“You’ll eat anything with wings”, really, panty liners have wings and I ain’t reaching for the soy sauce

So spent the morning transferring the PC game over to iOS. Apple have mad the provisioning profile system a bit more user friendly, so it only took one hour rather than three.

The rest of the day was mainly spent tweaking the mobile version so it’s a bit easier to play. Overall I’m pretty happy with it so far, although it still requires a huge amount of work.

Went out for a run which was very knackering. Jamie won some voucher for take-away food, so everything that was lost by running has now been made up for in a Chinese.

Had a bath, food arived and we watched ‘Brave’ by Pixar which was very good. Lots of coding in the hair department.

The “Iron Lady” is dead, rust in peace

Started this morning working on a couple of odds and ends. Ended up getting the current project up and running on iOS. Except there’s a few issues it seems to be rendering in black. Still apart from that it worked fine, so added the control system and a few other frills. It’s almost done now except for the anti-roll bar which I’m still not happy with, need to work through the numbers on that.

Walked the dog. Went to combat.

Mid morning I heard the news that Baroness Thatcher had passed away. She died of a stroke at the age of 87. Now, I’m very much a child of the 80’s. I remember the Falklands war being broadcast every evening on “John Craven’s news round”. I remember her very strong leadership, her speeches and her love of Ronald Reagan. I remember the tax cuts, the prosperity and the relentless attack on trade unions. I also remember the hunger strikes, the Brighton bombing and the poll tax. And let’s not forget Section 28.

Did I admire her? Yes. Did I agree with her? Sometimes. She was a remarkable woman. All politicians are admired and loathed by everybody, usually at the same time, she was no different. Where she stood out for me though was the way she just took no shit. I always admired her straight talking. In one memorable interview she said, “I don’t mind how long my ministers spend talking, as long as they do what I tell them”. It was very much that attitude which got things done, when the country was in dire straights, she was the catalyst that gave it a firm kick up the ass. She modernised British politics, she mondernised British attitudes and to some degree she modernised British people.

She outstayed her welcome. Eventually all the power began to go to her head. She thought she was invincible. She wasn’t. The time came when she had one too many mad ideas and she was given the heave-ho. John Major took the lead, but as I always said, “She was twice the man he will ever be.”

Denis was always in the background. A genius businessman in his own right. He cleverly knew actually where he stood, and more importantly where he should stand. He certainly was no interference, but she could not have done it without him.

Maggie, you were an inspiration. And ironically you died on my birthday.

Rest in peace.

Apple iOS provisioning portal, how I’ve missed you

Woke up very early and took the dog to day care. Tidied up some scaling issues on the game I’m working on. Then zapped it across to the iMac and got it running on iPad and iPhone5. Then attempted to build an ad-hoc version, which requires doing battle with the iOS provisioning portal. Which it’s entire purpose in life is just to irritate the shit out of people, it succeeded. Anyway, finally got a test flight build to build, so need to wait on feedback before I do any more on that.

Did a couple of audio library tweaks for a few odd bugs that have been found. Picked up the dog. She is now suitably tired.

Jamie is in EuroDisney or whatever it’s called these days, keeps posting Facebook photo’s or castles and giant burgers, couldn’t he find a salad?

I ran lunchtime, so basically have the entire evening to myself. Good excuse for a bath me thinks. May be a glass of wine or two.

Never in 40 years have I decided that ordering a kebab would be a great idea

So spent the day working on OsX on iMac. I was supposed to be looking at some tcp/ip network code next but I remembered that the new audio lib hadn’t been tested on iMac. In the end I ended up using all the iOS codec code rather than codec code for the other platforms. The only minor alteration required was that OsX doesn’t support hardware codecs, that was about it apart from a few 64 bit pointer arithmetic warnings. It did however highlight a bug in the library that only showed up on OsX which was weird. Anyway, all working now.

Jamie was still in bed at lunchtime. He was cruising his phone looking at the kebab shop menu. He was lying in bed very much as a polar bear would bask on an iceberg, except he’s colder inside. I went and made a sandwich. By the time I’d finished the doorbell went, it was the delivery man from Pizza Hut. Oh, well, at least he hadn’t ordered a shoe, which is what I affectionately refer to his kebabs as, I’d rather eat the polystyrene box.

I walked the dog. Very chilly out. Came back, did some more work. Shut down for the long weekend. Went to the gym. Now playing around with the boiler output temperature, I still think there’s something wrong somewhere. Need to get a temperature probe really.

Anyway, torture porn night. Bring on the wine.

Potterton Netaheat you have been retired after 20 years of virtually fault free service. (And now unceremoniously dumped in the front garden)

So started off a very long day at 6:15AM. The dog was already on the ball after checking her calendar last night, knowing it was Wednesday, she was up and ready for breakfast, wolfed it down and was ready to get into her harness in about three minutes. We sat in the car and discussed North Korea’s missile launch while we waited for the car to defrost. She got to day care at 6:50, I was back in bed by 7:15.

Was rudely awaken by two smiling boiler fitters at 8:30. They came in, I introduced them to the kettle and coffee machine then left them to it. They turned the water off grunted a bit and got on with it. Deciding that it was pointless trying to go back to bed I started work, well I started iPlayer anyway and caught up with another episode of Merlin anyway.

Today I was working on OsX (iMac) again, found the issue with the audio, wasn’t audio related at all, but was to do with memory alignment, OsX requires 16 byte alignment as it uses multimedia registers. Also fixed a few issues with minimise/maximise. Got one of our apps working fine on iMac which was great. Also did a few more bits on the upcoming mobile game update.

Boiler men were finished by 2PM. Okay, lets see. Boiler fitted, the inside of the flu has been jammed with expanding foam and not the neatest thing in the world. They told me my three port valve wasn’t working properly and when there was a call for heat only it was also going to the water tank. They also told me for maximum efficiency it I should run the boiler on max. They filled all the paperwork out and buggered off (I even paid them).

Now here’s the reality. The outside flu is tidy, the inside looks like it was done by a 3 year old. The actual boiler fitting is fine. There’s nothing wrong with the three port valve, I tested it on heat/heat&water/water and the valve moved between all positions just fine, I assume they didn’t have the controls set correctly. In the paperwork they said they flushed the system and then added inhibitor using the brand name ‘Fernox’, this is complete bollocks. How do I know this? Well they chucked the used container of cheapo Toolstation inhibitor in the kitchen bin. Running the boiler at max temperature setting, again, as far as I can tell complete bollocks. Every bit of research I have done says a condensing boiler gets more efficient when the return flow is below 55 degrees, so chucking the water out at 86 and then hoping for a 30 degree drop across all the radiators is a bit much. Also they only drained the system from the boiler level not from the under the lowest radiator, this left half the system full and not flushed. This also introduced an airlock, meaning I’ll be bleeding radiators for the next six months as they will contain more air than my ass after a decent curry. So would I use them again? Too bloody right I would. I paid about five hundred quid for fitting which included all sundries, testing and paperwork. Plus about three tubes of expanding foam. At the end of the day British Gas wanted an extra £1500 for the exact same job (okay, except the £7 I had to spend on a length of cable). They may have done a better job of the finish and may have even drained it properly but at the end of the day, it was the same boiler. So I paid a bargain bucket price for the bear legal and safety requirements, which is exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t have done it myself as it wouldn’t be legal and I don’t have a fucking great drill for the flu. Also I don’t have the testing gear necessary. So overall, very happy, just need to rebalance the radiators and adjust the output to the minimum required to reach the required temperature. Oh and bleed all the fart air out of the radiators.

After they went, I decided that as it was only minus six outside it would be a great idea to go out and run 12 miles. So I did. I then came back and picked up the dog. She was very happy. I was very happy. I had lunch. Did a bit more work and finished a bit earlier due to the early start.

I then cleaned out the cupboards where I’d removed all the stuff yesterday for the condense pipe and put all the stuff back in. More wine turned up today, and dog food. I’ll try not to use that as nibbles. Had a bath, drank wine, ate salad. Dog is at the vet tomorrow for her shots. I’ve got Friday off, I won’t get excited.

Apparently the UK average annual wine consumption is 37 bottles per person. Jamie doesn’t drink it much, can I have his share?

This morning I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to take the dog to day care. I did however have to get up and answer the door for a wine delivery. This is just the Tesco cheap stuff, so it’ll be going to my sister’s, while I drink the good stuff.

Today, once again working on the mobile game update. Only a few bits more to do. I did add something really fun to it though….there’s nothing wrong with chopping peoples heads off. Managed to ignore certain people all day and also rant at a few others.

Walked the dog. Jamie had one of his LBF’s (little blue friends) round, where they played Nintendo and probably fapped a lot.

Went to the gym. Ran. Bought some crickets for the lizards. Filled the dishwasher and did some dishes. Cleaned some wine glasses.

Well, that was the excitement of my day, once again, nothing really interesting happened. I have a feeling something will do soon though.

It’s torture porn night, so wine and dodgy DVD with the dog later.

And then my legs stopped working

Spent the day not working on Android. Was actually working on updates for the released mobile game. Couple of little bits to fix and tidy up. Beyond that I cannot say anymore.

We now have a Wii U. Well, we now have a Wii U in a box, it will probably stay there for quite a while.

Walked the dog. She had a good walk. For me though I’m completely knackered, working on this game recently has really taken it out of me physically and mentally. I just can’t face going to the gym this evening, my legs do physically hurt quite badly. I think I’ll have a bath and an early night. I don’t feel ill, just tired. It’s because I’m old.

Tomorrow the dog is off to day care, so very early start.

Oh, Jamie finished off the wedding album, so that’s finally been ordered.

Well Jonathan Ross likes it

Woke up. Which on a Saturday morning is always quite a challenge. Found out that Jonathan Ross had ‘tweeted’, that he thought it was one of the best games ever. Reviews are generally all good and people really do seem to like it, which is always nice. I’ve written many many games, but sometimes you do get to work on ones which are more of just ‘a job’, not that you don’t put the same amount of effort into them, but every now and then you do get to work on one which you really do enjoy. And this was one of them. We put a lot of our own ideas into the game an it was very enjoyable to work on. May be we will do add-ons or a sequel, who knows. Oh and apparently we are big in Honduras. In the US we are No.1 game on the charts and No.6 app overall.

So in celebration I walked the dog. Then did the shopping. I bet ‘Take That’ don’t do the shopping when they hit No.1. Had lunch then I thought I’d venture over to Comet where it’s closing down in a couple of days. Complete waste of time, they have nothing there at all. Then I walked into town, bought nothing and walked back. There’s something rattling on the car, it’s either the front grill which is loose or the suspension is about to drop off, so may have to have a dig underneath tomorrow.

Did the accounts. I’m still poor.

Trying to get a few more Christmas presents, then realised I don’t actually buy anything for anyone anyway except Jamie, so that makes things slightly easier. Oh, then just remembered, Lisa & Andy. Right that’s sorted, more money I’ll never see Jamie’s share of.

Busy day tomorrow. Gardening, wiring, radiator balancing. Need to sort a photo album out as well. Must be bath time.

Holly Hedge

Here’s a really sweet video for Holly Hedge animal sanctuary.

Holly Hedge Animal Sanctuary

Most of today was taken up with finishing off the Android unity files and iOS/Windows PCH for the audiolib. Fixed a couple of other bits along the way.

Walked the dog, she was quite well behaved. Did the washing. Attempted to go to the gym for pump, but failed just at the end of the road as the traffic was backed up everywhere. It appears the M5 was shut due to an overturned lorry and they were diverting all traffic through Bradley Stoke to head to the M32. Cheers. So gave up and came home and finished off my work. The advantage now being that I’ve actually finished by 10 and not 11 ish. Oh well, time for a bath and Friday night wine. Jamie’s buying me pizza tonight. I’m having a ‘Sizzler’, yes I am feeling okay. Tomorrow I’m going washing machine shopping with mother, that will be thrilling.

BDRThermea and Domestic and General, today’s people who’ve pissed me off

Started with upgrading Perforce integration, and for once it worked and didn’t cause major problems. Then it was events, not the gig kind but the trigger-able kind. So added time outs and manual resets to them. For once the POSIX version wasn’t too much of a pain in the ass, but iOS of course has to be awkward so that had to convert from micro seconds to nano seconds just for the fun of it. Still all worked in the end. So made all my command queues use events, that all worked fine. Then had to do some header stripping and odd things to do with compiling without codec’s. Fixed a couple of odd bugs.

Had a phone call from Domestic and General from a person I could barely understand, asking me to contact BDRThermea about my complain about the boiler servicing. So he gave me the email address, to which I’ve now forwarded. I’m none to thrilled as Domestic and General being their agent they should really sort the problem out. So looking forward to a small war on that one.

Went to gym quite late so only did fifty four minutes. Walked the dog (that was lunch time, but who said anything about this ever being chronological). Now I’m finishing work at about eleven thirty so must be time for salad. More fun things to work on tomorrow.