Disease, Radioactive Gas, and Shackles

Yes, I’m still alive…just! I seem to have come down with a bad cold / pretty mild flu just yesterday, but that’s no excuse for not having posted anything for 21 days. Mind you, it’s better than some people, who haven’t posted since September 19th!

Not a huge amount has been happening on my side of the story really. I went caving last week, down a hole called Giants Pot (or Cave, who knows) in Derbyshire. It’s one of those caves that you’re recommended not to go down more than once or twice a year due to the high levels of radon… I went down a couple of years ago and followed much the same route: walk about a bit, go down a 5m pitch (we laddered it this time; I hate ladders!), then walk down the Crab’s Walk (it’s so narrow you have to go sideways most of the way), then back up again. Not bad, but very tiring!

In other news, my project is doing better than I could have ever imagined, but there are still some major hurdles to overcome, not least that I still can’t read/write the flash chips (need to build the JTAG adapter), and I’ll have lots of fun shoving a Linux kernel in 2MB of FLASH, not to mention running a whole system in 2MB of RAM! Fun!

Early awakening

I was woken this morning by the sound of our doorbell, at exactly 8:00. It was the new washing machine, or more precisely the washing machine delivery man. The house had a washing machine in it when we arrived, but our landlord wanted £1.50 each per week for the machine. We thought we could do better than that and found a £100 reconditioned Zanussi machine or three, that we went for instead. You do the maths, but we’ll save a pretty penny this way, and we get a better machine to boot!

The first week of Uni went quite well. I’ve got some really interesting modules, like Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Neural Networks, but even the more standard ones like Language Specification & Implementation and Computational Mathematics look good and will definitely get those grey cells going! In addition to this, my current idea for my final year project is looking good: trying to get Linux on an old Sky Digibox (a PACE 2500N). So far everyone I’ve spoken to think it’s a good idea if it’s possible, but that’s the thrill of it all!

Jess is off doing a traffic survey today, getting paid £30 for two hours work! I thought the weather would be miserable and opted out of the exercise even though everyone else in the house has gone, although now it’s turned out fine, if a bit cold. Never mind, gives me plenty of time to tidy this room up a bit!

That reminds me, I need to put a load of washing on…