I had read a lot of good things about this book and it had sat on my Kindle for a long time. Really enjoyed the first half of the book but thought the second half was more focused on things that weren't relevant to me. There were some statements made that were clearly opinions but were stated as facts. Overall a bit disappointing.

I found this article to be a very astute observation that it can be all the "little trade-offs" that can add up to cause issues. The article highlights it from the perspective of a leader who can make small decisions, usually around putting something off or taking a short cut, that can add up to impact their work and those around them.

My daughter loves dancing. She was entranced by this (so was I). The effort this must have taken to choreograph and the level of control between both the dancers is impressive.

A simple chart showing how the English alphabet evolved and how we ended up with what we have. It is particularly interesting how the Roman alphabet changed to become the English alphabet.

I love the way this article explains some of the key issues with designing distributed systems and how to solve them. It uses the illustration of a theme park and the rides - very clever and a fun read, which is unusual for a distributed systems article!

I don't own, and have no intention of owning, a MacBook as I own a touchscreen Windows laptop however this approach to make it support touch is genius. They use a mirror at the top of the screen and some image processing to work out where the finger is. They can determine if the finger is actually touching the screen by whether it is touching its reflection - very clever lateral thinking.

It is very easy to make assumptions about a subject you know well and others may not. You will have knowledge you have learnt over time that you perceive is so simple or obvious that others should just know it - forgetting that once you too had to learn it. This article sums it up really well with the word ... "just".

I was due to be paid for some work earlier this month and the payment was from a foreign bank account into my account in GBP. The payment was made two weeks ago but never turned up in my account. After numerous phone calls with my bank and a lot of help from the CFO of the company I am working for (thanks Mario) we eventually managed to locate the payment.