by ezs | Jun 11, 2005 | evilzenscientist, fun stuff, Uncategorized
More observations on changes in the UK since we last lived there in 2002..
One noticable theme of our stay in England was that every newspaper seemed to have a Sudoku puzzle in it. Asking around and this is a very recent phenomenon. Even Wikipedia notes that the craze started in the Spring of 2005.
It seems that the Sudoku puzzle craze is just another meme – take a look at this article from The Observer Sunday newspaper from 15 May 2005:
If the first week of May 2005 will be remembered for a general election, the second will go down as the week of Sudoku.
National newspapers scrambled to advertise the puzzle on their front pages, while websites devoted to it sprang up and TV and radio stations caught the new global bug.
Numerous articles have attributed the puzzle, which has a Japanese name, to the mysteries of the Land of the Rising Sun. But its true modern origins lie with a team of puzzle constructors in 1970s’ New York, from where it set off on a 25-year journey to Tokyo, London – and back to New York.
Scientists have identified Sudoku as a classic meme – a mental virus which spreads from person to person and sweeps across national boundaries. Dr Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, said: ‘This puzzle is a fantastic study in memetics. It is using our brains to propagate itself across the world like an infectious virus.’
Indeed.
by ezs | Jun 3, 2005 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized
The nice people at the Mozilla Foundation have released the first alpha of the Firefox 1.1 code.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/deerpark/releases/alpha1.html
It installed and ran just perfectly on my Novell Linux Desktop – all of my cookies, bookmarks etc came across perfectly from Firefox 1.0.4.
I’m just hunting down sites that don’t work. Looks like Blogger is one of them. I’ll revisit this post and add appropriate link goodness.
by ezs | Jun 3, 2005 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized, Utah
Last year we took part in Community Supported Agriculture – CSA – in Utah. Just before we left for Europe it was time for renewal – for this years weekly box of delights.
We work with East Farms CSA – they were mentioned in the Salt Lake Tribune a while ago.
It was an interesting summer and autumn – lots of new vegetables; some real treats (fresh cherries!), some great fresh salad greens and lots and lots and lots of squash. What do you do with them?
In my week of solitude away from the net I read this article in The Guardian on a similar sounding commercial service being offering in London – from Abel & Cole. Funny how organic farming has the same issue worldwide – you only sell what’s in season.
We also visited the Center for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth. Think again about the food you buy – how far has it travelled; how much impact did it’s transportation have? And that’s before you think about the food itself.
by ezs | Jun 3, 2005 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized
Wow. I’ve been off the net for a week – and I feel so refreshed and revitalised for it. For those that know me watch out – I’ll be evangelising the benefits of doing nothing high tech for the next few weeks!
I spent the time at our extended familys cottage in Borth, Wales – no cell signal, no landline, no internet, no email. Sounds like hell eh?
I got to spend a lot of time relaxing, reading, catching up and playing with Aoife. Lots of good thinking time too.
by ezs | May 28, 2005 | blogging, Uncategorized
A colleague from the Novell European Support Centre sent me an interesting article from IBM research.
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/442/neus.pdf
Interesting in many respects – especially seeing the ‘team drawn elephant’ exercise brought into a discussion about collaberation methods.
The key piece that I was interested in was in the culture change required to bring about such changes in communication:
1. Keep it simple. We used a few simple methods in
assessment and intervention that were accessible
to the client’s employees. We did not overload
them with methodology or jargon.
2. Find passionate people. To drive change, you
need passion. You need people who understand
and are excited about the change.
3. Do the ‘‘emperor’s clothes’’ test on the organization.
Don’t require the novice to ask the
emperor’s advisor for permission to spread the
word about change.
4. Involve me, and I will understand. Cultural
change cannot be forced; it can only be facilitated.
Nothing is as powerful a teacher as firsthand
experience. We allowed people to experience
what open-source collaboration could mean
for them in their working environment.
5. Start small, grow fast. Start small with a limited
scope and the mission to solve a concrete
problem. Demonstrate value; then grow.
A really interesting idea – that may be difficult to implement in a corporate structure – is letting individuals find out about open-source collaberation for themselves.
I agree fully that to drive change you need passionate people; my open-ended response is ‘what happens if the enthused change-agents alienate the broader population?’
by ezs | May 28, 2005 | blogging, Uncategorized
I’m not claiming any credit.
One of my team is now recommending Cluetrain Manifesto to members of the Novell Communities of Practice.
Kinda cool really 
Team.
Here is a PDF of the Cluetrain 95 theses. Buy the book for the real goodness.
Cheers.
by ezs | May 28, 2005 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized
I’ve just upgraded to the latest Novell internal build of GroupWise Sequoia client on NLD – and it’s much improved.
Lots of small things in the Linux client have been fixed – and it seems a lot more responsive and less ‘crashy’ 🙂
Even small things like the startup parameters are now respected and work just great.
I moved my GroupWise caching mailbox across from Windows about six months ago – and went totally cold-turkey with Novell Linux Desktop. GroupWise was the one application that was making me wait. I was running a (ssssshhhhhh) unofficial build of the GroupWise Sequoia client; but now the 25 May 05 build is supported by Novells IS&T team I’m happier.
One tip I have is using ext3 rather than reiserfs as a production filesystem. I found that GroupWise caching mailboxes and reiserfs just don’t play well together.
I now use Novell Linux Desktop exclusively for my production laptop. I found that the IBM ThinkPad seems a lot more Linux friendly than my Dell Latitude.
So I’ve done it – I switched from Windows. Have you?
by ezs | May 24, 2005 | blogging, Uncategorized
I’ve been collecting articles and information about how the blogging phenomena has started to change the relationship between Product Management and our customers. This is a more specific niche than how blogging is changing marketing for example – but still lots of data.
One article that caught my eye this morning was on the front page of CNN of all things. “Marketers Take A Shine to Blogs” basically stating that blogging is becoming mainstream. There is even the (now passe?) reference to ClueTrain Manifesto.
(more…)
by ezs | May 24, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
(More catchup from last week – slightly delayed by events at the weekend)
I had to travel between Zuerich and Stuttgart on Thursday evening with John Mahon. We decided the best way to travel would be by train – so we took the DB ICE between the two cities – very relaxing, comfortable and a fraction of the cost of flying.
On the way just after we crossed the border between Switzerland and Germany we saw some old abandoned locomotives – late epoch steam and 60’s East German Diesel. Very eery – they were not preserved, but also weren’t in the decayed scrap stage either.
(Not my photo – but this is one of the locos we saw)
Now neither one of us would admit to being ‘an enthusiast’ 🙂 but I did note they were a lot of ex-DRG Class 52 sitting there rusting away. Google and some diligence on mapquest found me the answer.
It looks like this is a private collection at the Tuttlingen Railway Museum – and looking at the list there is a lot of rusting iron sitting on those sidings.
The Class 52 was built as a wartime workhorse – these engines are sixty years old – and most probably worked until the late 1960s across Eastern Germany.
Incredible to see these just sitting on sidings at the side of the main railway. It certainly made for an interesting conversation on the journey.
by ezs | May 24, 2005 | evilzenscientist, fun stuff, travel, Uncategorized
Aside from being ill in Europe – there was time for a suitable amount of jolly fun.
Novell Zurich has a pool car – as you can see it’s ex-CTP – so it’s done a few miles.
Alan is a bit of a performance car man; while I’ve always wanted to drive a car that’s physically smaller than myself. I figured the result would be like the Shriners mini clown car.
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