Fun Facts

Since I’m an open source developer, several Perl modules I’ve written (e.g. Test::Builder::Tester) are shipped by Apple as part of macOS, which includes my email address in the documentation.

Yep, it was called [Zimki](https://blog.porter.run/history-of-paas-how-canon-almost-became-a-major-cloud-provider/), I worked on it with Simon Wardley back when he and I worked for Fotango, a subsidiary of Canon. Canon ended up not sharing the long term vision, and infamously canned the product minutes before Simon presented it on-stage at OSCON. Earlier in the conference I gave a talk about how JavaScript would be the next big serverside programming language and no-one believed me. Oh well.

ARM originally stood for Archimedes RISC Machine, which powered the Archimedes range of computers originally marketed to school children in the UK. Apple invested in these ARM processors because they wanted it for their Newton range. The Archimedes had a WIMP GUI built into the ROM that shipped with the computer, and It was possible to write Desktop GUI programs on these computers in BBC Basic by using “*” system calls in order to directly call the GUI APIs.

Time’s person of the year 2006 was “You”. We’re all Time person of the year (assuming you were born in 2006 that is).

Barry White, no relation to the singer, used to work with me at Fotango where we both played in the five-a-side team on Tuesday.

This is common practice at Polo matches apparently. The crowd is invited out on the pitch at “half time” to use their feet to shove the divots back. The one match I’ve ever been to Prince Phillip was in attendance, so we fixed the pitch together

Friend and twice co-worker Stig Brautasett has driven me on more than one occasion. He’s always the fastest driver on the road, since he drives slowly and safely on the country lanes where he lives and everyone else gets stuck behind him.

When I moved my entire household contents from the UK to the US in a shipping container, I - unknowingly - had “sparkers” (you know, the hand held fireworks that people put in fancy cocktails) in a desk draw contained within. This is a huge no-no if you haven’t filled in the correct paperwork, but no-one has ever troubled me about it.

Hogwarts, as so much as it can be considered real, is basically three places: Alnwick Castle in Northumberland (most of the real world outside shots), the Harry Potter sets in London (both the real world sets and the giant model), and Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire (where the internal corridor shots were filmed). I’ve been to all three, but the secret garden is an allotment garden in a walled off area inside the Lacock Abbey grounds. Getting to it involves comically breezing past all the people queuing up to pay for entry at the National Trust counter, and then down through a NO ENTRY gate in the botanical gardens while typically carrying a garden spade and a bucket. Fun times.