Adventures in home working

I went swimming with Tess and Anna tonight and given that I’m not too well I only swam for 30 lengths, which left plenty of time to sit by the pool, watching the girls and reading New Scientist.  Of the articles I read I was most amazed by this description of how honey bee swarms find a new site.

Several hundred scout bees set off to search potential sites, such as holes in trees. Each scout will spend about 30 minutes assessing relevant factors such as the size of the cavity, the presence of ants and the aspect of the sun.

The scouts then fly back to the cluster and use a combination of waggle dances and runs across the body of the cluster to transmit information about the site to the other bees. The more runs across the cluster a scout makes - on average 150 - the higher the scout rates the site.

The scout then revisits the potential home, taking one or two “recruits” with it to make their own assessment. If a recruit likes the site too, it will return to the cluster and give positive feedback in the form of a similar waggle-and-run combination, which generates yet more recruits, and so on. If enough recruits agree on a particular site, a “quorum threshold” is reached and the swarm lifts off to the new location. This ongoing recruitment process means that the swarm can simultaneously assess, compare and “remember” different sites during selection.

However, if recruits disagree with a scout’s positive assessment of a potential site, then support for it will fade away

A great example of how the sum of the parts is greater than the whole!

• Working on use cases for VDI #
• Off out for a walk with Debbie #
• Having breakfast with Debbie and watching the kite surfing. Unfortunately having to respond to a few emails as well. #
• Debbie’s gone off shopping so I’m spending a few mins reading Wikinomics on my Blackberry before getting back to the grindstone. #
• Finished wikinomics - a very good book and a perfect quick read on the Blackberry in summary form. #

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• Wishing I could sleep, using new pain killers my specialist gave me today, meant to be sedative, but not for me #
• A long day of difficult meetings, none of which I really want to talk about, and not much else #
• posted a list of use cases for VDI that I am going to be developing tomorrow - CSC internal link - http://snurl.com/1xzzx #
• Time to go read my current book "The Anubis Gates" #
• Just finished my last call with Citrix, almost asleep because of the pain killers I took 2 hours ago #

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• Just got soaked on the 3 minute walk to the kids school #
• Waiting at the doctors for my monthly barage of blood tests #
• Blood tests were painless. No chance of walking today in this rain. So off for a nice warm swim and a read of New Scientist by the pool. #
• Just finished swim. No feed reading today I’m off to Boaters Landing - just over the road from the pool - do do some programme design work #
• I’m lucky - the rain’s stopped and the sea’s in and there are plenty of people to chat to at the cafe #
• Planning finished, still a bit of work to do on durations. Decided to stay longer and enjoy the blue sky and get my Project Appraisals done #
• Decided to give my desktop a treat, after 27 days up time I’ve rebooted it and now instead of 110K system handles open, it’s only got 28K #
• Briefing Q on the programme design and tasks #
• Off to the hospital for a meeting with my specialist #
• My specialist is concerned that my trends graphs showing me getting worse, so he wants me back on night time pain killers and more tests #
• Now at the swimming pool again, but this time with the kids for their lessons #

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• Been to fairrhaven lake cafe, very nice, now off for a long river side trek at the insistance of Tessa and Anna #
• That was a really great walk. 90 mins to get into Preston centre. Now having a rest and a drink at Cafe Nero. #
• Slightly refeshed we are off to the Museum, then to M&S food, bookshops and then we need to figure out a different route back to the car #
• Debbie just rang to tell me that Stephie should be able to do her work experience at the Blackpool regeneration org. Excellent for economics #
• Enjoying the Japanese gardens and the general improvements in progress in Preston park. Listening to giggling kids!! #
• Enjoying a wonderful lunch of hot French bread, choose and crispy green grapes while feeding the squirrels #
• Just finished a really fun science revision session with Jenny, I love these one to one sessions, and making them fun and memorable for her #

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• Walking to Blackpool - half way - relaxing in the excellent Solaris Centre cafe and reading about the plans for a new Blackpool library #
• Listening to a facinating podcast while walking by the author of "cradle to cradle" - business should seek to do "good" not just less harm! #
• Family are scattered all over today, so I’m on my own, but the walk on the beach to Blackpool was excellent and the poptech podcasts r great #
• Big benefit of 12 miles of walking is that I’m in less pain and get to eat a sausage jumbo and cherry scone and now onwards to the cinema #
• Blackpool’s ok in small doses, but I’m pleased to be in the relative peace of the cinema. Waiting for Charlie Wilsons War to start. #
• Now I’m resting I have so many thoughts running through my head. Bit annoyed at having the virtual desktop stuff dropped on me so late #
• Excellent film. Funny, emotional, and very worrying - that a world problem was adressed like a popularity contest #

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• Exhausted, just finishing up a few loose ends - no energy to go swimming - not good #

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• Taken my most powerful pain killers and now walking to Royal Pavillion #
• Spent morning with Tim and Rob on VDI #
• Hmm, having made a big fuss about the way we are delivering our virtual desktop service, it seems I am now the solution manager for it! #
• Finished now off to have a bath and relax reading #

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• Off for a quick walk after a good nights sleep and relaxed with an empty inbox #
• At the Cafe nero now notionally reading my feeds but explicitly relaxing and enjoying some cake #
• Just leaving for Chorley now to meet with Charlie and Stu #
• Meeting cancelled so able to head home earlier than expected #
• Pleased that I didn’t get a parking ticket for parking on the grass at Chorley #
• Just managed to get home, on my way to Chorley my arm and knee were bad, but on the way home it was a struggle to drive with the pain #
• Just finishing off a presentation on eProductivity with Stu #
• not too well, luckily I managed to pick Stephie up from TaeKwonDo - now going to crash - Flying down to Farnborough tomorrow #

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• Just about to get on a very busy flight - on my way to Royal Pavillion #
• Just got home - flight back wasn’t as bumpy as the flight out #
• Very busy day dragged from meeting to meeting by other people, build centres, network labs, infrastructure labs, VDI and more #
• Labs proposal - in Powerpoint at the moment is 70% complete #

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