Month: January 2018

Drinking a Thank You, Russell! by Troon Brewing

I am drinking a Thank You, Russell! by Troon Brewing at Rocky Hill, NJ.

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Beer: Thank You, Russell!
Style: Rye IPA
Alcohol by volume (ABV): 7.8%
IBU: 0
My rating: 4.75/5
Venue: Rocky Hill, NJ, Rocky Hill, NJ
Brewery: Troon Brewing, Hopewell, NJ, United States
Brewer's notes: 7.8%- Many of you know Russell as the sexy dude with a bowtie calmly navigating the dining room and bar at Brick Farm Tavern, implacable and unflappable even under the busiest conditions. He's become a very close friend of ours over the last year so it is with great remorse that we have to wish him farewell at the beginning of February as he embarks on his next journey. In anticipation of that, we gave him free rein over this recipe and he decided he wanted a rye-heavy IPA. We are so happy with his decision! He then selected his favorite hops and given how singular this occasion is we decided to make it even more special by adding them in the largest quantities that we've done to date, 8.5#/ bbl. Woah! Once you taste it I think you'll be thanking Russell too 🙂

Is Blogging Back?

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I've seen a few older blogs mention this sentiment and for myself, I have been writign on my own domain since 2005. I am excited about all the attention that seems to be focused on owning one's own content and the disatisfaction with social media. My only complaint is that I wish that these older blogs supported IndieWeb technologies like Webmentions. Webmention is a simple way to notify anyother website when you mention it on your site. And for the receiving website's perspective, it's a way to request notifications when other sites mention it.

CJ Chilvers linked to the article referenced above and added a bit about what form of blogging works:

I’ve been thinking about this in my own life and career for the past month and I think I’ve come up with a theory: one is a business model, one is a life model.

I've done both long form and link-style short posts. I enjoy them both.

When I first started this web site I used affiliate links to generate just enough revenue to cover my hosting cost. My posts were not focused on revenue generation. I didn't go out of my way to increase click rates etc. but the blog thrived. For a while. Then traffic declined. It's never returned to it's former. I could blame it on the switch to social media but it could also be that my content is not high quality.

Either way, I am hoping the pendulum swings back toward blogging and the decentralized web.

Photo by Christopher Skor on Unsplash.

Distractions In An Open Office

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Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash

In the mid-to-late 1990s I worked as web developer at a major financial data services and publishing company which was an early adopter of the open workspace concept. We were seated two per desk, side-by-side, with another desk facing that one, with no dividers. I could see over the top of the monitor, looking directly at my office co-worker (who was my direct supervisor). The entire floor (there were two) was filled this way, with the desk arranged diagonally to maximise space usage. There were about two large team-sized conference rooms per floor each made entirely out of glass. Along the wall were a a half dozen smaller all-glass meeting rooms where one could meet to have a one-on-one conversations. None of these rooms were sound shielded.

Along the wall, we had televisions displaying the latests news broadcasts from employers cable TV channels. The restooms had speakers broadcasting the latest financial news form the employers AM radio station. The kitchen provided free food all day long but we had no place to sit and eat. I ate lunch at my desk. Or attempted to. Eating at your desk means working at your desk. I would dump most of my free mostly uneaten meals into the trash.

There were no breakrooms. There were no plants. No places to make private phone call. No areas to retreat to, to be by onself. To shut it all out, I sat alone in my car in the parking lot. Sometimes, another coworker would organize a 15 minute walk through the streets of the local neighbourhood.

This was in the days before smartphones and MP3 players. I had no music streaming services and headphones to blot it all out.

I loved the work. It was the early days of web commerce and publishing and I was doing fun work building templating systems and an early form of content management systen. But the work environment was wearing on me. After eleven months I quit and launched my first consultancy.