Friday's Roundup

If you're about London or even just visiting sometimes its easier to walk between Tube stations than take a long Tube journey. A must read is Richard Stallman's piece on Patents and their absurdity, this is the article to send to your MEP or TD about why we shouldn't support software patents (see also here).

Here are some useful articles on Ant for Enterprise Projects, Sparklines as a Web Service (See the online example), Re-thinging market research, An anthropological view of the office environment, Digital Web's FREElance Toolbox (Free Tools for Web Developers and a good selection at that), writing documentation for users well the secret is to Answer the User's Real Question (you should also look at how to manage Customer Feedback on the documentation).

Workwise things are still a bit unknown in the area of my funding, but I found this job which looks interesting. ICAD preparation is revving up as well so its going to be a busy fortnight.

For those bored people, here are some interesting places to find out about new web sites.

A Big Awful Mess

Catching up on bits and pieces - the current state of the UK for protestors, good bye civil liberties. Looking at the Biz applications of Wiki's and the fundamental approach of the grass root network. The Kamaelia project aims at building large scale online media delivery systems for the long term. Nice article on that really serious commerce issue of web site conversion. The latest from Boxes & Arrows on Lost in Translation: IA Challenges in Distributing Digital Audio. A nice article on converting from dot Net to Mono. A couple of nice ones from java.net including one on closure, patching, Apache's new Axis model and JMS with JavaSpaces.

On the personal side of stuff, PhD funding is still up in the air due to the situation here but at least its better than some of the other local issues.

Picture of the holidays

Picture of the holidays
Originally uploaded by bluepelican.

Was most fortunate to catch a shot of this rare display of atmospheric ice crystals during the holidays. This phenomena requires that all the ice crystals are formed in the same plane and at the same temperature. It was visually stunning and really struck a chord by showing the beauty of nature. This is only a small image but I've a larger 2560 x 1920 ~2.5 meg shot I'll upload if there's interest.

On the tear in Briançon

On the tear in Briançon
Originally uploaded by bluepelican.

The last night in Briançon was interesting with an accidental meeting with about 30+ Irish paddlers which lead to some interesting songs in a pub in the old town. The drive up was a bit long but nicely broken with a stop in a F1 hotel near Orleans. Thankfully it seems the last action against Irish Ferries was back in Ireland by scallop fisherman. So with some nice pictures, good video footage and a longing for the better continental roads thats about all for this year's Alps trip. Back to slow roads, expensive food and work.

Easing about Briançon

Easing about Briançon
Originally uploaded by bluepelican.

A nice short paddle with the Briançon gorge and then shopping and crepes in the old town. The paddle was a nice three but the water was pretty smelly, the Liffey rings a bell. Tomorrow is Embrun and the wave and Sunday is the start of the drive back up to meet the ferry on Monday and back to Limerick on Tuesday afternoon.

Survived the Upper Guil

Had a grand days paddling and put an old demon to bed on the upper Guil. It was the same stretch we ran at 110 (yes really silly level) last year and I had a nasty swim with a rather unforgetable rope rescue. This year it was at 85 which is the guidebook type level and I had no bother getting down it. Looks like that the ferry strike won't go ahead as Irish Ferries have a French court ruling which would cost the strikers €50,000 a day if they try the same lark they did with us on the voyage getting to France. Two of the lads did the Chateaux kick ass run and had one swimmer but gear and paddler were okay but a little worse for wear. Back to Briançon for some food and thats about it for today.