Steve Lloyd

  • Fascinating interview with Donald Knuth — apart from the obvious, regarding his writing process (from 39:16).

    Which led me down a short exploration in expanding my limited knowledge of org-mode and its ability to evaluate code blocks in mixed source languages within an otherwise textual file.

  • Ponies + hills = Hill-ponies #photo #2020

  • Chuck Peddle — co-designer of the 6502 processor died recently

    This elegant ISA design (minimalist because of cost constraints) powered many iconic computer systems, which went on to change the world: eg the Apple II because… well Apple, and the BBC micro. Acorn’s BBC micro was designed for expandability; of ‘built-in’ languages (Lisp, Pascal, BCPL) alongside the BASIC system (whose design by Sophie Wilson was a model of ingenuity). It also became a key design tool in the development of the ARM processor. Which you may have heard of.

  • Dolwyddelan. #photo #2018

  • Well sunny. #photo #2007

  • Eiheiji. #photo #2016

  • Your micro:bit's name — try this in #MakeCode

    I’m re-visiting the micro:bit after a couple of years absence, for some new projects. Some notes and explorations on this to come. But here’s one about each device’s unique name you can try in MakeCode.

    Each micro:bit has a unique serial number set at manufacture which can be displayed as a five character name. You can display it by:

    • in a new project, swap into JavaScript editor view and type

    let myName = control.deviceName()

    myName is going to be the variable where we can access the micro:bit’s name.

    • now swap back to blocks view and you’ll see a myName variable being set—you can display it as you would with any text, such as in a show string block.

    You’ll need to download your code to a real micro:bit, then take a look at the result, which will be five characters, for example gozut — yours will be different.

    What’s the use? Say you’re using several micro:bits to measure temperature and sending their data over Bluetooth. By including the name in the data, you can distingush each micro:bit’s values.

  • A view from a hill. #photo #2019

  • Two trees. #photo #2012

  • Some trees. #photo #2019

  • Sissinghurst #photo #2012

  • More apples. #photo #2019

  • Seaside. #photo #2019

  • Fragments. #photo #2019

  • camcrag Tentastic Tentfest day salvaged 600 tents today for Calais and other refugees

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  • Green. #photo #2019

  • Saltaire. #photo #2019

  • Apples. #photo #2019

  • Embedded Architecture #photo #2016

  • #MangaExhibition #photo #2019 British Museum

  • “And above that, his eyes: their grey irises smattered with bits of brown and ember so that, looking at them, you could almost see, right behind you, something burning under an overcast sky”. Ocean Vuong has a way with words.

  • Hoping that the demise of the only fanless Mac laptop—just the right size for a backpack, is a precursor to an ARM or better-still RISC-V successor. Mine is going strong with only one crumb-related keyboard panic-ette.

  • “Sir: I’d like to clear up a gross misconception that one of your contributors has concerning the behavior of the onboard computer during the Apollo 11 landing.” — Margaret Hamilton wehackthemoon.com/people/ma…

  • So, a timely reminder that there’s only 5 months till www.runwales.com Conwy ½ marathon. Need to book the traditional balmy weather…

  • Resist. Temptation. To. Climb. #tatemodern #photo #2016

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