KBM's Web Log

2012/12/23

Vivibarefoot and Sugru

I am a great fan of both +VIVOBAREFOOT and +sugru .

I will write more on my experiences with minimalist shoes, but I have now acquired a number of pairs of Vivobarefoot's shoes and love all of them.

The one problem pair were the Vivobarefoot Ra (Blue, canvas) - look good, can be worn to work(although the white sole is definitely "business casual"), but after a while the heel rubbed on the edge.

I am happy to report that a "smear" of blue sugru around the rear edge of the shoe seems to have done the trick; it was tested by the local Xmas disco!

2012/06/20

The future of Emacs and humanity

"But ... Emacs will still be there, waiting. It will be there when the icecaps melt and the cities drown, when humanity destroys itself in fire and zombies, when the roaches finally achieve sentience, take over, and begin using computers themselves - at which point its various Ctrl-Meta key-chords will seem not merely satisfyingly ergonomic for the typical arthropod, but also direct evidence for the universe's Intelligent Design by some six-legged, multi-jointed God." Kieran Healy

Hilarious and insightful! Personally, I think it will be some form of octopus that inherits the earth, but tellingly a mutated version of the last line will still apply.

Found at https://www.deviantart.com/earlcolour/art/emacs-user-at-work-195326745
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

2012/04/04

Terry Pratchett Going Postal

Terry Pratchett Going Postal: I just bought the Blue ray of this and got round to watching it last night. And I very much enjoyed it !

I have read and liked many of the books: The Colour of Magic had me LOL which is rare for a book. But I only "quite enjoyed" the TV films of Colour of Magic and The Hogfather. Great cast, super production values, but not Really Funny(tm). Quite Funny(tm).

Going Postal had a great cast, great production values, great timing ( except perhaps the ending was a bit rushed). David Suchet was splendidly evil!. I thought that Jeremy Irons could not be bettered as Lord Vetinari, but Charles Dance was great ( and had a very prominent part cf. Colour of Magic). Clare Foy ("Little Dorrit" says my wife) as Adora Belle Dearheart and Richard Coyle as Moist Von Lipwig(!) were also superb. Tamsin Greig, Steve Pemberton - the list goes on and on!

So I hope this met with commercial success so that other Discworld novels will be brought to our screens.

2012/02/14

Gnome 3 update

I am still enjoying Gnome 3. However, issues ( I think with my ATI driver) on my home machine have led me to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 (alpha!). This has gone very well, and seems very reliable - I hpe it stays that way.

I am making use of Gnome extensions anfd have found several useful ones - even though they are to put back some Gnome 2 items (like trash cans window bar)

One thing that I am missing is having the "hot corner" duplicated on a second screen. In fact i would like the top bas also duplicated on the 2nd screen! Any pointers welcomed.

2011/11/21

Gnome 3 - recommended

Well, this is interesting - some famous people (Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth) plus folks I respect at work have a real downer on Gnome 3. I installed it today (3.2.1) whilst trying to get something else to work, and gave it a try.

And I think it is great. It looks good, performs well, and is highly usable.

Mouse to the top left of the screen (or press Windows key) gives thumbnails of the running apps (Activities-> Windows)
or you can click on Applications to get a list of apps, which are categorised (All, Accessories, Games etc.).
Hit the Windows key and start typing: this searches for Apps or Contacts (I wonder if it can be made to search for files?)
Also on the Activities screen is a dock which shows favourites. It looks very similar to the Unity side bar except it doesn't pop up irritatingly when you put the mouse over it whilst trying to use the windows max/min/close buttons which are on the left in Unity.
max/unmax is just double clicking on the windows top bar

So I was getting used to Unity, and could see where Canonical were going with it. But it seems to me that Gnome 3 is here now and working well - recommended!!

(PS: Using Ubuntu 11.10 on Lenovo W520)

2011/10/08

Steve Jobs and the WWW

Fascinating background on Steve Jobs influence on software engineering with things such as hypercard. What I didn't know was that Tim Berner-Lee used a NeXT machine!

2011/08/22

Thoughts on reducing delivery cycles

Mary Poppendick:LeanEssays: How Cadence Predicts Process makes some excelent points about the efficiency of delivery from requirement to delivery of thesupporting feature. Along the way she mentions Kent Beck and the affects of reducing the release cycle on sales, support etc. Close to my own heart at present is automated testing and a mention of the book Specification by Example

2011/07/28

Android tablet

I have dipped my toe in the tablet pond. I have got an Advent Vega, a £200 Android tablet. Cheap price but the processor and screen are great.

I have upped the rom to include Android Market,and have gradually added more Apps.

Have had a couple of glitches where the wi-fi stopped, the screen rotation was 90degrees out, and reboots gave an error. Backup system works!

Why Android rather than Apple? USB port, SDcard, terminal.......

The Vega does not look as sexy as an iPad, but I am happy with its function!

2011/07/01

Limits of data

1.0FTE

2011/06/28

LaTeX: More Than Just Academic Papers and Theses

I have long been a fan of Latex for large complex documents. Over the years I have found that it can do more, even for small documents.

However, this presentation is awesome: Malaysian LaTeX User Group: LaTeX: More Than Just Academic Papers and Theses.

The breadth of things Latex can do is fantastic, and the quality is great.

Great presentation.

2011/06/02

weblogger.el

Just trying out another blog entry system from emacs!

2011/05/17

Phil Windley's Technometria | Capture Mode and Emacs

Finally got round to setting this up: Phil Windley's Technometria | Capture Mode and Emacs: "Capture Mode and Emacs".

Very easy to add anything to an org-mode file from anywhere. I will have to look at the time-date hierarchy and see whether and how to add to the workflow. In addition to the elements in Phil's video, of course C-c C-l to store a link is also available

2011/05/16

Quicklisp needs more love

To hear the GigaMonkey Overlord is to obey!!
Quicklisp is fantastic: lisp libraries. In all seriousness this is THE way to install many excellent lisp libraries in a way which also takes care of dependencies.