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© James Whinfrey 2007—2012. All rights reserved.
This week Adam Curtis turned his eye on humans and how science reduced us to nothing but machines controlled by genes bent on their own survival, controversial as always. So may be that’s why there was a distinct them and us vibe about the programme’s portrayal of humans and their selfish genes which I can’t [...]
At my Father’s bidding I just watched the first episode of All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace on BBC’s iplayer – a first for me – and found myself compelled to try and organise my thoughts. As a sometimes blogger, and at the risk of commoditising myself, it seems appropriate to do that [...]
I’ve just watched an edition of “People and Power” on Al Jazeera about the situation in Yemen. It ignored the government Officials to focus on the views of Yemenis from both sides of the political divide, and there does appear to be two sides in Yemen. If that’s the case in Yemen then may be [...]
I’m occasionally subject to interesting, if abstract thoughts, and the most recent to pop into my mind concerned the nature of physical shape. It seems to me that shape is too dependent upon solidity of matter, and this raises a problem, because the existence of anything solid feels filled with intentionality. At a non-scientific level, [...]
I started trading as a Sole Trader under the name of Conceptric about 6 months ago. I’ve been doing web development work for small clients, but software development is a relatively recent diversification. I originally trained as a Chemical Process Engineer, later specialising in concept design and product development, and I’ve got to admit that [...]
I’ve always loved pipe following: the practice of getting to know how chemical process plants work. Get yourself a set of process flowsheets, a few engineering drawings and get out on the Plant. You trace the flow of feedstocks as they turn into products through the network of pipes, pressure vessels and other process machinery. [...]
I’ve just watched a Bloomberg piece on the sequel to “Wall Street” and the “Greed is Good” culture that surrounded it. They interviewed a number of the leading characters of the real Wall Street at the time, and most called the prolonged Bull market of the ’80s and exciting time. I was too young to [...]
I’ve grown to appreciate using Bundler to manage dependencies for all my Rails and Sinatra applications. I also combine it with RVM to generate a dedicated gemset for each application bundle and an associated .rvmrc file. Create the Gemset, an application Gemfile defining the dependencies and issue bundle install, simple. Normal behaviour I expect the [...]
My wife ordered an Amazon Kindle 3 a couple of months ago, but recently decided that an Apple iPad was much more to her taste. When the Kindle finally turned up last week it was all mine, and I’d been very much looking forward to it. I already had a Macbook and an iPod Touch, [...]
This is a problem I came across recently as a client who’s an artist explained that she wanted to grow her online presence. However, when I explained that we needed to present a consistent image of her work, she expressed concern. “You see, I tend to change from one media to another, and explore anything [...]
Package dependencies are always a nightmare and with multiple applications on my server, each with their own set of Ruby gems, controlling the version they’re using has become important. I’ve been using Sinatra for more and more projects, but there came a point this week when I realised that I was in danger of accidentally [...]
I’ve established a strategic investment style with which I’ve become very comfortable. Even the recent Market angst hasn’t fazed me. But the time came to rebalance my portfolio, and I’m here to report that I’ve learned something new about my tactical approach: there’s a right order for trades… and a wrong one. The position. Aquarius [...]
I’ve often wished I was more mathematically talented, particularly when I sat my ‘A’ levels. My frankly mediocre performance isn’t due to disinterest, I’ve always found mathematics to be fascinating. But it wasn’t until I watched the BBC series “Story of Maths” presented by Marcus du Sautoy that I realised why. You see I’m an [...]
From a historical perspective the Conservative Party has always been out on it’s own, first opposite the Liberals and later the Labour Party. Is it any wonder they’re less than keen on Proportional Representation (PR) when they’ve never polled more than 49.7% of the vote? With the Liberal Democrats and Labour having much more in [...]
What is the meaning of “strong government”? I’ve heard the term bandied about by many people over the last couple of days, but no one’s tried to define it for me. It appears that it’s just one of those things we must want without knowing what it actually means.First and foremost, I don’t subscribe to [...]
Are job descriptions worth the paper they’re written on? The modern workplace changes rapidly. Keeping these documents up to date for every employee is a full time job and my experience is that most companies don’t. But is it a viable basis for structuring and managing an organisation anyway? But that’s what Human Resource (HR) [...]
I’m trying to renovate my bathroom at the moment, it’s looking and feeling a bit run down. I don’t want to replace everything, just those parts that are beyond repair, so that I’m not needlessly adding to landfill. Who’d have thought it would be so hard on my wallet and my time?I’d like to use [...]
The huge cloud of volcanic ash that’s sweeping over Europe from Iceland has had a devastating effect on air travel. Personally when I saw the story on the news last night it struck me as wonderful. It’s true that I’m a little strange, but it really is an event full of wonder. You see this [...]
The terms ‘Carbon Neutral’ and ‘Sustainable’ are often found invoked in the same context, but they’re not necessarily compatible: carbon neutrality can be achieved without, or even at the expense of sustainability. We can achieve carbon neutrality in the medium term by using nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions, but in the long term fuel [...]
I attempted to describe what being a Professional actually means to me in a recent conversation with my brother. I have to admit it started me examining the concept more closely.
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Constructed by Conceptric to be Powered by WordPress.
© James Whinfrey 2007—2012. All rights reserved.