What I Did Last Week (ending 2012-01-15)

Monday 9th: I had a frantic morning before work, moving the last few bits onto our bed before the decorations started. When I got to work, it was a quiet work day, which I was glad of after a hectic weekend. It was quiet in more ways than one – my bluetooth headset died, so I ordered a duplicate as a replacement. I nearly bought a Sony Ericsson LiveView at the same time as the price was nearly what I had previously considered paying, until I read the reviews! Had a couple of emails from my dad which were similar to the conversations I’d had with him Friday Night (see last week for details!) Sent a very emotional response that didn’t seem to make a dent. Never mind. Once Daniel had gone to bed, Jules and I curled up in the bombsite of our living room and watched a couple of programs before going to bed. I then finished “Daemon” 5*s, and I bought the sequel “Freedom TM” also by Daniel Suarez. I started reading “Cyberpunk Stories” by William King which I picked up today. While I was reading, Daniel sat up in his sleep and then fell over, Jules and I think he might be a sleep walker, which will be fun – even more cause for fitting stair gates! One final chat with Dave Lee about Powerline adaptors before going to sleep.

Tuesday 10th: I booked Wednesday off work, and plan to make the most of it. Forgot to set my Out Of Office messages before leaving for the day, so needed to dip back into my e-mail once I was home. Jules and I watched TV for a bit before going to bed, and I realised that I’d got about 6 tracks to submit to cchits (three from a google alert I’ve got set up for CC licensed music, one from a recommendation on statusnet, and two that were played on the Crivins podcast), however, I’m staying offline this week in the evenings as much as possible, so they’ll have to wait until I’m releasing my self-imposed blockade. Posted the powerline adaptors to Dave Lee, hope they help him out! Finished “Cyberpunk Stories” 2*s and then read “Freedom TM” 5*s which is an amazing twist on the “Daemon” book… I think if the author ever collaborates with someone like Cory Doctorow, for the futurisms, or better yet, Charles Stross, for taking a scary concept and making it both funny and deeply understandable… well, let’s just say I want to see what else comes from this author. While I was reading, Daniel sleep-sat-up again twice, bumping his head the second time around. Oh well, maybe he’s just disturbed by all the decorating stuff.

Wednesday 11th: Day off!! Yey!! Early start then off to Head-over-heels, a soft play centre near Hanforth Dean. Daniel had his morning nap while I was driving us there, so Jules jumped out and did some shopping while I listened to “How governments have tried to block Tor” video from 28C3 which was at the recommendation of a colleague. Ironic I’d not heard of it, given that I’d done a presentation on Tor at the first OggCamp. Spent 2hrs at Head-over-heels including getting lunch then went to the Trafford Centre. Daniel had his afternoon nap en-route to the Trafford Centre, so I dropped Jules off at the Trafford Centre and carried on listening to the Tor talk. Very little I’d not heard before, but great to have it in context. Picked up the full Father Ted box set, plus the “X-Men: 1st Class” DVD after having heard some great reviews. Daniel got a new pram book from Waterstones, which he then spent the whole rest of the time there flicking through it. Jules picked up two new lego board games “Sunblock” and “Race 3000“. I swear we’ve nearly got all of the lego games now. Got home to find wet-paint walls in the dining room and wet skirting boards in the lounge, so Daniel and Jules or I spent the whole evening except for dinner in his room. Once he went to bed, Jules and I played a couple of games each of Sunblock and Race 3000, then Jules went to sleep. I bought three new books for my Kindle “Beloved Weapon” by Jonathan A. Price, “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi and “Empire State” by Adam Christopher. I started, and am 38% through “Beloved Weapon”, and although there’s a fair bit of gratuitous and graphic sex scenes, it’s a pretty good superhero story thus far. While I’ve been typing this up, Dave Lee’s been in touch to say that the Powerline Ethernet adaptors I sent him had arrived and we did some diagnostics around why the throughput was low. At the same time, Daniel’s been stirring a lot again. I’ve had to help him back down from sitting up twice already tonight, and that’s not counting the times he’s sorted himself out. Oh well. Today overall has been a good day.

Thursday 12th: really rubbish night, with Daniel waking after sitting up and falling and banging his head, and then not settling for over an hour. Got into work to be told that while I’d been off, a serious issue had occurred with something I’d implemented (which didn’t make sense, as we’d created accurate documentation based on the data I’d entered into the devices in question). Those two items together sent me into a bit of a spin and left me questioning myself for most of the day. Finished more-or-less on time. When I got home, Jules asked me to lower the matress on the cot as Daniel is getting proficient at pulling himself up on the side. Doing this meant I also fixed the under-cot-drawer which had been broken within a couple of weeks of us building it (before Daniel was born!). We played with Daniel until his bed time, and then once he was down, we had Chinese take-away and then played Upwords until Jules was tired. After Jules went to sleep, I finished “Beloved Weapon”. It had, frankly, a rubbish end and barely rated the 2*s I gave it. Personally, I think it paid too much attention to the sex and physical relationships between the characters than it did to any background, non-physical relationships or plot. I probably wouldn’t read anything else by this author. Started to read “Empire State”, but only managed a chapter before I got too sleepy.

Friday 13th: Yet another disturbed night. Jules had promised to take care of Daniel all night, but about 2 hours after I’d fallen asleep, he woke up screaming. Jules couldn’t calm him down and asked for some help. I went in and finished calming him down to just crying, while Jules went downstairs and got him some Calpol. After he’d taken it, he settled well, and Jules put him back down. He then woke up at about 6 and woke us both up. When I got into work, I was covering a collegue while he was on a customer visit, in addition to my normal accounts. One of my normal accounts scheduled a two-hour conference call starting at 12:00 and then at 16:00 (when I was due to be leaving) I got a call from my collegue’s account asking me to implement an urgent change for him. So I ended up leaving 40 minutes late. When I got home, the work downstairs is all finished, so Jules had pushed the sofas out to the edges so Daniel could play, and for the first time in a week, we both sat down with him and played too. When he went to bed, we watched some tv and then I spoke to my brother on the phone for 30 minutes. Jules went to bed at 9:15 and I listened to the live Bugcast show from my phone (I’d not had my laptop out at all this week) until the end of the show, when Dave proposed doing a Google Hangout. Out came the laptop and headphones and I ended up going to bed at about midnight. No reading tonight, straight to sleep – busy day tomorrow.

Saturday 14th: up at 6:45, breakfast and then I went out to get a radiator cover. When I got back, I built it and then loaded up the car for the tip. Jules’ Mum and Dad arrived and started emptying our room into the dining room. When Daniel woke up, the work started in ernest… By 1pm, we’d got most of the stuff down we were ready for, so I took Daniel to his swimming lesson, via the tip and a nap enroute to the class. Lesson went well, but I cut my foot during the lesson (banged it against the steps) but didn’t notice until I got out and, while I was getting dressed, I was bleeding all over the place. I swear, it looked like there had been a massacre in there! Asked the teacher for a plaster, filled out the accident form and went home. Daniel had his dinner then while I put him to bed, Jules nipped out to pick up dinner from the supermarket. We had pizza and watched “Take Me Out” (a guilty pleasure), then the after-show follow up on ITV2. It’s funny how obvious it is that they must pre-record it weeks if not months in advance, as a scandal broke out about the show after last week’s episode, that one of the contestants of this game show used to be a prostitute… And she was completely cut out of the show, even though she’s there in all the video clips and is there in the after show, but they don’t talk to her. Sad really. Early night.

Sunday 15th: not only is my cut foot stinging like crazy, but the ankle on my other foot has gone gout’y again. Aargh. Jules let me have a lay in until 9 AM then while I put Daniel down for his nap, Jules went shopping. When she got back, we all went to do the food shopping for the week, something we’ve not done together for months. Daniel was hungry while I sorted out paying for our purchases, so she fed him in the cafe, then when I got in there I went over all funny. Jules bought me a sandwich then I went out to the car and felt really sick. Jules dropped me off at home and then drove Daniel around so he could have a sleep without disturbing me. When they got home I was feeling much better, so I put the shopping away while Jules sorted out dinner. After dinner, I bathed Daniel, we played with him before bottle and bed and then Jules and I snuggled up on the sofa. We watched TV for an hour or so, and then went to bed. I’ve not read anything tonight, but I did catch up on some social network updates I’ve missed. Tired though, do an early night for me!

What I Did Last Week (ending 2012-01-08)

Inspired by Dan Lynch’s “Weekly Rewind” series, I thought I’d try and document some of what’s happened to me over the past week… you never know, I might even be able to keep on doing these! :)

Monday 2nd: Bank Holiday. De-christmasified the house. Earlier than I’d have liked, but it was a compromise, as Jules wanted to strip the house on Boxing Day. Dave Lee from TheBugCast adds the first CCHits.net “extra” show to his feed – Review of the tracks played on the site in 2011. It had been played on the live show on the 30th Dec.

Tuesday 3rd: Back to work, and catching up with collegues about what happened over the break. Trying and failing to compile Festival for CCHits. Called out… but not for anything sensible – just a license request for a customer – told them to get back in touch during the day.

Wednesday 4th: Discussed at length the differences between Access and Excel with my brother. Convinced I had the same discussion in 2004. He wants to start with a ToDo list which he can filter to show customers or management. Once he’s figured that out, I’m going to talk to him about separating data from presentation in a web app with a database backend. Maybe! Bought and read “Boltman” by Eric Quinn Knowles. It’s a little bit like “Kick Ass” vs. Scientology. I rate it 4*’s. Started reading “Under the Amoral Bridge” by Gary A. Ballard which I’d bought in November.

Thursday 5th: Fixed a Morse Code Keyboard for Android for a collegue (unfixed typos in the code for openbracket, and switched equals and hyphen characters) – developer hasn’t fixed issues since March 2010, so I’ve e-mailed the author to offer my patches, and failing that, I’ll consider a fork. Realised I’d fallen very far behind on my Android development suite – aside from anything else, the version of Eclipse I’ve got installed needed updating! I read to the end of “Under the Amoral Bridge” (4*s) and discovered it’s part 1 in a trilogy. Bought the compilation version of the trilogy, so I’m now reading book 2.

Friday 6th: Took down the decorations at work, then gladly handed over “On Call” for another week to a collegue, discovered they were on leave. Queue frantic phone calls and texts to make sure he knew he was on call. At 3:30 get asked if I could cover him for the night as it’s his wife’s 40th birthday. How can I say no? No calls, fortunately! Listen live to TheBugCast. Dave and Caroline have streaming issues and I get a call from my dad claiming his computer has been compromised, as he can’t log into GMail. Prove there’s no issues there, believe that is the end of it… In the aftershow, I mention the code acadamy site, and then explain some of the concepts of Javascript to another of the listeners, which is good :) end up going to bed at 2am.

Saturday 7th: visit from Jules’ uncle’s brother to discuss getting some decorating done. He can start on Monday. Queue full-scale panic as he’s doing both downstairs rooms! All CD’s and DVD’s not in storage, boxed up moved upstairs and unpacked… now need re-organising! All pictures, bottles, games, Daniel’s toys and books now in our bedroom! Argh! Daniel’s first swimming lesson with the new teacher (new term, and the franchise we go to is growing – which is good!) New teacher is nice and the class is still just 3 children and parents. Good stuff. While I’m in the swimming class, I get two emails from my dad. First is a scattergun one, saying “my email has been compromised, if you get a dodgy mail, let me know” and the second is to check whether he has been compromised. As we’re in full-scale panic, I’ve left that particular issue to my brother to deal with. I suspect drinking-related-paranoia is at the core of this. Never mind! We finish the bulk of the moves before Daniel’s bed time, and then Jules’ Mum and Dad come around to babysit so we can enjoy a meal up the road. The restaurant isn’t licensed, so neither of us can drink, and hasn’t got card processing facilities yet. I nip out after I’ve finished to get enough money to pay. We’ll definitely be back there! Early bed, but then I read all the rest of book 2 and most of book 3 of “The Bridge Chronicles”.

Sunday 8th: Earlyish start. Finish moving the last furniture around for the decorating and start to re-wire the entertainment corner, including unpatching the server where the shows are generated for CCHits.net just before the shows are about to be run (stupid UTC offsets!), resulting in two stinking CRON mails from CCHits complaing about the lack of shows (repatched and run). Run Jules to Halfords to pick up her new bike with child seat. Home and one last sprint around the house, then lunch, and out again! Jules to the shops and me to get Daniel to sleep before heading to a friend’s new house for a tour, games and then dinner. Home at 5, Daniel in bed, 6:45 and the furniture we couldn’t shift while he was awake, away for 7:30. Books in bed for 8. I finish “…Chronicles” (5*s) and then at the recommendation of @nybill, start “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez. At 11pm, stop reading (40% through the book) and start writing this review. 11:40 go to sleep!

Book Review – “For The Win” and “Makers” by Cory Doctorow

I read my first Cory Doctorow book a month-or-so before the first OggCamp, September 2009. It was “Little Brother”, a “young adult” book about rebelling against the panopticon that was being created by the War on Terror. It made such an impact on me that I gave a talk at OggCamp about the technologies discussed in the book (primarily Tor and PGP) and their role in society. It went down well enough that I gave that talk again at BarCamp Manchester… a talk on a technology I’d not heard of two months before, and had significantly changed my views on how much I wanted to share with faceless companies and organisations.

My next Doctorow book was an audiobook version of “Eastern Standard Tribe”, which I only really was focused on the first chapter (it’s hard to be focused on audio when you’re as much of a magpie as I am) but it made me want to build a chording computer keyboard to use with my mobile phone after a passing comment in the opening chapter.

Last month, I heard that “For The Win”, a follow up Young Adult story had been released, so I eagerly reserved it from my local library and noticed that “Makers”, a more adult novel, had also been released, so I reserved that too.

A colleague knew that I’d read and loved “Little Brother” so asked me to tell him what I thought of “For The Win”. I read it in a couple of days. Sadly, it’s not a good book and it’s far too fragmented to tell the story in a way that you could stop for a couple of days and come back to it. It’s also desperate to explain the subtle nuances of in-game economies and unions – neither of which particularly interested me. By the end of the book, I was left wondering what the point had been – there was no real conclusion and while a battle had been won, it was clear the war was far from over. The characters all ran together and a lot of the characters were little more than stereotypical extras, whether that was racially stereotypical, gender or even ageist.

I left that book sad that I’d read it… but, I had another Cory book to read. After all, the recent books can’t *all* be stinkers, right?

I picked up “Makers” and started reading. It’s a thicker book, and this took me nearly four days to read… although admittedly, I was building a new server part way through days two and three.

This was more like the story I’d hoped “For The Win” would be. It’s a three part story; part one is about the friendship between the two lead characters, the commercialisation and massive growth of their hobby-cum-career. Part two is where that growth suddenly died, taking all the jobs with it, and their homage to “New Work” – the name given to the outcome of part one. Part three is where a mega-corp notices they’re losing money to the homage (called “The Ride”) and they try to destroy it.

It describes my experiences and hopes for the hacker culture perfectly, wanting to build something for the sake of it, discussing the concepts behind making something great from something passé and the ideas behind making an open API to let anyone play with your ideas. It also suggests how big business doesn’t “get” the hacker culture. As with much of Cory’s work, there’s lots of scope to implement his ideas in the real world, and some of the projects he mentions, I’d love to set up at my local hackspace.

The only downside I’ve found with “Makers” is that I think there’s a lot of sex in it, both implied and referred to… I guess I don’t see the relevance in a sex scene unless it’s key to the characters growth, and in “Makers” you could have removed 3/4 of the sex scenes and it would have been mostly the same book. I realise it explains some of the decisions in the book and gives some colour to the characters, but one of the side effects is that it means I can’t give this book to my 13 year old cousin – hell, I can’t even give him “Little Brother” because of the single solitary, and destinctly unnecessary sex scene 2/3rds of the way through the book.

In summary, I’d skip “For The Win”, and read “Makers”. 2/5 and 4/5 respectively.