04.26.08
RIP Humph
Rest in Peace Humph, I shall miss you. I never did get a chance to see you play at the Bulls Head, and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue won’t ever be the same.
04.14.08
Pirate Juice - Yaaarrrgh!
Put a bottle of cheap dark rum in the freezer. The next day, mix 5 parts fiery ginger beer (not ale), 2 parts dark rum, and one part fresh lime juice. Pour over ice. Slip. Shout Yaaarrrgh and stomp round in circles!
04.13.08
Info trackers
I am a bit of a data whore. I want to know where I’ve been, what I’ve listened to (via last.fm), what I’ve read (via LibraryThing), and if I could record my thoughts (Twitter maybe?) so I could read then again later (especially when I was sober again), I would do.
What I could really do with is LibraryThing for wine. WineThing :) Yes, that is a great idea. Somebody go make it now!
04.01.08
What everybody should know about the Middle East
What a fantastic little article is What every American should know about the Middle East. This will only take you 2 minutes to read (really) and I guarentee that you will learn something (if I know my demographic). I was embarrassed at how I knew the basics, but missed a few critial bits.
Go in, click through, see if you’re not enlightened.
03.27.08
the sopranos continues to educate…
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true” : Nathaniel Hawthorne
Best quote of the week
Next heated meeting I have I’m rolling out…
“Take it easy. We’re not making a Western here”
Thank you The Sopranos.
A few more I might just throw out there
Tony: Think Christopher, think! The big f**king picture, huh…
“I don’t understand”
“Thats because I wasn’t fucking talking to you”
“She’s so fat, her blood type is Ragu.”
“They fucked him so had, he had two ass holes when they buried him…”
03.03.08
A Tescos Poem
I only popped in,
for five spice,
and cabbage,
and maybe a beer,
but you made me so angry,
wish your pushing and your grabbing and your lofty accents,
I will return,
with a stick. Fear me.
02.21.08
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Any economics 101 student or 1980’s middle manager can tell you about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simple put, theres a stack of stuck of stuff, and unless you have the items in the stack below you, you’re unlikely to be happy. It’s a way of modelling ways of motivating people. Giving me a pair of shoes and a sandwich will not motivate me, but will motivate the hungry man with no shoes.
It’s fallen out of favour over the last few years, like many Taylorist management techniques, but I think it’s almost more valid now that ever, it’s just you need to look at it with fresh eyes, and I think many companies would benefit from thinking about it again.
So lets crack in. Lowest on the pyramid of needs are the “physiological needs Excretion, Eating, Sex, Drinking, Sleeping and Warmth. Highly mobile companies inturupt virtually all of these. You still do them, but not well, and probably don’t see the benefits. Eating, sex and sleep seem to be those that are most affected.
You don’t tend to cook for yourself when you’re on the move a lot. You live of take away, hotel food and sandwiches. I have a friend is virtually lives on sandwiches alone. He has a BLT for breakfast, another sandwich at his desk, and then one in the evening on his way “home” (eg. the hotel). Sandwiches are ok, but they’re not exactly healthy fod most of the time, and the lack of repetition
Sex seems ike a humourous subject, but if you work away from home Monday to Friday, the seeing and seeing to of your other half needs to be planned. Planning sex is not sexy. The is of course the option of not being in a relationship and findign comfort where required, but that too has knock on effects.
Finally there’s sleep. Getting enbough sleep is one thing, and if you go to bed with your head still buzzing with thoughts about the working day and the day to come, your sleep will not be good sleep. You won’t wake rested, you’ll frequently wake early because you’re worrying about something, you might even dream about work. I’ve woken up talking about the answers to that days problem. I’ve stared at the ceiling for 8 hour worring about the best ways to deploy code, and organise shreadsheet data, and tell somebody they are crap and I’m moving them to another team. This is not good sleep, and very far from restful.
So there you go. I’ve not even moved upto the second level of the pyramid, and already big sprawling companies seem to have under mined the foundations of motivation. Much higher up in the pyramid are things like Growth and Self Improvment and things which companies and HR departments pride themselves on having initatives and policies about, but maybe they need to think a little further down the pyramid. If you’re going to ask people to work super hard, they need to be super motivated, and to do that they need to sleep in the same bed, eat well and get laid regularly. They need time to do all the stuff in life which makes it livable, like washing and tax returns, car insurance and bonfire night. They need time for themselves over and above just saturday night.
02.18.08
Look up people
Sitting on the train this morning, reading the news and catching up on my inbox (pre-7:30am - get me), I looked up, and my mouth fell open, as I watched the firey peach ball of sun burning off the layer of mist which was caught agains the frozen ground. It was breathtaking, magnificent, almost too perfect really.
Right here, right now, I resolve to get up a little earlier each day, and to look up every so often from my work, because nothing else I am likely to see today will catch me so unawares.
02.06.08
Googel Maps Poetry
From my minds eye
High in the sky
I see a house
I knew so well
And where I will
Trend never again
I’m sorry
01.28.08
I made the front page of MAKE!!!!!
**technically** now the second page, but all the same - ONE OF MY PHOTOS MADE THE FRONT PAGE OF MAKE!!
This is the best thing to happen all day!
01.22.08
XP v’s food
My laptop took longer to boot than it took me to eat a mixed tandoori grill, naan and riatta. Might be time for a reinstall when when system initalisation takes longer quality indian food.
01.20.08
America’s Bully Boy Attitude
The Borne Ultumatum, starts with a dose rendition of UK citzens (kidnap - lets not mince words here, it’s kidnap), water boarding (partial drowning torture to extract information, lets not mince words again) and the CIA shitting on our doorstep. Considering it’s a US film it must be touching a raw nerve with a few boys in the America.
America, listen up. People around the world are fucked off with your self rightous, smug attitude. Stop trying to dictate to the world, and stick to fucking about INSIDE YOUR OWN BORDERS. You have no rights outside of the US of A, and if you have to kidnap people and take them to foreign places to beat, torture an humiliate them, maybe you should consider what you are up to Anything you can’t do on your own shores, you certainly cannot justify else where. Keep it up, and nobody outside of your shores will be on your side, except maybe Tony, but he’s not exactly popular these days is he.
01.17.08
The full spectrum
I’ve been meaning to go an read and understand dynamic range and various other bits of audio science surrounding music, but I’ve just not got round to it. Whilst I had music on random this afternoon however, it picked the album “Music For A Strip Tease Party” by “Bald” Bill Hagan And His Troc. I didn’t remember where it came from, so had a glace at the file location and found these fabulous covers, aparently scanned from the original LP. Take notice of the right hand side of the back - pre-mp3, pre-cd, the buying public had an idea about the technicalities of audio aparently. 
01.16.08
What did I read in 2007?
54 books in total it would appear. The usual mix of business texts, fantasy fiction, graphic novels and pulp fiction.
Life Support
Gerritsen, Tess
Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers
Spolsky, Joel
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
Rosenberg, Scott
God Explained in a Taxi Ride
Arden, Paul
Destination: Morgue
Ellroy, James
Exit Music
Rankin, Ian
Incompetence
Grant, Rob
Skunk Works - Personal Memoir Of My Years At Lockheed
Rich, Ben R.; Janos, Leo
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (James Bond Novels)
Fleming, Ian
The Mephisto Club (Jane Rizzoli, Book 6)
Gerritsen, Tess
Chicken with Plums
Satrapi, Marjane
How Starbucks Saved My Life Michael
Gill, Michael Gates
Diamonds Are Forever (Penguin Viking Lit Fiction)
Fleming, Ian
Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
Burlingham, Bo
The Distant Echo
McDermid, Val
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Brooks, Max
Purple Cow
Godin, Seth
The Devil’s Alternative
Forsyth, Frederick
The Tenth Man
Greene, Graham
The Undercover Economist
Harford, Tim
Trouble is My Business
Chandler, Raymond
Persepolis: v. 1 & v. 2
Satrapi, Marjane
From Hell
Moore, Alan
Past Mortem
Elton, Ben
No Comebacks
Forsyth, Frederick
Live and Let Die (James Bond 007)
Fleming, Ian
Black Orchid
Gaiman, Neil
Rogue Trader
Leeson, Nick
Stardust Neil Gaiman
Gaiman, Neil
Cabal Clive Barker
Barker, Clive
A Scanner Darkly (Graphic Novel)
Dick, Philip K.
The Book of General Ignorance
Mitchinson, John
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Gaiman, Neil
Atomised
Houellebecq, Michel
Strangers In Paradise Pocket Book 2 (Strangers in Paradise (Graphic Novels)
Moore, Terry
THE QUEEN AND I
Townsend, Sue.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Sedaris, David
Lullaby
Palahniuk, Chuck
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
I, Lucifer
O’Donnell, Peter
Promise Me
Coben, Harlan
I Know You Got Soul
Clarkson, Jeremy
Cocaine Nights
Ballard, J. G.
The Long Tail : Why the Future Is Selling Less of More
Anderson, Chris
Getting real
37signals
At Risk
Rimington, Stella
The Wisdom of Crowds
Surowiecki, James
A History of Violence
John, Wagner
Hello, America
Ballard, J.G.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Gladwell, Malcolm
Bunker 13
Bahal, Anirudha
Anansi Boys
Gaimen, Neil
01.12.08
“Deal only available to new customers” ?
I keep seeing adverts which are making great offers, mobile phone deals better than mine, bank accounts with higher interest rates, even home insurence which whoops mine. Home insurence is the most boring thing in the world, its so boring it makes watching Jeeves polish the gravel outside, so anything that gets me excited about home insurence must being properly exciting.
All of the offers above, which I saw in about 10 minutes of this evening tv, were only open to new customers. This makes perfect sense for many businesses, new customers bring in new money, and so long as you’re not completely screwing you existing customers too much, they probably won’t move on, so by offering short term deals which look very tasty you get some new blood, and so long as they don’t move on, your customer base is up.
The problem with this is two fold. Firstly, if your existing customers twig that you love them less that you love new blood, they’re going to be pissed off. They’ve given you X squillion pounds for donkey’s years and what do you do, you offer Joe Smo a better deal! They get pissed off, they spot another deal, and they move on.
Secondly, this process is getting easier! The Internet makes finding a better deal easier (moneysupermarket and moneysavingexpert are both well known), and your rivals are making it easier to switch. Halifax bank will apparently making moving banks as easy as one signiture, First Direct will even give you £100 to move to them.
So, if this cold war of cheap deals for new customers to steal them from your rivals continues, whats the problem? Your customers are getting a great new deal (this week) and movings so easy is not a problem for them to switch, and you’re getting new customers every day, and some of them won’t be bother to switch so hopefully you’re gaining right?
Wrong. Customer loyalty is worth so much more than the the sugar-high quick hit that are new customers. Loyal customers talk about you. Loyal customers will forgive you’re minor mistakes and if you handle them well they’ll even sing your praises. Loyal customers get their family to come to you. Loyal customers will drip feed you money over a massive period of time.
Why not offer your long term customers your better deals? I’m sure I’ve read of smaller banks only offering their higher interest bonds to existing customers, and O2 phone customers seem to be able to access deals that are advert, but apart from that I’ve not seen any thinking other than short term “smash and grab” techniques and this seems to be self defeating in my book.
01.04.08
80 hip hop posters
I love these posters for 80/90 hip hop gigs and roller discos. Especially those that for gigs at highshools!
