weeknotes for w/c 31/03/25

hugely fulfilling first week of April, with the weather getting even more beautifukl! got a handful of deadlines coming up with some big news down the pipeline, so this month will be relatively busy.

• the BBC license fee in its current form is ending in 2027, with the expiration of its Royal Charter. you have the chance to give your ideas to shape what the BBC looks like for the next decade. if you have a BBC Account, respond to the Our BBC, Our Future survey. do it. now.
  • if you've read this blog post, you're UK-based and don't respond to this survey, you have absolutely no right to complain about the state of the BBC over the next decade. don't forget to tell all your friends, too!
• my commitment against commitments seems to be holding somewhat strong, as I haven't agreed to do anything more this week. looking forward to the next week, I have a few things I've got to do
  • Campaign Lab at Newspeak House on Monday. haven't been for a few weeks, so it'd be good to show my face
  • funfair this Tuesday
  • cooking for Ration Club at Newspeak House on Wednesday
  • Knowledge Arrangement Reading Group on Friday
• cooked for Josie on Sunday night. I forgot to mention it last week, given I fell asleep before add it to the update. cooked her salmon in the oven, with steamed green beans, spinach and tenderstem broccoli, along with mashed potatoes and a white sauce from scratch
• the second day of Cloud Native Rejekts on Monday wasn't too bad. met a couple of cool people, though, including the creator of YAML.
  • the whole conference felt like a bit of a bust, as it was quite cliquey and I found networking difficult.
  • I feel like that's what I get for not being embedded in the K8s and cloud native ecosystem (and not even going to Kubecon), while still attending their fringe events.
• submitted my CfP for the Teaching Programming across Disciplines book just before the noon deadline on Tuesday. I'm excited to work with so many talented people, even though I feel slightly underqualified
• got a new bag on Tuesday evening from Oxford Street, given the strap on my old one broke.
• went to a McDonald's in Oxford Street's West One Shopping Centre on Tuesday that was like stepping into a time machine to the mid-2010s. no electronic displays above the counter, no self-service kiosks, not on the McDonald's app... even the music was 2010s pop.
• went to the House of Kube party on Tuesday night with Felix. there was an open bar and free food, although it was more of a rave than a house party. the music was... okay?
  • realised I enjoy 115dBA at source music for the same reason I like weighted blankets, namely the 'fuzzy' stimulation
  • met someone from Manchester I had initially met at my QiT talk. it's a small world!
  • after getting home from at ~0200, my body jolted me awake at 0830 on Wednesday morning with ruthless efficiency
• had a monthly with the CTO on Thursday morning, discussed engineering strategy
• met with Arora Ashani, codebar's new community manager, over lunchtime on Thursday. she interviewed me briefly about my experience as a codebar chapter organiser. she's lovely, and I know she'll do great work over the next year.
• went to Charing Cross Hospital on Thursday, to be screened for that study I signed up for. they're trying to understand how reproductive hormones affect different segments of the population.
  • shockingly found the unit I needed to go to without any problems!
  • they did a printout of my heartbeat, and apparently it's fine. yippee!
  • the vampires took twelve vials of my blood for preliminary tests. TWELVE. VIALS. that's apparently nothing, as they'll take 500ml (or ~10%) of my total blood over the course of the study.
  • worked late to make up for the time at the hospital
• went to a friend's on Thursday evening, to help them set up their homelab
  • set up Proxmox on their box, with Home Assistant and Rocky Linux running in boxes. pointed them to instructions to set up Coolify, like I do.
  • I really need to better document my homelab, just in case I get hit by a bus.
  • got a 3D printed spinny as a thank you <3
• got some PRs in on Friday and did some reviews, which was a satisfying culmination of a week's work. did some reviews, too. I think I've been settling in well at Lumi. I'll have been here for two months on the 14th. time flies!
• picked the tracks I'd like to review for for OpenInfra Europe 2025
• this weekend was busy, in a good way!
  • saw a crow in my back garden on Friday, which made me happy
  • found a fiver on the pavement, because the universe likes me
  • went out-out with Katie on Friday night. initially planned to do rock karaoke, but it was cancelled. went to the Central Station pub in King's Cross instead, and then to Egg London for their house music night.
  • went up the road for breakfast on Saturday morning, and completed the quick crossword in the Guardian (it wasn't actually that quick, even though two of us hacked away at it)
  • got some genuine downtime on Saturday, which felt great. watched Joker: Folie à Deux on Saturday night and it was such a bad film. Lady Gaga's performance was brilliant, though, and there was at least one good song
• rolled out of bed on Sunday to discover my talk on personal knowledge arrangement was accepted for Newline in Gent. I'm going to make it the best damn talk that's ever existed.
• got snacks on Sunday, and played Split Fiction. also got a waffle cone with a flake from the ice-cream man, so I'm super happy
• 100%'d Discord's April Fools game, touch grass, and got a special avatar decoration
• we live in a pretty damn good time for media. I've been told I need to watch BEEF (starring Steven Yeun of INVINCIBLE fame). there's also a seventh series of Black Mirror coming out on the 10th, with six episodes.
• I've been trying to publish one blog post a month, but sticking to that cadence seems difficult given I've been so busy. I feel like spending one month doing and one month writing might be better?
• taking better care of myself
  • over this week, I've made a concerted effort to drink more water. it seems to be working well, and I'm staying hydrated.
  • found my sticky notes, so I'm now able to schedule my tasks better. it's so much easier when I can see my next task is right there. I've been thinking about creating an e-ink display for displaying my calendar and my to-do items from Plane. that would be useful for making my tasks more visible, and therefore more actionable.
• over the next month, I'd like to knock out a few long-running tasks, including a spring deep clean and finishing that blog post