Diary Entries

22:24 02/06/2001

I joined a dot.com and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.Well, that's the end of an interesting little ride. June 1 was the last day I worked for CyberElves; I'm now self-unemployed, entering the wonderful world of contracting. Actually, what I've got is a contract with the Bank of New Zealand, who are a pleasant bunch (well, the group I'm in are, anyway). What did I get from CE? Well, more than a t-shirt; there was a hooded sweatshirt as well. And a bunch of entertaining stories that will have to be told at a later date. And a whole bunch of lessons about how to run a company. Some of them being of the "don't do this" variety.

Sadly, not all of the really good stories will get told. Less because I care about burning the bridges with some of the more, uh, “entertaining” ones, but because the central figures in some of them are a little over-enthusiastic about litigation. Apparently they've never had a good lawyer explain to them that going to court when you don't like how things turn out costs lots of money, doesn't get the result you want, and usually ends up with dirty laundry being aired you'd have preferred to have kept hidden. I have, and I'd rather buy me a house and a flash car than supply my lawyer with one.

Anyway, I had drinks on the Friday night, with a bunch of ex- and current Elves from Wellington showing up, along with Lawrence, the Auckland GM and all-around good guy; a fun time was had by all, although Sharlene looked a little alarmed at tales of an ex-flatmate's escapades in inadvertantly covering a street I used to live in with his porn collection. We ended up drinking cocktails at Christine's apartment, from whence comes the picture. Mmm, cocktails.

Oh, and Bast has had the run of the outside world for a week and is still here and looking happy.

11:41 16/06/2001

Why industrial design matters: The Neo Jukebox. It's an MP3 player with a 20 GB hard drive! Fantastic! Think of all the music! I could put my entire CD collection on it and listen to it all day.

Except for the four hour battery life.

So, there's hundreds of hours of music, and four hours of battery life. Not such a good ratio. Sure, you've got the win of avoiding oo many tracks being repeated, but it won't even go all day. Nice concept, shame about the execution.