dominic hamon

Four years ago, Mirto and I arrived in the US from Singapore. When we boarded the plane at Changi International airport we didn’t know who would be president when we landed. When we arrived at San Francisco International airport, the ebullience and jubilation made it clear that a horrible mistake had been avoided.

I’d like to think that today, someone is about to arrive in the US and they won’t know who will be president when they land. For their sake, if not the sake of the millions of Americans, temporary, and permanent residents who share this country, make the right call.

First of all, vote. Even if your political views don’t match mine, vote. There are so many people who don’t have the right to have their voice heard in this world, and you do. Use it, don’t waste it.

Secondly, vote responsibly. If you can figure out the policies behind the posturing and can filter out the bullshit and the sound-bites, get a sense of what each candidate would bring to the presidency, and what their residency in the White House would bring to the country, and to you.

Lastly, don’t vote for the nutjob. You have two realistic choices: An incumbent that has had a measurably successful presidency, or a candidate who has said whatever is necessary in the moment to win over the people he’s speaking to. That candidate who, whenever he speaks, shows how out of touch he is with the people who live in this country. The candidate who, whenever he speaks, is inconstant and often downright dangerous for the rights of half the people who live in this country.

Vote. And vote Obama.

Don’t fuck it up for those of us who can’t.

As I get to grips with thinking about the future with the weighty responsibility of another actual person depending on me for survival and development, it’s tempting to attempt to recreate my childhood for her.

My childhood was pretty special, as it happens. I grew up on a small island, with close friends living nearby, opposite a beach, with plenty of opportunities for spending time outside exploring castles and inside with various musical instruments. However, I also spent a significant fraction of my time tinkering with the latest and greatest technology. The BBC Micro B, the Acorn Archimedes, the Super Nintendo, and eventually an IBM PC with the ground-breaking Intel 286 chip were all available to me to code on and play with. My friends and I experimented with networking, digital music, and ran a BBS dedicated to the Acorn Archimedes¹ from first a 2400 baud, then a 9600 baud modem. All of these things added up to a lifelong love of doodling around with technology, computers, and video games.

So it is tempting to find all of these things and introduce my ward to technology through them. I have a NES, and a Sega Genesis, and I wouldn’t mind a nostalgic trip down the Acorn lane. However, it occurred to me that this misses the point entirely: Aside from the possibility² that she turns out to not be interested in technology, what was important about my childhood was the access to the latest technology, not any particular technology. It is, of course, true that the BBC Micro and Archimedes were well suited to the experimenter and the hobby programmer, and I don’t think I would have ended up as a career programmer without my time spent filling the screens of the computer in the physics classroom with ‘DOM IS COOL’. The technology that is around today is so far removed from that if I was to start learning to program today on a BBC Micro, and then try to develop a full web application, or a mobile game, I’d be hopelessly behind the curve. By the time I’d caught up, technology would have moved on and I’d have no chance to grow and develop with it.

Instead, then, I consider it my duty to ensure my progeny has access to the latest technology and, should she show any interest towards developing games or applications, will seize that opportunity with both hands and encourage her. If this means I have to keep the latest gadgets around just in case, so be it³. Right now, this means mobile development platforms, the ubiquitous cloud, and the web. I have no idea what it will be in a few years, but whatever it is, my scion will have access to it.

Clearly, it is equally important to expose her to the latest in gaming platforms and video games, just so she experiences the cutting edge. And I’ll have to spend time with those platforms and games too, so that I’m as familiar with them as she will be.

Oh yeah, and I should work on that whole ‘spending time outside’ thing too I suppose. But first, I have a 6502 computer to build.

Today, Google announced a new Beta release of Chrome. This is not unusual; it happens every six weeks or so, but in this case the announcement blog post was authored by me.

That really isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, I know; there’s stuff all over the web with my name on. But this is the first time I get to be a part of the public face of Google, and I’m so proud to be working here that it’s a really big deal to me.

I could have written this as part of my Google+/Twitter post pointing to the Chrome blog, but that felt too much like bragging. Hopefully by posting it to my obviously personal site I can retain some appearance of humility. Only an appearance, mind you, because I’m an author on the Chrome blog and you’re not, nyer, nyer. Ahem.

It’s Muttville Senior Dog Rescue Day in the City of San Francisco.

As a failed foster parent of a Muttville rescue ¹ I can’t recommend or praise Muttville highly enough for the work they do with senior dogs who have been abandoned by their families.

Rescuing a senior dog can be fraught with difficulty as they often come with problems, but it can also be extremely rewarding as all they really want is warmth, love, and food ². Muttville recognises this and works hard with their volunteers and foster families to find homes for these forgotten old pooches.

It is wonderful that the City of San Francisco has chosen to celebrate and recognise their hard work, and I’m proud to be a part of the Muttville community.

I haven’t written anything here in a while because my creative juices have been drained by my new position writing over at Guerrilla Geek.

Last week I was in Sweden. Ostensibly for a family thing, but also to take a break and spend some time with Mirto‘s family. I’ve been there once before, about nine years ago, and both times I’ve felt oddly at home there. I say oddly as I have no connection to Sweden other than my wife having been born there. Given that I’m blonde with blue eyes, and have familial connections to both Yorkshire and Normandy, there’s a good chance that far back in my genealogy someone in my family tree encountered a Viking in a, you know, biblical manner. However it’s unlikely that my genes felt the connection.

On the subject of having the appearance of a Swede¹, there were a few tense moments during the week where a native would speak to me in Swedish expecting me to understand, but speak to my wife in English assuming she was a tourist. An arctic wind blew through the room during those moments.

There are some similarities in the environment of Stockholm to where I grew up in Jersey. It too had granite cliffs and was surrounded by water and the constant crying of seagulls was a regular sound throughout the year. Of course, it was a little warmer where I grew up, and I spent more time on the beach than I would be comfortable doing in Sweden. The population of Stockholm is approximately the same as my home, though that population is focused in an urban centre rather than spread over a rural island.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living in San Francisco and cannot see a time when I’ve done everything there is to do here or get bored with the city. And if I ever do, well there’s a big ol’ country out there to explore. However there is something about Sweden that just feels more like home. Maybe it was the rain and sense of gentle irony.