Clarke Ching's Rocks and Snowballs

Self organisating traffic

Scrum, my favourite agile project management approach, relies heavily on the power of sefl-organising teams.  For each (4 week) iteration the team-members – i.e. those doing the work –  choose how much work they will commit to complete during the iteration, then they go off and do it.  They self-manage and self-organise.  They use their managers and scrum-masters for advice and to obliterate obstacles, but the manager doesn’t tell them what to do or when. 

Now, based on similiar principles, we have self-organising traffic.

From bbc news:

A busy London road could soon be stripped of its kerbs, traffic lights and signs as part of a psychological traffic calming measure used in mainland Europe. But would it work?

Exhibition Road in Kensington could be the site of a "naked road" experiment in which all visible markings are removed.

Urban planners claim the approach, which has been used with some success in Holland, Germany and Sweden, reduces speed and accidents by encouraging drivers to be more considerate to pedestrians.

Under the proposals, the West London street - home of the Science, Natural History and Victoria and Albert museums - could have a maximum speed limit of 20mph and drivers will not automatically have right of way over pedestrians who will be able to cross anywhere on the road.

The approach has been tested in Seend, a Wiltshire village, where white lines were removed from the road last April.

Wiltshire County Council said accidents in the village dropped by a third and speed has fallen by an average of 5% after the markings were removed.

…

Finite interestingness?

A friend came to visit for the weekend. 

I noticed a pattern:

1. I tell him something interesitng. 
2. He says, “Yes, I read about it in your blog”
3. go to step 1

Scary … do I only have finite amount of interestingness and I’m now using it all up in my blog?

 

1 Thesarus, 2 ?

This isn’t important, but does anyone know the plural world for Thesarus?

As in, “I couldn’t find the word I was looking for in the Microsoft Word thesaurus, so I checked a couple of online thesauruses  (?) instead.”

Emergent Design - online book from net objectives

A new online book: “Emergent design – the evolutionary nature of professional software development” by Scott L. Bain.

[via Sedimentation blog]

 

Whales and hippos, Russell Crowe and I

In the news today we find our that Whales and Hippos are, in fact, close cousins.  Some of us have suspected this for a while now, but said nothing for obvious reasons. 

Apparently, about 50 to 60 million years ago their great-great-grand-parents split up due to an argument over pizza toppings – the whale side wanted anchovies, the hippo side didn’t.  So a family feud started resulting in one side of the family going dry, the other side going wet.  Tragically, they haven’t spoken since.

In much the same way, I am genuinely related to the great Kiwi actor Russell Crowe.  Or, as he would prefer to put it, he is related to me.

You see … several years ago my late favourite aunt fell in love with a chap called …. ummm, called, … [substitute his name when I remember it].  They were both in their goldenish years – not old enough for free bus passes yet, but old enough to remember the “old days” and how much better things were way back then. 

She, my aunt, had remained single for her entire previous life and so it was a pleasant surprise to us all when she fell in love.  [Don’t tell my mother that I’m airing family laundry in public like this but ] eventually they even moved in together, but they split up before ever marrying.

But anyway, his great grand father and Russell Crowe’s great grand father were brothers! 

So, my aunt was almost married to Russell Crowe’s great grand father’s brother … which makes me a close cousin of Russell Crowe. 

QED.

Given that I’m also related to THE Kennedy clan, (it’s a long story – JFK descended from the Rosslare, Ireland, Kennedys and so did my wife), means that Russell Crowe is part of the Kennedy Clan too! 

Which, when I think about it, means that we are both related to Arnie!

All this proves that with too much coffee anyone can prove that they are interesting.

The Medici Effect

When I recently combined a MaCSween's vegetarian haggis with soy sauce, wasabi and natural yoghurt and created a taste sensation that I didn’t have to share with my wife, I exploited the idea that is know as the Medici effect. 

This is the fascinating idea that breakthrough ideas often come at the intersection of different fields. 

Here’s the website for the book.

Here’s the brilliant blog.

Here’s an interview with the author from IT Conversations.

[thanks for the nudge, Jorge]

Ken Schwaber audio conversation

Go listen to agile, Scrum-guru, Ken Schwaber’s IT conversation.

Toshiba sucks part ii

Following on from my rant about Toshiba support (it sucks) 2 days ago …  I paid over £1200 for a lovely little laptop.  They’re charging me another £35 to replace the disk that they never included.  They say that they may take up to 4 weeks to replace them.  And, all because the PC broke in the first place.  Arrrgghhh.

So today, I checked google to see how my word of mouth campaign is going.

• When searching for the expression “Toshiba Sucks” I already feature on page 1.

Of course, that means little – after all, who’s going to go looking for Toshiba sucks?

But … (drum roll) :

• if you search google for “Toshiba support” then I feature on page 2.

Now I feel a little guilty. 

[moments pass]

Now I don’t. 

Promises and Prescriptions by Frank Patrick

Frank Patrick's article “Promises and Prescriptions”, from better software magazine, is finally available for free online.

Arrrrrrggggggghhhh! Toshiba support sucks

1.  Toshiba only included the 1st of 2 rescue disks for my laptop in the box.  I’m currently at the end of disk 1, but can’t finish the rescue because there is no disk 2.  They are charging me 35 pounds for new disks.  It will take up to 4 weeks for the new disks to arrive.  And, they only take visa.

2.  One of the weird things about my blog is that I seem to get really high rankings in Google.  A wee while ago I posted that “f i r e f o x s ucks” and now I’m eithor number 1 or 2 on google if you search for that expression. 

This is good and bad. 

Bad because I ended up deleting the f i r e f o x sucks expression because I generated nerd hate mail. 

Good because I’m pissed off with Toshiba support and I’m going to spitefully and deliberately bring Toshiba as much bad word of mouth as I can. 

3.  Oh, and I’ll never buy another toshiba product again.  Never.  Shame, because it is a nice laptop (apart from the fact it broke).

4.  Simple story:

• My lovely little Toshiba Laptop started behaving badly with my wi-fi connection.  Really bizarely the connection suddenly became very flakey.
• I rang toshiba support.  They helpfully suggested something.
• It didn’t work (although it was a good suggestion).
• I rang them back.
• They 2nd guy told me that wi-fi connections disconnected if you didn’t use them every 3 minutes, so sadly I was screwed.  I explained that the connection had been fantastic for 5 months.  He said it was unfortunate.
• I thought “Oh damn it” and I decided to rebuild the laptop using the emergency disk.
• I backed everything up and popped in the disk
• It said “are you sure”
• I said yes.
• It ran to the end of the first disk.  Said, put in the 2nd disk.
• What 2nd disk?  I only have one.
• I said several rude things.  There was no 2nd disk.
• I said several more rude things.  Still no 2nd disk.
• I started looking for the 2nd disk.  Not sure how I could have misplaced it.  Certain that I hadn’t misplaced it.
• Rand Toshiba support – “my 2nd disk is missing”
• You’re screwed. 
• I knew that.
• It will cost £35.25 to get a new one
• What!!!!!
• It will cost £35.25 to get a new one.
• But you didn’t send me the 2nd disk to start with.
• You should have checked when you purchased it.
• Why?  In this day and age it should be there.
• It will cost £35.25 to get a new one.
• Okay.  I’ll get my visa then (you theiving bastards)
• We don’t take visa.
• What?
• You’ll have to send a cheque?
• Like, through the mail?
• Yes.
• It may take up to 4 weeks to send the disks.
• But, I only need the disks because your product broke and you didn’t include both disks to start with.
• I’ll send you the forms.

Great. 

I just want my expensive little laptop to work.

Toshiba sucks