rujmah’s Dis-Collected Thoughts

Jay (http://onsitestudios.posterous.com/) put me on to this amazing house in a comment to my post about Steampunk and Oxford Museum of the history of science. Click through for the 360 degree experience.

Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science (http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/steampunk/) is hosting an exhibition of Steampunk Art as demonstrated by this image from the - somewhat scatty, but interesting - blog dedicated to the event.

The exhibition is on now until February 2010. I haven't been yet but intend to go this weekend.

The museum itself is pretty amazing and is the original site of Elias Ashmoel's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Ashmole) museum (now housed at the other end of Broad St and around the corner in the grandest of Oxford's buildings). I would advise anyone to pop in and take a look.

If you get no further than the awe inspiring staircase I am certain that you would consider the time well spent.

Former Golf Pro Merryll McElwain on Getting Started with Golf

Former golf-pro turned Financial Analyst Merryll McElwain

Why is golf so important to relationship building? Why for women especially?

Merryll: Golf is one of the only sports where you get extensive quality time and conversation with someone. On the golf course, you have several hours of conversation available in between shots to really get to know someone. Golf has typically been a business tool for men. Women have used other ways to build relationships. I hear all the time from successful women who are frustrated with how difficult it is to break into the men’s club. Golf, in my opinion, is an excellent tool to do that.

Really interesting article on using golf as a professional enhancement technique.

Personally, I'd play more if I had the money and time as I love the game anyway.

Sniff... sniff... Is that a lame excuse I smell?

Well, maybe. But, the cost is a real turn-off for me. In the UK, at least, there is definitely a high financial cost to taking it up that I think stops most from even attempting to learn the game. This, of course, does result in a certain feeling of exclusion about golf for a lot of people.

I guess the choice is if you view it as an investment. But surely that would colour your enjoyment of it? "Well, that round of golf when really badly - not much for my ROI today..."

So it must depend on what you hope to gain from it. Certainly, in some cases, the networking aspect must be brilliant.

I once suggested to my then boss and friend of a small networking business in Oxfordshire (http://www.span-networks.co.uk/) that he pay for my membership of a local golf club.

My reasoning was this: His business was based on network support and services to local SMEs. It was doing ok, but sales were based on word-of-mouth referrals and established relationships. We were part of a large church and the friend network stretched quite far. But, not quite far enough. The way I saw it was that most of the clientèle at any one of the local golf courses would provide us with leads a-plenty. Most of the members being exactly the sort of people that made the IT decisions for their company or at least had influence. Relationships with just a few could provide extra business for the company.

My boss felt that the investment was too uncertain to shell out for at that stage. Though he was convinced enough to allow my colleague and I to arrive late in the day a few times when we played an early morning round

Also, he didn't like golf.

I totally understand the decision. The investment was too precarious. So when is it not? How long will it take to see a result of the investment?

Thanks to (http://reflectionof.me)

For some reason this makes me cry. But good cry.

Found this site via Holy Kaw's posterous (holykaw.alltop.com/how-to-apologize-like-a-man-2) today and have been really enjoying it.

Watch the @channelflip video to get a brief introduction to this. My impressions were the same as John's. I thought this would be a dry humour site along the lines of Despair Inc. or the Onion, but found it full of serious and well written posts about the Art of being a man.

Really enjoyed the So You Want My Job series (http://artofmanliness.com/2009/10/28/so-you-want-my-job-police-officer/) as well as the articles on hair and personal hygiene. Will be reading through the archives as there seems to be plenty here.

Nice job @artofmanliness

As a command line junkie i really like this new google based cmd line interface called http://goosh.org

If you're not into the commnad line or don't 'get' it read Neal Stephenson's In The Begininning Was the Command Line. Available as a book or for free here: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

21CN in a nutshell

• 21CN - driving a radical simplification

• 21CN - BT's enabling infrastructure for growth

• 21CN - a world class customer experience

• 21CN - greater control, choice and flexibility

• 21CN - today's most complete, exciting and ambitious business transformation

• 21CN - implementation and industry consultation is underway

• 21CN - it applies to our international business too

I wanted to find out about 21CN in a bit more detail so I went to the source - the BT website. I saw this '21CN in a nutshell' and looked forward to a brief explanation of the topic - an everyman's run down of what to expect in the coming months from 21CN.

Would have been better to talk to the cat.

What a load of business-speak garbage! I mean, I'm as guilty as the next man of using tech-talk when a simple explanation is good enough but this page is a waste of space. The is no way on God's green earth that this can be called an 'Nutshell' explanation of a topic. It's useless twaddle. Yes, sir. I said 'twaddle', sir.

For a much more useful run-through go see SamKnows.com: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/21cn_overview.php

Now that site knows how to use a bullet list.

Met up with the founder and developer of this site BookWhen.com last night at Oxford Internet Professionals Meetup (http://bit.ly/oip-meetup). Really impressed with the subtle ease of use and basic functionality.

Developed by http://tidyapps.com this is a great example of a web app that has retained the simple nature of the original idea. Many web devs could learn from this. (including me!)

See also http://whichweekend.com - an amusingly simple utility that allows you to arrange an appropriate weekend between people.

One of my favourite TED talks. I watched this about 2 years ago and went out and bought Richard's book: Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich

My (then) 5 year old son absolutely fell in love with the book because of Richard' clear and simple illustrations. He started to try and read and would quote me keywords from the book: "WORK, daddy!" How many business books will do that?