Insect Cases

When I blogged about my moth and butterfly collection, Helen noticed that there were some strange insect cases in one of the boxes that I hadn't mentioned. I can't remember what they are and there isn't a label in the box. Here is a better picture so that hopefully someone can help identify them for us.

I think they were collected from a rocky riverbank on a hot sunny day at Linton in the Yorkshire Dales, but that's quite a hazy memory so could be wrong!

Raspberry Pi: Small Computer, Big Ideas

When I was growing up, computers were only just starting to make inroads into schools and homes, mostly via affordable (not to everyone true, but to a large slice of the population than previously) machines such as the BBC Micro, and the ZX Spectrum. As I've mentioned before my first serious forays into computer programming where actually with an Acorn Electron (a cut down, and hence cheaper, version of the BBC Micro). While these machines were often used as glorified typewriters or for playing games they were also easy to programme. When you turned them on they didn't boot straight into some complex graphical operating system, but to a simple prompt. You could enter commands that would load programmes, or you could enter simple commands that would make the computer do something. If you messed up you just turned the machine off and then on again. There was no danger of you messing the machine up in any way that would stop it working perfectly next time you turned it on. Combined these two things led to a generation of kids who messed around programming computers and who have grown up and become software engineers.

Unfortunately as computers have become more complex, the ability to experiment with programming has reduced. Also it is much easier to mess up a modern computer so that it requires a complete re-install rather than just a quick on-off of the power switch. Together this things seem to have led to a severe drop in the number of kids who are learning to programme. Of course they aren't helped by the focus of IT lessons in schools towards knowing how to use office software rather than teaching computing skills.

Having been involved in university lab classes and marking assignments over the last decade, it is clear even to me that most students arriving for an undergraduate course in computing have very few existing skills. Unfortunately they tend to graduate without learning too many more. Yes they can knock up a programme to solve a particular assignment, but often they pay no attention to details such as maintainability or efficiency (time or space). Let's just say that if I had to build up a team of programmers I doubt I'd be willing to hire most current computer science graduates, given the level of programming ability I've seen. Now I'm not really in a position to affect more than a few students by giving constructive feedback on assignments etc. Fortunately there are plenty of other people in the UK who agree that the level of computing knowledge among today's kids has fallen so far that we are in danger of not producing enough qualified graduates. Their solution to the problem is the Raspberry Pi.

I've been following the Raspberry Pi project for a while, and when they went on sale at the end of February I got my order in at the first possible moment. Due to the overwhelming demand in the device the websites of the two distributors were almost brought down. Anyway I must have been one of the earliest through the ordering process because my Raspberry Pi was one of just 2,000 that have currently been sent out to customers. So what exactly is a Raspberry Pi?

Put simply a Raspberry Pi is a fully fledged computer. It has all the same fundamental components as any regular desktop computer but costs, wait for it, just $35 and is the size of a credit card! The idea being that it is as cheap to kit out an entire class with a Raspberry Pi each as it would be with a textbook each. The computer has 256MB of RAM (not all of it is available as some is used by the GPU), uses a 700MHz ARM CPU (similar to that which you'd find in a smartphone), and an SD card for storage. All you need to do is add a keyboard (and mouse if you are using a GUI), a display, and then power it using a mobile phone charger. For a display you can use either HDMI or composite which allows you to plug it into old and modern TV's as well as modern computer monitors (via a HDMI to DVI-D cable). The SD card contains the whole operating system and is easy to re-image (i.e. recreate) if it gets messed up (it took about 30 seconds for me to set up my card using the default Debian distribution).

The idea then is to get these into schools were kids can learn to programme and about how computers work without worrying about messing up a family PC, or a PC required for standard ICT lessons etc. Currently though most of the Raspberry Pi's will have been bought by people like me who are interested in technology and grew up programming simpler machines than we commonly use today. We will iron out any bugs in the hardware, and write software for the device, so that when, later in the year, a cased version is launched for schools there will be teaching material and applications available. I'll certainly try and help the community in anyway I can and for the first time in over a decade I have hope that maybe the level of computing skills I see in undergraduates might actually go up rather than down!

Oh and from a quick play this afternoon, it can run GATE! (For those who don't know GATE is how I earn my living).

Raspberry Pi

Now I know that I don't usually blog about computing things on this blog as I know the posts tend to bore a lot of you. I am, however, going to do a number of posts about the Raspberry Pi.

There are currently only about 2,000 of these things in the wild and mine arrived this morning. More details on what exactly this little thing is and why it's got me excited in later posts once I've had chance to have a play with it.

I Collected Dead Things

In August last year I blogged about some pictures I'd seen in a hotel room that were made from moth and butterfly wings. In the comments to that post I mentioned that as a child I used to collect moths and butterflies and that they were pinned and labelled in old soap boxes in my parents house. I also promised that at some point I'd do a post about the collection.

Now I can't remember when I first started the collection, although I do know the lid decoration came quite a bit later when I used the collection to gain my Collectors badge in the Cub Scouts.

Now the lid should help explain the title of this post; I only ever collected specimens which I found dead. I would never have (and still wouldn't) consider killing a moth or a butterfly to add it to a collection. Not that I've add to the collection in a number of years, mostly as the boxes have been in my parents loft as Bryony won't let me have them in the house (she likes butterflies but hates moths, even if they are dead), but also as it's a long time since I've actually seen a dead moth or butterfly.

Now I know there are plenty more people, like Bryony, that don't like moths and/or butterflies so for the first time on this blog I'm going to make you click through to the rest of this post so you only see the photos if you want to (although if you are reading this on the post page then the link will be missing and that whole sentence won't make much sense, but nevermind).

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Where Shall We Play Today?

While Where Shall We Play Today? by Gilly Meredith isn't a book I remember from my childhood (unlike Bryony), but I'm fairly certain that both Hedgehog and Mouse would have known that an abandoned iron works wasn't a safe place to play. Unfortunately I'm neither a mouse or a hedgehog, so I thought it was a splendid idea, especially at night!

Last week I was in Duisburg (it's a ten minute train journey from Düsseldorf airport) to attend a Khresmoi project meeting. We had the usual project dinner on the Tuesday evening (excellent food and wine), but on the Monday night one of the local organizers (thanks Sascha) had organized a sightseeing trip to Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord.

I hadn't looked at the park's website so I didn't really know what we were going to see. The only hint I'd had was someone mentioning that it was built on an old industrial complex. We arrived at the park around 8pm as the sun was beginning to set and it was clear that this wasn't a flat and green park land, but rather the remains of a substantial factory complex -- in fact an iron works.

By the time we had found our guide for the evening it was getting very dark. Fortunately the buildings are lit up at night in a multi-coloured light-show so in most places (but definitely not all) you can at least see where you are putting your feet. We started with a general introduction to the park, where we found out that the iron works closed 27 years ago and that the park officially opened in 1994 and now contains one of the biggest indoor scuba diving centres in the old gas storage tank. Of course diving wouldn't be fun without things to explore so there is a ship wreck and a crashed airplane, a few cars and an artificial reef! Leaving the tank behind we headed further into the works.

The first thing to notice once you head into the works is that a park such as this would never be allowed in the UK. Given that we seem to need Health and Safety signs for almost everything (including exposed tree roots in a forest) I'm sure an abandoned iron works being made open to the public would be completely out of the question. There are plenty of places to trip, fall and bang your head, especially at night and yet the park is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Even access to almost the top of one of the blast furnaces isn't restricted (it's a good couple of hundred feet up in the air). The stairs are steep and exposed, and when you do eventually make it to the top there is just a simple rail around the platform (which seems to be a favorite place for teenagers to gather for a quiet beer). Don't get me wrong I thought it was wonderful, I'm just surprised there aren't more accidents.

As I've already mentioned the buildings themselves are lit up at night to form a large artwork that can be seen for miles around, but some of the buildings are also used for temporary art displays, including what our guide referred to as the floating shower caps!

We spent around over two hours exploring the park and it was a really good evening. I didn't think I'd ever better my night time wonder around Berlin for project meeting entertainment, but this was better. I think this was partly because you never quite knew what to expect around the next corner, while in Berlin you have a good idea of the sites you will visit. I'll finish with one last photo showing the majority of the factory (including the crocodile crane). If you look at the large version then you can see the steps up the side of the blast furnace which gives you some idea of how exposed it was and how high we ended up.

Confused By The Weather

Along with most of the UK we have been having a rather mild couple of weeks. So mild in fact that I've already seen a butterfly!

I'm not sure where it had been over wintering but on the 24th of February my attention was distracted by a Speckled Wood sunning itself on the inside of my study window. It was a warm enough day to have the window open but I wouldn't have thought it was late enough in the year for butterflies. Unfortunately I have a number of plants on my windowsill which got in the way of a decent photo (every time I tried to move one of them it upset the butterfly so it didn't seem worth trying too hard). After about twenty minutes it eventually flew out of the open window.

I've no idea if it will have survived the cooler temperatures overnight, but there is definitely something weird going on with the seasons this year. There was blossom on a cherry tree nearby just after Christmas and now a butterfly in February!

A Dragon Shaped Meeple

I've blogged about meeples before, but it turns out that as well as people shaped meeples you can get dragon shaped meeples! The dragon comes as part of an expansion to the Carcassonne game where I first discovered meeples.

It turns out that there are quite a few expansions to the basic game, most of which can all be played together, and so I can now look forward to other shaped meeples including builders, pigs, mayors, barns, waggons and even ghosts! Many of the board games we have bought over the years haven't been played much after the initial novelty has worn off, but we keep going back to Carcassonne and the expansiosn certainly help to keep it interesting, even if a dragon removes it from reality somewhat!