From my darling wife:
Well, folks, it's finally happening... the Hayes family is leaving town. We've been very happy here for the past nine years, though, and we're certainly not going to leave without saying goodbye!
We've decided on a date for a big going-away 'do, but we don't have a venue yet. (We've decided we're not quite crazy enough to have this one at home, especially with no furniture!) So here's the deal: you let us know if you're free, and we'll find a spot for us all to raise a glass together.
Date: Saturday, June 12
Time: Afternoon - maybe 2ish until 6ish?
Venue: TBD
Kids are welcome, just please let us know how many!
RSVP ASAP to this amanda.l.hayes@gmail.com. Here's hoping you can make it!
Much love,
Steve, Amanda and Jamie
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Assisted Suicide
While I normally blog about software development, today I'm going to blog about something much more personal, something that most of my friends probably don't know. The trigger is the debate on the right to assisted suicide in the UK and on the right to access even information about assisted suicide in Australia, which would be blocked by the proposed internet filter. While I won't be as articulate as Sir Terry Pratchett I want to present my personal experience.
I was in my mid-20s when my partner's mother, still in her 40s, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though she lived in Cairns, a rural centre, she received excellent care, including flights on the air ambulance to city hospitals when she needed them. That experience, and my own health issues growing up, cemented for me the importance of free national health care, but my brush with assisted suicide came towards the unfortunate end of the story.
Despite a radical masectomy and many other treatments the cancer spread to Margaret's bones, and eventually she deteroriated quite rapidly. One day we got a call that if we wanted to see Margaret alive we needed to come to Cairns, right away. My partner was in Melbourne, I was in Sydney, one of my partner's siblings was on a prawn trawler in the Gulf of Carpentaria, but we all dropped what we were doing and went to the airport. I remember walking out of the office, telling my boss that I was leaving right away and I didn't know when I would be back, and him simply replying "Ok, do what you need to do" (thanks for that Brian).
We all arrived in Cairns and started a vigil by Margaret's bedside. She was immobile - her bones were so weak and brittle that the nurses needed to be careful not to break them when they changed the bed - she had difficulty breathing, and she was very weak, but she lingered. She was pleased to see all her children, but it was obvious that she was unhappy and she was not going to get better. One morning she told us, in short breaths, that it was impossible to hold your breath until you died - she'd tried it the night before and it didn't work.
Margaret had been estranged from her husband before the cancer got very bad, but they had moved back in together to look after her and their youngest child, who was about 12. He was pretty rung out and wasn't really part of the decision-making around Margaret at the time. He was a diagnosed manic-depressive and we were concerned that he might commit suicide after Margaret died, so we talked about how to handle the care of the youngest child in those circumstances. We also needed to talk to Margaret about formalising her will (if you haven't, please do that now, as handling it on your deathbed is no fun for anyone). As the older partner of the oldest child, some of the responsibility for these things rested with me. Eventually the conversation also came around to Margaret's death. It was clear that she was ready to die, from both her actions and her words, and we could see that she might ask one of us to help her. What would we do? What would I do?
I don't know what everyone else thought. I think we talked about it without making any final decision as a family, but I also know that I made a decision in my own mind. If Margaret asked me to help end her life I would do whatever I could to help. I would do it with tears in my eyes (like the ones I have in my eyes now, writing about this more than 20 years later), but I would do it nonetheless. And it would be illegal, and I would bear the consequences - the legality or otherwise of the action made no difference to the decision and the act, though it might have made a considerable difference to my life.
Margaret peacefully and quietly passed away one night in her sleep, with her eldest daughter at her bedside.
Assisted suicide isn't a theoretical issue for me, it's a hard, practical one that I faced head-on, and having made that decision once I know that if the circumstances arose again I would make the same decision. I believe that as a caring and compassionate society we should be able to extend the right to die with dignity at the time (and if possible the place) of our own choosing to everyone. I believe that the benefits of providing that right outweighs the cost and effort of monitoring to make sure that the right is not abused.
I was in my mid-20s when my partner's mother, still in her 40s, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though she lived in Cairns, a rural centre, she received excellent care, including flights on the air ambulance to city hospitals when she needed them. That experience, and my own health issues growing up, cemented for me the importance of free national health care, but my brush with assisted suicide came towards the unfortunate end of the story.
Despite a radical masectomy and many other treatments the cancer spread to Margaret's bones, and eventually she deteroriated quite rapidly. One day we got a call that if we wanted to see Margaret alive we needed to come to Cairns, right away. My partner was in Melbourne, I was in Sydney, one of my partner's siblings was on a prawn trawler in the Gulf of Carpentaria, but we all dropped what we were doing and went to the airport. I remember walking out of the office, telling my boss that I was leaving right away and I didn't know when I would be back, and him simply replying "Ok, do what you need to do" (thanks for that Brian).
We all arrived in Cairns and started a vigil by Margaret's bedside. She was immobile - her bones were so weak and brittle that the nurses needed to be careful not to break them when they changed the bed - she had difficulty breathing, and she was very weak, but she lingered. She was pleased to see all her children, but it was obvious that she was unhappy and she was not going to get better. One morning she told us, in short breaths, that it was impossible to hold your breath until you died - she'd tried it the night before and it didn't work.
Margaret had been estranged from her husband before the cancer got very bad, but they had moved back in together to look after her and their youngest child, who was about 12. He was pretty rung out and wasn't really part of the decision-making around Margaret at the time. He was a diagnosed manic-depressive and we were concerned that he might commit suicide after Margaret died, so we talked about how to handle the care of the youngest child in those circumstances. We also needed to talk to Margaret about formalising her will (if you haven't, please do that now, as handling it on your deathbed is no fun for anyone). As the older partner of the oldest child, some of the responsibility for these things rested with me. Eventually the conversation also came around to Margaret's death. It was clear that she was ready to die, from both her actions and her words, and we could see that she might ask one of us to help her. What would we do? What would I do?
I don't know what everyone else thought. I think we talked about it without making any final decision as a family, but I also know that I made a decision in my own mind. If Margaret asked me to help end her life I would do whatever I could to help. I would do it with tears in my eyes (like the ones I have in my eyes now, writing about this more than 20 years later), but I would do it nonetheless. And it would be illegal, and I would bear the consequences - the legality or otherwise of the action made no difference to the decision and the act, though it might have made a considerable difference to my life.
Margaret peacefully and quietly passed away one night in her sleep, with her eldest daughter at her bedside.
Assisted suicide isn't a theoretical issue for me, it's a hard, practical one that I faced head-on, and having made that decision once I know that if the circumstances arose again I would make the same decision. I believe that as a caring and compassionate society we should be able to extend the right to die with dignity at the time (and if possible the place) of our own choosing to everyone. I believe that the benefits of providing that right outweighs the cost and effort of monitoring to make sure that the right is not abused.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Who Am I?
** Updated 26/3/2010 **
If you read this blog regularly then you will know that I'm about to embark on a career change. Part of this will be moving from a relatively safe environment where I have a reputation (Melbourne) to a challenging environment where I'm a relative unknown (London). When I meet new people in London (professionally) I'd like to have something I can point people to that gives them some background and helps to set their expectations. I'm personally expecting to be meeting quite a few new people, and I hope that this can accelerate the familiarisation step a bit.
First, I'm incredibly introverted. I've learned to be vocal in some situations, but sometimes that confuses things because people don't notice just how introverted I really am. How does that manifest?
I've managed to add a few layers to this introverted foundation. I'm a reasonable public speaker, I generally enjoy it, and I'm happy to talk about software development to any group that's interested.
I've been referred to as a "code quality freak". My attitude is that you should work on the micro-level details of programming until they've become muscle memory, so that you can free your brain up to work on the complicated stuff. This covers all the stuff you'd find in coding style guides and books like Bob Martin's Clean Code (though I have to fess up that I haven't read that yet). Even at the micro-level I like to use tools to tell me where I've let me standards slip, so I'm keen on tools like Simian, Checkstyle, Complexian and their equivalents in other languages. These days I'm also interested in visualisation of the output of these tools, though I don't have as much experience in that area.
Another metaphor I use around code quality is that it's like hygiene in a hospital - we shouldn't need to talk about it, we should just do it. If we can't maintain hygiene then everything else is going to get a lot, lot harder. Some people suggest that you can clean up your technical debt by having dedicated iterations - to me this is like suggested we let crap pile up around a hospital and clean up every couple of weeks. It doesn't work for me.
I love automation. I have a very small brain and I'd rather use it for processing than storage. Manual processes are slow, tedious and error prone - I want to get rid of them.
I don't think that software development is predominantly a technical problem, I think that in most cases it's a social problem - how to we organise the people and technology we have to delivery an effective solution as cheaply as possible. Commercial constraints demand creativity and make software development challenging.
I like agile practices and processes, but they are means to ends. I think that as humans we are all imperfect - we should accept that we make mistakes, but try to reduce the consequences of our mistakes and try not to make the same ones over and over again. We can continually improve, but to do that we need to continually reflect and continually learn. I'm very keen on the ideas emerging around expertise and deliberate practice.
I'm sure I'll think of more and extend this post, but there's a start :-)
If you read this blog regularly then you will know that I'm about to embark on a career change. Part of this will be moving from a relatively safe environment where I have a reputation (Melbourne) to a challenging environment where I'm a relative unknown (London). When I meet new people in London (professionally) I'd like to have something I can point people to that gives them some background and helps to set their expectations. I'm personally expecting to be meeting quite a few new people, and I hope that this can accelerate the familiarisation step a bit.
First, I'm incredibly introverted. I've learned to be vocal in some situations, but sometimes that confuses things because people don't notice just how introverted I really am. How does that manifest?
- I'm pretty quiet in meetings
Particularly if I don't know all the participants I tend to listen more than I speak. That doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about the matter, or that I'm not interested, it just means that I'm not talking :-)- I think slowly
Sometimes experience gives me intuitive leaps, but I'm often the person who comes back the next day and says "that thing we talked about yesterday isn't going to work, and here's why". Even when my intuition gives me the right answer quickly it can still take me a while to come up with an explanation. When this happens it's not that I'm being uncooperative and trying to work outside the meeting/collaboration, it just means it look me a while to get to where I was going- I understand pairing gives better development results, but it doesn't come naturally to me
- I'm unlikely to join you at the pub for a beer
It doesn't mean I don't like you, but it's not an environment that suits me.- I'm not into public celebrations
This can get me into trouble, especially when I'm meant to be "leading". It's not that I'm opposed to celebration, it's that it's not something that I volunteer for. If you happen to suggest my team needs one I'm likely to agree and ask you to arrange it!- I don't deal well with conflict, particularly if it happens quickly
I'm pretty analytical, but emotions can be a bit tricky for me. I need to gear myself up for situations where there might be conflict, and if one springs upon me unexpectedly I'll usually disengage. It's nothing clinical (empathising comes fairly easily to me), but it is something I've learned about myself.
I've managed to add a few layers to this introverted foundation. I'm a reasonable public speaker, I generally enjoy it, and I'm happy to talk about software development to any group that's interested.
I've been referred to as a "code quality freak". My attitude is that you should work on the micro-level details of programming until they've become muscle memory, so that you can free your brain up to work on the complicated stuff. This covers all the stuff you'd find in coding style guides and books like Bob Martin's Clean Code (though I have to fess up that I haven't read that yet). Even at the micro-level I like to use tools to tell me where I've let me standards slip, so I'm keen on tools like Simian, Checkstyle, Complexian and their equivalents in other languages. These days I'm also interested in visualisation of the output of these tools, though I don't have as much experience in that area.
Another metaphor I use around code quality is that it's like hygiene in a hospital - we shouldn't need to talk about it, we should just do it. If we can't maintain hygiene then everything else is going to get a lot, lot harder. Some people suggest that you can clean up your technical debt by having dedicated iterations - to me this is like suggested we let crap pile up around a hospital and clean up every couple of weeks. It doesn't work for me.
I love automation. I have a very small brain and I'd rather use it for processing than storage. Manual processes are slow, tedious and error prone - I want to get rid of them.
I don't think that software development is predominantly a technical problem, I think that in most cases it's a social problem - how to we organise the people and technology we have to delivery an effective solution as cheaply as possible. Commercial constraints demand creativity and make software development challenging.
I like agile practices and processes, but they are means to ends. I think that as humans we are all imperfect - we should accept that we make mistakes, but try to reduce the consequences of our mistakes and try not to make the same ones over and over again. We can continually improve, but to do that we need to continually reflect and continually learn. I'm very keen on the ideas emerging around expertise and deliberate practice.
I'm sure I'll think of more and extend this post, but there's a start :-)
Monday, February 15, 2010
Cogent Departure, Part 2
In an earlier post I mentioned that I'd pass on more details of my Cogent departure as they became available. I'm at that point now, but before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story (a tribute to my 6y.o. son's Captain Underpants fandom, which is another story altogether).
Twenty years ago, come March, I moved to London. It was the height of Thatcherism, and shortly after I arrived I went to a matinee at the theatre. At the end of the performance someone came on stage to say there had been "a bit of bother" and we should avoid Trafalgar Square. As an ignorant new arrival I didn't know how to do that, so I ended up walking through the debris of the Trafalgar Square Riot. Welcome to London, Mr Hayes! London is an amazing place, with deep history and so many things to see, but the next year is tagged in my mind with impressions of tension and antagonism. I've visited since and found London to be far more pleasant than it was in 1990.
Ten years ago I was working at Goldman Sachs in New York. I was leading one of the best development teams I have ever had and we were implementing XP on a full project - a first for me and a first for Goldman. Early the next year I did something very un-Goldman - I resigned. I used my bonus to pay off my last debt (the mortgage on my house in Sydney), Amanda and I travelled around America (20,000 miles in just over 100 days), then we moved to Melbourne and did as little as we needed to to cover the rent. There were about 6 people in Thoughtworks Australia doing "agile", but they were working remotely on the Caterpillar project, and that was it. I spoke to as many groups as possible about XP, and things grew from there. Essentially this was the beginning of the path that lead to Cogent Consulting.
This year I'm going to complete some decade long cycles. The current plan is to return to both London and Goldman Sachs, as EMEA Controllers CTO (EMEA is "Europe, Middle East, Africa", but from a technology perspective that's Europe). Before anyone gets excited, there are lots of CTOs in Goldman Sachs - I think I'll be responsible for technical direction for about 0.5% of the banks IT staff, and I'll be in a matrix with many other architects. Regardless of scope, I think this is a great opportunity for me and will be a great experience for my family. We're tentatively scheduling a move in April, but plans are on hold pending the tabling of financial services legislation in London that may impact GS staffing. I still plan to finish up with Cogent at the end of March and to take some leave if there is time.
On the other hand, my infrequent blogging and twittering will probably become almost non-existent. GS holds things very close to its chest, now more than ever I expect, and is very careful that random technical comments don't get associated with the GS brand (for either better or worse). Since I'm an expert in random comments I'll need to watch my mouth fairly closely. :-)
If you're in London and you'd like to catch up later in the year please let me know - part of this opportunity is the chance to renew (and create) relationships in the northern hemisphere!
PS. Some people have read this and wondered why I would move to a job in management. At GS architects at all levels code 80% of the time, so if anything I'll be doing less management than I do at Cogent and in my current consulting roles. I suspect a lot of it will be up to me. I still expect to have plenty of opportunities to influence behaviour.
Twenty years ago, come March, I moved to London. It was the height of Thatcherism, and shortly after I arrived I went to a matinee at the theatre. At the end of the performance someone came on stage to say there had been "a bit of bother" and we should avoid Trafalgar Square. As an ignorant new arrival I didn't know how to do that, so I ended up walking through the debris of the Trafalgar Square Riot. Welcome to London, Mr Hayes! London is an amazing place, with deep history and so many things to see, but the next year is tagged in my mind with impressions of tension and antagonism. I've visited since and found London to be far more pleasant than it was in 1990.
Ten years ago I was working at Goldman Sachs in New York. I was leading one of the best development teams I have ever had and we were implementing XP on a full project - a first for me and a first for Goldman. Early the next year I did something very un-Goldman - I resigned. I used my bonus to pay off my last debt (the mortgage on my house in Sydney), Amanda and I travelled around America (20,000 miles in just over 100 days), then we moved to Melbourne and did as little as we needed to to cover the rent. There were about 6 people in Thoughtworks Australia doing "agile", but they were working remotely on the Caterpillar project, and that was it. I spoke to as many groups as possible about XP, and things grew from there. Essentially this was the beginning of the path that lead to Cogent Consulting.
This year I'm going to complete some decade long cycles. The current plan is to return to both London and Goldman Sachs, as EMEA Controllers CTO (EMEA is "Europe, Middle East, Africa", but from a technology perspective that's Europe). Before anyone gets excited, there are lots of CTOs in Goldman Sachs - I think I'll be responsible for technical direction for about 0.5% of the banks IT staff, and I'll be in a matrix with many other architects. Regardless of scope, I think this is a great opportunity for me and will be a great experience for my family. We're tentatively scheduling a move in April, but plans are on hold pending the tabling of financial services legislation in London that may impact GS staffing. I still plan to finish up with Cogent at the end of March and to take some leave if there is time.
On the other hand, my infrequent blogging and twittering will probably become almost non-existent. GS holds things very close to its chest, now more than ever I expect, and is very careful that random technical comments don't get associated with the GS brand (for either better or worse). Since I'm an expert in random comments I'll need to watch my mouth fairly closely. :-)
If you're in London and you'd like to catch up later in the year please let me know - part of this opportunity is the chance to renew (and create) relationships in the northern hemisphere!
PS. Some people have read this and wondered why I would move to a job in management. At GS architects at all levels code 80% of the time, so if anything I'll be doing less management than I do at Cogent and in my current consulting roles. I suspect a lot of it will be up to me. I still expect to have plenty of opportunities to influence behaviour.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Cogent Departure
With sadness and trepidation I need to tell everyone that I plan to leave Cogent Consulting. I appreciate that you're not supposed to leave your own company, but I've rarely let what you're "supposed" to do govern my career. My departure from Cogent will create a hole, but I'm perfectly comfortable that the hole will be quickly filled. Marty Andrews will take over my role as decision-maker-of-last-resort, and I expect that most people, both staff and customers, will notice little difference on how Cogent runs or the quality of the service that it provides.
The decision to leave Cogent isn't an easy one, but sometimes opportunities come up that you simply can't ignore. I'll leave out the details of this particular opportunity since it isn't finalised, but I believe it's in the "can't ignore" category. It's quite possible that it won't turn out as I hope and I'll be back, but I need to find that out for myself. As my lovely wife said, "If you'd never created Cogent, you would have regretted it for the rest of your life. If you don't try this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Or as she said to our son, "would you like to have a family adventure this year?".
I'm very proud of what Marty and I have accomplished to date. We're running a company using approaches we were told were unrealistic, that simply wouldn't work, and Cogent's existence is proof to me that they can work. All the books of the company are open to all the employees, we don't put people on gigs they wouldn't choose to do themselves, and we try to make as many decisions as we can as a group. We share our profits in a fairly egalitarian way, and we've done some product development. We don't do any of this perfectly, but our hearts are in the right place. I'm a little more balanced about the pros and cons of these approaches, a little less naive, but I suspect that Rupert would still call me a Trotskyite. I wish I'd started this ten years earlier.
In many senses, as an individual I'm not important to Cogent. It's the principles, values and quality of the staff that separate Cogent from other companies and help us deliver great solutions at great value-for-money. All of these things will survive my departure. Cogent has always been managed by a small group with contributions from throughout the company, and this will continue. The trepidation I mentioned earlier is for myself, rather than for Cogent.
I expect to finish up with Cogent at the end of March, and I'll pass on more details as they become available.
The decision to leave Cogent isn't an easy one, but sometimes opportunities come up that you simply can't ignore. I'll leave out the details of this particular opportunity since it isn't finalised, but I believe it's in the "can't ignore" category. It's quite possible that it won't turn out as I hope and I'll be back, but I need to find that out for myself. As my lovely wife said, "If you'd never created Cogent, you would have regretted it for the rest of your life. If you don't try this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Or as she said to our son, "would you like to have a family adventure this year?".
I'm very proud of what Marty and I have accomplished to date. We're running a company using approaches we were told were unrealistic, that simply wouldn't work, and Cogent's existence is proof to me that they can work. All the books of the company are open to all the employees, we don't put people on gigs they wouldn't choose to do themselves, and we try to make as many decisions as we can as a group. We share our profits in a fairly egalitarian way, and we've done some product development. We don't do any of this perfectly, but our hearts are in the right place. I'm a little more balanced about the pros and cons of these approaches, a little less naive, but I suspect that Rupert would still call me a Trotskyite. I wish I'd started this ten years earlier.
In many senses, as an individual I'm not important to Cogent. It's the principles, values and quality of the staff that separate Cogent from other companies and help us deliver great solutions at great value-for-money. All of these things will survive my departure. Cogent has always been managed by a small group with contributions from throughout the company, and this will continue. The trepidation I mentioned earlier is for myself, rather than for Cogent.
I expect to finish up with Cogent at the end of March, and I'll pass on more details as they become available.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
My Kindle DX and I
I've fielded more questions about my Kindle, and how I use it in Australia, than just about anything else I've mentioned on Twitter so I thought I'd put the information in a blog post.
After October 7 this information is really only useful if you want a Kindle DX - if you're happy with the smaller Kindle then you should buy an internationalised version and avoid all the issues I'll describe.
Books are heavy, and I often want to carry around more than one for reference, especially if I'm doing some writing. At lot of the things I want to read these days are also in PDF and I haven't found a good way to read those - I end up reading a lot either on public transport or just before bed and my laptop isn't convenient in those environments. I tried using my iPhone to read PDFs but that doesn't work for me (other people seem very happy).
The Kindle is great for reading material that's been formatted for the device - I haven't found it to be that good for PDFs (more on that later). It's much better for me than either my laptop or my iPhone. The screen has great contrast, a huge viewing angle, and when I first opened the box I couldn't believe the starting image was being displayed on something electronic.
The first problem is that Amazon won't sell you a Kindle DX if your shipping address is outside this USA. My first solution was to have one shipped to a friend in the USA and then shipped on to me, but it turns out that there are people on eBay who can help. My KIndle DX arrived in the original Amazon packaging, with the original seals intact, with a new shipping wrapper pasted over the original.
The Kindle arrives with a USA style power adapter, but the approach is the same as the iPhone - it's a USB connecter that plugs into the adapter. Since I already have an iPhone charger I can plug into that, or I can charge from my computer.
The Kindle is fairly frugal with power. Since you won't be using WhisperNet you can turn off the wireless connection to reduce battery use. The screen is bi-stable, so it only uses power when you move from one page to another. I charged my Kindle last Friday night - it's currently Thursday morning and I'm still using it happily.
Amazon (who I'll get to later) isn't the only source of content for your Kindle. You can use .mobi files from other sources, or PDFs. For example, I buy combo packs from the Pragmatic Programmers, so I have .mobi versions of all of their books, and their magazine comes out in the same format.
If you want to buy content from Amazon you won't be able to do it with an Australian credit card/address. I've set up a separate Amazon account for my Kindle purchases and given it my old Brooklyn address (you can use that too if you ask me nicely). I buy an Amazon gift voucher on my Australian account and then use the gift card to buy the content on my Amazon Kindle account. It's an extra step, but it's not really that much of a problem. I download the content to my laptop and transfer it to my Kindle via USB (the Kindle looks like any other disk drive).
Yes, it's one more device, but I've put my Kindle in the back pocket of my backpack and I really don't notice the extra weight at all. It's always there if I want to read, and I use it with one hand even if I'm standing on public transport.
There's no economic reason for me to have a Kindle, but I'm really enjoying the experience. The proof of the Kindle pudding will be how it scales to having the majority of my library on a device I carry around with me. I suspect that this will change the way I treat information.
After October 7 this information is really only useful if you want a Kindle DX - if you're happy with the smaller Kindle then you should buy an internationalised version and avoid all the issues I'll describe.
Why a Kindle?
Books are heavy, and I often want to carry around more than one for reference, especially if I'm doing some writing. At lot of the things I want to read these days are also in PDF and I haven't found a good way to read those - I end up reading a lot either on public transport or just before bed and my laptop isn't convenient in those environments. I tried using my iPhone to read PDFs but that doesn't work for me (other people seem very happy).
The Kindle is great for reading material that's been formatted for the device - I haven't found it to be that good for PDFs (more on that later). It's much better for me than either my laptop or my iPhone. The screen has great contrast, a huge viewing angle, and when I first opened the box I couldn't believe the starting image was being displayed on something electronic.
First Problem
The first problem is that Amazon won't sell you a Kindle DX if your shipping address is outside this USA. My first solution was to have one shipped to a friend in the USA and then shipped on to me, but it turns out that there are people on eBay who can help. My KIndle DX arrived in the original Amazon packaging, with the original seals intact, with a new shipping wrapper pasted over the original.
Charging
The Kindle arrives with a USA style power adapter, but the approach is the same as the iPhone - it's a USB connecter that plugs into the adapter. Since I already have an iPhone charger I can plug into that, or I can charge from my computer.
The Kindle is fairly frugal with power. Since you won't be using WhisperNet you can turn off the wireless connection to reduce battery use. The screen is bi-stable, so it only uses power when you move from one page to another. I charged my Kindle last Friday night - it's currently Thursday morning and I'm still using it happily.
Content
Amazon (who I'll get to later) isn't the only source of content for your Kindle. You can use .mobi files from other sources, or PDFs. For example, I buy combo packs from the Pragmatic Programmers, so I have .mobi versions of all of their books, and their magazine comes out in the same format.
If you want to buy content from Amazon you won't be able to do it with an Australian credit card/address. I've set up a separate Amazon account for my Kindle purchases and given it my old Brooklyn address (you can use that too if you ask me nicely). I buy an Amazon gift voucher on my Australian account and then use the gift card to buy the content on my Amazon Kindle account. It's an extra step, but it's not really that much of a problem. I download the content to my laptop and transfer it to my Kindle via USB (the Kindle looks like any other disk drive).
Carrying an extra device
Yes, it's one more device, but I've put my Kindle in the back pocket of my backpack and I really don't notice the extra weight at all. It's always there if I want to read, and I use it with one hand even if I'm standing on public transport.
Summary
There's no economic reason for me to have a Kindle, but I'm really enjoying the experience. The proof of the Kindle pudding will be how it scales to having the majority of my library on a device I carry around with me. I suspect that this will change the way I treat information.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
McDonalds doesn't teach queueing theory
I was in McDonalds today (don't ask), and there was a single line in front of the one attended register. One of the staff opened a second register, but everyone happily stayed in one line. Here's the dialogue that followed:
McDonalds : "Please form a second line here"
Steve : "Why?"
McDonalds : "What?"
Steve : "Why should we form two queues, when one queue is more efficient?"
McDonalds : after 3 or 4 second pause, "Because I say to"
Can't argue with logic like that....
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Just when you least expect it...
I rarely post about personal things on this blog, but I'm going to make an exception. What follows is an email that my wife sent to me yesterday. Jamie is our three year old son - I hope that I can just retain a fragment of the magic that he holds lightly in his hands right now, and that he never understands that you can lose it.
Tonight while walking home, Jamie asked me where the moon was, and I said, "I don't know - maybe it's behind the clouds." He said, "When I get big and go into space, I will get the moon and bring it down for you. Okay, Mummy?"Awwwwwww.
Tonight while walking home, Jamie asked me where the moon was, and I said, "I don't know - maybe it's behind the clouds." He said, "When I get big and go into space, I will get the moon and bring it down for you. Okay, Mummy?"Awwwwwww.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Tasmania Trip
Not long ago I had a week's vacation in Tasmania. If you're interested you can read a little more on my personal blog.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Hybrid car or carbon offsets?
I'm in the market for a new car, and strongly motivated by Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers" I started to do the research on buying a hybrid car. Here in Australia that really means either the Honda Civic or the Toyota Prius, which start at $32,990 and $37,400 respectively. Since I particularly want a hatch, it's really the Prius. This is a fairly substantial margin over what I'd normally pay for a car - my current car is an Astra which my wife and I have found to be great value, and if we replaced that with the new model, which starts at $21,990. Not equipped to the same level as the Prius, but enough to keep us happy :-)
Fifteen thousand dollars is a pretty big margin so out of curiousity, and prompted by Marty's post on carbon neutrality, I decide to have a look at what it would cost me to offset my carbon emissions rather than use a hybrid vehicle. The results were a big surprise to me.
I used two different sites to calculate our family carbon debt. I assumed a new Astra manual, which uses 7.4 L / 100km (from the Australian Green Vehicle Guide), and that we do 20,000km per year. We already use green electricity, and we use an average of 150Mj of gas per day over the year (the vast majority in winter) for hot water, cooking and heating. I've also assumed that I do 3 business trips to Brisbane in a year, we take the family to Sydney once a year to visit grandma and to the equivalent of New York once a year to visit grandpa. The two sites gave comparable results, but the best breakdown came from Greenfleet. Our carbon debt is approximately:
What surprised me is that the contribution of my air travel is over 12 times the contribution of my car! The conclusion is that I need to participate in some carbon offset program, but the interesting part was the cost - to offset all this carbon debt at CarbonFriendly (whose shop sucks, just by the way) was going to cost about $1000.00, and the car part of that would only be about $70 per year, so why should I go to the much greater expense of a hybrid vehicle?
I'm interested to find out of anyone else has gone through a similar decision process. Logic tells me that I should forget about the hybrid and pay for the carbon offsets, but part of me feels like this is somehow cheating. What do you think?
Fifteen thousand dollars is a pretty big margin so out of curiousity, and prompted by Marty's post on carbon neutrality, I decide to have a look at what it would cost me to offset my carbon emissions rather than use a hybrid vehicle. The results were a big surprise to me.
I used two different sites to calculate our family carbon debt. I assumed a new Astra manual, which uses 7.4 L / 100km (from the Australian Green Vehicle Guide), and that we do 20,000km per year. We already use green electricity, and we use an average of 150Mj of gas per day over the year (the vast majority in winter) for hot water, cooking and heating. I've also assumed that I do 3 business trips to Brisbane in a year, we take the family to Sydney once a year to visit grandma and to the equivalent of New York once a year to visit grandpa. The two sites gave comparable results, but the best breakdown came from Greenfleet. Our carbon debt is approximately:
- 3.34 tons from the car
- 3.51 tons from the house
- 41.07 tons from air travel
- 47.92 total
What surprised me is that the contribution of my air travel is over 12 times the contribution of my car! The conclusion is that I need to participate in some carbon offset program, but the interesting part was the cost - to offset all this carbon debt at CarbonFriendly (whose shop sucks, just by the way) was going to cost about $1000.00, and the car part of that would only be about $70 per year, so why should I go to the much greater expense of a hybrid vehicle?
I'm interested to find out of anyone else has gone through a similar decision process. Logic tells me that I should forget about the hybrid and pay for the carbon offsets, but part of me feels like this is somehow cheating. What do you think?
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