Making a 130 Year Old Instant Camera — robmiles.com

The camera above was a very impressive gadget back in the 1890s. I got it at a camera fair in Boston Spa. It’s a quarter plate camera which takes pictures on glass slides. These are mounted inside a f...

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AI is nice. Only humans can be kind. — robmiles.com

A nice person can be expected to give you what you want. A kind person can be expected to give you what you need (which might not be what you want). AI is in the business of being nice. Once it has fi...

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Wevie Stonder are wonderful — robmiles.com

If there’s one thing I’m sure of at the moment, it’s that the world needs more silliness. Stuff that is just daft. Wevie Stonder are silly, but clever too. Their new album, Sure Beats Living, is a h...

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Creating with the Rabbit R1 — robmiles.com

I’ve been creating with my Rabbit R1 . It’s great fun. You tell the Rabbit what you want and then it makes one for you. I asked it this: I'd like a set of coloured display animations which fill the...

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Love and Large Language Models — robmiles.com

We went to see the Fantastic Four movie last night. It was OK. Before the film they had a bunch of adverts, including one for Google Gemini, one of the many AI assistants being forced down our throats...

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Fujifilm X-Half Not for me — robmiles.com

Today I did something that I don’t do very often. I got rid of a camera. I’d read a few breathless reviews of the Fujifilm X-Half and these had convinced me that a less serious photographic device w...

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Wheely Good Idea — robmiles.com

I was doing some work on a robot and needed somewhere to put the bolts I’d taken out. Turns out the wheel does a perfect job….

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Flip 7 is great luck pushing fun — robmiles.com

On the box it says Flip 7 is “The greatest card game of all time!”. I think that they are pushing their luck with that statement, but since that is what the game is all about, it is probably fair en...

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Modern malaise — robmiles.com

Time taken to resolve problem - 1 minute Take taken to fill in questionnaire sent to find out how well my problem was resolved - 5 minutes

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Name that computer — robmiles.com

I took this picture on Sunday at the Science Museum. What is the name of the computer?

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C Code Connundrum — robmiles.com

if (tokenOffset + 1 >= MAX_TOKEN_LENGTH) I’m writing some text decoding stuff at the moment. The piece of code above is a bit of C that I’ve written to make sure than I don’t write over the end o...

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Tip Tripping — robmiles.com

Went to the rubbish tip. An affair of badly chosen (massive roadworks) and implemented (turned wrong way) routing. But the tip is in a nice place, down by the river at the far side of a bridge not ope...

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Shopping for 12 year old me — robmiles.com

I got the two items above in Scarborough last week. They are the kind of things that 12 year old me would really have liked. The marked deck lets you work out what card your victims are holding by dec...

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MVP for another year — robmiles.com

Very pleased to be able to report that I’ve been renewed as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for another year. Thanks very much Microsoft.

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Go See Pride and Prejudice in Scarborough — robmiles.com

As everybode kno I consider myself a very cultured person. I’ve watched most of the Marvel movies and I know the numbers and pilots of all the Thunderbird craft. Last night I went to the theatre to fu...

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More Naval Battles at Scarborough — robmiles.com

A while back I wrote about the Naval Battles that the stage at Peasholm Park in Scarborough. We went back there today and I took some more pictures. Fun fact, the camera I used this time was actuall...

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Loading film with my eyes shut — robmiles.com

I spent a chunk of today loading film into holders, ready for some photographic fun tomorrow. This involves putting all the elements into a bag and then shoving my hands through a pair of elasticated ...

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3D printable glasses case — robmiles.com

If you wear glasses and have a 3D printer, or have a 3D printer, don’t wear glasses and know someone who does wear glasses or…. This is getting far too complicated. This looks like a really nice pri...

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Of Muck Spreaders and Music Boxes — robmiles.com

One of the best parts of the Hardware Meetup is the conversations we have at dinner afterwards. Take last night for example. For some reason the conversation turned to muck spreaders, tractor powered ...

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When in doubt, write a description — robmiles.com

One of the most common causes of programming problems is not knowing exactly what the program needs to do before you start writing the code. You have a vague idea of how it is supposed to work and so ...

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Sorry about this... — robmiles.com

Went to see a show last night. A bloke dragged a huge steam locomotive onto the stage and then told us how he did it. The show was called “How to drag your train on”. Thank you.

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Lego Pi Case — robmiles.com

I’m writing an article about using a Raspberry Pi as a desktop computer. Good thing I’m not wasting time playing with Lego instead…..

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Playdate Podcasts are awesome (and the console's pretty good too) — robmiles.com

I’ve fancied a Playdate for ages, ever since I played with the number one son’s. It is a tiny games machine with a super sharp black and white screen and the usual buttons and stuff. Plus a crank. Y...

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Hull CS50 Video now available — robmiles.com

After a long time with the censors (not really) we have finally released the movie that we took at the Hull University Computer Science Anniversary Celebrations in October last year. It was shot on a ...

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Buy the Humber Bridge for six pounds 43 pence — robmiles.com

Last night I bought the Humber Bridge. All of it. And the colourful cottages on the foreshore. And the old mill too. Then I landed my plane on it. All in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. All for less ...

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Making Progress — robmiles.com

I’ve got an article due soon. In preparation for writing it, I first need to make sure that all my cables are nice and tidy.

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Leeds Photos — robmiles.com

I carried a great big camera all round Leeds today. It was totally worth it.

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Olympus Trip 35 — robmiles.com

My Great Aunt Anne had an Olympus Trip 35 back in the 1970’s. She took it all around the world and then, when she got back, we’d take a look at the pictures and slides she’d taken. They were all nic...

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Tiny Camera — robmiles.com

So I bought this little camera…. It’s a Ricoh GR1 and it is about the size of a couple of AAA batteries. It doesn’t work, but it does have a tiny film cassette inside. You can find out more here . An...

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