I normally only post technical stuff on this thread but I feel like a change this morning.

Years ago I read an article in the Economist about frugal innovation. It is the idea that development and new ideas will now appear from right across the globe because of the increase in telecoms, spread of computers and improved literacy. It always stuck in my mind that all you really needed to build something new was a laptop and plenty of time.

When I first learnt about Bitcoin I was like everybody and thought "Great! Finally humanity has something where we can dump the 'fiat currency oligarchs' and have our own currency". You know what I mean otherwise you would not be reading this.

My background is in software development teams so I knew it was going to be man-years of work to roll out Bitcoin to the whole planet. Something as extensive and novel as Bitcoin does not happen overnight. But who is going to do the actual work ? Fortunately due to a combination of skills learnt, motivation and circumstances I knew I could spend pretty much as long as it took to do my part. (MultiBit and contributions into bitcoinj obviously).

It has been great fun spending months coding stuff up, fixing bugs and all the other bits and pieces.
In life however you cannot have it all so there are naturally some sacrifices to be made. Right from the start I wanted all the code I wrote to be open source and freely available. There is no money to be made in open source wallets.

I have cash saved from my years of dev work but take frugal innovation seriously. MultiBit HQ is a narrowboat moored on a canal in the UK. Costs are minimized ruthlessly. It is really peaceful living on a narrowboat - plenty of time to get work done.

But this time of year it is a bit ridiculous. There is a cold snap in the UK at the moment. Overnight temp last night was -6 Celcius. The boat does have central heating but you don't run it all the time and not overnight (because of electricity and diesel use). So last night I am in my full body sleeping outfit, in a down sleeping bag, under a duvet, with a throw. Warm and toasty but it is a bit chilly cleaning your teeth in the morning when the temp in the bathroom is exactly 0 Celcius.

Like your pet cat, I always find the warmest spot on the boat so am currently typing on my laptop by the big radiator in the lounge. I am just a ball of insulation.

I will be glad when it is spring. I think that is the best time on a boat.

Ok - indulgent blogging over - back to work !

:-)