Propping up a dodgy memory

Am most happy to report that I got to attend this evening's ACS (Australian Computer Society) meeting featuring a presentation/workshop by Dwayne Read of Strategic Systems re Agile methods of estimating for software development projects. It's close to a year since my last one.

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In this post I'd like to deconstruct (and thus ruin) a joke, and as a bonus briefly (ha!) analyse a lesson learned about shamelessly exploiting harnessing social media for fun and you've got to be kidding profit.

UPDATE 2 Feb 2012: Vlad made the Very Demotivational home page! http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/2012/02/02/demotivational-posters-vlad-the-impala/?utm_source=trans&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=transglobal

UPDATE 11 Feb 2012: Followup report.

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Today I spontaneously followed a link from a friend's blog and discovered that the Wordpress account for stephbg is not available, although it looks like someone is just cybersquatting. I found myself on a page that allowed me to check the rest of the stephbg domains and discovered that they were all available, including http://www.stephbg.com. So I bought it.

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I do not recall having done much in the way of raster image manipulation in my time, so it was with some trepidation I faced the prospect of tinkering with rock pictures beyond global changes in low-mid-high tone brightness and/or contrast. At a pinch I've increased the colour saturation, but only globally. All reasonable camera correction stuff.

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I have an interesting piece of rock possibly called Botswana agate, but I call it eyeball agate. It's rounded and shiny and has interesting things going on inside. It responded very well to an outdoor shot with lots of lovely sunshine. Mostly.

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Because rabbit1080 can make me do anything, I present to you an ancestor in the evolution of the AnglerZebra:

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The subject for this evening's ACS meeting was the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA, pronounced "Sophia"). It's a framework for determining the type of skills an individual has and level at which they operate. It seems to be a reasonably practical sort of system, somewhat akin to outcomes-based curriculum. Part of the intent is to assess the individual's suitability for particular jobs (to be redefined as skills profiles), and to more clearly define the pre-requisites and desired outcomes of training courses; the befores and afters.

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I am very pleased to report that I managed to get to the stables today, by way of work for a couple of hours. It felt a bit cosplayish to dress horsey for the office, although being an engineering firm it's not especially corporate.

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Caffeine is my friend, until it isn't. Today it was my BFF. I did a good session at work (aided by a fairly ordinary but otherwise effective coffee that may or may not have been a single shot trad macchiato with cold milk and one sugar), then I got a niggly errand out of the way, did some ordinary shopping, a spot of research, and then had an *awesome* session at RDA.

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I feel very inspired by the Square Kilometre Array and have decided to educate myself further on the subject. I am required to collect professional development points every year to maintain my ACS certification and this will take care of a goodly chunk o' that. The current working title of what will probably be a Powerpoint presentation to myself is:

The Digital Logistics of Astrophysics: A guide for dummies those who lack the good taste to have studied the relevant subjects at graduate level.

Catchy, eh? And possibly a billion parsecs from where it's going to end up. I could be horribly abusing the whole school of astrophysics, for which I apologise in advance. I start from a position of humble ignorance.

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