thekua.com@rest

We put in a JUnit hack into our latest project that allows us to produce more readable test names.

@Override public String getName() {
    return getClass().getSimpleName().replaceAll("Test$", "")
        + super.getName().substring(4).replaceAll("([A-Z])", " $1").toLowerCase();
}

Turning testTellsMeHowMuchInterestIEarnInAYear() from the BankManagerTest into Bank Manager tells me how much interest i earn in a year..

Note the disclaimer: Tests in IntelliJ are no longer clickable afterwards but the stack traces still are

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A website that is trying way too hard to impress customers…

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By “Digestives” over here. Even as healthy sounding as they are, they’re just like any other biscuit from back home (and the chocolate covered ones are even worse for you but do taste good).

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The picture to the left is the damage that freak hail did to my car last week back home. It’s a rare thing, maybe occurring once every three years but made even more stranger by the fact that it all happened in October instead of the peak of summer (December/January). I was even told by my family it was something like 37 degrees!

Strangely London has been rather moderate, with an extended summer that has allowed me to enjoy a lot more of the outdoors than I thought I would have. I even managed to get a hold of some okay runners for a decent price that let me go for a jog around Hyde Park today (just down the end of my street). I hope that everyone and their possessions back home got away better than my car did.

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Thanks to Carlos, Monday night was spent at Guanabara, an excellent Brazillian club in the middle of London (and just around the corner from the office). Organised by a London society called Cybersalon, Guanabara held a fairly decent sized crowd to listen to a couple of guest speakers.

The evening was about demonstrating what initiatives the Brazilian Ministry of Culture were doing that involved OSS. Gilberto Gil, the Minister of Culture, and Claudio Prado, the Digital Policy Coordinator for the Ministry of Culture talked about the hotspot initiative that empowered existing groups to share their culture leveraging OSS on old computer hardware. The Ministry provides free internet and some levels of equipment to enable groups to distribute their cultural activities to a wide audience and delivers education to allow them to do this in a self-sustaining manner.

For me it was a fantastic evening to hear about the different attitude and the compelling reason why OSS is so important to countries such as Brazil. I found it extremely refreshing to hear about the use of OSS from people with completely good intentions and without the excessively strong opinions of some OSS zealots, which can be so offensive at times. I think the key success to the Hotspot initiative is that the importance lies in the value for empowering people, and not the technology.

The evening was topped off by a top performance by Gilberto Gil (who is also a famous musician and has produced songs under the Creative Commons License) and my small part in a table football championship for charity.

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It was my birthday yesterday and had a small gathering of people at AKA, a club just around the corner from the office. Despite how hard it was for some people (including myself) to find, I was still impressed by the number of people that managed to turn up. Thanks to everyone who came along and madeit such a great night. I’ve uploaded photos to another gallery that can be found here.

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London’s pub food has improved a lot with age and although finding your typical Bangers and Mash at any pub is not a difficult task, you will also find they now offer a much wider range of cosmopolitan cuisine. One that I ate at last Saturday is The Dove that can be found on the East side of London. Not to be confused with The Dove at Hammersmith that is most well known as the smallest bar in London, this pub is much bigger that also doubles as a Belgian Pub. The menu can be overwhelming serving English food, Belgian essentials including Moule and Frites, and a surprisingly great selection of Thai food but is definitely worth the effort.

You will find this gastro pub located nearest to the Bethnal Green tube station but you may have to catch a bus to more easily get there. Unlike most pubs, this once offers a separate dining area that is also smoke free. It also has a sister pub called The Dovetail that can be found closer to the city that I have also heard about good things for this place.

Details: The Dove
Found on: 24-28 Broadway Market, Hackney, E8 4QJ
Contactable on: 020 7836 4751
Highlights: Fantastic variety of food, reasonable prices, huge selection of beer, non-smoking dining area in a pub
Room for improvement:A little out of the way for people from the West and South side of London
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

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Last week I organised a picnic with a large group of great people to visit Hampstead Heath yesterday. These huge parklands lie on London’s north side and contain large parts of untouched English greenery, the most I have seen since being here. London was even kind enough to lay on a beautifully warm day, despite the weatherman’s forecast for weekend showers. Everyone brought a lot of different food and the spread turned out so big that we could not even finish it all. We played a bit of football (soccer for all those back home), frisbee and Michelle even had a go at flying her kite. It was a fantastic day for what seems like one of the last sunny days I might see for a while. Thanks to Ben, Michelle, Karl, Caroline, Megan, Mel, (the other) Ben, Paul and Nathan for tagging along and making it so good.

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