Finished work. Figured I’d chill in the hammock for a bit as it’s so nice out.
The dog decided she wanted to lie in it too.
So now I am a pillow for a dog.
Kind: Notes
Part of the Internet, or connecting to the Internet?
Some time in the last 25 years, ISPs stopped saying they made you “part of” the Internet, just that they’d help you “connect to” the Internet.
Most people don’t need a static IP, sure. But when ISPs stopped offering FTP and WWW hosting as a standard feature (shit though it often was), they became part of the tragic process by which the Internet became centralised, and commoditised, and corporate, and just generally watered-down.
The amount of effort to “put something online” didn’t increase by a lot, but it increased by enough that millions probably missed-out on the opportunity to create their first homepage.
Note #27001
In the event of a fire on my bus, I’m concerned that the head of the man sitting in front of me is flammable.
Note #26999
In my first few weeks at my new employer, my code contributions have added 218 lines of code, deleted 2,663. Only one of my PRs has resulted in a net increase in the size of their codebases (by two lines).
I need to pick up the pace if I’m going to reach the ultimate goal of deleting ALL of the code within my lifetime. (That’s the ultimate aim, right?)
Regions Unlocked
Thanks to the community’s invention of a “Region unlocked” achievement, I’ve been able to instantly (and retroactively!) tick another one off my geohashing list, for my expedition on Trinidad early this year!
(Possibly I’ve achieved it other times, too: I haven’t yet determined whether anybody successfully hashed in County Mayo or County Galway before I did last year, on account of both counties spanning multiple graticules and so requiring more research!)
Order of the Beast
Went to Wagamama. Accidentally made the “Order of the Beast”.
(Plus a similar side, for those who read binary.)
Note #26938
Seventy years ago, residents of this part of London would take shelter from V1 and V2 bombs in a tunnel beneath my feet. And today, I’m going down there to take a look!
Note #26931
I got kicked off LinkedIn this week. Apparently there was “suspicious behaviour” on my account. To get back in, I needed to go through Persona’s digital ID check (this, despite the fact that I’ve got a Persona-powered verification on my LinkedIn, less than six months old).
After looping around many times identifying which way up a picture of a dog was and repeatedly photographing myself, my passport, and my driving license, I eventually got back in. Personally, I suspect they just rolled out some Online Safety Act functionality and it immediately tripped over my unusual name.
But let this be a reminder to anybody who (unlike me) depends upon their account in a social network: it can be taken away in a moment and be laborious (or impossible) to get back. If you care about your online presence, you should own your own domain name; simple as that!
Bagel Holes
I’ve eaten “doughnut holes”, but I’ve never seen anybody market “bagel holes”. Untapped opportunity? 🤔
Firstup Day 1
Off to my first day at Firstup. Gotta have an induction: get my ID badge, learn where the toilets are, how to refill the coffee machine, and all that jazz.
Except, of course, none of those steps will be part of my induction. Because, yet again, I’ve taken a remote-first position. I’m 100% sold that, for me, remote/distributed work helps me bring my most-productive self. It might not be for everybody, but it’s great for me.
And now: I’m going to find out where the water cooler is. No, wait… some other thing!
Hotdog Among the Trees
As the UK’s heatwave continues, the dog and I were delighted that this morning was sufficiently overcast that we could manage a proper walk without completely melting.
Her breed copes badly with the heat and we’ve lately had to keep her indoors or in the shade more than she’d like, so a chance to run around among the trees was very welcome!
Waves Hand Car Wash
I know how I’m SUPPOSED to read it, but when I see this I can’t help but imagine a conversation like…
“What shall we call our car wash?”
/waves hand/ “I dunno.”
Person Rowing Boat
On our family Slack, Ruth and I have a tradition of reacting to one another’s messages, where no other emoji seems appropriate, with a “person rowing boat” emoji.
🚣
I can’t remember exactly how it started. Possibly one of us was using the text search to find the “robot” emoji (probably in reference to our robot vacuum cleaner, which used to be more-frequently found hiding under the sofa than anywhere else in the world).
🤖
But whatever the reason, the game stuck. And because you can leave multiple emoji responses to a Slack message – and because Unicode permits a diversity of gender and skin tone options for this particular emoji – sometimes this results in a whole flotilla of rowboats parading beneath our messages.
And if an emoji armada isn’t an excuse to demonstrate the fact that the <marquee> tag still works in most browsers, for some reason, I don’t know what is.
Doxxing an Imaginary Person?
This morning, Google pulled a video from YouTube belonging to my nonprofit Three Rings. This was a bit of a surprise.
Apparently the video – which is a demo of some Three Rings features – apparently fell foul of Google’s anti-doxxing rules. I’m glad that they have anti-doxxing rules, of course.
Let’s see who I doxxed:
Yup… apparently doxxed an imaginary person with two structurally-invalid phone numbers and who’s recently moved house from Some Street to Other Street in the town of Somewhereville. 😂
(Maybe I’m wrong. Do you live on Some Street, Somewhereville?)
Let’s see what YouTube’s appeals process is like, shall we? 🤦
Unrepentant Blep
The unrepentant bleppy face of a dog who, without fail, steals the warm spot I’ve left behind on the sofa within like three seconds of me standing up.
