Life of Ben (Blog)
Holiday in Hereford (12th May 2012)
What a great way to get away from it all and become immersed in rolling British countryside! Yesterday we returned and early this morning I dropped off the hire car. Below are the rough notes I made in a draft e-mail on my phone at random intervals.
Forum Laptop User Journeys (12th May 2012)
Much like my Forum Mobile User Journeys from last month. This only covers 1 of my 2 favourite forums at the moment. (More to follow.)
Hired a BMW 520d (4th May 2012)
Having sold my Nissan Almera 1.6 SVE last year, travelling to holiday destinations is a bit of a mission.
By hiring a posh car for under £300, I could see if they are actually much different while providing a lot more freedom and flexibility for the journeys to, during and from our holiday in Hereford.
Packing for Hereford Holiday (4th May 2012)
Tomorrow is the day Fiona and I will be heading to a cousin’s wedding. Afterwards we’ll stay with my parents over the weekend. On Monday we leave them for a cottage owned by one of Fiona’s aunts, where we stay until Friday.
My laptop will be staying safe at home during the trip, although the Nokia N900 is coming along.
We return to London on Saturday 12th May 2012 and that’s the earliest I’ll be gaming.
The next week I’m fully booked for work. A nice quiet week in between now and then.
Forum Mobile User Journeys (29th April 2012)
What do people actually do on a web forum? Here’s my account of browsing my favourite 2 forums. They use phpBB and I viewed them on my Nokia N900 during a 1 hour train journey.
Haircut 14 (28th April 2012)
As part of a grand tour from the flat in London to the hairdressers in Fleet, then to the family home in Fleet, then finally back to the flat in London. Combination of cycling and train. Racked up about 20 miles by bicycle during the day!
Top 1% of Developers (28th April 2012)
When I won Most Accessible Website in Hampshire against nearly 100 other websites 2 years running, that was a fair indication that I was amongst the top 1% of developers. Later, I won Best Microsite in England for the internal communications sector with a team of other people. Again, that seemed to reinforce my credentials.
Since then, what can I point to as a demonstration of industry-leading work? Extremely robust HTML campaigns are about it. Being in the top 1% of newsletter developers is still an achievement but I want to push forward, like when I started out.
Learn, analyse, improve and get ahead of the mainstream once again. Demonstrate my abilities with unbeatable work, once again.
Forum Design Stuck in the 1990’s (27th April 2012)
It’s been nearly 4 years since my radical forum interface mockups for Accessify Forum. Hardly any of it was implemented and it seems mainstream system are hardly better than they were 10 years ago. Slightly fewer layout tables and slightly nicer themes. That’s about it.
We should have multiple perfect forums by now – they’ve been popular for 15 years!
Bill Bailey Qaulmpeddler (26th April 2012)
Saw this with Fiona and one of her connected friends at Leicester Square Theatre. Apparently it’s a favourite haunt of comedians for trying out newer material.
Could not believe how funny this was in person! Very easy and kind crowd but every other line had me giggling with glee.
The Simpsons and Futurama have a high density of comic material, in their best episodes. The opening movement of this was even beyond that.
It slowed down at times but his clever silliness and inimitable mannerisms soon got things going again. There is a musical finale at the end of the show, although I shaln’t spoil its exact nature for you.
Why Cyclists Slow But Don’t Stop (26th April 2012)
It hurts to start after stopping. Getting 50–100kg moving from 0–15mph in a short time takes a lot of effort. If they do that every 30 seconds (typical for a new rider in London rush-hour) it would become excrutiating. They’d simply grind to a halt.
Slowing a little, to ~10mph, then building back up to 15mph is much more comfortable.
F = maThe pain comes from lactic acid building up near the muscles being used the most, in the legs. If you drive a car in stop-start traffic, you’ll know how it takes a lot more energy because you’ve seen how much more fuel the car burns per mile.
It isn’t motivated by aggression or a sense of superiority. They’re just trying to get from A to B like everyone else – minimising the pain of their effort along the way.