richard-slater.co.uk

Driving Lesson #25

First lesson in two weeks, for that matter I don’t get another lesson for two weeks either. I feel a little stuck with the driving to be honest, each lesson seems similar to the previous lesson, it is possibly a mix of the law of diminishing returns and fustration at doing the same thing over and over again.

Took a look at the Burgess Hill Test Center the website still says no information available, and I can’t seem to select any times or dates on the “book a test” page on direct.gov. Never mind, hopefuly will be able to book a test at some point in 2009!

Anyway, as I said no more lessons for two weeks because of Christmas, will update again then for sure.

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Learn a Little More About Richard Slater

Graeme Arthur tagged me, normally I hate these things but this is kind of a reverse chain letter… sort of… maybe if i re-write the rules slightly.

Rules:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Facts About Me:

1. At the time of writing I have been alive for approximately 871 million seconds.
2. I first started programming (in Spectrum BASIC) at about the age of 8 since then I have coded projects in Visual Basic, Pascal, C/C++, Java, Ada, PHP and C#.
3. I have played EVE Online for almost five years now, have been playing less often of late however I still get to enjoy the time I do spend in EVE, although it is getting increasingly more and more lonely in space.
4. I have been learning about Sharepoint over the past few weeks, I have already completed most of the Microsoft e-Learning on the topic and read several blogs, I recently signed up to the Sharepoint User Group UK.
5. I wrote my dissertation on the future of MMOGs, I disagree with a good proportion of what I wrote, however it was one of the most enjoyable parts of my Degree.
6. I type at between 40 and 60 words per minute, it has taken me 5 minutes to get to 300 words in this blog post, some of them however were copied and pasted from Graeme’s post.
7. Like Graeme I also play bass (albeit I play badly) and dabble in live PA, although I don’t really enjoy the later any more.

7 people to tag:

1. Catherine over at I Married You
2. Haly over at Halycopter
3. Tim over at Thoughts of a musing pedant
4. CrazyKinux over at CrazyKinux’s Musing
5. Winterblink over at winterblink.com
6. James Glass over at Outthere
7. Peter Arthur over at Robotii

I know the last two were on Graeme’s list, however I honestly can’t think of anyone who would appreciate it most of the blogs I read are a strictly one way thing. I was tempted to link JoCo, Felicia Day and Mark Russinovich – however I really don’t think they would appreciate it.

Posted in Blog, EVE Online, Programming | 2 Comments »

Driving Lesson #24

So today was the 48th hour of driving a car, we didn’t do anything new one emergency stop at the end after being chased round by a 4×4 for a bit, should have guessed that was going to happen after Kev had said he wanted me to do an emergency stop.

Trying to perfect manoeuvres on difficult roads (read steep), was quite interesting trying to do a three point turn on a large hill. One thing that is slightly concerning me is reversing into parking spaces in supermarkets and the such. I am not sure why I would want to reverse into a parking space when I could just go in forwards and then put the shopping in the boot, it just seems like something that might be useful at some point.

Anyway, no lesson next week Kev is going Christmas shopping.

Posted in Diary, Driving | 2 Comments »

Ordering Pizza

I know I have only just blogged, but this wouldn’t fit in Twitter.

Ordered a Pizza tonight from Famous Moe’s Pizza, we ordered a large deep pan pizza with pineapple, sweetcorn & mushrooms; on the side we were going to have coleslaw, two sprites, garlic bread and Häagen Dazs.

Just had a phone call from said Pizza company who said they have no sweetcorn, coleslaw, sprites or Häagen Dazs. Leaving us with a pineapple and mushroom pizza with garlic bread… strangely enough I asked them to cancel the order and refund the money to me. In times when people are less likely to spend money on take-away it doesn’t bode well for your business model to not have 70% of products in stock.

Posted in Things You Find | 1 Comment »

Driving Lesson #23

Emergency Stops…

…DON’T LIKE

My head is buzzing after doing my first four emergency stops, it isn’t the emergency stops that I don’t like it is being in charge of a car after doing one, also having your mate shout “STOP” in your left ear, has a somewhat negative Pavlovian conditioning effect on the enjoyment of driving.

So as with my earlier posts I am going to try and write down the procedure for doing an emergency stop, as with previous posts this is my memory of what to do, not official. Please take advise of a qualified driving instructor (like Kev) before trying this.

1. Instructor/Examiner shouts STOP in your left ear .
2. Press down the brake, then the clutch (this is for an ABS car).
3. As you are doing to try and lock out your arms and push yourself into the chair to avoid being thrown forward.
4. In the event of rear wheels drifting out, steer into the same direction as the the drift. f.ex. if you drift right, steer right.
5. Put on the hand break.
6. Change to first gear.
7. Look over both shoulders (left and right…).
8. Move off slowly and carefully.

Chances are if you are anything like me your head will be buzzing, this would probably be a good time to pull over and compose yourself.

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Isolator For SharePoint

Typemock are offering their new product for unit testing SharePoint called Isolator For SharePoint, for a special introduction price. it is the only tool that allows you to unit test SharePoint without a SharePoint server. To learn more click here.

The first 50 bloggers who blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Full Isolator license, Free. for rules and info click here.

Posted in Sys. Admin. | 1 Comment »

Driving Lesson #22

Today was another chance to go through my driver record, Kev got to tick off a few more of the boxes which is always a nice feeling. I am definitely suffering from a case of diminishing returns when it comes to driving, Kev and I had a discussion at the end of the lesson about trying to get more polish on my driving rather than learning any new skills.

My driver record now looks like this:

Independent

Cockpit Checks, Safety Checks, Controls & Instruments, Safe Positioning, Mirrors – Vision & Use, Signals and Pedestrian Crossings. (7 in total)

Seldom Prompted

Moving Away & Stopping, Anticipation and Planning, Use of Speed, Other Traffic, Junctions, Roundabouts, Turning the Vehicle Around, Reversing, Parking, Darkness, Weather Conditions. (11 in total)

Prompted

Dual Carriageways, Legal Responsibilities, Environmental Issues, Security (4 in total)

Not Covered / Not Known

Passengers & Carrying Loads, Emergency Stops (2)

I agree with all of that, Emergency Stops have not been covered at all yet, and we haven’t spent enough time on Dual Carriageways to make any really judgment. The little box on the bottom right is a little hard to gauge as they are all covered in the theory test (not sure why they are on the drivers record really).

Annoyingly enough the Brighton and Hove test centers are closing on the 8th of January and don’t appear to have any free slots to book a test so it looks like I am going to be booking my test in Burgess Hill in February. Gives me plenty more time to practice!

Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »

Driving Lesson #21

Today was quite a lot of driving around and a couple of manoeuve, based upon the deficiency in my driving last week. The majority of it went well, both turning round in the road and reverse parking worked well, it helped me greatly to look back over my notes and refresh my memory.

The other major thing we worked on was gear changes approaching junctions, particularly my lack of them! I have a tendency to forget to change gear and try and do roundabouts at 15mph in 4th gear or something equally daft. We decided that this was because I am pre-occupied with understanding the situation, and thus I forget to go through all of the essential steps when approaching a junction.

I am getting there, slowly but at least I feel like I am driving. Kev discovered that the Brighton and Hove DSA test centers are closing in January meaning we (and all Brighton and Hove students) will have to drive to Eastbourne or Burges Hill to take their test, adding a good 20-30 minutes travel to and from the test centers. Never mind eh.

Lastly the car started smoking as we pulled up, it had possibly been smoking before that. It appears that part of the high preasure water system had burst leaving the radiator with little or no active cooling. Feel sorry for Kev he has only got the car back from the garrage recently.

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Driving Lesson #20

So today was a mock test, one of several before I take my actual test. We drove down to the test center in Brighton Marina where Kev explained the test to me, how majors and minors worked and what would score as what. I still haven’t done emergency stops so we could not cover that, other than that it seemed pretty much as I had read and expected.

Kev got me to do three manoeuvres, the first was turning round in the road, which I did, not without hitting the kerb (I forgot to steer when reversing) so that was a major. Reverse parking was difficult as it was pitch black and my steering was off at best so Kev had to intervene as I was misjudging the position of the car rather seriously. Reverse round the corner went better, however I hit the kerb again as I overcompensated – all three would be easier in the daylight so I am not overly concerned about them.

My general driving wasn’t that bad, in a couple of places I was slow to move off, and my use of mirrors and the MSPSL routine left something to be desired, particularly after making a mistake.

In the end I had 4 majors and 13 minors, which isn’t too bad – it does show how important plenty of practice is.

So, next week should be more practice. In the mean time I have bought myself a copy of Focus’s Driving Test Successs – Practical Simulator which seems okay, not really that close to actual driving although I think it is helping me learn the sequences.

Going to give myself tonight off to watch Spooks and maybe play a little Team Fortress 2 or EVE Online (Who have their winter expansion released tomorrow).

Posted in Diary, Driving | 1 Comment »

Driving Lesson #19

So, Kev sprung a surprise on me today… a silver car, not just a silver car but a Renault. More or less the same thing I guess, well all the foot pedals were in the right place if somewhat sticky (not good). And most of the controls make sense.

The lesson itself went much the same as the past three lessons, having issues with my feet but getting my way through it. Moving off wasn’t perfect either, stalled more often than I would of liked and stuck around at junctions longer than I should have.

So, next week Kev is going to give me a Mock test, or assessment if you will. This should be interesting as it gives me a chance to be under a little more pressure, which hopefully will speed up the learning process and motivate me a little.

So, stay tuned for next week!

Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »