Month: November 2010

Early evening drive in the Frankfurt city center.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Frankfurt is a very modern European city. Although the city was severely bombarded during WWII, most of it was rebuilt from nothing, showing the impressive German resolve to achieve great things despite tremendous obstacles.

Today this city is the financial and transportation center of Germany and the largest financial center in continental Europe. It will certainly be an interesting experience working there.

My new apartment is located on the outskirts of the city where I'll be residing weekdays starting this December. It's easy walking distance from my work which is a nice luxury these days, especially in such a busy, populated area.

Ever notice how everyone is in such a hurry and always decides to choose to take the quickest route from A to B? How about if one were to develop a new state of the art technology that allowed people to take the longest route instead?

Who knows, maybe in the future some kind of paradigm shift could take place which would make people think differently, e.g. no need to rush, remain relaxed, etc. I wonder if such a product could ever become popular and would sell very well in the end.

I better put a patent on this clever idea before it's too late. In the meantime, don't tell anyone.

While reading an interesting book about producing reliable software releases called Continuous Delivery, I came across the following excellent idea:

"If it hurts, do it more frequently, and bring the pain forward."

If certain tasks of releasing software make it a painful process, for example last minute tests which seem to break the product right before launch, then the idea is to figure out a way to automate all tests and 'release' the latest version after every single change.

How often has this inefficient so-called fact of life just been accepted as part of the deal, when in fact with a little logical thinking it does not have to be so. The extra time and energy spent in improving this might result in a temporary pain increase, but in the end the pain will simply go away.

Deal with the hurt by rubbing some sand in the wound so that after a while it will not hurt any more.

The challenging part is convincing the rest of the organization that this is so.

Now that winter time has started, it's much lighter in the morning, but the early darkness is killing for the fun-loving afternoon golfers like me.

The low lying sun makes it impossible to follow the ball, and with so many leaves everywhere, even the most perfect drive down the middle of the fairway can disappear forever underneath the right-sized leaf which engulfs the unknowing little white sphere at the last moment.

So you hit a mighty drive and your first reaction is, "Felt pretty good, maybe a slight draw, did anyone see where it went?" Slight pause and shaking heads from my two fellow players, "Nopes, didn't see it, could've gone anywhere..."

That's when you are thankful upon reaching the eighteenth hole that you still have one ball left to make the final putt of the day, right at the moment when the skies darken even more quickly than you can finish the hole.