Darren's personal blog

Had a trip down to see Martyn and Em the other week and ended up having a day trip out to Bletchley Park, home of the code breakers during World War II. This is the place where the Enigma code was decoded, and the worlds first programmable computer was produced, Colossus, which has been lovingly rebuilt from eight war time photos and some illegally kept partial circuit diagrams. (It was in England, not America, that the first computer was built. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!) Well worth a trip to see, especially if you are in to computers or anything from the WWII era. There are collections of Churchill memorabilia (one couple's personal collection, put on show for everyone), cinematography, and other similar things. Also, the stately house is open for wanderings which may interest people too

Also, getting started at Bletchley Park, is the National Museum of Computing. It isn't quite ready for the public yet, but Martyn, being of geek persuasion, wanted to volunteer which meant we got a private guided tour around what was happening behind the scenes. The plans that they have for the place look rather impressive, including a room dedicated to british computing. It looks like there may well be quite a bit of hands on exhibits too, including all the home computers running classic games for you to play. I'm going to make a list of all my old computers (including a very old Compaq luggable) to see if I can make any donations. Not holding my breath, but if I can get rid of a couple of items to a good home that will make me happy!

So, if you are ever in the area and want a good day out it is well worth the trip. You can go back at any point within a year of your first visit for free too which I think we probably will do when the computer museum opens.

Recently I've been playing a game that Lionel put me on to called Tribal Wars which is very good fun. Basically its a web based strategy game where you build up your village, recruit some thugs, and plunder other villages around you, eventually taking over other villages and growing your empire. To help all this you can also if you wish join a guild and enlist the help/protection of hundreds of other players. The best part of all is the fact that it is set up to play over a very long time. Building and recruiting is done over a span of hours, along with resource build up. This means that you can set something up in the morning, go to work and leave it to run its course.

After playing that for a month or two, I've had a look for a different one to play with a more sci-fi theme and have no found one called Astro Empires. The basics are very similar to Tribal Wars except on a larger scale. In this you set up your base and build up your structures whilst researching new technologies. Once you get to a certain level you then start sending out your scouts and outpost ships to colonise new planets. Again you have the choice of joining guilds to help you which comes in very handy if someone decides to attack you! Astro Empires is actually a lot more flexible than Tribal Wars, with a lot more scope for designing your base, the ability to set up trade routes, and also hire commanders with certain skills to help you run your bases.

Both games are free, with the choice of paying for an account upgrade (both offer free trials of upgrades) to give you various benefits such as larger construction queues and an advanced interface. Definately worth a try, click the banner below to play Astro Empires!

Thankfully, on friday, we actually managed to remember that we had tickets to see a 'play in the park' at Williamson's Park. Earlier in the year we'd managed to forget that we had tickets, only remembering a couple of days later!

We'd been planning on going to a play for a number of years, but this is the first time we've actually managed to be 'cultured' and go and see one. Unfortunately we didn't fancy the Duke's one this year, so we decided to watch a traditional Shakespeare one, a Midsummer Nights Dream by the Chapterhouse Theatre Company.

We wandered up to the park about half an hour before it started to pick up our tickets and get some good seats. I'm glad we did seeing as it got rather busy, infact I think the dell (main ampitheatre in the park) was packed by the time the show started. One of the theatre company came out and introduced the show, also telling us that in the event of rain, we'd get wet, which was nice of him! The whole play was performed by the same eight actors, who definately got a lot of practice at quick changes. It was all rather well done and you soon learnt to associate with the costumes rather than the faces of the actors.

It did attempt to rain on a couple of occasions, which was met by a lot of rustling of coats, macs and umbrellas. In fact, there were some pretty thoughtless people in the middle of the audience who seemed to think that people could see through their 'brollies! The rain didn't amount to much and we only got a little damp, but noone seemed to care.

All in all, it was a play not to be missed and we'll definately be going back to watch some more when they start again next year. If you get a chance to go to one, you'd be a fool to miss it! Hopefully the Duke's will put on a play that we both want to see as theirs are set in various locations around the park which should make it even more interesting!

Well, I've just got back from LUG Radio Live '07 and I'd like to say I've had a fantastic weekend. I met Martyn on Friday evening (after a 4 1/2 hour journey that was only meant to be just under 2 hours) and checked into the hotel before going along to the Hogs Head in the middle of Wolverhampton. The location of the hotel was a pleasant surprise having not checked exactly where it was in relation to the venue or the pubs and finding it was less than 30 seconds away from both! Definately going to stay there next year!

Everyone was fantastic and friendly, and the exhibitors must not have any voices left after being constantly bombarded with questions and happily answering every single one!

There was the usual caliber of speakers too, ranging from well know linux kernel hackers (Linus' number two, Alan Cox) and Ex Novell employees (Ted Haeger) to some smaller companies with some new technologies and ideas (Collabora). Even Microsoft was present, tho' I think after the Mass Debate he was wishing he wasn't!

One thing that did crop up quite a lot this weekend was the subject of our rights in relation to both media and government. Until recently there hasn't been anyone to fight for our rights who didn't have a financial agenda. The people making the decisions were, through no fault of their own, not technically minded and were being led by large corporations (*cough*, Microsoft) with noone to tell them differently. Well, now there is an Open Rights Group who are going to parliment and fighting to keep our rights in check on everything from music copyright to digital voting. Join in the effort by signing up and donating.

It has definately been a fun filled weekend, with plenty of things to check out and keep me going for a while!

I am proud that I managed to resist the temptation of buying a GP2X, maybe next year!

Its not like me to take notice of something Microsoft are doing, but this latest video of their Surface interface looks good.

They do tend to make a big deal of the technology behind it, but it is actually old tech that is very cheap and easy to reproduce called FTIR. Infact, there are even instructions on the net for building your own multitouch interface quite cheaply. Also, note that because it uses projection technology to get the image on the screen, the demos that you see are always in quite a dark room.

Microsoft Surface video hosted at Popular Mechanics