Entries by Testbaudson

Unfortunately it's been a while since I listened to this audio book. I don't really recollect the details, I just have a general sense of what it was about. So this post might actually be more about what I made out of "Linchpin", and not what it is really about.

Seth Godin manages to inspire me. He read this audio book himself, and he pours all his heart into it, you can sense it. So...what is a linchpin? Godin defines it as an indispensable person within an organisation. Someone an organization can't work without, just like a real linchpin is indispensable within a complicated mechanical device.



What affected me most was his definition of art, which is quite different to the concept I had in my head. Godin says, an artist strives to create a change in other people by what he or she is doing. I previously thought it was a means of expressing yourself and finding out who you are. This is a huge difference and shook my world. I will keep both concepts and internalize them.

Godin says, for a linchpin life is a piece of art, and an artist cares about everything he or she does. So a linchpin is not indispensable just for the sake of it, not out of fear or strategy, it's a consequence of just being true to oneself. You can't simulate being a linchpin. But you might become a linchpin, as you might be that kind of person, just not having actualized your potential. In this case the book is for you.

An important issue that might hinder you from being a linchpin is your lizard brain: This is the part of your brain that hasn't evolved: It tells us to flee when it senses danger or risk, it triggers fear. I guess everyone has encountered situations where an inner voice told us we should quit. We then rationalize it and don't challenge this impulse. Godin tells us that this part of the brain is hardly of any use any more, as there are no real life threatening dangers any more. Godin tells us to sense danger, but then acknowledge and overcome it. He encourages us that we can achieve anything we dream of.

Linchpins are per se generous, they give gifts. Not in order to get anything back, like in a deal, just for the sake of giving. It's within their nature. For a linchpin, the act giving makes them richer, not poorer. By giving gifts, a linchpin creates a web of other people around him or her.

A linchpin takes action and doesn't wait for orders. A linchpin makes a difference in everything he or she does. Simple as that.

I like Godin's holistic approach, he creates the image of the linchpin, but it's not a check list that you need to go through, it's up to you how to become a linchpin. I definitely recommend this book. I want to be among people who think of their life as art, who are not reasoning and make compromises: These people inspire us and help us become another person. A very inspiring book.

Saturday was spent at FrOSCon (Free and Open Source Software Conference) at St. Augustin. It's a nice place to meet people and get up to date. The people are super-friendly, and the prices very reasonable (5€ entry fee, drinks 1€). They also had an O'Reilly booth which sold a wide selection of interesting books at discount prices, I picked up "Growing Software" for a tenner. Nice find.

I also decided to listen to a bunch of talks, here's a short review of each. Not really interesting for anyone who is not me, it's more a reference for me to revisit later. Make sure to attend FrOSCon 2011, I'll definitely be there.

A NoSQL guide (Isabel Drost)

The beginning was spent on introducing the concept of NoSQL, and use cases where relational databases are not the best solution. So far I had been unaware of the variety of implementations! The talk helped me in getting a feeling for which implementations are useful under the given circumstances.

Slides (PDF)

Clean Code (Volker Dusch)

As the original talk had been cancelled ("Spaghetti code refactoring"), Volker stepped in and talked about Clean Code. He showed some examples, and the talk transformed into a lively discussion, which again proved helpful. I now know more what tools I need to look into (PHPUnderControl, Codesniffer, etc.).

Free and Open Source Software in the Developing World (John "maddog" Hall)

John "maddog" Hall delivered. You knew he would.

Agile in a Year (Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen)

This has been the most interesting talk for me, as I've also adopted some agile habits in the past year. It brought my attention to some points I hadn't noticed before (Continuous Deployment/Releases etc.). And his Prezi slides are quite an eye catcher.

Slides (Prezi)

Verloren im Nebel - Gefahren und Risiken von Cloud Computing (Mike Liebsch)

Mike Liebsch is Ampersize from CCC, and he convincingly showed the weaknesses of Cloud Computing. Good to hear a critic during the hype.

Gute Open-Source-Projekte bestehen aus mehr als nur Code (Michael Prokop)

Some interesting aspects that make an Open Source project succeed. I can see many deficits Michael mentioned in projects I'm involved in. As a programmer it's tempting to stop caring after committing code, but any project benefits from additional care.

Two months ago, I bought a juicer to increase my vegetable intake. Here's an update.

Daily routine

First of all, I managed to juice daily, in general more than once a day.

Usually I start the day with a 0,3l glass of lemon juice, diluted with water. I buy organic lemons so I don't have to peel them, I just wash and brush them before cutting them in quarters. Normally I use half a lemon if it's a big one, or a whole small one. To fill the glass I take 0,2l of water and run it through the juicer again, in order to get the most out of the lemon, and automatically clean the juicer for the next course.

For breakfast I juice two apples and add them to my müsli. Sometimes I use a combination of apple and pear, or pure melon juice, depending on what fruit is available. I no longer use milk in my müsli, and despite having liked milk, I don't really miss it.

After work in the late afternoon, I tend to juice vegetables, almost always a combination including carrots. My favourites are carrot and red beet (with a slice of lemon), and a carrot spinach combination. Looking back, I had vegetable juice about 5 times per week.

Consequences

Fresh juice makes you feel so good. The moment you have drunk a quart of vegetable juice you already feel alive and healthy. I have never had that feeling before with bottled juice.

I would say my body feels healthier now than before. I also lost some weight, but that might also be the result of stress (working at a sustainable pace is not always easy). After having drunk a glass of vegetable juice in the late afternoon I sometimes feel so full that I skip dinner, or only have a small snack.

My vegetable intake increased dramatically, the family now uses as much as 4-5 kg of carrots a week, 2 kg of apples, 4 lemons, plus lots of vegetables like spinach (usually 500 g), celery or red beets. And this is just for juicing, of course we also eat vegetables (mostly salad) or fruit, mainly things you can't juice, like bananas, or strawberries, which were just in season.

I will later blog about our vegetable and fruit sources.

The juicer

My juicer is a Hurom Slow Juicer. After two months I'm still happy with it. It handles a great variety of fruit and vegetables, the yield is quite good, and the pulp is really dry. It's especially good at juicing roots and hard fruit, but still good at leafy greens and soft fruit.

The most annoying thing is cleaning the juicer. At the beginning I did it with joy, but now the five minutes of scrubbing get on my nerves, especially when I'm late in the morning (easily happens, juicing takes time) or tired after work. The brush that comes with the juicer is of no use in the smaller parts, I will have to get some special brushes for this.

However, you should not be lazy about cleaning, as the pores of the sieve easily clog up if not cleaned properly, which is both unhygienic and affects your juice: More juice passes the bigger pores which makes your juice pulpier, which is especially annoying in vegetable juice. I have learned that lesson.

The fact that the juicer is largely made out of plastic makes it feel less robust than I want it to be, sometimes you get some odd noises and wiggling. It's not a big thing, but still noticeable.

Finally, here's a list of what I juiced in the past two months. Any comments, questions or additions? Please feel free to leave a comment so we can get a dialogue going.

Carrots

Carrots are essential to juicing. The juicer handles them perfectly. I get organic carrots so I can just wash and brush them and keep the skin. I try to get big carrots, as tiny carrots increase the cleaning overhead. I think I get about half a litre out a kilo of carrots. You can add the pulp to salads, so nothing is wasted.

Red beets

These are surprisingly good. I also get organic ones, so I can keep the skin. But you have to make sure to clean them thoroughly. The taste is great along with carrots and a little lemon, and gives your juice a wonderful deep red colour. Never ate red beet before, so I'm happy I added more variety to my intake.

Green cabbage

Not recommendable. The juicer cannot handle them well, it tends to get clogged up. And the taste is very dominant as well.

Spinach

Another favourite. I exclusively buy organic leafy greens, as you obviously can't peel leaves. The juicer handles them well enough when adding a carrot every now and then. Otherwise the juicer tends to clog up slowly, which makes your juice very pulpy and foamy.

Parsley

Nice addition to any vegetable juice. The taste is dominant, so use them with care. Buy organic ones or grow your own (I should do it as well).

Celery

While the juicer handles them very well, the taste is a little too strong for me. It doesn't taste bad, but very spicy, and I'm not always in the mood for that. I enjoy a glass of celery juice every now and then, but it's not a favourite.

Cucumber

Very refreshing juice, I usually don't mix cucumber, maybe with some apple to cover the cucumberish taste. Also good with carrots obviously. Do you have a good cucumber recipe to share?

Sprouts

I'm not happy with juicing sprouts, they tend to make the juice very foamy and add a bitter taste. I used both alfalfa and mung bean sprouts, but prefer them in salads or sometimes along with bread.

Salad

I don't juice salad on a regular basis, but when I'm too lazy to eat a salad I juice one. It's funny to see the look on peoples faces if you tell them you drink salad. The taste is fine, I mix it with carrot. As with all leafy greens, I buy organic salads exclusively.

Apple

Some sorts are handled brilliantly (I prefer the firm and sourish sorts, like Elstar), others disappoint, especially the sweeter and softer apples. They are alright for müsli, but not for drinking, you don't get real juice, it's more like a nectar. I use apples almost daily, and I also get organic apples in order to keep the skin.

Pears

Same as apples, should not be too soft (or if soft combined with firm apples). Taste is brilliant though. At this time of the year you only get overseas pears, so I look forward to the regional pear harvest.

Lemon

I only get organic lemons. If you keep the skin, make sure to cut them in small bits, as the auger cannot handle large pieces of lemon skin. The juicer stops, you have to get it in reverse and start over. No big deal, but makes juicing less smooth. Great as an addition to any juice, as it adds an extra freshness. Especially good as lemonade (apples, lemon and mint leaves).

Orange

Not really recommendable. Oranges taste better if blended. Don't get me wrong, the juice is fine, but you lose most of the pulp, which I like in orange juice. As you have to peel oranges, I didn't bother buying organic produce.

Grapefruit

I rarely juiced grapefruits, but they taste great. I'm not bothered by the missing pulp too much here. A surprisingly good mixture is grapefruit and pineapple, which is supposed to be good for your joints.

Pineapple

I had a lot of trouble finding pineapples I liked. I bought organic ones, but they were tiny and not as sweet as I wanted them to be, and of course quite expensive. The upside is, you can juice the skin! I also bought conventional pineapples, which are surprisingly cheap (as low as 1 EUR, which gives me a bad conscience), but also very tasteful.

Grapes

Not juiced on a regular basis, as I wouldn't use conventional grapes, only organic ones. Make sure to get seedless grapes, as the seeds make the juice quite bitter.

Melon

Juicing melons is a rewarding experience, you get so much out of them. The taste is a little cucumberish, but very refreshing. I only bought conventional melons and peeled them, as organic melons are quite expensive. Someday I'll try to juice a whole organic melon, with skin and all.

Mint Leaves

Mint leaves are an essential addition to lemonade. I should learn how to grow my own.

Ginger

Very good with apple juice! Make sure to buy organic ginger, it's affordable as you only need to add very little.

In between helping a friend move and attending a 4 year old's birthday party I added another plugin I wrote to the jQuery plugin repository. It's called uiWizard. This plugin helps you make the most of screen real estate, as you can easily navigate through a stack of DIV elements by using HTML links. Imagine having a huge form with scrollbars: with the wizard you can break it down into several steps. You could also create branched forms, where the next page depends on the input of the current.

You might want to take a look at the demos I created to get a better picture. Unfortunately there is no technical documentation yet, but I thought a demo was more important. By the way, the uiWizard is already used in a product I contributed to, called Metador, which is a metadata solution for INSPIRE. You can take a look at a demo as well.

The wizard plugin is a jQuery UI widget. It has been created with jQuery 1.4.2 and the jQuery UI 1.8.2 widget factory. The uiWizard was a great reason to get deeper into jQuery UI and the widget factory. I had posted some jQuery UI resources a few weeks back, and they were really helpful during the creation. I hope to get a little deeper into the widget factory, in order to build OpenLayers widgets and contribute them to the GeoJQuery project.

Please let me know how it can be improved, especially code- and documentation-wise. I'm sure there is still huge potential for improvement.

When first hearing about this book, I wondered what a dip was. Godin says, whenever you start working on something new, you go through different phases: At first everything goes smooth because you're learning fast and it's fun. After a while, the dip comes. This is a phase where you hardly make any progress, and most people quit.

If you think the only way to handle a dip is to persevere, you're wrong. Godin's point is, that despite having been conditioned to consider quitting a bad thing to do, it is an essential behaviour if you want to be successful. During a dip, you only have two options: conquering or quitting. There is nothing in between, if you think it's worth it, find a way through, if not, just quit. According to Godin, everything in between is a waste of time.

Although we might think of a dip as an unpleasant thing, it is something that helps us to be successful: If things were easy, everybody could do it. Making it through a dip puts you ahead of competition. We should embrace the dip and welcome the challenge, while keeping in mind why it's worth going through the dip.



Another point Godin makes is this: You should strive to be the best in the world at what you do (world is a flexible term, it could also mean being the best barber in your street). It's like the other end of the long tail: it's the short head. When you are in the short head, you will be rewarded beyond all proportions, as our society adores the best.

In order to become best in the world, you need to choose your dips carefully, and find the right mixture of persevering and quitting. Most people persevere when it's easy, and quit when it gets hard, but Godin tells us that it might be worth quitting although things are easy, or it might pay off to conquer a dip although it is hard.

While I find the metaphor of the dip quite intriguing, I wished Godin had showed some recipes how to find out if a dip was worth conquering or not, or even techniques on how to make it through a dip. But as another reviewer said, "Seth Godin doesn’t claim to have all the answers. But he will teach you how to ask the right questions", at which he succeeds.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the book, but listened to an abridged audiobook version.

multitasking vs. unitasking

Recently I stumbled upon an article on multitasking, which stated that it's a common misconception that performing multiple tasks at the same time is not necessarily more efficient than unitasking. In fact, the authors say, you frequently will get worse results than with unitasking. I knew it!

As probably anyone working in an office environment, I'm frequently confronted by the demand for multitasking. Different projects need to be managed, there are estimation, analysis, coding and debugging requests, phones are ringing, questions need to be answered. It really drains you, and is counter-intuitive to my goal of working at a sustainable pace.

Now I have found an interesting approach that could help me in my ambition to do more unitasking, while still being available for other tasks. I got the idea from a comment in the above blog post, it's the Pomodoro Technique.

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique was conceived by an Italian in the 1980s, who tried to focus on upcoming exams, but was not getting anywhere due to procrastination. He came up with this idea: get a kitchen timer, set it to a specific time, like half an hour. In this period of time, do a single task. His kitchen timer was in the shape of a tomato, that's why the technique is called Pomodoro. A pomodoro is also the name of a single unit of focus time.




If you are unable to focus due to internal disturbances (wandering thoughts, need to check e-mails, etc) or external disturbances (phone's ringing, someone trying to talk to you), don't give in to the temptation to react in-depth immediately, but document it so you can address it after the pomodoro, then re-focus an continue. By this you get a better understanding of the concepts of urgency and importance (see also paragraph three of this blog post), and learn to get things done.

At the start of the day, you create a backlog of tasks. Then you pick a single task for the next pomodoro. The typical length of a pomodoro is 25 minutes, it is indivisible, so if you finish early, you should review your work, not start anything new. If you get interrupted by something important, the pomodoro is void. You can never resume a pomodoro, you have to start with a new one. If you have very small tasks, you can combine them into a single pomodoro, but this is not really recommended. After each pomodoro you have to do a 5 minute break, which is a real break where you are not allowed to do anything work related. Stand up, walk around, stretch, eat or drink, or tell someone a joke. After four pomodoros, a longer break of around 15 minutes is required.

If you manage to complete a pomodoro (which is different from completing a task), you can already consider it a success. You have managed to stay focussed, which is all you really can do. You can now measure how many pomodoros you get done in a day, it's quite tough if you do it by the book. I managed to get 7 pomodoros done last Friday (first day I tried it), but I was hoping for 10-12, so there is still some potential.

Philosophy behind the technique

There are various concepts of time: For example, you can look at it as a continuous flow, or as a sequence of events. The first approach easily suggests that time is slipping away, you're running out of time, or that time is passing. This may lead to anxiety, and puts pressure on people trying to get things done. If you look at it like a sequence of events, time does not exist independently of you, you are part of it. This puts you in control of time, not vice versa. The Pomodoro Technique tries to teach us the second perspective by having successive periods of focus time, which help you find a rhythm, which again gives you security.

Another thing the technique tries to do is to act as a focus enabler. Imagine a professional football player always tying the left shoe first, and then the right shoe. You might think of it as superstition, but it is a ritual which helps the person build focus on the upcoming event. Just like this, the winding of the pomodoro timer acts as a focus enabler. The winding symbolizes your commitment to the next pomodoro and helps you get in a flow. It is recommended to use a mechanical timer, as you would not get the same feeling with a software timer.

Resources on the pomodoro technique

The official website has everything you would want to know. There is a free e-book, a cheat sheet, template backlogs, links to user groups and so on. The e-book is definitely recommendable if you want to start using the Pomodoro Technique. Another interesting thing I found was a talk by Staffan Nöteberg, author of Pomodoro Technique Illustrated, which I haven't read. There are also billions of software timers out ther, and I couldn't stop myself from adding my own timer, using Raphaël.

Perspective
I have started using the Pomodoro Technique last Friday, and I wonder if I can keep it up. Although the creator says it is suitable for teams, I assume it will be the source of conflicts, if not the whole team is using it. But I will try to make it work, and will let you know how that plays out. I assume it will definitely work for individuals, and very likely in pairs. What are your thoughts on this technique? Is it something you would use? What drawbacks do you see? Or are you already using it? I'm curious about some feedback.

OWS are OGC Web Services. I would like to find OWS on specific topics by entering a keyword. What OWS search engines are out there? With your help, I'm trying to compile a list (now edited witinks provided by ThomasG, thank you!)

• GeoPole by SourcePole AG
  
• OWS search engine by Benjamin Chartier
  
• Google
  
• GeoMeta
  
• link list at OSGeo wiki
  

Here are some good starting points, mainly focussing on event delegation

• http://docs.jquery.com/UI_Developer_Guide#The_widget_factory
  
• http://jqueryui.com/docs/Developer_Guide
  
• http://bililite.com/blog/understanding-jquery-ui-widgets-a-tutorial/
  
• http://www.erichynds.com/jquery/tips-for-developing-jquery-ui-widgets/
  
• http://www.michaelhamrah.com/blog/2009/12/organizing-javascript-for-event-pooling-with-jquery/
  
• http://www.devpatch.com/2010/03/communication-between-jquery-ui-widgets/
  

Recently I bought a juicer, because I felt I ate too little fresh vegetables. I could never eat five carrots in a row. Or eat raw spinach. But I could juice them! After I had read some book excerpts on the subject, juicing made sense to me, and I decided to get a juicer of my own.

Why did I choose the Hurom Slow Juicer?

• First, I definitely didn't want a centrifugal juicer, as this way of juicing presumably destroys the enzyme molecules (I assume due to the heat), and makes the juice less nutritious, as the enzymes aid digestion. So I went for a slow juicer. The Hurom Slow Juicer juices at about 70 revolutions per minute. And of course, I didn't want a blender either, I wanted a real juicer.
  
• I also wanted to juice leafy greens like spinach, kale or even salad. The Hurom is able to handle these quite well.
  
• Another factor was ease of use. If you want to juice daily, it better be easy. With the automatic feeding and the self-cleaning mechanisms, the Hurom makes juicing very easy.
  
• The warranty was also an issue, when buying at eujuicers.com you'll get an additional year on top of the 10 year manufacturer's warranty.
  
• And finally, as the Hurom juicer is a vertical juicer, it doesn't take up a lot of space, compared to other juicers, like the Champion or Green Star models.
  

And here it is:



The process of juicing is quite easy, prepare your produce so it fits the feeding tube. Then put the pieces in one by one, not too fast so the juicer can make the most out of each piece. There are two exits, one for the juice, the other for the pulp. It's amazing how dry the pulp is!

The first juice I tried was carrot, celery and apple. I was quite anxious as I feared the juice could not live up to my expectations. But after the first sip I was even more enthusiastic, I had never tasted any vegetable juice that tasted this good.

Of course you're not restricted to vegetable juice. I immediately tried a lot of different juices, for example melon juice, carrot spinach parsley juice, or a lemonade, made of apples, lemon and mint leaves. Take a look at this amateurish video to see how I did it.



Of course you must juice responsibly. Don't mix fruit and vegetables (apples are ok though), and limit yourself to one or two cups a day. And juice is no replacement for food either, you don't need a juicer for healthy nutrition. But I hope this gadget keeps me consuming raw vegetables in the long run.

So far it's been great fun. If you are curious, just drop in and we'll have a cup of fresh juice together.

My daughter and I were browsing a children's book, and we came across a harbour scene. Suddenly she exclaimed wildly "A rabbit! A rabbit!". I was puzzled, what would a rabbit do at the harbour?



Then she pointed me to the right direction.

Every now and then you find a great film without expecting it. This 2009 documentary tells us about investigative journalist Michael C. Ruppert, who has become famous for his publications on Peak Oil. His theory is, that the production of oil will peak (and now has) and by this, all economical theories based on growth are now failing. This is why he has also become famous for predicting the ongoing financial crisis.



Why is oil peak affecting the economy so severely? Take the automobile: you don't need oil for the gasoline alone, so electric cars won't really solve the problems. You also need oil for the tyres, the auto body and so on. Without oil, there won't be any more automobiles! It's really hard to imagine now. In his opinion, the reduced availability of oil (in contrast to earth's growing population) will result in a severe collapse.

I like how he shows us that money is nothing but an illusion. I think people should be more aware of this. It's hard to digest, as we are surrounded by money, everywhere we go. I myself have recently been angry for a day after losing 60 EUR in cash. But did anything change? No. I just lost a few slips of paper.

Ruppert also shows that these problems are not solved by consumption, contrary to common belief. You cannot, for example, just buy organic food and pretend everything is alright. It's not sustainable. The sustainable way would be communities growing things themselves, even producing their own seeds.

A great aspect of this film is, that Ruppert is still positive despite his bleak outlook. He tries to be prepare people for the collapse, for example by strengthening local communities. He said that what motivated him was the Hundredth monkey effect. I thought that was not only a beautiful metaphor, but a powerful image supporting his vision.

Henrik Kniberg is the author of Scrum and XP from the trenches, which I had read 18 months ago. I liked his value-driven approach, while remaining pragmatic at the same time. I recently stumbled upon how he described the process of determining the identity and strategy of his company Crisp: What Is Crisp?

The people at Crisp filled two A3 sheets of paper (english translation, PDF), answering the questions what Crisp is, and how it works and why. They hung the sheets at a prominent spot, where everybody would see them. I liked that they chose to use pencils to write, so things can change whenever they feel like it, this is truly agile. It's not a metal plate or something, not "written in stone".

The reason for the success of this approach was, that everyone was included in the creation, and that the result is visible for everyone, everyday. Being constantly reminded of a common set of values is surely essential for keeping the mission and vision alive.

I also liked the way Henrik used Cause-Effect-diagrams (PDF) as a scientific base (I had reviewed the book "The Learning Organization" by Peter Senge previously, and it's still one of the best books I've ever read). And if you read on, you'll also discover the "Crisp Happiness Index", another cool idea. You can really learn a lot from these guys.

I stumbled upon this book via Hans Georg Huber's Twitter channel, Coachingbuero, where he collects links to articles on leadership, management and corporate culture. Although I generally dislike it if people unknown to me suddently start following my Twitter profile (there is a taste of spam to it), in this case it was helpful, and I absolutely recommend Coachingbuero.

The book "Sinnvoll erfolgreich" is a result of the authors' professional life: Both are consultants, they coach managers and leaders, and act as intermediaries between people and companies.



The book is divided into three parts. The first one deals with becoming a leader in your own life, the authors argue that change always begins with oneself. It's about harmonizing one's being and acting, or in other words, inner and outer success. Outer success is basically making a living, and it is necessary in order to achieve inner success, which is creating something which is meaningful to yourself. Someone who lives according to these values would not follow others just for the sake of following, as it would deeply disrupt the balance.

The middle segment is about inspiring people to work in a company. The crucial point here is that the company and the employees are a base for each other's success, again an issue of finding the right balance. If only the companies' success is important, employees will leave and in the long run, the company dies. So it's essential for a company to have values, and even more, to act according to these values. Only then can employees identify with them as if they were their own. With these values, a company becomes meaningful, and give its employees' actions meaning as well.

The last part deals with becoming a leader in the company context. In today's economy it's not really leading in the traditional sense, more like moderating change processes. It's their job to create win-win situations between employees, clients and the company itself, over and over again. The challenge for a leader is to remain authentic and real, which has been described in part one of the book. I especially liked a Chinese saying quoted here, "When winds of change blow, some build walls, others build windmills", and of course we should strive for the latter.

All in all, this book carries an important message, but somehow it sounded all too familiar, and it missed some big bang. Maybe it's because it is written by Germans, and not Americans, who have a way in simplifying and focussing that others rarely possess. So while I recommend the book, and it's a quick read and a rewarding experience in general, it didn't direct me to something really new. But it's a welcome reminder, which will prove to be helpful in day-to-day life.

In various Scrum books I have read, the authors suggested to have slack time in between sprints. As I was quite new to Scrum, I was not familiar with the concept of slack: It came across more as a relaxation period: you can't sprint all the time, and need to regain strength for the next sprint.

But there's more to slack: Tom DeMarco compares it to an open space in an 8-tile puzzle (here's an example of such a puzzle). He recalls the 1990s trend, when organizations rationalized middle management for the sake of efficiency: Using the puzzle metaphor again, this situation would equal a 9-tile puzzle with no open space at all! The result is high efficiency, but change has become impossible: People are just too busy with operational work to think about the future.

Slack is the time when you are 0% busy. You have time to reinvent yourself and experiment. Think about it in a Darwinistic way: If there was no mutation, life could not adapt to changing circumstances. Mutation is slack. Without mutation, every species would be doomed, without slack, your company is probably too.



As I have tried to express in my blog entry about Heraclitus, the only thing permanent now is change. This is why slack is seemingly becoming more and more important. Not only Google is doing it, but many others too. It's not a luxury, not about being nice to your employees, it's about assuring to still be able to compete in the future.

The book consists of four parts, the first introducing the concept of slack, and the second being about the consequences of no slack. In the third part, the author illustrates opportunities that possibly coincide with slack, with the final part being about risk management: It reminded me of an agile guideline, embrace change. After all, without risk everybody could do what your business does.

Summing up, I would definitely recommend the first part of the book. It has some great metaphors and a concise summary of the authors ideas. The rest of the book feels somehow bloated, although interesting thoughts pop up occasionally. But for the first part alone, I recommend it, it has profoundly changed my view on slack.

Funny side note: In the introduction the author says, he has adjusted the book so that an executive could read it during a flight from Amsterdam to Rome. Either he's talking about another Rome on a remote continent, or these executives must be pretty fast readers.

Do you remember my code snippet for select boxes with an undo feature? Probably not. But today I needed this functionality again, and I decided to release it as a plugin, it's called "ajaxChange". I always wanted to add a plugin of my own, and to my knowledge none like this exists.

What does ajaxChange do? This plugin is designed for select boxes that trigger an AJAX request. It will optionally disable the select box when the change event is triggered (for example, to avoid multiple AJAX requests). It will also optionally reset the selected index to its original value (for example, if the result of an AJAX request reveals that the new selected index is invalid). That's it. Check the source code for documentation.

Feel free to contribute, or just try it. It's listed in the jQuery plugin repository under ajaxChange. And you are right...it is super trivial.

EDIT: Selectoid has provided some good ideas, which led me to release an improved version 0.2 today. I also added a nerdy demo.

EDIT: The plugin was mentioned here in a selection of top 6 jQuery plugins of May 2010