Archive for February, 2017

Earlier today, I pushed version 6.2 of my website live. I think we can say with reasonable certainty that you will be less excited about than I am. However, life is not about the opportunity you are handed. It is about what you do with it. So smile and think to yourself “wow, that is interesting!”.

Not much has changed. It looks mostly the same. On the homepage, the giant picture of my ugly face has been replaced by another giant ugly picture.

Books page

I have replaced the photos link at the top (photos can now be found in the “about me” section) with a page detailing all of my books. I like my photos, but most people are probably not looking for a gallery of shots when they visit the site. It is much better to follow me on Flickr.

About me sections

Most people are probably looking for one of three things when they visit my site: to find out more about my tech consultancy, to explore my food writing or to check out my work in mental health and wellbeing. To make this easier, the about me section is now divided along these three lines.

Social media

I’ve added all of my social media links to the footer. Why anyone would want that much Chris, I have no idea. Probably nobody does. But Elina might find them useful.

Let’s face facts: you have already waited too long to drink that bottle.

You know the one. The expensive looking red that was a year or two old when you got it. You put it aside for a special occasion. That makes sense. You might as well chug cheap plonk until you have someone to share it with.

But now it is five years later. Ten years later. It is still sitting there in your kitchen. You have moved house since then. The bottle came with you. You keep telling yourself that you are just waiting for an occasional special enough. But that occasion never comes. You have had major changes in your life since then and the bottle is still sitting there.

It’s not getting any better. You’re not even sure it has a cork in it, and even if it does, you have had it stood upright all of this time. All you are doing is building up expectations that it is going to be great. It cannot possibly live up to that hype anymore.

So, do yourself a favour. Crack it open tonight. This week at the latest. The next time someone suggests wine, reach straight for it. The poor thing has waited long enough.

If you are not familiar with a burndown chart, the idea is this: you pull so many points (bits of work) into a sprint (a period of time, typically two weeks) and your burndown chart shows you how far you are through said work. So, the red line on the chart (the amount of work done) should follow the grey line.

Or, at worst case scenario, the red line should stay flat because you have done literally nothing.

However, what it should never, ever do is go in the opposite direction to the grey line. Because that would mean you actually ended the sprint with more work to do than you had at the start of it. The point of a sprint is that you should not be bringing in extra tasks.

Safe to say then, that this was not a great sprint for us. But, it is at least comically bad.