Secondary attention

Our old TV died the other week, giving us psychedelic colour effects as it did so. Now we've got a new one with a VGA input. So I've been thinking about what sort of secondary attention thing I can do with it.

The other day I found a video on YouTube of a fire. I put it on 20 minutes or so before there was a TV programme we all wanted to watch. After it ran for a few seconds the boys asked me to find something else. I said no, the whole point is that your fire doesn't change, it just keeps burning.

I'm thinking of something that's equally boring, but in time, or over a period of time, does something interesting. So when the TV's not showing a programme it sits there in the corner and is worth glancing at. So not a programme, but a program.

raspberrypi - dirt cheap computing power

I've mentioned "hobby" type electronics before, and I've come across some really expensive kits, but I've recently come across something that is cheap and powerful. raspberrypi.org are making "an ARM GNU/Linux box for $25" ($35 if you want ethernet).

My last job before this was for a small electronics firm. I remember the days when we'd get a PCB back from the manufacturers and then a few days latter we'd get a populated board and be able to hook up to it and start writing software. Exciting times. I plan to buy one of these, but it looks like it won't quite be ready in time for Christmas, so it won't be going on my present list.

I already have in mind what I'm going to do with it - hook it up to the BBC weather site so when we turn the TV on in the morning we know whether to take a coat or not.

Making to do lists into a game

Following up on my post Being more organised is less fun I came across this item from Pulse Laser, the blog of a company called Berg who seem to have fascinating work to do. They link to a website called Chore Wars and an app called Epic Win, both of which turn to do lists into games.

Being more organised is less fun

I've been using OneNote alongside Outlook for the past few months. It's really handy and a great way of managing my todo list. A while back my todo list was an email that I'd keep in the drafts box. Then I switched to tiddlywiki. With OneNote I can achieve a frightening level of organisation. I type something into OneNote, and press ctrl+shift+3 and a task is automatically created in Outlook for this thing to be done by the end of the week. With OneNote I can see things laid out in four dimensions (two dimensions on the page and then two other dimensions with Notebooks and tabs within them). With Outlook I can see things organised by due date.

Each day I can review the tasks to be done and either do them, or defer them to the next day, later this week, or next week depending on priority. When things are awaiting on other people I can add a symbol with a keystroke to show that I don't need to do anything more with it, and I can see a list of those waiting things from OneNote.

(It may even be possible with a bit of programming to get tasks lined up with even more accuracy. My computer could say to me "you've got 15 minutes before lunch and an appointment straight afterwards, so here's your next task that shouldn't take too long - write a blog post". Or "you really ought to be going home now, and you're probably a bit tired - why not do a little bit of light document editing and then go". )

But I find that the more organised I am the less fun things are. There is a brief moment of satisfaction when I press ctrl+shift and number key as I know that I don't have to do anything else to make sure I get a reminder. Ticking off tasks as done is also satisfying for a second or so. But it doesn't last, I'm back to a list of things arranged in order of importance that have to be done. It means that I'm more effective and important stuff gets done first, but it's a bit soul-less.

I've been thinking a lot about games recently. There's talk on the interwebs about bringing gaming elements into tasks to make them more enjoyable. There are people who are trying to develop games that teach you things, like Smokescreen which teaches about on-line privacy. I've also been reading my son's Official Nintendo Magazine and a couple of articles about bedroom games makers, of which I was one in my teenage years.

What I'm wondering is how I can continue to get important stuff done, and have fun doing it?

A software engineer's view of the Wii

Thanks to a credit card which gives you vouchers if you put enough money through the card, we got a Wii for Christmas. I read a comment, answering the question why it has been so popular amongst "non-traditional gamers" - "it's the controller, stupid". And it really is. As well as all the directional stuff it does, what I didn't realise was that it does sound and rumble too.

If you've got one, this isn't news, but when you hit the tennis ball there's a "thwack" from your controller. No amount of clever 3d sound can imitate that. I'm also impressed by the detail on the animations of objects, like balls, pucks and other objects. It's obvious that a lot of care has gone into every detail. I particularly like the music that it makes (there's music for everything) when you're downloading updates. Thanks to everyone who got one for Christmas doing it on Christmas afternoon, I heard that music for a long time. It's all a bit like living in a white shiny space station.

There's some very astute cross promotion going of other Nintendo products, like the ability to download demo versions of DS games, but the biggest money for nothing must be the ability to download old console games and pay upwards of £5 for them.