ianvisits's comments

The only known photographs of mathematician and computing pioneer Ada Lovelace have been acquired by the UK's National Portrait Gallery just before they were expected to be sold to a private buyer.

Probably not.

https://group.met.com/en/mind-the-fyouture/mindthefyouture/n...

Teaspoons are narrower than forks -- if a fork fits in, then so would a normal teaspoon.

There is a project at the moment to expand TfL's contactless payments to most stations across the southeast of England.

Further expansion will be dependent on government funding.

At a guess - I suspect they are assessing risk of investing time/money in installing your product into their company and how they would deal with issues if you are off ill one day or want a holiday.

You need to be honest about your company size, but turn it into a positive, such as sole developer, backed by a third-party support package (assuming you have one), or that the company is expected to grow fast, so they wont be relying on just one person to fix things etc.

Pitch it really well, and depending on the type of customer, they may even end up wanting to invest in your company to help you scale up faster than you could expect (yes, I have seen that happen with start-ups).

Don't be afraid of awkward questions like these, as they will crop up, and each time you gain experience in handling the RFP style enquiries, and with experience comes improved skills to close those sales deals.

I will comment on this.

Yes, I used the term troll from my background many years ago writing about patent trolls, so maybe it irks people, but people who complain about one word in a much longer article are maybe... missing the point.

Anyway, as you will probably notice from the article, I am not "picking the first photos that is convenient", but being sent the banner images etc by event organisers to promote their events.

Yes, I can go back with a form for them to fill in and confirm they have copyright clearance etc., and doubtless they'll check, and confirm they have from photo agency X, and maybe I should also check that the photo agency has issued clearance, and that they themselves have validated that the photographer has verified they definetly took the photos... etc etc etc.

You can see that there has to be a point at which you accept that someone in the chain is being honest.

The issue isn't me nicking photos that are convenient, but accepting that a photo sent to me to use in an article/event listing has been cleared by the PR/marketing dept that is sending it to me.

The majority of problems come from small orgs who may seem to lack an awareness of copyright, so to protect myself, I am now taking the decision not to use their images unless I have built up trust in the sender.

However, even large orgs have been caught out - one example was the large theatre that paid for a license to use an image in a marketing poster, only for the stock agency to object to it being used on my website because the license (weirdly) only permitted use in their publications and no where else.

That's a large org trying to do the right thing, and I am trying to do the right thing, and still getting hammered by... well, yes, they're copyright trolls.

"some of which goes to some dubious places."

As Wikipedia would say... [citation neeeded].

A leason I learned many long years ago is not to treat a customer cancelling a subscription as a lost customer, but as a customer going on holiday from you.

When you make the cancellation process smooth and friendly, if that customer is reconsidering at a later date, they will remember that their last interaction with you was a pleasent one.

If it's hard to unsubscribe - then their last memory is a bad one, and it's even harder to persuade that person to resubsubscribe again.

This is admitedly more applicable to industries with a lot of annual churn between suppliers - such as insurance, internet providers, power suppliers etc -- but it should be a rule of thumb for all companies.

I would love a faster dishwasher -- not because I need the dishes washed faster, but becuase I live in an open-plan flat with the kitchen and living room in the same space, and anything to reduce how long I have the dishwasher churning away would be wonderful.

Fortuanately, I tend to get away with a 30-min wash for most days, but someone please invent a 10-minute dishwasher please :)

I bought one as it makes it easier to control my lighting -- and that's all I use it for.

I also however changed the trigger from Alexa to Computer.

Which makes watching episodes of Star Trek... interesting.

It's a very US centric list, omiting a lot of UK games that were the first their field.

Such as Ant Attack - may be the first isometric game for personal computers.

Chess in 1K for the ZX81

The Hobbit - first to accept sentences for the game parser.

etc.

Nando's isn't a British chain though.

No one really knows what causes them - plenty of theories but not facts - and that's why they are both exceptionally facinating as to how they form, and yet also utterly terrifying.

As a saying it's been around for over 500 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_throw_the_baby_out_wit...

Brits haven't been subjects since 1982. I am all for people not liking the monarchy, but at least get the facts right.

Everyone will find different things work for them individually, but as a general rule of thumb you need to distract your mind so that it is too busy doing something else to think about work.

For me personally, that means going for a walk.

There's a theory that the brain can't do highly complicated thinking while also focusing on the complicated effort of walking, so while we often say "I'm going for a walk to think about something" and come back having had a good long think, the "day job" part of the brain is now focused on walking, while the more subconcious aspects are doing the thinking.

That not only gives me different solutions and ideas, it builds fitness, shakes up sluggish muscles and boosts oxygen to the blood/brain by the physical activity.