Hello!

I’ve returned from the dead: not literally, but I was so ill over the past week that I thought that as opposed to calling for a doctor I was going to have to call for an undertaker. But now I am better and ready to prod buttock.

Anyway, some random musings over the Easter time.

Zesty Zapu Is Glorious

Ubuntu is still installed on my Surface Pro, and I’m enjoying it very much. Initially I had 16.04 installed with some custom packages that some clever person wrote to get the Surface Pro Type Cover and Trackpad working. Whilst the keyboard worked, the TrackPad did not. So I updated to 17.04 which had the 4.10 Linux Kernel. Crucially this kernel version supported the Surface Pro. Sadly I ruined the upgrade so had to do a fresh install. No biggie on an OS that I had had installed for 2 weeks, but I did lose something that I had grown very fond of….

UnderTale is Equally as Glorious

Fun fact: When I’m working I like to wear headphones to stop myself getting distracted by noises around me. But rather than listen to music, I listen to a song on repeat. But not actually a song per se. No, in fact what I like to listen to is music form computer games on a 10 hour loop. Songs written for games tend to be repeatable, such is the nature of computer games. The reason I like listening to music like this is again to reduce the whole distraction factor of listening to albums, or even spoken word.

Anyway, to find songs to listen to there are plenty of YouTube videos of songs from games repeated for 10+ hours. And so occasionally I stumble upon a song from a game I’ve not played before. And but so I came across Bonetrousle from the Undertale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDdR4c9vcEw

That’s a catchy tune. So I took the plunge and finally bought the game from GOG to play on Linux. This coincided with the time I was up at SQLBits, so I had plenty of time to play the game in the evenings and on the train. I’m hooked. I honestly don’t think I’ve played a game that has got me thinking about it as much as this one when I’m not playing it. I’m clearly not alone in being caught up in something about the game. Go download and enjoy.

SQLBits And Catering

So I don’t know the official attendance figures for SQLBits, but over 1,000 people attend and if you’ve looked at the Twitter account you’ll see this is not a tin-pot operation: this takes place in 2 very large halls. And catering for different tastes in bulk on a budget is a tough thing to pull off. The phrase “you can please some of the people some of the time” is never truer here. But let me tell you, the food here is great. Firstly, it’s not of some huge dinner plates with a knife and a fork and no where to sit like so many other conferences I’ve been on. No, it’s in a bowl you can eat with a fork. Practical. And there’s pudding. Two types of pudding in fact. And afternoon cake. And morning biscuits. And bacon rolls for breakfast. You come away very well fed. To the point that you don’t need tea in the evening. Bargain.