Posts

  • How Strong is Your Password?

    Another absolutely fantastic infographic via Information is Beautiful from CXO magazine on both how strong your password is and a nice extra layer of sociological categorization.

    How Strong is Your Password?

    Mind you, I don’t think the top one is strong enough IMHO. Mine’s better… ;-)

  • Budget Cutting Infographic

    Fantastic infographic from Information is Beautiful cutting through all the crap to give a clear picture of what each political party is forwarding in order to cut Britain’s whopping £167B deficit if they get into power. Love it for its clarity and conciseness.

    UK political party deficit cutting measures

    I need this sort of graphic for the Australian election as well.

  • If you can’t design, don’t be proud about it

    I have to admit to being in awe of people who can both code and whip up a kick ass looking design. Particularly one that looks good and has good user experience. While I can code backends, I’d say my design skills are pretty paltry, particularly when it comes to doing things like lightbox overlays, fades, zoom in overlays and other jQuery goodness. But I’m not proud about it. It’s something I’m kinda embarrassed about (and have a stack of reading material to deal with - that I’ll get through one day).

  • Learning Ruby with Rubywarrior

    One of the things I really love about the ruby community is its inherent sense of fun. Beside the fact there are a lot of really smart, talented and very creative devs in it and at the RailsCamps (at least here in Aus), and some of the best stuff is just the things they whip up in their more whimsical moments.

    One of these has to be rubywarrior (thanks to <Ritchie K. for introducing me to this one at Railcamp 7 in Canberra). Written by Railscasts stalwart Ryan Bates it’s there to teach you Ruby. And it rocks.

  • Still working on the first million, thanks

    Well, since I don’t really ever plan to retire like a normal person, this may not be applicable, but apparently the [million dollars to retire goal] (https://www.thestreet.com/retirement/1-million-doesnt-cut-it-for-retirement-10701792 ) is no longer applicable according to most financial analysts. People in my age bracket should be looking to double retirement savings to $2M (Gen X::27-42). 22% of advisors suggested $3M.

    Apparently, the blame lies with these online retirement calculators that often assume you’ll need 70%-80% of your work life income.

  • The Pale Blue Dot

    Watch this. It’s worth it. Listen to the Sagan.

    Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of civilizations; every king and peasant, every young couple in love; every mother and father; hopeful child; inventor and explorer; every teacher of morals; every corrupt politician; every supreme leader; every superstar; every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

  • On Sabbaticals and Why You Need One

    I actually tried to negotiate a sabbatical after five years before coming to the new gig (particularly since I’d just given one up leaving Amnesty at the end of three years). No dice. Great little talk on the benefits of taking time out from work.

    Of course, what happens is I just take mini-sabbaticals in between jobs though would really like to plan for one in a few years time from this gig (though often think I am kidding myself that I’ll ever take time off properly - when will those books get written?).

  • Why you can't work at work

    Great little video from Jason Fried (ostensibly flogging Rework, 37Signals’ new book) on why modern offices are constructed to optimize interruptions and why you and I spend all our time on weekends and after work getting real work done.

    Offices are optimized for interruptions and interruptions are the enemy of work, creativity, and productivity.

    And yeah, the fact, I am working at home while penning this, instead of out surfing today, is probably a good indication of it as a truism.