I've updated the blog's template today and hidden a few posts that were essentially 'Oh, how terrible, I haven't posted anything in so long, etc. etc..'

So here's what I've been up to:

My most recent gaming obsession has been Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I have been thoroughly enjoying, though I currently find myself in a quandary - having begun with the intention; 'Run through on Story Mode, get as many achievements as possible, knock out all the guards I can and get as much XP as possible...' I find myself in a position where I have to ask myself which of these personal objectives will I have to abandon first in order to progress in the game...? So I'm taking a break.

Happily, I became so caught up in the world of Deus Ex, I have begun reading William Gibson, and Neuromancer, which has been on my 'to read' list for some time, and which has clearly informed a lot of the ideas in Deus Ex.

American McGee's Alice was begun last night - I got 15 minutes in and then managed to get myself stuck on a wall - thus is the curse of the Testing mindset when you've been in QA for too long... you'll do anything except what you're supposed to in a game, just to see if you can...

Something I am quite enthusiastic about in terms of my ongoing education is CodeAcademy's 2012 project 'Code Year', a lesson a week in Javascript, all run from within the browser - each Monday (closer to Tuesday UK time) I get an email with a link to the next lesson - this week it was lesson 4, Primitives.
Given that ICT is being phased out in schools, in favour of actual Computer Science (and, thanks to the Raspberry Pi and so forth, with any luck, it shouldn't take too long for schools and students to reorient themselves) I think there's no better time to be learning to program! I am teaching myself other languages by other methods, but being taken through step by step within a browser as a remarkably intuitive and stress-free way to learn. I'd encourage anyone who was even a little curious to go, take yourself through some of the early lessons (all still available on the site) - just give it a go.

Speaking of giving things a go; I think it's time for me to click 'publish'.

TTFN

S