As a semi-regular at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention who likes to get up earlier then the others I share my tent with, I’ve done my fair share of early morning geocaching in this neck of
the woods.
Of course: over the years this practice has exhausted most of tree caches local to Cropredy and my morning walks have begun to take me further and further afield. But this is certainly
the first time I’ve walked to the next county in search of a cache!
Coming across the fields from Williamscot via Prescote Farm treated me to gorgeous rolling hills free fields of freshly-harvested corn getting picked at by families of deer, while the
red kites above went looking for their breakfasts.
The final hill up to the GZ required a bit of a push for my legs which were dancing until late last night, but soon I was close and the cache was quickly found in the second place I
looked.
It started with a fascination after discovering a little-known stone circle near my new house. It grew into an obsession with the history of the place.
Two years later, our eldest was at school and her class was studying the stone age. Each of three groups were tasked with researching a particular neolithic monument, and our eldest was
surprised when she heard my voice coming from a laptop elsewhere in the class. One of her classmates had, in their research into the Quoits, come across my video.
It turns out “local expert” just means “I read the only book ever written about the archaeology of the stones, and a handful of ancillary things.”
And so this year, when another class – this time featuring our youngest – went on a similar school trip, the school asked me to go along again.
I’d tweaked my intro a bit – to pivot from talking about the archaeology to talking about the human stories in the history of the place – and it went down well: the
children raised excellent observations and intelligent questions1,
and clearly took a lot away from their visit. As a bonus, our visit falling shortly after the summer solstice meant that local neopagans had left a variety of curious offerings – mostly
pebbles painted with runes – that the kids enjoyed finding (though of course I asked them to put each back where they were found afterwards).
But the most heartwarming moment came when I later received an amazing handmade card, to which several members of the class had contributed:
I particularly enjoy the pencil drawing of me talking about the breadth of Bell Beaker culture, with a child
interrupting to say “cool!”.
I don’t know if I’ll be free to help out again in another two years, if they do it again2: perhaps I
should record a longer video, with a classroom focus, that shares everything I know about The Devil’s Quoits.
But I’ll certainly keep a fond memory of this (and the previous) time I got to go on such a fun school trip, and to be an (alleged) expert about a place whose history I find so
interesting!
Footnotes
1 Not every question the children asked was the smartest, but every one was gold.
One asked “is it possible aliens did it?” Another asked, “how old are you?”, which I can only assume was an effort to check if I remembered when this 5,000-year-old hengiform monument
was being constructed…
2 By lucky coincidence, this year’s trip fell during a period that I was between jobs, and
so I was very available, but that might not be the case in future!
I’ve been in a lot of interviews over the last two or three weeks. But there’s a moment that stands out and that I’ll remember forever as the most-smug I’ve ever felt during an
interview.
There’ll soon be news to share about what I’m going to be doing with the second half of this year…
This particular interview included a mixture of technical and non-technical questions, but a particular technical question stood out for reasons that will rapidly become apparent. It
went kind-of like this:
Interviewer: How would you go about designing a backend cache that retains in memory some number of most-recently-accessed items?
Dan: It sounds like you’re talking about an LRU cache. Coincidentally, I implemented exactly that just the other
week, for fun, in two of this role’s preferred programming languages (and four other languages). I wrote a blog post about my design
choices: specifically, why I opted for a hashmap for quick reads and a doubly-linked-list for constant-time writes. I’m sending you the links to it now: may I talk you through the
diagrams?
Interviewer:
That’s probably the most-overconfident thing I’ve said at an interview since before I started at the Bodleian, 13 years ago. In the interview for
that position I spent some time explaining that for the role they were recruiting for they were asking the wrong questions! I provided some better questions that I felt they
should ask to maximise their chance of getting the best candidate… and then answered them, effectively helping to write my own interview.
Anyway: even ignoring my cockiness, my interview the other week was informative and enjoyable throughout, and I’m pleased that I’ll soon be working alongside some of the people that I
met: they seem smart, and driven, and focussed, and it looks like the kind of environment in which I could do well.
When I posted to LinkedIn about my recent redundancy, I saw
a tidal wave of reposts and well-wishes. But there’s one that I’ve come back to whenever I need a pick-me-up before I, y’know, trawl the job boards: a comment-repost by my big-hearted,
sharp-minded former co-worker Kyle. I’m posting it here because I want to keep a copy forever1:
Bad news: I’m among the sixth of Automattic that’s been laid-off this week.
Good news: I’m #OpenToWork, and excited about the opportunity to bring my unique skillset to a new role. Could I be the Senior Software Engineer, Full-Stack Web Developer, or
Technical Lead that you’re looking for?
Here’s what makes me special:
🕸️ 26+ years experience of backend and frontend development, with a focus on standards, accessibility, performance, security, and the open Web
🌎 20+ years experience of working in and leading remote/distributed teams in a diversity of sectors
👨💻 Professional experience of many of the technologies you’ve heard of (PHP, Ruby, Java, Perl, SQL, Go, DevOps, JS, jamstacks, headless…), and probably some you haven’t…
👨🎓 Degrees and other qualifications spanning computer science and software engineering, psychotherapy, ethical hacking, and digital forensics (I don’t believe there’s a career in
the world that makes use of all of these, but if you know differently, tell me!)
If this man isn’t hired immediately, it’s a huge loss. Dan is easily one of the most talented engineers I’ve ever met. His skills are endless, his personal culture is delightful,
and I don’t think I went a day working with him where I didn’t learn something. Let him build you beautiful things. I dare you.
Incidentally, Kyle’s looking for a new role too. If you’re in need of a WordPress/PHP/React pro with a focus on delivering the MVP fast and keeping the customer’s needs
front-and-centre, you should look him up. He’s based in Cape Town but he’s a remote/distributed veteran that you could slot into
your Web team anywhere.
Footnotes
1 My blog was already 5 years old when LinkedIn was founded: my general thinking is that I
can’t trust any free service younger than my blog to retain information for perpetuity longer than my blog, which is why so much of my content from around the web gets
PESOS‘d or POSSE‘d here.
After fashioning the requisite tool it still took me a solid 5+ attempts to retrieve the cache – it felt a bit like playing those wiggle-wire fairground games that I suck at so much!
Once retrieved, the dog was very disappointed that start I was holding wasn’t a plaything for her. TFTC, FP awarded for the right container, right hiding place, right difficulty.
Great container in an excellent spot (have another FP!) but retrieval of this one was a bit of a stretch for my old bones! Amazing route you’ve picked out here, too, CO. TFTC!
Searched high and low around the obvious hiding place before sitting down to have a think and immediately spotting another even better hiding place she the cache in pain sight: d’oh!
The geopup didn’t want to come all the all the way to it so she waited at the first obvious hiding spot.
Great to see a good sized cache for the environment and in such good condition. FP awarded. Took 4×4 travel bug.
TFTC!
Stopped at the pub nearby for an incredibly late lunch and to recharge the electric car on my journey from Pembrokeshire to Oxfordshire, because I’d much rather get off the motorway and
find somewhere nice to sit while the electrons do their thing. Spotted this nearby cache in the yard of this beautiful church, which made for a lovely walk as the well-tended flowerbeds
were wonderfully fragrant. Followed a geotrail to find the cache. Amazing, loved finding this so much. SL, TNLN, TFTC, FP awarded.
On a diversion from my cycle from Witney to Eynsham I came along the A40 cyclepath to find this cache. And what a cache! An excellent container perfectly suited to it’s hiding place.
SL, TNLN, FP awarded for a large and well maintained container, TFTC.
What a truly spectacular cache. FP awarded, without hesitation. I’ve seen a similar kind in a library before but never with such depth, such a story, so voluminous a container, nor –
let’s be honest – so beautiful a building!
The Wolfson room was packed, presumably with people studying for their upcoming exams, but I found a seat there to work out the final location. Once there, I made my way up and found it
without difficulty. No trouble with the numbers from me.
I’m going to try to tag one or two more Manchester caches before I catch my train home, but I can’t imagine any will hold a candle to this. TFTC!
Found following a short hunt and a brief rummage after walking up the nearby footpath, with the help of a previous log which talked about crossing a fence (which I didn’t need to do, having come up
the correct way in the first place).
Some fellow volunteers and I are meeting at a hotel to the West of here for a weekend of making
software to help charities. When we meet up, I have a tradition of getting up early and finding a geocache or two before breakfast. Having exhausted the very-local supply of caches
on previous visits, and not wishing to miss out on the tradition on this, geocaching’s 25th birthday, I decided it was time to come further afield (and to finally solve this puzzle!…
I’m still stumped by its sibling, though!).
Nice container. Log slightly damp, but still usable. TFTC, and FP awarded for the enjoyable (once I spotted a pattern!) puzzle.
An excellent container in a picturesque spot. FP awarded. The geopup didn’t want to come exploring off the path so I had to find this one by myself.
SL, TFTC.
Never one to let a hard day’s voluntary work keep me from a geocaching expedition, this afternoon I took a hot brisk walk up the scar to find this (and hopefully next another nearby!)
cache. Caught my breath sitting on a rock near the GZ, before pressing on. SL, TNLN, TFTC. FP awarded for such a delightful spot.
Apparently Automattic are laying off around one in six of their workforce. And I’m one of the unlucky ones.
Anybody remote hiring for a UK-based full-stack web developer (in a world that doesn’t seem to believe that full-stack developers exist anymore) with 25+ years professional experience,
specialising in PHP, Ruby, JS, HTML, CSS, devops, and about 50% of CMSes you’ve ever heard of (and probably some you haven’t)… with a flair for security, accessibility,
standards-compliance, performance, and DexEx?
I’m visiting Istanbul to meet with colleagues, but we took some time off from our meetings and work this afternoon to come and get lost in the Grand Bazaar. While browsing the amazing
diversity of stalls I found myself staring at the floors, which are made of the same kind of limestone as my kitchen floor (in which my kids love hunting for fossils!). Wouldn’t that
make a great Earthcache, I thought… and it turns out it anyway is one! So I spent a little while hunting for the best fossil I could find (I’d hoped for a gastropod of some kind, but
had to settle for a bivalve), and sent the answers to the CO. Fantastic stuff. TFTC! FP awarded. And,
possibly, FTF!
