Will Knott

It seems that the +LEGO angels take Manhattan too. Wonder what the +Doctor Who TARDIS Crew think.

Don’t even blink It seems that the +LEGO angels take Manhattan too. Wonder what the +Doctor Who TARDIS Crew think.

I can only assume that the Tayto cheese and onion crisp chocolate bar is a childhood dream come true for someone. In the days when mixing your snacks together (probably with fizzy orange and birthday cake in the mix) was a good idea, you would try it.

It tastes exactly like what you would expect crisps (potato chips for the Americans) and chocolate to taste like. Mouth feel is chocolate and crisped rice (there is rice in the ingredients). The combination does not work.

Part of this is that the childhood version would have been Tayto and +Cadbury UK Dairy Milk. Rumour has it that Butler's chocolate was used. Every chocolate maker has a slightly different taste, this mix was tweaked the wrong way.

Glad I tried it. But no. Until the Smokey Bacon Tayto Crisp and Chocolate Bar that is.

I suspect that I’m unusual in the LBC in that I’m childless.
Having said that, I’ve ended up working with kids thanks to CoderDojo.

And if its something they are interested in, they learn fast.
I suspect the secret to teaching kids something complicated, is the same as getting a game to work well… ramp up to a small win very quickly, then you are given the permission to grind through the hard parts.

Let them make something they can see very quickly, and then, then, you can move on to showing them how to make something else.

For example, I’m introducing my current crop to HTML5 sprite animation (thank you +Rob Stocker for the sprite sheets), and the quick win was getting the sprite on the screen, no animation, but showing them how, by hand coding, they can change which sprite shows up. Automating the changing images is how to create an animation.

But these kids are sponges. They learn fast. Show then one application of the technology, and they will try to apply it elsewhere.

And as I returned to CoderDojo Mahon recently (they have the room for computer parts to plunder), I was slightly surprised to discover that there were no adult mentors. There were adults, the parent mentors were there, but the ones teaching we all kids themselves; the ones I started teaching.

And one of them moved his ideas sideways, and this 13 year old was teaching android app development to a bunch of 10 year olds (and a few 16 year olds trying to keep their heads down).

Teach a young dog new tricks, and she will go on to teach the older dogs, like the example below.

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A special picture – CoderDojo
This is a very special picture, because it is indicative of the heart of the CoderDojo philosophy. I received it a few months ago from a mother at the NSC CoderDojo in Cork. It was…

This is a Loose Bloggers Consortium post on the theme of “Kids”.
To find out that the others in the consortium think, check out, …
Delirious, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox OCD writer, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, The Old Fossil, Grannymar.

In ancient Ireland there were three classical elements; fire, earth and a combined element we would describe as air/water. The fact that air and water used to be considered as the same element says a lot about Irish weather. And I’ve been living that combination on and off.

The weather was foggy, raining heavily and windy. Its a combination which shouldn’t exist, but it did. For a few days. Only when evening came and I ventured down the hill did the weather change, and I realised that I had spent the day inside a cloud.

So that’s where I’ve been spending my days. I’ve been quiet here. You see I’ve changed cities again, and I’m back. I’m living in the house I’ll have to pay property tax on (I’ll grumble later). And that’s where I made the simple mistake.

I thought that be getting back to my old haunts that I could get some of my old life back. I thought that I would have time denied to me while living away.

I was wrong.

I was right.

Apparently it takes 40 days for a habit to take hold. And not blogging was such a habit. I’m not actually sure where my time went. I’ll have to keep a time spending diary, unless keeping such a diary takes too much time. But in the process of trying to get a life back together, I stopped doing something which requires a bit of hard thinking.

Blogging. Some optional courses. Toy making.

Pulling this ramble back to the LBC topic; frugality is not just about cash. Frugality is not just about scrimping. Frugality is also about spending wisely. And since time cannot really be saved (unless you really have a time machine), how you spend your time matters.

Or rather you need to force yourself to spend time on what matters to you, and what matters to those around you. If you care enough you will find the time to do something.

Sometimes you’ll need to force yourself to do something, sometimes you’ll force yourself to let something lapse. Sometimes you’ll form a rigid, regimented timetable. Sometimes you’ll discover that rigidity also means fragility. Sometimes you’ll lapse thinking “I’ll do it later”, but “later” never becomes “now”.

If it matters you’ll force yourself to break the easy options (usually sleep, and boy does that compound problems for later), and  do “something” to force “now” from the loving arms of “later”.

Like finding that time to sit down in front of a keyboard and type. Eight weeks later.

Time flies away, even if you don’t spend it.

This is a Loose Bloggers Consortium post on the theme of “Frugality”.
To find out that the others in the consortium think, check out, …
Delirious, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox, Maxi Malone, OCD writer, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, The Old Fossil, Shackman and Grannymar.

I'll admit that sometimes best intentions don't work out as well as expected.
I joined the LBC, the Loose Bloggers Consortium the idea was that I'd write more.

Then life got in the way. In my case, a new job in a new city.

Well, I'm about to return home*. I have plans, and things to work out (and a new job). But I think I'll have regular time to sit down. Eventually as I don't know my time-table properly and I have at least 3 games to write for the classes I'm mentoring.
But one of my half brain-farted ideas was to write a book.
Or at least a story… so…

I'm wondering if instead of writing the usual "insight based on the topic of the week" if I could get away with writing an essay or a short story with the topic in mind.
And furthermore, string all the stories in to a (semi?) coherent narrative.

I do have the characters in mind, but I didn't have the, well, will to do it.
I can either do these as the usual LBC posts, or pull these off for a different day of the week (I might also re-wind the clock back to the start of January to give me a run up).

Besides, according to some self-help books you need to declare your intentions to do X, that way you can't back away from X.

So, any objections at this attempt to help myself to actually do something unusual?

* It's complicated, but I'm not going to explain personal geography on a system that archives and logs everything I write

This is a Loose Bloggers Consortium post on the theme of “Self Help”.
To find out that the others in the consortium think, check out, …
Delirious, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox OCD writer, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, The Old Fossil, Grannymar.

Guess which is the Dublin calendar and which is the Cork calendar?

"I still believe in Bewley's"… I think that's the only line you would need to change to do a version of this in any Irish town or city. I still believe in Sir Henry's, I still believe in King John's, I still believe in Eyre Square…

So take a walk through very late night Dublin City, with salty (NSFW) language and a fundamental truth, "there are ten good reasons to go, but a thousand tiny ones not to, and you can't tell which is which anymore."

She was touched to receive the exquisitely packaged chocolates.

Her next of kin discovered that crema was a hazelnut cream and not a vanilla cream. When the nuts touched her throat, it swelled from anaphylaxis shock.

This almost tweetable murder mystery is a Loose Bloggers Consortium post on the theme of “Touched”. And was not written in the local accident and emergency.
To find out that the others in the consortium think, check out, …
Delirious, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox OCD writer, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, The Old Fossil, Grannymar.

If you are going to sell my pictures without me getting a cut and not call it piracy… Bye.

Patrick Moore wasn’t just a man, but an institution. For a few generations in the UK an Ireland, if you was “astronomer” its his face and voice that come to mind.

Odd, eccentric, passionate about science and extremely fun to listen to. He quite simply made science interesting. Being an amateur might have helped. All his doctorates were honorary, but deserved.

Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore, CBE, FRS, FRAS died on the December 9 2012.

Thanks to the RTÉ documentary on One podcast, I heard the music he wrote for the first time. And its a great insight in to the man. RTÉ have a habit of removing their podcasts after two weeks, so results will vary.

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DocArchive: Stargazers
Patrick Moore boasted to friends that he was the only man to interview Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin but to his fans he was much more than a broadcaster. (Broadcast 2001)