Archive for March, 2004
This is the first time i have ever said a little piece on a blog…i’m new to this stuff…i am typing with one finger at a time. i am going to try and bore the knickers off of you. So let me think of a little topic..mmmmm…i am still thinking..hahaha
dead sheep impression…this is really cooool. First of all eat something green, for example lettuce, or if you don’t eat that sort of rabbit food try some grass, as in the green stuff outside your back garden. As you are masticating, do a toothy belm and roll your eyes upwards and cross them, and i’ll guarantee that you will look like a dead sheep. Get one of you mates to take a photo of you when you do this.
well over and out. it has been so much fun.
March 27th, 2004
At my work, we make heavy use of a quality system in order to create software. The reasons for this are many, but they include the need to prove to customers that we produce software that conforms to certain standards. Another reason is the need to accurately manage the production of the software.
The quality system that we employ has certain problems though and this morning we had a brief meeting to explore some of the system’s demons.
The idea that the system is called a ‘quality assurance’ system has always grated with me a little since it does nothing of the sort. The system is perfectly capable of producing bad software with all the right ticks in all the right boxes. I’m not saying that we produce bad software - I’m just saying that the quality system has an inappropriate name. Luckily the people who work at the company are quite capable of producing a good software package of their own accord.
All that the quality system does is prove that we can follow processes. That’s it. It’s up to the processes to be good to end up with good software. Or that’s the theory, anyway.
The meeting this morning was welcomed because it became apparent that the company does not wish a ‘conformance to procedures assurance’ system. Why should it? It’s not good for business to have your staff wasting time on procedures that add no quality to the finished product. The company does wish to have a system that produces quality. This makes sense - a company with a quality product that meets all the elusive attributes of ‘goodness’ will do well. People will want to buy stuff with a high level of quality.
I’m glad this revalation was brought to the attention of the staff because it’s hard to maintain motivation serving a quality system that adds little of value. A computer programmer wants to program computers. A computer programmer doesn’t want to do a little bit of programming and then spend the rest of the time creating documents that pretend to prove that the programming was done well.
All of this prompted an email debate with some colleagues about how the quality system should be redesigned to promote quality. It transpired that the book ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ had recently been read by myself and another, and so it became the centre of the conversation.
The meeting placed the maintenance of the quality system firmly in the hands of the staff, so it got me thinking about how to approach the design of a process that produces good software. The book talks about many ideas, one of which is that quality emerges from a love of what you are doing. Luckily I like programming computers so it seems that the current system is being detrimental to my motivation to produce good software.
Once you sit down and think about it though, it’s pretty difficult. How do you define how to produce good software? Good quality software is recognisable though. People who use software would be able to sort the software they use every day into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with no problem. Everyone, therefore, knows what good quality software is. But how do you explain what should go into software to make it good?
Good software is many things. It performs its task well. It is intuitive to use. It has good manuals that explain things to the user in an accessible way. It does not alienate the user. Good software serves the company that makes it well. It’s saleable, meaning more opportunity to create good software. Good software is lots of other things too.
Above all, it’s ‘good’. A software-quality assurance system therefore, should not explain how to create good software. A software-quality assurance system should explain the environment in which good software tends to arise.
If we all loved our jobs, there would be no need for false, estimated, pointless schedules to drive people onwards to fictional deadlines to make sure the job gets done. There would be no need because we would produce the software out of a love for what we were doing. A QA system, therefore should exist to create an environment that makes the people who work on the product love what they are doing.
I may be being naive, but I don’t think that’s as impossible, or ridiculous as it sounds.
Someone suggested that the entire quality system should be replaced by a single piece of paper that just reads “Make beautiful things”. It would apply to all departments. Good quality software is beautiful. Good quality manuals are beautiful. A chart on an accountant’s desk where all the numbers add up perfectly is beautiful. Software that installs and uninstalls cleanly is beautiful. We all know the difference between something beautiful and something ugly, and we all pretty much agree. What else would be needed? Nothing could possibly be produced from such a system but something beautiful. Something with quality.
That’s an end to the rambling, disjointed thoughts. How would you, dear reader, create a system that promotes such an environment? There’s a place in the history books up for grabs to the provider of the correct answer.
March 23rd, 2004
A mate of mine will be married soon, which means that on Saturday he was having a stag night, preceeded by some paintball shooting in the woods.
Paintballing is great fun. I recommend it to one and all. The rules were that a fatal shot was anything below the neck, including fingers and toes. Head-shots were not counted you see, to discourage dangerous shots to the head. Also, ‘Violence of any kind will not be tolerated’. Er.. right, ok, whatever.
The head rule had a problem though in that it meant you took advantage of it by hiding behind things and leaving your head sticking out to search for the enemy safe in the knowledge that you wouldn’t be dead if you were shot in the face. I got shot in the back, leg, both shoulders, the hand, and about 30 times in the head. Paint tastes horrible.
The rules also meant that I was taken out quite quickly in the first game by a fatal would to my achiles finger. After that though, I was a fucking killing machine dude, a killing machine I tell you. Being a stag do though meant that our illustrious red-team leader who took us to eventual victory did so in a tasteful pink neglige acquired from Ann Summers. Not only were the cowardly blue team destroyed repeatedly in unrelenting strategic onslaughts, but they were being beaten by a bloke in a dress.
The enemy’s humiliation could not have been more complete.
Night-time though was spent in a variety of pubs getting pleasantly drunk. Eventually though the decision about what club to go to arose and the camp was divided between two venues. It was either to be the Truffle Club or the Garage.
Seriously, that was the choice. Either a tasteful venue themed on the celebration of the female form and its beautiful rythmic agility, or a huge, dark smoke-filled hole with a mile-long queue of sixteen-year-olds outside and a sticky dancefloor.
The choice was made, they went to the Garage. I was amazed and went to the taxi rank.
March 22nd, 2004
Right then. Doggie walker number three is coming round tonight for a chat and to meet the dog to see if they get along. There’s a long line of bad luck in the doggie walkers we’ve used. Doggie walker number one had a heart attack whilst walking the dog. Doggie walker number two didn’t really walk the dog at all. She just said she did and collected the money.
This third doggie walker better be in good physical fitness and had better not object to me putting CCTV cameras in the kitchen for the express purpose of spying on her.
At least we won’t have to tidy the house up before she arrives. If you want to get your house tidied, just fall out with your wife. The two of you will retreat to opposite corners of the house and not talk to one another whilst furiously busying yourselves with the thousand-and-one tasks that have been needing done for weeks. Before you know it, the house has been spring cleaned from top to bottom.
We’re talking to each other now though, and all our CDs are out of plastic bags and organized into the CD rack in the living room. If it was a falling out worth worrying about the CDs would probably have been put into alphabetical order.
One thing worth worrying about was that we found out that we own a best of Daniel O’Donnel CD. I can’t work this out. Seriously I have no idea why we have this. It must have been thrown in through our window by a passing pensioner or something. That’s the best explanation I can come up with. The missus didn’t buy it. Where the fuck did it come from? I’d never seen it before last night.
If you’re missing a Daniel O’Donnell CD, let me know and I’ll sort you out. Maybe I should give it away in some sort of competition. Maybe I’ll throw in the compilation CD of relaxing classical music, introduced by Felicity Kendal. That’s another one that arrived via a space warp in my CD box, rather than via the more usual HMV purchase route.
March 19th, 2004
I can’t take this any longer. The constant lying is starting to get to me. I am, in fact, Belle de Jour.
I’m not Toby Young, Caitlin Moran, Sarah Champion or anyone else who has been outed through means of statistical analysis, random name picking and proximity to eroticism in their authored books.
So there you go. Conclusive proof in the form of this post that Belle de Jour is me. Well done - you’ve discovered the unquestionable truth about everyone’s favourite documentarian call-girl. Now go and link to this post so that my hits go up and everyone will think I’m very clever for having duped so many for so long.
Maybe I’ll appear on Richard and Judy or something now that I’m gonna be famous and have a book to plug. Me and Richard could talk about blow-jobs and Judy would get all flustered and turn red and embarassed and stuff, hahahahaha!
Oh, sorry. That was my er.. other writing style.
March 18th, 2004
Apparently Google have revised their page-rank values, but left their algorithm alone. Overnight, my page-rank has dropped from 4/10 to 1/10. Smelly Google. If you want to know your page-rank, and you don’t use the google toolbar, then go to the page-rank calculator.
This morning, as I got off the train there were no ticket inspectors at the end of the platform. Instead there was a bunch of police officers handing out leaflets. The leaflets just said ‘TERRORISM TRAVELS - Suspicious? Let us know. Crimestoppers 0800 555 111. Call anonymously’.
That kind of shook me a little bit.
Update: It seems that I was wrong. My page-rank only drops to 1/10 if I take away the ‘www’ but at the start of the URL. You’d think that Google would know they were the same, wouldn’t you? Oh well. Anyone know how to make Google realise that the two URLs are the same site?
March 18th, 2004
So anyway, Kraftwerk were playing in Glasgow last night for the first time in thirteen years. I have to say that Kraftwerk are bonkers.
The show had electronic music in it that was thirty years old and still sounded fresh, but there was still a kind of anachronistic feel about them, as if the world of electronic music had left them behind. It has, but not very far.
In the third part of the show, the Kraftwerk robots replace the middle-aged band members and start ‘playing’ the music instead. It’s amusingly obvious that the heads of the robots have faces twenty years younger than their human counterparts.
It’s also bizarre to see these futuristic Kraftwerk man machines, backlit by a screen of cathode green images being captured by the crowd on hand-held digital cameras as pictures, sound and video and transmitted by mobile phones. The computer world of Kraftwerk on stage seemed like something from the past when compared to the technological world of the audience.
Don’t get me wrong; the mystery of the enigmatic and reclusive Kraftwerk is served well by their mechanical, pixellated images and although their art would have been served better by updating themselves, it wouldn’t have been the Kraftwerk people wanted to see. They seemed like something from another world.
It does still work, as testified by the crowd’s response to the cold, dry german robotic voice of Kraftwerk that introduces them. All through the show, that voice would come back and demand attention, as if to say ‘This is fucking Kraftwerk!’
It helps that I had a few beers. Not because they’re better when pissed, but because I had a raspy throat the next morning. Instead of singing in the shower I could do a very passable impression of that dry robotic voice…
“ein, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht.”
How’s that for an earworm?
March 17th, 2004
Bored? Using Microsoft Word? Then here’s a game you can try. I call it ’spider’.
First, highlight a random word in your document. Right-click on it and choose Synonyms > Thesaurus.
You then need to click on the synonyms in the right hand panel, and click the ‘look up’ button. Repeat this until you find the word ’spider’.
I managed to get from ‘acceptable’ to ‘organism’ before I eventually gave up, organism being quite spiderish.
Have fun.
Update: It seems that ’spider’ isn’t, ahem, in the Word thesaurus. I would like, therefore to rename the game to ‘organism’.
Hurray! I won!
March 16th, 2004
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