A Public Service Announcement to Ornithophobes

I had no idea that some authors can be so highly valued. Take, for example, the horror genre. One of the most prestigious of its representatives is surely Edgar Allan Poe, the writer of "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Raven". Now witness me walking around in the city of Wroclaw, or Breslau, as the German name is. I'm looking for the Museum of Natural History, minding my own business and what do I see, when I look suddenly behind me?

This...
...and this!

In the poem "The Raven" E.A.Poe describes a crow that says "Nevermore!" most ominously. Are they stalking me? I decide to continue, I pick up the pace a little, but not enough to catch the nice red sports cars whooshing by me almost completely ignoring the afternoon rush hour.

No chance of catching up.

I finally find the museum, but it does not console me, I can't get in! Look, there's a huge bird guarding the door! Is there no safety in this city?

No way am I going to get in under those watchful eyes!

I better head down to the river, I need to calm down. The river flows quietly. But what is that sound? Let's see, it's coming just around the corner. Here's the view from the bridge (extreme closeup, look with care):

Birds in a feeding frenzy

There is no peace in this city. I better ask the little people for help. They are known to chase away big birds. They aren't too bright, though. Here you see two of them moving a rock, by both pushing from opposite directions. They've been at it for years. The rock hasn't moved yet.

Push, push, maybe one day it will budge!
Some of the little people take it more easy, especially when one of their brethren has gotten rid of the birds.
In the nighttime, some of the little people take out their broomsticks, climb on street lights and drive the birds away.

They can apparently turn large African animals to sheets of metal, too.
Rhinos are less dangerous in this form.

After my animal adventures in Wroclaw, I'm happy to return to literature, in the safety between the pages, where anything can happen, but nothing can happen to you. That's why the horror genre is so popular. It feels dangerous, but isn't.
I never knew writers could be so highly valued. To name a whole country. Wroclaw is a big city in Poeland, you know.

Papers, pub, pigeons and Piter

I've had my first research paper published! The peer-reviewed journal called Software Quality Professional published my paper "Tick-the-Code Inspection: Theory and Practice" in their June 2007 issue of volume 9. Unfortunately you have to be a member in order to read it, though. I can tell you that it is an interesting paper and it describes Tick-the-Code in detail.

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The last few weeks I've spent writing a conference paper. Wish me luck that it will get through and I get to present my findings in the conference in October. The paper is called "Tick-the-Code Inspection: Empirical Evidence" and in it I present all the results of ticking I've collected over the past two years in training sessions areound the world. I also started a project in May and selected at random ten Open Source modules to tick.
At first I was ticking one module each day, but in the end I noticed that I wouldn't be able to cover all of them so I had to tick two modules each day in the end. I'd tick one in the morning (it always took more or less around an hour) and another in the evening. I always made sure I didn't have to tick the same file twice in a row.
In the end I had spent almost 29 hours ticking away. The results are interesting, though.

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We are putting the show on the road! Qualiteers are offering an info session in Copenhagen next week Wednesday on 20-Jun-07. See the invitation and forward it to your friends in Copenhagen. Tick-the-Code needs friends.

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For some time now we've been startled by loud pigeon noises on the balcony. I'd go outside to practice my guitar playing and suddenly there'd be a ruckus and a big bird flying away. Well, today I made a discovery. Pigeons have built a nest on the edge of the roof. There's a gutter that they are blocking. A tree branch covers the nest very well, which explains how we could have missed such a large construction this long. It will be interesting to watch how pigeon young (squabs) really look like...
Pigeon nest on the balcony.



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In July, Qualiteers is taking its first steps on the Russian market in Saint Petersburg! This is great, because I've never been to Russia and I still remember making and holding a presentation on Peter the Great, the founder of the city. That was probably twenty years ago.