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Showing posts from February, 2015

Why I'm Not Ashamed About "The Romanians Are Coming"

This week's big story in Romania is the first episode of a Channel 4 Documentary entitled " The Romanians Are Coming ." There's a lot to be said when a controversy-stirring documentary comes out of one of the world's most politically correct nanny states. For one, somebody at the British Censors Bureau realized that as long as Muslims wouldn't be offended, it was safe to air. But seriously, I'm glad it has come out because it says a number of things: 1. "The Romanians are coming!" (Though it's a sorry invasion, if ever there was one) 2. "The Romanians are working the jobs no Brit would do" 3. "The Romanians are claiming sensible benefits in light of their living situation" 4. "The Romanians are leaving" The documentary as it stands on its own doesn't really say much more than that. I mean sure, there's the whole bit about "America's trying to send people to Mars, Romanian Gypsies r

Launching: The Non-Smoking Romania Story

It started over a year ago. I wrote  about it in February 2014 , after buying the domain and getting people on board to do the coding. In my mind I was thinking, 'a couple of months of easy coding and we're live, no problem.' But it's rarely ever like that when you start anything -especially with software. The designs were done sometime later that month. But only the first version. It was easy to get lost in the details and to over-design. My initial search-driven vision was replaced by a geo-location based, map-driven design on the advice of somebody who knows a thing or two about User Experience (UX) design. I liked it and we went with it. A friend helped with a logo and social media designs, another took on the coding responsibilities, and little things stated to happen. Except that they didn't, really.  Sometime towards the end of April or May, the cause had lost its momentum. There was a lot to do at work and I didn't have my 'eye on t