Jekyll2024-03-17T17:40:45+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/feed.xmlRandom and IrrelevantSam Pearson's weblog, irrelevant content randomly updated.Sam PearsonWeeknotes, March 17th 20242024-03-17T17:21:45+00:002024-03-17T17:21:45+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/03/17/Weeknotes<p>This week was a bit of a slog. I came down with a nasty head cold which wasn’t bad enough to warrant time off in bed but had an impact on my ability to concentrate and my mood. Luckily it began to clear by Friday.</p>
<h2 id="work">Work</h2>
<p>Cold induced brain fog had an impact, particularly at the start of the week and I ended up taking a couple of hours off on Monday afternoon.</p>
<p>There was a bit of mopping up to do after the Democracy site upgrades and I’ve been thinking a bit about how we can improve the way we manage these. These sites are difficult to find dedicated funding for so a lot of the background stuff is in maintenance mode but could do with a bit of an overhaul.</p>
<p>There was also some fun dealing with our multisite Wordpress installation and some plugin upgrades and a last minute SSL certificate renewal from a client who prefers not to use our shared Let’s Encrypt managed certificates.</p>
<p>Thursday afternoon was the quarterly board meeting for <a href="https://www.societyworks.org/">SocietyWorks</a>, our commercial subsidiary. I’ve been attending the mySociety board meetings for a while now but this week was my first time at the SocietyWorks board meeting, where I gave a short piece on our goals for the year around availability, capacity planning, security and maintenance.</p>
<h2 id="home">Home</h2>
<p>I was very glad that I was feeling a better towards the end of the week as yesterday we drove to St. Albans and back for gathering of my partner’s family. It was good to see everyone in one place for the first time in about seven years I think, but it was a long day and I was exhausted after the driving and socialising. Today one of the tyres on the car was flat, so I’m thankful we made it back yesterday without that going on the motorway.</p>
<p>It’s birthday season round these parts, what with my sister, niece, both daughters and my birthdays all being with a month of each other. Annoyingly the postal service has been particularly unreliable lately and several things have either gone missing or been delayed. Just another symptom of the general malaise this country continues to struggle under after years of neglect and underinvestment. We need to get our shit together and make some radical changes. Just how possible this might be, even after the eventual general election, remains to be seen.</p>
<p>A rather combat heavy D&D session on Wednesday which was silly but fun, at one stage someone managed to kill their character by running full tilt into a magical barrier trying to escape from a fight they were faring badly in. The current sessions are intentionally a bit daft as they’re based on a Rick and Morty themed scenario. The silliness is quite fun, but I think that once we’re done I’d like to play something a bit less arbitrary!</p>
<p>We finished watching <em>Masters of the Air</em>. Enjoyed it on the whole; there were some incredible sequences, the production is amazing and we were engaged throughout. But despite the constant reminders of the incredible casualty rates and scenes of injury, death and loss it didn’t quite hit home for me, especially as the series went on and events became more compressed. Nor did it feel to me that the ethics of the tactics were truly engaged with, either in terms of the impact on the men in the planes or the people in the towns and cities under bombardment. It’s not that there wasn’t reference to these questions but it could have been a bit deeper and more sophisticated. I suppose <em>Masters of the Air</em> is more a piece of myth-making than historical introspection, but even with this in mind it’s a shame they didn’t introduce the Tuskegee Airmen a bit earlier.</p>
<p>For a complete change on the TV front we started watching Guy Ritchie’s <em>The Gentlemen</em>. Which is pretty much what you would expect so far, although there are more female characters who are often more capable, intelligent and ruthless than their male counterparts. Completely ridiculous but quite entertaining so far, so we’ll see how that goes.</p>
<p>Finished <em>Blade</em>, and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you like science fiction, particularly far-future hard SF, I strongly recommend Linda Nagata’s <a href="https://mythicisland.com/#nanotech">Nanotech Succession</a> and <a href="https://mythicisland.com/#novels">Inverted Frontier</a> sequences. There’s one more book to come and I’m looking forward to seeing where the Dragoneers’ journey ends.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<p>Few bits and pieces, again noting that I’d like to do some more commentary rather than just context free linking, but I’ve just not had the bandwidth this week.</p>
<ul>
<li>Andrew Logan Montgomery on <a href="http://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2024/03/ritual-and-play-in-runequest.html">Ritual and Play in RuneQuest</a>.</li>
<li>Cory Doctorow <a href="https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/11/no-foia/">covers the Foilies</a> (“awards given to the public agencies responsible for the most egregious, absurd and outrageous defiance of freedom of information requests”).</li>
<li>Some useful advice from Anil Dash on how to <a href="https://www.anildash.com/2024/03/10/make-better-documents/">make better documents</a>.</li>
<li>Xenogothic on <a href="https://xenogothic.com/2024/03/15/dj-seinfeld-and-the-undeath-of-rave/">DJ Seinfeld and the Undeath of Rave</a>.</li>
<li>Gavin Fox on why <a href="https://theacceleratedchaote.com/2024/03/09/accelerated-culture/">as a left-leaning Chaos magickian he’s drawn to accelerationism</a>.</li>
<li>And I fucking hate digital advertising screens so this piece at The Skeptic on how <a href="https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/03/electronic-advertising-is-a-climate-crime-that-makes-our-public-spaces-more-hostile/">Electronic advertising is a climate crime that makes our public spaces more hostile</a> resonated.</li>
</ul>Sam PearsonThis week was a bit of a slog. I came down with a nasty head cold which wasn’t bad enough to warrant time off in bed but had an impact on my ability to concentrate and my mood. Luckily it began to clear by Friday.Weeknotes, March 10th 20242024-03-10T21:11:18+00:002024-03-10T21:11:18+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/03/10/Weeknotes<p>It’s the 10th of March and this is the tenth weeknote of the year. I’m not completely happy with the format, but it’s better than nothing and it’s starting to become a bit more of a habit now which is largely the point.</p>
<h2 id="work">Work</h2>
<p>Work this week was dominated by some behind the scenes replacements of the server instances that run <a href="https://www.theyworkforyou.com/">TheyWorkForYou</a> and <a href="https://www.writetothem.com/">WriteToThem</a> to newer versions of Debian.</p>
<p>This took a bit longer than I’d hoped but largely went according to plan (aside from overlooking the need to update a whitelist that <em>really</em> needs to be automated). It feels like we’re in a far better place than we were a couple of years ago and we’re working well on further improving things.</p>
<p>I should write about this on the <a href="https://www.mysociety.org/blog/">mySociety blog</a>. We’re a little unusual in some respects as we run a lot of busy services on a pretty tight budget, many of which have been in continuous operation since the mid 2000s and are built using a variety of frameworks and languages. We do this by being relatively conservative and avoiding shiny syndrome by not jumping on every passing bandwagon.</p>
<p>There’s probably some interest in a bit more detail about how a small organisation can run a number of services like this without haemorrhaging cash in the direction of any of the major cloud vendors or their ilk. We use small, specialist partners such as <a href="https://www.mythic-beasts.com/">Mythic Beasts</a> and <a href="https://www.brightbox.com/">Brightbox</a> who provide excellent, highly skilled service. (I was reminded how important this was this week when I had cause to open a support case with Google, which took several days to get precisely nowhere.)</p>
<h2 id="home">Home</h2>
<p>It’s now starting to get light when I get out of bed, and by the time I’ve finished my morning yoga and meditation the sun is up. It’s made a real difference.</p>
<p>I’ve been working on some ideas for the Tarsh based campaign for RuneQuest I mentioned a couple of weeks back. I think I’ll start putting the feelers out for players fairly soon as it would be good to work in what they want from the game into the planning. Still waiting for the Lunar Way cults book to drop though, hopefully this will be announced soon.</p>
<p>I bought a copy of <a href="https://mythicisland.com/inverted_frontier_blade.php">Linda Nagata’s new novel <em>Blade</em></a> (mentioned here <a href="/2024/01/14/Weeknotes/">back in January</a>) which came out this week. I think this is going straight to the top of the to-read pile.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<p>I suppose it’s probably worth noting that I link to things I found interesting in one way or another, and a link here doesn’t represent and unqualified endorsement or indicate wholehearted agreement. If I had a bit more time, some of these probably warrant <em>actual blog posts</em> but needs must.</p>
<p>I enjoy reading about other people’s <a href="https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/among-all-the-hundreds-of-bottom-right-corners-of-left-facing-pages-thoughts-on-notetaking/">note-taking practices</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-explains-why-intelligent-aliens-may-never-reach-for-the-stars">Fishbowl Worlds</a> (via the Anomalist). If intelligent life evolved on a large ocean planet, there’s a pretty good chance they’d never be able to leave it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/03/could-asmr-be-a-possible-explanation-for-some-new-age-and-spiritual-experiences/">Could ASMR be a possible explanation for some new age and spiritual experiences?</a> an interesting article, if a bit light and I think it’s overstating the case a bit. I’ve wondered about the relationship between the ASMR sensation and spiritual experiences, like the author having myself experienced these sensations in various contexts and situations.</p>
<p><a href="https://watchers.news/2024/03/06/study-confirms-no-risk-of-asteroid-apophis-being-redirected-toward-earth-by-other-asteroids/">Study confirms no risk of asteroid Apophis being redirected toward Earth by other asteroids</a> Well that’s nice to hear, we don’t really want a visit from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apep">Apophis</a> in any manifestation.</p>
<p>Two articles on civilisational decline, one at <a href="https://www.ecosophia.net/">Ecosophia</a> the other at <a href="https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/03/08/why-civilizations-collapse/">Palladium</a>(although the latter was originally published in 2020). Noted mainly for the synchronicity that these both came to my attention on the same day, as well as being thought provoking.</p>Sam PearsonIt’s the 10th of March and this is the tenth weeknote of the year. I’m not completely happy with the format, but it’s better than nothing and it’s starting to become a bit more of a habit now which is largely the point.Weeknotes, March 3rd 20242024-03-03T20:06:27+00:002024-03-03T20:06:27+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/03/03/Weeknotes<p>A constructive week at work. Doing a thorough review of goals and priorities together with a trawl through the open issues across a number of repositories (we use GitHub issues to organised pretty much all our work) then reorganising the Project Board has been worthwhile. I did wonder for a bit whether this was time well spent, but I think it was and it’s already making my life easier and more focussed.</p>
<p><a href="https://digitalbydefault.com/">Jukesie</a> organised First Friday drinks at the <a href="https://www.lhgbrewpub.com/">Left Handed Giant</a> in Bristol and I went along (having missed the February event due to being in Leeds). It was good to catch up with him and meet a few folks from TPX and various other places. Together with Wednesday D&D and a Saturday visit from my partner’s mum, that’s a fairly sociable week for me.</p>
<p>Went to see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune:_Part_Two">Dune Part Two</a>. Visually stunning as expected, and on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it. But it was <em>long</em> and even I found myself fidgeting a bit now and then. I’ll probably watch it again once it’s available to stream.</p>
<p>Finished reading <em>Enheduanna</em>, highly recommended. The translated hymns are great, particularly the <em>Exaltation</em> and the essays interesting and thought provoking.</p>
<p>I’ve got a few other things on the go at the moment including <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/50264/roleplaying-games/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-master-2"><em>So You Want to Be a Game Master</em></a>, Jung’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Book_(Jung)">Red Book (Reader’s Edition)</a> and Alan Moore’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminations_(short_story_collection)"><em>Illuminations</em></a> (which I got for my birthday <em>last year</em> so better get on with), plus some of <em>Undefined Boundary</em>.</p>
<p>Ok, minor rant coming up. I’ve spent some time helping my daughter with her UCAS applications this week. Going back with her through her email really brought home just how abused this medium can be. Each place she’s applied to has since sent multiple emails, many of which are essentially just marketing or information she doesn’t need just yet. Mixed in with these are the odd message that need attention promptly such as invitations for interviews or requests to resend her portfolio due to some kind of problem.</p>
<p>This makes them so easy to miss, especially for someone dyslexic who struggles with written communication and general organisational admin. The signal to noise ratio is too low and puts people who can’t manage the overwhelming stream of communication at a disadvantage. She at least has our support, but not everyone is so fortunate.</p>
<p>It’s not limited to University applications of course, I’m sure everyone is familiar with this. Every interaction these days requires and account associated with an email address which then more often that not results in a new stream of email noise. Managing unsubscribe links, creating filters, and being careful to opt-out when setting up new accounts is all possible but not always easy for everyone. If you’re someone who finds this hard, it can feel hostile and overwhelming.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<p><a href="https://robm.me.uk//2024/02/taking-stock-ai-progress/">Taking stock of AI progress</a> at Roblog</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And I think on a personal level, the correct sentiment is that “AI won’t take your job, but a human with AI might”. I think we’re likely to see savvy people using AI to round out their skill set or get a decent productivity boost, and it’s those people who’ll go far.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pretty much what I’ve been thinking lately.</p>
<p><a href="https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/left-in-the-wilderness-the-price-of-ideological-zealotry-for-american-liberals">Left in the wilderness: the price of ideological zealotry for American liberals</a> - Joan Westenberg</p>
<blockquote>
<p> The choices facing the left are difficult and beg introspection. Because outside their factional walls, the shadows are growing darker.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/02/talking-whales-project-ceti/677549/?gift=S4EwRLGNogt2Kqjs1lNdf1C5Zvy59Sc8vQ93xrMMh-I">How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold</a> (The Atlantic, via <a href="https://kottke.org/24/02/how-first-contact-with-whale-civilization-could-unfold">Kottke</a>)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Assume that Project CETI works, I told them. Assume that we are able to communicate something of substance to the sperm whale civilization. What should we say?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/02/27.html">Wherein we have a plaque!</a> (jwz). If I ever get to San Fransisco, I’d like to go to something at the DNA Lounge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/feb/28/hillfort-ancestors-iron-age-david-r-abrams-best-photograph">The iron age hillfort that makes people cry: David R Abram’s best photograph</a> (The Guardian) There’s <a href="https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/event/traces-pre-historic-britain-from-the-air/">an exhibition at the Lighthouse, Poole, this month</a>.</p>Sam PearsonA constructive week at work. Doing a thorough review of goals and priorities together with a trawl through the open issues across a number of repositories (we use GitHub issues to organised pretty much all our work) then reorganising the Project Board has been worthwhile. I did wonder for a bit whether this was time well spent, but I think it was and it’s already making my life easier and more focussed.Weeknotes, February 25th 20242024-02-25T22:01:18+00:002024-02-25T22:01:18+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/02/25/Weeknotes<p>Short working week for me this week as I took Thursday and Friday off. Reasonably productive three days, including an early start on Wednesday to do some planned maintenance on some of our back-end systems.</p>
<p>We got the train over to Cardiff on Friday, hoping to do a bit of flânerie but the weather wasn’t brilliant. Sadly, Cardiff Bay certainly isn’t at its best in the mid-February drizzle, and we found the collection of chain restaurants and bars a bit uninspiring. A much better time was had wandering the galleries in the city centre.</p>
<p>Watched <em>Midsommar</em>, which I’d been meaning to watch for ages. It was OK. Felt like horror dressed up as folk horror. I think I’m still processing. On the TV front, started <em>Masters of the Air</em> now that all the episodes are available; quite a different vibe, seems OK so far - certainly visually amazing.</p>
<p>The issues of <em>Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion</em> I mentioned ordering last week arrived at the same time as this month’s <em>Fortean Times</em>, so plenty of weird and wonderful things to read. I also picked up a copy of <a href="https://sophushelle.com/enheduana/"><em>Enheduanna - The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author</em></a> (<a href="https://warrenellis.ltd/marks/the-first-author-was-married-to-the-moon/">hat tip to Warren Ellis</a> for reminding me about this). Enheduanna was a High Priestess in Ur who lived around 4300 years ago and wrote a number of poems or hymns in the Sumerian language. She is the earliest person to whom a body of writing is attributed by name. The poems still have power even in translation and so far off in time from their composition, particularly the two dedicated to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna">Inanna</a>, a goddess with whom I’ve long been fascinated.</p>
<p>In a tangential connection to Inanna (via her modern connection to <a href="https://scarletimprint.com/publications/p/the-red-goddess">Babalon</a> and thereby the <a href="https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2022/10/writing-riddles-babalon-and-red-goddess.html">Red Goddess</a>), I’ve been considering running another RuneQuest game and perhaps in a change from the defaults going for a Lunar group. I got a copy of <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/450380/furthest-crown-jewel-of-lunar-tarsh"><em>Furthest - Crown Jewel of Lunar Tarsh</em></a> for Christmas and as the <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/blogcoming-in-march-cults-of-runequest-the-lunar-way/">Lunar Way Cults book is coming out in March</a>, that might work quite nicely once the current D&D game finishes.</p>
<p>That’s all for this week, not much more in links either.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://crookedtimber.org/2024/02/19/death-lonely-death/">Billions of miles away at the edge of the Solar System, Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die.</a> (Crooked Timber)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/02/18/hesse-soul/">Hermann Hesse on Discovering the Soul Beneath the Self and the Key to Finding Peace</a> (The Marginalian)</li>
</ul>Sam PearsonShort working week for me this week as I took Thursday and Friday off. Reasonably productive three days, including an early start on Wednesday to do some planned maintenance on some of our back-end systems.Weeknotes, February 18th 20242024-02-18T17:59:23+00:002024-02-18T17:59:23+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/02/18/Weeknotes<p>The work week started with some rather aggravating problems that ended up dominating Monday but fortunately were all resolved before the end of the day. The rest of the week felt reasonably productive putting a few ideas into practice and catching up after a slightly rocky start to January.</p>
<p>There’s not much else to say here really, other than to note that Monday reminded me of why I’ve been pondering what the future direction of my career should be. I’ve been working in operations for a long time and I’m getting to the point where I no longer want to be responding to alerts, dealing with being on-call, and all the rest.</p>
<p>Finished both <em>Slow Horses</em> and <em>Hopeland</em> this week, having thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Haven’t yet decided which of the many unread books to pick up next. Had a bit of a break from TV then went back and picked up <em>Foundation</em> season 2 from where I left it a couple of weeks back - for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on I’m struggling to get into it.</p>
<p>The bi-weekly D&D session on Wednesday even was lighthearted and quite fun. There are seven players, which can make combat a bit slow but we’re getting into the swing of it a bit more each session. I’m quite enjoying being a player, but I’m also starting to get the itch to run a game again (which reminds me that I’ve got Justin Alexander’s <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-master">So You Want to Be a Gamesmaster?</a> in my to-read pile, so perhaps I’ll pick that up next for some inspiration).</p>
<p>Made the mistake of starting to write this late on Sunday afternoon at a point when I’m feeling quite tired and ready to collapse in a heap.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://interconnected.org/home/2024/02/15/galactic-compass">Matt Webb on how he used ChatGPT to work through creating a simple iOS app that displays a pointer showing the direction of the centre of the galaxy</a>. The article’s interesting enough, but I just quite like the app! I find myself opening it a couple of times and day and pondering the life, the universe and everything.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-ancient-megastructure-discovered-lurking-beneath-the-baltic-sea">Mysterious Ancient Megastructure Discovered Beneath The Baltic Sea</a> via <a href="">The Anomalist</a>https://www.anomalist.com/ - 10,000 year-old potentially artificial structure found under the Baltic Sea.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.cold-albion.net/2024/02/10/dis-nomers-on-misnomers-magic-metaphors-and-life-in-general/">Dis/nomers: On misnomers, magic-metaphors, and life in general</a> - “Watch the words we use, and how they use us.” (perhaps next off the to-read pile should be <a href="https://www.hadeanpress.com/shop-books/p/goetic-atavisms">Goêtic Atavisms</a>.)</li>
<li>In print: <em>Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion</em> from <a href="https://temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/">Temporal Boundary Press</a> looks interesting, I ordered the <a href="https://temporalboundary.bigcartel.com/product/undefined-boundary-volume-1-bundle">Volume 1 bundle</a> this week.</li>
</ul>Sam PearsonThe work week started with some rather aggravating problems that ended up dominating Monday but fortunately were all resolved before the end of the day. The rest of the week felt reasonably productive putting a few ideas into practice and catching up after a slightly rocky start to January.Weeknotes, February 11th 20242024-02-11T17:14:27+00:002024-02-11T17:14:27+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/02/11/Weeknotes<p>The week at work was productive. I had some good conversations with colleagues. <a href="https://www.mysociety.org/about/team/nik-gupta/">Nik</a>’s working with me for the next few weeks and I’m really hopeful that this will help unblock some project work that’s been languishing a bit and I had a really helpful discussion with <a href="https://www.mysociety.org/about/team/lizetta-lyster/">Lizetta</a> on managing projects and working more effectively. I’m feeling quite optimistic that I’ll be able to make some pretty good progress on a number of different fronts. There were a few minor annoyances, but nothing that wasn’t amenable to a fairly quick resolution and no major stresses.</p>
<p>Life more generally has been fairly quiet. No socialising this week but that’s fine after last week, so balance has been restored and social batteries charged a bit. I had most of Saturday to myself which is a rare event these days and was much needed. Some time to reflect and take stock.</p>
<p>Lately life has felt like a bit of an endless treadmill. Work and routine take up such a lot of time and energy there’s not a lot left in the tank at the weekends, so I’ve been feeling in a bit of an imaginative and creative slump. Probably partly the time of year too, although now the nights are drawing out slowly it’s improving a bit. I’d found that this had crept into my daily yoga, meditation and ritual practice so I’ve done a bit of a back to basics reset this past week. By Saturday this was starting to bear fruit. Onwards.</p>
<p>I’m still reading <em>Hopeland</em>, which took me a few chapters to get into but now I’m loving it. I don’t think I’ve ever read an Ian McDonald book I haven’t loved. We’ve been watching <em>Slow Horses</em> for the last few nights and really enjoying that too, but with only 18 episodes over 3 seasons, we’ve nearly through it.</p>
<p>Also it’s my birthday in the somewhat near future, so I applied for my <a href="https://www.birthdaybus.co.uk/">Birthday Bus Pass</a> which is a cool thing. I generally walk most places, but being able to get the bus for free for a few weeks is cool.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/you-trick-yourself-into-thinking-that-its-true/">you trick yourself into thinking that it’s true</a> - Paul Graham Raven <a href="https://johnhiggs.substack.com/p/john-higgss-octannual-manual-49">on John Higgs</a> on how by writing something, you can come to believe in it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/think-global-act-localhost">Think global, act localhost</a> by Paul Watson:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Think global, act localhost: website owners and web developers should consider the global health of the web and its ongoing enshittification and, while knowing that they do not individually have the power to change the world, they should at least take a tiny bit of action on their own website.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/safelinks-are-a-fragile-foundation-for-publishing/">Safelinks are a fragile foundation for publishing</a> - Terence Eden on why you should make sure you don’t link to things via Microsoft’s shitty “safelinks” service.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/02/06/white-holes-tunnels-in-the-sky/">White Holes: Tunnels in the Sky?</a> Centauri Dreams on the possibilities of White Holes.</p>
<p><a href="https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/how-startup-culture-runs-on-bullshit">How startup culture runs on bullshit</a> - Joan Westenberg nails startup culture.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.citationneeded.news/review-read-write-own-by-chris-dixon/">Review: Chris Dixon’s Read Write Own</a> - from Molly White, excellent as always.</p>Sam PearsonThe week at work was productive. I had some good conversations with colleagues. Nik’s working with me for the next few weeks and I’m really hopeful that this will help unblock some project work that’s been languishing a bit and I had a really helpful discussion with Lizetta on managing projects and working more effectively. I’m feeling quite optimistic that I’ll be able to make some pretty good progress on a number of different fronts. There were a few minor annoyances, but nothing that wasn’t amenable to a fairly quick resolution and no major stresses.Weeknotes, February 4th 20242024-02-04T23:59:59+00:002024-02-04T23:59:59+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/02/04/Weeknotes<p>I wrote most of this post on a busy train heading home from nearly a week in Leeds on Sunday, but then didn’t get around to posting it until this morning. I’ve left the date as it was. Most of this post is some brief notes on the Leeds trip, followed by some metablogging and some links.</p>
<p>I’d been in Leeds since Tuesday and was glad to get home despite for the most part having had a constructive and fun trip. I don’t think I’ve been away for this long on my own since… well I really can’t remember. Years.</p>
<p>This trip was a multi-purpose one. The initial reason for it was one of our quarterly all-hands meetings, and Wednesday and Thursday were spent doing that. It’s always good to see my colleagues in person although there’s no absolute requirement to attend - it’s almost always impossible to find a time that’s convenient for all of us. There were perhaps a few more remote attendees this time round, partly due to personal circumstances and partly the train strikes over the week, but there was still a good in-person turn out.</p>
<p>We do a mix of status updates, planning sessions, general chatting and social stuff. Couple of meals out in the town - one at Bundobust and another at House of Fu, which were good fun. Some people did karaoke and an escape room but I ducked out of that.</p>
<p>We rented a couple of rooms at <a href="https://horizonleeds.co.uk/">Horizon Leeds</a> and the AV setup for the room that integrated the remote attendees was probably the best we’ve had I think? Being present I can’t say what it was like for the remote folks but they were clear in the room and it felt like they were a bit more involved than it has at times in the past.</p>
<p>Most people dispersed on Thursday afternoon but I stayed on and got an early night before working the next day out of the <a href="https://wizuworkspace.com/the-leeming-building/">Wizu co-working space at the Leeming Building</a>, where I was made to feel very welcome and managed to get quite a bit done before knocking off early to meet up with some old friends, one of whom lives in Leeds and the other in Sheffield.</p>
<p>We had a few beers on Friday night and caught a live performance by a guy called <a href="https://modelmanmusic.uk/">Model Man</a> at <a href="https://headrowhouse.com/">Headrow House</a>. I felt like the oldest person there by about twenty years but it was quite fun even feeling slightly more like an observer than a participant.</p>
<p>Saturday we went to the <a href="https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/events/leeds-city-museum/a-hip-hop-journey-50-years-of-kulture/">A Hip Hop Journey: 50 Years of Kulture</a> exhibition at the Leeds Museum about the history of hip hop in the city. This was pretty cool and had lots of interesting bits and pieces. Reminded me a bit of the <a href="https://vanguardstreetart.com/">Vanguard Street Art</a> exhibition in Bristol a while back, it’s nice to see a super local history of how a wider scene manifested in a particular place.</p>
<p>Saturday afternoon we went for a walk in thw woods around Meanwood with a refreshement break at the <a href="https://myrtletavern.co.uk/">Myrtle Tavern</a> before a relatively early night after a meal. A change of scene is good and being able to make the most of this trip to do both work and personal stuff felt like a win.</p>
<h2 id="metablogging-apologies">Metablogging, apologies</h2>
<p>I’ve been wondering about the purpose of these Weeknotes and writing this one brought it back to mind. I read lots of other people’s writing and start to feel a bit inadequate as it always feels better written, researched and interesting that my own, but then most of the people I read regularly have been writing for years and often make a living in some form of word based profession (or try to in the face of this becoming far harder nowadays). Self doubt creeps in.</p>
<p>So I remind myself that I started doing this again as a way of forming a habit of writing. That was my goal. It doesn’t matter if I write vague journal-like post (like this one) or some incisive commentary on something important. The aim here is to write something in public on a regular basis to train the muscle. Maybe the content will change over time. Maybe not. We’ll see.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://dysonlogos.blog/2024/01/25/strange-stones/">Dyson Logos Strange Stones</a> - a megalith encounter generator! Dyson is also making <a href="https://dysonlogos.blog/2024/01/29/cartography-collections-on-dtrpg/">cartography collections of his maps available from DrivethruRPG</a>.</li>
<li>Poem/1 AI poetry clock by Matt Web (<a href="https://interconnected.org/home/2024/02/01/kickstarter">blog post</a>, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/genmon/poem-1-the-ai-poetry-clock">Kickstarter page</a>). Bit of a whimsical idea and I quite like the potential for synchronicity that this could manifest, but I’m not sure I can justify the cost of backing it myself right now.</li>
<li>Hannah Ewen’s <a href="https://hannahewens.substack.com/p/spiritual-temperature-check-1">Spiritual Temperature Check #1 - The Psychic City of Los Angeles, January 2024.</a> in 23 short paragraphs.</li>
<li>Gavin Fox on <a href="https://theacceleratedchaote.com/2024/02/03/tha-kayozz-evokkation/">Kayozz Evokkation</a> - découpé cut-up magickal techniques for all chaotes out there.</li>
<li><a href="https://theurbanprehistorian.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/incandescence/">Incandescence</a> - the Urban Prehistorian on <a href="https://canmore.org.uk/site/320490/glasgow-sighthill-park-stone-circle">Sighthill</a>, Glasgow’s newest stone circle.</li>
</ul>Sam PearsonI wrote most of this post on a busy train heading home from nearly a week in Leeds on Sunday, but then didn’t get around to posting it until this morning. I’ve left the date as it was. Most of this post is some brief notes on the Leeds trip, followed by some metablogging and some links.Weeknotes, January 28th 20242024-01-28T20:08:12+00:002024-01-28T20:08:12+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/01/28/Weeknotes<p>It’s been a good week on the whole. The days are slowly getting longer and it’s starting to be a bit more noticeable - they sky is light now on the way to and from the co-working space I go to most days.</p>
<p>I’ve nearly finished the Spiral Tribe book, progress was slightly derailed when this month’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean_Times">Fortean Times</a> arrived mid-week followed by the <a href="https://orbific.com/writing/mycelium-parish-news-2023/">Mycelium Parish News 2023</a>, which has some great stuff in it and a connection back to the Spirals via the number 23, the KLF and Discordianism. Hail Eris!</p>
<p>Caught up on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_(2021_TV_series)">Invasion</a> after picking up a free month of Apple TV and looking forward to making a start on the new season of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series)">Foundation</a> before the month runs out. We watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kitchen_(2023_film)">The Kitchen</a> last night, which was fine and had some themes in common with the Spiral Tribe book around community in the face of the oppressive power of capital and the establishment.</p>
<p>At work I made a start on some if our work to improve the resilience and capacity of our web services infrastructure, fixed a few bugs and got a couple of longstanding things moved along a bit. Completed the annual reviews I’m involved with and did some planning for next week’s face to face team meeting. We’re completely remote working at mySociety but every quarter or so we meet up somewhere for two or three days together. It’s always good fun and I find it energising and a morale boost.</p>
<p>I even managed to get some home improvements done and the house has a nice new number by the door after some fun and games with a masonry drill, but I’ve managed to make the mild lower back pain I was suffering from flare up and now I’m hobbling around like an old man.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<p>Not had a huge amount of time this week and my feed reader currently has a rather large unread article count. Some things that sootd out for one reason or another: Ian Betteridge on <a href="https://ianbetteridge.com/2024/01/24/the-information-grey-goo/">The information grey goo</a>, Doc Searls on how <a href="https://doc.searls.com/2024/01/25/privacy-is-social/">Privacy is Social</a>, Hadean Press announced <a href="https://www.hadeanpress.com/news/2024/1/18/welcome-to-the-night-school">the posthumous publication of Jake Stratton-Kent’s <em>Cyprian’s Offices of Spirits</em></a> (actually last week, but hey) and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/23/nicholas-saunders-forgotten-genius-changed-british-food">Long Read in the Graun in Nicholas Saunders and his impact on food in the UK</a>.</p>Sam PearsonIt’s been a good week on the whole. The days are slowly getting longer and it’s starting to be a bit more noticeable - they sky is light now on the way to and from the co-working space I go to most days.Weeknotes, January 21st 20242024-01-21T16:40:28+00:002024-01-21T16:40:28+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/01/21/Weeknotes<p>Three weeks into 2024 already! This week has been another mixed bag, but the trajectory has been a positive one overall. The weather has improved - I love the cold, clear days of winter and we’ve had quite a few this week.</p>
<p>I took Friday off work and went up to the Mendips for a walk with my daughter, both of us keen to take advantage of the good weather to get out of the city and into nature for a bit. It was cold but lovely and walking under the sun soon warmed us up. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the Sun recently and now I feel in need of some splendour.</p>
<div class="picture"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sagepe/53478045095/in/datetaken-public/" title="A walk in the Mendips"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53478045095_e398e21bce_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt="A walk in the Mendips" /></a>
</div>
<p>I heard at the end of last week that an old friend of my mum’s died. She had been badly affected by a stroke a year or so ago but it was still a bit of a shock, even though I didn’t know her myself. Dad had been visiting her. Another thread to the past frayed away.</p>
<h2 id="work">Work</h2>
<p>This week was a bit of a mixed bag. I didn’t sleep well on Sunday night and as a result Monday was a bit of a slog. I had my annual review meeting towards the end of the day which was fine but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to really make the most of it. Fortunately things have settled down since we added some resources and rebalanced things following the unexpected challenges over the first two weeks, so I was able to deal with a few other tasks that had been delayed and start on a more thorough plan for the next few months, despite some unhappy developments around some of our charitable project funding towards the end of the week.</p>
<h2 id="play">Play</h2>
<p>It was the first proper session of the new D&D game at my co-working space on Wednesday. The session went well if a bit slowly but then most of us are new to 5e so we’ve learning the rules as we go. The goal is to play every other week, sadly I can’t make the next session due to work commitments which is a bit of a bummer. Maybe later in the year I’ll look at trying to get another RuneQuest game up and running.</p>
<p>Finished watching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(season_5)"><em>Fargo</em> season 5</a> this week, which was great. Also finished watching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tourist_(TV_series)"><em>The Tourist</em> season 2</a>, which was fine I suppose. It had some nice moments but wasn’t as good as the first season. Maybe it just didn’t quite stand up to <em>Fargo</em>; all the reviews I’ve seen have been pretty positive. Also watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_French_Dispatch"><em>The French Dispatch</em></a>, which we enjoyed, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatch_(film)"><em>Snatch</em></a> which we hadn’t seen since it came out and, frankly, will almost certainly never watch again.</p>
<p>Started reading <a href="https://velocitypress.uk/product/a-darker-electricity/">A Darker Electricity - the origins of the Spiral Tribe sound system</a>. I picked up a copy when we went to see Aaron Trinder’s film <a href="https://aarontrinder.co.uk/freeparty">Free Party: A Folk History</a> at <a href="https://www.losthorizonlive.com/">Lost Horizon</a> at the end of last year. The film was good, lots of footage from the early 90s rave/festival scene and plenty of nostalgia if you’re old enough to remember any of that shenanigans. The book is a first hand account from Mark Angelo Harrison, one of the people behind <a href="https://sp23.org/">Spiral Tribe</a>. He very kindly signed my copy for me too.</p>
<h2 id="elsewhere">Elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-adumbrations-of-prophet-received.html">“The Adumbrations of the Prophet,” A Received Malkioni Text</a> - fun slice of Gloranthan lore inspired by a Hermetic text by Andrew Logan Montgomery.</li>
<li><a href="https://lethain.com/layers-of-context/">Layers of Context</a> - the importance of understanding the wider organisational perspectives, by Will Larson.</li>
<li><a href="https://orbific.com/miscellaneous/dont-save-the-best/">Don’t save the best</a> - Orbfic on Specialness Spirals.</li>
<li>A forthcoming book on <a href="https://drfrancisyoung.com/2024/01/16/contract-signed-pre-christian-baltic-religion-and-belief/">Pre-Christian Baltic Religion and Belief</a> by Francis Young looks interesting.</li>
</ul>Sam PearsonThree weeks into 2024 already! This week has been another mixed bag, but the trajectory has been a positive one overall. The weather has improved - I love the cold, clear days of winter and we’ve had quite a few this week.Weeknotes, January 14th 20242024-01-14T17:22:47+00:002024-01-14T17:22:47+00:00https://sgp.me.uk/2024/01/14/Weeknotes<p>It feels like it’s been a long week. The dark days take their toll and leave me tired. I’ve been visualising the Sun this week, sitting on a green hill under a clear blue sky, the sun warm on my face and a hawk circling above.</p>
<h2 id="work">Work</h2>
<p>I hoped things would settle down a bit this week but on Tuesday I learned all about <a href="https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/126258/what-is-table-bloating-in-databases">table bloat in PostgreSQL</a> and not in a fun way. Out of the blue available disk space on one of our primary database systems began to rapidly drop. Turns out some long running queries were preventing autovacuum keeping things in relative equilibrium and more and more space was being allocated to a certain table. We’re still not exactly sure why this suddenly picked up speed when it did.</p>
<p>We ended up doing a bit of emergency maintenance to perform a full vacuum to free up the disk space once we’d cleared the culprits, plus we allocated some more space to the instance to give us a bit more headroom in future, just in case. Fortunately, this seems to have resolved the problem but I’m still reviewing our monitoring to make sure we get some more warning should this ever happen again.</p>
<p>At the moment I’m not handling certain types of stress very well, which isn’t ideal in a role with significant operations responsibilities. I’m usually fine once I hit my stride but the initial adrenalin spike when an unplanned incident hits isn’t much fun. I’ve been doing this sort of work for a long time so it is a bit demoralising to be finding it difficult at the moment.</p>
<h2 id="interesting-things">Interesting things</h2>
<p>I ended up reading lots of blogging about blogging. A spate of posts at <a href="https://xenogothic.com/2024/01/08/on-blogging-again/">Xenogothic</a>, <a href="https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/you-can-never-step-in-the-same-blog-twice/">Velcro City Tourist Board</a> and <a href="https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook">The Artist’s Notebook</a>. A common theme being that despite the fact that (well, maybe) blogging and independent participation is increasing a bit, or coming “back” or whatever that might be, it’s <em>not</em> the same as it was “back in the day” - and nor should it be. Later in the week there was a related post from <a href="https://blissout.blogspot.com/2024/01/blogs-continued.html">Simon Reynolds</a>.</p>
<p>Also Tom Coates’ post on <a href="http://plasticbag.org/archives/2024/01/how-threads-will-integrate-with-the-fediverse/">Meta and the Fediverse</a> and Ben Cox on <a href="https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/who-hosts-the-fediverse-instances">where the Fediverse is hosted</a>.</p>
<p>Some interesting posts on the Fermi Paradox at <a href="https://www.centauri-dreams.org/">Centauri Dreams</a>, specifically the <a href="https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/01/03/life-elsewhere-relaxing-the-copernican-principle/">Copernican Principle</a> and a two-parter on the Zoo Hypothesis, <a href="https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/01/05/can-the-zoo-hypothesis-be-saved/">Can the ‘Zoo Hypothesis’ Be Saved?</a> and <a href="https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/01/10/galactic-nature-preserves-over-deep-time/">Galactic ‘Nature Preserves’ over Deep Time</a>.</p>
<p>A couple of potentially useful TILs from Simon Willison on running <a href="https://til.simonwillison.net/fly/varnish-on-fly">Varnish on Fly.io</a> and <a href="https://til.simonwillison.net/cloudflare/cloudflare-cache-html">caching in Cloudflare</a>.</p>
<p>I enjoyed Matthew’s <a href="https://dracos.co.uk/wrote/2023/">2023 in review post</a> and Jukesie’s <a href="https://digitalbydefault.com/2024/01/13/i-use-this-carry-that-and-wear-them/">I use this, carry that and wear them</a>. I’d quite like a pair of <a href="https://hiutdenim.co.uk/">Hiut jeans</a>, maybe that’s a birthday present idea as they are quite pricey!</p>
<p>Ruben Schade had <a href="https://rubenerd.com/coping-with-distractions/">some things to say about distractions and focus</a> that I can identify with.</p>
<p>Yesterday Linda Nagata announced the fourth book in her <em>Inverted Frontier</em> sequence, <a href="https://hahvi.net/?p=8044">Blade</a>. Looking forward to this, I’ve been a fan since reading <em>Vast</em> many years ago and really enjoy the setting so it’s great to have new books in the sequence.</p>Sam PearsonIt feels like it’s been a long week. The dark days take their toll and leave me tired. I’ve been visualising the Sun this week, sitting on a green hill under a clear blue sky, the sun warm on my face and a hawk circling above.