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A Clash of Kings a Review

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer


A Clash of Kings: Book 2 (A Song of Ice and Fire)

George R.R. Martin

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007447831

I loved the Game of Thrones TV series Even the way the final series ends. Although I’m not sure I would have chosen the eventual king. I was looking forward to reading the books and understanding the stories in more depth and, to an extent, that was the case. More so with the first book than the second.

A Clash of Kings just has too much irrelevant detail and quickly becomes laborious to read. A part which stands out is after one of the battles where there are many pages given over to a list of knights who were awarded honours. The vast majority were in no way relevant to the story and just prolonged getting to the end. Fortunately the last 3% (I was reading on kindle) was given over to an appendix so I was able to skim that.

There were a number of key events from the TV series, not least of which Bron lighting the wildfire with an arrow, which I was looking out for and were disappointingly missing. Of course the book is the original and these events were invented for the TV series, but still.

I’m told the books get better from the third one onwards, so once I’ve got through Inhibitor Phase, Dune and one or two others I’ll be back. I’ve started now, so I need to finish.

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Find My Tea: A technical journey through new product development (online 1st February 2022)

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

What: Find My Tea: A technical journey through new product development

When: Tuesday, February 1, 2022 7:00pm to 8:30p (GMT)

Where:  SyncIpswich (online)

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/SyncIpswich-Ipswichs-Tech-Startup-Community/events/281991960/

 

 

After what feels like an age I’m getting back into speaking and of course I’m speaking about Find My Tea! This time it’s technical!

As well as online with SyncIpswich I’m also doing the ACCU Conference, nor(DEV):con and one other:

    ACCU Conference - 4pm 8th April (Bristol) - 90min version
    nor(DEV):con - 24th & 25th June (Norwich)
    TBC - July

Find My Tea: A technical journey through new product development

There is more to having a great idea for an app than just building the app. You’re not only required to be a full stack developer (whatever that means), which doesn’t usually include the skills for building an app, you need to understand and be competent in ‘Ops’ (there’s really no such thing as DevOps) and the automated pipelines used for testing and deploying the app, it’s backend services and supporting applications. And there is so much to choose from!

In this session I will take you on the journey of discovery from having an idea, to choosing, rechoosing and choosing again the different technologies and platforms I used to build and release a new product from scratch.

This session will be focussed on the technology choices made and the reasoning and not on the product itself - although of course this will feature. This will include the mobile technology, the technology used for the web applications, backed services, hosting and development pipelines.

You can download the Find My Tea app here: https://findmytea.co.uk

 

Paul Grenyer

Husband, father, software engineer, metaller, Paul has been writing software for over 35 years and professionally for more than 20. In that time he has worked for and in all sorts of companies from two man startups to world famous investment banks and insurance companies. He has built and run three limited companies, none of which made him a millionaire and two of which threatened his sanity on more than one occasion.

Paul was a founding member of both SyncNorwich and Norfolk Developers, two of the most successful tech and startup based community groups in the East. He created and chaired the hugely successful Norfolk Developers Conference (nor(DEV):con) for seven years bringing in speakers and delegates in the sphere of software engineering from around the globe.

Paul is currently a Senior Software Engineer at Bourne Leisure, the owners of Haven caravan parks, and the founder of the tea finding app, Find My Tea. He loathes the word Entrepreneur, not least because he struggles to spell it and it reminds him of Del Boy from the 80s sitcom Only Fools and Horses. He sees Entrepreneurship as a side effect of the creative process of problem solving, rather than a career path in its own right.

Despite having dealt with the world of business from directors of the board down, Paul has kept both feet firmly on the ground even when his head has been in the clouds with healthy doses of Heavy Metal, Science Fiction and Formula One and long hair until it started falling out in 2013.

Oh, and he loves good tea too!

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Come and see Find My Tea pitch to SyncNorwich on 23 November 2021

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

 


What: Startup Pitches #12 - Find My Tea, Greenr, Scoop & Yakbit

When: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 @ 6:00pm

Where: Access Creative College, 114 Magdalen Street, Norwich

How much: Free

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/syncnorwich/events/281757681/

Agenda

6.00pm - Arrivals & Networking with Pizza & Beer
6.15pm - Intro
6.30pm - PITCH 1: Find My Tea
6.40pm - PITCH 2: Greenr
6.50pm - PITCH 3: Scoop
7.00pm - PITCH 4: Yakbit
7.10pm - Q&A
7.30pm - Vote for Best Pitch
7.45pm - Networking & Quick Drink
8.00pm - Close

PITCH 1: Find My Tea

Tea made simple

Whether you're looking for loose leaves or tea bags to take home, or a cafe to unwind in with your favourite blend – it's easy. Simply type in your location or postcode, and you'll soon be able to find the shop or cafe serving the tea that touches your tastebuds. Simple.

https://findmytea.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/FindMyTea

Speaker Paul Grenyer is a husband, father, software engineer, metaller, Paul has been writing software for over 35 years and professionally for more than 20. In that time he has worked for and in all sorts of companies from two man startups to world famous investment banks and insurance companies. He has built and run three limited companies, none of which made him a millionaire and two of which threatened his sanity on more than one occasion.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pgrenyer/
https://twitter.com/pjgrenyer

 

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PG Webhooks Tool (beta) – I want your feedback!

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer


PG Webhooks Tool

https://pg-webhooks.herokuapp.com/

PG Webhooks is a tool designed to help with the testing of webhooks. It allows you to receive and view messages from a webhook until you're ready to setup the server which will receive the real webhooks for your application.

Register the URL uniquely generated for you by PG Webhooks with your webhook. Fire the webhook and see the messages appear. Select each message to see the details, including the body and header.

PG Webhooks sits on a free Heroku instance so may take a few moments to start the first time you use it. It is backed by a non-persistent Redis database, so your messages are only stored temporarily.

PG Webhooks beta is very much a prototype and has plenty of rough edges. I would appreciate any feedback in the comments below. 



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New Profile: Written for a talk on ‘Entrepreneurship’

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Husband, father, software engineer, metaller, Paul has been writing software for over 35 years and professionally for more than 20. In that time he has worked for and in all sorts of companies from two man startups to world famous investment banks and insurance companies. He has built and run three limited companies, none of which made him a millionaire and two of which threatened his sanity on more than one occasion.

Paul was a founding member of both SyncNorwich and Norfolk Developers, two of the most successful tech and startup based community groups in the East. He created and chaired the hugely successful Norfolk Developers Conference (nor(DEV):con) for seven years bringing in speakers and delegates in the sphere of software engineering from around the globe.

Paul is currently a Senior Platform Engineer at the Fintech startup Snoop and the founder of the tea finding app, Find My Tea. He loathes the word Entrepreneur, not least because he struggles to spell it and it reminds him of Del Boy from the 80s sitcom Only Fools and Horses. He sees Entrepreneurship as a side effect of the creative process of problem solving, rather than a career path in its own right.

Despite having dealt with the world of business from directors of the board down, Paul has kept both feet firmly on the ground even when his head has been in the clouds with healthy doses of Heavy Metal, Science Fiction and Formula One and long hair until it started falling out in 2013.

Oh, and he loves good tea too!

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A Review of Absolution Gap: Ignore the naysayers. Read this book. Love this book.

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

Alastair Reynolds ISBN-13 : 978-0575083165

I re-read Absolution Gap a decade or more after the first time in anticipation of the next part coming out in July of this year (2021). It was always the weakest of the trilogy, but not nearly as bad as I remember. In fact this time I devoured it in a relatively, for me, short period of time.

It’s true, as some other reviewers have said, that the story here could have been told in far fewer words, but then much of the texture of the story telling would have been lost and I think this is what makes this such a great book!


The characters and themes are believable in this universe. I think the story could have been very different if certain characters had not been killed off so early or at all. It’s always a shame when a lot of the main thrust of a previous book (Redemption Ark) is undone, but this is often how things play out in the real world.


I achieved what I wanted by re-reading Absolution Gap, I’m up to speed ready for the next instalment. The problem is that there is so much in the Revelation Space universe I now feel the need to go back and read it all again.


Ignore the naysayers. Read this book. Love this book.


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Red Rebel Day: Did you know that 1 in 10 women can’t afford sanitary protection?

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

When Neelam Sultan asked me to support RedRebelDay I was keen to do what I could. It’s what you do when someone asks. It’s what I like to do when someone asks.

Then I attended the ‘ambassadors’ briefing, where a heavy emphasis was put on telling people what Period Poverty means to you. As a man this was quite daunting, especially as until recently the subject was still quite taboo for me. Especially as at least one of my former employees took great delight, and still does, in telling me when she had her period just to see the uncomfortable look on my face. What got me over it? Attending a Zoom call with 100+ women and a handful of men who were all talking very openly about periods and the problems 1 in 10 women face in affording sanitary protection.

Beyond the facts, that still didn’t help me understand what Period Poverty really means, let alone what it means to me. Then someone on the call described not being able to go to work or go to school or about your everyday life for a few days every month because you couldn’t afford something as simple as a sanitary product. This struck home for me, because I take being able to do these things for granted and I know how it feels when something beyond my control stops me from doing something I want to do. This is what Period Poverty means to me.

Will you help women live their lives in the way they deserve by donating to Red Rebel Day today? I have: 


Tea

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A review: Permafrost

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

 

Permafrost

by Alastair Reynolds

ASIN : B07HF26D1H

Alistair Reynolds continues his run of form with this fantastic novella, Permafrost. One of the things I love most about Reynold’s Revelation Space series is how the stories flip between different times. For me this is one of the biggest and best parts of weaving a space opera, and it’s in abundance in Permafrost. I’m still in two minds about whether I enjoy first person writing though, I’m definitely more of a fan of third person. However, first person worked well here. Novellas, by their very nature are short, which means the character building is fast and the stories are fast paced too. I really enjoyed that aspect of Permafrost.

Given that the story is based on the effects of climate change, as well as time travel, I was concerned it would be over the top, but it actually describes brilliantly and concisely the effects of climate change and how they form the bedrock for the story. Then Reynolds moves on and concentrates on the story.

The climax is a page turner (or button clicker if you read on a kindle like I do) and moves very quickly - which I loved. Without wishing to give too much away, I did feel that defeating the evil (or maybe not so evil) machines was a bit too easy, but this didn’t detract from the climax.

If you’ve never read Alistair Reynolds before, then this would be an excellent place to start!

There’s a new Revelation Space novel out later this year and in preparation I’m rereading Absolution Gap. I’ve already read the first two paragraphs, one of my most memorable scenes from Revelation Space, and I am very, very, excited!

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Just when you thought it wasn’t safe to search for tea…

Paul Grenyer from Paul Grenyer

There hasn’t been anything from Find My Tea HQ for a while. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes improving the existing infrastructure and fixing bugs in the app, not least of which, the lack of functioning maps on iPhone. The good news is the maps are back and there’s a new version of the app to download for iPhone users!

Early next year we hope to release a feature which will let users add new locations for other users to search for. Stick with us, we really appreciate your support so far.

Please connect with us on social media in the meantime:

Website: http://findmytea.co.uk/ (including links to the apps)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Findmytea-113424607013669

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/findmytea

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FindMyTea