Contemporary jotter

A simple idea, simply executed still beats the pants of all that fancy Web 2.0 shenanigans! Its been a long time since I had a jotter, but its nice to see that the principle is as relevant today as in the pre-digitalozoic. Do one thing and do it well. Huzzah !!! My work scribbles will park here henceforth.

Old ways to rust

I’m a big fan of Shakey so it was with some anticipation that I got my mitts on his new CD although it wasn’t until this mornings 6am 3 mile dog walk that I managed to grab a listen. What struck me was that its essentially a fusion of his country-rock and grunge in one album – Old Ways meets Rust is a fair description I think…

DoS and Pants

The recent hiatus has been caused by a Denial of Service attack launched by my children – school half term has keft me 1. bankrupt 2. exhausted 3. little spare time for indolence!! Anyhow, ‘normal’ service can now resume and my first post is about…

pants

Actually, it was whilst walking the dog this morning in the cold crisp autumnal air (every so slightly scented with horse poo and ozone) and whilst reflecting on last nights television that my thoughts wondered to er, gussets. My wife has a penchant for cookery programmes and it was thinking about the bra challenged Nigella that the thought occurred to me that if over a quarter of all British women wear the wrong size bra, how many British men wear the wrong size pants? That got me to thinking about unpleasant events in the past whence I’ve suffered ‘gusset creep’ which is an unpleasant affliction that seems to be both painful and embarrassing at the same time and almost always happens at inopportune moments (such as being cramped in the middle row seat of an aircraft).

Anyhow, my puzzler for today, is what percentage of your male acquaintances are wearing appropriately sized pants (and I’m not even going to contemplate what proportion feel the need to go commando or wear their wife’s/girlfriends smalls)???

Tidbits

I came across this and thought it worth pointing to ...

RDT

A few people have asked me why I bother to blog? Hubris, conceit? Well, in part probably if I'm honest, but I think my major motivation/excuse is RDT:

Reflective Digital Therapy.

Forget all the new age mumbo-jumbo (a phrase taken direct from Dawkins and one I fully agree with), RDT is more in harmony with the digital zeitgeist and seems to offer a synaptic advantage in that contemporary western civilisation constantly requires us to reinvent and reflect on the offerings being bandied about in digital cornucopia. So...my answer to "why do you blog" is simple - it's therapy!

Shock horror!

Breaking an unwritten rule, I'm going to say something that’s work related! (Yes, I do have a job oddly enough - you can dispel images of me sitting with a litter of cats, chewing gum and wiping prono mags).

Anyhow - work. I've been struck lately by the mounting anti-formalisms that seem to be doing the round in the geo-related blogs (see here or here) . The simple reduction is that a RESTful experience is better than a heavyweight SOAP/WSDL one and I (for what its worth) tend to agree. If 80% can be accomplished by 20% of the effort, then the flipside seems to be 20% gain for 80% effort. Now, as the title of this blog attests, I'm naturally lazy and I cannot justify effort for efforts sake. So I guess I'm a RESTafarain rather than a WSDLite (and I’m sure H.G. Wells could have made much of that)..

Anyway, what started me down this road again was taking a look at WADL (Web Application Description Language) - something even the OGC in their collective wisdom are contemplating.... bears taking a shifty at.

An old hand

In the midst of a brown study on a flight recently, staring vacantly at the bald pate of the chap in front, my attention strayed and I started in shock at the realisation of an alien thing draped across the nearby window port. What was it, this ALIEN thing? Somebody else’s hand!! Take the time to study somebody’s hand in intimate detail and be surprised at just how familiar yet utterly foreign it is – the freckling, the hue, the shape the cuticles, the hair, the skin texture...all unsettlingly instinctively known and yet bizarrely …alien. Perhaps it was just the ennui of travel, but its an unsettling experience.

A serious moment.

Reflecting on the visibility of armed teenagers (nominally ‘military’ personnel but they all looked about 20yrs old), at Charles de Gaulle airport on my way home form a meeting in Luxembourg, I was forcefully struck by the notion that situations like Burma and the swagger of the young security guards was due in sum total to access to ordinance. I know it’s a hoary old chestnut, but surely a return to ‘civilised’ ways of armed conflict would be preferable – a sword is much more personal than an armalite and those engaged in conflict are immediately aware of the consequences (try ‘misfiring’ a broadsword).

Another thought whilst I cogitated (too much time awaiting transfer), was how come my car and every other appliance I own has a built in obsolescence , yet guns seem to be designed to last forever – that old WWII Luger under your dads bed (thankfully liberated from some scumbg nazi (but that’s another story)), is as deadly today as it was to the last jew/homosexual/gypsy/disabled person that smelt the cordite. What if they had a ‘best before’ date – I guarantee that wars would cease as everyone would claim their arms where out of date and so they couldn’t possibly engage in hostilities…(aka bottom of the fridge theory).

Crazy man!

I know that I’m partly to fault on this, but why is it necessary in foreign countries (European) to try an bamboozle innocent travellers? I’ve just been to Luxembourg and fine, clean and warm for the most part it was too, but I was completely thrown by their bus system. They seem to have two number ‘7’ buses that proceed in opposite directions but only for half the journey. Consequence is you can find yourself going in the opposite direction, backtracking and getting off at a stop to wait for the next number ‘7’ that actually goes where you expect. To add insult to injury, they also insist on having separate numbers for the bus queues, distinct from the bus numbers themselves, leaving me utterly perplexed (I only have pidgin French) as to why I needed to queue at a number ‘9’ stand for a number ‘7’ bus that went in the opposite direction to where I needed to be? There is one simple explanation of course – Luxembourg is where the European Commission has most of its functional and admin outposts. I hazard a guess that’s its not in Euro citizens interests to actually be signposted somewhere in a direct manner!!!