the corner office

The way I see it, markets are about supply and demand, things which are affected by the real world and information we have about the real world. So it turns out lots of people have been trading debts that're never going to be repaid and weren't properly secured in the first place. The market reaction isn't necessarily a bad thing given that the debts are already there like spilled milk: it's a good thing that the world has better information and that prices are adjusting accordingly.

Now, I'm not saying that a downturn won't hurt, but ultimately, houses are still there, built of brick and stone and wood, and there are still lots and lots of people who want to live in them.

It's not the apocalypse.

Sun is buying MySQL. I just can't figure out what that means. Interesting, Jonathan Schwartz's LAMP references, because you'd expect Sun's interests to be served by changing the L to S and the P to J, so to speak.

"I'm waiting for him to nail a dude. Now that would be a contemporary Bond."

Ronwen, while we were watching Casino Royale tonight.

Quick review, I finished this just before the new year, and I haven't read anything since 'cause I'm studying hard (hardy har)

I've never been a big Wilbur Smith fan, the whole Adventure Under African Skies thing just ain't my bag. I found myself rather taken by Warlock, though. Set in long ago Egypt, it's the coming of age story of a young pharoah, his father murdered and his kingdom stolen by a traitor, and a warlock/shaman/holy man/eunuch who helps him achieve his destiny. Or is that Destiny? I dunno. At any rate, it was engrossing enough to want to carry on reading when I'd get home at night, which I always consider to be a good thing about a book.

The only thing I really didn't enjoy (apart from the incessant round buttocks and pert nipples which seem to betray certain tastes on Mr Smith's part) was the torture, brutality and cruelty. I hate using the word 'gratuitous', it makes one sound like an boring old fuddy-duddy, and I accept that it may be historically accurate, but there's only so much buggering by swords and the like I can take.

When exams are over I'm moving on to something with fairies and puppies.

Right, tech review and ramble.

The year was technically varied on the work front, and I got my hands dirty with some interesting problems. I've not blogged much about them because, well, I'm lazy. I've been exposed to a lot of new things. Websphere Portal, WAS, DB2 and Content Manager, Lotus Forms, and even a dose of C# and .Net. Since moving to London, I'm getting to grips to varying degrees with stuff like Spring and Coherence and Oracle and even cranky old JBoss again. I've spent two months getting used to a continuous integration environment and I'm a convert.

On the home geekery front, I set myself a few goals to stay focused and not faff around as much as I did in 2006. My first goal was to get my blog app presentable and share the source, which I did. After that I planned to play with Eclipse RCP for a bit, before moving on to other geekish things. My motivation for that was wanting to get comfortable and productive with a GUI framework, and I thought I'd give RCP a go because I've (a) had so many false starts before, (b) use Eclipse for all my day to day development, and (c) nothing else really appealed.

Then Leo and reality arrived and so instead of taking a few months, I've ended up tinkering with Eclipse RCP for the remainder of the year. I'm still quite ambivalent about it, and don't consider myself particularly competent with the technology. I also played with Swing for a bit, but I just can't get excited about Swing either. The main RCP app I've been working on is a personal budgeting app. It's not finished and it never will be, but I'm chuffed with the its current capabilities and proof of the pudding, we now use it to stay on top of our finances. It's been a good learning experience, but now that it's passably useful, I'm less enthusiastic about doing anything more with it, which is telling.

So anyway, it's now into 2008. I'm in the mood for a change. I'm writing my final two Honours exams in Feb, so for the next month I'm doing bugger-all but study. After that, well, I'm still not entirely sure.

Not a damned speck of the stuff, despite the predictions. I woke up this morning early, peeked out the window, nothing. All day, going to the window to see outside, nothing. Walking home tonight, staring wistfully into the skies for even a single errant flake, not a damned thing.

Never trust a weatherman. Or woman. Charlatans and deceivers, the lot of 'em.