the heatwave this week was absolutely brutal. I’ve been struggling with it a bit, as it’s became too hot to think. heatwaves make British people act quite…. unusually

miscellanea

• my favourite fun fact is that global warming doesn't directly cause heatwaves. instead, global warming causes climate change (according to those woke scientists, at least), and climate change is the reason for more altered world events adverse weather events, including heatwaves, cold waves, cyclones, heavy rainfall and floods. the end times are truly here.
• the team at GDS that maintains the Bank Holiday API has the easiest job ever lol. serve a flat file without falling over.
• noticed the font used by the animal cruelty campaign Project Slingshot is awfully similar to Nationwide post-rebrand. they’re actually the same font, Editorial New from the Pangram Pangram Foundry, which I confirmed by looking at their websites. it looks like Nationwide uses the regular weight, whereas Project Slingshot uses the light weight
• an ornamental fixture at the end of an object is called a finial
• London Fire Brigade charges for after attending two non-emergency lift callouts in a twelve month period. this charge appears to be £467.00 + VAT!
• the GDS has weighed in on the NHS removing all their closed source repos. I've never seen them so explicitly advise against a decision made by what is effectively another central government department. the NHS shutting down access to their repos for fear of AI-powered cyberattacks is highly reactionary. public money, public code.

musings

• apparently we have another bank holiday weekend. I hate the fact bank holidays aren’t more evenly distributed throughout the year.
• people outsourcing a painful amount of thinking to AI models. what happens when our thinking faculties wither and die? I’m not excited for people to shambles around like braindead zombies.
• I should invest in a good pair of sandals at some point, they feel more refined than flip flops
• I would make an excellent cult leader

misadventures

• got an underpaid postage notice last week, and paid it. turns out Pip sent me a bunch of very cute frog patches! I shall cherish these and guard these with my life.
• went to the dental hygenist on Tuesday and got my teeth cleaned. I've been told I'm doing well with my brushing!
  • apparently, there's a rule for dentists, called the 222 rule, where you should brush twice a day for at least two minutes each time and see your dentist twice a year.
  • after my visit to the dentist, I stopped at the Polish shop at the top of the road. got a ham and edam sandwich, which was quite good
• confirmed the time of my Newline talk. I’m so excited, given I missed it last year! also managed to book travel and a hotel
• sent off my credit files to a mortgage broker on Thursday, and got some mortgage projections back. this “buying a house” bit is becoming terrifyingly real
• despite my Internet going in the middle of this week, I managed to get a ton done for work
  • after playing around with adding a high-level locking algorithm to DAGs (think "workflows") using triggers, sensors, setup tasks and teardown tasks, I consider myself somewhat of an Airflow expert. I’d still like to learn a lot more about its internals, though.
    • got told by another engineer of the exact same seniority (for the avoidance of doubt, he's not my boss) that I did a good job on locking, which I’m quite proud of
  • I need to do better networking on my homelab. I couldn’t access some services when the Internet was out, because of misconfigured DNS. it’s always DNS.
• much to my colleagues’ chagrin, I’ve adopted a handful of new phrasal templates to my repertoire, namely “my beautiful twisted mind” and “deez nuts” and “hope this helps”. use of these phrasal templates will continue until morale improves. 
• got invited to meet with a bunch of people over this weekend. it is quite nice not to be the planner for once, and to instead be told “meet here at this time”.
• met with Iris on Friday for dinner at Osteria del Portico, a lovely little Italian restaurant in Ealing. she kept telling me me about her “horrible writing ideas” (her words, not mine), which I actually found quite intriguing. she’s a lot more creative than me when it comes to her writing, and I quite admire her for that.
  • she stayed the night, and then we went for breakfast at the top of the road on Saturday morning
• David invited me out for pie at the Argyll Arms on Oxford Street on Saturday, I dragged Iris along with me. I had a grand ol’ time catching up. he gave me some restaurant recommendations for Glasgow and Soho. I'll likely travel to Edinburgh via Glasgow, for the Teaching Programming Across Disciplines book launch on the 22nd, so I’ll give it a stop over
• met up with Mat on Saturday night as he was in town. we got denied entry into some pubs because no ID (I don’t really carry mine because we’re not a police state), so ended up chilling in a park near Euston. it was good to see him again.
• had brunch on Sunday with Ollie. we tried a new café called Milk and Egg. in my mind, the food was firmly middling and the atmosphere was quite busy. went for a walk in Walpole Park after.
  • Milk and Egg insisted on no substitutions, which seems weird for a small breakfast café. even the greasy spoon at the top of my road does substitutions.
• on Sunday afternoon, took part in a theatre experiment, where writers and directors will refine some productions over a few weeks using feedback from the audience. I felt really fulfilled afterwards and got pointed in the direction of some other good productions, including The Harder They Come and The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. ugh, I need to go to the NT again
• had a friend over Sunday night, got introduced to some good music (which I’m saving up for a special occasion).
• working on my next comedy set.
• with two conference back to back, followed by a charity walk, these next few weeks will be chaotic. as a creature born and moulded in chaos, I’m excited.