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A couple of weeks ago I went to the second Machynlleth Raspberry Jam, and ended up being interviewed for Science Cafe on BBC Radio Wales. You can listen again at that link (for a bit). The program also includes my friend Tom Crick from Cardiff Met, who visited the raspberry pi factory; the bit with the Machynlleth Raspberry Jam is towards the end about 21:30 so you can skip to that bit if you want to. The Raspberry Jam was great fun, one of the highlights for me was winning an auction of a raspberry pi case, handmade by Robert (one of the Machynlleth RaspberryRead More →

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The BCSWomen Android programming family fun day we held in Leeds a couple of weeks ago was a resounding success, and I’ve been spending my spare time between then and now turning the materials into a “Workshop in a box”. The idea is that anyone can take the workshop, and run it, with minimal effort; I’ve provided slides, a handout for attendees, a downloadable pack of assets (sounds and pictures that people can use in apps) and a detailed presenter’s guide which has running order, kit list, room requirements, and tips for making the day go smoothly. It also features lots of cute pictures ofRead More →

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I’m in Nottingham at the moment checking out the venue we’ve got booked for this year’s BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium. The poster contest is still open to entries – deadline this coming Friday, 15th Feb, online abstract submission here. We’ve booked enough space to have about 50 posters, I think, and there’s an extra room we can book if we need. The poster space currently looks like this: It’s a lovely big room, very near the lecture theatre (where we’ll be having the talks). I couldn’t get a good photo of the lecture theatre as there was a lecture about to start (I think it’d freakRead More →

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On Saturday, I ran an Appinventor based “family fun day” in Leeds, the idea was to do a day’s workshop getting started with AppInventor, but to do it with mixed groups. I’d run a similar workshop for BCSWomen before, and I’d run one with schoolkids, but I’d never tried to do all together with kids and grownups in the same room. So we (BCSWomen) got together with BCS West Yorkshire, and decided to run it as a joint event. We booked the HEART centre in Headingley, and 70 people signed up (we actually had to close registrations as that was the max for the room).Read More →

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Back in December, I spoke at the Aberystwyth Science Café (that link goes to their Facebook page, and they do most of their organising via FB). Science Café meetings are places where you can hear a talk about science and discuss it in an informal atmosphere, and happen all over the world (you can find a map on the cafe scientifique website here: map of worldwide cafés). I’ve been going to Science Café events intermittently for years now, they actually started in Leeds where I used to live, so I’ve got quite a history as an attendee but before December 2012 had never performed atRead More →

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Yesterday I spoke at BCS Wolverhampton, presenting a similar talk to the ones I’ve done at BCS Birmingham and EMF camp; the title and the abstract were the same, but the slides have been gradually evolving each time I give the talk. Having presented to quite a few people (about 30?) at Birmingham, and to about 120 at EMF, I thought I had the talk nailed; it takes about 45-50 minutes with time for questions, and there are often a lot of questions. But last night’s performance suggested to me that maybe this confidence in my timing was misplaced; there were so many comments andRead More →

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On Friday we had a BCS Mid Wales show-and-tell event. This was the third of these, and as usual I managed to find something to talk about. This time, I talked about CHDK, the Canon Hack Development Kit. CHDK lets you do all sorts of cool things with your camera, like time-lapse. So I did my talk in time-lapse. “Slides” below…

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This is my second post in what I hope will be a long-running series on The Bacon Sandwich Vans of Wales; you can see all posts in the series here: https://www.hannahdee.wales/blog/?cat=36. This van is on the A470, north of Merthyr, in the Brecons, just before you pass the peak and head down towards Brecon itself. The weather on this visit was challenging, for cameraphone photography. The van is by a lake, which is probably lovely. The sandwich itself was good, a large white bread bap with two slices of well cooked bacon within. The sandwich cost £2.70. The ratio of bread to bacon was slightlyRead More →

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Number 12 in a series of N… And here’s a streetview link in case you don’t believe me: http://goo.gl/maps/4wgTz The Arousal Café was closed when we visited Barmouth on Saturday. Roger was playing in Round the Horne at Barmouth theatre, and we were looking for a bite to eat, so if it had been open they would certainly have got some custom. (If you would like to browse previous entries in this blog series, you can do so here: OIWCIT, and view such classics as Speed Rabbit Pizza and Brian Pickles Lawn Mowers.)

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Number 1 in a series of n… I’ve decided to start a new blog series, on the bacon sarnie vans of Wales (TBSVOW). This will complement nicely my other blog series OIWCIT (Ooh I wouldn’t call it that) and Shadows of interest. On our way back from Cardiff yesterday morning, my fellow travellers and I stopped for a bacon sarnie in the Brecons. We chose “Super Bites”, which is on the A470 above (that is, south of) Brecon. The van itself is an unassuming structure, staffed by a friendly man who’d been selling sandwiches there for 7 years. Prior to that he’d lived in Cardiff.Read More →