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More than Wordles can say

This is a post about multiple wordles and the point at which they hit diminishing returnles. If you don’t know what Wordle is, this post is not for you and also, how is life back in 2019? Just so you know things are about to be terrible, maybe forever. Ever since we all collectively lost […]

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Cultural fit and diversity

Something which has become something of an established practice across the tech industry is the “cultural fit” interview. Typically the last stage of a recruitment process, in this interview the candidate meets some people from the business (either their own team or people they will need to collaborate closely with),  who will ask them a […]

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Frivolous training

I first got interested in training as a discipline and unusual ways of getting people to engage with potentially difficult material as a student volunteer with Nightline. Training sessions there were over two intense weekends, and by design we broke up sessions on bereavement, abuse and other heavy topics with stupid games which were less […]

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How many chocolate fingers are needed to cover the sides of different sizes of cake?

I couldn’t find the answer online so I measured it myself. I’m not a food blogger so I’m allowed to provide the information without a rambling story about my childhood. Imperial sizes are in brackets – I’m aware a lot of people still measure cakes in inches. 114g boxes of Cadbury Fingers contain 22 fingers […]

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Thames Path 5

Well, it’s been a while. In the 19 months since I last did a stretch of my off-again, still off-again project to walk the entire Thames Path national trail, Robin moved to Cumbria which made it much harder to arrange walking days than when he used to live in my spare room. On the other […]

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My biggest flaw

My biggest flaw is how much I hate interviewers who ask the question “what is your biggest flaw?”. It makes for some really awkward interviews. Not really. But ever since I was first asked it in a training interview during industrial placement prep at Gregynog during my degree, this question has always put me on […]

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Wonder Syndrome

I’ve met a few developers over my career (citation needed). People are infinitely varied and all that jazz, but I feel able to say with some confidence that most of the really, really good programmers I’ve known divide into two categories. The first kind, who I’m going to call “Malcolms” after someone who scared the […]

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On gender, pronouns and other uncontroversial topics

I admit upfront that I’ve not always been left-aligned on issues of gender identity. In the dim and distant past of my student days, I had friends who attended BiCon every year and I used to make fun of them when they came back with their namebadges covered in stickers to allow them to fully […]

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Thames Path 4

In January 2021 the country went into lockdown once more, and the intricacies of home schooling on top of everything else meant that Robin and I were unable to find a slot to go walking for some months. It wasn’t until near the end of April that we picked up where we had left off. […]

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Thames Path 3.5

Our group expands – lunch at an hostelry – clear skies – our group contracts – homeward Our third jaunt along the Thames Path ended at Newbridge, less than 5 miles from home. I had been thinking for a while that it would be nice to involve more members of the family in one of […]