BinaryJam

It’s not often that something grabs me on the internet nowadays, obviously Silverlight did and the amazing capabilities for design and interface it offers whilst having a programming model that I am familiar with.  Bog standard html/css well I’ve seen it all haven’t I ?  You can’t do anything else to surprise me, can you ?

Well actually you can.  Perhaps its been around for ages, perhaps it’s a new tilt on something that’s very common and I’ve had my head so deep in RSS to notice.

MS just released the MIX ’08 site.  I’d love to go but I’m from the UK so will have to wait for some poor cousin affair in London, with none of the same speakers and some blueberry muffins scattered about to placate us.  Hardly the Vegas equivalent.  Perhaps they could do it in Blackpool in a new super-casino, if they ever get built.  But I digress, again.

There is something about this site just so simple and so elegant, and it occurs in the top two inches of the page, the rest of the page is the usual stuff but I had not seen such an elegant header before that allows the content underneath to scroll under it, but its a window scroll not a Div scroll that threw me.

It took a little digging in the css but I discovered an attribute I had not seen before 

position:fixed

Absolute and Relative sure, but when did fixed appear ?  Has it been there a while and I just missed it and been server coding so long.

Well combined with a transparent png it is used to great effect.

Shame that the Silverlight panel is not set as a windowless control so gets its own window and doesn’t slide under the header.

To overcome all the problems with websense rubbish this site moved today from binaryjam.wordpress.com to its true site of www.binaryjam.com.

It’s now hosted by aSmallOrange using wordpress.  I can already see some of the advantages I have lightbox!

The other blog will continue on wordpress.com for a while, I think I will delete it but am unsure of what that will do for my google ratings.  Probably kill them.

Hopefully I might get to post some more.

At some point I’ll get Orcas working and Silverlight 1.1 development going and I can publish a 1.1 webpart although Jan Tielens says he’s got something coming there so watch out for it.

Before our web filters are turned back on and I can’t post again, yes this is why posts are so infrequent, and when they appear the text is completely messed up and they appear in blocks of repeated 10 (thanks blogmailr, I use you no more).

I thought I’d bring your attention to this, http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html, I had not seen it till today but thought I had to warn you about the dangers of dhmo.

Hehe.

For those who know I have been creating Silverlight project demos that work in conjunction with sharepoint. Some, like the template, just exist inside a webpart, others like the photoviewer and more lately the videolibrary read sharepoint lists to get their data.

So far all of these have been silverlight 1.0. There are a variety of reasons for this, mainly I don’t have vis studio 8 and all the extras. I still don’t, but I was curious as to if it were possible to embed 1.1 projects as part of a webpart.  Today I got my answer.  Yes.  It is possible to get 1.1 parts as part of a sharepoint part.

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For those that have not watched this film I can really recommend it, for one it’s a great story and well acted, you really feel for Jude Law, well I did. It is also an interesting insight as to what might come since we decoded the human genome and to what use it may one day be put too.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and here may be the first of those well meaning intentions.   Found here are links to new services (actually after further reading  the writer comes to a similar conclusion).  Personal genetic decoding.

Yep.  That’s right.  Submit a genetic sample or more (some services can relate family inheritance)  for analysis and review the results online.  The primary goal of this being health related, your chances of developing particular diseases etc.

Whilst part of me says this is really cool, and it is, it is really really cool.  The tendency for our species to exploit for personal gain will eventually mean that this is the tip of the iceberg. 

The current decode time can be 2 – 6 weeks depending on the service provider.  As this is a profit making venture the decode time will decrease and decrease as the funds are put into the R&D to bring that time down and decode for cheaper.  This will eventually lead to a decoding process that is fast efficient and cheap.

So what’s the next stage? Are we almost there already?  Well I’d hazard a guess that given the testing process becomes cheap and fast, and it will, that life and health insurance will be first on the bandwagon.  It will be sold to us, the bulk of the population, as a cost saving exercise for the consumer, why should you ? A healthy person who doesn’t smoke and takes exercise have to pay in your premium to cover the risks of those who don’t ?  For a 15% saving on your premiums why not take our DNA profiling test and reduce your costs. 

Purely optional to start with of course.

The author of the original piece makes reference to employers not wanting to fork out for health insurance so sacking high risk employees.  Now being British that’s less of a worry but could our NI contributions be weighted based on genetic information.  We don’t see that currently but how many times have you heard on politics shows and other “talking” shows about making smokers pay a premium for NHS treatment of smoking related illnesses, or the obese, which considering the inaccuracies of the BMI is practically everyone over 25, paying more for healthcare ?  If these measures come in DNA testing would not be far behind. Once you set a precedent the gates open.

Looks like it’s coming so I’ll continue to teach my son about DNA (at the age of five) believe me it’s easier to explain where babies come from in terms like this than any other way.   He might take it up as a profession as I reckon there will be a lot of business in 15 years.

I recently installed microsoft family safety on my home machine. it was a complete pig to install. I have four users setup at home. me my wife and my son and a guest. the usual next next next installation waas fine but then the trouble started. all users of the system need a live account. I had to configure a live account for everyone I have not done the guest account yet. then I had to log in as each user and configure the settings for each user.

now consider me daft but the point of a system like this is so an admin can configure the system for the family. this initial setup is a pig nothing better can be said of it.

once up and running a user logs on windows and the system can be configured to auo logon to family safety handy fconfig for a five year old. but you also need to configure it to NOT timeout and log off. for young users this should be hidden from them.

once on it works fine the ability to control sites and contact lists for messenger works very well. the ability to view internet usage online is good too.

were else it falls down is the ability to add guests and restrict it to moderate usage.

users of family safety are either parents or children.

for a first stab its not bad but that install has got to get better. its got to stop trying to log in when it already is logged in or trying to. its got to hide itself from childdren. not in a secret spying manner but just the complexities of config.

hope it gets better soon.

Picture Courtesy of Walking Britain.

Isn’t it absolutely beautiful.  This is a view of World’s End above Llangollen in North Wales.  A day just like this back in 1993 or was it 1994.

It was a lovely summer’s day and just perfect for climbing. We had planned this day out relatively quickly, but when you have a rucksack full of gear and a car full of petrol there’s not all that much to think about.  It’s a long trip from the midlands. Certainly a lot further than we would normally travel.  Having had a glut of “The Roaches”, Cheedale and Markfield Quarry it was time we did something different.

Together, Steve, Geoff, Girlfriend (at time) and myself set off.  What a great drive.  We approached Lllangollen and Steve points up.  “That’s where we are going, up there”.  The car snaked through small lanes and crossed a stream that was also the road.  We could go no further by car and had quite a trek up the hill. We had passed some quaint houses at the bottom of the hill, must be nice to live round here if you don’t have to work I thought.  We rounded the corner to a tall limestone wall, not particularly high, 40-50ft as I recall. Around the base of the crag, close to the road, plenty of rock strewn boulders. None big enough to climb, but big enough to trip over.  The guidebook told of good climbs with names like “Starship Trooper”, probably named after a song by Yes considering the year it was named.

We settled down for a day of climbing, flew up some good routes, I am not a fan of limestone myself, but I too enjoyed them.  More climbers appeared two sets of two and started doing other climbs along the crag.  The climbing was good, the rock was dry, the sun was shining, the view was stunning everything was just perfect.

Girlfriend to climb next. Steve flew up an easy route and set up a belay.  “Climb when ready”.  Girlfriend tried hard, as I recall, and was progressing up some “VDiff” climb.  It was at the halfway point Steve shouts “Stop, I’m going to lower you off”.  “What’s going on” I said.  “Just do it!”.  Girlfriend slowly gets lowered down, almost down just 4 feet to go.

It was at that point a scream, a fall, a thud.

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So, i’m sitting down on the sofa and the boy is sitting next to me. Then he starts to rub his foot by his face repeatedly . What on earth are you doing ? I asked.I got dog DNA he replied. ROFL.=

On Saturday I took J for his first indoor climbing session and proper climb.  We had done a little bouldering with me holding the scruff of his t-shirts and stopping him before he got out of manageable handling.  But this time it was for real, ropes and harnesses.

We went to a place in Birmingham called Creation indoor climbing.  This is not a bad little place, actually its reasonably large and for those who remember “the Rock Face” (probably one of the best ever climbing walls with a huge 75 ft overhanging lead (23 metres))  it has the old bendcrete wall covering large portions of the site.  It’s bouldering is a little shabby  which probably comes from the large surface area the not particularly thick landing mats cover.  The climbs are well labeled in the french grading system, something that I’m getting used to now, makes more sense for indoor routes.

Back to J, he had a great time, whilst I don’t think I have a budding Ben Moon on my hands, yet anyway, he had a good attempt at climbing.  For a child he has an over developed sense of danger and was concerned he would hurt himself, something he didn’t have climbing outdoors when he tried to climb higher than I would let him.  One of the problems with teaching a five year old is that you cant teach them to just jump off and feel the rope catch them, if they don’t feel comfortable, and what first timer does, they just won’t do it.  An adult you can say just jump off I’ll catch you and they do, whether you catch them well ….. of course you do and they learn with each fall to trust the belayer.  I’m hoping to take him again this weekend if I get time.

Some of the best news in a long time for climbers is that another wall is opening in Birmingham.  The people behind it I have considerable faith and trust in, all committed and experienced climbers.  For those who remember the Rock Face, “Phil” is project manager.  The new wall is called RedPoint and opens sometime in September.  With the list of facilities and people involved I have really good feelings about this place, and its easier to get to than Mos Eisley (Mosely, Birmingham).

Technorati tags: climbing, indoor climbing, sport climbing

I have a five year old boy, some of you may know that already. Part ofthe joy of having kids is teaching them. Now having a slight scientific bent a lot of questions I answer tend to be about science or things I point out are about science. Recently J said that he was not part of me as he came from his mummy and not from me so he could not be “from” me. So without going into squishy details I still have to explain this one.

It was not that hard, but some of the credit goes to a computer game called “Cloning Clyde”. In this game the character has clones, I did mention that these meant copies but did not want to go there. There are also things to collect like DNA symbols around the place, also the character gets merged with chickens and sheep and monkeys, I explained that Clyde’s DNA and the sheep’s were merged to make a clyde-sheep (look its only a game its not real, before you start on that one). Those ideas seems to have settled in his mind. Other conversations we have had have involved that living things are made from cells, skin cells, brain cells, plant cells etc. From those elements of understanding, I managed to pull it off. I explained that every cell contained DNA (“Like in Clyde dad? ” ) and that had all the information to make every part of you. That when babies start they are the merging of two sets of DNA to create a new type of DNA and those cells with that DNA grow into you. That’s why you look like me and mummy. He just accepted it. Totally got the idea that despite being born of one parent he is comprised of parts of both. That he can take these abstract ideas that I cannot prove or demonstrate(much like I have myself) then logically assemble them or understand when I assemble them is just fantastic. Later I hope to explain evolution in these terms, currently I told him people were monkeys (simplistic explanation, true, but close enough) and he will quote the line I used to explain the differences along the way”monkeys, children, children, children, children, children, children,children, children, children, children (ad nauseam) and then people”.He even saw that in the start of a Simpsons* episode once where cell-homer evolves into current homer, although when we reached Homer he said”rat-thing, monkey, people, people, people, idiot”. Putting those two concepts together and understanding them will be a great day. Then hopefully one day he can go and explain it to the denialists and they “get it” to . For a great read on teaching kids science read the Friday Sprog Blog entries here . *Occasional Simpson’s episode, vetted beforehand (i.e. they are repeated so often on sky I know what’s coming).