Friday, May 22, 2009

Doh!.. forgot the link

I mentioned Charlie is going running for Sue Ryder, but didn't put the clicky in incase anyone wanted to support her cause

Here it is www.justgiving.com/Charlieruns10km

Time to insure

So... my free month of pet insurance is coming to an end... who do you use and do you recommend them?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

She is going running....!!!?!?!?!?!

On Monday Charlie is going to run 10km and is collecting sponser ship for Sue Ryder

She says:

"I'll be running the race in memory of my nan who died last april.

Sue Ryder is very close to my heart.
She spent the final days of her life in one of Sue Ryders Hospices; Nettlebed Hospice, Near Henley, Oxon.


The care given to her was incredible and she died with dignity and peace.
They also provided great support to the whole family, with day rooms and stunning grounds as well as counselling."

"It takes a lot to run 10km, but an awful lot more to work to the standard and maintain the facilities Sue Ryder care do, day-in-day-out.

Please give as much as you can. Every penny (preferably pounds!!) will help.
"


You aren't kidding me - 10Km isn't to be sniffed at, and when a young student is running in aid of something close to her heart this only has to be encouraged!

I like Charlie. She is Ocelot's daughter and we often have fun when she is home.

If you would like to sponser her, please do. It is good to encourage these young things, and I know she, and Sue Ryder, will really appreciate it!

Don't they go slow any more?

This week the boats are ripping past the moorings at a tremendous pace, and as always the private boats are the worst culprits...

Now, I am not complaining per se, but the tow path around here isn't great, and speeding boats pulling on X tonnes of steel moored beautifully with huge pins and springs isn't doing the tow path any good. There isn't anything that can be done about it, but I do think it is a shame.

Not to mention my balance! I fell over twice this morning as my boat rocked heavily from side to side from the passing boats.

oh dear... I am sounding like a grumpy old man!!!!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Weekends - PHEW

A week of If, While, Select, display pages and equations causes much eyebrow levelling and exasperated sighs in the Bones household. Boots has had quite an education on his walks this week learning about Gabors, the Gaussian and Temporal Envelopes along with various methods of presenting stimuli on the computer. He has put in a sterling effort in trying to find answers for me in various bushes, tree's, piles of horse muck and grassy verges. Sterling work by the pooch!

But, the end of the week is nigh, the afternoon is stretching out ahead of me, and I think it might be home time - I have some friends visiting this weekend and they assure me they have a full set of waterproofs which will be packed... so the boating and BBQ weekend is alive!

Yay!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Not for me

Och well, lots of struggling and no progress means programming needs to be put on the back bench forever... which is rather unfortunate as I need to be able to do it in order to progress with my experiments. I often wonder what people in my position do, but it turns out they have 'connections'. I have 'connections' but not into the programming world.

It is rather like boating, but harder. When something breaks on a boat and you can't fix it, you fix it anyway, somehow, but it does get done, albeit slowly at times. There have been many things I have done on my boat and had absolutely no idea how to begin, which is why I have always said everything needs to be done a few times; the first to work out how to approach it, the second to learn from the mistakes and the third to do it properly.

I seem to get somewhere with programming, achieve a bit and that is always good, however, I have got to the point where it just isn't going to happen.

Not sure what happens next... stacking shelves in the local supermarket is looking like an appealing job prospect.

Monday, May 11, 2009

GRRRRRRRRRRR

So in visual basic it is:

Do
intnumber = Int((4 - 1 + 1) * Rnd + 1)
Loop Until orderchecker(intnumber) < 25
orderchecker(intnumber) = orderchecker(intnumber) + 1

Select Case intnumber


but I am in matlab. PAH.

One day my brain will click and I will be the best programmer in the world.. or at least able to get done what I want to get done in a reasonable time without having to exercise trial and error!

The upside is I know someone who has given me some tips... the downside - I am too stupid to impliment them.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Tree House

This is what I call a tree house! I love the way the tree is an integral part of it! This one is in Lower Heyford.

Frustrated!

I do not have a programmers brain yet here I am programming! I have found that persistance has paid off and I have managed to program a stimuli to appear on the screen with a controllable temporal envelope, this is great except I can only get a Gabor (a stripy stimulus without a sharp edge) stimuli and I need a GAUSSIAN blog (no stripes, all one colour and no sharp edge). It is VERY frustrating. Normally I would just re-arrange the scientific question, but I want to do some colour naming and that requires the stimuli to be all one colour (gaussian) and not stripey (gabor).

I am stuck... grrrrr.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Let them eat cake

This weekend I was meant to be doing lots of things and ended up not. Instead I had a lazy time chilling out at home having morning tea and afternoon tea in the new tea Rooms that have opened up in Thrupp. Thrupp is a walkers paradise with its ruins, woods and fields to stroll across, and what better than a lovely cup of tea and a good peice of cake to finish off a day in the country.
Scumalicious!

Friday, May 01, 2009

Pooch

Well, the pooch is almost coming up to being resident aboard the good ship for a week, and seems to be settling into life aboard quite well. I am walking MILES each day and am exhausted but apparently it is doing me good (sigh). Until pooch learns his name I can't really let him off the lead, although I did have fun watching him run around like a mad march hare last night in an enclosed garden. I did practice calling his name periodically in an attempt to lure him back to me, but he ignored me! We have almost learnt to sit on command, we vaguely recognise our name, and I have almost convinced the new inhabitant of the good ship that I am the one in charge of DIY and he is not.

Despite having been savaged by dogs the pooch seems to be OK around other dogs.. but I suspect there may be a particular colour or breed he wont take a liking to. He has taken a liking to the pink bird though!





In other news, Annie's tea rooms in Thrupp open tomorrow and I am thoroughly looking forward to partaking of tea and cake all weekend!