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Vite, vite!

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2013-02-18T07:03:25Z

A dimanche j’ai fait le course de le «Around the Bays». C’a été un grand success: j’ai complet le course en 33 minutes, 3 minutes plus vite que l’année denier. Je suis très satisfait des mon progrès.

Investigating Finger

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2013-01-24T17:10:56Z

There’s a theory that shark bites are caused, not by the desire of sharks to eat delicious human, but rather by sharks’ combination of an inquisitive nature and a lack of hands or facsimilies thereof. The theory goes that the reason so many shark bites involve the shark biting a chunk out of a swimmer and then trundling off into the distance is that the shark has only one part of their body, the mouth, which can has the sensitivity and control to find out what something is.

Watching the emergence of Investigating Finger puts my strongly in mind of this theory.

Rosa has hit a point in her development that I’d semi-forgotten from Ada’s: Investigating Finger Investigates. Suddenly she’s gained enough control over her hands and her index finger to be able to carefully and deliberately poke at and manipulate, well, everything. Peering intently, a little crooked finger will work over any intriguing object untl it’s been investigated to her satisfaction.

The interesting thing is that this has correlated with a sudden drop in the urge to cram everything into her mouth: hence, I conclude that like sharks, urge to taste the world is driven as much by the mouth being the only part of the body thet have much control over

Six Years

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-11-22T09:36:01Z

Amazing. Ho did I get so lucky as to have such a wonderful kid?

Un voyage

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-11-19T08:45:29Z

Ada, Lias, et moi sommes allez à «Southwards Car Museum». Les enfants ont fscine par la voiture de le ganster, la grande Rolls Royce, et la Cadillac de Marlenne Dietrich. Ada a pensé cést unjust que le chauffer s’asseoit dans un petit place, mais les passages s’asseoissent dans le grands places.

So the Star Wars sold to Disney News...

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-10-31T09:07:49Z

On the one hand, I am suitably amused by the observations this de facto makes Leia a Disney Princesses.

On the other hand, the people sperging over the idea of putting Lassiter and Bird in charge of future Star Wars movies? Just fuck off. Per my daughter’s observation, Star Wars is already badenough on gender balance, and putting Pixar in charge of it will only make it even more of a boyzone. And an 80s goofy buddy-movie boyzone at that.

Geek Pride < Feminist Pride

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-10-14T08:16:22Z

Ada continued her record of leaving me perplexed as to what scares her in movies; Mulan was declared “too scary” after 20 minutes, with a request to switch to Star Wars. Because the tale of a girl who becomes a soldier to save her father and will ultimately lead the armies of China to victory over the invading Huns is scarier than one with torture, genocide, and the killing of all the parental figures.

Still, it warmed my heart on two accounts; afterwards Ada spent some time perfecting her C3PO arm-wave so she could be “Ada Robot” for the rest of the afternoon, which gave me a certain amount of geek pride. More importantly, though, she sat down and explained seriously to me that she was disappointed that there was only one girl character in Star Wars, that this seemed unfair to her, and that she didn’t care how cool Leia is, she thought it should be half each girl and boy characters. This made me especially happy because she appears to think it normal that she should she a decent range of female characters in her movies; it’s a great natural assumption for her to have, and it’s on the back of a considerable effort, in the face of the overwhelming norms of kids’ movies (and let me offer a hearty fuck you very much to Pixar, and your fanboys who assert you’re the finest film studio in the world, on that particular front), to present her with enough female-lead films that she’s got a counter to the boy-with-maybe-a-token-girl-on-the-side norm.

Kronfeld Comes to Town

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-09-07T02:01:18Z

Ada on Josh’s Bike

Ada’s school assembly ended with a bit of a surprise today: a visit from former All Black Josh Kronfeld and boxer Shane Cameron as part of the “Choppers for Child Cancer” initiative; it’s a group of riders who have been touring parts of the country raising funds for the Child Cancer Foundation. The group spoke at the assembly, outlining what the CCF does and warning parents they’d be hit up for donations on the way out; in the school playground, the bikes were parked up and the kids allowed to roam over them. Kronfeld and Cameron signed arms, papers, clothes, and various other bits and pieces thrust at them.

When they entered they were greeted with a waiata; Josh missed some of it because apparently he’s a complete sucker for a toddler pulling faces at him to get his attention. Cameron, on the other hand, was rapt with it, and made mention of how impressed he was with the display when it was his turn to speak. Kronfeld noted that one of the things the CCF does is make bead necklaces for kids undergoing cancer therapy: every treatment is a new bead, and during his trip he’d met kids with over 2000 beads. Two thousand. For a child. It was something that had made a pretty obvious impression on him.

Josh Kronfeld speaking at Roseneath

I lined Ada up for his impressive orange and bronze bike; he’s great with kids, helped her onto the bike and up to reach the handlebars. She enjoyed it mightily, although she was a lot more interested in the bike than one of the great All Blacks, and she was bemused by the autograph-seeking. All the guys—there were 5 all up—were very patient with the kids and happy for them to clamber over their inordinately expensive bikes.

One other thing that struck me during the visit was how Kronfeld is. I’m not small myself, but he’s bigger, and still has big, solid arms on him. Seeing someone on TV in the company of other similarly-sized sportsmen leads one to rather underestimate how large and solid they really are.

L'enfant qui rit

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-08-11T09:43:39Z

Dimanche Rosa a rit pout la première fois, parce que sa soeur a sauté dans un grand morceaux de embellage de bulles. La deuxième fois, lundi, ella a rit parce que sa soeur a éclaté beaucoup de bulles.

It's Not The Methodology, Stupid

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-07-17T21:48:50Z

One of the more incredulous spit-takes I’ve done recently was the claim that developers use Agile because they want to avoid doing documentation.

I’m incredulous for a bunch of reasons, but the core one is this: I’ve never, in almost two decades, worked with any decent developer who flat-out wouldn’t do any documentation. Hell, I’ll go further than that and note that most of the good developers I’ve worked with want documentation and are keen on writing it (up to a point; more on that in a moment).

Continue reading "It's Not The Methodology, Stupid"

The Crown Goes Nuts

nospam@example.com (Rodger Donaldson) — 2012-06-28T10:50:19Z

In the ongoing Dotcom saga there have been a number of rather disturbing behaviours by the police and the Crown (although in fairness, I doubt the police are wildly enthusiastic about this particular waste of their time), but the most disturbing is contained in this judicial rebuttal to Crown arguements:

It would not be consistent with the object of promoting the rule of law internationally, were the domestic courts to refuse to review the lawfulness of warrants" obtained in this manner, she noted.

"If having conducted a review, it is determined that there was a fundamental defect in the warrant, it is difficult to see why a Court should decline to declare as much, even where trial processes are engaged in another jurisdiction.”

The Crown is appears to be arguing that when considering extradition proceedings the courts have no business questioning the validity of the warrants and the foreign judicial process obtaining it. I don’t want to be judicially murdered in Saudi Arabia if I make fun of Islam, or dumped in a Bangkok prison for a decade if I’m rude about the Thai royal family. The idea that the Crown are advancing, that New Zealand citizens should be extradited no-questions-asked to any foreign kangaroo court with no consideration, is a frankly terrifying position. I’m appalled the New Zealand government of the day is so desperate to do anything the FBI ask it would advance such a position.