Do I know anyone who does UI work?

Work are contracting out some UI work. Basically, there's a fairly good idea of what features are needed, but are investigating the possibility of handing off the work of what different screens there are, what options on each screen, etc, etc to someone else.

It will likely be implemented through a web-browser inside, but not be interacted with as a webpage as such.

They already have one fairly promising contact, but are interested in having at least two choices. (Pro: they will probably make a decision and not dither. Con: they may go with the existing contact.)

Do I know anyone or any company who does that sort of work?

I can't vouch for what they're like to be a contractor for, but as far as I know from the inside, they're looking to get the work done, not to cut costs. And they're not specifically looking for future work, but if they find a company they get good results from, there's other projects it might make sense to do a similar thing with.

If there is anyone I can put you in touch with the relevant people.

Jobs at Adder

The exact combination of jobs advertised varies over time, but work are looking to hire junior, intermediate and senior software engineers and (I think) testers.

We mostly do low-and-medium-level embedded programming, with audio/video and networks. Although for the graduate software engineer jobs, probably any programming background is fine.

I'm not shilling for them as the most amazing company ever, but they've been reasonably good to work for so far.

If anyone is interested I can put you in touch.

I also wonder, is there anywhere I should be advocating they advertise to reach an appropriately diverse demographic of engineers?

Steven Universe

OK, watched up to date as of now. Now I'm really eager to rewatch and see how what I know now fits with all the things that happened before.

It really is one of the best shows I've seen for setting up a long arc and having it pay off, without constantly winging it.

It also does an excellent job of Steven growing up throughout the show.

I'm much more alert to tiny decisions which convey important stuff. Like when Peridot attacks someone much much taller than she is, and is thrown into her face -- it shows that Peridot is a bit goofy and is fighting more angrily than effectively, but also that everyone is working together and she makes an impact.

I also love, not only that the gems are by default female presenting, but that they have a variety of gender expression.

Ironically, in some ways, I personally enjoyed the earlier seasons more, where absolutely everything was new, the worldbuilding was fascinating, and Steven's relationship to the other gems was still gelling. The later seasons have possibly been objectively better, but less different than adult-targeted tv I've seen more of.

Grisham: Last Juror

I read a random John Grisham from a charity shop. It turns out I *have* read this one before, but forgot almost everything apart from the protagonist running a small town newspaper and putting a human interest story on the front page.

In fact, it covers a lot of courtroom proceedings, but there's not a lot of drama in the outcome, it's mostly about "this is how it normally works". The crime is very grisly, a brutal rape and murder, and the culprit is manifestly guilty.

Most of the book is instead covering small town life in the american south, the small town newspaper, and the painful process of desegregation.

IIRC it's a prequel or sequel to another book, written when he wanted to revisit some of the themes, but with more racial awareness.

I'd like to read a few of the best grisham, rather than the ones I happened to stumble across, I should get round to that at some point.

Board Game: Photosynthesis

The latest (and penultimate?) big game in the game crate was one Rachel and I had both separately been somewhat interested in, Photosynthesis.

It is so gorgeous, it's positively dripping with luscious flavour. There is a hexagonal board, a sun that travels between the six vertices, and players plant seeds and trees in the hexes.

Trees collect sun points. Players spend sun points to buy new seeds and trees.

There are three sizes of tree. You spend more to grow a big tree, but trees directly behind other trees are shaded and collect no sun, and bigger trees shadow more hexes behind them, but are not themselves shaded by smaller trees.

The largest-size trees can be harvested to produce victory points, you get more if the tree is closer to the middle of the board (but those can more easily end up shaded on all sides and not producing as much sun).

Ideally you spend a round and a half planting more trees to get more sun, and then a round and a half slowly growing big trees and harvesting them. But I'm not sure of the specifics, where it's best to plant, when it's best to try for more small trees and when it's best to play for big trees, etc.

Aside on rules clarity

It's amazing how hard it is to produce unambiguous rules. Again and again I find a clarification I or someone else makes seems to actually muddle an existing understanding, for instance the "they spelled it out in this case, does that mean it doesn't apply in other situations?" effect.

In this case, the intended rule is that you can have multiple actions in a turn, but "growing a tree", "harvesting a tree", "planting a seed from a tree", or "planting a seed in a hex" can only be done once in each hex.

But the way this was explained put big emphasis on planting a seed activating the tree it was planted from, and not being able to grow a tree twice, and not being able to activate the same tree twice, but didn't explicitly say what the designers found obvious, that planting a seed 'activated' the hex it was planted into AS WELL, not instead, as the tree it was planted from.

That's certainly how I expected it to work, but the fact that the rules stated in bolt print that it activated the tree it was planted by, made me think it didn't activate the hex it was planted into, but apparently that wasn't the implication, just that they wanted people to remember the other half of the rule.

FWIW, the "activating a hex" terminology is what I got from reading a discussion on board game geek, the original rules described it a bit differently.

I think it's partly, however well you understand something, it's really hard to explain so someone else 'gets it'. And partly, likely, translation issues. And partly, squelching one misinterpretation can produce more unless you review the changes as a whole.

I remember recently reading an impassioned essay by a Spiel des Jahres judge saying there was quite a lot of games they loved, but they were firm in only accepting games where the rules were written to a certain standard, because they wanted games that anyone could enjoy, not only people who were adept as inferring what the rules should be.

Aside to aside

I possibly should trust myself more at inferring what the rules probably *meant*, even when it looks clear what they *say*.