Month: June 2003

Mind Maps, using colour in Outlook

Just been going back to using mind maps (MindManager) to compress lots of complex information into a small space. Have a go, its at http://www.mindjet.com

. I needed to summarise our team’s work for our new manager and managed to get it all on one page. You can then export the map to a website or word document. It’s really easy and very productive.

I have used this tool a lot in the past to plan reports etc. and got out of the habit because my old manager didn’t like it. Rather stupidly I have only just realised that a lot of the problems with cross linking leaves between major topics can be solved by colouring the leaves and using coloured lines.

Just discovered that I can use colours in Outlook too, to mark mail from particular individuals or groups. Much easier to sort things out now.

I don’t know, probably showing my monochrome Unix heritage.

Discovered that our Oracle Partner agreement had been lapsed in March, this means that we should licence all of our dev software and databases. The partnerships costs about a tenth of the licences and we are a small team – redoing the partnership ASAP. Not sure this would work for the big corporate Oracle shops ’cos you need to sell something based on Oracle to become a partner. But if you are a small shop look into it.

Ah well, back to planning a migration schedule of work. Much easier with MindManager.

Bring me the docking station of Alfredo Garcia

Well, J’s docking station finally recycled after 5 weeks. Still got N’s hiding away on a spare desk.

Went to the Crosby coast guard last night for a chat about what they do and so forth. Pretty interesting evening.

Having my usual hate relationship with HTML. Did some refactoring today to put some repeated code where it needed to be so that I could fix the HTML once, but it still isn’t right. Probably need to create a little sub-table and format each bit in its’ own. Gah, crappy

Managed to get Palm to synchronise using the IR port (you need to disable the picture sending capability) see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alanjmcf/comms/infrared/IrDA%20FAQ.html

. Many thanks to alanmjc and google.

Have a vague plan to start writing a commentry on Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men from a UK perspective but it would probably get me feeling angry and helpless.

Text of email sent to BBC’s PM and Today programmes

I am becoming extremely irritated by the lack of discussion about the education funding mess since it was first raised some months ago. Why aren’t you asking some questions about it? Why has it been forgotten?

Weapons of mass destruction is an interesting debate, as is the disposition of buffoons on wool sacks, but why are all of the teaching assistants in my children’s school being made redundant and why is one of the teachers joining them in September? I would like some answers.

Please, was the minister right when he said the LEAs had misappropriated the money or was it all spin? Could one of you get out there and do your job and find out?

In the mean time stop letting the politicians set the agenda, trust me, they aren’t that interesting.

Many thanks

Francis Fish

Lost weekends and stuff

37 Practices of a Buddha’s Child

Went to a teaching from my Dharma teacher on this text. It’s amazing how so short a text can hide so much information. The whole of the philosophical sweep, including the refutation of the mind-only schools, is in those verses. A profound and excellent teaching.

Keswick

Went to a party near Keswick (Lake District UK). Very pleasant place. Got talking to an engineer who still writes in assembler, working on process control systems.

Paddling

Very tired after 6 weeks of Nomads. Won’t go paddling this weekend, probably bike it with kids.

Irritations

Still can’t get Palm pilot to work, and it won’t use the infrared either. Palm tech help NFG. It looks like I’ll have to track one down on EBay to get the disks and then resell it.

Death, Laptops, Depression and one taste

Death

Some friends lost their son (24!) in a road traffic accident on the M6. What can you do or say but be there?

Laptops

Never change your laptop without expecting to lose at least 3 days. Everything almost there now except I can’t get my Palm m505 to synchronise. It’s acting like the device isn’t there. For once reinstalling the Oracle software wasn’t too hard.

Depression and one taste

Not me this time. I was thinking about how in the Mahamudra view, where everything has one taste this is like a condition that depressed people get where they can’t taste their food. A lot of the higher (Buddhist) medative states sound like symptoms of mental distress but approached from a different angle. I wonder if depressives have reached some higher states and then fallen back in past lives because of the difficulty. It may explain why they see the world through such bleak eyes because without the compassion and wisdom that go with it it would seem so hard. This is just speculation on my part, I have never experienced one taste myself. I had a look on google to see if I could give you some URLs to point to that explain the idea of one taste, I’d stay away from the book with that title (one taste), the reviews make me feel like Weber doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There’s a good explanation in The Secrets of the Vajra World.

Wisdom and justice

This is a story idea I’ve had:

Human systems are always imperfect. As experience builds up they modify themselves. How do you guarantee that a decision will always be just and as fair as possible. Simple,  breed judges, make sure that all of their environments are identical as they grow up and then freeze them. Use them once to make a decision and throw them away. It’s a bit macabre, and, of course, like all systems it won’t work, genetic determinism is not the force everyone thinks it is (there’s the rest of the story). It needs a Cordwainer Smith or PKD title like Justice 3423 and the left left egg. (Don’t ask me where that came from)

Anyway, if you want to use this idea, all I ask is an acknowledgement.

Paddling

Swapped the Inazone 242 for a Dagger Redline (losing about £50 in the process), much better boat that behaves itself and will attain and ferry glide properly, lovely old-fashioned adjustable fittings instead of gluing in foam like the Pirhana boats.

Had a serious go in a Liquid Logic Skip which ate my feet. Tried the Wavesport Transformer but in fact it’s not much better than the EZ. Loved loved loved the Riot Air but I think I’d get creamed on big water. Looking for some coaching to help me get off my playboating plateau. Waiting for a call, in fact.

Blessings upon you all.

Monday over, things a’ changing

Well then, well then.

Went to the Everyman to see a production by Broads with Swords

who are an all-female company that do lots sword fighting and so on. The play was about Shakespeare’s female characters always killing themselves and Tara Loft (sic) getting mixed up with them and persuading them not to do it. Lady Macbeth managed to gain control and get herself a better ending at the expense of the others so reality had to be restored. If you didn’t know Bill’s stuff you’d have found it a bit confusing. Also they could have tried saying the blank verse rather than shouting it, which may have helped a bit. I still enjoyed it but the first 15 mins or so were hard work. Ophelia sticking her head in a bucket (which was then used to wash Celopatra’s asp) was very funny.

Werk like, la

Finally know who our manager is, and it is in fact a very intelligent choice. Our group is being realigned with one of the other departments and it all makes sense. Good. Getting down to some solid code delivery, always a nice feeling when things haven’t been going well.

Didn’t get paddling this weekend, still too tired. Don’t know what’s the matter with me, this keeps happening.

Bugs, hair cuts, no end to the excitement

Changed something – unit tested it and surrounding code. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t, desk test the code, it works. Chop out driving queries and replace variables with constants, they work. Still the view I’m trying to get working doesn’t. My brain hurts. After 5 hours I think I’ve got a handle on it. It was the test, I think, where I was reusing some historical data and making a change (laziness, I confess) to run it in the new environment. AAAAAARRGGGHHH an’ stuff. I will revisit my test harness on Monday and do something else today that needs doing – had enough testing for a while.

Finally got my hair cut – no longer look like escaped wild man of Borneo from a travelling show. Regrew beard recently, not sure if it’s here to stay but Rosie and the kids prefer it because it doesn’t scratch them. I tried slicking hair back until I could get it cut and looked like Nicholson in The Shining

coming through the door with an axe, had some fun with crazy eyes and loud voice.

We had a survey from the council recently, didn’t have a chance to vent spleen at the 10 ft bus lane that will cause an accident one day because R filled it in. Wanted to put something like the person who put in the 10 foot bus lane at the library should not be allowed near sharp objects and only let out of the rubber room very occasionally. NBD.

Yesterday at Nomads went OK. Difficult to do too much because I didn’t want to scare the little ones. D&J good (hurrah and lawks a mercy).

J at child and family today, still working on difficult behaviour but he’s doing well (and so are R & I, it takes 2 to have a scene).

Tomorrow busy – R running bellboat session at Chester for Cubs and Guides. Me running round taking D to ballet and tap. Sunday off paddling, I think.

Grinder grinder, burning bright

Posts

Posted a note on the Today noticeboard saying that I was tired of the blanket coverage of WoMaD on the news and wanted the incompetent, innumerate education secretary to be grilled on why my kid’s school has been forced to make all of the classroom assistants redundant as well as one teacher. It won’t do, making all those promises about education and then breaking them. It’s not there now … probably got moderated out of sight. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?board=today (hey, the beeb are using Perl – I thought they were wall to wall MSft).

Stuff

Recently discovered http://www.kuro5hin.org/, and I really like it.

I’m thinking of writing an article on Java vs. Lisp after reading a Paul Graham article http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html. Not that I disagree with him, just that I think the Java crew are standing on the shoulders of giants because of all of the libraries and the open source movement. I think that Lisp would be by far the best for new problems because it isn’t so low level, but with Java you just assemble components.

No work on Jisp, too tired after my holiday.

I really admired the site http://evilempire.ath.cx/, have a look. He has a fresh view on most things, if a bit angry. I sent a mail expressing my opinion and taking the opportunity to indulge in some sarcasm about children’s names.

Paddling

Ran a 3* session at West Kirkby Marine Lake yesterday, did about half of the syllabus. People have a lot of trouble with the hanging draw, and I still don’t know why it’s there, except that it’s probably someone’s pet stroke. The youngsters need to work on their strokes, standard not high enough. Off to Nomads tonight to run a session for the paddlepower beginners.

Ah well, back to work I suppose.

Sacrificial Lambs, Holidays and Schtuff

Lambing

We aren’t doing as well as we hoped so 3 of my IT colleagues were sacrificed to keep the shareholders happy. One of them is the best manager I have ever worked for. We didn’t know he was going until the rumour mill told us late in the afternoon. I’ve seen better-handled road accidents. We still don’t know who we are reporting to, what the priorities are, who is responsible for pastoral care blah blah.

Holidays

Whit week just gone I went with the canoe camping club to their Mordiford (nr. Hereford) meet. Had a good week paddling and training people. Paddled the white water section of the Lugg (North of Leominister), which was a little low, but had some good play waves on the old Victorian weirs. The new weirs were very scary and we portaged round them. Symonds Yat is becoming a bit of a joke, with only one decent surf wave below the island. Hopefully now it’s been bought by the BCU someone can sort it out. There’s rumours that there’ll be a fucking committee to manage it, when all is needed is allowing the local paddlers access to build the fish gates up in low water.

Dance Show

Deborah was in a dance show organised by her dance school. It was surprisingly good, the last one was very worthy but naff. I was very proud of her but we were on the wrong side of the stage to see her properly. The video will doubtless follow.

Irritable bowels

Lovely. I know you want to read this. I lost a day at work because of pains in my guts (meaning I had no sleep) and Rosie made me go to the doctor. I’ve got/had a mild dose of IBS, not the runs just the pain. It’s responded well to treatment and I’m OK now. It was lucky I got it sorted before my holiday. I’m toning down the spice in my diet. I missed an initiation from my teacher because I felt I needed to sort things out at home as well.

Ah well, back to the SOS.