put to some purpose.
I shall certainly be using this one in my lecture on game theory.
Andrew (preparing to divide the orange). "Will you choose the big half, Georgie, or the wee half?"
George. "'Course I'll choose the big half."
Andrew (with resignation). "Then I'll just have to make 'em even."
9:21am on Friday, 17th January, 2025:
Miscellaneous
The BBC has a "most read" feature, that tells the reader what other readers are reading the most.
I've never entirely trusted that it does this, as sometimes it seems to favour links to articles that the BBC would rather like to be read but that few people are likely to want to read. There's definitely something amiss with it, anyway, as this selection yesterday shows.
Articles 1 and 10 are the same, sharing the same URL.
12:27pm on Thursday, 16th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Every year, I have my third-year students play MUD2. This gives them a sense of what virtual worlds were like before they became all about the graphics, while showing that underneath, graphical and textual worlds are the same thing. When there's a lab full of people all playing at the same time, some of the feeling of the early days is recaptured — especially as most modern students have never played a textual game in their life and can therefore be awed by one.
Today was the day of the MUD2 lab this time round.
Eight students showed up, plus one regular player who was playing from home.
Thirty students or more would have been ideal. Eight was very disappointing. However, it was only to be expected: inexplicably, the timetable office had scheduled the lab against a Computer Vision lecture that pretty well all my own students were also taking. The eight who showed up decided to watch a recording of the lecture rather than miss the lab; the rest skipped the lab to attend the lecture (the first of the term, so of some importance). I don't blame the students, but I do blame the timetable office.
I only found out about the clash yesterday from one of my capstone project supervisees, so couldn't rearrange the lab.
The students who attended said they enjoyed it, and some may continue to play afterwards (although this is unusual: only one from last year did). That's not the point, though: most of my students didn't play it, so won't get the same insights that those who did play it got. They won't sense the mechanics, they won't sense the gameplay, they won't understand at an emotional level when I tell them what the game is about.
I'll see if I can arrange a second lab later in the term, but if the timetable office can't manage to slot one in when given several months' notice then I don't see that they'll be able to do it given a few days. I'll try, anyway.
I have a growing, fin de siècle impression of the decline of the era of games at Essex University.
Oh well.
8:48am on Wednesday, 15th January, 2025:
Anecdote
When I received my new laser pointer/slide changer yesterday, my heart sank. It's a new and improved version of my old one.
Here are four images comparing the old one (on the left) with the new one (on the right):
The top-left image shows them how they look when not in use. There isn't much difference between them.
The top-right image shows how to activate the old one. There's a dongle on a spring. You press the dongle in and it springs out. You can then take it out and put it in the USB port of your laptop. When you're not using the device, the presence of the dongle switches off the power so that if you squash it in a bag, you don't accidentally turn on the laser.
The bottom-left image shows where the dongle is in the new one. You have to open the casing, exposing the batteries, and take the dongle out of a clip inside the lid. You can then put it in the USB port of your laptop. You might want to put the casing back on the device, too, so the batteries don't fall out.
Ah, but if the dongle is held by a simple clip, you can't use it as an on/off switch to stop the accidental use of the laser if the device gets squashed in a pocket or a bag or something. Not to worry, the manufacturers have thought of that: the bottom-right image shows a side view where you can see an on/off switch. So long as that doesn't get squashed into the on position, you're sorted.
I much prefer the older model.
Why is it that "new and improved" almost invariably means "new but not as good"?
8:37am on Tuesday, 14th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Yesterday was my first lecture of the spring term. I'd tested my laptop earlier in the day, and copied over the latest version of my slides, so I was ready to go.
I set it up five minutes before 11am and pulled out my trusty laser pointer/slide changer. It didn't work.
No problem! I have some spare batteries for just such an emergency!
It wasn't a battery issue. The device had died.
Still no problem! I have a back-up laser pointer for just such a sequence of emergencies!
That didn't work either. I ended up having to press the space key on my laptop's keyboard and point with my finger.
Also, although I had indeed copied the latest version of my slides to my office PC, I hadn't copy them to my laptop. There were a couple of minor corrections I had to make during the lecture.
Oh well. A new laser pointer/slide changer has been ordered and should arrive today (albeit after today's lecture and class have finished).
One lecture down, nineteen more (plus nineteen classes and a lab) to go.
8:19am on Monday, 13th January, 2025:
Comment
Our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has something of a problem. She needs to raise more money but the Labour Party's manifesto promised that she wouldn't. She's therefore having to cut services — perhaps including ones she needs the money for in the first place.
There is another way, though.
What she could do is raise the amount that local councils can charge in council tax. They'd be able to use it to cover all those issues that people complain about, such as potholes, infrequent bin-emptying and lack of council houses. What's more, she could then cut back on the government's block grant to councils and claw some money back for the Treasury. She could argue that it wasn't she who was raising taxes, but local councils, therefore the Labour Party's manifesto promises would remain unbroken.
I don't think she'll do this, although it might come as a consequence of the council mergers that Labour is planning.
This is what happens when you have governments full of social science graduates and lawyers: there are no programmers who can hack solutions for you. That said, the Conservatives have an ex-programmer as their leader, so we might see some unwanted consequences of this if she ever gets to be Prime Minister ("I know, let's leave the European Convention on Human Rights and join the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights! Or, if that's no better, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights!").
11:31am on Sunday, 12th January, 2025:
Anecdote
My wife has bought a display stand for the Game of Thrones characters she keeps in the downstairs toilet (the "throne room"). They look pretty good.
Except, see that one on the right of the second-bottom row (Sansa)? When I use the toilet, she stares directly at me.
It's rather more unsettling than it ought to be.
9:51am on Saturday, 11th January, 2025:
Anecdote
We went out for a meal last night. Before leaving, I thought I should have a shave so as to deceive the people in the restaurant into believing I wasn't a slob. Furthermore, I settled on having a wet shave, using a razor with blades and stuff, because having neglected to shave for a couple of days I felt my electric razor wasn't going to be up to the job. I started running the water in the bathroom so it would warm up.
At the time, I was wearing a new jumper I'd got for my birthday. Wishing neither to get it wet nor to wear it to the restaurant, I took it off.
I then tested the water with my finger to see if it was warm enough to use yet.
That's the first time in my life that I've ever suffered a static electric shock from running water.
8:00am on Friday, 10th January, 2025:
Anecdote
It's my birthday today. I'm 65. This sounds old, because it is.
65 used to be the retirement age for men in the UK. When I worked for private companies, they would enrol me in the company pension scheme under the not-unreasonable assumption that 65 would still be the retirement age when I reached 65. As a result, I have three of them that have been bugging me for months asking me what I want to do with my pension money when I reach 65. I've been ignoring them, on the grounds that I don't know what I want to do with my money yet. They'll therefore automatically keep hold of it and make investments with it until I actually do retire and tell them I want it now. This means that a stock exchange crash and rampant inflation are almost guaranteed before then.
Oh well, back to work.
7:44am on Thursday, 9th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Yesterday, I learned that if you're going to drop your coat on the floor indoors, a barber's is a bad place to do so.
I think I'll be able to get most of the hair off it with a vacuum cleaner.
7:45am on Wednesday, 8th January, 2025:
Weird
8:53am on Tuesday, 7th January, 2025:
Weird
Nice try, Tymperleys, but I'm still going to search for a secret door.
8:25am on Monday, 6th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Oh well, the Christmas break is over and it's time once more to confront the inescapable.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).