October London Ruby User Group

Patrick Ruby, Work Related

Last night I attended the October meetup of the London Ruby User Group. I’m glad to see that it is an active community in London and last night apparently held the biggest turnout with about 40 (ish) people turning up. The meetup hosted two guest speakers who both spoke about DSLs (a popular topic that apparently came up in August as well). The first speaker, Robert Brooks took an admittedly less technical approach and spoke of the impact that they had at his work for some new shared department between the House of Commons and House of Lords, where he is using both Ruby on Rails and Ruby in several ways. The second speaker, Damien Turner gave a little bit more of a hands on approach to DSLs as inspired by a number of blog entries by Jay Fields.

Like most English meetups, eventually the night turned to the pub where you got to chat and meet the rest of the attendees. Interestingly a lot of them were java programmers who either wanted to use ruby, or are using ruby in some support form, but a few are doing ruby or Ruby on Rails as part of their day job. I thought the community was great, and I’ll definitely be trying to make it along next month. If you want to come along, check out the LRUG website or check out the next event on the London upcoming site.

The London Zoo

Patrick London To Do, UK Life

AnteaterLondon’s temperature has dropped significantly over the last few weeks and I can’t help but think that the end of summer is truly gone. Thankfully yesterday’s weather was quite good despite the cold temperatures with generally cloudless blue skies and so I thought it would be nice to take a trip out to the London Zoo. I have heard many great things about the zoo so it was off to Camden for the morning.

The Zoo is nestled inside Regent’s Park with the entrance walking distance from the Camden Town tube station. The zoo is not as big as many other ones around the world, but considering where it is located and the number of animals they have on show, it still occupied a good part of the day and you could easily spend more time here if you lazily walked around.

Butterfly DisplayWe managed to see almost all of the animal enclosures and I think that next time I would skip the Aquarium part, especially considering it is nothing like Underwater World back home, or that the London Aquarium is on the other side of town.

I really enjoyed the caterpillar-shaped butterfly enclosure that was filled with so many of them that more often than not a butterfly would land on you. The pink flamingos were also quite a nice site, and even more so, the strangely pink-tinged White Pelicans (who apparently turn pink in spring).

LemurThe zoo even has a couple of native Australian animals such as the Kangaroo and the Emu, but like at most zoos I’ve been to, the Kangaroo was simply nestled comfortably in one corner of the ground soaking up some rays.

They also run a number of shows throughout the day, and we caught the ‘Animals in Action’ one where we could see animals doing all the things that they normally do, including a South American Macaw, a Vulture, a number of rats, and a Lemur. Each of the animals involved obviously looked extremely well trained with a couple of them even really taking to all the attention and the limelight of the stage.

OwlThe trip to the day was a great thing to do when you’re in the middle of London and feel like escaping all the people (though be prepared to be surrounded by screaming or crying children instead). There’s even in the middle of building the Gorilla enclosure that will be finished in 2007 sometime which is already looking quite impressive.

Lucky 7 @ Westbourne Park Road

Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

Lucky 7.jpgLucky 7 is another restaurant run by Tom Conran (son of Terence Conran), just down the road from the other restaurant (The Cow) I visited a while back. Unlike its more ritzy sister, Lucky 7 goes for the other end of the spectrum, with an outlandish attempt to recreate the classic American diner, complete with tack memorabilia, red leather seating booths and Michael Jackson music (all the good classic ones mind you) blasting in the background.

California Burger with Onion RingsThe menu is simple with all types of burgers the main staple with sides of shoestring fries, onion rings and various delicious shakes and American beers (the first time I’ve seen Sam Adam’s beer served in the UK). The burgers are massive (almost on the verge of impossible to pick up) and it’s obvious from their inhomogeneous form that they are made on the premises. The burgers are not the cheapest ones you can find, but their wide variety and freshness barely justify the steep prices. Their sides are generously sized and the freshly made and authentic onion rings I had were truly tasty. The shakes are also pretty good (though you’d expect them to be for their price) and can be ordered in three types of thicknesses and a few different flavours.

I’m not sure if you can book ahead in this place, but its small size and popularity certainly mean this place is busy. I ate here for a late lunch (3pm) on a weekday and I still had to share one of the booths with other people.

Lucky 7The service I received was friendly and quite prompt, though once again it would be hard to give poor service when your customers are sitting right in front of you.

Details: Lucky 7
Found On: 127 Westbourne Park Road
Contactable On: 020 7727 6771
Highlights: Cheesy American diner serving gourmet burgers (at gourmet prices) all served with truly home made and delicious sides. Also serves the widest selection of American beers I’ve seen in the UK so far. Booths are great for a party of four or six.
Improvements: It’s a little bit more pricey than a trip to GBK. If you go a couple or greater than six, you will have trouble getting seats.
The Kua Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Galvin-ised

Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

Yesterday I went out for a friend’s 30th birthday for a leisurely lunch lasting well over four hours. We ate at a fantastic and affordable French place called Galvin, tucked away by a non-descript entrance on Baker Street. Our three course lunch cost only £16.50, extended to a fourth with the intense chocolate birthday cakes baked specially for the two celebrants of the day.

The interior is beautiful and surprisingly spacious, with simple white clothed tables and wooden chairs inviting guests to sit down. I’m surprised by the large number of staff present, even when the restaurant was not at full capacity. Given the large number of staff, I found the service slightly off that day with barely anyone around when you wanted something, and several times a number of dishes either not making it to the table at the same time, or several of the wrong dishes arriving instead.

Having said that, I found the food simple, very well presented and wickedly delicious. Admittedly I shouldn’t have been too surprised given two brothers trained at Michelin starred restaurants own the restaurant.

Details: Galvin Bistrot De Luxe
Found On: 66 Baker Street, London W1
Contactable On: 020 7935 4007
Highlights: Extremely affordable Prix Fixe menu served in a spacious traditional looking restaurant.
Improvements: Service for the day wasn’t too bad, but not exactly perfect.
The Kua Rating: 8 out of 10

Top Tips With User Stories

Patrick Agile, Work Related

Last night I heard Mike Cohn speak about Agile Planning and Estimation. Mike’s a great speaker who I highly recommend to you seeing, but you may know him from his company, Mountain Goat software, or his book, User Stories Applied.

Though I’m lucky enough to practice many of the items he spoke about, my most favourite emphasised points of the night included:

  • Focus on accuracy over precision;
  • Avoid measuring items that are more than a magnitude apart; and
  • Measure size over duration.

Blink and You’ll Miss It (Or I Think I Just Did)

Patrick Books

BlinkOne of the books that has been on my list for a while is Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. This short book written by Malcolm Gladwell helps you think about the way that you think and the role that your subconscious thoughts play. The book describes many scenarios in which over-thinking problems leads to problematic solutions and other examples demonstrating that only a short amount of information is enough to make the best decisions.

I like the way the author gave many examples but I found I came away without a clear message about when you should follow your “instincts” or when searching for additional information can help. The book left me with an impression that when you are an expert in sometime, there are subtle nuances that allow you to make quick choices about them, and trying to reproduce them by artificial means (such as a process or a program) is near impossible.

It’s a great book and admittedly easy to read. I feel I need to read it again to get a better insight into how I can apply this in every day life but I feel I can still recommend it.

TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10

Conran Butler’s Wharf Chop House

Patrick London To Do, Restaurants, The 'He Who Knows' Challenge, UK Life

Butlers Wharf Chop HouseThe last time I had completed any of the “He Who Knows Challenge” was a very long time ago, so I thought it was time to pick one more off the list. This time around I thought it might be good to carry it out with the one other person who is also supposed to complete this challenge, so Ben, Michelle, my sister and I went out for lunch on Saturday to complete this next challenge.

Deciding on which Conran restaurant was the difficult part, with so many in London to choose from, and each offering different types of cuisines and experiences. In the end we picked Butler’s Wharf Chop House and though I wouldn’t necessarily say this restaurant is based on any of most extravagant of Conran’s designs, its decor complements the contemporary English dishes on offer. The booking process was extremely efficient, one morning I submitted a booking form online at about 7am, and at about 9:30am, someone called from the restaurant confirming the reservation.

The pictures on their site do little justice for the restaurant, with one of the highlights really being the wharf-front views, giving terrace diners unobstructed views of Tower Bridge itself. We were fortunate that London gave out what is probably the last summery days we’ll see, really lighting up Tower Bridge and giving us a splendid backdrop for a lazy Saturday lunch.

Looking out from The Chop HouseThe menu is straightforward with set prices for both a two or three course meal and a reasonable variety of dishes to choose from in all courses (in addition to the daily specials). Certain dishes have supplementary fees and you can order side dishes at an additional price if you like. We all ordered different things so it was great we could compare and contrast the different dishes. We started the lunch by ordering two courses, leaving ourselves to see how rich or substantial each dish might be before placing the dessert order. Even though each dish was reasonably sized, we all decided at the end of the main course to order dessert and I think we were all pleased we did.

Here’s a list of the things that I ordered (and apologise that I didn’t take a picture of the entire menu so the detail is not as accurate as it could have been):

I really enjoyed the afternoon spent with everyone, and the great weather really set a wonderful backdrop for the great conversation despite all the tourists walking by. I certainly couldn’t afford to do this every week but it is definitely a great place to indulge for a special occasion.

Details: Butler’s Wharf Chop House
Found On: Butlers Wharf Building, 36e Shad Thames, London SE1 2YE
Contactable On: 020 7403 3403 or via their website
Highlights: Contemporary and extremely high quality English cuisine served in affable surroundings looking out at Tower Bridge and the Thames. The food was delicious and extremely well prepared boosted by an extensive wine list and the experience from reservation to finishing up was excellent.
Improvements: It would be nice to have the current menu on offer up to date on their website.
The Kua Rating: 9 out of 10

Stopping Spammers

Patrick Website News, Work Related

No SpamAnyone who has owned a blog using some standard blogging software will have dealt with horrible spam at sometime. It’s a frustrating and time consuming annoyance, and many people give up to the torrents of spammed comments or trackbacks. Obviously there must be some economic reason for spammers to continue, but I do (and I’m sure that you too) hope they pay dearly for it in karmic retribution later in their life.

I’ve tried several attempts to stop spammers, but most techniques require additional work. I considered the Captcha plugin, that is a popular tool many people adopt, but forces real commenters to work more (by typically reading an image and inputting some numbers or characters) and reduces the accessibility of your website.

My most recent attempt which seems to be working (so far) is the Akismet plugin for WordPress. For other wordpress users out there, I suggest giving it a go.