Ordinarily I’d say "work has been crazy" but lately life in general has been crazy.  I have an excess of things which are all scrambling for time in my conscious mind. 
My recent thumb injury is healing but the nerve damage is causing a lot of problems. Imagine constant, intense pins and needles in your thumb, not being sure if you’re holding something with adequate grip pressure and lastly severe shooting pains on the slightest touch. Yes I know, boo hoo, wah wah.
Prentice Hall was nice enough to send …

This guy made a drawing using a GPS device in a briefcase and DHL. [LINK] A process known as GPS Drawing. (Also checkout Geo-Caching for more fun with GPS devices). He claims it’s the "Biggest Drawing in the World". Great.
On first blush this seems like a neat idea. However, I can’t help wondering…
a) Why bother? You can generate those GPS coordinates and draw the picture without ever sending anything anywhere.
b) The picture is a self-portrait. I would’ve hoped if you’re going to draw a big picture on the …

This gave me a chuckle…

Dustin the Turkey has entered the Eurovision Song Contest. If you’re not from Europe, you won’t fully grasp the notion of the Eurovision Song contest. It’s a song contest, held once a year across Europe, simulcast live. Most nations (with the budget) will have a song entry and the goal presumably is to see who’s the best singer and song writing country. Of course most countries will enter in their native language and represent their country’s heritage somehow, so it’s a great cultural swap-meet.
Europeans sit glued to the television …

I drove a 1 inch chisel into my thumb on Friday whilst making a boat with my kids. Luckily they didn’t see it happen.
It went in nice and deep, my thumb’s completely numb on the corner now. Hopefully that’s not permanent.
With all the power tools in my shop it was the hand tools (chisel) that got me.
Could’ve been worse.

My book’s been for sale over a year now. It was written back in 2006 and released in 2007. I fully expected the whole "Mashup" craze to be over and done with at this point. Here we are in 2008 and I’m still hearing folks touting this as "cutting edge". The latest evidence came this week actually when a vendor presented their "web 2.0" capability as if we’d never heard of it.
Writing a book is fairly rewarding. Just the satisfaction of seeing the words you’ve toiled over printed and bound …

I’ve been trying to improve my critical thinking abilities of late and to that end, the Skeptic’s Guide the Universe [LINK] has been very helpful. It’s through this means I’ve been re-exposed to the notion of the "logical fallacy". Here’s a link if you’re not familiar with the concept [LINK].
"A logical fallacy is a false or incorrect logical principle. An argument that is based upon a logical fallacy is therefore not valid."
Example A=B and B=C therefore A=C.
A logical fallacy might be A=C and B=D therefore A=B.
There’s …

Woodgrove is a sample application that was developed by a few folks at Microsoft for Mix 2007 to show off the capabilities of WPF in a meaningful business scenario.
This week I was given a presentation by a leading consulting firm (who shall remain nameless). This deck enumerated the firms’ expertise in java centric presentation tier technology, e.g. Adobe Air, Flex, Flash and so on. Sure enough, the backdrop to one of the slides was a screenshot of Woodgrove!
Even more interestingly, the name "Woodgrove" had been REMOVED from the screenshot!!!
I …

A terrific article on the "Quackometer" here [LINK]. It talks about the lack of clinical testing and scientific evidence to backup the incredible claims made by the alternative medicine community.
Why do I care about this? Actually normally I wouldn’t care. Just that Karen has cancer.
When a loved one is ill, you’ll do anything to improve the situation. When Karen was diagnosed (over a year ago), I quickly set about researching her form of cancer, trying to uncover a potential cure or complimentary therapy.
I quickly became overwhelmed with …