Two Gavin Hastings!

---

Congratulations Scotland!

"One Gavin Hastings, there's only one gavin hastings" we used to sing, in honour of the man with the most points in a world cup career (227).

Well after watching the devastating boot of Chris Paterson score all 18 points in Scotlands 18-16 victory over Italy to secure a place in the 1/4 finals, a feat which also saw him retain his 100% record of scores from kicks in the tournament (15/15 so far) we think its time for fans to increment the demonimator... "Two Gavin Hastings, now there are two Gavin Hastings"

I must say I'm sorry for Italy, it would have been nice to see them get through to their first world cup 1/4 final, but not at the expense of Scotland, they got their first 6 nations away win against Scotland, and that's enough!

---

Human Resource Super-Hero

---

The other day, as Nikki told me about the stuff she'd done in college about the differences between HR and Personnel, I got to wondering if my abilities became capabilities at the same time as I stopped being a person and became a resource?

Is it reasonable to assume that capabilities are like abilities but with a super-hero cape?

The groovy picture of simpsonised me is courtesy of the simpsons movie site, I think it looks a bit like me. Make your own...

---

$100 laptop get one give one...

---

The BBC reported on Monday that the $100 laptop project will be selling some in the developed world, with each sale also funding a machine to be donated to a child in a least developed country.


I found the picture here.

Great idea, I know that there have been many times when a laptop which could allow me to connect to my email and ... "has no moving parts, can be powered by solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers and is housed in a waterproof case" would be a godsend in a world full of of short battery life and unstable coffee cups. What's more the display is readable in sunlight. Coo.

Perhaps they should think about raising funds by selling some of the components to developed world laptop owners, a mechanical charger would go down as a shrewd investment in the Angus household where we tend to buy cheaper laptops, don't upgrade the batteries and keep them long after they've passed their best.


Having said all that Nikki takes delivery of her "cough cough" birthday present from me tomorrow, the gorgeous pretender to the macbook's throne the Dell XPS m1330. A red one natch. And no, we haven't gone for the big battery!

---

What Americans Think of Scotland.

---

Americans (Note that google maps confuses America with the Whole World.) in a recent survey about Scotland (Not the whole world according to google.) had this to say:

Students identified Scotland as a backward, old-fashioned, rural country.

Some questioned whether the internet had reached Scotland.

Even among the general American public, knowledge of Scotland was mixed.
They said the rural landscape and history had strong appeal, but still referred to a “backward” lifestyle, suspecting no modern technology such as computers andmicrowaves existed in the home.

God bless America! To be perfectly honest I have tried to have a home free from microwaves and computers, and TV if it comes to that, but it just ain't happening.

"Progress", it would seem, is not pick-and-mix, and by opening the door to microwaved scrambled eggs I opened the door to microwavable-meals, and by choosing to shop online I opened the door to facebook, bebo, myspace, you tube, msn, aim, etc. etc. and lets face it social networking is a weird and lonely world compared to cooking a meal for your friends.

---

Pastures New...

---

After four years of working for quango X I've placed a new bet on the table of career roulette[1] and decided to move on.

I'm going to take up the reins of IT at Drive Business which is going to be a new and terrifyingly real challenge, but one which I'm very excited about. Drive Business are growing fast and have some exciting clients, and although I've worked here for four years the previous five years were all in on-line retail, in many ways I'm itching to get back to it.

Because of this career change I'm afraid I've had to withdraw my talk on James from ApacheCon US07, hopefully I'll make it next year.

[1] Not to be confused with dress code rule-ette in which players have to break the "not visibly wearing no underwear" dress-code rule. Losers face the sack.

---

The Only Way Is Up

---

The New Lift saga has taken an unexpected turn today.[1]

We were surprised, this morning, to find that The first New Lift is now working, and very smooooth it is too.

Sadly there was no grand launch party, or anything of that sort. Perhaps this is because it was, apparently, ready weeks ago, but a flat ceiling had been installed when the plans called for a curved one.

Obviously the new lift couldn't be used without a curved ceiling.

[1] Those of a more "New World" disposition might like to substitute "elevator" for "lift".

---

Ahoy there buckko another year be over

---

Would ye believe that it be international talk like a pirate day agin? Yarr it has came round right smartly me hearties, like a handspike.
Scurvy Land Lubbers Google baint hoisted the jolly roger, but sea dogs flickr have:

---

Ministry of Truth

---

Colleague X put his finger on the reason I feel uneasy about wikipedia. The thought of all those anonymous people with their own agendas constantly writing and rewriting the entries is just a bit too much like George Orwell's Ministry of Truth for me.

Update: I see that Rich is getting frustrated by the sinister rewriting too.. Deleted Wikipedia articles.

---

The court has spoken. The commission was right.

---

"the 13-member panel of judges said Microsoft had violated European antitrust law by exploiting its near dominance in operating systems to shut out competitors"

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/17/business/msft.php

---

Foot and Mouth

---

I know a lot of you aren't farmers, please spare them a thought, this foot and mouth outbreak has really happened at the worst possible time, NFU Scotland president Jim McLaren said:

"The impact of this outbreak is horrendous and we’ve had farmers phoning us all day who are in a desperate situation. There are masses of stock in the wrong place and that can’t move. Farms are out of grazing and out of money, so the welfare and financial crisis is getting worse by the hour."

---

One Nil

---

I just want to say:

one-nil,
one-nil one-nil one-nil,

one-nil,

one-nil.

---

J2EE application development

---

Aaron Farr posted this about the frustration of modern web design, including an exellent pie chart of the time breakdown. Well colleague X has sent me an updated version showing the breakdown of time spent developing tapestry/spring/hibernate J2EE web-apps.

---

Concordance of insanity

---

I created an alphabetical list of the words which appeared in search terms people used to find my blog.
This reflects either my readers, or more likely my own, obsessions. Though quite why xxx and sex should play a part I can't say.
Of course publishing it will reinforce the relationship between the words and this blog.

If anyone has a random sentence generator which can use these words I'd be interested in hiring it to cover my absences from the blogosphere. If it works well I'll extend the contract to cover the times I fall asleep at my desk.

addreses
africans
angus
apache
atlantic
bagnara
band
be
behaviour
behavioural
big
birthday
bite
blogger
book
bother
box
boys
brother
burrell
cache
cached
caching
camera
cetificate
changed
classcastexception
comparative
competencies
cone
contact
contacts
crawl
creating
current
cynicism
dan
danny
ddg
decorations
degrees
derby
detroit
did
directions
display
do
doesn't
donvan
eclipse
email
ever
facebook
famous
feeds
find
finding
for
friends
from
girls
glasgow
gmail
gone
haunted
haunting
have
help
home
how
icq
i'm
in
interesting
iphone
is
isight
its
jakarta
james
jason
java
july
just
labels
learned
legislation
length
life
lifts
like
living?
local
love
lunar
macbook
mailet
many
map
me
meaningless
measure
miles
mime4j
more
most
msn
music
musik
my
never
nice
nights
no
nonsense
o2
ocean
of
on
one
out
overdo
oxymoron
pages
peace
people
person
phd
photos
pictures
plug
point
pointless
ponies
pony
problems
process
quote
random
return
rob
rocky
roller
rollergirls
rule
sad
scariest
schmiedehausen
secretary
sell
sex
shopping
slides
song
songs
sonyericsson
sound
stefano
stop
stuff
subscribe
support
svn
swim
tarbolton
tell
that
the
things
this
time
timeperiod
to
tory
twaddle
type
uk
uncertainity
uncertainty
units
using
verp
virtual
want
war
war
what
whats
whether
white
whites
who
why
will
with
xmas
xxx
you
zimbabwe
zimbabweans

---