I watched a couple of games in the pub today. Food and cider on tap, people from both teams in the pub giving it atmosphere. Reminded me of doing the same thing last year during the World Cup, with all different nationalities, so good!
Big screens in your living room give you a good view, but I like the pub football time.
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I have worked in many programming languages on many computers large and small. Some good, some bad. So I have experienced plenty.
Well Apple are winning with great product design right now but they are doing a great job with another product- the tools they provide to create iOS software. They are excellent and helpful. Like a well designed car feels good to use do does XCode and the rest of the kit from Apple
Filed under: Software Development and Delivery, Software development tools | Leave a Comment »
It’s going to put us all through a decision. Apple are well under way with it for iOS and many other companies are adopting it. – Putting all our files on remote servers(the Cloud). Then we can synchronise different machines from it, our files are available everywhere, and when our computer fails, we don’t have to panic about whether we backed up.
But, all of our files held by someone else? Can we trust them? What if they misuse our files? What if THEY lose them? Some of these things have already happened.
I’ll tell you what I think – we’ll have to treat it like banking. We put our money in banks for them to look after for us. We trust them, but they do fail. So we spread the money around different banks to reduce the risk, and we keep some at home too, for emergencies.
So spread, and duplicate too, your important files into different clouds. Keep critical copies at home. And always think about what happens when your Cloud supplier(Bank), no matter how unlikely, fails!!
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Not everybody handles anger well, and I was reflecting on Alex Ferguson’s success. It always strikes me that he often seems angry, and he is well known for his “hair dryer” dressing downs of players at half time. – Another expression of anger.
Yet he is very successful. So he could be an example of expressing anger in a very positive way, like using anger at losing to drive for success. Anger can be destructive, but it can also lead to determination and drive to correct and improve. Maybe that is what Alex Ferguson depicts so well.
Filed under: Football Manager, Life, Thoughts, Philosophy, Management, Premier League | Leave a Comment »
In my Clever Fergie post I was right it seems to question his mind games with Manchester City. It did not pay off and maybe wound up the very talented players that City has to show him how important they are?
Football remains forever fascinating…
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The Biggest Club Game in World Football- he said. And he pointedly ignored the upcoming game against Man City by saying that. Is it clever though? Often Managers and coaches wind up opponents. But, managers also get better results by winding up their players so they perform with more fire, more determination.
So the question is, was Fergie being clever winding up the City players, indirectly? Does this mind game work? We shall see.
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.. and yet people are moved, saddened by his passing. – Because he was so much more. Not just his involvement in great design at Apple, giving us delightful products. Not just because he was an inspiring presenter, a great salesman, who knew how to make you want a product.
- He was key in giving us electronics products that we don’t just find useful, they are products that we have real affection for. iPhone, iPod, Mac, iPad… most people who have them really love those products. Not just usability but great style and looks.
Windows PCs you have to use, Apple products you want to use, and Steve Jobs made that. His presence will be missed.
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There was a time when you could watch top flight football from the UK on normal TV. BBC and ITV. No satellite subscriptions, you didn’t have to go to a pub to watch. When you saw news items about a match, they showed the action, – they weren’t barred from doing that.
Is it better now? Did the money that poured in from exclusive licensing of TV coverage make football better? What have we gained? In Germany the local communities, the fans, own the clubs. Isn’t that the way it should be. Isn’t it the fans that count in the end?
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There are some songs that stand the test of time. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd combines great lyrics with great music. The analogy with Michael Jackson and the trial of his doctor is striking and the lyrics contain references to giving a stressed out performer drugs to keep him relaxed and functioning to perform:
” I hear you’re feeling down, I can ease your pain”…
“Just a little pin prick, they’l be no more aaaaah, but you will feel a little sick” …
“That’ll keep you going through the show”…
“There is no pain you are receding” …
“I have become comfortably numb” …
Money, an anxious pop star, a doctor ready to supply the drugs for money. The easing of the pain.
- Pink Floyd’s art, or real life??
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You know, the little stick men running around in the original Football Manager on the Spectrum. Sometimes people ask if the animation was a fixed set, or even believe it was. Well no, it wasn’t, there was an infinite number of possibilities of what could happen and the individual players were making decisions moment by moment what to do next. I did that deliberately so you would be in suspense.
Some people believed you could predict what was going to happen but the program code did not do that. Of course animation was limited in those days, and it was an add on to a strategy game to spice it up more. So, in some ways it wasn’t sophisticated. But within the memory limitations it did plenty. So I am proud of the design and code especially for it’s impact on the fun of the game.
Filed under: Addictive Games, Football Manager, Games Design, Kevin Toms, Software Development and Delivery, The 80s | 1 Comment »
