Varrqnuht.net

Not long after we moved to Lauderdale, I took a walk along the beach and was fascinated by two wooden fence-like structures sitting out of the water. They’re obviously quite old, and only a remnant of some previous structure. They diverge from each other to form a sort of V shape, with the two sides separated by 10 metres or so. Here’s what they look like:

  

Directly opposite these two “fences” is an entry to the beach wide enough to drive a vehicle through. That leads directly to a gravel car-park and a short section of road linking the two streets which run along either side of the canal.

“Aha!”, I thought to myself. “This can’t be a coincidence - they must have something to do with the canal!”. The only problem is that I can’t quite figure out what that something may be. Not having had much (or any) exposure to canals, the only thing I could guess is that they may have been something to attach boats to, or to line something up.

Still, I’ve been unable to figure out if the canal ever went the whole way through to the beach. There are no plaques or signs around the canal to give any indication of its history, and I’ve asked a couple of people but none of them knew about it. Perhaps I should try ringing the council, or looking for a local history group.

It’s quite a pretty spot though - about a 15 minute walk from our house - with a picnic area at one end which we’ve visited a couple of times.

  

 

I mentioned LibraryThing a couple of posts back. It’s wonderful, and just keeps on getting better. I’ve still only catalogued a handful of books though, because, well, I’m a bit fussy.

Ok, it probably goes a bit further than fussiness. I feel distinctly uncomfortable at the mere thought of a catalogue which contained all of my books, but with some of them being the wrong editions. Consequently, cataloging means I must physically examine/scan each book and make sure that it’s entered with the correct ISBN. In the event that the corresponding record cannot be fetched automatically, I must enter it myself - Accurately.

That’s only one of my hangups with regard to books. If I have a series, I must have every book with a matching cover. I just can’t have the first three from one edition and the next two from another. I refuse to buy a book which has been released with a new title (and as a consequence it was years before I finally read Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?, because until the release of the Millenium/Gollancz Sci-Fi Masterworks series all the new copies had been named Bladerunner). I strenuously avoid buying books with covers showing characters as depicted in movie adaptations, or even books with “Now a major motion picture!” splashed across the cover.

I experience a level of agitation that crosses over into physical discomfort when I see somebody dog-ear a page to keep track of their place. Only slightly less disturbing is a book placed open and face-down on a flat surface.

I have actually wondered before at what point a persons obsessions cause them to be clinically classified as having OCD, and whether or not I’d make the grade. But I figure that none of my obsessions (book-related or otherwise) really affect my ability to function in society, so I must be safe.

Woah, ok.. let’s get back to the point.

Tim, who has created LibraryThing, recently said:

An aside: I used to work on software that users mostly hated. We didn’t solicit suggestions and a thick, outsourced layer of “tech support” kept complaints at bay. When we needed reactions we assembled paid focus groups and sat behind glass screens while some (outsourced) expert bumbled through our software. Developing LibraryThing has been a transformative experience. I will never EVER develop software like that again.

That’s a pretty inspiring statement, really. It’s the sound of somebody who’s obviously a talented software developer suddenly rediscovering that it can be fun too. It reminds me a lot of what Paul Graham has to say about startup companies, specifically that in order to succeed they have to make what customers want.

So much of the emphasis on these monolithic software development and project management methodologies in vogue these days seems to rely on the basic assumption that software development must be a huge process undertaken by gigantic companies.

It’s interesting to compare this with amount of progress made on large open source projects over the past few years, as well as the number of small one or two person operations which have successfully grown into big concerns thanks to the ease of access to their market that the internet provides.