a good start 97.2

I can probably say that the 99.2 kg was due to a mega kebab or something, but I have been careful to try to eat less after the shock, before the serious business of the diet starts and its startig to show results.

2Kg already, mostly due to the standard clear out of the old digestive system, so we'll call that the starting point.

The diet is simple, 1 main meal per day and not a massive portion.I need to eat musli/bran each morning, I don't normally eat brekkie but the metabolism needs to be able to know when the food is coming and not start complaining about being hungry by 10-30.

Lunch will be a small salad, preferably with protien, such as smoked salmon, but maybe some goats cheese, ham, or bacon. I do like a honey and vinegar dressing though, so that will also happen.

More protien, less carbs, and for snacking, its carrot sticks and soup, I just bought a months worth of cupasoup from Makro, as well as a fair amount of chicken.
I will top up with fresh salad (no point trying to constantly make my own)

so chicken, (no skin), pork chops (no fat..sob), steak (yum), some sushi/sashimi.I won't make quite so many stews, mince etc...but I won't totally abstain, just small portions.
I also have to get some fish, fresh.
And of course,  more walking, cycling (I can't run, don't even bother trying to tell me) and stairs, and as soon as possible the gym (shudder).



Ahthankyew

And I'll start before new year

Fatman is now going to make a start on losing the name.

I'm on a diet

Stop laughing at the back, I'm quite serious, I've lost a little bit since the 99,2kg shitfest, but I now have to make a serious start and reduce my calorie intake and get back to the gym, or at least get in a lot more cycling and walking (weather permitting)

I didn't have a massive pig out on Christmas dinner, the only real extravigence was cheesy mash..was lovely. but 1 plate of beef and potatoes with roast carrots..yum


1 hot meal a day, and switching to low cal, high protien dinners, as well as some non sugar musli or bran (at my age...I need it)


oh.... and booze, once a week and only a couple.

Ahthankyew

55 solar revolutions

So,...55, it feels much the same as 54, a few more aches, a few more lines, a lot more lbs and a few more regrets.

Trying very hard to see the positives but I'm really not sure, there's some bright spots in my love life, but lots of complications, some serious downsides to my finances due to the previous misfires of my love life.
I spent the day largely alone, doing some work, and not finding much pleasure in it.

I am also starting to look to new pastures, not something I've done for a while as I've been very happy here, but lack of engagement with work and brexit are making me re-evaluate what it is I want from life, and at the moment I've not toally decided. I see 20 years of mortgage still to pay, and a sense of tiredness and lack of working motivation thats hard to really get over. I work all the time, but seem to achieve very little.

meh....55 kinda sucks, I wish I could go back to 50, that was much more fun, but onward...ever onward.


Ahthankyew

holy shit Fatman!

99.2kg.

99 point fucking 2 kg

man that is heavy, and I thought I was keeping my eating under control....clearly not.. starting to wonder what more I can do... I really am not eating so much, nor am I drinking ...quite...so much

its going to hit 100kg, its one more sausage roll away.

really need to fix this.

Ahthankyew

Another book?

hmm a publisher got in touch to ask me to write another book, not the same publisher and not the same topic.

Very interesting, I'll give it some thought, I am still really working on the 1st one though making sure the website is fully working and supporting readers, so need to consider if I have the time to do it

I am planning to collate the 12 monthly tuts I wrote into a book/pdf download though so maybe once I've done that I'll consider it.

But still :D a publisher got in touch, has a nice ring to it.


Edit... not going to do it, they sent a list of topics they wanted coverered in only 6/7 months...just not viable, I passed. I might try to write a few things down about the basics of AI though and see if I can collate it into an introduction book on the subject without all the buzzword bingo that is associated with AI.  First expand the articles though

Ahthankyew

went back to work...that was a mistake

5 days of cold and I thought the worst was over...so went back to work, after 2 hours I was drained and close to fainting.....thats not good, came straight home to bed for 3 hours....

It is just a cold but its certainly hitting home, lets hope the chest infection dosn't set it.



Ahthankyew

Cold Season begins

And what a start, got an immediate, wake and feel like shit cold, headache, ribs, running nose, sore throat, rattling lungs..the whole 9 yards.

wonderful...  Since I tend to get chest infections from these extreme colds I can look forward to a nice month or so of coughing before the doc gives me some AB's

Sigh..well there's worse things going on so I just need to take a few days off to get over the worst of it.
At least I can work from home, when not splattering the screen in sneeze snot...

And no the tissues are not for watching porn, before anyone asks

Ahthankyew

Sad and frustrating

I heard yesterday that my daughter has suffered a loss in her family, her older half brother passed away aged 41...no age at all. He was for a while also my step son, but we've not kept in touch since his mother and I split. Even so I feel a sense of loss too, but no where near what my baby is going through. There's nothing worse than losing a child or a sibling.

I wish I could do something to comfort her, she and her mother are going though hell at the moment, and there's really nothing I can do but send best wishes and be here if she needs me.

This is one of those situations where being away from the people I love is hard.



Ahthankyew

People you think you know are shits

I know a lot of people, I mostly, genuinly like all of them, a few I don't and generally I keep out of their way and they avoid me. the balance is maintained and everyone is happy. But its interesting how your view of the people you know can be radically changed when you discover what they say about you behind your back.

I had a bit of a facebook spat with an old collegue, nice enough chap, but got a bit of a bee in his bonnet over global warming (its all fake!!!) we've engaged a few times, its got heated but it was for the most part sound debate. But his comments on the recent Iceland rangtang ad which highlights the deforrestation and loss of habitat for Orangutangs was a final straw for me, he actually tried to posit the view that the deforistation is due to "green loons" use of palm oil as a bio fuel. Yes that happens, but its a tiny and now largely abandoned concept... The real issue is due to the use of Palm oil in cosmetic and food products....anyway.. I'd had enough, I stopped engaging and banned him from my FB.
It's only the internet after all, and while I don't really like the idea of avoiding a competing viewpoint,  and re-enforcing his echo chamber of denial, I can't deal with utter bullshit being pushed as fact over and over again, so I'm better off just cutting it out.

Of course he's pissed, and thats fine, he'll get over it, we probably arn't going to meet up more than a few times at some work events so its no great loss to my or his social life. But I got wind of a facebook conversation with him and a few other people I know, also who I've cut out of my FB for being nasty fuckers.....what a bunch of miserable hate filled misanthropic cunts, every single one of them. One even suggested writing a bad review of my book just for the fun of it....what the fuck is wrong with people that they seek to gloat in causing harm and discomfort of others, worse, that they  even try to promote it.

Anyway, moral of this tale, people you know are not your friends. they're seldom more than backstabbing sad fuckers who find pleasure in running or attempting to run others down. Life is much better without them.



Ahthankyew

Been a bit busy

And a little down, the passing of my friend Soeren, hit me much harder than it should, I have been taking note of how many friends I've lost in the last few year to different causes, and its been a little upsetting to note that as I get older my list of good friends I've spent time with in my youth dwindles.


hmmm sad, but its how it is I suppose, life goes on for some of us.

Also work is stressing, as we come to the end of the block and grading hell is here, we have to cope with new systems that don't work well and we're flapping about trying to make sure no one gets the wrong grade....the old systems worked just fine, but people are so intent to tinker they risk things breaking....



Ahthankyew

You Bastards

A painfully sad day today, can't explain in detail as his family are keeping things quiet, and I have to respect that. But I need to share...a dear friend passed away tonight, a genuinely lovely man, with whom I spent many evenings in far flung corners of the world, talking shite and getting drunk, and always expected there to be many more.

Getting old has many downsides, but the loss of such friends is easily the hardest to take... RIP mate. I'll have a few in your name.

Ahthankyew

still waiting for the bad one.

It will come, its the internet, it always comes. But I'm still waiting to see the 1st bad review of my book...in fact even the 1st middling review...until then I'll have to put up with things like this


"The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Programming by Brian Beuken is an awesome book and one I personally have been looking for for some time. Back in the day I have read through other game development books but this is the first one that truly provides real world useful info to help one get started with cross development on a Single Board Computer such as the Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone Black. This is more than just a game development book, it is a great introduction to OpenGL ES development which can be applied to UI development for small devices that support OpenGL ES. The companion website is a very cool compliment to the book and a place where the author Brian is quite active. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in game development on small devices but also folks that are interested in creating User Interfaces for mobile and other hand held devices.

The book is not without its blemishes, but Brian covers much of that on the companion site.

I'm looking forward to any follow up book that Brian creates."

Backo'theNet.....
Chuffed :D


Ahthankyew

Selling like a hot cake

My book's had a bit of a surge on amazon.co.uk breaking the top 50 for a couple of coding sub-sections..which on the face of it impressive, but in reality, I think it just sold 2 more copies last week.

Its surprising how few copies it takes to push it up the charts.

The US chart positions are less impressive, but I at least broke the top 1400..just

That said, my statement recently showed 223 sales in a period of around 4 months, if it does that again by the christmas statement I will get some moola...not much but enough for dinner maybe.


I am quite pleased though, getting good feedback from users, and some of my own students have been reading the library copies and commented on enjoying it.

I'm going to start giving a class next block using it as the main text book, sadly I can't force them all to buy it, but it will be nice if a few turn up with a copy.


Ahthankyew

that better not be the start

of the end.

Been noticing a distinct stiffness and pain in my index finger joint....its starting to mess with my guitar playing, I do hope this isn't arthitis or something similar, I don't want to lose my guitar playing just as I'm in a band thats actually doing lots of guitar playing...

Asprin seems to take edge off but I'm going to see the doc, even if its not a big deal to him and just one of those age things.....its a big deal to me


Ahthankyew

Ah well

You gotta give love a chance I suppose, but when it continually demonstrates a lack of commitment or interest in your life, its time to say stop.

Crazy idea to find love- experiment #3 over.
Result...failure

Conclusion....stop trying so hard, its not really something that should require effort.

Ahthankyew

Sad to report the tragic death of a beloved son, brother, entertainer, boyfriend, father, and all round good guy.

We've heard from a certain Mrs Guild, that her son Brian has not been posting on his blog for some time, After an extensive investigation we discovered that Brian sadly passed away after a tragic electrical accident while performing with his musical trio, The Famous Belcrum Recordings.
The Image above shows the popular band just before the tragic accident where Brian was reduced to a smouldering lump of charcol due to him dribbling on what was found to be an electically live mic causing 25000v to be dumped into his body.

According to audience members at the event, Brian had just hit a perfect note, for the 1st time during the gig after which there was a bang and they were pleased only to be able to hear lead singer Rosemarie's vocals.
"The band certainly sounded a lot better once they had that nice little fire at the side of the stage and the screaming stopped, there was also a lovely smell of roast pork, which made the atmosphere so much more cosy.", mentioned one attendee.

We reached out to FBR for a comment but so far none has been recieved, an ad for a new guitar player has been posted on their facebook page.




Ahthankyew

Change is hard

As I finish off the last of the MagPi lessons and wrap up the Book projects, along with the last few days of debugging on the Coleco project.

I start to think about the next project which if it comes off will be something very sweet on a Nintendo Switch, I can't say any more than that at the moment but I'm excited about it.

So its office clean up time....and finally fitting my triple monitor stand...which turns out the gas units on it are shit and can't take the weight of my side monitors...hmmm well I'll make do. But I don't like it, its not the way it was, change is uncomfortable...

operation tidy begins.

Ahthankyew

Oh the irony!

Benta is a fussy eater, theres no other way to say it, she likes plain simple home cooked food. Isn't keen at all on dairy, (hence hates my mac and cheese) and can't stand meat that isn't burnt to a crisp...

ok well, as a self confessed foodie, its my duty to expose Benta to  the joy of food. Which is why I had a couple of tickets for a surprise taster menu at a very nice restaurant here in Breda.

She was up for it and actually quite looking forward to it, as was I, I love fine dining and surprise menus.

Well....the restaurant is a lovely cozy place, with attentive staff and an interested chef who was keen to make sure we had no specific dislikes he would avoid. Dairy was mentioned and avoided

And on we go to a couple of small amuse bouche and appetizers . Really lovely.. But then comes a mackerel tartar...nope, she's not having that... awww, no problem I had double...it was stunning.

Then a small eggplant and carrot and raisin salad...just a mouthful, actually quite silly portion size, but its an appetizer. She tries it, almost gags :D  The courses that follow are a bit hit and miss for her but she did like the cooked Red mullet mini, mini fillet, and the wild pork terrine with a scraping of sweet potato and onion puree. It was really nice... overall she enjoyed 50% of the food, so I was feeling quite pleased, but yeah the portions were tiny.

Finally a dessert of coconut  rice cream and ...well bits, this I didn't actually like much, but dutifully ate... Benta had a small taste, said she liked it but didn't finish.

So overall, she wasn't terribly impressed by her 1st fine dining experience so we will have to work up to it, starting and McD's and moving up through KFC before braving a kebab place...

The irony though, is that as soon as I got home, something very very bad stirred in my bowels, and I then spent a good hour on the loo, followed by a rather disturbed night trying hard to avoid throwing something up, which I just managed to do...oh dear...a touch of Mumtaz tum kicked in.(Mumtaz is a great indian restaurant I used to visit a lot in Bradford, but every time I would get a bad tummy, so some kind of allergy).

So whatever I am allergic to was in one the of dishes...and I am feeling rough as a bears arse this morning.
Benta was unimpressed by my Frasier like desire to introduce her to a bit of culture, and I have been duly humbled.

Ahthankyew

Getting quite popular

Very very proud of Famous Belcrum Recordings, we're getting better and better and people are really starting to like what we do, we've acquired a few fans, and our sound and confidence grows with every gig.

Ironically this weekends gig was the smallest we ever had, we were booked for an open air market event, which should have attracted a few hundred, but the heavens decided to open and people stayed away, we moved indoors to a cafe but only a dozen or so people braved the rains, but even so they loved it and we did too. The small audience let us play around a bit and make a few mistakes of course. But it was so much fun.  Rose gets more and more confident with the ballads, it's wonderful to hear.

We also for the 1st time used our own sound set up, which was brilliant to do, I've had my DL1608 unit for a few years and never really got the chance to use it. It performed brilliantly. Though it turns out I can't save the set up, which is frustrating.
But not to worry, I'll keep it exclusive for FBR, which means the settings we used will remain


Ahthankyew

fucked if I know

this is work related.......not going into detail, but sooooo many changes, so much tinkering with processs...need to vent...can we please just focus on making good coders out of beginners.
christ...its not fucking rocket science...whatever the process, thats what I am going to focus on


can't say more, might get read by da' managment



Ahthankyew

diet slow but steady

So the new, don't shove as much in your pie hole diet is slowly taking effect, 3 kilos down so far
Also I've taken the chance to cycle into work a bit more even though our new and currently very disorganized campus is 20-25mins away. Its still a nice cycle while the weather is good. So I'm getting 45 mins of light exercise as well as the reduction in cake and booze.

Work is all very strange at the moment, the new place is not quite where we need it, I don't have a permanent desk for all my gear, which is indeed a pain. Though I've decided to camp at one today with dual monitors which lets me hook things up.

Benta is struggling a bit with getting used to things, its a bit frustrating for me, not being able to help her in some places, especially when I'm at work and she's over in Utrecht trying to figure out buses, but I'm sure she'll get used to it.. When they work they are great, when they don't,......well its stressful




Ahthankyew

Well.... here we go

Benta is settling in, she's a bit overwhelmed by some things and needs to learn that sushi, mac and cheese and various other European foods are good :D an

Its nice having someone to cook for and chat to, I missed that.. things are certainly looking up,

But I have to go back to work on Monday...booooooo
She also starts summer school for her masters on Monday too, so who gets home 1st will be interesting.



Ahthankyew

flights booked, countdown begins

Cheapflights.com is a great site for getting a good deal on flights, even if you go to the sites it recommends you can find the same flights costing double what it costs to book through them.

But finally we got the stamped Visa which allowed us to get the flight booked, and now Benta will be arriving in a very very sunny, but soon to be very rainy Netherlands on Thursday.

Counting down the hours :D

Also to the rain, this heat can go bugger off, I don't want to have to book a trip to Iceland to recover from this holiday period.

Ahthankyew

Its not a tap, its my pits

Every day for the last couple of week's (when not in Scotland) I've come up to the office, sat down,  started to get into some work, and then had to listen to the drip drip drip of sweat from my armpits landing on the floor before slowly starting to realise I am utterly befuddled by the heat.

This is no exaggeration, even with evaporator coolers and fans on full blow, my office is an oven, and heat exhaustion quickly takes over, getting any work done is near impossible.

I'm starting to panic, since I was close to getting a few key things done and dusted to let me enjoy my break. But managing less than 30 mins in every 2 hours, as I scurry for some cool water or cold part of the house (there's aircon in the attic) has meant a total loss of productivity.

I have considered moving my dev systems up to the attic, but it would take 2 days minimum to remove all the music gear on that desk, and re-set up my coding stuff and that assumed I can keep up the pace of going up and down stairs.. Also I don't have good internet upstairs...the walls in my house are too thick and the signal drops off on the 2nd floor, it just fails to get to the 3rd. (I really need to fix that, but have no idea how)

As much as I enjoy sunshine, I'd like it to stay in my preferred location of the Canaries...and not here so I can get on with having a nice quiet refreshed life in my own home

ok well I've wasted 10 mins typing this, and already I'm dripping, sat as I am in sweatpants with no top.

I bet you just as it starts to cool down, I get a cold!


Ahthankyew

Its all about to get very mental

So, lots o... (don't you hate when people start a sentence with so..) f changes about to happen.
Any day now Benta gets her passport back with the visa that lets her get on a flight to start a new life here, mostly dealing with the masters she's doing, but even so, it'll be start of a new life of us.

Of course it also means having a major clear out, so the house is being stripped back and scrubbed, regardless of Benta's arrival , this needs to be done, I've not actually had a proper house clean in a long time, I may also get some paint and touch up the kitchen a bit since the new kitchen is going to have to wait a bit.

Also my new diet/lifestyle choices are in place, I hate it, I really do but I am strong this time.. I can't stand to see any more photo's of me at friends and in this case weddings where I am just a fat beach-ball in a suit.
So since coming back from my cousin Roy's lovely wedding to Katie,  I've been on a very strict 1000Kcal a day diet.
I've bought in shit loads of food, but separated out for individual portions of chicken, steak, pork and burgers. Its all in the freezer, so I have food for a month, Costing about 150euro's,  which is 10 takeaways...hmmm also saving money.

There's nothing wrong with food I eat, when I cook myself, its just that I seem to eat enough for 3.. thats over. Sticking to 1000k is  basically less than half my recommended intake, but it should give very fast results. Its too early to have any real impact but I won't cheat. Every hunger pang is a gramme lost.

Also I'm making a point of cycling every day, even if only for a short 2km warm up around Belcrum, getting my heart beating a bit for a few weeksm,  and then back to the gym again. No point paying for it and not using it, but I do want to drop 5kg before I start that, so I can focus on some toning up rather than worry about fat burning.

Its very hard to do all this in the current heat, its been consistently over 30degs peaking one day at 41.4 outdoors. Ironic that Benta is currently shivering in 19 degree temps in Nairobi, lol, wait till winter.


Ahthankyew

i'm neglecting you both

Sorry readers, not been keeping this updated, doing lots of stuff, some of it actually quite good fun, but also still getting on top of a list of things on my todo list that never seem to end.

But back I am, starting to unwind as the holidays are here, a lovely week so far, only had to get up once, for no reason as it turned out. Its also been astonishing weather, so hot and sweaty making anything more than going up and down stairs a bit of an effort...and yes we know what that means, more promises about losing weight I probably won't keep, but I need to. I've got to fill my time with more than being sat at a computer screen.

I can't deny its had a very direct and serious impact on my mental health, having nothing but work to focus me, means I can't escape from things that bother/worry me, and there's been a lot of that in recent months. Thankfully things are about to change.

I do have a lot to do, in 2 weeks or so Benta will be moving in, getting herself ready to start her masters at Utrecht, so need to get a few things cleaned up and looking respectable...removing that large pile of laundry from the spare room(her office) for one.

The house has suffered quite a bit from nearly 4 years of single male syndrome so its best I have a proper clean out..there's stuff in the fridge I'm sure is 8 years old...time for a full declutter.

I am even...thinking...only thinking...its time to thin the guitar herd down. I am enjoying my playing more and more, especially with Roos and Ed in the Famous Belcrum Recordings, but I realise I am just not playing a lot of my babies...keeping them on the walls as decorations where they don't get played as much as I used to is clearly bad...I might just put them in their cases and hide them away....or sell them....hmmmm not sure..


I've no idea how well the book is selling but I suspect not that well, as I am not seeing a lot of people on the website forums. Plenty of visitors, dropping by though, so maybe they are downloading the files and not signing up...but I suspect my dreams of millionaire author living on a tropical island with a typewriter are about to be smashed.

Anyway, off to do a bit of a bike ride, and get myself some coffee


Ahthankyew

only a couple more weeks

There's a lot going on at the moment with work, both day job and private work, and homework for some exams I have to take, with 0 confidence of passing.

Hence, not too many updates to report, I just sleep, work, drink, sleep, work drink

not good for me really.
oh well, hic!

Ahthankyew

I've not yet succumbed to a heart attack

in spite of the weight gain.

Just been incredibly busy, and only just starting to make a little bit of headway on a few things....looking forward to the summer hols...only 8 more weeks to lots more work :(

Ahthankyew

I'm sooo fat

I don't even want to type the number, its the worst ever..

ok thats it... I said it before, but thats it..

Jezuz I'm so faat

Ahthankyew

End of block....and a holiday

Been a busy stressful block, lots and lots of extra work to do, I had waaay too much on my plate, and just didn't say no..

Still got some things left to deal with but as far as students are concerned its all done now, just extensions to deal with and then a holiday for a week,.

Can't really rest, still have things I have to get done but I can dial back the pace a bit and tackle them in my own time.. Got to get ready for 2 gigs, so need to fit in some practice somewhere,  finish the Coleco project at flaming last, and get the last of the 3D games up on the site.

oh did I say I had less to do...yeah, well that is less.



Ahthankyew

wow...

top 3......wow...just wow...
kindle version too..the hardcopy has been sold out on amazon.co.uk for a week,.

Ahthankyew

yeah shadows working again

I actually got stuck on this for several days,  which was frustrating, I have a shadow demo already and transferred the code to my main test demo, and it didn't work.. Utter confusion, why would it work one demo and not another... it took me several days to realize that my shadow demo project used a much smaller terrain and this one was much bigger and also the light source was stuck in a corner.....

grrr, oh well, its like most bugs, if you have never seen the behaviour before you simple can't see it. I assumed something was up with my code or the new Rasbpian Stretch..but no it was me, I didn't set it up right...but there you are, fixed now...with help from some of my facebook friends.

Behold shadowmapping shadows.
Not the best system for shadows, they tend to be hard and pixelly, but the fact is the Pi's GPU does not really have the power to do the sampling needed to create softer AA shadows so its as good as it will get for now.

Ahthankyew

how hot is too hot?

I'd say the hot and spicy chicken noodles I just ate qualify as too hot.. since after 30mins I am sat at my desk having drunk 2 liters of cold water and still have my tongue hanging breathing in cold air to sooth it.

wow..that was vindaloo levels of spicy.


Ahthankyew

Enough coughing

For about 2 hours today I was engaged in a very serious attempt to cough up, not just one but both lungs.....despite my very best efforts, the lungs stubbornly refused to budge but did succeed in causing me both a massive headache and a pretty impressive strain on my ribs and diaphragm.

Worst coughing fit ever.....


Ahthankyew

Proud daddy slightly disappointed

As I read through "my" book I can't help notice several small errors that are the result of corrections from the type setters. There's plenty of small errors of my own, but it does upset me that the typesetters added their own.

2 really good ones 


on page 8,11 and 12, there is mention of a grey dot when using the debugger.... which is funny because what I wrote was, there is a red dot!Clearly the type setters looked at the monochrome version of the image, and decided to "correct" my text since it certainly is grey in the image.....but of course on your screen its red.
Again a great typesetter error, OOP stands for OOP. What? I wrote OOP stands for Object Oriented Programming.

There's going to be a lot more, at the moment I am just dipping into sections and finding things like this, I need to get some post-its and a highlighter pen and start marking them off for the next edition.

Its quite annoying but also a good lesson to learn, never ever assume the typesetters and proof readers get it right.

On the plus side, its sold out at Amazon :D... I don't think they keep a lot of copies in stock mind, but even so, it sold out. :D






Ahthankyew

Proud daddy gives birth to book

A very special package arrived, only 6 copies though but even so, its amazing to see the book finally in the paper... An unreal sense of pride, now swiftly followed by a sense of fear and dread as I complete the website, and hope that people like it.

Ahthankyew

Manflu over, chest infection of course

Yeah that was a mega manflu, pretty sick and unable to function for most of the week. But over it now, aside from the inevitable chest infection, which also isn't as bad (so far) as I've had

The strange freezing weather though is forcing me to think twice about going out in the cold, so Harvey's walks are being cut back to morning and evening, he can pop out the back garden for a pee.


Hopefully though its done with and the chest will clear up in a week or so.


The book is selling, on kindle at least pretty well, starting to get a lot of visitors to the site, so getting my ass in gear to make sure they are all Jessie and Stretch compatable, as well as Ubuntu and Debian builds

Had a couple of issues  though, mainly with the 2D library I build which I hadn't considered I'd built over the course of 3 projects so its much more than is described in the book, but thats ok, the core features are all there.

Better get back to work....still need to squeeze some time to clear the colecovision game, but work has been overwhelming this last 2 weeks, when I was able to deal with it.

won't get it done sat here on the couch...off upstairs.




Ahthankyew

oh thats a bad one

Yup full man flu, fever, snot, painful chesty cough, headache, weeping eyes, chronic tiredness, and weak as a kitten.

Not your average cold. Going to be a few days to recover, not 100% sure I will make it to work, but it does seem the fever has broke, so I can read a screen again...wasn't able to focus on it for a couple of hours.

Worst possible time to get sick, got a tonne of work on 3 things to deal with and not been able to string 2 coherent thoughts together to actually do anything.

I'm going to try to clean up the house, there's snotty tissues all over the place, and not done the dishes for 4 days...ugg, its a mess.

Harvey has also not had a proper walk for ages, just letting him out the back, so I need to go clear up his mess as well.

Lets hope the chest infection that inevitably follows these man flu's won't take too long to clear up

ok...time to face the stairs...just need to work up to it.




Ahthankyew

croak

stinking cold, really chesty...going to be one of those 6 week chest infection jobs I think

grrr



Ahthankyew

SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!

The book is due to release on March 22...according to Amazon.co.uk, so all my preperation to upload files and support info is set for delivery on March 22


Except it just got released in the US.... I never though to check Amazon.com which has an earlier release date.


oh fuck

Just as well I hadn't planned to sleep tonight


Ahthankyew

No more drips

I finally changed the tap, its only a temp one though a cheap 20quid tap that really isn't quite big enough to give the clearance needed to fill the kettle, but at least the drip drip drip has finally stopped.


I wonder if this will also stop the voices in my head...no, I'm not going to do that.. from telling me what to do.

I said no.


Ahthankyew

Shit is getting real

the book is printed, amazon has the cover pic, and a small preview of the 1st chapter...i'm shitting myself hoping people like my chatty style of prose and can't wait to get my free copies so I can send them out to the people who helped make it happen.


Annoyingly there's an error in the preview, which will be in the main book, nothing major, just an extra word, the, in a sentence, but its scary that I missed it before..

Not much I can do about it now though, unless it sells out and they want a 2nd edition.

The Website is up, still looking a bit clunky but its there, and the files are being tested now to go up live.
Going to be a busy few weeks till the 22nd March when it is released but then I'm going to chill....at least until the 1st negative reviews come in.


Ahthankyew

toothless old grandpa

Oh I forgot to mention, when I was in Kenya my bloody tooth came out. Both my bottom incisors were compromised because of bone necrosis of the jaw caused by my radiotherapy 7 years ago, the bone has been dying away all that time and exposing the teeth, the 1st one lost its foundations about 6 months ago and has been wobbly ever since. It has been a bit of a pain, the Dentist wants me to go to the hospital, but I was
a) busy
b) not happy about going back to the hospital.

So anyway, after a lot of discomfort and wobbling, biting into some toast one morning I bit down on the tooth and it was very painful, and sure enough a few hours later I realized it was still niggling and tugged it, and out it came. No pain, and actually quite a relief, but of course I now have a gap in my teeth.

Its not obvious really, my droopy lip, also cancer treatment relate,  hides it when I smile, but the gap is there to see when I talk.

But I have to say its better out, I can eat again, biting into food, and no fear of biting down on a sore tooth. Now the other tooth will come out in due course, then I will have to go the hospital and see if anything can be done (I know that they can't, there's no bone for an implant) but we'll see how the other tooth manages on its own for now, when, not if, it gets loose I'll talk to the dentist.



Ahthankyew

Kenya Adventures....lots of contrast

After my mad adventures in Thailand,  I decided to take another jump and this time went to Kenya, so I've now been to 4 of the 5 main continents...next on the list is South America, so that's the summer sorted.

But Kenya, well I had wanted to go for some time,  there's a strange connection between Kenya and me, with a few of my ex's having come from there.

I have also been chatting on line with someone interesting who lives in Kenya so the chance to holiday and meet up with the lovely Benta, and spend some time was a no-brainer.

It has been amazing, but a land of such contrast, the poverty is tear jerking in ways that made me ashamed of my species, there's also shocking violence and a sense of dread when walking down even the so called posh parts of town, especially at night. but I think its to be expected in such a large city, where such poverty exists. Driving is a death defying experience, combined with a waiting game in the jams. It so wants to be a modern city, but as much as it tries, its not there.

In the daytime though I went on a walking tour with a fun guide, called Gene, who I managed to out geek on the subject of railway lines and steam engines and even African history and art. Lots of interesting fun, and also jaw dropping arrogance of the empire builders who used people as a disposable commodity when building the line.

Out of the city though my fantastic guide Timothy took us to amazing places, wonderful highland forests, where the +2500m altitude had me gasping for air, but still able to show a natural talent for archery (I need to look into taking that up here), and a surprisingly non complicated ability to let gravity drop me down a zip wire while not screaming like a girl.
Also he showed us some amazing views from the edge of the Great rift Valley, and then a chance to walk among the animals who live there at the Hells Gate park...(not the meat eaters, just the usual non tofu eating vegetarian types in their natural habitat).
Timothy was also arranged for us to spend a night at the Sarova Salt lick game reserve https://www.sarovahotels.com/saltlick-tsavo/

Which was out of this world, Lions, Elephants, warthogs, various antelopes, Ostriches, mongoose,  zebra and lots of other things trotting down to the waterhole in full view of the terrace, just amazing.

Such wonderful things to see, and such lovely company for the trip, there were so many funny moments and breathtaking awesomeness, it was amazing.

A small downside though was a serious bout of tummy troubles, most of the time there, maybe the water I was brushing my teeth with was a bit dodgy, since I only drank bottled, but  it was bad, so much so, that a fart was never undertaken without a lot of  careful preparation, and I got to be very chatty with the local pharmacist who's sales of Imodium tripled while I was there. The last day in particular when the Imodium basically stopped working was a strategic mission from toilet to toilet but I got to the plane with no accidents, and in fact in the plane, I had the dubious joy of discovering that happens when the loo flushes when you are sat on it.....interesting sensation. 

Another downer was the hotel, the Ibis Styles Nairobi, it was awful, I am well used to Ibis's minimal approach, but this was bad, the room was tiny, of course and kept clean, but the staff were slow, chatting among themselves most of the time, the restaurant was a disaster of inept careless food (who serves unrinsed pasta mixed with a full jar of pesto as a dish). The air conditioning, which was the main reason I chose the place, didn't work most of the time, and even when it did it was crap and dropped only 1 degree, and on my last day, at 4am, they had a workman doing some work in the car park below my window at 4am... fucking a.m....using an angle grinder no less for 15 mins then welding.. I was livid.

But am home, once again confident in my farting and looking forward to a fresh block on Monday.

Looking forward to Benta coming to visit NL soon, and then I can show her our tofu eating vegetarians in their natural habitat.



Ahthankyew

More software woes

Fortunately not on the colecovision though, finally I am able to get a few things done on that again, no more missing sprites, its bliss.

And I have been able to do quite a lot due to the fact have had to spend soooo much time installing new software to try to add Android builds to my SBC content....hours and hours spend downloading data. SDK's , tools, platforms etc..but nothing works...what an utter utter waste of time.

Even at the height of the coleco bug, I don't think I have come so close to buying a gun and heading to google HQ...what an utter pile of shit the android dev tools are..I am just too mad to even attempt to try again.

I'm off to warmer climes for a week, escaping the sub zero temps and carnival madness of NL for a week.

I'll take a laptop though, and try to do some more coleco work on the plane.



Ahthankyew

Well that escalated

The bug is dead, all hail Brian, destroyer of bugs, puller of hair, screamer of screams and smasher of keyboards. Let this day be remembered for all eternity, the bug is dead.


What a total fucker...I mean really, months I've been plagued by this, then it would vanish, then come back, then vanish...I just couldn't get any grasp of what and why it was happening

It was random, no specific routine seemed to cause it, my sprites just vanished, nothing I could do would explain it, code still worked but sprites vanished, stepping through the code showed nothing, moving things around showed nothing, altering data seemed to work, but then it would come back.

Months...I'd leave it, come back to it, leave it, spend a week on it, spend an hour on it, rewrite dozens of apparently working parts, alter data systems, redo everything, apart from the cause of course.

And finally after squeezing a bit of code to let me display some values while the game was running I was able to locate the value that was not as it should be (though it was fine on the emlator)

And it turned out to be a clearing of a flag/location value in an interrupt, which the main code also used to set some things up, normally the interrupt would be done loooong before the code needed it, but if the interrupt happened after the code tested for the value, it would never be reset...and lo...the sprites would vanish

The frequency would be erratic, but once cleared after that test, it would never be reset again.

As the code, grew, shrunk, changed did more or less things, the threshold for when the the test occurred would be later and boom, sprites would vanish for no earthly reason...

It never happened on the emulator/debugger because it handles its interrupts slightly differently, and the test was always after the interrupt. Changing data formats had an impact, but only because it altered timing, so so erratic.

shit...months..really maybe a year on and off, it stopped me dead in my tracks many times....Without a doubt the worst bug I have ever had in 30+ years of coding...I have been mystified.

I can finally clean up the Colecovision game and get it finished and delivered, my poor client has been so patient. He'll finally get his game now.

Ahthankyew

Saw the book cover....oh wow

its been 2 years in the making, and I've cursed it more than I've praised it, but the end is near, I just saw the 1st draft cover of my book, with my fucking name on the front...my fucking book,with my fucking name.,..its surreal.. I am chuffed to bits. even though I want a few changes it still is utterly unreal to see.. I can't believe I had the patience to write a book...shit I hope people like it,


Ahthankyew

Oh I broke the forun

Deleted something on the main site, that screwed up the other bits....oh well, reset

Ahthankyew

ohh I added a forum

Though it wasn't easiest thing ever, there was some confusion over where to find the database (I had to buy space on my server) but the site is now complete with a basic forum, all default settings but it will to for testing things out give it a go HERE


Ahthankyew

Website Japes

Its been many many years since I even attempted to set up a website, and I can't honestly claim I have learned anything since then, but I've been slowly putting together the new Scratchpad website, its looking pretty good.

Its rather a slow process though and prone to confusion, I can't say I'm a big fan of  HTML or CSS, but the templates supplied in DreamWeaver which just little bit of aleration are doing the job.

Click on the link above to see the progress so far, its still mostly holding pages but its navigating reasonably well, though I am sure I should break it into smaller pages for faster loading or some such web developer taboo.

Ahthankyew

Radio 2 and coding.

Dunno why, but I always find having Radio on while I work to be quite focusing, I've even been known to head bop a bit if a catchy song comes on as I am typing.

I've now grown up and switched to BBC Radio 2...I dunno why but BBC Radio One just bores me to tears now, in the same way Radio 2 used to 10 years ago.. Things change eh!


Had a few days of no motivation to work, which is ok as it was New year and I hadn't really planned to do too much work, but hard at it today, clearing off the next article and making some great progress on the Colecovision game (yes still working on it)

Article is all written up, just testing the code on a couple of different Pi's to make sure the recent Jesse-stretch update does not cause too many issues.

Back is 99% back to normal, so off to the Gym tomorrow to resume the torture, and I'll be cycling to the cinema tonight to finally get my Star Wars fix, sadly its been spoiled to death but I'll still enjoy the movie.

Kinda looking forward to going back to work on Monday, but really want to get the decks cleared 1st so back to my head bopping, as I'm every woman is now playing on the Ken Bruce show.



Ahthankyew