JuraSource

Sailing round Ireland

2009-07-04T15:46:00.007Z

Friday the 12th of June
Arrived in Largs and met Paddy and Robin in Morrisons for serious food and booze shopping. Nominated Paddy to cook (chicken in a leek and cream sauce with rice) so I could go for a run.

Saturday the 13th of June
Set off mid morning (managed another run first thing), and had a very pleasant sail round Arran. Moored in Cambeltown for the night, though didn't actually set foot on shore. Supper was Nigellas sage and onion chicken and sausages (which had been marinading all night).

Sunday the 14th of June
Made it to Rathlin Island for lunch (salad with spanish omlette). Post lunch doze then set sail for Portrush where we dropped anchor.
Supper was roast lamb, followed by several pleasant pints of Guinness in the Harbour Inn.

Monday the 15th of June
Very early start for the tide, but not much wind. Paddy saw a whale attempt to dive under the boat but we all felt the bump as it miscalculated! Later a pod of dolphins swam alongside for 10 minutes. Made it to Sheeps Haven bay in time for a run along the beach followed by a (very) cooling dip in the bay. Pea, prawn and parmesan risotto followed by more Guinness in another Harbour Inn was most agreeable.

Tuesday the 16th of June
Fairly slow days sailing with much snoozing, though that was helped along somewhat by cider at lunchtime (which was pasta, stir fried yellow pepper and braised strips of beef that had been marinading in chili, garlic and Worcestershire sauce overnight)
Dropped anchor in Church Bay, and there was plenty of time for another run to work up an appetite for linguine with a slow reduced tomato, chili, shallot and red wine sauce (with added choritzo to satisfy the more outspoken non-vegetarians amongst us)

Wednesday the 17th of June
Our early start advantage was lost to disentangling supper from the net, though it was well worth the delay. Storm approaching so we dropped anchor near Killybegs for the night.

Thursday the 18th of June
Forecast still bad so decided to spend the day waiting for the wind to drop. Good chance to stock up on provisions (cider), go for a run and have a pub lunch accompanied by some exceedingly pleasant Guinness. Post lunch snooze, supper of strips of pork slow cooked in chili sauce, olive oil and angostura bitters with stir fried green pepper, broccoli and spring onions - all on top of noodles in a garlic, ginger and chili broth. Early bed in anticipation of the earliest start yet (4am!)

Friday the 19th of June
A rather arduous 16hours commenced. It turned out that the forecast wasn't quite as accurate as one would have hoped for, and a manageable force 5-7 morphed into a much more exciting force 8. Blowing in the wrong direction. We made it across Donegal Bay eventually and dropped anchor in a small and perfectly placed bay. Wet? Yup. Cold? Oh yes. Tired? Extremely. Very very much alive? Hell yes! Happy, hungry and ready for a rum and ginger wine? Perfect! All very pleased with the foresight that produced a chili con carne the day before, which was now hot and accompanied by steaming rice.

Saturday the 20th of June
Both John and I needed to catch a flight from Shannon tomorrow morning, 150 miles away. The race was on! Turns out that all that we needed was a good brisk wind (blowing from the correct direction), a good supply of cider, some pasta with garlic and olive oil marinaded chicken, a dismissive attitude to sleeping and 18 hours of straight sailing. Actually surprisingly Easy.

A superb week!

Jeff Han on TED Talks

2006-10-30T21:20:00.000Z

Jeff Han on TED Talks

Getting php & apache working on OSX

2006-08-26T11:43:00.000Z

After quite a bit of fiddling around, including building and installing php, I finally found this article:

http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Apache/Using-Apache-and-PHP-on-Mac-OS-X/

Turns out everything I needed was already installed....

Using random words to beat spam filters

2006-03-05T21:07:00.000Z

This made it through the gmail filter:

nothing end nothing news suddenly letters. latter somewhere taught we anything. how how thus,
pretty motor is reference already. a did suddenly allow bad taught,
mischievous mischievous arms.
back rich edge a use.
window not here edge bought. allow reply did.

2005-05-23T01:51:00.000Z

new york, ny

Some pictures of new york here, with comments, so exciting

who wants a gmail account?

2005-05-02T04:30:00.000Z

who wants a gmail account?

I've got them coming out of my ears

post a comment and I'll send an invitation

not a unix geek yet

2004-10-26T14:56:00.000Z

Not a unix geek yet

I'm trying, but these man pages are just too dammed cryptic:

Caution should be exercised when using the -F flag. Impos-ing two controlling processes on one victim process can lead to chaos. Safety is assured only if the primary controlling process, typically a debugger, has stopped the victim pro-cess and the primary controlling process is doing nothing at the moment of application of the proc tool in question.

Don't get the central line

2004-09-02T13:38:00.000Z

It's a tad on the warm side, apparently... http://www.metcheck.com/tube/

2004-07-19T20:46:00.000Z

Nice Banksy stencil

Spotted just by the National Film Theater and snapped with my new phone

2004-07-19T20:34:00.000Z

New sneaky Google "Release"

Due to my new job being rather strict on downloading software from the internet, I haven't got the Google toolbar installed yet. Instead I've been going to google.com and searching from there, yes indeed how archaic is that? If I hadn't done that I wouldn't have seen a link to some photo editing software called Picasa that they're offering for free. Seems that they've made an aquisition and are opening up the newly aquired wares to the public.

No idea if it's any good or not (doesn't run on a mac), but here's the link: http://www.picasa.com/google/?promo=hpp1

2004-07-14T22:08:00.000Z

Now here's a challenge!

From the google blog, an image of their latest engineer recruitment campaign:

http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/07/warning-we-brake-for-number-theory.html

Function Points

2004-07-12T13:14:00.000Z

Some documents that may or may not be interesting/useful, but sound it:

> * Function Points: Numerology for Software Developers (http://www.hacknot.info/hacknot/action/home)
> * First, Do No Harm: A Hippocratic Oath for Software Developers (http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=158)
> * A Review of Studies on Expert Estimation of Software Development Effort (http://www.simula.no/photo/expertsubmitnovember2002_copy.pdf)
> * Measurement Theory for Software Developers (http://www2.umassd.edu/SWPI/curriculummodule/em9ps/em9.part3.pdf)
>

2004-07-08T20:13:00.000Z

Tips for reading code

Now, I haven't actually read this yet, but as I'm going to be supporting an application I know nothing about in the near future, written in a language I hardly know (C++) I reckon it should come in handy. Of course we all have different techniques for getting up to speed with other peoples code, and I'm sure they all work well. This is what I tend to do (wonder how it'll compare with the article I'm posting...):

Get the code into a place where you can mess with it without affecting anyone else (this might involve getting access to dev servers)

Find out what the code does, at least what it's supposed to do (this is second on the list as the first one sometimes takes a while, it's good to set that process in motion)

Get everything you need in order to build and run the code (this might involve third party components, or access to other dev servers and databases)

Have a look at the code, see where the main areas are, and what they tend to do

Run the code in debug mode, and if possible step through it whilst doing something typical (speak to the business if you don't know what a typical operation is)

Concentrate on one area at a time, don't try and understand everything at once. Find the main areas of code that deal with that specific "thing", follow the trails to what that relies on. By doing this you'll start to get an understanding of the overall architecture

Repeat the last step for each main area/"business function"

Oh, and if there is documentation available, read it !

Article: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TipsForReadingCode

2004-07-08T20:04:00.000Z

Running beta code on production machines

Not generally a good idea, especially for support hair count! Check out this for a good rant: http://www.larkware.com/Articles/TheDailyGrind409.html

Here's the jist of it:

"On my Windows XP machine I am running GoodApp and GreatApp. Everything worked fine until I installed the Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 this morning. Then I started having the debugger come up every time I try to run GoodApp, and GreatApp won't load at all. Any ideas?" People, this is a BETA. As in, NOT PRODUCTION CODE. As in, DON'T PUT THIS ON THE MACHINE YOU ACTUALLY DO WORK ON. It will break things. It will keep you from doing your work

2004-07-06T21:16:00.000Z

New kit !

Today I took delivery of a brand new second hand iBook !

Now, I've never had a mac before (actually I only bought my first pc a year or so ago) but so far so good...

In order of installation (the little beauty picked up the wireless network without a hitch):

Firefox: www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Gmail notifier: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~natan/gcount/

And actually, I probably don't need all that much else, as this is purely a little "have around the house browsing tool", to which is it very well suited, and I'm stil using Bloglines as my aggregator ... Now, I just need to get used to where all the goddam keys are, and why there's no right click ;-) ... and where's the delete key !

2004-07-01T20:12:00.000Z

Royal College of Art

I popped over to the Royal College after work today to have a quick look round at this years exhibition, and very impressive it was.

Tom Vaughn's stackable chairs and stools looked great, as did Will's very cool chain-link seating structure, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for when they go on sale.

There was too many things to mention here, but this model really took hold of my imagination: a motorbike/go-kart/cool transportation device... I wonder if any of these will ever be on sale? I hope so.

2004-06-29T20:15:00.000Z

Good article on the why XQUERY shouldn't follow SQL

Apart from anything else, apparently SQL isn't a well thought out language, I don't know how many hours I've spent westling with fiddly queries.

Full article: http://www.dbazine.com/pascal19.shtml

2004-06-28T10:56:00.000Z

Young people not happy

Interesting article in the times about 25-30 somethings who are chained to a desk job they hate due to mountains of debt, and are desperate for a way out. Personally I love my accidental career as a programmer, but I know plenty of people that this applies to.

THEY are 30 years old, but feel like they are 50. Instead of revelling in the energy and rude health that youth affords, they are worrying about their debts, regretting their career choices and dreaming of leaving their job to find personal satisfaction.

Full article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1157420,00.html

2004-06-26T19:37:00.000Z

Can Google UI

It's an interesting question from Rands In Repose, aimed specifically at gMail:

The question is, "Does Google have good UI?"

Personally I love it. There are few features missing, like the ability to save a draft message, but on the whole the simplicity and clean interface make for a pleasant web-based email system. But really, as a programmer I'm the first to admit that I'm not the best person at UI design. Oh I reckon I'm better than some, but I can't help but think that the user will figure it out, sadly often not the case...

2004-06-24T08:35:00.000Z

Hotmail to up it's free storage limit

According to Omar Shahine, Hotmail is going to up it's storage limit to 250MB for free accounts: http://www.shahine.com/omar/PermaLink,guid,a340b7fe-ddc5-42cf-96ec-4710a517d16f.aspx

From Hotmail:

Coming soon!

MSN Hotmail Upgrade
- Summer: Virus cleaning of incoming email
- Fall: 250MB of storage for your Inbox
- Fall: Send/receive up to 10MB of attachments
- Keep checking here to learn more!

2004-06-24T08:32:00.000Z

Counter argument to "How Microsoft lost the API war"

Interesting counter argument by Leon Bambrick (http://www.secretgeek.net/) to Joel Spolskys article posted last week.

Here's a couple of pertinent quotes:

Joel is clever, knowledgeable and very convincing. Joel writes in a way that suggests he is your friend.

But is Joel Spolsky really your friend? Do you even know Joel? Is it possible that Joel sometimes uses his charm and wit to hide his true feelings and his true agenda?

After all this, I've learnt a lot of things. But I've also come to some rather harsh conclusions.

The harshest conclusion is that Joel's article is a piece of FUD from a very frightened ISV (Independent Software Vendor), who has decided to try and invent the future.

2004-06-21T12:26:00.000Z

More MS Open Source

Just saw this VB.NET component that'll parse and scan VB code, could be useful for someone... http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/Workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=d8da92aa-354c-4bb0-8e9b-e4763b49a0e3

2004-06-20T12:04:00.000Z

System tray GMail notifier

Superb. I've missed having little pop-up bubbles notifying me of new email (a la outlook etc), so when I found this via BlogDex, I was chuffed: http://torrez.us/archives/2004/05/23/000272.html

2004-06-17T09:25:00.000Z

Yauatcha

Last night I tried out the new-ish Dim Sum restuarant, Yauatcha in Soho. Cunningly I checked other reviews
before going, so knew that
we were going to be constrained to a measly 90 minute slot. In fact this was made pretty clear by the staff:

When I called to make the booking

When they called to confirm the booking

When we arrived and were being taken to our table

So we knew not to look forward to a long evening of food, drink, and conversation !

So rather than spend an age pouring over the menu, half of which I couldn't make head nor tail of, we went right ahead and ordered a recommended number of eight or so dishes between three of us. The ordering technique was basically to scan through the menu and order anything that sounded like it might be nice, or at least interesting.

The food started arriving about five minutes after we ordered, one of the joys of Dim Sum I suppose, and was lovely. The scallops were great, and even the chickens feet went down well (though they didn't actually get finished).

All in all a very pleasant meal, and the place itself is visually pleasing, from the serene "lounge" area upstairs, to the brick lined basement
dining room downstairs. Heck even the bathrooms were cool; the slate waterfall/sink was especially zen-like.

2004-06-17T08:48:00.000Z

For Loop, for who?

Great stuff from the Daily WTF:

You know, I can just picture the conversation Jose would have with this coder ...
Jose: You should really use a FOR LOOP over there.
Coder: A loop for whom?
Jose: No, no ... it's a type of loop.
Coder: Oh, so, it's a loop for me?
Jose: No, no ... I mean ... it's a loop that executes a block of code a fixed num--
Coder: Ooh, I get it. I don't have one of those ... it's your loop? You misplaced it?
Jose: Err, I mean, instead of having to write out all those If-Then, you can use a loop to build the output.
Coder: I see. So ... If you're building output, Then I should write a loop for you? Uhh ..
Jose: No, the Loop is a programming construct, you put it in your code.
Coder: So I construct a code file? I already have it all in Code.bas ...
Jose: Argh -- no, actually, err ... never mind!
Coder: Will do.
Coder (mumbling to self): Pfft. Like that makes sense anyways ... make a loop out of my code file ... what an idiot!

Full post: http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/06/16/316.aspx