cat /dev/brain

The layout of your source code repositories will affect your company’s org chart, and if you get the first wrong, your ability to deliver software will suffer.  Conway’s Law states that your software architecture will naturally match your company’s org chart. I expand the law and believe that your source code repository structure will naturally…

The windows rattled, that one picture hanging on the wall tilted again, our conversation stopped. We did not notice. Growing up beside a busy Canadian National railway, trains were a part of life. The engineers blew their whistles as they approached the road crossing, and the roar of the diesel engines as they made their…

The act of writing Code and writing Prose is the same. They both use the same mental processes, have language constructs and audiences, and require significant focus to be effective. I’ve written code and countless technical docs and articles for well over two decades, and lately started writing fiction. This article has been percolating in…

After an extended break due to other priorities, I’m back at slowly installing more ribs. On the right is the back section of the boat with seven new ribs in a row. It’s exciting to see a small section that’s completely held together with new ribs. We broke three ribs trying to get the last one…

With my Dad’s help, and that of his well equipped shop, we manufactured almost 60 ribs for the boat, close to 500′ worth of ribs! I first ran the 1″ planks through the bandsaw and ended up with (mostly) straight strips of 1″ x 1/2″ by 8′ long ribs. One pass on each side through…

Finally some new wood went into this boat. I took a day off last week and installed the new stem and keel. I don’t have a good picture but it certainly feels like we’re making some progress. The keel and stem are nailed from the bottom, and every hole has to be drilled for the copper…

First bend was successful, here’s a gratuitous picture of the wood on the form. It bent quite easily after fifteeen minutes of steaming, 1/4″ thick. You can never own enough clamps!

The past few weeks have not been great in terms of boat restoration. Every project has its highs and lows, and last weekend saw the project in a state of despair. Lighting a match under the boat seemed like a viable option. Before I get into details, I purchased some quarter-sawn white oak for the…

I finished stripping the bottom a few weeks ago, which uncovered some “interesting” prior repairs, some of which need to be redone. The hole is quite obvious, and now that the outer keel and outer stem are gone, the rot to stem and inner keel are really obvious. I managed to carefully pry out the…

Here’s the stripper hard at work. I really dislike using chemicals but this stuff is amazing. Put it in, wait 15 minutes, and 49 years if paint scrapes neatly off (with a bit if muscle). Scraping with a sprained wrist really sucks though.

After taking the remaining bits of metal off that someone had used to repair the bow, I found a mess. And a hole. Both were expected. The inner and outer stem, as well as the keel are all rotten and need to be replaced. This is turning into a rather large project.

I recently came into ownership of a 1965 Richardson Avalon 14′ cedarstrip boat. The history of the manufacturer is somewhat cloudy, but it appears in 1962 the former General Manager of Peterborough Canoe Company, the company that built most of the cedar strip runabouts, bought Lakefield Boat Co and renamed it to Richardson Aquacraft, also Rilco…

Fixing a rotten roof is an incredible amount of work. After taking the rotten parts off, the horizontal part of the roof is solid, as is the vertical side on the driver-side. The passenger side is entirely rotted out, see this picture for how bad it is. This is a picture looking at the top…

After seeing some odd spots on the roof of my tent trailer, some exploratory surgery showed that the back, front and side of the roof are completely rotten. A new roof will take more than eight weeks to order, and cost aside that puts a damper on the planned East Coast trip on August. So…

Setting up Google Mail works well, but the calendar doesn’t always sync. This is an intermittent issue reported on this thread, and reported in KB33458. About the fifth entry down in the thread is a workaround that worked very well for me, steps repeated here for convenience: Remove the previous gmail accounts. Click on the…