Dormant Last read · last published · next check
Read 1 day ago and current, but nothing has been published for 13 years.
So, in breaking with my norm of not writing about politics in my home country mostly because it inevitably leads me down the path of depression, it seems we’ve recently managed to screw something up so badly that it would be remiss not to speak out. We’ve managed to bungle our way into passing a law criminalising “non-traditional” sexual relations. For a people who have had to deal with the…
This will be short. It will not be so for the sake of brevity or a lack of what to say, but the simple fact that exploring the recesses of one’s mind is not without some discomfort in my case. We seem to spend our lives haunted by fears of the unknown, especially when in unfamiliar territory. “What if I fail?” “What if I’m just not good enough?” It keeps us from writing, from work… from love.…
It’s happened again. You’ve decided to make something, but you’re not sure what exactly it should look like yet. You pull out your favourite tool for wireframing, and spend a few minutes doodling. Sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Quite often, you run right into a wall. Damn. Stuck again. What now? One might think to use one of those fancy online mockup tools, but I find they tend to…
Technology is the light that can cut through the darkness. When humanity conforms to a single truth, a truth based in technical progress and scientific method, we will be unstoppable. - Otto Octavius There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduc’d to a Mathematical Reasoning; and when they cannot it’s a sign our knowledge of them is very small and confus’d; and when…
From 1709 to 1719, Tsuramoto Tashiro compiled his conversations with the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Years later, these conversations were published as Hagakure or “Hidden by the Leaves”. Even today, it is still a veritable treasure trove of wisdom. What follows are his thoughts on sharing one’s opinion. To give a person one’s opinion and correct his faults is an important thing. It is…
“How did you learn to code?” Seyi I often get asked how I initially learned programming… to which the answer is sadly that I’m not completely certain. Although I’ve always been fascinated with making things, I’m uncertain when it finally clicked that computers could be used for things other than playing Prince of Persia. It’d be nice if I had documented my efforts to learn, but I didn’t. Sorry,…
Alright, let’s start this off with a fitting soundtrack just because we can. Open it up in a tab and come back? Greetings, valiant adventurer! So, I heard you care about data. You aren’t storing your precious data in anything that acknowledges PUT requests before being certain it’ll be able to return it to you? Well then, you’ve come to the right place. Okay, I’m clearly excited, but with good…
It is not sufficient, for instance, for the firm to simply grant the designer a free hand. When it comes to industrial design, nothing is accomplished merely by an unstinting generosity on the part of management–the kind of profligate benevolence often practised by American firms. Rather than providing a blank check, a firm needs capable workers in its various departments, dedicated people with…
The nature of design Design is used to describe a great many things, from the creation of toys and software, to the construction of aircraft. All these things might be considered “designed”. However, there is no universally accepted definition of design. The way it is used differs from field to field. So, first we need to attempt a definition that strips away the differences of medium and…
And do you know what ‘the world’ is to me? Shall I, show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by…
In the absence of a detailed quick start guide to testing Squeryl projects with specs2 , I’ve ended writing up some information for anyone else getting started with combining both projects. After quite a bit of hair pulling, I got some guidance on doing so from @etorreborre . Avoid implicit clashes As it turns out Squeryl and specs2 have a number of name clashes. You can avoid the implicits clash…
It’s worth mentioning that these are heavily influenced by Tony Hulme’s “Visualise Your Business Model In 15 Minutes Flat” HackFWD talk [1]. With that out of the way, let’s get started. Starting out, it is of utmost importance to visualise one’s business model. There are other forms of business which are fuelled by speculation of their potential worth, think MySpace. In those cases it is often…
The following are some notes from reading the Dynamo paper. If anyone’re reading this… it’s not even a weak substitute for reading the paper. “Man up and go read the paper . Instead, these are my notes on the aspects of the paper that I found particularly interesting. Being what it is, the points are somewhat disjointed and probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone. It’s a quick reference I can pull…
Empathy is: “…the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better; intellectual idenfication of oneself with another.” (Webster’s 1979) A lot of geeks, while growing up, feel a gnawing need to differentiate one’s self and be special. This passion for being unique and differentiating the self contributes to interests ranging from languages to…
It is a tad complex trying to figure out how one paces out goals on a journey that lasts a lifetime. It’s a bit easy to work out my practice as just a drop in the bucket of doing Kendo for the rest of my life. However, as with other things I’m involved in, I feel a need to pace myself and at least set small achievable goals. It’s proving a bit difficult to find advice on what is possible within a…
I find it a bit amusing how many means of communication there are these days. I’m old enough to remember a period where the primary means of reaching anybody, apart from one’s immediate neighbours, was the solitary home phone. However, these days there are so many ways of reaching people in remote areas of the world at strange times. It makes one wonder how the human race has adapted for these…
Attended the February Twitter Developer Nest #devnest at Sun Microsystems. Saw some really cool apps and presentations. <Updated long post coming up>
Attended an “Introduction to Scala for Java developers” talk at Skillsmatter. Presented by Miles Sabin, of Chuusai (the chaps who make the Scala IDE for Eclipse), the talk covered an overview of functional programming and the Scala language (traits, duck-typing, “everything is an object”, case classes…) . I managed to ask him about his thoughts on the growing comparisons between Scala and Clojure…
I’ve found myself relating more of my kendo practice to the rest of my day to day life lately. Concepts such as Zanshin (loosely translated to continued focus) are important even outside the dojo. My dojo’s sensei, Victor Harris, explained a breakdown of zanshin into 3 aspects: the initial zanshin of preparation, that of execution (of the cut in the the Kendo context) and the zanshin of finishing…
New post! :P I’m sooo lazy :(
Signed up for Project 52 . I guess I’d better get writing then. :P Chiming in a bit late on a Thursday night. At least another 51 posts to go… Welcome to 2010.
I spent yesterday at Google London attending the Android Developer Lab. There’re some really awesome devices on the Android platform (Motorola Droid!!!). I had a great day overall meeting some really bright people who are clearly passionate about building great applications. About 6 hours of fun with the Android 2.0 SDK and some multi-device testing. It’s a great time to be in the mobile…
Spent an evening with the London Android User Group at Skills Matter. Three talks/presentations in all: USING ANDROID GPS TO MEASURE RACE CAR PERFORMANCE Paul Thomas talked about using GPS hardware on the G1 to turn the phone into a datalogger for lap times, G-forces and car positioning on the track. I actually missed this talk while rushing through the London Underground to get to Skills Matter…
