Archives for themself - Page 11
Release! A game about building software
I got my kickstarter reward from funding Release! The game arrived the other day, I've not yet had a chance to play it but I thought I'd share these photos with you of the box and it's contents. Game Blurb RELEASE! is a light card game about software and the people who make it. It takes modern development methodologies and crams them into a trick taking card game that is fast paced, easy to pick up, and has a lot of room for strategy. The Kickstarter edition contains the base game and 14 new plug-ins and expansions. What's in the box? Lots of stuff, mainly game cards, some notepads for recording your score and bits to keep the expansions etc separate. Here are some pictures. The contents of the Release! box spread out …
L/Cpl William Kemp – Killed in Action
Lance Corporal William Kemp of the 2nd Scottish Rifles was killed in action one hundred years ago. I grew up seeing his name on the local war memorial, as did my father who was also named William Kemp. My dad was keen on family history, he could tell me all the living relatives and knew their exact relationship to us. He believed that all the Kemps in the Old Kilpatrick are were interrelated. So I've always seen L/Cpl William Kemp as part of my family, even though I cannot directly connect him from further research. William was almost certainly a regular soldier before WW1, either that or a recalled reservist. The Scottish Rifles were a regular battalion and started the war in Malta. However they were recalled and sent to France arriving in November 1914. William's Medal Index Card shows that he…
Six Steps to Blog Posts People Read
One of my oldest friends asked me for some advice on writing a blog and attracting a following. He asked me because I've been blogging for decades and have written hundreds of posts, the most popular of which get thousands of hits. It made me think, here's how I think you should write a blog that people will want to read. NB lots of people bang on about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) but if you write good content in a readable way then it ought to hit the search engines fine. Well written and thought provoking content presented well will beat keyword stuffing any day of the week. 1. Pick a subject and be insightful By this I mean write about something you really know and care about. A topic you think about and can make insightful or thought provoking commentary…
New Books of 2015 pt.1
In keeping with my resolution to read more paper books (and the self-imposed target of at least twenty or five more than I've acquired) I thought I would record the new books I've acquired this year. I intend to read all of these during 2015. The first batch are technically 2014 acquisitions, mostly Christmas presents, but I'm counting them in my 2015 total. Here they are: That makes seven books so far, and you should expect to read reviews of them all on the blog later in the year. Given my post last year about how readers choose books I thought I would also record why I chose each of these books. Working up from the bottom here are the reasons I wanted each of these books. The fantastically funny Dragons at Crumbling Castle by Terry Pratchett. This was on my wish list…
Top Ten Posts of 2014
I've been looking through the stats, and ignoring the home page, and the separate parts of a linked series of posts, these are the top ten posts of 2014 (not all of which are from 2014). I've also adjusted the order to allow for when in the year the post was published, but these are all originally in the top 12 posts). Some stats During 2014 I have written 112 posts. 241 posts (out of the 334 posts plus four pages available) have received at least one hit over the course of the year. The top ten (list below) account for over half of all traffic across the blog. There's a small gap in the stats too, I got hacked in late November and lost a couple of days worth of stats, I rolled back to a previous version and…