Clarke Ching's Rocks and Snowballs

Double standards

What is so special about sleeping dogs that our society willingly accepts and encourages them to be dishonest?

I don't understand.

Two agile things

1.  Brian Marick is asking for nominations for the Gordon Pask award which:

"recognizes two people whose recent contributions to Agile Practice make them, in the opinion of the Award Committee, people others in the field should emulate. In order that people might emulate them, the Agile Alliance will fund each recipient’s travel to two different suitable conferences on two different continents. In order to grow the next generation of Agile thought leaders, the Award is given to people who aren’t already routinely invited to conferences, presumably because their reputation is not yet widespread."

Put your thinking caps on.  The previous winners have done wonderful things for our community.

2.  The fall-2007 Scrum Gathering is happening in London this year.  I think I might just go along this year since it's relatively close by.

My podcasts

As well as podcasting my book, I'm about to start podcasting chats and interviews with all sorts of clever folk from the Theory of Constraints and Agile worlds.

You can subscribe to my podcasts through itunes by clicking here.

You can subscribe through normall RSS by clicking here.

Rolling Rocks Downhill podcast - for people too lazy to read!

I've just started podcasting my book - Rolling Rocks Downhill. 

So far I've recorded a quick intro and the first chapter.  More to come during the following months.

Help! How do I build a simple website?

I'm stuck.  I want to build a simple website for my new consulting business.  I don't want anything fancy ... just a simple looking front page with links to my articles, contact details, details of upcoming workshops, testimonials ... and stuff like that.

Except that these days I am technically incompetent, asthetically impaired, and relatively cheap.  I'm happy to write the content and I'm happy to use some form of wysiwyg software ... but I don't know where to start. 

Any hints on simple software?  Are there any templates I can use?

Oh ... and does anyone know a good - but not shockingly expensive - copywriter?

Theory of Constraints and software development

A couple of years ago I started a blog where I documented my Theory of Constraints analysis of software development projects.  I took another look at it today ... just to refresh my memory ... and it's quite good.

Take a look: http://clarkeching.blogs.com/tocsoftware/

Father's day

Today is Father's day.  In our house, I am the Father.

This morning I received a nice card from my kids.  Yesterday my wife cooked me my favourite dinner - a malaysian chicken curry.  When she went to the supermarket to buy the ingredients she also bought a scratch lottery ticket.  Before she got home though, she scratched it herself.  And won £320.  The dinner was very nice (and we have a joint bank account) .. but still .

Official: "They're better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress."

A mayor in the US state of Louisiana says he will sign into law a proposal to make wearing saggy trousers an act of indecent exposure.

Delcambre town council unanimously passed the ordinance earlier this week making it a crime to wear trousers that show underwear.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/mobile/bbc_news/alsointhenews/675/67517/story6751777.shtml

Doctor who cut waiting times to zero quits - NHS shocker

This is tragic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6746153.stm

A 52-year-old award-winning surgeon is quitting Britain to work in Switzerland and blames "disillusionment" with the NHS for his decision.

John Petri, an orthopaedic specialist at James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, will leave next month.

The doctor cut waiting lists and won a Medical Innovation Award in 2005 for a "dual surgery" technique for the hospital serving Norfolk and Suffolk.

He wanted other hospitals to use the technique but he says it was shunned.

In the theatre anaesthetists at the James Paget Hospital prepared the next patient while he was operating on another.

Two Agile articles

Chris Matts and Olav Maassen on Real Options: http://www.infoq.com/articles/real-options-enhance-agility [on infoq.com]

Kent McDonald on business value: http://www.cutter.com/offers/portfolio.html  [on cutter.com]