sutton050

Announcement time, I'm unemployed... Yes, as of the 28th December 2018 I have not been gainfully employed.  But fear not, I am starting my new job on Wednesday 2nd January. I've covered this in a nattering brief on my YouTube, which I now link, but stick with this post for more information. I've never really spoken directly about the job I've had and how its evolved over the years I've been with it, so I was at that role for 14 years.  That's a very long time, especially in today's markets, but as you all know I keep myself busy and informed on these very pages. I did work in what's euphemistically called "the pay to play industry", this is the gambling industry to the rest of the world, but saying that I didn't write the actual games.  I was a systems engineer, so I wrote software which drove the money accepting and paying hardware, and especially software which worked to store the current state of a machine, avoid frauds, count, collate a...

Harping back to my prior post about learning to program, when I spoke at my old Uni, I spoke to a lovely trio of ladies, whom wanted to be programmer/computer folks... And one thing struck me, was how narrow their knowledge was. When they asked me how I got into programming and I explained that when I learned to program in the 1990's there was no github, indeed there was no internet, you could not just go and download a program or join an open source project.  If you wanted tool, and had no BBS dial up to find someone with something like it, you wrote your own. I wrote code to record kills in games on the Atari ST, I wrote text editors for the ST and DOS (EGA graphics FTW), I write 2D painting programs for DOS.... I distinctly remember my college tutor seeing my using DOS interrupt 11 to control the mouse and his saying "you're the first person I've seen work that out"... I didn't work it out by trial and error though, I worked it out by reading, about the DOS...

First time Canada has topped my stats on daily views... Welcome Canadians!

I don't really go in for political commentary, unfortunately what's caught my eye is about a bunch of folks at Uni whom are members of the Conservative club... Whatever, there you go... That's not the problem, nor is the fact that they've seemingly gone in for body art... No the point I want to make is... There's one female in the picture... She's allowed them, or they've just, drawn messages on her bosom... She seems non-plus about this.... But look over her shoulder... There's a chap in glasses... Just staring at the back of her head, it needs captioning... "hmm, you smell nice"... "mine, my precious"... It really does... I'm more worried about that than the seeming racism in the shot. And it's an utter disgrace the chap right right in the glasses making the "ok" sign... He's got a Windows symbol on his shirt... Where's the Penguin?  Bloody Racist!

I am not on LinkedIn, there I said it... This seems to be something of a mystery to folks, why are you not on LinkedIn?  You should be on LinkedIn!  I'll send you a link to link up in LinkedIn... The problem is.... I don't want to me on LinkedIn.  I don't particularly engage with social media; I understand many many people do, I myself personally do not; facebook is extremely minimal for me, Google+ has a message from me saying I won't be using it; just because my YouTube account got forced to create one (and they did that automatically); and I only use twitter to complain to companies about poor service! Perhaps this is the problem, putting oneself on social media makes you immediately accessible, searchable, findable, but not always in the form nor forum you desire, being pulled from pillar to post. I've been reading a book by Neem James, essentially about how distracting life is and as a developer, I find the number of distractions I can recount moment on moment ...

I listen to my local BBC radio station, not the national stations, just the local one.  I had this very channel inflicted on me when I was a child, and always thought the music choice was about 20 years out of date quite fuddy duddy. Anyway, I find myself now in middle age and can't help but stop and pause when a song I remember from my teens or twenties; songs which I think are awesomely cool I might add; come up on this very same radio station. I think the songs have aged well, it makes me want to continue listening to this channel which I so derided as a kid... And I can't help but think it makes me feel old. What would some young person of today think of my taste in music?

When after ten years with your significant other, know them inside and out and they turn around and declare... "You know what, I'll have a Fillet of Fish" Totally blind-sided me this has.

I've a small gripe with technology recruiters, if any of you out there are reading this (which since I just cast my CV around, you should be). And this is their penchant for skills lists... I have a very minimalist CV, one page of A4, it covers the primary software languages I like (C++, C, C#) makes mention of my favourite working styles (Agile/Scrum) and it has my history and pertinent academic background. That's all... Minimal, just me, my page one shot done. Anymore and it never, ever, gets me anywhere.  It apparently comes across as "hey look at me" attempts to garner and keep attention with the right buzz words, which I myself despise.  Or it comes over as not having a lot to talk about in the interview, as everything you want to know might very well be in this tome of a CV, and I myself reading them find that I want to ask every question I can in the interview stage, so having it all there you disengage, hurting both your interest in the candidate and their cha...

Seventy Three years ago, I know roughly where and what all four of my grand parents were doing... All were variously occupied fighting as part of the British effort of World War Two, I do not know whether they were aware of the cease fire or impending Victory in Europe, and indeed for one of my Grandfathers the war was not over; as he was aboard HMS Belfast, just refitting for redeployment to the far east and the on going war with the desperate but crumbling Empire of Japan. In this post, I'll cover what little I know, to share that nugget of who these people where and what they were doing.  So from oldest to youngest. We have my Nan, or Nanna, Kath.  She was a young woman by the end of the war, from a child at the out break, a hard beginning in life in the care system with both parents gone by wars end she was in the Land Army working the fields of Norfolk, though a native of London.  She was born in the shadow of Portobello Road, and to this day (despite living in Notti...

Just watching this travesty.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44017172 What he fails to mention is that when everyone has a gun they hang out of casino hotel windows gunning down festival goers, kids kill kids in the hall ways of schools and colleges, that murder suicide is through the roof and you can be shot dead for as little as looking at someone in the wrong way. Donald Trump and especially the NRA have this attitude utterly and totally wrong, and I can't begin to express how god awful this man is. But then, let us remember, he is "leader" of a country where we report mass shootings as "the worse in" and insert very short amounts of time.  This however is glossed over in US reporting of this to it's citizens.  Where as we hear that Stephen Paddock killed 58 people, " the worst mass shooting in the US since 1991 ". The CNN version states " the deadliest mass shooting in modern US History ".... Define Modern Mr Trump and Ms CN...

A beautiful story, really liked this.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-43998773/i-play-minecraft-with-my-eyes

A long time ago, in an office far away from where I now sit, I once worked with a chap I still refer to as the best programmer I've ever met. This was a guy who could take the whole code base, in Delphi, home and over a single weekend re-write it in Java. This was a guy who I saw, from scratch, write a C controller for an embedded PIC to capture an image from a supposedly incompatible TTL driven camera and then an analyzer for the captured images which would detect and show motion, making for our common employer their best ever selling product a cheap security motion detection system, which didn't rely on relatively expensive high resolution cameras. It was awe inspiring as a newly graduated programmer, whom had a huge background in DOS programming, but whom had never worked in Enterprise level development before. I sat next to what I still regard as near genius. This very same chap was also the worst programmer I've ever worked with. Because he was so highly functioning he...

This is a post about the worst beginner programming post I've ever read... I've been hounded by someone, I'll call them "LN" they have mailed me and told me that they really like one of my articles from June 2012... Checking my clock, I've posted a whole host of other stuff since.  However, they seem fixated on that pretty old post and strangely have mailed me that it makes perfect reading for "juniors as well as experienced programmers". I'm really not sure what they're referring to in that month of posts I go from inappropriate references to Ghost Busters, to peoples awful toilet habits to talking about the English football team and shit... Yes, I have a post titled "Hyperdefecation". In essence this emailer is full of utter crap, so what are they trying to do?  Well they've references another blog I do frequent "coding horrors", but again their comment is off the mark... Then they ask me to look at their 3000+ word ...

A long time coming, here's another story from my days long past, this one takes me to my very first serious role in an IT department, I was however just the dogs body.  The company ran many old PC's (which I actually was around to see mostly be updated to nice Compaq Pentium III's) and they had a couple of high spec Silicon Graphics workstations in the design department. The main manufacturing control and purchasing system, as well as payroll and a bunch of other services ran on a dual 386 based mini computer, which had a custom cut of ScoUnix and a bunch of bespoke C programs comprising the actual system stack, this was accessed by a whole host or Gandalf multiplexers combining the serial connections down from a hundred or so Wyse brand terminals (I wish I'd have nabbed one of those before I left). Anyway, it was time for this back end stack to be updated, and so a pair of Compaq Proliant servers were brought in, these were dual Pentium III class with a dedicated stora...