Friend, colleague, and fellow geek, Sam Machin has introduced me to the wonders of the OBDII port! Essentially, OBD (On Board Diagnostics) is a port which is found on every car produced since the late 1990s. It allows garages to see all sorts of diagnostic information about your car, its engine, and all other manner of petrol-headed goodness. It's designed to be easily accessible and conform to a common standard. So, it's no surprise that a whole cottage-industry has developed around this…
Continue reading →
Last year, Liz and I took the plunge and had Solar Panels installed on the house we rent out. I've been tracking their progress, and so now it's time for our yearly update. We based our estimations on the Europa Solar Calculator which estimated that they would generate around 2,700 kWh per year. Annoyingly, we haven't been able to hook the panels up to the Internet, so I can't get daily readings. So, every three months we have to manually look at the meter. Last month, after a year of…
Continue reading →
A few months ago, my friend Adam Cohen-Rose told me that Surrey Libraries were looking for a volunteer to help teach coding to kids. Adam Cohen-Rose@adamcohenrosehey @edent Surrey Library Service in Woking is looking for a @CodeClub volunteer… know anyone? codeclub.org.uk/getting-starte…❤️ 0💬 0🔁 009:44 - Fri 31 August 2012 So, after a few months of negotiations, demonstrations, CRB checks, and consultations - I'm now ready to run a pilot programme at Woking Library. Although I've written a f…
Continue reading →
There are few occupations that are as open, where the barrier to entry is as low as it is in web design and development. If you have the ability, and are willing to learn, you can get started without a formal education or having to pay for college courses. Most of what you need to know can be found free of charge online. Rachel Andrew on The Pastry Box Project I remember being at OpenTech in 2010 and listening to one of the speakers talk about her work with young people. One of the…
Continue reading →
Since taking a job at Telefonica I've had a fairly dramatic change of lifestyle. Namely - I now have a car. This car is red I learned to drive pretty much as soon as I hit 17. Within a few months, I had passed my driving test (first time!) and so I took to the road. That last year of sixth-form before university I drove my batterd old Peugeot to death. I remember driving my friends everywhere - cinema, pub, randomly around town - it didn't matter. I had the freedom to drive where I wanted.…
Continue reading →
Last year (also during NaBloPoMo) I was enthusing about the literary card game Ex Libris. The only trouble with the game, in my opinion, are the limited numbers of cards available in the set. Much like Trivial Pursuit - once you've gone through them a few times the game is exhausted. I had planned on creating my own unofficial cards - but copyright law put the kibosh on that. Luckily, the good folk at Oxford Games have emailed me to say that there are new official cards available as an…
Continue reading →
