As a middle-aged man who works in tech, it has been a matter of some consternation that I have never appeared on a podcast. Well, this terrible state of affairs has now come to an end.
Here’s the blurb:
Had a great time recording this episode of The Principal Podcast with Dennis Black, where I broke down what I’ve learned helping customers get more value from GridGain1, solve complex technical problems, and build the knowledge to become more self-sufficient.
Well, it’s been over a year since I migrated from WordPress to Hugo but – you know – life. What I’m saying is that I never fully managed to move everything over. The main things missing from the current version are photographs. But there are also a bunch of other details, such as SEO optimisation, and other general i-dotting and t-crossing.
tl;dr, I’ve made a bunch of changes to old posts. I hope I didn’t break anything.
“Move fast and break things” has gone from a cool phrase to believe in to the process boogie-man. It’s become so mainstream that it’s used to describe politics. It’s now the underlying problem to many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies. Except… is it?
The phrase is originally attributed to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and the fact that I appear to be defending him hurts me deeply. Honestly, I would prefer it if I didn’t.
Many American commentators have a very particular view of the EU and regulation. Usually the view is that the EU are wrong but in many ways it’s just different from regulation in the US.
This is on daringfireball:
Apple is getting away what some describe as “malicious compliance” because they’re under no popular demand from their actual customers to comply in any other way.
I don’t mean to single out Gruber; this is a common opinion. It’s true in the sense that customers are not demanding it but wrong in the sense that, well, let’s ask Steve Jobs1:
This piece is inspired by this post on daringfireball, which, in turn, was inspired by AP’s style guide on phone numbers.
Their post is about where parenthesis goes in phone numbers. I don’t care much about that. What I care about is the fact that there is an international standard for phone numbers that they’re not using.
For international numbers use 011 (from the United States), the country code, the city code and the telephone number: 011-44-20-7535-1515.
Another John Scalzi book, and another good one. This one is (arguably) his first novel. Quite military based, which tends not to be my favourite.
The premise is that a bunch of old people – hence the title – join the military for, effectively, a new life. Their bodies get some upgrades to make it worthwhile. Skipping a lot of detail there because much of the fun is finding out what’s happening.
Has the company that you work for just announced that they are being acquired? Are you anxious? Are you wondering what comes next?
Obviously I can’t respond to all the specifics about your particular situation, but I do I have a track record of the companies I work for being acquired. Once, the company that acquired us was itself acquired. I’ve even started making a joke of it interviews: if your exit plan is to be bought rather than IPO, I’m your man I say. (I’m a blast, you should hire me!)
Last week Apple launched a new low-cost laptop called the MacBook Neo. Much of the commentary about it focuses on the fact that it was built to a price and the compromises that entailed.
These commentators know nothing of compromise.
Let me tell you about the ZX81, the early eighties computer that inspired the name of this site1.
Disappointed that the Neo has sRGB rather than P3 Wide Colour? How about two colours? Only 8Gb of memory. Could you manage with 1Kb? Dual speakers? How about no sound at all? A mechanical trackpad? What if pressing a key made the screen flicker?
Another year, another William Boyd book [affiliate link]. I make that sound like a bad thing, but really it isn’t.
This one won’t go down as a classic, but it’s thoroughly entertaining and fast-paced, zipping between Guatemala, London and Berlin in the early sixties. It has the usual Boyd mix of well-researched historical details and character moments. He makes it seem effortless. Maybe it is easy for him now, having written so many novels, but it all works.
I forgot this in my roundup of 2025, party because it’s not the first time I’ve read it, and partly because I read it at the very end of the year.
I reread some Douglas Adams every couple of years, and every time I come away impressed. I discover details or a clever turn of phrase that I’d missed previously. I almost expect to be disappointed but it hasn’t happened yet1.