Matthew Lang

FIFA officials are now facing corruption charges for bribery that occurred in the US and was paid through US bank accounts.

As leaders of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, gathered for their annual meeting, more than a dozen plain-clothed Swiss law enforcement officials arrived unannounced at the Baur au Lac hotel, an elegant five-star property with views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. They went to the front desk to get keys and proceeded upstairs to the rooms.

— FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Blatter Isn’t Among Them by The New York Times

I'm not a big football fan, but it's not good to see one of the worlds biggest sports tainted in the last few years by allegations of corruption.

I wonder if Sepp will get through this scandal unscathed?

I hope not.

Technically, it’s simple. The web cannot emulate native perfectly, and it never will. Native apps talk directly to the operating system, while web apps talk to the browser, which talks to the OS. Thus there’s an extra layer web apps have to pass, and that makes them slightly slower and coarser than native apps. This problem is unsolvable.

— Web vs Native: Let's Concede Defeat by Peter-Paul Koch

It's not all bad though. Peter-Paul does go on to say how web apps can still compete against native apps.

No Man's Sky has high expectations. With a game universe composing of billions of planets, it is set to change the world of gaming. I for one can't wait for its release.

The universe is being built in an old two-story building, in the town of Guildford, half an hour by train from London. About a dozen people are working on it. They sit at computer terminals in three rows on the building’s first floor and, primarily by manipulating lines of code, they make mathematical rules that will determine the age and arrangement of virtual stars, the clustering of asteroid belts and moons and planets, the physics of gravity, the arc of orbits, the density and composition of atmospheres—rain, clear skies, overcast. Planets in the universe will be the size of real planets, and they will be separated from one another by light-years of digital space. A small fraction of them will support complex life.

— World Without End
by The New Yorker

The BBC earth mini-site aims to explain what happens when you fall into a black hole.

After all, the event horizon is not like a brick wall floating in space. It's an artefact of perspective. An observer who remains outside the black hole can't see through it, but that's not your problem. As far as you're concerned there is no horizon.

Sure, if the black hole were smaller you'd have a problem. The force of gravity would be much stronger at your feet than at your head, stretching you out like a piece of spaghetti. But lucky for you this is a big one, millions of times more massive than our Sun, so the forces that might spaghettify you are feeble enough to be ignored.

— The Strange Fate of a Person Falling Into a Black Hole by BBC Earth

I had to read this a couple of times to get it. Well worth the time to read though!

I'm on the fence about whether switching off CCTV cameras to save money is a good or a bad thing for the public. What sent alarm bells off for me though is the mention of CCTV camera being classed a counter-terrorism tool.

Last night the Police Federation said the deactivation of CCTV cameras would introduce “vulnerabilities” to counter-terrorism operations and “deny justice” to the victims of sexual offences and street violence. But civil liberties groups said there was little evidence of the cameras’ effectiveness and that councils were right to keep them under constant review.

— CCTV cameras secretly being switched off by cash-strapped councils by The Independent

The use of 'terrorism' as a reason for keeping CCTV cameras switched on was a step too far though.

I've been searching through various contract opportunities over the last few weeks. Client work is slowing down and I have some availability over the next few months. Might be a good idea to look around then! One common feature of each ad is that most of them have included is this:

Include a link to your GitHub profile.

For the non-developers amongst you, GitHub is a web based source code repository service where developers and organisations can keep copies of the code they are working on and have worked on. To this end, it's often referred to as a resume for developers. Not every developer has a GitHub account though (there are alternatives like BitBucket) and certainly not every developer has an active GitHub account.

Are recruiters (both agencies and companies) basing their candidate search on developers who have active GitHub accounts?

Does my GitHub account reflect the capabilities of myself as a developer?

I certainly hope not.

In the past I moved my repositories over to BitBucket to give it a try. I left my GitHub account open but there was little on it. Now, I'm back to using GitHub and I make use of it by keeping some projects I'm working on there. Most of them are private. They're ideas that I would rather keep to myself. For little projects and other stuff, I throw them up on my GitHub account as public. Not as bragging rights to my capabilities as a developer but to share my code with other developers.

If most agencies were to look at my GitHub profile at the moment and make a decision based on that alone, they would skip right over my application. The problem is though that my GitHub profile is one facet of my career as a developer. I have a good history as a developer and a variety of experience. I have a couple of recommendations on LinkedIn and an up to date CV there. I'm running my second attempt at a product with DailyMuse after I killed the failed Journalong product.

I'm certainly not a developer that lives and breathes code. Once the work day is over, I might hit the trails on the mountain bike, take my son to the golf so he can practice, or just go for a walk with the family. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so many other things I do outside of work that doesn't involve writing code. Yes, I have a number of little side projects on the go. Most developers do, but they're low on my priority list.

While my career is important, it's also important to get the balance right between what you do for your career and what you do elsewhere. I do write code outside of work, but most of the time I'm doing other things like spending time with my family, riding one of my bikes or something else that isn't writing code.

GitHub isn't my resume though. It's one aspect of my resume. It's something to consider yes, but the real value in a software developer isn't the amount of code they write. It's in the way they approach problems, present solutions and communicate with others. And I think I do that rather well.

I'm generally not, but that's okay.

If we didn’t have any early adopters ironing out the kinks, there’d never be a now-safe choice for the late majority. And if everyone always jumped on the latest thing on day one, society would waste needless cycles churning through the broken glass of beta software.

— The Stories We Tell Ourselves by Signal vs Noise

I now know that I bring scale to the products that I wait for.

I can't say if this trend is happening in the UK, but in the Lang house we've almost completely eliminated processed foods in favour of fresh home made meals. The simple pleasure of cooking with fresh ingredients is hard to give up when you've mastered a few basic dishes.

There's no excuse for the lack of blog posts around here recently. I've tried to kickstart my daily posts a number of times in the last couple of months but each time ends up in failure.

At first I had problem with ideas for writing. My ideas list had run dry and I struggled to fill it again.

Then when I had an idea for a post, I would quickly dismiss it on the grounds that it isn't worth publishing. I didn't have confidence in the idea to write about it to begin with, let alone actually get to the step of deciding whether it is publishable or not.

Now I'm so focused on other work that I am struggling to fit writing back into my schedule. I'm stretching myself in too many different directions.

None of these are valid reasons for not writing. They're excuses. I aim to do better in the future with regards to my writing.

... are willing to pay for your product or service. You'd be surprised just how many.

I really should. My problem at the moment is that I have too many things on the go at once. Something will need to give.

If you're struggling to blog, read this post by Curtis McHale. It will be a reality check for some. A reality check that is needed.

I know I needed it.

via FGGT

We need more posts like this. Good to see that Markdown is favoured by Curtis.

A clever idea for any notebook, but I have to say I do prefer my Nock Hightower.

The Art of Manliness uncovers everything about the humble pocket.

This is because the original pockets weren’t like the sewn-in pockets we know today, but rather separate bags detached from clothing. From the 15th until the mid-16th century, men and women carried essential items and currency in a pouch that was typically tied around the waist or hung from a belt. As thieves and “cutpurses” became more of a problem in the 17th century, people began to cut slits in their shirts, skirts, and pants, and tuck their pouches inside their clothing for safekeeping. This practice necessitated making the bags flatter and easier to reach into, so they would be more accessible and not create a significant bulge.

— A Man's Pockets
by The Art of Manliness

Curtis McHale talks about taking your blogging to the next level and hiring an editor.

Working with Diane I get something more though — I get someone to tell me when a post is just plain bad, and if it is, we take it back and re-write or scrap it altogether. She helps clarify my message so I’m communicating with my readers in the way I intend.

— Blogging and Quality Content
by Curtis McHale

XKCD delivers again with the Emojic 8 Ball.

A little fast one today.

I love this.

You turn up because of the people around you.

You know, the ones with common interests and sense of ambition.

The ones who want to invent new things and do old things better.

The ones whose distortion of reality present challenges that stretch you.

The ones who give you freedom to do things differently.

The ones you trust not to drop the ball (there are no ball droppers here).

You even turn up for the ones who grate on you (they’re also brilliant).

You turn up because the people around you value what you do.

They believe in you and give you what you need.

Together you create something more than a job.

Don’t settle for anything less.

— Why You Turn Up by Dom Goodrum

via swissmiss

Patrick Rhone shares a simple way he shapes the day in his favour. An excellent idea.

I cleaned out my RSS feeds over the weekend. The following feeds have been removed for different reasons:

• A Fresh Cup - Mike Gunderloy is taking a well earned break from his daily link posts around Ruby and Rails. I'll miss those posts but I can understand Mike's reasons for doing it. Maybe he'll back.
• BikeRadar.com - Not been particularly interested in the scope of content they're pushing. I prefer now to subscribe to niche blogs like Cycle EXIF and Pedal Consumption. Also they don't include images in their RSS feed, which makes reading about new bikes and components a bit redundant if there's no images to accompany it.
• ConversionXL, Copywriting by Copy Hackers, Quick Sprout, SaaStr, The KISSmetrics Marketing Blog, Vero Email Marketing Blog, Social Triggers - I'm done with building and marketing products. I'd rather be writing code.

I've also found a few blogs that have been added to my feeds list:

• Engine Yard Blog - I don't have anything deployed to Engine Yard, but they're always producing good content from a developers perspective.
• Iand.net - Ian Dick is a fellow dev from Scotland with a blog that has a good mix of content.
• Scribbling.net - I have always been a fan of Gina Trapani's work. Even though she's not part of the Lifehacker team anymore, it's good to see she's still writing
• The Art of Manliness - There we were, me and the boys trying to entertain ourselves when we hit upon the idea of making paper airplanes. Took it to the next level though and made some paper airplanes using the designs from this blog. What more reason would I need to subscribe?