Archive for the ‘personal’ Category
Painful Facts For Developers #programming #foss
I recently saw a note from the Tech Journalist Russell Holly who calls on the Scumbags of the Internet to stop making demands of developers from whom they get their free software:
You don’t demand ETA’s on shit you aren’t paying for. You don’t get angry when something doesn’t work quite right on an Alpha or Beta build of something you didn’t pay for. You don’t start shooting off at the mouth about how you are going to move to someone else’s free software if this developer doesn’t fix the software you didn’t pay for.
I was naturally in agreement with the spirit of what he said. And I think that he and these developers miss a number of simple facts: Read the rest of this entry »
Slow Coffee as Wine #foursquare #4sq
I drink a lot of coffee, and I visit a lot of coffee places which is how I earned my Fresh Brew x2 FourSquare badge. I just drink it all the time. And after visiting G-CO over the 30th time the owner asked me whether I would be interested in further developing my palate. “How?” I said. “Slow Coffee,” was his answer.
Slow Coffee
There is coffee, and there is coffee making. Coffee like wine comes in many different flavours, and like wine there is an art to making a good brew which starts with the beans. His come from Bocca, a company where quite a few people I know work. They craft beans, different roastings for different purposes; espresso; filter; and others I have yet to learn about.
Slow coffee is filter coffee, made slowly first by measuring the beans – 24 grams – and boiled water – 240 grams at 95º. Then grinding the beans and placing them in a soaked untreated paper filter and pouring a small amount of the water over the beans in a gentle even way allowing the air to cause a bloom as the escapes. Then another amount, and another, and then the remaining water taking care to not allow the bean pulp which is spent on the side of the filter to be reused. Once the water stops flowing from the filter and starts dripping remove the filter.
And then you don’t just gulp it down, this is vinology. Sip and swirl then liquid in your mouth, then leave it to cool down and taste again. Again leaving it to cool until cold and tasting more. Savoring the texture and feeling the explosion of flavours in your mouth.
I’m slowly becoming a coffeeologist.
Image source: mine, foursquare
Google+ WordCloud #wordle
I like a word cloud, sometimes called Woordle, to gage what I’m saying and doing and whether that corresponds with my message. And combining them with Social Media allows me to see whether I am on message. An example below made with WordClouds shows me the words I use most commonly: You!
As I showed in my My Likes: Visualization and Folksonomy my del.icio.us focused on tags and security, and this blog focuses more on security and programming.
Image source: WordClouds
