Chicory, Coffee, and Code

Now that we’ve finished our move into the Chicory House, I have for the first time in over two months been able to set up my preferred coding environment… with a proper monitor on a proper desk with a proper office chair. Bliss!

A white man with blue hair tied up in a ponytail sits at a basic pine desk in a garden office, decorated with wallpaper showing toucans. In front of him are two laptops and a large monitor. He holds a black mug in his hand, as if about to drink from it.

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Garden Office

I’ve lived in a LOT of different places these last few months while we’ve been arranging a place to live for the next six months or so of our house repairs. Each new AirBnB has had its pros and cons (and each hasn’t felt like “home”).

Two laptops on a glass desk in an attractive garden office/summer house, bathed in bright afternoon sunshine.

But man, I really like the “garden office” at our current one. So nice to work in the sun!

(I don’t like the slow WiFi as much, but yeah… pros and cons!)

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SmartRacer

Yesterday lunchtime I finished writing a program that suddenly makes our working day that little bit more exciting – SmartRacer.

SmartRacer running in the System Tray

SmartRacer runs quietly in the system tray of as many users want to run it – currently Matt, Haagen, Gareth and me… but I’m trying to get Alex involved, too.

When you click on the system tray icon, the race begins! A couple of quick UDP broadcast packets are passed around the network, and everybody on the subnet who’s running the program is presented with racing-style “start lights”… 3… 2… 1… GO!

SmartRacer popup showing countdown lights. Let's race!

At this point, all participants will race – on their wheely-chairs – around the central ‘island’ of tables, in a clockwise direction, and attempt to be first to return to their own place and click the “Finish” button. Overtaking is rare – but permitted – and usually quite aggressive. As each player returns to their desk a “score” table is presented to everybody, with all participants times appearing in ‘minutes’ (heh), ‘seconds’, and ‘hundredths’.

Map of the office showing the approved race circuit.

Of course, players can choose not to participate in any particular race by clicking the “I’m Not Playing” button. The wimps.

You can download SmartRacer here, to play at your own workplace – SmartRacer.exe (64kb). It runs on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003, and requires the Microsoft .NET Framework.

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Butterfingers

Butterfingers gave me a courtesy call at work this morning to tell me that my juggling gear will be delivered tomorrow. Which is nice.

It’s a stupidly hot day. The office needs desk fans. I’m melting here. I’ve been to the kitchen three times so far just to soak my head/hair from the tap to keep me cool. It’s just evaporating off. I’ve drunk all my mago juice and my cranberry juice.

There’s a storm predicted for Friday. Hopefully this one will actually happen as scheduled and the air temperature and pressure will drop a bit.

My arms are sweaty and sticking to the desk. Gonna take a walk outside.