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Saturday, April 11th, 2009
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Thursday, November 6th, 2008
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Hello there!
Now that I broke my social hiatus by going to Whitby this past weekend I thought I better let those of you that I didn't meet know that I am very much alive and kicking.
Yo.
I'm update far more on Twitter - http://twitter.com/squiggle - than anywhere else.
Also those of you who are privileged enough to know me on Facebook will no doubt see my photos from the past 7 days crop up there sometime soon.
Righteous.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Hey y'all.
I'm getting bored of working for other people. They seem quite happy to give me money to do things of which I am quite capable, but I still feel I can do it better. The problem has always been management and drive. My immediate superiors have always been excellent but it's when you get to more than 20 people in a team that things go weird and disjointed.
So, y'know, I'd like to start my own company.
If I were to start my own company it would be awesome. I can't promise it'll be the best company ever, but it's still going to be Really Good.
So the question is:
If I were to employ you, what would your ideal contract consist of? Salaries are easy. Motivation is difficult.
Do you want free food? Do you want a 3-day work week? A free iPhone? Stephen Fry on speedcall? Pantsless Mondays?
Be unreasonable and I'll haggle.
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Comments: Read 18 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
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Wow
has it been so long since I last posted?
I seem to have not enough spare time right now.
For those interested, I might be doing a talk on the Semantic Web at the next Leeds GeekUp :)
More info to follow. I'm in the middle of a game of Team Fortress 2 right now.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
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Just heard some bad news today. My best friend is out of a job in 2 weeks time 'cos the shop he worked in is shutting.
Can anyone help me find him a new one?
He's a great fella and very dependable, with a few years retail management experience. He doesn't really know what he wants to do, but any offers or advice would be very welcome.
Thanks.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, January 19th, 2008
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iGo stowaway fold-up blueooth keyboard.
I'm using it now on my Nokia N800 and I've found I can touch-type just as I could on any laptop keyboard. Considering that it folds up into a box the same size as my Nokia, it means I can actually get stuff done for the hour I spend on the train each work day. Not bad for 34 quid.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, January 17th, 2008
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Yesterday was the first GeekUp event I'd been to in a while, and honestly I don't know why I missed the previous few months. I had a lot of fun (and just enough beer). I think I got a bit of interest in my geek band idea - I just hope I can enlist a few friends and deliver a performance worthwhile at a future event :)
Sorry if it seemed like I was plugging my job to some of you there. I enjoy where I work. Furthermore, GeekUp events have a good crowd who are precisely the sort of people I want to work alongside. (but we're still looking for another C#/ASP.NET web app developer... get in touch if you want more info)
For those who are geeky and northern, I feel obliged to plug North Pack. The crew have done a good job in only a month to put together a focal point for yon Northern geeks and developers, so if any of you lot have tech blogs you could get 'em syndicated right there.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Sunday, January 6th, 2008
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Did you read my previous LJ entry? It said (in a rather obscure way) that I wanted to "spend more time gathering and sharing data". This was more or less in reference to projects like Open Street Map which provide Creative Commons licensed data for useful things - in this case, street maps and local data that anyone can use free of charge.
So yesterday I bought a bluetooth GPS device.
Today I put it to the test :)
( Read more (including photos of me, my bike and my mapping) )
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Comments: Read 7 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
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| Subject: | January |
| Time: | 2:15 pm. |
| Music: | Chemical Brothers feat. The Klaxons - All Rights Reversed. |
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Things I WILL get done in January:
- Update my online presence.
- Get a hat and coat stand for my bedroom and organise my living area.
- Get a website up and running.
- Donate a bit of cash to a worthy cause.
Things I hope to get done in January:
- Spend a bit of my time gathering and sharing data.
- Get some momentum behind my idea of forming a band.
Things I will continue to do:
- Keep improving my cooking repetoire with more vegetables and less fatty meats.
I will hold myself to this. Keep track of this journal for further updates :)
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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I wish you all a Happy New Year!
My resolution is to Do More Stuff.
I keep getting side-tracked with computer games and lethargy and never seem to get round to completing these little projects and tasks I keep promising myself I'd do.
I want to make 2008 the Best Year Evar and I'm not going to do that by sitting around a bit or eating biscuits.
I want to be exhausted every friday. I want to tell people with a sense of pride about what I've been doing. I want to make my life Awesome and I want to make the world a slightly better place.
Where do I start?
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
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.NET Framework 3.0 is compiled using the .NET Framework 2.0 compiler.
C# 3.0 is only present in .NET Framework 3.5.
Visual Studio 2008 appears to compile anything in .NET Framework 3.5 even if you tell it not to.
THANK YOU MICROSOFT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME YET ANOTHER HEADACHE.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 17th, 2007
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Monday, October 29th, 2007
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Crikey. Friday was weird. Turns out the company have disbanded the
uk sales and support teams at work to allow the developers to focus
solely on the core US product. This meant that there were 5
redundancies in the office :(
On the plus side this meant there were two spare tickets to the
american football game yesterday - so i went along. Woo! Wembley is phenomenal.
I'm on my back first class right now. Sorted. I could get used to this...
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, October 18th, 2007
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There have been times in the past where I have felt I wasn't good enough to do my job as a software developer, but these times have been mostly down to inexperience. I like to think I'm always getting better.
Conversely I've seen other developers who I would consider to be truly incompetent. The sort of people whose code would be worthy of a http://worsethanfailure.com article all to themselves. The sort of people who, somehow, have been given far more responsibility than I ever had.
(disclaimer: This is no reflection on my current workplace where we're all fantastic)
I'm professional enough to realise that this is perhaps a Bad Thing. After a conversation last night about how many of my friends are now "qualified professionals" (health professionals, airline pilots etc - really anyone who has a piece of paper that says they're liable if they do their job wrong). Then it struck me how I'm technically NOT a qualified professional. I consider myself an engineer, but I don't require a certification to do what I do - and nor do other people I might work with. This means there's no professional guarantee that any of the work we do would be good quality, and more importantly that there is no professional liability for failure.
This lack of professional liability has created an industry where "success" is judged by the release of a solution (even if it completely unfit for purpose).
So... do any of you other geeks know if I can get a piece of paper that says I'm a proper engineer? Or is it a little bit pointless to do so?
Also on a slightly lighter note, check out this week's Zero Puntuation review of the Orange Box which I so love.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, October 11th, 2007
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~/ there is no use crying over every mistake / we just keep on trying 'til we run out of cake /~
I would strongly advise any PC gamers out there to buy the Orange Box on steam. £26 for many awesome games, especially Portal.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, October 8th, 2007
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In all the documented benefits of extreme programming techniques, nobody ever warns you that if one developer has a cold, the rest of the team will catch it within a week.
Bleh. *sneeze*
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Comments: Read 14 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, October 5th, 2007
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Just a bit bored at work right now.
Thought I'd post to say hello to everyone still watching, and that I'm still alive.
a little bit down with cold (thanks to my sickly cow-orkers, no doubt), but otherwise having a Really Good life right now.
Stay in touch, y'all. Ciao!
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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squigfried's journal
optimistic.
anxious.
confused.