Author: smartpeopleiknow

Memory, space and time and the redrawing of a line

thebloor

Tonight I went back and retraced activities in places from long ago. I went to the Annex in Toronto and walked around Harbord Street and Bloor Street, had a massive wiener schnitzel meal at Country Style and then went to see Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads great concert film, Stop Making Sense.

These are things I used to do often many many years ago, for the theatre that showed the film, the Bloor Cinema, used to play the film at least once a month in the mid 80s, it seemed. I lived near it then, and whenever I had nothing to do, I might grab some Hungarian food – for Bloor Street had a lot of Hungarian places then – and enjoy that film.

If you are wise, you will have places that are memory touchstones for you, places that you can revisit, that will be like a cache of good memories. Like any good cache, you can draw upon them as needed by going there whenever you needed to be refreshed and rejuvenated. I recommend you cultivate such places, places that you may not visit often but that are accessible whenever you are in need. A wise person also has such stores to get them through the leaner parts of life. Or perhaps you can look at them more optimistically and treat them like a rare wine cellar which you dip into every so often for that great bottle to enjoy and to remember.

Last week I watched a video of a line being retraced. As it was retraced over and over, each new line varied more and more from the original until the later lines were quiet different than the original. Still, there was that resemblance, that connection through time. So to tonight, when I was revisiting my old neighborhood, I could still feel some of the same things I felt many years ago, even though much has changed and I am no longer the same in many ways. For though much has changed, many more things in the places and the food and the theatre and the film, even myself…many things have remained the same. The line redrawn tonight had enough points in common with the lines I would often draw many years ago.

Memory is often thought of as a picture, or a storage cabinet, but memory may be like a flower. A flower, a rose perhaps, red, white, perhaps even tea stained, that opens up in the early morning just as you are walking by, walking in that distracted way we all walk when we are in a hurry to complete the ordinary, when out of the edge of our vision we see its
vividness and are drawn to come closer and soak up the smell of it and perhaps even mistakenly catch ourselves on its thorns. Memories may not be
passive things like files or photos. Memories may engage us and transfix and transform us, much like the rose that waves at us as we stroll by on what would otherwise by an ordinary day in our life.

We should cultivate the moments in our lives like the gardener cultivates her rose garden, for those moments will be our memories, our roses.
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Posted on my Posterous blog at February 23 2011 via my BlackBerry Handheld.

The nine circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno recreated in Lego

Not your everyday Lego project, to be sure. And yes, this is just as amazing as you might think.  Hell is no less scary when done using blocks.

For the entire series, see: The nine circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno recreated in Lego by Mihai Mihu – Telegraph

It nicely highlights the sculptural aspect of Lego is only limited by the imagination of the builder-artist.

The beauty of night rain (insomnia tales)

Since I was a small child, I loved the night rain. I was likely 3 and I
remember listening to car tires hissing on rainy roads, and I would wait
for the sound of my parents car to return from their night out.

In Dustin Hoffman’s “Tootsie”, Bill Murray has a great scene describing how
he’d love to have a movie theatre that shows films on rainy nights. I
thought then and I still think how perfect that would be. To be wandering
aimlessly in the night rain and to come across a theatre showing a great
film for a rare showing. The solace and shelter and beauty of the cinema on
a rainy night would be wonderful.

When I was in college, there we no such theatres. But it rained often in
Halifax, and I would wander through the rainfall and window shop tucked
away magazine stores and diners with warm and dry and well fed patrons,
none of which I was. There was no solace then, save that of the enjoyment
of the beauty of the night rain. But later on there would be money and
women to press against while huddled under umbrellas, and the night rain
would lend itself to the promise of love and happiness.

Much weather of all sorts can bring back memories, but rainy night, mild
nights, bring back the most for me.

Thanks for reading my insomnia tales as I try to fall asleep

(originally posted on Posterous, June 23 2011. Written on my Blackberry)

The myth of adult independence

When you are a child, you believe that adults are independent. That they can handle themselves. That they can deal with things. Manage things.

As you get to be an adult, you see this is mostly true. Mostly. Then there are those moments when you see adults in anguish. Adults struggling against forces they can’t handle. Can’t manage. Internal forces and external ones. Smart adults will seek out others to aide them. People they can depend on, no matter how much they prefer to be independent. Other adults, the not so smart ones, suffer in isolation and separation from others who might help them.

The other myth of adult independence is when as an adult you think you can provide all your own needs. That you don’t need much of anything from anyone. That you are self-sufficient. That what you have is enough, because to ask for more means depending on others.

The reality is that we are dependent on others, and there are things we can’t deal with on our own. If anything, being able to depend on many people makes us more independent, not less. For it is a myth that we are independent, when all through our day we depend on a countless number of people to provide us food and shelter and work and protection and human companionship.

The more we see the dependencies we have on each other, the better we can mutually change it for the better. By doing so, we increase our independence, not decrease it.

Just trying to work out sone ideas in my mind. Thanks for reading this.

How to go about cleaning your place when you hate cleaning

I hate cleaning my house. I like a clean house, but I hate cleaning it. So I am always on the look out for ideas that can help with this.

I have to say that I practice most of the tips here: The Lazy Person’s Guide to a Happy Home: Tips for People Who (Really) Hate Cleaning | Apartment Therapy.

Another tip I have that isn’t here is to keep a notepad and pen nearby. I find I often have the best ideas spring to mind when I am cleaning. When I pause to write them down, I am amazed at how productive I am. It makes me feel like I am getting more out of cleaning that just a clean/less messy space.

 

Radical Bread Making for people who don’t make bread

The general belief with regards to making bread is that it is hard work, it requires alot of skills, and it demands alot of your time. These two posts here are out to challenge that assumption:

  1. No Knead Bread: so easy a 4-yr old can make it! | Steamy Kitchen Recipes
  2. How To Make Bread in the Slow Cooker Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn | The Kitchn

The first recipe shows you how to prepare the loaf up until the point you need to bake it. The second recipe shows how you can use a slow cooker to do it. I haven’t tried this yet, but I think it would be fascinating to try.

It isn’t it going to be as good as something an experienced baker makes, but it will be much better than most anything that comes from a grocery store (unless you are paying alot of money). And in the summertime you can still make bread without having to turn on the oven, if you follow the slow cooker recipe.

P.S. The Kitchn web site has quite a few posts on breadmaking, including this: Recipe: No-Time Bread | The Kitchn.

 

So Network Solutions has domains for 50 cents. Should you get one?

In searching for a new domain name service provider for a test domain, I came across this promotion for Network Solutions that offered hosting for $0.50. Sounds great, especially since most providers are charging $9.99. 

So, what’s the catch?  Well, in the fine print, you see this:

“This offer is valid for initial (new) purchase only and only on domains to be registered with Network Solutions. This offer is not valid on domain renewals and is only valid for generally available domain names, and not Premium Names of any kind. After the applicable free promotional period, then-current renewal rates shall apply. For reference, the current renewal price for a one (1) year .com domain name registration is $37.99, subject to change at the sole discretion of Network Solutions. Only one free domain is available per order and Network Solutions cannot assure domain name availability.”

$37.99 for a .com domain when most places are charging you $9.99. 

I am guessing that they autobill people after a year and alot of customers just pay that relatively higher price. I say “guess” because I don’t know and I generally avoid companies that do that.

For the record, I use netfirms.ca and namecheap.com and I am happy with them. What you use is up to you?

 

Who will be the big losers in the recent price drops in cloud computing?

Over at The Motley Fool, there is this article, The Big Losers in the Cloud Pricing Wars, that talks about recent price drops for services at Amazon and Google and how these price drops will affect the cloud computing business. (The Cloud Pricing Wars is very dramatic – I am not sure it is an all out battle at this point: we need more time to see if that becomes the case)

Anyone interested in cloud computing should check it out.

Is a Canadian team going to win the Stanley Cup in 2014?

Based on this logic, Why Can’t Canada Win the Stanley Cup? – NYTimes.com (and Nate Silver, 2013), the answer is No. Not only is the argument convincing, it is depressing if you are a Canadian, since as the post also shows, Canadians are avid hockey fans.

Anyone who loves hockey, the NHL or the Stanley Cup playoffs will enjoy this piece of writing.

 

Robot Fast Food workers, automats, and food trucks: food of the future

Are low-wage workers going to replaced by robots? There are cases to be made for that happening, both here: The Shift From Low-Wage Worker to Robot Worker from FiveThirtyEight and from the recent book, The Second Machine age (pictured above). Indeed, some have argued that fast food restaurants are a form of manufacturing, and this makes the notion of replacing works with machines more plausible to me.

It is important not just to look at the future, but also the past, in particular, the history of the automat.

The automat was once the future too, and there are still vestiges of them around, but mainly they have died off. There were a number of reasons for this (see Automat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), but inflexibility was one of them. Right now fast food establishments thrive on inflexibility and low cost.That is also the way to compete with them.  I can see how people can compete with that and win, and the way to do that is portable food (e.g., food trucks, food stalls). Barring bureaucratic costs, portable food is cheaper to deliver than traditional bricks and mortar establishments (even fast food ones). And portable food vendors can be much more flexible than fast food places can ever be.

The other way to compete with them is by being human and offering better service. No robot in the next century will be able to do that.

For more on the book, check out: Amazon.com: The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (9780393239355): Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee: Books

 

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Is the Dropbox DMCA takedown thing new? And can Dropbox even do that?

I’ve been seeing this showing up on Twitter alot lately:

And so I had two questions: 1) is this new? 2) and can Dropbox do this? I found the answers here: About that Dropbox DMCA thing … | Android Central. The short answers are 1) no 2) yes. (Click through the link for the details.)

Dropbox is a great tool for sharing files, provided they are yours. Always remember: the Dropbox folder is not “yours”, even if the files you place there are. (And if they are not your files, then you have another set of problems.)

 If your files are important, I recommend you don’t make Dropbox your one and only place to store them. The more important files are to you, the more backups you should have.

 

How to learn github fairly easily

It is easy to feel stupid if you are trying to learn how to use github and you are not a software developer. Many of the github tutorials are aimed at people who are software developers and who have used similar tools. What can seem obvious to them can seem bafflingly to you when you are trying to understand the workings of github. (e.g., if you are not used to source control, then getting your mind around what state your file can be in at any given time in the process can be confusing.)

Despite that, if you are committed to learn how to use Github and git (the basis for Github), I recommend you take the next four steps:

  1. Start with this two part tutorial: GitHub For Beginners: Don’t Get Scared, Get Started – ReadWrite (part 1) and GitHub For Beginners: Commit, Push And Go – ReadWrite. I really liked this series. It assumes that you aren’t a software developer and that you may have tried using github and gave up. I highly recommend you take an hour and walk through both parts of this tutorial. When you are done, you will have feel that you have a good start on being able to use git.
  2. If you still feel like you want some more practice and you want to try some new things with git in a safe environment, try this interactive tutorial: Code School – Try Git. It will also teach you some additional things that you will find useful that you didn’t learn in step 1.
  3. Now that you are more comfortable with git and github, this Git Reference site walks you some of the same material, but goes into detail and explains it more. By the time you go through this, you should be alot more confident about what you are doing with git and github.
  4. Lastly, I like this site:  git – the simple guide – no deep s–t! (It’s where the graphic at the top of this post comes from). It’s a great summary of the things that you’ve learned, and it has an excellent cheat sheet on the top left of the page that you will want to keep handy.

Some additional thoughts: your use of git and github can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. You could have a simple repo on github with one or more files that only you use. Later, you could start cloning other people’s repos, making changes, and making them into your own repo. From there you could get into working with teams of people, branching and merging your files as you go. During that time, you are learning as you go. Don’t be afraid to a) make backups and then b) make mistakes. Eventually you will gain mastery of it and be able to use it to your full advantage. Better still, the material you share can be used by others, and that’s a great thing.

 

Freedom 48 – how to retire early

My former colleague and all around great person, Annie English, has a book and a blog on how to retire young. The Toronto Star has reviewed it here: Here’s how this couple retired at 48 in expensive Toronto: Roseman | Toronto Star. Annie and her husband, Rich, were disciplined before retirement, and that discipline has paid off. If you want to learn how they did it, check out the Star article, or their blog, Retired At 48. If this is something you want to achieve, buy the book, too.

Why I think Microsoft Office for the iPad is a big deal

Microsoft is providing Office for the iPad, starting today (See this for some of the highlights: Microsoft Office For iPad Launches Today).

This is one of those milestone events in the history of Microsoft and Apple, and the computing industry in general. Back in 1997, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, there was the big news of Microsoft investing $150 million in Apple (CNET News).  And not just money…

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said today that the software giant will invest $150 million in Apple and will develop and ship future versions of its Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and development tools for the Macintosh

Back in 1997, Microsoft was dominant and Apple was dramatically regrouping. Apple needed Microsoft, especially their software. Now Microsoft is trying to pivot from the PC market (which is rapidly declining) to the future, which is mobile and cloud based. A future where Apple is currently one of the dominant players, and Microsoft is struggling. Microsoft needs Apple’s hardware, just like once Apple needed Microsoft’s software.

It is hard to say if this is going to change things around for Microsoft. I never count them out, ever. In the meantime, this is another sign that their transition is still a work in progress.

If you want to get it, you can get it here: Buy Office 365 Home Premium – Microsoft Store

Negotiating tips: a good story about negotiating with Steve Jobs

Over at Operating Partner, DFJ, Heide Roizen has a great case study of how to negotiate with someone as tough to deal with as Steve Jobs. You may not be in IT, and you may never have to negotiate with someone as demanding and smart as Jobs, but check it out: you can learn something useful and read a great story too.

 

To all the journalists that think Internet censorship in Turkey is a new thing

I found this in less than a minute: Censorship of YouTube – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Here is the extract for Turkey:

Turkish courts have ordered blocks on access to the YouTube website. This first occurred when Türk Telekom blocked the site in compliance with decision 2007/384 issued by the Istanbul 1st Criminal Court of Peace (Sulh Ceza Mahkeme) on 6 March 2007. The court decision was based on videos insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in an escalation of what the Turkish media referred to as a “virtual war” of insults between Greek, Armenian and Turkish YouTube members. YouTube was sued for “insulting Turkishness” and access to the site was suspended pending the removal of the video. YouTube lawyers sent proof of the video’s removal to the Istanbul public prosecutor and access was restored on 9 March 2007. However, other videos similarly deemed insulting were repeatedly posted, and several staggered bans followed, issued by different courts:

  • the Sivas 2nd Criminal Court of Peace on 18 September 2007 and again (by decision 2008/11) on 16 January 2008; the Ankara 12th Criminal Court of Peace on 17 January 2008 (decision 2008/55);[72]
  • the Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace on 12 March 2008 (decision 2008/251);
  • the Ankara 11th Criminal Court of Peace on 24 April 2008 (decision 2008/468). the Ankara 5th Criminal Court of Peace on 30 April 2008 (decision 2008/599);
  • again, the Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace on 5 May 2008 (decision 2008/402);
  • again, the Ankara 11th Criminal Court of Peace on 6 June 2008 (decision 2008/624).
  • again, based on “administrative measures” without court order following corruption scandal, relating several govermental officials including Prime Minister Erdogan on March 27th, 2014 The block in accordance with court decision 2008/468 of the Ankara 11th Criminal Court of Peace issued on 24 April 2008, which cited that YouTube had not acquired a certificate of authorisation in Turkey, was not implemented by Türk Telekom until 5 May 2008.

Although YouTube was officially banned in Turkey, the website was still accessible by modifying connection parameters to use alternative DNS servers, and it was the eighth most popular website in Turkey according to Alexa records. Responding to criticisms of the courts’ bans, in November 2008 the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated “I do access the site. Go ahead and do the same.”

In June 2010, Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül used his Twitter account to express disapproval of the country’s blocking of YouTube, which also affected access from Turkey to many Google services. Gül said he had instructed officials to find legal ways of allowing access.[75] Turkey lifted the ban on 30 October 2010.

In November 2010, a video of the Turkish politician Deniz Baykal caused the site to be blocked again briefly, and the site was threatened with a new shutdown if it did not remove the video.

In March 27, 2014, Turkey banned YouTube again. This time, they did so mere hours after a video was posted there claiming to depict Turkey’s foreign minister, spy chief and a top general discussing scenarios that could lead to their country’s military attacking jihadist militants in Syria.

It’s not a new thing: stop writing about it like it is new.

If you want a very simple method to track and improve your running speed over your training period…

…then try the One Magic Mile approach, featured in this Runner’s World article. As Jeff Galloway shows:

Running a timed mile provides a reality check on your current goals, helps you determine a safe long-run pace, and gives you a tangible way to track your progress during the season.

Some runners enjoy complex training approaches. Me, I prefer simple ones. If you do too, then I recommend the One Magic Mile approach.

Eyes on the Prize: the complete documentary, on YouTube

As mentioned on Kottke, it appears that the entire documentary Eyes On The Prize is now on YouTube. You can find it here: Eyes On The Prize – YouTube.

For those of you unfamiliar with this documentary, it was, to quote Wikipedia, “… an American television series and 14-hour documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States….”. That’s an understatement. It’s a great production about a great event in world history.

Highly recommended.

4 p.m. recipe: pan-fried chicken thighs by Michael Ruhlman (@ruhlman)

I am a fan of Michael Ruhlman in general, so I am happy to recommend this recipe of his: Pan-Fried Chicken Thighs. Three comments:

  1. This recipe is dead simple, but it delivers alot of flavour
  2. It smartly replaces boneless chicken breasts, which are overpriced and underflavoured, with chicken thighs, which are just the opposite. (BTW, you could easily replace chicken thighs with turkey thighs if they are on sale. Just make sure you flatten them to roughly the same thickness as you see here.)
  3. It replaces buttermilk (which often just goes to waste and takes up room in my fridge) for a more common yet better set of ingredients.

Ruhlman keeps it simple here, but you could easily add dry flavourings (i.e. herbs and spices) to the flour, or wet flavouring (e.g., hot sauces) to the dairy mix. Once you start doing that, you can vary this recipe in all kinds of ways.

Do you have a PC with no security? Do you have no money? Then you need this

Specifically, start here, with Microsoft Security Essentials for Microsoft Windows.

I haven’t downloaded this, but it comes from Microsoft and you will be much better off getting this from them then from some other vendor (or worse, from some site you aren’t sure of.)

I recommend this especially for people who are nervous about such things but don’t know what to do next.

Robot Fast Food workers, automats, and food trucks: food of the future (some notes)

Are low-wage workers going to replaced by robots? There are cases being made for that happening, both here: The Shift From Low-Wage Worker to Robot Worker from FiveThirtyEight and from the recent book, The Second Machine age (pictured above). As well, some bloggers like Matt Yglesias have argued that fast food restaurants are a form of manufacturing, and this makes the notion of replacing fast food workers with machines more plausible to me.

However, in considering this, it is important to look not just to the future, but also to look to the past. In particular, the past that contained the automat.

The automat was once the future too. There are still vestiges of them around, but mainly they have died off. They collapsed for a number of reasons (see Automat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), but the chief reason was inflexibility.

Today’s fast food establishments thrive on inflexibility and low cost. One way people can compete with that and win is with portable food (e.g., food trucks, food stalls). Barring bureaucratic costs, portable food is cheaper to deliver than when it is delivered by traditional bricks and mortar establishments (even fast food ones) and portable food vendors can be much more flexible than fast food places can ever be.  There might still be robots delivering portable food, just like there are vending machines that provide food. But they won’t have flexibility of humans, and they won’t be as cheap.  Additionally, humans can offer human interaction: no robot in the near future will be able to imitate that.

I believe eating is a social act and a human act, and buying and selling food should be a social and human activity.  We humans need to think about it in ways to provide it that doesn’t dehumanize ourselves.

For more on the book, check out: Amazon.com: The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (9780393239355): Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee: Books. It’s really great.

 

Should everyone learn to code? And should they learn it from Code.org?

I am encouraged by organizations like code.org and the work they are doing to help kids (and adults) learn how to write code using an approach that is condusive to fast learning. You can see their work here: Learn | Code.org. A somewhat differing point of view is here: Thread: Why you should learn to code.  I say “somewhat” because while Winer agrees with the notion of more people coding, he disagrees with how this is being promoted by code.org.

I think there are lots of reasons to learn to code: it’s a creative activity, it helps you understand technology better, it can help you get ahead in life, and it can be fun. I don’t think everyone has to learn to code, just like everyone doesn’t have to learn to sing or draw or other creative tasks. People may be anxious about their kids being computer illerate, but that fear has been around since the early days of personal computers and it was always an overblown fear. Learn to code for the goodness it brings, not because you fear something if you don’t learn.

Phishing attack of the day

Is this:

Thank you for registering with us.
Email:
Password: ******
Activation code 70751

Please click the link below to access the video that shows how the system work.

Below is a link that I don’t recognize. Not surprising, because I have never heard of the organization sending it, never mind asked for an activation code.

Just a reminder: whenever you get email like that, delete it right away.

Need a cheap domain? Namecheap.com has some good deals right now

Right now, Namecheap.com has .us domains for $1.10 (Canadian) and .org.uk for $6.41.

I was tempted to get iAmSoFabulo.us, but I may get something just for test purposes. (I am testing using cloud sites, and it is helpful to have a domain name, vs going with the full domain name that some of the cloud sites provide).

If you are Canadian or want a .ca domain, then netfirms.ca is a better choice (NameCheap.com has .ca domains for $13.03, vs $9.99 at netfirms.ca).

Finally, from what I hear, namecheap.com has deals all the time. It is worth visiting them from time to time to see what is available.

How to program, as explained by Samuel Jackson :)

Well, not exactly. But this website: Programming, M—–f—– – Do you speak it? is a very expletive laden and funny site for any of you programmers out there, from n00bie to experienced. Click on this especially for some great links to help you with your programming skills. 

Also not your average software development T shirts are on sale there, if you are so inclined.

4 p.m. recipe: roasted red pepper and tomato soup

Some days you just want a simple meal for dinner. This soup with some bread, cheese and a salad could be just the thing. Make it even easier by picking up some roasted peppers and using them instead of roasting your own. You can deepen the flavour with some garlic or make it hotter with pepper sauce or even sriracha added in. Lots of ways to change this up and still make it delicious.

You can find the recipe here: Roasted red pepper and tomato soup recipe, from the good folks at Style At Home

Hack: Facebook’s version of PHP, now for everyone (#technical)

It’s not news that Facebook has been running a modified version of PHP for some time. What is news is that now so can you.

You can get a copy of it at this website:Hack. It installs on most OSs (or will, soon), and even runs in the Cloud (on Heroku).

According to this, Facebook Introduces ‘Hack,’ the Programming Language of the Future | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com, what you get is a high performing version of PHP with very little you have to change to get the performance gains.

It will be interesting to see if this helps to drive up usage in PHP. There are lots of new technologies to build web site with these days: this could make PHP a desirable option.

Thinking of getting a fitness tracker? Consider getting this app first

There are a number of devices out there to tracking your movement, sleep and other things. But you may own such a device already: it’s your mobile phone. If you combine this with this:  Moves – Activity Tracker for iPhone and Android, then that may be all you need to get started.

If you are going to get it, look at the comments here, first: Swissmiss | Moves App. As you can see, there are some limitations to it. My recommendation: try this app first. If you find it useful, consider getting a standalone tracker from someone like Fitbit or Nike.

Anything that helps get people moving, fitter, and healthier is a good thing.

 

Looking to travel to NYC? Here’s some budget boutiques to consider

This NYTimes.com article is older (2010), but that just means that these places may be easier to get into now: Budget Boutiques in New York City – Interactive Map – NYTimes.com. (It could also mean that some of these places have come and gone.)

Boutique hotels have a feel of the city that you are in: it’s a feeling that large scale hotels rarely have. I’d recommend checking out this list if you are thinking of heading to New York. Any money you save on accommodation  can easily be spent elsewhere. 🙂

On goaltending, Five Thirty Eight and the genius of Patrick Roy

This is remarkable:

In this FiveThirtyEight | Why Gretzky Had It Easy, Neil Paine tries and I think succeeds in explaining why the save percentage has gone up year after year. The reason is: Patrick Roy. I have been watching young goalies since my son started playing hockey, and I am amazed at how different they play to when I played in the era of Dryden. Back then, the butterfly was somewhat controversial still, and goalies who played that way and were beat up high were criticized for that style. Not only that, but we were trained to get back up again fast. Now, goalies are going down and staying down. Where once we tried to stop low shots with the stick or the blade (both relatively small), now goalies have both pads (relatively big) on the ice most of the time. Roy brought that on, or is credited with it, and now all the young goalies (and older ones) play that way.

Paine is right to credit the gear too, for it is alot better.  The chest and arm protectors are much better than the old ones, and even the top of the knees and the neck are protected now (not so when I was younger). It makes it a bit easier for the goalie to use more of his or her body to stop the shot. I even think the pads make it much easier to slide around than the old pads ever could. But gear alone isn’t the reason: it is the new style and the training to do it that makes a difference.

I disagree with the title: Gretzky had it easy. Watch the video that Paine shows. Watch how patient Gretzky is with the puck, and how he find the opening, no matter how small. I think he would still be doing the same thing with today’s goaltenders. Other than that, a great piece.

 

Ulster: a study of what’s next, in maps

This post does an interesting analysis of changes happening in Ulster and what might become of it. As the Catholic populations grows and the Protestant population declines, there are a number of scenarios of what might come next, all thoughtfully explored in the piece liked to at Bigthink.com.

As progress was made in Ireland and Northern Ireland,  it is easy to imagine it forget about it and assume it is stable. Perhaps it will remain stable, but change is coming, one birth at a time.

(Map shows the areas in Ulster with a majority of Catholics (green) and a majority of Protestants (Yellow).)

Is Agile dead?

For people who work in software development, I recommend this article: The End of Agile: Death by Over-Simplification | Effective Software Design. It pushes back against what Agile is becoming. It also has some great links to others complaining about what Agile has become, including this, which I really like: The Anti Agile Manifesto | On the obfuscation of common sense in the software development community.

My belief is that there is a wide range of people using the term “agile”. Some of those people have alot of experience doing software development and can use it to create much better software. And then there are other people who use the term vaguely in order to sound intelligent and flexible. If you want to be more like the former and would like to know more about Agile, here’s a good place to start: Agile software development – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don’t think it is dead: but I do think it needs resuscitation.

 

Some suggestions on how to stop iOS 7 from draining your iPhone’s battery life

It’s a common problem: your iOS 7 phone doesn’t have the juice you need to get you through the day. If you want to tackle this problem, this article may be just thing you need: How to stop iOS 7 from destroying your iPhone’s battery life. Getting rid of things like background refreshes, 3D features, location based services can all go some way to making your power last longer. Worth reviewing.