I was interested to see the reaction to the young feller who came second in the recent Fortnite World Cup. The BBC interviewer told him: “You’ve taken a while to convince your mum this is real job.” Jaden agrees, but to be honest, it’s taking me a while to be convinced too. Can it count […]
Developing software was once a dark Wild West, where anything went. Before Agile Development and Scrum Masters, before even COBOL or assembly language, before there were even computers, it was a tough time for programmers. Men forced to play catch-up Indeed the very first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, had to wait for a man, Charles […]
The Flat Earth theory is having a renewed time in the Sun (which, of course, circles around it, and not vice versa). There’s a rapper in a Twitter fight with a scientist, and if that isn’t a clue that things are getting Real then I don’t know what is any more. I’m also reading a […]
Apparently, they’ve done experiments that show that plants can ‘communicate’ with each other. They can pass on information about the environment, and they can pass on carbon via fungal pathways underground. I learnt all this through an episode of the Seriously… BBC podcast called Is Eating Plants Wrong? Now, I know the title is just […]
Hi. My name’s Martin, and I procrastinate. [Muted applause] Look, I’m even doing it now, while trying to communicate with you about a technique I’ve employed to try to curb my procrastination! [Uncertain, slow clapping] But to jump in to the meat of the topic, I’m finding that procrastination is not the same problem it […]
Somewhere, a man in a room is carrying out a job of utmost importance. The man in the room has seen the future, and understands how dangerous it could be. His job has no ending, just the infinite delay of that dangerous future. The man in the room is in some small way responsible. The […]
When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple, like many others in the nascent Silicon Valley they started in a garage. In fact, Steve W (for that is easier to spell on this much caffeine) had been visiting the Homebrew Computer Club in their own garage for a while beforehand. What is the ‘American Garage’? […]
On one level, they’re just another cold call. Just another waste of time. Another reason to consider dumping your landline altogether (unless you’re like me, of course, and they have your mobile number too). Gah! I’m talking about the infamous Microsoft Call Centre Scam. It starts the same way each time: “Hello, sir, my name […]
It’s time to ditch the idea that, when not paying for a service, we’re the product. Tim Cook (billionaire chief of Apple) brought it up again in September, and recently Mark Zuckerberg (billionaire chief of Facebook) got a little angry with the accusation.