Damn fool jibber-jabber

I have jabber up and running for my domain.  This means that if you're using jabber for IM then adding andrew@ducker.org.uk will allow you to chat to me.  Huzzah!

That includes all of you google chat users (and gmail users) - add andrew@ducker.org.uk to get me on there.

If you're _on_ ducker.org.uk and want a three minute hand getting set up then you know where to find me...

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-28-2008

• Believing that nurture outweighs nature makes you more likely to do well
  As before, the intervention group became more likely to subscribe to malleable beliefs as a result of the teaching, and the average maths score of that group rose, whereas the control group continued to do badly. The greatest improvement was found in the children who had started with a fixed view of their abilities and been taught to think of it as malleable: fixity is bad for performance. But above all, the sequence was clear: change the belief, you change the motivation, and that improves the grades.
  (tags: education nature nurture)
• No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative â˜Passive Housesâ™
  New homes are incredibly energy conserving. I hope they catch on.
  (tags: energy green solar design housing)

From the department of unhelpful advice

Apparently standing behind Scott as he flees from a be-clawed monster in Resident Evil and advising him to "just give it a hug" is not useful.

Somewhat less than a thousand words

At a company thingy a few months back we had to do a text portrait of courselves.  Coming up with three words/phrases that we thought that our family/friends would use to describe us, that we'd use to describe ourselves, and our colleagues would use to describe us.  Having just bumped into the folder from the event, I'm sharing it with you.  And there's nothing you can do about it!

Family/Friends: Supportive, Smart, Easily Distracted
Self: Intelligent, Geeky, Easily Frustrated
Colleagues: Smart, Enthusiastic, Loose Cannon (this third one from when I grabbed a couple of colleagues at a coffee break and asked them)

All of which sums me up pretty well - I'm smart, lazy and impatient - I hate things that make life harder, I want to make them better, and I get fed up and bored if I'm stuck with them.  Oh, and I may well put early versions of things out there before they're as tested as they could be.  Still, as they say: release early, go do something else instead.