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Mr.Kapowski
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Asides

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Chris M.
| September 5th, 2020

I'm going to try blogging over at Micro.blog for a while, to see if that fits what I want to do, or re-inspire me in any way. A new blog, with a fresh start, even though it will mean a completely new “workflow”. It might be a temporary change, or it might become my new place. I'll drop the links once everything settles down a bit.

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2020

I'm kinda intrigued by the PinePhone. I doubt it would ever be my daily driver, but nonetheless, there's something that's got me interested. Perhaps as more of a “portable computer” than a regular smartphone?

I'm also tempted by the PineBook Pro, as a lightweight means to tinker around in Linuxland, rather than switch OS on my main PC every 9 months, but I don't think I've ever seen the version with the UK keyboard in stock.

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2020

Test post from Sunlit

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2020

I'm feeling like I need to overhaul my website again, but I don't know how. I just know I'm not overly satisfied with it.

It's currently running on WordPress, with the Autonomie theme, and a suite of Indieweb plugins. I honestly can't remember the last time I logged into the admin UI. I'm posting everything via Micropub these days (either from a custom setup on my phone, or via Quill). I think the only thing I use the UI for is to post a gallery, or tweak the data the Post Kinds plugin parsed from a like/bookmark post. Even WordPress updates are all automated these days.

Speaking of Post Kinds, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to export all that data in a way I could use elsewhere? That might make the choice of what to do more difficult.

Maybe a new theme will inspire me, or maybe I need to completely change the underlying system? I'm not sure, so it's something to ponder over, while I have some free time over the next few days.

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2020

In fairness, regarding my last post, I volunteered to dial in to the call. It's in my interests to influence the outcome of the discussion – and I can't do that if I'm not part of the conversation.

Normally I'm quite militant about being completely out of the office when I'm on leave. But this time I see being a little flexible as being in the interests of “the greater good” and to my long term gain.

But that doesn't mean I can't also be snarky about the whole thing, and thinking the situation is ass-backward 😅

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Chris M.
| September 2nd, 2020

First day of annual leave. Urgent project meeting to dial into at 9am. Standard.

🙄

2 Comments
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Chris M.
| September 1st, 2020

I’ve just got to make it through today, then I’m on annual leave for a week. Today’s going to go soooo slow 😆

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Chris M.
| August 29th, 2020

I've been feeling a bit depressed and – honestly – burned out over the last week or so. Work feels like a treadmill of frustrating and draining 10-14 hour days at the moment, and it's left me with no energy or motivation to do anything with the little time I'm not working.

This evening, after we watched Black Panther (Mrs K. hadn't seen it yet), I retired to my office with a book and put on a “Relaxing Classical” playlist. I don't quite feel fixed, but I feel better.

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Chris M.
| August 28th, 2020

I love1 finding out about requirements that it was assumed you knew about, and never explicitly communicated, at 4:30pm on the Friday before the delivery deadline.

  1. Do not love. ↩︎
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Chris M.
| August 27th, 2020

Priced up the parts to update my PC, out of interest. If I stick with the same case and GPU, it's around £500 for something that'll last me another 4-5 years, at least. If I stretch to 600ish I can get a bigger case/mobo, which will give me more expansion options (and probably better cooling).

Graphics would get upgraded next year if necessary. WoW isn't particularly demanding, even at 4K.

I'm tempted, but it's all low priority right now.

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Chris M.
| August 25th, 2020

Once again I appear to have been most productive on a work problem after working hours…

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Chris M.
| August 18th, 2020

It's possible to think Apple’s App Store is bad and in serious need of reform, and that Epic are also in the wrong and being hypocritical at the same time. It's not an either/or situation.

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Chris M.
| August 13th, 2020

“Docker Makes Things Easier, And Other Lies They Told You” – the title of a future memoir.

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Chris M.
| August 12th, 2020

There's some proper “war in heaven” type weather out there right now. Some of the most frequent lightning I can remember in a long time, and lots of big, booming, thunder. The rain sounded like being next to a waterfall for a while.

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Chris M.
| August 10th, 2020

When the PM and Scrum Masters wanted me to get an area of development into shape and on-track, I hope they were ready for the sheer avalanche of Jira tickets and stories that would entail…

1 Comment
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Chris M.
| August 6th, 2020

Just had an email from PayPal saying they're rolling out SMS-based two-factor authentication (and so I must validate my phone number)… yet they've got the temerity to call it “strong customer authentication.” If it was really about safeguarding accounts, they wouldn't be using SMS at all – which has proven to be no obstacle to hijacking accounts in just about any system that's used it.

1 Comment
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Chris M.
| August 6th, 2020

I really don't like how crippled the WordPress iOS app has become, if you don't use the Jetpack plugin and chain your site to WordPress.com/Automattic.

For example, you can't initiate a new post from the share sheet (say you want to share a link from an RSS app, or something), which is about as basic as it gets! Opening the app from the launcher and starting a new post works, but it's extra friction if you just want to fire off a quick post. There's really no need for it to be like this, and I can't think of any good reason for it.

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Chris M.
| August 5th, 2020

Why do some developers really hate exceptions? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one writing and using them…

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Chris M.
| August 4th, 2020

‪I hate that the internet seems to have made people so conspiracy-minded. Or at least amplified it. Oh, something innocuous happened? Must immediately assume it’s due to some really bad thing, and immediately denounce whoever I think is involved…‬

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Chris M.
| August 4th, 2020

No.1 Son did well in his school results for the year. Four B’s and a C, which is a very good bounce back from the disaster he had last year. He's actually looking forward to going back next week!

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Chris M.
| July 29th, 2020

"Never work with string encodings and cryptography."

1 Comment
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Chris M.
| July 29th, 2020

I'm currently looking at a bit of code, wondering why the responsible team decided to “modify the Base64 output, to make it safe to send over a URL” – using some custom character replacement and string slicing – when URL encoding and decoding are already a thing?

1 Comment
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Chris M.
| July 17th, 2020

Doh! Had to order a new washing machine. Having the last (v. noisy) load come out covered in plastic shavings from… somewhere… was the last sign it wasn’t a problem that could be ignored. Now to make it through the next 10 days with only handwashing 🙃

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Chris M.
| July 14th, 2020

The current "get back to work” messaging from the U.K. government is really irritating me. It shouldn't, as it's not important in the grand scheme of things… but a great many of us never stopped working. The last few months have been hectic, stressful, and some of the busiest in my career. Yet the way ministers are talking, you'd think I'd been on holiday for months and the economy is tanking as a direct result.

3 Comments
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Chris M.
| July 8th, 2020

I bought PC speakers for the first time in oooooh… 20+ years, because my new monitor didn’t have any built-in. They’re not even "good" ones, but it feels weird and joyous to hear sound coming from my computer that has actual depth and tone 🔊

3 Comments

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