Adam’s House of Misc

Well, I guess that’s not entirely true.  Anyway, while I felt like I was, a few months ago, about to usher in a whole new era of cranking out regular content, ranging from book reports to musings on my Australian adventure, that is yet to come.

I’ve been pretty busy with work.  And family.  And all kinds of other stuff.

Perhaps, one day, I shall have the time to sit in a coffee shop with a nice strong espresso and pour my deepest thoughts onto the Internet.  Perhaps I will, instead, pour some useful content onto the Internet, and some will like it.  In the meantime, I must work for the man.

This was breakfast this morning:

• 2 eggs “fried well done” (”over hard” if you’re in America)
• bacon (Australian Bacon: it’s like American Bacon and Canadian Bacon got together for a weekend in Vegas that they refuse to talk about)
• Sausage
• Sauteed Mushrooms
• Baked Beans
• Toast
• Grilled Tomato
• Hashbrown

Do you want to know the scary thing?  This is the typical “Big Brekkie” served at nearly any brekfast establishment here in Australia.  In fact, I could’ve ordered the “Extreme” version of this meal, which includes a lamb chop and, to satisfy the vegetarians out there, some additional sautee’d spinach to go with the mushrooms.

Anyway, while we’ve found many great breakfast places near our apartment in Balmain, I’d like to give a shout out to The Coffee Bean in Roselle, who is doing their best to make sure that I don’t lose weight, despite my walking commute.

I moved to Sydney four months ago, ostensibly to be the Site Test Lead and bring up a new team.  Nearly half the office has been involved in a secret and crazy project, and we’ve finally launched.

It’s pretty neat, and you can watch the Keynote Demo:

(pay particular attention to Athena’s picture that shows up in several slide show demos)

Anyway, it’s good to be out, although things are still crazy. The product is pretty neat, and we look forward to being able to make it available to everyone.

Why do we do what we do? Well, why not.

This book explores a lot of the decisions we make from day to day from a rigorously experimental perspective. While it doesn’t always answer the “Why”, it can frequently tell you how much, or at least confirm your suspicions. Is “Free” really better then cheap? (Yes!) How much better? Are we more likely to lie or cheat in order to get a coupon or in order to get cash? Should you offer your neighbor $20 to bring in your mail while you are out of town, or should you bake them cookies?

While the experiments are rigorous, the language is easy to read and relatively humorous. Definitely worth checking out.

Note: it appears that amazon.com has decided that folks shouldn’t link to the Kindle versions of books (or at least this version). I got it for $9.99.

It’s a day or two late to officially blog on the day, but Linda and I just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. It really does feel like the time has flown by. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve been really busy with being part of a mobile software launch or if this is just the way things go. But it’s been good.

Thanks, Linda, for marrying me, and for continuing to put up with me.