Hello! I’m Cole Weinstein, a junior Computer Science major (+2 points to whoever saw that coming) planning to minor in Mathematics. I’m from the beautiful state of Minnesota, and am an enthusiast of board games (which will come up later, I promise).

Monday, July 18th — 101℉ / 38℃

Holy cannoli. It is hot here. At least for the locals. Personally, I’m feeling the heat myself (and feeling much happier with my £25 investment in a ferocious “High Velocity Air Circulator”), but this seems to be typical summer heat for some of the other students on the trip. For England though, this kind of weather is almost unheard of. Tomorrow’s temperature is even supposed to break all-time records (Tuesday edit: it did). In fact, this warmth is so unusual that in addition to the issuing of extreme heat advisories, residents were advised to not drive their cars today, as fears were expressed that the roads might buckle under the extreme heat.

Afternoon class today was very energized. (My hypothesis is that everyone photosynthesized some of the intense sunlight on the commute over to the CMS.) We began with a series of riotous presentations, during which each group argued that their assigned machine was the first computer and slandered the other machines for either not being real computers or for being constructed too late. I found the presentations both hilarious and informative, and often quite convincing, and it seems like most of the other students felt the same. I just hope that DLN enjoyed them as well (although I suspect they weren’t quite what he was initially expecting).

[By the way, a collective vote afterwards determined that German engineer Konrad Zuse’s Z3 machine, constructed in 1941, was the world’s first real computer, although DLN later stated that this question was “silly” and “didn’t make sense to ask”.]

Following the presentations was a fascinating talk on alarms and sound engineering given by Dr. Judy Edworthy (who even has her own Wikipedia page). Unfortunately, because of the extreme heat (see above), Dr. Edworthy was not able to join us in person, so we watched a recorded talk from her before doing a live Q&A session over Zoom. 

That evening, many a Carleton student could be found in the Mary Allan building at Homerton College, working on presentations and chipping away at problem sets seeking respite from the heat. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any A/C in here either, and I soon found myself sweating, even while being inside. On the bright side, at least there were workspaces, and while the outdoors might have been slightly cooler at this point, Mary Allan didn’t have any pesky bugs.

Tuesday, July 19th — 104℉ / 40℃

Records have officially been broken. It is a scorcher here. I’ve heard reports that the average temperature here during the summer is ~71℉, so to be above that by over 30 degrees is unbelievable. The recommendation to avoid driving on the roads has been put into effect until Friday, and reports have even come in of train tracks buckling as a result of the heat. On top of that, yesterday night also broke records, being the hottest night ever recorded in England. And while our afternoon classroom is moderately air-conditioned, our dorm rooms sure aren’t. It was a bit tough to get good sleep last night.

Lucky for us, such hot weather resulted in our entire class getting treated to some refreshing gelato by DLN! Thank you very much DLN 🙂

Today was the last day of our World War II history class. Thank you so very much Dr. Smith for a wonderful nine classes. An incredibly knowledgeable and insightful professor, Dr. Mark Smith led us through a series of nine lectures diving into the events of the Second World War, as well as the major themes that appeared throughout the war. It was fascinating to get a sense of the war through Britain’s memory, and I gained an entirely new perspective on its history as a result of our examinations of how class, political relations, gender roles, and more affected the events that transpired. All in all, it was a fascinating class and I’m so honored to have had this opportunity to learn from such a wonderful professor at Cambridge. Thanks again so much for your time and effort Dr. Smith.

After class (and a gelato stop), I grabbed some dinner, then headed over to The Box Room, a local board game café, with some friends. There, I enjoyed a sparkling apple juice while we exchanged obscure descriptions in Dixit and crafted precise clues in Codenames which often became horribly misinterpreted (as they always do). I love the idea of the board game café, where one can pay a small hourly fee (often just £2-3 per hour) and choose from a massive library of games, with the option for food and drink right in the same room. I’ve found them to have essentially replaced the typical board game store we have in the States, since most of them also sell a number of the games they have for rent as well (factory new versions, of course). It’s a shame we don’t have as many of these in America (at least, not that I’ve seen); personally, I imagine it’s a great business model to sell food to the people sitting in your store playing games for multiple hours. If you’re ever in Cambridge and fancy yourself a nice morning, afternoon, or evening of board games, I’d highly recommend The Box Room. (You can find them here.)

[Here, please add the photo of us playing Codenames. Caption – From left to right: Robbie, Sam, Adele, Nathan, Beck, Charlie, and Cole (out of frame) play Codenames, mainly for a fun evening but partially to spend some time in an actual building with A/C. Sam joined us from the other Carleton OCS program also studying in Cambridge!]

Wednesday, July 20th — 79℉ / 26℃

Peace at last. Today was much cooler, hovering in the mid 70s for most of the day; it even drizzled in the evening, in extreme contrast to the weather just 24 hours before. Believe me when I say this temperature ‘reset’ came just in time; apparently the museum we spent all of our time at today didn’t have air conditioning (as seems to be the standard in this country), and it would not have been anywhere near as enjoyable in yesterday’s heat.

We headed to Milton Keynes today for our overnight excursion to Bletchley Park. On the coach ride over, DLN mentioned that Milton Keynes is often referred to as ‘the Roundabout Factory’, and oh boy, he could not have been more correct. It seems like every intersection in this city is governed by a roundabout; it’s absurd how many of them there are. Otherwise, the rest of the city has been nice so far. There’s been a lot of green trees, and the buildings look nice (many are much more modern than those in Cambridge), although my perception of the city might be a bit influenced by my elation over the 70 degree weather.

Our attraction for the day was the National Museum of Computing (you can also find them on Twitter and Instagram), located right next to Bletchley Park. This museum was filled with everything related to computing, from machines that led to the development of some of the first computers to modern cell phones and everything in between. This place was amazing. 

After a brief introduction, followed by a (quite competitive) quiz on technological advancements in hardware and the evolution of computing devices, we split into two groups for the rest of our time in the museum. My group began with guided tour which took us through the working of the Bombes (British machines based on Polish codebreaking in the 1930s which worked on decrypting German Enigma codes), an explanation of the Lorentz cipher (for higher German intelligence) and the Tunny, Robinson, and Colossus machines built to decrypt it, a rebuilding of the EDSAC (one of the first computers), and the original Harwell computer (the oldest digital computer). Then, we were given a fascinating talk on the history of the role of women in computing and their significant (yet often unrecognized) impact on the field. Finally, we ended with a self-guided tour of the interactive early personal computer and retro gaming console exhibit they had, where students got to play with a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, an Atari, many other early personal computers, flight simulators, and Raspberry Pis. All of this stuff, and I still think I could have spent at least two more days exploring the museum. 

Especially important to me was the interactivity of the personal computing exhibit. At most museums, the old devices are locked in glass cases (and for good reason, I suppose), but it was so, so cool to actually be able to interact with the old systems. I desperately wish I could spend more time in the personal computing section and just learn everything about them and mess around writing programs, but alas, maybe another day.

And that was the first half of our fifth week here in England! Thanks for reading 🙂