Time Lapse Videos of the Garden (1 of 3)

I've gotten quite into hillwalking this year. In fact I even have another blog dedicated purely to that which I will shameless plug here: it is munrochallenge.wordpress.com and it details me and my friend Martyn's attempt to climb 52 munros this year. (We've managed 3 so far.) As part of this new hobby I signed up to a few on-line forums to meet other people with similar interests and one of the forums I go on frequently is the one at walkhighlands.co.uk.

It was on here that a user known as Alastair S (probably his real name!) posted up a thread talking about a little computer program he had made. What it does is connects to public internet cameras anywhere in the world you point it to and downloads an image from them once every minute. When it has a large collection of these images it creates a video out of them which is played back at 20 frames per second. This hence lets you watch an entire days, weeks, months or even years worth of footage in just a few minutes. It's a technique known as 'time lapse video' and it can make for some very interesting videos. Here are a couple he has produced so far:

Braemar Snow Gate

Fixing the Sankey Water Butt

So given its mostly good reviews I bought a Sankey 210L Water butt from B&Q and was pretty happy with the purchase given the size of it and the fairly sturdy design. It is a bit on the expensive side and having to buy the stand separately was a bit annoying but I weighed it up and decided to go for it anyway. Big mistake!

The Sankey 210L Water butt 

After having it in the garden for a few weeks I found it kept falling over. Not sure if it was being pushed or blowing over because of the wind so I decided to fill it about a quarter of the way with tap water to weight it down a little. It was at this point I found that the water butt leaked through the tap!

Gardening Plans for 2013

So as you can see from this picture taken today (21st March) even though we are officially in Spring it still isn't quite gardening weather.

So instead I thought I'd share my plans for this year with you.

This year is going to be all about colour! What I want to do is create a rainbow effect round the border of the garden going from violet colours on the left round to reds on the right with all the colours in between in the middle.

Really this shouldn't be too hard since I plan on purchasing plants this year rather than growing them myself. I know, I know, it's cheating, but I just don't have the time to dedicate to growing from seed just now and especially not for the amount of plants I think I'm going to need.

The plant of choice is going to be Primulas; they are colourful, readily available, quite hardy and don't cost the earth.

Other than the border I'll probably give some vegetables a try again. Most of the hard work of digging up the lawn to make space for a vegetable patch was done last year so hopefully I can give more time to the tending of the veg and actually get something to show for it this year. We'll see...

Finally I'm going to plant some roses in the little strip of garden I have to the left of the house. Putting the water butt there (which needs the seal fixed btw) isn't enough as it keep getting blown or pushed over. Some thorny roses should do the job and I'll spend the little bit extra money to get fragrant ones which will hopefully add to the garden overall.

Or at least that's the plan if the snow ever leaves...

Inside Sega Megadrive Carts

For Christmas Santa was kind enough to bring me a great new toy known as the Arduino to play with. If you haven’t heard of the Arduino you can check it out at http://arduino.cc/ but basically it is a little programmable board than can use a variety of sensors and components to interact with its environment. It is also, I’m led to believe, a good way to get an understanding of electrical engineering, circuits and the like which is something I’ve wanted to know more about for a while now.

One of the very cool projects I’ve saw with the Arduino (and a large part of the inspiration for me getting one) is this Gameboy Cart Dumper by Alex of InsideGadgets:

What’s happening in the video is he is showing you his project that is able to read the data stored on the ROM of the Gameboy cart to his computer using the Arduino. He is also able to read and write to the SRAM using exactly the same set up. Basically he has created his own ROM dumper, very cool!

You can view more of his videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/insidegadgets or check out his blog at http://www.insidegadgets.com/.

As you may know I’m a lot more interested in the Sega Megadrive than the Gameboy so would like to perform the same task on Megadrive cartridges. In order to do so it is important to see inside the carts so I know just what I am going to have to deal with. So here is the insides of several Megadrive carts, hopefully it will be of some use to you as well.

Mega-Lo-Mania

Front

Back

Only 1 chip, the ROM and a couple of components, a resistor on the left and a capacitor on the right I think.

This would be a 'typical' or basic cartridge. The game uses passwords for saving so doesn't need any SRAM making the insides very straight forward.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Back

Front

I thought it was a large ROM but it doesn’t look like it is as it’s the same as Mega-Lo-Mania only the components are reversed.

Shining Force 2

Front

Back

This game does use SRAM for saving and as you can see there is a lot more going on inside. The big chip at the bottom is the ROM we are used to seeing with its capacitor and resistor. Above it are all the components involved in saving, namely a battery on the right with a small chip next to it. This chip is the controller which decides if we should use the battery or not depending on the voltage across the cart.

Next to that, also at the top, is a NAND gate. I'm not sure what purpose this has at the moment but I think it is for selecting between the other chips available.

The long one below that the SRAM chip which is where all our save data is stored.

I got most this info from Googling the chip numbers which turned up the following pages from alldatasheet.com: (Same order as above) BA6162, SN74HC00N, GM76C88AL.

Mega Games 6

Front

Back

This is a cart that has 6 games on the one cartridge. We can see they are spread across 2 ROMS, we still have a capacitor and resistors dotted around the place and also another chip. This is the same chip as in the Shining Force 2 cart above, the SN74HC00N NAND gate, making me more certain that it is for choosing between chips.

Fantastic Dizzy and Cosmic Spacehead

This is a special case and I thought was worth extra mention even though I couldn't get the cart open! These two games come on the same cart but it is one of those funny J-Carts developed by Codmaster and they don't open the same as standard carts.

At first I thought it was just the 2 clasps on the top that needed pushed in to open it as there aren't any screws visible on the case.

J-cart top clasps

As you can see below, it still isn't open despite me sliding my 2 screws drivers all the way down the side.

Un-openable J-cart

Clearly there is more to it. Upon investigation of my other games I found this:

Screw poking out the front of a J-cart

Close up

There are 2 screws on the front of the cart as well under the sticker! Well played Codemaster, well played!

As it stands I don't want to rip the label of my Dizzy/Cosmic game so I've bought a cheap copy of Pete Sampras Tennis which is also a J-cart just for opening up. It isn't a dual game cart but it does have 2 control ports built into the cart so should be interesting.

I'll post up what it looks like when it arrives.

[It arrives]

Pete Sampras Tennis

So here is Pete Sampras Tennis, I've no idea if it is a good game or not because that's not what we are interested in so I haven't even checked if it's working!

Pete Sampras Tennis with additional control ports

The secret screw

To open it up I used a small star key (it's like an allen key or a hex key but star shaped) which is marked T10. I really don't know much about this tool but it was part of my ratchet set and I'm glad to have finally used it!

The start shaped T10 bit

So with the case open and the PCB removed this is what we are left with:

Front

Back

The control ports, some red things which I'm not sure what they are, some chips (left and right are SN74LS244 and in the middle is... I have no idea, can't get a good hit from Google) and then the ROM.

Getting in Without Breaking the Carts

When I bought my Flash cart for the Sega I had to open one of the cases to replace the PCB (the chip boards we've been looking at) with the one for the Flash board. Unfortunately the Megadrive carts have some funny shaped security screws which need a special bit to open.

Being the ever resourceful person I decided to try the ‘melted pen’ method where you get a cheap, plastic pen and melt the end into the screw then hold it till it dries. It is meant to give you a plastic screwdriver that can open any of the Megadrive cases. All it gave me is a broken pen.

I then tried taking a hand drill to one of the carts. This worked but was a lot like using a bazooka to kill fly and unsurprisingly I could no longer claim the cart was in ‘mint condition’.

This time I order these high quality drill bits from The Video Game Museum on Ebay:

Special bits for the Nintendo and Sega cartridges

They are really strong, fit in my Black and Decker screw driver (I think it’s a standard size) and do the job perfectly. For less than a tenner for both the Nintendo and the Sega bit plus 5 batteries to replace the ones in your carts that use SRAM they are well worth investing in.

That’s it for now. I’ll have more information about ROM dumping via the Arduino as and when I work it out and will update this entry with more Megadrive carts insides as I discover them.

Bug Out Bag

I think the term 'Bug Out Bag' is an Americanism, I've certainly never heard of anyone having to bug out in the U.K (of course I've never been in a position where people around me have had to enough times to have an actual term for it). Our equivalent would probably just be called an emergency bag, maybe an evac bag (as in evacuation) at a push but really I don't think we have a term that sums up so elegantly (or so catchy-lay) the aim behind this piece of kit.

For those who don't know your Bug Out Bag is the bag you have ready for when you need to 'bug out.' And for those who don't know what bugging out is Yahoo Answers gives a great explanation:

"The etymology is from watching a collection of bugs that were under a rock or a trash-can that is suddenly lifted (or a kitchen where the lights have just been turned on!). The bugs freeze for a half-second, then all immediately scramble away as fast as they possibly can. They, in essence, "bug out."" - BRaini

So bugging out is when you need to leave a location and leave it fast!

Therefore a Bug Out Bag is a prepared bag that you keep for this very occasion. It should be filled with the necessary and useful items you'll want to have with you in order to cope in an emergency. You can (and should) use a certain amount of common sense when planning and packing your Bug Out Bag. There isn't much point in packing gear specific to mountain climbing if you live on a plain with the nearest mountain being hundreds of miles away. There is also little point in packing gear for emergencies that are very unlikely, such as earthquakes in the U.K.

Of course as we all know Z-day isn't just likely, it's definite, the only unknown is when it is going to happen.*

So this is what I have in my Bug Out Bag as of today along with a little note of what I intend to get. Hopefully you will find it useful in planning your own bag or perhaps you can clue me in to some of the things I might want to consider adding / removing. Keep in mind that my intention with this bag isn't long time survival; just enough to get to get me to a more defencible location or, on the odd occasion the weather is decent in Scotland, to get me through a night's camping.

Now on with the show...

The Bag
The bag is rather unsurprisingly a pretty major component in the whole Bug Out Bag caboodle. It's where the majority of your bugging out kit is going to be stored and is going to be invaluable when it comes to getting from place to place.

My bag of choice is this TRESPASS FREEFLOW 35 which able to carry a fair amount (XX Ltr) whilst still being pretty light itself.

Adjustable side and centre fasteners plus cover buckle.

Back support allowing flow of air and comfort.

I've had this bag out a few times now and it's pretty comfy to wear. After a couple of hours walking it can get a bit irritating but I dare say that'll be the same for all bags (or maybe I just need to get out and about with it more).

One thing I do have a habit of doing to hooking my tent to the bottom of the bag. I've heard this is a bad idea since it puts undue strain on the shoulders and has a tendency to wobble about. There may be some truth to this but it hooks on really securely there and I can't see anywhere on the top where it'll stay in place quite as well. I should probably spend a bit more time trying to find a way to get it to stay on top, if only to see the difference.

Also in my bag is this as yet unused bladder. I pulled this out of another smaller bag I threw out a couple of weeks ago since it was worn out. The reason it is unused is because I didn't even know it was in the bag until I had a thorough search through to make sure I wasn't throwing out anything of value. Certainly glad I did!

As yet unused bladder bag.

It's 1.5ltr which is a good amount of fluid to be carrying given the advised amount is 1.5 to 3ltrs per day. This means that in a clinch, even if I can't get access to any other supply, I should be able to stretch this out long enough to last until I find access to another source.

Sleeping Arrangements
With any luck I won't have to sleep rough when bugging out but you know what they say, hope for the best plan for the worst, so I've got a tent ready regardless. However, as far as defences from zombies go a tent is a pretty weak defence. A very weak defence. You might even be better off without it. But as mentioned I also use this for camping and the tent is pretty necessary then. Put it this way, come bug out time I'll grab it but I won't be worried about ditching it in a crunch.

Vango Delta 300 tent.

The tent itself is pretty decent. 3 person with a bit of an awning and easy to put up and take down although I could do with more experience doing so. It is quite heavy for making a quick escape so it some point I might want to swap it for something a bit smaller and a bit lighter.

A tent alone may keep you dry but it won't keep you warm so I also pack these:

Vango 2 Season sleeping bags.

These are something I would be more likely to keep with me until I found somewhere permanent to set up. Maybe not both of them but certainly one of them as it fits well in my bag along with the rest of my supplies. I hope the wife doesn't mind snuggling if she isn't prepared to carry her own sleeping bag! They are only 2 season but they seem warm enough to me.

Talking about comfort I've also got a sleeping mat that straps nicely to the side of my bag.

Sleeping mat.

I use the word 'nicely' here because I can't really claim it straps securely given that on my last trip up Mt Keen the mountain stole one from me and sent it flying down the hill never to be seen again. I didn't even make it to the summit either! Gutted! Obviously this isn't an essential but it is ultra light, straps on well and sometimes I like my luxuries.

Food, Drink and First Aid
When you are on the move you're going to need food and you are going to need something to drink. With any luck you won't need first aid but you're going to want to have it with you just in case you do. To that end here are my eating, drinking and first aid supplies.

Food, drink and first aid supplies. Well packed.

Here we can see a frying pan with a removable handle on the bottom left, a mess tin filled with supplies in the middle, a gas can on the bottom right, a metal water on the top right and a can of midge spray on the top left. If you've ever been out in the Scottish countryside you'll know that midge spray is a necessity!

Here is the mess tin unpacked:

Unpacked mess tin. Making the best use of space.

You can see I've managed to cram quite a lot of stuff in there. Here is a quick run down of everything you can see:

• Non-medical
• Mess tin
• Fork, spoon and knife that clip together
• Pocket SAS Survival Guide
• Warm socks
• Emergency phone charger
• Motion rechargeable torch
• Clip on stove

• Medical
• Small first aid bag
• Sling
• Tape and safety pins
• Scissors
• Sterile wipe
• Plasters
• Paracetamol
• Moist wipe

Clearly my first aid kit needs a lot more work. The stove is good though as it fits directly onto gas canisters and regulates the flow. The rechargeable torch takes a lot of work to recharge and gives off little light but since it can be changed without a mains supply it is a welcome addition. The emergency phone charger is also a welcome addition as it has several adaptors for charging different pieces of equipment including most usefully a mini usb adaptor (the real usefulness of this will be made clearer later). Finally the SAS Survival Guide is probably the one bit of kit I bought specifically for an emergency, bugging out situation. I don't know a huge amount about wilderness survival so may need to complete a bit of trial and error before getting things right. If it's an emergency and I'm needing to catch food, make shelter and so on in order to survive I'd rather have some sort of guide to help me get it right first time. I'm not completely leaving it till emergency time to learn though and have read through the book a few times. Come summer I'll try some of the stuff out.

Additional Items
There are some other bits and pieces that don't fit into the categories above and don't really being in any other categories. I guess I probably could split them up a bit more into things like Navigation, Clothing and Tools but since there is so few I've decided to group them together into Additional Items.

Here they are.

Compasses, fire starter, pvc tape.

At first I was going to write compi but that just didn't sound right. Sure enough it's compasses, not compi. You might wander why I have two. Well, one is a cheap piece of crap and the other is a decent piece of kit. Or at least I think it is, I'm not exactly a compass evaluation expert but it looks a lot more professional and came with a guide on taking bearings, something I should really learn to do more accurately soon. I'll still carry the cheaper one because it's light, can clip onto my bag, is still accurate and it doesn't hurt to keep a backup when you can do so at next to no cost.

The Magnesium Fire Starter is definitely something I bought cause it sounded cool! I was sure I'd tried it out so was pretty surprised when I found it was still sealed in its packaging. I reckon I'm going to find an open one lying about somewhere I've forgotten about. Yet another thing I need to try out next time I'm camping I guess. If you're not sure what it is it is basically a metal fire lighter. You shave a little bit of the large block off using the file that is attached to the block (saves it going missing) and then run the striker (also attached) along it to light it. It burns at a huge temperature and should quickly set anything on fire.

The PVC tape is there because sometimes you need to stick things to things and this stuff is light, waterproof and reasonably strong. It's not as good as duct tape though so I really should replace it with that or carry both.

In addition to these I also have my multi-tool:

Leatherman Multi-tool.

It's a Leatherman so I'm pretty certain it's reliable. It might not be the most feature filled tool in the world but it should be enough to cover a variety of situations. Besides, it was a gift so what ya gonna do?

I also have some extra clothing in my bag as well in case it's cold when I need to make tracks, and some spare tent pegs. They really don't need any explaining I don't think.

Hat, scarf, gloves and tent pegs.

Items Near The Bag
Not everything I want to take with me is kept in the bag. Some things I would definitely grab but also use in regular day to day life so don't keep them in tucked away. Some people may think this is sacrilegious to the whole Bug Out Bag ethos but I think it is safe enough. Here are those items:

Torches, hand torch and head torch.

There is already a torch in my bag but as I mentioned it's not very powerful so I'd prefer to have a normal battery powered one as well and this one on the left is pretty good. It's small and light, only uses 2 AA batteries and is covered in robust rubber making it pretty rugged. The torch on the right is a head wearable one, very useful for keeping your hands free and giving you light wherever you look. It's a bit battery heavy though needing 4 AAAs but it runs on LEDs so the batteries last pretty long.

Amazon Kindle.

This is so useful! I highly recommend it for any Bug Out Bag and just for anyone in general really. You can store thousands of books on it, it has a battery life of about a month, it charges through the very common mini USB and it weighs hardly anything. I dare say it weighs less than the pocket SAS book I bought before getting the Kindle. That being said I'd still carry the SAS book in addition to it given that a normal book doesn't rely on electricity to be read.

I mostly have entertainment books on the Kindle just now but I also have a few on vegetable gardening and homesteading which will be invaluable after Z-day when we need to start fending for ourselves for food.

Items Missing
Looking over the list I've wrote up I'm sure there are things missing. What I'm not certain about is what they are. Here is a short list of the few things I can think of:

• Actual food and drink supplies, rather than just the tools to cook and carry them are definitely lacking.
• Rope and duct tape would be really handy to have.
• A good knife, serrated and not.
• Notepad and pencil, useful to have.
• Walkie-talkies, not urgent but could be useful.
• Fishing line and lures. Not that I'm one for fishing but they are so small, light and useful it makes sense to carry them.

Let me know if there is anything else missing from my list. I'd rather you gave me a hard time now than leave me to find out the hard way later!

Till next time, take care and be prepared.

Ryan

Everything packed up and ready to go. Minus the tent.

*Unless the machines rise up first which isn't a problem as the results, and hence the preparations, are very much the same.

My history of zombie-ing

So zombies eh...

It's hard to say where my interest in zombies really began. The first zombie film I remember seeing is Return of The Living Dead 3. I'm not sure why that one stands out in my head more than any other but it just does and I haven't saw it in years either. Reminiscing really makes me want to go and see it!

Return of the Living Dead 3

Although it's the one I remember most it's not my favourite of the genera by a long shot. My favourite has to be Dawn of The Dead, it knocks the socks off of everything else.

Dawn of The Dead

It's a great film, so much going for it. Great build up, great action scenes, drama, suspense, twists and then there is the whole social commentary aspect of it. That being said I'm not a pretentious film critic or anything so I'm not going to go on about how great a film it is or even go so far as to say it is waaaayyy superior to the remake. In fact I love the remake, I think it really stands up on its own 2 feet and brings Dawn into the current generation. I know we really have to thank 28 Days for that (and I also know but don't care that they are 'rage infected' people in 28 Days and not 'real zombies') and that is my 2nd favourite zombie film. I love the pace of it, being thrown straight into the apocalyptical world with just a little bit of back story. And actually a pretty decent back story at that, believable enough as far as zombie back stories go, sure beats radiation or solar flares.

I think the great thing about the films is it is so easy to put yourself into the place of the protagonists. To see them reacting to discovering their first zombie, coming to terms with the outbreak, making their defences, saving others and so on. It's great to watch them and think of all the things you'd do and how you'd do things differently. Learning from other's mistakes and pre-planning is what it's all about at this point!

As well as films, zombies have also had a great representation on the video game front. 

The first zombie related game I remember playing is probably Zombies Ate My Neighbours. It was great fun and a brilliant multi-player, never completed it though cause damn it was hard! House of the Dead was a great shooter, one of my favourite at the arcade where I remember me and a friend spending £20 in one sitting to try and complete it. We got all the way to the end boss but then run out of cash, gutted!

Zombies Ate My Neighbours

Of course you can't make a list of zombie computer games without mentioning the Resident Evil series. I wasn't a huge fan of RE1, probably because I played RE2 first and just found it a lot more exciting, RE1 has a very slow start. I'm proud to say I completed RE2 with an A ranking.

And although I'd class myself as an old school gamer I have to hand it to the next gen consoles for getting the zombie game just right. Left for Dead 2 (again I didn't play the first) and Dead Rising (1 and 2) are pretty much what I'd class as zombie gaming perfection. Left for Dead is great because of its fast pace, team work and great sense of accomplishment that comes with getting good at it (and I was good). Dead Rising is brilliant for its openness, bizzareness and all round fun. It's great to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I actually spent a little time developing my own zombie game as well. Its been a while since I worked on it but I plan on coming back to it at some point. The aim is to make it a pretty open survival game, focusing more on lasting for as long as possible than horror or scares. Here is a little video I made about it and posted on-line a while back about it (be warned though it is 20 minutes long) : 

My game and this blog aren't the only times I've used technology as part of my interest in zombies. A while back, when I was just a wee kid lad learning the internet, I made an Angelfire website dedicated to sharing information about preparing for the zombie apocalypse in my home town. It never got very far as most of my time was spent fighting with the HTML but amazingly it is still up and viewable here: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/zombieguide/index.html My HTML may have changed by my interests sure haven't!

Something I really want to address in this blog is how we can use technology to help us survive in the zombie world. It's something I haven't saw a lot of the films focus on (other than attaching chainsaws to things) and I think it's an area that really gives us the edge over our life deprived counterparts. Hopefully I'll manage to put the 2 together in some interesting and creative ways.

My history of computing

I could talk for hours and hours about computers, it's such a huge topic and there is so many interesting areas, but I'll try and keep it brief and stick to the specific areas I consider to be milestones as I grew up with them.

The first computer I really remember having is the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the 128K version with build in tape deck. It was brilliant!

The ZX Specturm with built in tape deck

I was pretty young when I got it, maybe around 6 or 7 and I still remember sitting on a toy box with my uncles after they had set it up for me and my mum giving them into trouble for not giving me a shot cause they were so amazed by it as well (they were about 30 at the time). There were some great games on it, my favourites being Dynamite Dan, Fast Food (which my mum rocked at!) and Robin Hood which was really long but had great controls and just felt really smooth to play.

Dynamite Dan
For years all I could remember about the game was the giant cheese in the bath

Fast Food
My mum was so good at this she got onto the upside down levels

Robin Hood
This game was HUGE great fun though

I never really got into programming on the Specturm which had a BASIC compiler built into it but my friend did and I remember seeing a 'hello world' game he had programmed and not being very impressed.

I think it was after that that I got my Atari. No huge memories of that other than Outlaw which I loved.

Outlaw

Then came the Sega Master System and afterwards the Mega Drive. The Master System was ok but it was really the Mega Drive I fell in love with.

Blast Processing! The Sega Mega Drive, computer of the gods

Without a doubt my favourite game was Toejam and Earl. It was just huge! Great fun as well and a brilliant co-op game, to this day one of the best I've ever played. It was colourful and humorous and the randomized levels meant you could play it repeatedly without getting fed up. The only real problem it had was no save points so quite often I'd play for an hour or so and then get fed up and have to restart all over again on the next play through, often getting to the same point and then getting bored again.

Toejam and Earl
One of the best co-op games ever

Other greats from my childhood include Golden Axe, Sonic 2, Wiz and Liz, Skitchin, Road Rash, Rock 'n' Roll Racing, Worms... I'll leave it at that.

I enjoyed the Mega Drive so much that a once I got a job and started earning some proper money I took up collecting the games again. To date I've got about 230 games and splashed out recently on a flash cart to allow me to play homebrew and ROM hacks on the original console. I'm not one of those purists (read snob) that thinks emulators are for lamers but there is something more enjoyable about playing games on the original hardware that you just don't get from them. Still they are great to play hard-to-get games on and for development (and cheating!)

I even got into ROM hacking for a while I still do it here and there when I have the time. You can check out my site www.mybrillgamesite.com to see some of the stuff I've done.

After the Mega Drive came the usual: Playstation, N64, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, DS, XBox 360 and that's where it ends. Nothing to say about them really other than GTA 3 blew me away and was the reason I bought a PS2.

GTA 3
The game changer in video games

I think I got my first PC when I was about 12, maybe a little younger. It cost my mum over a grand and she was paying it off forever! That's my mum for you though, she'd never see me go without even if it meant sacrificing the stuff she wanted.

It ran Windows 95 which my mum's friend tried to downgrade to 3.1 because he thought it would be too complicated for me. This resulted in him breaking it (it wasn't 3.1 compatible) and us having to return it to the shop! Thankfully they fixed it (I can't remember if we had to pay or no) and I got a working computer again. My only real memories of it are it having this weird program called 'BASE' which was a picture of a lounge (living room) which came on at start up and you could click on things to open programs, like the TV would open Windows Media Player, the briefcase would open My Briefcase and so on. It sucked and was soon removed.

I also took my copy of Warcraft into school on the last day of term (we could take toys in to play with then) and the teacher didn't let me install it on the computer cause she said it wouldn't work (she was right as it was an Acorn computer) and when I got home I found it had slipped out of its paper case and got scratched, breaking it. What a waste, I was gutted.

Warcraft

Then it was what I think is the usual progression for a kid interested in computers - taking things apart, learning about upgrades, falling in love with the internet (my friend had it before me so I used to always go to his to use it, even tried once when he wasn't in but his dad said no) (I also got banned from AOL 3 times within 6 months!), getting bored during computer class cause you knew everything already or could fire through the work in 10 minutes.

Fast forward a few years and a degree in Artificial Intelligence later and here we are.

Just now I've got a real interest in computer vision and reasoning upon what the computer can 'see'. In my sister blog workingwithcomputervision.blogspot.co.uk I talk specifically about this topic and am working on a game player that works using computer vision, it's interesting and you should check it out if you are into that sort of thing.

I'm also fascinated by Infinite Mario and Automated Driving (i.e. Darpa Grand Challange) although I haven't looked into them although that much. Still great concepts though.

Infinite Mario
http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/index.php

Darpa rand Challange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

I think that about sums everything up, any other details I think of I'll give in later posts. Now just my history of zombies to discuss...