LBi London

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory

Posted by Jim MacAulay December 16th, 2009

So last night we held the LBi Tech Department Quiz. It was a well attended affair with over fifty of the company’s biggest brains battling it out for the glory. To the poor sods that couldn’t come because they had too much “work”, you missed out. Better time management next time please.

Brett’s team, The Orsborn Identity, led from the start to the almost finish. Sadly, they decided they were too clever to even bother answering the MacAulay round, and as a result dropped from clear first to 5th. So they won The Idiot Award for Grabbing Defeat From the Jaws Of Victory.

The final scores were:

• 65 – Carvill’s cavaliers
• 65 – Tian and the Validators
• 62 – George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt
• 59 – Raul’s Regular Expressions
• 58 – The Orsborn Identity
• 57 – Bahar’s Brainy Boozers
• 42 – Phil’s Testing Titans

Congrats to Paul Carvill and Tian Yuan for leading their teams to victory. For those that want to join in the fun, see the pictures from the Spot The Techie round – click the image for a bigger version.

Finally, the group that won the Late Drinking Award were the Technical Architects, many of whom can be seen in the picture below. It might be a coincidence, but five (yes five) of the people in the photo below are also in the Spot The Techie competition above. Maybe that helps. And Tom B, I hope your head is feeling better by now.

Tags: beer, quiz, tech, xmas

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EPiServer In The News

Posted by babatopea November 26th, 2009

Beer at the Partner Day

The LBi EPiServer Team attended the EPiServer Day in force. Along for the ride were Ryan Slade, Jonathan Menzies-Smith, Bahareh Boostani, Akinola Babatope and Jon Marks. Anil participated in the Revolution Magazine Round Table, and Sarah and Imogen made sure he didn’t get lost.

A few new products were showcased, including the much anticipated EPiServer 6. The EPiServer Team also announced their new marketing tool, Marketing Arena, which provides facilities to draw potential customers to websites, as well as EPiServer Relate+, which provide developers the capability to develop online social communities.

Not only did we learn a lot that day, we also had some fun and a few beers. Akinola and Ryan raided the ice cream booth at the restaurant (don’t worry, It was free). Then later on that night Jon and Ryan had more than a few drinks with the EPiServer and ImageVault Team.

And EPiServer Loves LBi

Last month, the EPiServer Development team all became film stars. EPiServer came into our office and made this beautiful movie:

Reminder Of Our Projects

For those that didn’t know, here are some of the recent LBi EPiServer Projects.

Tags: beer, episerver, filmstar, icecream, revolution, tech

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Friday fun #17

Posted by Simon Gill August 25th, 2009

Another one of those, not quite the normal Friday fun but this definitely happened on a Friday posts. Our various technical teams decided to hold a brew off and LAN party as part of our one up-man-ship series.

From the magic keyboard of Big JR: The beer brewing competition drew an eager crowd, keen to test the age old adage of being able to organise a particular activity in a brewery. And also to watch the faces our esteemed judges as they tasted the various potions on offer. Trevor took it all in his stride, using his poker face to good effect but Amy had more trouble concealing the really foul tasting ones as she spat out at least 4.

The beer tasting was scored with the following criteria:

1. Aroma – looking for bitter, sweet, salty or sour. Has it taken on the a malty sweet caramel-like quality or a more spicy, piney odour of the hops? Does it smell good enough to drink?

2. Appearance – looking for colour, clarity and head retention. No particular colour is better than another but does it have charm and personality? Any beer should be able to form and hold a head, even if it is little and held briefly.

3. Taste – The result of aroma and taste is flavour. We are open minded about the range of tastes of homebrew beers but are looking for the way it feels in your mouth. Is it rubbery because the yeast stayed too long during fermentation or sour due to bacterial contamination. Is it pleasant to drink?

4. Aftertaste – this depends on personal preference and with 3 judges a balanced view will be formed. Is it dry, sweet, lingers or is gone quickly. The aftertaste will normally amplify the good and bad qualities of a beer.

5. And finally… to judge the tag line for your beer.

The joint winners romped in with 35 points:
Not London Pride – a “very professional presentation“, including capped, boxed and labelled bottles and Badly Behaved Babes “an excellent all round beer”

Other beer names and comments included: the predictable Brewers Droop being very bitter but not unpleasant, CSDM Crystal smelling like a car closed for a while, Swine Brew, Agarmeister tasting like vegemite. With the following two bringing up the rear: Alans Dashboard tasting like a flip-flop and Loopy Juice smelling like a combination of babies nappies and puke.

Once the beers had been judged those brave enough to drink the home brew ‘got on it’, while everyone else got involved with the LAN party, shooting and fragging away. It was welcome to all-comers with ‘bouncy castle rules’ in play (apparently…) of jump on, have fun, jump off, feel sick.

Is this enough evidence to suggest LBi can in fact organise some kind piss up in a brewery? Quite clearly yes based on previous parties, but perhaps not with its own home brew beer.

Following the official review, there was much banter back from our creative department who are always looking for a line to corrupt…

“with lots of people fagging each other” – Is that how you get a good froth?
“installation in the basement for a lunch time frag-fests” …lost my appetite

Leading to an inquisitive:
And then swapped joysticks? Weird stuff going on in that basement.
Apparently some pervert had auto-fire switched on!

Further pictorial evidence can be found here.

Tags: beer, brewery, Friday fun, homebrew

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