Minimal

A list of random things I’m enjoying right now:

• My Name Is Earl: has me laughing out loud every week
• Tumble, by Jack Mottram: the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on the web for a long time
• Life on Mars: accidentally caught half an hour of it last night and it far exceeded my expectations
• Resharper: started using it for the first time, as I’ve given up hope on us getting Visual Studio 2005 at work
• Office 12 UI blog, by Jensen Harris: I know I’ve given it props before, but it really is worth another mention

What’s floating your boat at the moment? Anything else I should be getting into?

Another trackday, another great sense of relief that I’ve not bankrupted myself by crashing into a Porsche. More than that, though, Donington was a great learning experience. [more...]

The trackday used the National circuit, missing out the Melbourne loop.
(Track map nicked from www.msport-uk.com.)

Yep, it’s insidious meme time again. And yet... I can’t resist falling into line. Thanks, Phil. ;) Anyone know who started this nonsense, anyway? Someone intent on identity fraud?

Four two jobs I’ve had:

Software developer, Nonlinear Dynamics

Software developer, elsewhere in Newcastle (sorry—I never disclose my current employer)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

Back to the Future

Jaws

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Four places I have lived:

Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Bedlington, Northumberland

Gilesgate Moor, County Durham

Newcastle upon Tyne

Four TV shows I love to watch:

My Name is Earl

Top Gear

Popworld

Peep Show

Four places I’ve been on holiday:

Damascus, Syria

Zion Canyon, Utah, USA

Bílina, Czechoslovakia

Lake District, UK

Four of my favourite dishes:

Super noodles

Red Thai chicken curry

Baked beans on bacon on cheese on toast

Prawn cocktail

Four three websites I visit daily:

Google

Gmail

Jensen Harris

Four places I would rather be right now:

Donington Park

Oulton Park

Zion Canyon, Utah, USA

In bed

Four bloggers I’m tagging:

Mad

Dave

Chris

Duncan

Sorry, guys. I’ll not think any less of you if you don’t continue the meme. In fact, I’ll probably think more of you. :)

Bugger. There was me, planning on using my copy of Grand Prix 3 plus a few judicious downloads to learn the racing lines and corner approaches at Donington. I had, of course, forgotten that I offloaded my copy onto Oxfam about 6 months ago. Crap! Even to use the copy-protection-breaking utility, I need the damned game CD. (Sounds a bit self-defeating, doesn’t it? Hey ho.)

Anyone got a copy I can borrow ASAP? Talk about clutching at straws! :-/

On Saturday afternoon, I fell victim to a pair of charvers intent on a spot of happy slapping. Following a few decent kicks to the head, the end result was some memory loss (mostly temporary), 4 stitches in a bust lip and the loss of a front tooth. Well, it’s dangling right now, but it’s coming out on Wednesday. Bummer, no?

Earlier today, my dentist recommended I claim for compensation to pay for the dental work, but I’m not so sure. I hate the compensation culture taking hold in this country. The only people who should be compensating me are the idiots who kicked me in. Neither the general public nor the police were responsible. What right do I have to expect them to pay for my medical costs? You could argue that by paying my taxes, I’m as entitled to it as anyone else, but it just doesn’t sit comfortably with me. What do you think? Should I claim? I can afford not to...

I was about to give these to a charity shop, but figured they’re more likely to find a good home if I advertise them here. (If anyone from Newcastle New Media is reading this, feel free to stick a note on there too.) Drop me a line if you want any of them:

• Build your own Database Driven Website using PHP & MySQL (third edition), by Kevin Yank of Sitepoint.com
• Defensive Design for the Web, by 37 Signals
• Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman
• MySQL/PHP Database Applications (first edition), by Jay Greenspan & Brad Bulger (not great, but free)
• PHP Fast & Easy, by Julie C. Meloni (ditto)

P.S. I’m relying on you not to just sell them on Ebay, so please don’t bother if you’re just out to make a quick buck.

It’s winter trackday time again and this time I’m off to Donington Park on Sunday 29th. While the prospect of Craner Curves on a wet circuit may well be one to put your heart in your mouth, I really need a wet track if I’m not to be thrashed by all-comers.

Yes, I know it’s not a race, but it is bragging rights. If I can bag one Porsche and one TVR, I’ll be a happy bunny. Humbling a Noble, however, would be a new experience. I just hope the weather lends me the helping hand I’ll need.

In terms of the presentation, that is, not necessarily the opinions therein. :)

As well as the latest couple of reviews appearing on the homepage, all reviews are now archived on a single page. Not only that, but you can comment on them, exactly as you can with this garbage. Last, but not least, there’s an Atom feed so you can get notified of new reviews as and when they’re posted.

Is anyone out there planning to change their mobile phone soon? Once again, mine’s got to the point where the battery life’s not even long enough to add new credit. Something tells me it’s time to upgrade and, seeing as I’m a tightwad, I’m on the look-out for cast-offs. ;) Got an old one you don’t need? On the Orange network?

Whoever it was at Microsoft who decided it was time their developers started blogging, they should get some kind of medal. Latest in a long line of great weblogs is the Office 12 User Interface blog, written by Jensen Harris.

Quite a while back, I saw a few static screenshots of the Office 12 UI and was shocked. It looked like Microsoft had dropped a right clanger. Reading Jensen’s blog, however, reveals I was being a bit shortsighted (to say the least). I’m seriously impressed with the work they’ve done on usability. Even more impressive is the team’s courage to change such a familiar interface so radically. Jensen even posts videos of features in action where it helps to explain the changes, demonstrating a deep commitment to usability for his readers, too.

I’ve only been reading the blog for a week or two, but am doing my best to wade through the archives. Overall, it’s been absolutely fascinating. If you’re into UI too, this site is well worth a look.

I missed David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence when it was on in the cinemas last year, so when I saw it was on at the Silverlink this Tuesday @ 7pm, I snapped up a pair of tickets for myself and Wilka.

Unfortunately, he can’t make it, so I now have a spare ticket going for a mere £5. Transport is included, unless you’re from, like, Aberdeen or something. First come, first served!

After showing my appreciation of recent Renault design, it would be wrong not to give their Gallic cousins a similar nod. With the exception of the strangely bulbous C3, Citroën too are launching some rather fine-looking cars these days. No, really—I like them!

First, the funky C2 was released and looks ideal for the target market of boy-racers and modders. Next, the C4 was unleashed, including the great-looking VTS coupé (you know, the dancing robot). Now, they’ve only gone all retro and created a C6 (pictured) that pays homage to the long-dead CX. I can’t think of another executive car that provides such a clear alternative to the blandness of Audis, Beemers, Lexi and so on. Bravo!

Recently, every desktop RSS aggregator I’ve used has given me problems of one sort or another. Problems that have been enough for me to give up on RSS feeds. Now, however, I’ve installed the Sage plug-in for Firefox and RSS rocks my world again. While it’s a little sensitive to some feeds’ formatting, it’s generally quite excellent. And living in the browser itself is exactly where it should be. Highly recommended.

Chris asked for it, so here goes: a summary of XPDay 2005, through my dirty lenses.

Pragmatism: Tim Lister (co-author of Peopleware)

Great keynote, and a great masterclass. The former encouraged us to acknowledge our shortcomings—something the agile world’s not very good at, IMHO. The latter was a look at risk management that ignored agile for two thirds of its duration. Not such a bad thing. Much sense was talked. (I really should write this up better when I’ve got my notes to hand.)

Dogmatism: most other speakers I saw

Disappointing. Some described how they adopted agile without their managers’ consent or even knowledge—and were cheered for it. Some were arrogant and rude, unwilling to reason their arguments and unwilling to answer demanding questions with anything other than a stern "No!". Some were shameless self-promoters whose arguments didn’t stand up to any vague notion of common sense. Others still plugged tools and technologies that very clearly had severe shortcomings, all in the belief that agile says This Is Good™ e.g. FIT. The second day’s keynote and one of the main sessions even had nothing to do with agile at all.

When I think about how I spent 2 or 3 trackdays’ worth of my own cash on this, it saddens me. It was my third year on the trot, but I won’t be going back.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many parts of agile that I think are great—the early feedback and responsiveness to changing requirements, for instance—but there is also way too much dogma and, dare I say it, too much extremity. When pushing the limits, you need to be honest with yourself when things don’t work. FIT was a case in point: great in principle, sucks in practice. Please, if you’re doing agile development, keep the passion... just lose the blinkers.

Well, looks like I’ve pissed off the full set of religious fanatics now. :)

Speaking of religion, it feels like ages since I last commented on agile development; XP Day 2005 probably put me off it. Chris Preston, however, recently made a notable post: Spades and shovels.

In it, he rails against the proliferation of repackaging coming from the agile community. It troubles me just as much as it does Chris. I’m even seeing irritating jargon coming through from some of my best friends. Now, I know that Gav has a heart of gold and is generally just full of beans, but when I see someone rebranding a common-sense request for help as a Humble Yo, something somewhere is rotten.

Chris: good post. It needed saying. Gav: sorry, mate. I hope you can forgive me. You know I still respect you. :)

There’s a risk I’ll offend a number of friends with this post, but I’m really looking forward to Richard Dawkins’ The Root of All Evil? on Channel 4 tonight (8pm). Yup, I’m an atheist.

While I respect people’s rights to believe in whatever they want to believe in (even astrology), deep down I find myself just as dumbfounded as Dawkins is at the willful lack of scientific reasoning that fills the world with religion. That may be a pretty cold, hard-headed approach to things, but I’m a computational kind of guy. I just can’t comprehend how otherwise-rational human beings are so willing to turn a blind eye to what I see as the balance of probabilities.

I doubt there’ll be any revelatory material in tonight’s programme, but it’ll be interesting to hear someone else articulate my own discomfort. And it’ll be interesting to see the responses he gets.