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My ride for the #splitboard week with @theridersocial - #neversummer #prospector with #sparkrandd arc bindings (at Penthouse Caribou)

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Running head first at an API

The ‘P’ stood for programming and I committed myself to discovering it’s secrets. Advice concerning the SolidWorks API strongly advised to stick to Visual Basic and not to use C# until I had a good understanding. Instead of taking advice, I used C#. I can’t remember when I started the C# sololearn course. I do remember that when I first recorded a SolidWorks macro, I didn’t know what a namespace…

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the code snowball

It's been around 3 years since i started to build VB excel macros and write SQL statements.  I discovered w3schools and sololearn in my searches for answers.  As my macros grew more ambitious I realised I enjoyed coding and wanted to learn more.  Possibly even make a profession of it one day.

I picked up the Joy of Coding Humble Bundle and started reading 'Eloquent JavaScript'.  I had the idea that JavaScript would make a good first language as I already had some interest in web development ... though it didn't really work out that way.

I'd experiment with JS and do the exercises in the book though I found that without an idea; a thing that I really wanted to make, I just wasn't motivated to learn.

Progress was slow until I started a job using my beloved Solidworks.  Ideas collided and a new motivation to code coalesced as I began to scratch at the Solidworks API ...

[cruebaddon]

What do we say to the God of death? #nineworlds #gameofthrones #miltos #waterdance (at Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow Hotel)

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Apparently underground cave trampolines are a thing and I'm only discovering this now. #bouncebelow is now on the to do list.

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Super stylish Raspberry Pi case at Liverpool Makefest #LivMF (at Liverpool Central Library)

[cruebaddon]

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin can openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

[cruebaddon]

Hotel nerd

It's Sunday night and I find myself sitting in Travelodge Fontwell Park with an urge to write.  I've learnt that if I don't start writing the moment an idea starts bouncing around, it simply won't happen.  In fact it's been so long since I posted I'm going to have to read my own blog to figure out my smartarse IFTTT posting thing again.

I've stayed in this hotel before, not long after I first started my job.  Three and a half years later and I've fallen under the delusion that I'm some sort of veteran of the travelling employee lifestyle.  In a few more years I'm sure I'll be having deep philosophical conversations with my nihilistic friend Tyler Durden.

This hotel is on the other side of a roundabout from a second Travelodge - which is the one I normally stay at when in this end of the world.  I always wondered why there were two so close together.  On this occasion, I walked through the door leading from reception and my hotel senses immediately started tingling.  The numbers on the doors were wrong.

The thing that really tipped me off was as I entered the room.  True the corridor was odd and the numbers were weird but that wasn't it.  No, it was entering the room and reaching for the lights that did it.

There were two light switches. 

Two.

And not three.

That ... that was twisting my melon, man.

My keenly developed budget hotel instincts led me to attempt to turn on the lights without hitting the bathroom light.  The result; confusion as I groped at the wall impotently, still encumbered by my luggage.

In the dark I released my burden in the room and went back to the wall puzzle.

Two switches.  Two switches and a card holder.

This was not a Travelodge.  Not originally.  The door swipe card was not unusual.  Many Travelodges have that.  But a holder switch for turning the lights on ... nooo ... wrong wrong wrong.

Disturbed, I left the room and went out to the neighbouring gastropub to eat.  When I returned, I was still curious as to the building's previous identity and I stared for a moment at the floor plan on the wall.  I won't bore you with the details but this led to a conversation with the guy working the desk about the nature of Travelodge.  

At some point I realised I'd turned in to a complete budget hotel nerd.

... oh and it used to be an Innkeeper's Lodge.  So yeh, questions answered.

[cruebaddon]

‘Israel's Son’ by Silverchair is my new jam.

[cruebaddon]

‘Radio Cambodia’ by Glassjaw It's a shame that our messiahs move their pawns from different mountains. #glassjaw

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That's right.

[cruebaddon]

‘DOA (attack on titan soundtrack)’ by Aimee Blackschleger #attackontitan It's actually a painfully dumb generic tune. ... but once you're picturing Mikasa and Levi in flight it somehow becomes good.

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‘The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)’ by Ylvis I am bitten. #whatdoesthefoxsay?

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I cancelled my TV licence

My Samsung LE32N7 and I have been together a long time now.  It's been 6 and a half years since she turned up at my flat.  She cost me £700 back in 2007, which today would be ridiculous for a 32" 720p.  I hope we continue to have a good life together.  Happiness is an LCD made in Korea .... or at least bearing the badge of Koreans.

Recently I declared her off the road.  Cable tied the antenna and, if requested, I'd be willing to cut the plug off.  Where we're going, we don't need roads.

I'm not missing broadcast TV at all. It was a curse. Day after day I'd turn my TV on and watch ... nothing.  It was just left on for no reason, because that was my habit.

I decided I'd be happier watching things I actually wanted to watch rather than things I didn't. So far I've subscribed to Crunchyroll and burnt through Attack on Titan.  This was mildly surprising to me.  I love animé but I've always disliked  reading off the screen for any length of time.  It took a very special series to break that aversion. In the near future I plan to pay for Netflix.

If you're not local, I'll explain.  The rules of the TV licence here in the UK are puzzling.  Basically if you have a TV you have to have one ... (sort of).  In the past that was the beginning and end of it.

Now the rule is, if you're watching or recording something that you're currently receiving as it is broadcasting then you be needing and should be paying .... ing ing. And it doesn't matter that it's not BBC (aka; they who receives the monies).  If you're paying for cable or satellite services then you're still watching broadcast TV and it counts.

Let's make that more complicated.

The BBC has its own internet streaming service: iPlayer ... if you watch a programme on iPlayer at the same time it is being broadcast, then you need a licence.  If you wait for it to finish and then fire up iPlayer, you don't.

Anyway ...

The one BBC program I want to see every week is BBC Click on News 24.

One time they cancelled Click so that they could show footage of the queen going to church ... Live!  Not showing Click at it's appointed times happens often.  BBC appears to regard it as a sacrificial lamb, surely only of interest to a minority of it's viewers.  Those odd single people who don't matter. "No problem!" says I. "I'll use iPlayer!" I was confronted with a message stating that as Click was supposed to be currently showing at this time, I could only watch if I had a valid TV licence.  Which at that time I did.  I pressed agree.

iPlayer started and began showing ... not Click! ... but the replacement oh-so-important news that had taken it's place.

My nerd rage bubbled over like a furious volcano.  I swore, one day, never to pay for a TV licence again.

The TV reckoning is here. (I like reckonings)

[cruebaddon]

'Daddy!' squealed Pris. 'Daddy?' asked Wiggs. 'Uh, no, Danny,' said Pris. 'Dannyboy.' 'Your man,' said Wiggs.

Jitterbug Perfume

[cruebaddon]

‘Only Happy When It Rains’ by Garbage #garbage The Best song on the album. @garbage

[cruebaddon]

Back seats with the cool kids!! Yay! oh wait ....