Early in my career at Metaswitch, I was working on a small team trying to develop a simple audio conferencing product. We were working with a third-party vendor based in northern France, and my boss wanted to send someone on-site to speed up the testing. I admitted that I’d studied French at high school, but… Continue Reading
Articles
The Noise Under the Floor
When I was 17, our high school choir embarked on its first ever concert tour to mainland Europe. We were heading to Salzburg, then on to Italy, including Venice and Lake Garda. To keep costs down, the school hired a coach rather than flying. It was quite an adventure: we travelled from northern England by… Continue Reading
The Longest Thirty Minutes I’ve Watched in Years
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a World Cup going on – and our family has dual allegiance to both the USA (playing later today, as I write this) and my native England. I’ll admit that not every soccer game is amazing, but even the most casual fan must admit that England’s victory… Continue Reading
The Shot That Broke the Goalkeeper
I help coach my 13-year-old daughter’s soccer team. During practices, I’ll occasionally jump into scrimmages to help out – usually making the tactical mistake of assuming that because the players are still technically “kids,” things will remain reasonably safe for the adults involved. A couple of months ago, I volunteered to play goalkeeper during one… Continue Reading
When the Fix Causes the Problem
Last Sunday morning, I was dealing with seasonal allergies. Nothing dramatic — just the usual springtime experience of feeling like nature has personally declared war on your sinuses. So before heading out for the morning, I grabbed an allergy pill from the medicine cabinet. Problem solved. Or so I thought. A little later, I arrived… Continue Reading
Schrödinger’s Chickens: The Silent Risk of Partial Network Failure
A few weeks ago Matthew (one of the senior engineers on our team) discovered that a fox had somehow gotten into his backyard chicken coop overnight. Chaos followed. The chickens scattered in every direction, and some vanished completely. A few cautiously returned later that day, another one came back the next morning, and then a… Continue Reading