Train Fail

After  booking a train ticket for the HEA-ICS annual conference in Durham, this is the response I got:

Don't you just love inadequately-tested websites?

Welcome Home

After a week of 40-degree temperatures on Kos, it was good to be greeted by cooler and more comfortable conditions. The two things that lodged in my travel-fatigued brain on arriving at Manchester Airport soon after dawn yesterday morning were me narrowly avoiding treading on the decapitated corpse of a mouse - presumably chewed up by the escalators - and the sight of a lass throwing her guts up just outside the terminal.

Welcome to Britain!

Pomodoro Technique

Image via Wikipedia

I've just started experimenting with Pomodoro Technique, partly in the hope of improving productivity and achieving a more sustainable working pace, partly as a way of rigorously embedding breaks from the keyboard and mouse into my working habits so as to stave off the dreaded RSI. Staffan Nöteberg's book Pomodoro Technique Illustrated is proving to be a useful and entertaining guide.

Teaching preparations

Summer is in full swing now and many of us at work are turning our attention to developing modules ready for teaching in September.

I will once again be teaching introductory programming to our incoming students, using Python (of course :) - although the major change for this year is a move from Python 2.6 to Python 3.1. In addition, I'm involved in three modules on our brand-new IT degree: IT Infrastructure, Web Development and Project Management.

Digital Music Pricing Weirdness

Image via Wikipedia

Can anyone tell me how Amazon can sell Tangerine Dream's Encore live album as an MP3 download for £4.99 yet sell its four individual tracks for £4.49 each?