Finding the chase and cutting to it

Hope you’ve had a Merry Christmas. Mine was spent with my family, which was ace but meant that recovering from a security hack on my server took a little longer to resolve than normal. Thankfully though, I keep a regular backup.  I also make sure my web user has limited access to the rest of […]

Trust is vital in any open source community, although it is through absolute strangers. This is an interesting concept though: can you trust someone you’ve never met and can you trust someone you know well if they’ve let you down? It is often a lot easier to trust someone you’ve never met.  This is how […]

Various things have happened today that have made me feel very angry and sad. I have had an email conversation with a friend from a large company.  He inherited this company just before the credit crunch hit and as a result he has had a real battle.  I guess some one in the company has […]

This is nothing more than the thought that Maslow’s hierarchy badly outdated. Love and belonging at top, then self-actualisation and esteem. Base layers are the same: we all need to eat and have shelter and feel safe. Self-actualisation is fairly easy now however the rest is a complete bonus and only truly achievable if you […]

an interesting article on Radio 4’s this morning got me thinking.  Would I be happy letting a robot operate on me? I have to say, I don’t know.  If the operation is a success then it’s obviously a no-brainer.  However, is the robot likely to make that operation more successful?  That’s the real question… People […]

I love the two Ronnies but the best encounter with them has to be “I know my place” which was written by Marty Feldman/John Law. I first saw it when I was 12, back in 1985, and really wasn’t sure what it was taking about.  The industrial action of the late 70’s really passed me […]

OK, this is a little trip down memory lane and one I am more than happy to share. It is not meant to be a “follow this and reap the rewards” more a comparison of how things used to be… Basics My first programme was 10 print “Sam” 20 goto 10 it produced a screen […]

Hi, I know, it’s been a while. We’ve had some major changes here due to economic climate change (no, really, it’s real and it’s here)… It’s been slowly rolling on but the main disruption we had, was the loss of our broadband access and this site. Painful. People, broadband is essential: we coped (just) by […]

OK, I’ve gone back to work having taken a week as leave and realise just how creepy Michael Marshall Smith’s “What you make it” really is! It’s beautifully written (my favourite story is the “Man who drew cats”) it’s all believable and tangible and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it would be easier to read […]

I like to play games: mostly card games, but I can do the Rubik’s Cube and I am reasonably good at various forms of solitaire including Mahjong and Sudoku. I like games which, once mastered happen quickly so I don’t like Civilisation though I adore Age of Empires. Chess has always eluded me but draughts […]