Month: December 2018

Scrum redux

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Scrum: way of working to maximize value

Scrum Master: maximize efficiency – remove impediments (manage & delegate)
Product Owner: maximize effectiveness – customer value (stakeholder relations)

Story points: time estimate x impediments –> these don’t show up if only measuring time

Vertical slice: always define the stories with the user in mind. Will the PBI be demoable?

Always work according to priority –> not, “does everyone have something do to?”

You can have it good, fast & cheap if you change what IT is. There are 4 variables in that sentence, not 3.

Project brief: identify value, don’t define “it”. Describe scope in terms of how to give value, but not exactly on how you plan to do it.

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Canada Vignettes

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Canada Vignettes are a series of short films by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), some of which aired on CBC Television and other Canadian broadcasters as interstitial programs. The vignettes became popular because of their cultural depiction of Canada, and because they represented its changing state.

The idea for Canada Vignettes began in early 1977, when CBC’s children’s programming department at the CBC approached the NFB about producing short films, five minutes in length or less, to use as interstitial programming.

80 filmmakers from across the country worked on the project over a three-year period. Many of the films were animation vignettes offering amusing portrayals of Canadian history, while others were produced from excerpts from NFB documentaries. The NFB decided that no film credits would be included, only a title.

I used to love watching the Vignettes on TV. My favourites were the dance (this one) and the Log Driver’s Waltz.

The NFB YouTube channel has a playlist of vignettes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8&list=PLHerjfWGX0CWsOBQGf7vlpWJdkq8MokGx

And the NFB website itself has more: https://www.nfb.ca/channels/canada-vignettes/

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Never mind the Buzzcocks

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Punk band The Towers of London singer Donny Tourette tried too hard to seem outrageous during his time on the show, wearing sunglasses and going missing for a time. “What is he going to do next?” said Amstell, “Smoke cigarettes that you can legally buy in shops”? That he did, the little tyke. When he tried to criticize Bill Bailey’s appearance, Simon Amstell said: “Let me explain, Bill is a professional comedian: you won’t win”. But fair play to the punk: his pathetic bit of rock and roll play-acting made him an easy target, but Tourette seemed to have had as much fun on the show as the people who so easily ripped him to shreds.

Best comment ever: “I wonder how it must feel to be way more famous for being a tool on a panel show than for being in the band that got you on the show in the first place.”

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Bach in a 17th century church

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Yo-Yo Ma has been playing with the music of Bach for 58 years, and in 2018 released his third recording of the composer’s suites for solo cello. Before this performance, the cellist told us that the composer he first encountered aged four, has become something of a best friend to him. “It’s like having a great best friend in each chapter of your life” her said. “…a great companion, a person that is there to help you go through sticky wickets in life. He feels your pain, he feels my pain, he feels everybody’s pain and everybody’s joy. People go through illnesses, exams and difficult periods…and somehow it’s supportive.”

Yo-Yo Ma performed the suite in one of London’s most beautiful Baroque buildings, the Christopher Wern-designed domed church of St. Stephen Walbrook.

Edit: This is another instance of the post-so-nice-I-did-it-twice: https://www.flubu.com/blog/2013/05/01/yo-yo-ma-bach-cello-suite-no-1-prelude/

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Why did it take 300 to properly classify the giant tortoise?

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It took 300 years for the giant tortoise to get a scientific or taxonomical name because people kept eating them. People would put them on ships and sail them back home, but by the time they arrived at port in Europe the crew would have eaten the whole lot. Even Charles Darwin and the crew aboard the Beagle ate all the giant tortoises on board. The only descriptions of them are comparing them to chicken, beef, mutton and butter, and saying they tasted better than all of them. Even the liver and bone marrow was considered delicious. They were also used as water stores, because they have a special internal bladder which stores water so perfectly that it is drinkable, so when you slit them open to cook them you also got a gallon of fresh water. The crew therefore stacked them up so that they could not move, and they did not need to be fed for months so they were very useful for whaling ships because they provided both food and water. There are 12 species of giant tortoise, all of which are now endangered.

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St-Nicolas 

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Le 6 décembre, jour de la Saint-Nicolas, est fêté traditionnellement dans plusieurs pays européens du Nord et de l’Est de l’Europe (notamment la Belgique, le Luxembourg, le Nord et l’Est de la France surtout en Lorraine et en Alsace, les Pays-Bas, l’Allemagne et la Suisse) « où il distribue des cadeaux à tous les enfants sages ».

Lors de sa « tournée », saint Nicolas distribue traditionnellement une orange et du pain d’épices portant son effigie. Le Père Fouettard, vêtu de noir et porteur d’un grand fagot, parfois le visage barbouillé de suie, l’accompagne, et distribue une trique (une branche de son fagot) aux enfants qui n’ont pas été sages et menace de les frapper. Saint Nicolas est censé voyager sur un âne; aussi les enfants doivent-ils, le soir, préparer de la nourriture (foin, paille, carotte ou grain) pour l’animal. Au matin, ils trouvent les friandises (ou la trique) à la place de ce qu’ils ont préparé pour l’âne.

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[recipe] oven-poached eggs

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Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Add one tablespoon of water to each cup of the muffin tin, then crack an egg into each of the cups.

​If you like runny yolks, poach the eggs for 11 to 13 minutes, and if you prefer the yolks to be a little more cooked, poach the eggs for 14 to 15 minutes.

When taking the muffin tin out of the oven you’ll notice that the water has risen to the top, and sits on top of the egg. It can be easy to mistake this for an egg white that’s not fully set.

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[gallery] Mandy Budan

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Mandy Budan is a Canadian artist who works primarily in acrylic. She paints abstracts of the landscape, emphasizing and rearranging the elements to show the beauty of the landscape in unexpected ways. Inspired by nature, Budan uses strong colour, discrete shapes and rhythmic patterns to create paintings which can be enjoyed for both their abstract and realistic qualities. She finds the majority of her inspiration in her home province of Ontario, but also explores the provincial parks and conservation areas and hidden green spaces looking for that elusive combination of light, colour and shape that speaks to her love of painting.

Online store: http://budanart.com/category/original-paintings

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Dylan Moran on the state of the world

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The new show, Dr Cosmos, which is touring, is about “the bonfire of now. The blazing relentlessness and the effect it has on you. How do you sit still without coming apart at the seams?”

Middle age tends to accelerate the conviction that the world is going to hell in a handcart, but Moran points to “a massive consensus: we’re all agreed that the world is indeed f*cked right now. Everyone knows that the American president is a ludicrous person, in Westminster we’ve got two zombie political parties having a pretend show of political debate that’s never going to lead to anything, and Britain is going through this extraordinary act of sending itself to its room and not coming down as a show of – what? You shat your pants in front of the whole world and you’re sulking? It’s embarrassed by its own behaviour, frankly, and it’s a postcolonial sulk. Everybody’s just looking around, waiting for the embarrassment to fade. But Britain has this tradition of carrying on resolutely, because you’re committed to something, and is therefore locked into a position where it has to be seen to execute the absurdity it doesn’t want to go through with. These are desperate times.”

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