As I missed the date for wishing the Western world Happy New Year it seems appropriate to instead welcome in the Chinese New Year.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of dragons to post, so here’s a picture of the only snow we’ve so far had here this winter.

I’m aware that it’s been a few months since I’ve posted here, my online activities died down quite a lot towards the end of last year as significant events in my personal life kept me very happy and very busy.  This is not a promise to become a daily updater but hopefully now I will update more frequently than once a quarter.

My postings on #altdevblogaday also reduced but my latest article, Learning from the past, has now been live a few days and seems to have been well received.  I’ve now re-posted it on my articles page here too, and Gamasutra also picked it up.

It’s November 5th today, a date that, to us Brits, means Gunpowder Plot.  Or Guy Fawkes, or simply bonfire night.  There are many names for it, but it means the same up and down the land – fireworks get set off, fires are lit, and toffee apples eaten.  As it falls on a Saturday this year it gives us the chance to celebrate it properly on the actual night, rather than the nearest Saturday as so often happens.

It’s a fun time to be about if you like fireworks, and what better way to kick off the darker nights than by lighting up the sky?

Yesterday we visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which is where this image was taken.  I went there last year and, while admiring of the place as a whole, found the experience slightly prickly.  I’m not sure if it’s me that’s changed in the past year, the park or just the temporary exhibitions, but yesterday was relaxing and felt far more welcoming than it felt previously.  It was also very busy, which was nice to see – for £5 car parking you get free entry for all which, given there’s several hours worth of things to see and walk around, is staggeringly good value – even when you add an additional donation on top.

If you get the chance, I highly recommend you pop along.

Taken about 2 years and 1500 miles apart, it was only when I looked at the second picture on my laptop that I realised it reminded me of one I’d taken in Pompeii. I started to write this post then but got side tracked with the events happening in Japan.

The main similarity in the photographs is, of course, that they’re both shot from a fairly similar angle of a long straight street. The big difference, of course, is that one is of Sheffield and the other Pompeii. A modern city versus a historical one. Yet one that we can still learn much from.

When I was in Pompeii it wasn’t just the quality of how well preserved it was that impressed me, but the logical way in which the city had been designed. You can see how deep the kerbs are in the bottom picture: they’re getting on for at least a foot deep (33cms). A health and safety nightmare these days for sure, but it was done for a very simple reason: hygiene.

There weren’t any sewers in Pompeii, instead everyone simply emptied everything out into the road. Twice daily (at morning and at night) the sluice gates on the aqueduct at the top of the city were opened, thus washing the streets.

To make it so people didn’t have to wade around in muck the roads were built deeply inset, and the stones you can see in the middle of the road were laid for people to cross at. Each crossing stone is, at maximum, the width of the axel of the carts that used the road.

The simplicity is mesmerising to me, and I think we could benefit greatly from this kind of design more today.