October 31, 2009
Development
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I went to one of the Stackoverflow DevDays the other day and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.
It was fun, it was useful, I learnt stuff, but I just couldn’t help feeling a bit deflated when I left.
Not sure if this was due to the fact I felt like a couple of the seminars were thinly veiled sales pitches or if it was down to the fact that everyone else seemed to work for companies that care about their developers… I’d taken a days holiday and paid out of my own pocket to go!
October 27, 2009
Random
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I’m sorry but how can the BBCs Technology Correspondent not know what Ubuntu is! Yes not everyone knows, but not everyone is the BBCs technology correspondent!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html
Admittedly he’s now gone out and found out about it, but surely if that’s your job you’d if that’s what my license fee is paying for? or is it just paying for them to go to tech shows and advertise the latest and greatest shiny gadgets rather than do journalistic research.
October 20, 2009
Random
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Well it seems that the Finns know how to fix rural broadband speeds! Instead of taxing everyone to pay for it, which I’m not a fan of, they just legislate so that it is a Right for everyone in the country to have fast internet access. There is a stepped approach so that it gives the companies time to respond and so that it’s not just a case of, okay so everyone has 1Mb we’ll stop now, it’s a continuous speed improvement too. I think that we should do the same here in the UK.
October 18, 2009
Books
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The Back of the Napkin, Dan Roam
For a book sub-titled ‘solving problems and selling ideas with pictures‘, there was quite a lot to read!
However I really enjoyed the book and the seeing and visualising frameworks it explains, Although there was more reading than expected I don’t think there was anything really unnecessary in there, I think this was just my preconceptions of it being a lot more easy going.
If you have to do any problem solving or presenting of solutions then this book is for you, as I said earlier it provides and explains how to use a set of problem solving frameworks which the author has developed and refined over the years. Whilst it is about using pictures to help you solve the problems, it expalins ways to help you visualise the problems without you needing to be an illustrator or moderen day Da Vinci. Accessible to everyone even the ‘red pens’ and genuinely helpful, just don’t expect it to be a picture book!
October 15, 2009
Random
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A new, and the largest prime number so far has been confirmed as 2 43,112,609 -1, now that’s a pretty big number!
Full story onThe Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/14/45th_mersenne_prime_verified_revelaed/