And so we’ve come to see that one of the key facts of parenting is that you really truly do start living someone else’s life.
TL;DR: We’re coding for the web all wrong. And it’s mostly because of the languages we’re using. We’re piling hack upon hack upon hack. Good coding principles and practices are becoming more common in web development, but I can’t help wishing we… Continue Reading →
Back from a brilliant family holiday week. Such a happy time with my favourite people.
“Brexit” is/might be coming. Is there an opportunity to get some cash in the bank and help out your customers at the same time?
I’ve been a bit of a Brexit/politics bore tonight. Feeling the need for some light-hearted relief. Here’s a photo of a pre-schooler in dinosaur pyjamas brandishing a camera made of stickle-bricks. I challenge you not to smile.
I’ve always had a thing for trees. I know they can be explained in so many ways, but in others they are mysterious. They seem to have souls. They get old and wise. And each and every trunk, branch and leaf is very much the same, and yet, totally unique. A symbol of both the infinite complexity of nature, and the rigid order within which that complexity it constrained. A tension I still fail to resolve.
We found this horse-chestnut branch. It’s symmetry is so almost-perfect as to be perplexing. I LOVE it.
I know the water cycle. I really do. But I still can’t quite understand how so much water gets up to the sky. Water is HEAVY. Cumulonimbus clouds have been said to “weigh” up to one million tonnes. And you see the result when it rains. LOTS of water falls from the sky. LOTS. And it has to get up there somehow. And I know that it evaporates from the oceans and lakes but…that’s a LOT of energy. Clouds. Amazing.
I have a love/hate relationship with weeds. We are engaged in a constant battle. But I have great respect for my enemy. Weeds are tenacious and hardy. They thrive even where we try our utmost to suppress them. The dandelion is particularly tricksy/clever. Its root is deep but weak, making it hard to fully pull out. And its seeds are cunningly designed – though I’m not sure if their purpose is to blow away in the wind, or to be carried and blown around by small children. Both appear to be effective strategies.
My friend Tim has challenged me to post a nature photo a day for seven days. Here’s my first. My entirely natural 14-week-old girl Ada’s hand. What a true marvel of nature. So delicate and intricate. So miraculous. Such an incredible feat of creation. Tiny-but-perfect muscles powered by her extraordinary miniature cardiovascular system, pull thread-like tendons to move the complex arrangement of small bones. It’s not just a marvel of construction, but a sign of future potential: what will these hands do? What will they make? Who will they hold?
Board game idea: “Daddy, Daddy” (Mummy version is also available). It’s like snakes & ladders. The aim is to get out of the front door – the last square!
