Journal entries in the last 31 days

last week | last month | last year | all entries

πŸ“… day [[2024-12-19]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-16]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-15]]
  • I’m writing this on the [[Shinkansen]] from [[Hiroshima]] to [[Osaka]].
    • The [[Hiroshima Museum]], by which I mean the [[Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum]], was very interesting and very shocking — even though I thought I knew what to expect, the effect on me was strong. I could notice it also on other people who were there.
    • In Osaka I intend to:
      • Try interesting food (of course) :)
        • [[Kushikatsu]]? Hopefully there’s a meat-free version.
      • Visit new neighborhoods, like [[Shinsekai]] and [[Den Den Town]].
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-14]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-13]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-11]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-09]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-08]]
  • I’m flying to [[San Francisco]] to work from [[Sunnyvale]] for a few days. As I write this I’m on a SAS A330 sitting in 51A with the seat next to me empty, the plane being about 70% full.
  • I started listening to [[Right Concentration]] by [[Leigh Brasington]] (sp?) on the way to Copenhagen where I made my short connection.
  • Now I’ve finally started properly reading the [[Fediversalist Papers]] (I’ve been waiting for such an occasion) and found the report immediately engrossing.
    • …and finished :) I tried taking good enough notes to then share with the Social.coop working groups and organizing Circle.
  • I’m still two hours away from San Francisco. Not much more battery left in my laptop, so maybe I’ll just keep reading something else.
  • I finished reading [[Thich Nhat Hanh]]‘s commentary on the [[Heart Sutra]]. I enjoyed it a lot :) Thank you Thich as usual.

2024-12-08

  • [[Read]]: [[Wasteland]]
    • In the epilogue, a bit of reflection on how we actually reduce waste.
    • Looks at [[ethical consumption]], [[zero waste]] and the [[circular economy]] with a critical eye. Them having been coopted by corporations.
    • Ultimately, his conclusion seems to be: [[degrowth]]. Consume less, produce less.
      • That doesn’t really address the problems of industrial waste though.
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-07]]

2024-12-07

  • Blurters gonna blurt.

    • [[microblurting]].
    • Going to try popping them in daily files in a subfolder.
  • Read: [[Wasteland]].

    • [[Nuclear waste]]. [[Sellafield]].
    • The book is great, well written and researched.
    • But I’m finding the subject matter ultimately quite depressing.
    • Particularly as it’s getting into [[industrial waste]]. It’s huge in scale.
    • [[Nuclear power]] and the corresponding waste is such a prime example of human hubris and folly.
    • This shit is going to be around for tens of thousands of years, yet we don’t seem to have a clue what we’re doing with it.
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-06]]

2024-12-06

πŸ“… day [[2024-12-05]]

2024-12-05

πŸ“… day [[2024-12-04]]
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-03]]

2024-12-03

πŸ“… day [[2024-12-02]]

2024-12-02

  • Read Where to draw the line? - by Gordon Brander

  • Note that [[Substack]] has it’s short form posts now.

    • A decent move, a combining of elements of the garden and the stream in one service.
    • Essentially another walled garden version of what [[IndieWeb]] does.
  • I love using [[spacemacs]] and [[Emacs]].

    • However, one big negative - I’m always scared to update spacemacs to latest, as well as packages from Melpa.
    • Pretty much at least one important thing breaks every time that I do, and as I need this for my work, I can’t often spare that time.
    • So I tend to put it off and lag behind.
    • I imagine there’s things I can do that would mitigate the risk and friction - I should look into those.
      • One simple idea is just to have two version running side-by-side. I might be able to do that actually, I think there’s a flag you can pass Emacs to say where to look for your conf folder.
πŸ“… day [[2024-12-01]]

2024-12-01

  • Continuing from yesterday, yeah it seems like the touch input doesn’t work great on the native Android Emacs build, either.
    • So, Termux’s text input view is probably the best option for now.
    • orgzly is brilliant for task management, but you don’t get the whole range of Emacs’ powers.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-30]]
  • I’m writing this on the train to [[Bern]], after which I will make a few connections and make my way to [[Puidoux]] where I’ll join a [[party in the forest]].
    • It’s going to be quite cold tonight and the party goes on until Sunday afternoon, so I’m happy I got some [[Merino]] underpants and a long sleeved shirt yesterday :)
    • I caught up with [[Eerie Shell]] and [[Kris]] over messaging.
  • I say [[We Will Defeat Moloch]].

2024-11-30

  • [[Wasteland]]

  • Writing prose in [[Emacs]] with [[Termux]] is a little weird.

    • It’s because you have to workaround the fact that terminal emulators don’t generally work well with touch keyboards.
    • Termux solves this cleverly with a text input view you can access by swiping left on the extra keys row.
    • It’s neat, but not optimal for longer-form writing.
    • Options:
      • Use orgzly for longer text input.
      • Try Emacs native Android build again.
      • Stick with it, it’s not that bad.
  • Going all in on [[libre software]] and [[open hardware]] is a key part of [[digital ecosocialism]].

    • That said, use of proprietary alternatives may be necessary during transition.
  • Provisioning the [[knowledge commons]] with info on what software is good, how to use it, how to switch to it, etc, also very important.

  • [[Wasteland]]

  • [[Waste]] and what you do with it is an important part of any [[system]].

    • This is part of why I’m finding [[Wasteland]] so interesting.
      • Here the system is society.
    • You can try and reuse it circulate it back into your system. Or you sink it somewhere in the environment.
      • It seems though, nothing is ever truly a sink - it always comes back one way or another…
    • Or you try and reduce how much of it there is in the first place.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-29]]

2024-11-29

πŸ“… day [[2024-11-28]]
  • [[2024-11-27]] took place as well (linking it so I can then go node it :)
  • Interesting conversation in [[Agora discuss]]!
    • [[Zicklag]] wrote about [[weird.one]], sounds very cool, it would be great to catch up synchronously with them and [[Erlend]].

2024-11-28

  • Watched [[Agentic Product Development]]
    • Not sure I understand how the talk relates to the title.
    • But I like the concepts discussed a lot.
      • To me it felt like a description of [[IndieWeb]] without really mentioning IndieWeb.
        • Except in the talk subtitle? And one side mention of IndieAuth.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-27]]
  • I woke up with a headache for some reason, and it came back during the day, but otherwise I was fine.
  • I worked and then attended the [[end of year dinner]] with my coworkers.
    • There was also a [[bowling]] afternoon event which I skipped as I felt I was too behind work and I wanted to use the opportunity to catch up.
    • Even as I decided to skip it I knew that, with the passage time, I would remember the bowling event but not the afternoon working. But I decided to do it anyway as I also knew my mental state would be affected by not making progress on some tasks, and I think in the end it was a reasonable choice.
    • I enjoyed dinner. I actually like my coworkers, I’m lucky in that (and many ways!).
  • Then I returned home and I played with [[Lady Burup]] and played the piano.

2024-11-27

  • [[Wasteland]]

    • Now discussing [[reuse]]. Waste prevention.
  • Learned of [[Weird]] and [[Leaf]] from Zicklag on Agora Discuss.

    • Very interesting!
    • Weird: "prosocial network based on the cornerstone of the internet:Personal websites."
      • This is music to my ears.
  • [[Watched]] [[Why Ethical Consumerism Is a Trap]]

    • It’s a trap!
    • [[B Corps]] started off decent enough, but some problematic admissions recently (Nespresso?)
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-25]]

2024-11-25

πŸ“… day [[2024-11-24]]
  • Still recovering from disease (flu? covid? unsure) with [[AG]] — but feeling better thankfully, both of us.
  • Ended up testing [[backup restores]] for [[social.coop]] finally and it felt great! It was in the todo list for long.
  • Not so much progress on [[work-work]] this weekend — which I know might sound a bit weird, why is it that I sometimes plan to work on the weekends? The truth is that some of the things I need to do I find it hard to do during the week for a variety of reasons, like meeting load. So I sometimes use the weekend to catch up. But when I don’t I have to at some point ‘let go of it’, else it weights on me implicitly.
  • Spoke to my mum over [[Meet]] and it was great!
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-23]]
  • [[23]] is [[Lady Burup]]‘s day :)
    • A chill day at home, with snow outside. I’m taking care of [[AG]] a bit as she’s sick.
  • Todo for the day:
    • rest :)
    • fix mastodon embeds in the Agora? they are still broken after most instances updated to 4.3
      • I didn’t quite fix this yet but I found two bugs doing this and made progress :)
      • First, social.coop embed.js had not been updated in years. We need a step to update static content when updating the instance! I mentioned it in the room.
      • Second, I filed https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/33049 against Mastodon. I don’t get how their "new style" embeds are supposed to work, embed.js seems a bit weird. Let’s see what they say.
    • work: on that work document at least for one pomodoro
    • work: book meetings for the upcoming week (see paper notebook)
    • social.coop: CWG oncall
      • Some spam reports.
      • No new registrations since yesterday.
    • social.coop: TWG next steps towards alpha.social.coop
      • Hmm, what does this mean?
      • I guess I should fill that form to get a VPS from iocoop now that we have joined! That sounds simple enough/fun.
    • write
    • read

2024-11-23

  • [[Wasteland]].

    • When Blue Planet had its episode on plastic waste in the oceans, the anti-plastic public reaction gave the price of recycled plastic a huge boost.
      • Interesting to think how television programmes can still have such a system changing effect.
      • See also the documentary about the [[British Post Office scandal]].
    • Apparently a plastic bag was found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
  • I hope to find the time to start participating in the [[IndieWeb Carnival]].

    • I like it as a concept for nudging people to write in their blogs.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-22]]
  • back to the office finally, after a few days sick working from home! it was nice going back.

2024-11-22

  • Downloaded [[Wasteland]] from [[libro.fm]].

    • But… now I can’t find my headphones.
  • Found them!

  • The opening to [[Wasteland]], where he outlines the scale of waste we produce worldwide, puts me in mind of the bit in [[Doughnut Economics]] where she discusses broadening our conception of the economy to be embedded within the biosphere.

    • How the economy has sources and sinks to the wider environment.
    • Wasteland tells just how much of a sink we treat the planet as, as we dump our waste into it.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-21]]

2024-11-21

  • Finished rereading (listening) [[Doughnut Economics]].
    • Still relevant and useful.
    • I should write up some takeaways. (Maybe use that rubric from the OU module?)
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-20]]
  • I’m [[sick]]. Nothing serious, feels like the flu. [[AG]] got it over the weekend.
    • Working from home and catching some [[Meet University]] talks, although today only until 16. There’s an all hands later I may put in the background; I told my manager I was low energy and would focus on resting half a day.
  • I cut my hair, which usually makes me feel fresher, and it did. I also shaved everything except my mustache, for [[Movember]] (is it still a thing? I think so)
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-19]]
  • [[work]]
    • I woke up sick but I worked from home anyway.
    • [[Meet University]] was good!
  • then I rested after work, ate something, spent time with [[Burup]] and caught up with friends
  • then I thought about:
  • [[cwebber]] joined [[social.coop]] earlier this week!

2024-11-19

πŸ“… day [[2024-11-18]]

2024-11-18

  • [[wp cli]] is handy.

  • In a [[causal loop diagram]], where do you put actions, things that happen? I guess it’s a flow. But, what causes the flow?

πŸ“… day [[2024-11-17]]

2024-11-17

  • Reread Robin Sloan’s article on [[Stock and flow]].
    • As an analogy for garden and stream.
    • Not sure if it’s an analogy to [[stocks and flows]] specifically in systems thinking, or there’s a more generic economic concept.
    • Anyway - he makes a good point that it’s not good to be all stock, no flow.
    • He means it in the sense of, you should post to the stream a little bit, so people know what you’re up to.
    • I should consider that - I generally don’t post to social media streams, just to my journal here.
    • Which I like as it remains distraction free.
    • But it does reduce social interaction significantly.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-16]]

2024-11-16

πŸ“… day [[2024-11-15]]
  • I [[worked]]; it was fine actually, I had a late review meeting (I don’t usually have meetings on Fridays) but it was interesting/felt worth it.
  • I met [[L]]! We spent some of the afternoon together. It was very nice to see her.
  • I then worked on [[social.coop]], scaling up (with [[Dan]]). Then I read/wrote/coded a bit.
πŸ“… day [[2024-11-14]]

2024-11-14

  • On Tuesday I went to a workshop on learning the basics of electrical repairs.

    • Was good to meet some other volunteers from the area.
      • The round of intros took up a lot of the session though…
    • Had a bit of an overview on useful tools and basic electronic components, wired a plug, and then started repairing broken items we had brought with us.
    • It’s a two parter. Next time we’ll look at using a [[multimeter]], [[PAT testing]], and the [[right to repair]].
  • [[Doughnut Economics]] has a good overview of what a [[system]] is and why [[systems thinking]] of useful.