Overpass Experiences The Eric Wroolie Blog

Back from Diggnation

Last night at the Diggnation taping, someone asked if they could take my picture (well, a lot of people's pictures) because I was wearing a Digg shirt. Someone posted my picture Flickr. Here was me sitting in the audience of 1,000 people.

Unlike the picture on the left-hand side of this site, you can see I started growing my hair longer and sporting a beard.

I'm still excited about the great event last night and am really glad I attended.

You can see the rest of the photos on the Flickr site here.

Just another Rat

I'm back in London in another contract. This is the first time I've actually gone back to somewhere I already worked before. It seemed easy-- I already know the people and I already know the apps. It's actually a lot worse. It's like stepping back in time. All growth that's happened since leaving may not have even taken place.

I'm in the get-up, go-to-work, go-to-bed loop again. The only bright side this time is that I get to ride my motorcycle to the station. I'm still on the train.

A few weeks ago, I tried to ride all the way into London on the motorcycle. My hope was that it would be faster and easier than taking the train. After all, I don't need to worry about traffic with the motorcycle. The ride was a disaster. London bikers are maniacs and will make use of the smallest gaps between cars. I tried to keep up and even squeezed between some cars with inches to spare, but it was too hairy for me. So, I'm sticking to the train.

For the next six months, I'm another rat in the rat race. I get to stand in the crowd at platform 2--indistinguishable in my suit and permanent frown.

Six months.

Live Earth on 7-7-07

This is going to be a summer of music for me. Just weeks after successfully booking tickets to see Prince in London (they sold out after 30 minutes), we also came up in the lottery to see Live Earth at Wembley. It's a good cause and I'm really excited about seeing the show.

Just a few more weeks. . .

Reverend and the Makers

I'm not very knowledgeable about popular music generally. I’m still very much and 80s man, I guess. However, in the UK I’ve been hearing a lot about Reverend and the Makers. I heard their song “Heavyweight Champion of the World” on Radio 1 this week and think its fantastic. It’s my new favourite video. I think it will get very big in the coming weeks.

Enjoying the Time Off

I've spent the past three weeks taking time to relax, spend time with my family, and generally taking life easy. I haven't woken up at 4am for a few weeks. I find that my stress levels are really lowering when I get a full night sleep.

We took the kids into London and stayed in a hotel a few blocks away from my last contract at London Bridge. It was odd hanging around the place I was working for five months, but I got a chance to enjoy a lot of things I never had time to notice.

I had originally thought a trip to London would be very boring for me, but great for the kids. I knew my way around very well, after all. I take walks at lunchtime and long 'exploration' runs—I know this place like the back of my hand. I'll just impress the kids with how well I know everything. It turns out, after years of working in London, I don't know very much at all. I haven't had time to visit any museums. Walking down a street or past a monument doesn't mean I know anything about it. The kids had a lot of questions that never occurred to me and were in no way impressed with my comments about what we were looking at – "See that café? I ate there once . . ."

So, it was a great few days in the City and we're planning future trips. Now it's back to work and time to get back to the ol' computer to code a few lines before I forget anything.

White And Nerdy

I saw this Weird Al video the other day and . . . well, it cracked me up. Have a look if you haven't seen it.

Nike+ Sensor for the Ipod Nano

When I left BNP Paribas, my wonderful colleagues bought me an IPOD Nano. This is something I never would have bought for myself, so it was perfect. I love it and run with it all the time.

This week, I tried out the new Nike+ Ipod sensor this week. This cool little gadget tracks your runs and allows you to listen to music at the same time.

A couple of months ago, Apple and Nike teamed up to produce the Nike+ running music system. This includes the IPOD Nano (which is perfect for running since it uses flash memory instead of a hard drive), a special receiver which attaches to the base of the Ipod and a small sensor which sits in the sole of a special Nike+ shoe.

The sensor in the shoe is picked up by the receiver in the Ipod and tracks your distance, calories burned, current speed, etc. By touching the centre button of the Ipod while running, you get a male of female voice give you a status report (ie. "Twenty-three minutes. Distance: 2.43 miles. Current Speed: 7:13 minutes per mile." When you sync up your Ipod with iTunes at the end of your run, your workout details are uploaded to a secure page on the Nike website which tracks your running history, speed, etc. You can also, they say, challenge someone else to a distance race on the other side of the world.

This technology has been around for about a month or so. The sensor kit itself only costs about £20, which is not too steep if you already have the Nano. The real cost is the special Nike+ shoe that is "required" to use the kit. This little gadget ensures you are stuck with Ipod and Nike for the rest of your life.

However, after doing some web research, I found articles detailing how to use the sensor with Non-Nike+ shoes. It involves putting some Velcro on the tongue of your shoe and the the sensor and placing it under your laces. I've done that to my Nike (but non-Nike+) shoes. It worked great. The distance reported was very accurate and I found it alarming how slow my running speed was at times. For the base sensor kit, I got all the bells and whistles without the expensive shoes.

If you've found this post because you want to know if the velcro method of attaching the sensor works or not, I can attest that it does. It works very well. Now, I'm listening to music or audio books and keeping track of my miles accumulated.

I highly recommend the Nike+ Ipod sensor (but not the shoes).

You can buy the sensor from Apple Store. http://store.apple.com

Speech Slows the Speed of Information

Is it more advantageous to sit in a training course or read a really big book?

Seth Godin wrote a great article today on the inadequacies of speech as a training tool:

Speech is both linear and unpaceable. You can’t skip around and you can’t speed it up. When the speaker covers something you know, you are bored. When he quickly covers something you don’t understand, you are lost.

It is a fantastic means of inciting something from listeners, but not to stand in front of a group of people and read.

He makes a great point, and I think it has a lot of relevance to the rise of podcasting. Everything is podcasted now. The only things that make podcasts better than blogs is that you can (a) get to know the speaker on a more personal level or (b) listen to it in your car. With all the podcasts out there, how much driving can you possibly do? If I listen to five minutes of a 40-minute podcast, it means I was really interested (but I got other things to do).

I think the assumption that people see a teacher standing in front of a class as more efficient is that it is the only 'proof' that the students heard what was saying. Ridiculous, but I suppose some people just don't read.

I know as a software developer, I can pay thousands of pound for a 5-day course which loosely covers a technology or programming language. Or, I could buy a very good book for £50 which would give me 20 times more information and I could devour it in those same five days.

At interviews, are they more impressed with me taking a course or reading a book? They always go for the course.

Read Seth's article here.

Padres to the Playoffs!

Last night, the San Diego Padres clinched another trip to the playoffs. For years, I had waited through the really bad years for them to go to the playoffs. The first time they had done it was in 1984 (I was in the seventh grade) and they weren't able to make it into the playoffs again until 1996 (where they quickly lost).

The second time in history that the Padres ever went to the World Series was in 1998--as fate would have it that was my first year in England and I sat bleary eyed in the middle of the night watching baseball (then trying to stay awake through the work day at Barclays Capital in London). They lost the series in four straight games.

Tonight will determine whether they've won the division or will be the wild card.

Now it's back to the playoffs. It's worth the fatigue.

The photo above is from Associated Press. Here's the story:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20060930-1657-bbn-padres-diamondbacks.html

Windows Live Writer

If you write a blog, I highly recommend the Windows Live Writer. I've used RandyRants as a offline blogging software before, but WLW includes so many other nice features. It's easier to upload images and format things exactly how you want to.

You can also include maps and aerial photos from local.live.com.

Here's the neighborhood I grew up in in San Diego. Rene Drive (and Rene Court). Two miles to the south is Mexico.

We lived just outside the culdesac, but that is where we played baseball as small children. Here in England, we live on a street where traffic never stops long enough for us to even want to let the kids out.

When I first saw Google Earth, I was amazed how I could see all the places I've lived even while sitting in rural Oxfordshire. Every year, the images get better and the maps more accurate. Windows Live maps seem to be even clearer.