English, as she was and is spoken

Whether or not English is your first language, or perhaps your second or third one, I’m sure that you’ll learn a lot about the origins, the spread and the current usage of the language from the following excellent Vox article by Libby Nelson:

25 maps that explain the English language

“Fifty-eight countries have English as an official language. This doesn't include most of the biggest English-speaking countries — the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom don't have official languages. This map shows where English is either the official or the dominant language. Particularly in Africa, it also doubles as a fairly accurate map of British colonial history.”

Sale by Tender of the Copyright to Clive Finkelstein’s Enterprise Architecture Workshop

In my first years with IBM Australia in the early 1970s, I was fortunate to have as one of my systems engineering mentors Clive Finkelstein.

From the mid-1970s onwards Clive concentrated on what would occupy the rest of his outstanding IT career, the field of information engineering.

Read more about this at Clive's website.

Having now retired, at LinkedIn Clive has announced sale by tender of the copyright to his outstanding Enterprise Architecture Workshop which is a rare opportunity for anybody specializing in this field of IT to take over these excellent teaching materials.

If you know anybody who might benefit from this opportunity, please pass on the above info.

Are women perfect for online business?

The battle of the sexes continues! Go read 10 Reasons Why Women are Perfect for Online Business (a new blog post by Paul Smithson):

www.paulsmithson.com/blog/10-reasons-why-woman-are-perfect-for-online-business

It reminds me of being taken by my mother to see my first ever Hollywood musical, the 1950 comedy Annie Get Your Gun

And particularly its memorable hit song:

I Can Do Anything Better Than You Can

Find the cat!

Somebody just sent me this via e-mail. Usually I don’t pass on such things, but it’s harmless and an amusing diversion so here it is.

Locate the grey and white cat in the photograph below. (Sorry, I can’t give any attribution for the originator of this little test of observation powers.)

Don’t pass it on until you’ve found the moggie, and don’t tell anybody else where it is!

Click image to see an enlarged version.

It took me about 15 to 20 seconds.
How long did it take you?

Carpenters and Programmers

This article is going the rounds at the moment:

If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers