Arcoarena

Right so this is quite a long post but it might be worth it. I went to the Philippines for work a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a surprise as I only agreed to it on Wednesday evening and I flew out on Friday morning. It wasn’t even my project I was going out for either. Anyway I wrote this whilst I was out there and thought someone might be interested.
Friday 22nd & Saturday 23rd June

Flight to Hong Kong – not very comfortable so didn’t sleep that well, this, I knew was going to be a problem later. The movies were ok (“Starter for 10″ – a reasonable english romcom about a poor kid who gets on the University challenge team and falls in love yada, yada, yada. “Music and Lyric” a romcom with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, this was, frankly, awful; well not awful, maybe just awfully trashy – I couldn’t face “A Beautiful Mind” and I’d already watch the Friends and Top Gear episodes twice that flight)

HongKong airport is nice, as airports go, Manilla airport is grotty, and they are quite strict, it’s the only airport I know that actually checks the luggage tags against the tags you get given to make sure you haven’t got someone else’s bag.

The Shangri-La hotel in the business district, Makati, is very posh. So posh infact that I’d almost prefer a cheaper one….almost. Everyone says “Hello Sir” as you pass them, I’ve just got out of the habit of looking round to check to see if they’re talking to someone else. It just feels a bit odd, Give that the only people at work who do something if I ask them to are the secretaries, and I even feel guilty doing that.

Anyhow, I get to the hotel at around 12:30 localtime (some time around 5:30am BST I think) and find out I’m going into the vendor at 2. A quick shower and then lots of work (I left at around 10:30 that evening), most of which I tried to do standing up, or at the very least typing so I didn’t fall asleep.

We ate that evening in a Pirate themed italien restaurant run by some Italians who had somehow ended up in Eastwood city. Even at around 10 in the evening the office buildings were quite busy. A lot of call centre work is being located in the Philippines, probably due to the price and the obvious advantage of english speaking workers. Dell have a large call centre there so there is always someone around

Sunday 24th

Today is a day off, they don’t work Sundays (they don’t work Saturdays either but they came in since I was there). I got up late as I haven’t quite got used to the time. I headed out to have a wander.

Manilla is quite a cosmopolitan place. If you removed the people from the business district only the temperature and humidity would give away the fact you were in S.E. Asia. As a rule most Philippinos are Bi-Lingual and all the signs are in english. I think they are fairly westernised. That’s certainly the impression you get as you walk out of the hotel and past the one of the many Starbucks in Makati.

Just opposite the hotel is a large complex of shopping centres, many of the shops were recognisable, even Marks and Spencers & Crabtree and Evelyn. Near a park type area was a series of restaurants, all I could find that would even vaguely resemble Philippino food was a Japanese restaurant, so I did what any sensible person would do…and went to a Creperie. I was sat there feeling guilty about eating european food when two French women came and sat down, I felt a bit better after that.

After lunch I decided to head for Rizal park in the city center in the hope of it being a little more ‘authentic’, it seemed a pity to leave without getting a bit of an idea what the city is really like. In the taxi on the way to the park the driver was talking about the corruption of the government and how the value of the Peso has fallen since the new head of state got in to power. The park was very nice, lots of flags, there’s an auditorium opposite and there was a Christian concert going on. The Philippines has only been independant since 1946 and it was occupied until 1899 by the Spanish. I suppose that explains the corruption, a young government. The Spanish occupation explains the religion, most people converted to Catholosism at some point during their 300 year rule.

After the park I headed into the walled bit of the city to see the San Agustin Church, it’s a UNESCO world heritage site etc. It’s quite nice, it looked really nice inside but there was a mass going on so I couldn’t go in.

I then headed back. Another ‘interesting’ taxi ride. In the Philippines they tend to take the rules of the road as guidance more than rules. It’s not they don’t have red lights, it’s more that they don’t pay them any attention. Rights of way don’t exist either. That’s not to say pedestrians are any better. So much for, ‘look left, look right, look left again’ it appears to be wander out into the road and assume cars will stop for you.

Anyhow, back at the hotel doing some writing up of the trip so far (I’m sure I’ll have to prepare a trip report for work so I might as well do it now). I’m considering heading out for dinner soon, I’ll propably have a mexican

Sunday 24th Continued….

I did actually have an oriental meal in a ‘Asian Fusion’ place, a bit of a fast food place really but I didn’t feel like walking too far. I was sat opposite a flatscreen TV on the wall which advertised various things inbetween showing pictures of the food and tips on texting etiquette.
One of the adverts was for Brown Rice Tea “Stop frequent night urination”, the other was for a cooling company that bizarrly both made the air con units for the hotel I’m staying in and have a base in Havant. It’s a small world. Quite why one would sit eating Singapore Fried noodles (or whatever) and think “I really want one of those hemetically sealed, horizonal screw refigeration units” is beyond me.

Monday 25th

Mostly work today. On the way in to work we passed through the chaos (or something closely resembling chaos) of rush hour traffic. As the driver weaved his way through the traffic we slowly passed through the less weathly areas of Manila. Staying the in Shangri-La makes it even more shocking to see the huts and cobbled together shanties in the middle of the city.

I found out today why English seems so common despite having a native language. The Philippines was tribal for a long time, it was only with the colonisation that it was attempted to bring the tribes together. The tribal nature means that there are several vastly different dialects, so it seems easier to use English.

The Rest

Work took up most of the rest of the trip. The only other remarkable point of the trip was leaving. Manilla airport is quite grotty and much like the rest of the country the security was really tight and as a white male on my own I figured the chances of being pulled aside were quite high. Fortunately everything went fine but I’ve never been quite so glad to get out of an airport.
Photos are here

Well, I haven’t said much recently. Partly becuase I haven’t got much to say (though I’m not sure that’s stopped me before).

Work’s quite busy, though much regression testing means I’m doing the same bits of testing again and again. It’s a rubbish bit of the project. Nothing new is going to happen, the feature set is fixed. All that’s left is tidying up the mess made by feature creep and various compatability issues between code, hardware enclosures etc. Many bugs but very few challenges unfortunately. I don’t really feel I can talk much about work as it’s all commercial stuff and I don’t want to get fired or anything. Not that any insider knowledge helps predict what will happen to the share price.

As I was saying, not much has happened. I bought some new tyres for my bike (Continental Grand Prix 4000, no less) and I haven’t had a puncture yet. New brake blocks are next and they’re currently making a disturbing metal-on-metal sound and not doing a whole heap of slowing down.

Oh, and I’m thinking of buying a house/flat/cupboard depending upon what I can afford. I’m hoping to look round a few in Southsea this Saturday so we’ll have to see. I guess I’m lucky to be outside London.

Well it looks like it’s going to be a long week. Having worked an 11 hour day yesterday due to a conference call to the states extending my day in work you can imagine how happy I was with the head wind on the way back, especially after returning to my bike to find a flat front tyre.

I’ve just replaced the rear tyre after finding the bit of glass embedded in my wheel that caused the recent spate of punctures. I think this one is a dodgy valve though. I bought a foot pump recently (as opposed to the mini-pump I carry with me in case of disasters) so I’m getting used to fully inflated (100psi) tyres, one of the bad things about a road bike is small bumps on properly inflated tyres hurt so imagine what kerbs are like.

I’m sat at work at the moment relishing the thought of another ride home with a 30mph head wind for 5 of the 7 miles. Yay. But to be fair I am still enjoying cycling in. I’m getting quicker too…….I think as I have yet to get a cycle computer and I can never remember the exact time when I set off. I have bought a nice big bike light though – complete with lead acid battery (I decided I’d rather pay, unlike some people)

Well, I sucessfully solved one problem today. It appears that the new batch of cards that have just arrived all failed to work. This, as I discoverd after some investigation, was because the plant that made the cards fitted capacitors in place of a few resistors; doh!

I still have an EMC issue to sort out and I’m spending most of my life in the anechoic chamber. I’ve also got to finish testing too, and write up the reports, and meet the customer to review it all, and…..

Anyhow, I’m off home now, I’m getting broadband today so I’ve got to go and fail to get it to work with my computer/router. Tomorrow might prove fun, I’m bidding for a car on EBay (I test drove it on Sunday).

Well, the card I designed has come in and I’m half way through testing it. I’ve still got a bit more work in the thermal chamber to do and I’ve got signal integrity testing to complete (once the probe arrives). All seems to be well. I’ve also finally got anti-static shoes so I don’t have to wear that irritating foot-strap now.

Cycling’s still going ok. I need to buy a pair of proper cycle shoes though because my trainers take waaaay to long to dry when it rains. I’m seriously considering buying SPD cleats too for the shoes although I’ve only just got used to the toe clips and it’s guarenteed that the first time you pull up to traffic lights with SPDs you’ll slowly fall sideways when you can’t release your foot from the pedal – quite comic really. One of the other cyclists at work slipstreams busses in order to cycle faster. He’s so scared the bus it going to stop he doesn’t even look down at his speedo. I’m convinced one day I’ll see a bus with a big human shaped dent in it a-la Tom and Jerry (or any other cartoon come to think of it)

Other thing’s I’ve bought are: a dvd-writer (my DVD drive broke and since I have movies and Operating Systems solely on DVDs this became irritating after a while). a Drill (cordless, natch). I only needed to drill two holes (we’ve got a towel rail in the airing cupboard now) but I’m sure it will come in useful for Tour.

Apart from that I’m not sure a lot has happened. See many of you soon.

This is something Andy has talked about before but…

At the moment our office is filled with large cabinets full of disk drives and more importantly fans – mainly thanks to the software boys. This means everywhere I go I’m surrounded by a constant background noise of bloody fans whirring. To drown this out I sometimes listen to music while I work.

Thanks to Magnatune I have access to some very good music for free.

My current favourites are Drop Trio (funky organ jazz), John Williams (mellow jazz/blues guitar – but only the Dusty Porch album, the Long ride home tracks are a bit more jazzy and not quite to my taste). Beat Under Control (“electrofunk”) and Mr Gelatine (electronica) are also quite good too.

The thing is that there are loads of artist and because you can download the mp3s for free you get to sample albums before you decide whether you like it. One can of course buy the album if you want better quality (by downloading higher bit rate files or being sent a CD) – atleast you know you like the music before you pay anything.

I’m slowly continuing my search so if anyone finds anything good let me know.

Well it has been a busy week.

I got back to work on Monday after Ed’s housewarming and my new cards came in from Singapore. I’ve been ironing out the glitches this week and I’ve got a properly working version of the CPLD code and all the hardware seems to work. I’ve just handed 8 of the 10 over to a different department for the metal work to be added and they’ll be shipped off to the US soon for the software guys. I’ll be testing it for the next few weeks and then I’m off onto a new project hopefully.

Outside of work there has been one relavent occasion. I went to see ‘The Museum of Everyting’ being recored in the Drill Hall in London. The Museum of Everything is a Radio 4 comedy sketch show with Marcus Brigstocke and a couple of other guys. It’s quite funny. The first series is currently being repeated on R4 Wednesday 6:30-7:00 pm and I would recommend listening.
I’m going out tonight so, again, another break from routine.

I went on a course a while ago in which I learnt that what you seen on your oscilloscope screen in not necessarily representative of the signal you’re trying to measure

Part two of this lesson in real-world electronics is this…..

I’ve got this board where one of the signals coming from a clock buffer is being distorted. Removing the series resistor that sits next to the output of the buffer makes the signal look nice and clean with sharp edges and everything. So it’s not the input to the circuit. I’ve just lifted the legs of the clock pins the trace is leading to and……it still looks the same. Conclusion the trace is causing the problem.

This is where the simulation comes in. From the layout file the PCB guys designed I can extract the data for that trace and use a tool to simulate the trace with lossy microstrips in place of the tracks on the physical board.

The lesson is that you get out what you put into these kind of simulations. Try as we might we can’t get the trace to represent what we see in the real world (not without entering stupid values anyway – the kind of problem we would have noticed already if that is what is happening). I’m stumped. I can’t think of anything big we’ve forgotton but the simulations don’t match real life.

Simulation is obviously a useful tool when you don’t have a physical piece of hardware infront of you for some reason – e.g. it hasn’t been designed yet. But hopefully today has demonstrated that it isn’t the gospel truth – just another useful tool that has to be used carefully – much like a circular saw.

Well so much going on.

It was nice to see everyone at the Comus dinner and a pity I had to leave to catch the train but oh well. Same time next year?

In other (not entirely unrelated) news I’m going to help with the get in for these people on the 6th. Sadly they hire in technical help so I might not get a chance to do any lighting design unless I look elsewhere. I also still haven’t really worked out if it’s possible to keep up the event lighting thing.

Finally. My board (the first I’ve ever designed) is in Malaysia at the moment having the final chip fitted to it before being shipped back to the UK to test. I’m simulating the code to go on it at the moment, which is a very useful excercise as I’ve found several mistakes already.

I think that’s all for now. ’till later

This time of the mental kind. I benefited from another’s misfortune recently. Joesph was too busy to attend a training course so I got to go. Two days in Oxford with a bloke telling us how he fixed huge companies problems with a paper clip (seriously, oh and a ’scope too). The course was of High Frequency measurement and Troubleshooting, with some EMC and ESD (electro static) stuff too. The man was a guy called Doug Smith. It was all very interesting and I learnt not to trust any measurements ever made, even at low frequencies by todays standards. His website is very good for those of you that way inclined. And I have a certificate to show that I’ve been to the University of Oxford.