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An Impressive Tag

October 2, 2007 by wroolie Leave a Comment

Mobile 015I’m not really a great fan of graffiti, but you can’t help but admire some of it. In my area growing up, you saw of lot of it. There’s the tame stuff you find in toilet stalls or phone boxes which just seem to be a waste of time.

But some graffiti is truly impressive. I don’t mean impressive in a “Beat Street” sort of artistic way– I mean impressive because you don’t know how someone was able to do it. In San Diego growing up, you would see it on freeway overpasses which must have been very dangerous for whoever carried out the vandalism. Whoever it was, they weren’t thinking small.

For the last month, I’ve seen another impressive bit of graffiti from the train each morning in Reading on my way into London. It’s been there for at least a month. Someone has somehow painted the largest tag I’ve ever seen on the top one of the tallest buildings in the center of Reading. Have a look at the picture.

Like I said, it’s been up there for at least a month (probably longer) and I don’t know how the landlord will be able to paint over it without some pretty expensive painters with mountain climbing equipment.

StencTheCup But, really, how was someone able to do this without being noticed? I have no idea what it means and it isn’t that legible (I think it says “Stenc the CUP”?).

I would complain about it being an eyesore, but the reality is that Coca Cola (or any other big business) would put a billboard up there in a second if they could. If I had to choose, I would prefer it be this daredevil vandal instead.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Just another Rat

September 27, 2007 by wroolie 2 Comments

I’m back in London in another contract. This is the first time I’ve actually gone back to somewhere I already worked before. It seemed easy– I already know the people and I already know the apps. It’s actually a lot worse. It’s like stepping back in time. All growth that’s happened since leaving may not have even taken place.

I’m in the get-up, go-to-work, go-to-bed loop again. The only bright side this time is that I get to ride my motorcycle to the station. I’m still on the train.

A few weeks ago, I tried to ride all the way into London on the motorcycle. My hope was that it would be faster and easier than taking the train. After all, I don’t need to worry about traffic with the motorcycle. The ride was a disaster. London bikers are maniacs and will make use of the smallest gaps between cars. I tried to keep up and even squeezed between some cars with inches to spare, but it was too hairy for me. So, I’m sticking to the train.

For the next six months, I’m another rat in the rat race. I get to stand in the crowd at platform 2–indistinguishable in my suit and permanent frown.

Six months.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Rants

Do I trust Google?

September 4, 2007 by wroolie Leave a Comment

I spent last week moving my wroolie.co.uk domain over to Google Apps. I read about moving your “life into the cloud” in a Scott Hanselman post a few weeks ago and wanted to give it a try.

This is a great feature which will allow me to host all of my email, documents, calendar, etc for my business domain from the gMail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar application. I’m really impressed with how well it works and was planning on moving the really important Overpass.co.uk domain information over based on that success.

But then Click Online on BBC News did a story this weekend about why Google is storing so much information about us. I’ve always known about Google and privacy issues, but chose to ignore it. You can read the article here.

Then I also found “Master Plan”, a short movie about Google which lasts only a few minutes. It speculates about the deeper motives behind Google’s give away. Look at the Master Plan here: http://masterplanthemovie.com/.

I love the Google Apps functionality and would really like to have my email available to me wherever I go, but now I wonder: Is it worth it to give Google all my information?

Filed Under: Blogging, Software Dev & Productivity

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