2023-01-30
Right, so there’s this trilogy of children’s books called “Shapes” featuring
three 2D characters named Circle, Triangle and Square, and Apple has turned it
into a stop-motion animated TV series with 3D characters (i.e. a sphere, pyramid
and cube) of the same names. Argh!
Just returned from an amazing seven-day holiday with the Ho family down in
Dunsborough. Unfortunately I took my new bike and stacked it pretty badly in the
MTB park. Face-planted from the top of a jump onto solid gravel. Felt like I
broke my ribs. Put on a brave face for the week but was in a lot of pain. Back
home I visited the doctor and have had an x-ray and will have a shoulder
ultrasound in the morning. He doesn’t seem too concerned, mentioned a ruptured
spleen was probably a more realistic and serious risk, but I need to put my mind
at ease by knowing for sure that I haven’t done myself more harm and that I’m
doing the right things to make sure I recover.
Aside from that the holiday was amazing. Pool, tennis, bike rides, restaurants,
breweries, great dinners at home (wagyu steaks on the barbie, spaghetti vongola,
roasted rack of lamb and so on), lots of wine, read five novels start to finish
(Remains of the Day, Stella Maris, Olive Again, The Stranger and Dark Matter)
and, above all, the kids had an absolute ball. We’re likely going back to the
same spot this year, perhaps twice.
2023-01-08
Well, I’ve been COVID-19 +ve for the last seven days. Isolating in my home
office, which, luckily for me, features a rather comfy sofa bed and an ensuite
shower and toilet. I’m guessing I caught the dreaded virus on the flight home
from Vietnam, where we were from the 19th to the 31st of December last year.
Attended our regular NYE get-together, during which I must have been infectious,
but luckily nobody else has come down with symptoms yet.
I want to eliminate social media and doomscrolling, so I spent the first few
days of iso binge-watching shows instead. Clint recommended Andor on NYE, so I
started by watching all twelve episodes in the first two days. I also watched
the Cyberpunk 2077 anime and The Rehearsal, which is a bizarre, genius show.
Not up to reading books due to feeling a bit out of it, and struggled to work on
Thursday and Friday after taking Tuesday and Wednesday off (Monday was a public
holiday). Skimmed a few RSS feeds and discovered olduse.net, which Joey Hess
(who ported MegaHAL to Debian back in the day) originated in 2011 as a 10-year
art installation, replaying USENET archives in realtime. I love the idea of
replaying history; it reminded me of Pepys Diary, put online by Phil Gifford in
2002, and which is being serialized for the third time this year (I’ve
resubscribed to the feed).
Anyway, I wanted to read old news in nn, which is the newsreader I started with
back in 1991 or whenever, and I found the source (last updated in 2005) and
hacked around, managing to get it compiling and running. But that wasn’t enough;
to recreate the full experience I installed the cool-retro-terminal, which
mimics a CRT display. And reading news from 1983 became quite addictive for a
few days; it’s fun checking back to see if there have been replies or new posts,
and fun to look up TV shows, music, movies and books that people mention. For
example, one guy posted about searching record stores in vain for a favourite
but obscure album that he had lost in a house fire in 1977; it took me only a
few moments to locate it on YouTube Music and have a listen.
The whole experience got me wondering about discovery versus search, and the
role that boredom plays in creativity. Together with community I think these are
core interests of mine this year, and I need to decide what to do with this new
enthusiasm. But certainly reading old news lead me to discovering things that I
would never known to search for in the first place.
Working in the retro terminal encouraged me to install some old games, such as
rogue and nethack, which I’d never really spent serious time playing in the
past. And I’ve now replaced my GUI RSS reader with a TUI version, and dabbled a
bit with ICU as well. Not to mention connecting to a few BBSes and trying out a
MUD (the DiscWorld one, which I remember trying out once before; I was surprised
to discover that it originated at the UCC in 1991 and has been regularly
maintained and updated for over 30 years).
How much has changed, and yet how much has remained the same.
2022-09-30
One month into my new job and it’s been going great, exceeding my expectations
on all fronts. Feel like I’m having a real impact without needing to be across
everything in the business. And the people are fantastic. Can’t wait to be given
the opportunity to visit in person. And although my schedule has gravitated more
towards regular business hours, I still have time during my day for chores and
exercise, and can make up for that in the evenings. Have been using watson to
track my time and have been spending around 45 hours per week working, so have
been deliberately limiting my hours to get it below 40, and to develop a natural
feel for the expected rate of work. My tendency is to overwork, but I really
want to avoid that… I’m in this for the long run.
School holidays have started and the in-laws are visiting from Sydney for the
entire two weeks, which is awesome but also chaotic with them staying with us
for the first 5 days. Jack has been spending a lot of time with his cousins,
waking up at 6:30am each morning. They moved out of our place yesterday, and
without them there he slept through to 9:30am! He needed it.
We took the gang to Treetop Adventures in Yanchep, and Joshie joined us. Eliza
stayed with him throughout, and although initially uncertain he ended up having
a great time. However, as he was taking off his harness back at the reception
area, he started becoming unresponsive. We thought he was being silly when he
collapsed on the ground at the feet of another family, but Eliza quickly
realised something was wrong, saying “I think he’s having a seizure!”
The man standing next to Joshie with his family when he collapsed reacted
instantly, telling us he’s qualified, and asked me to time the duration of the
seizure. He and his wife had initially thought Joshie was autistic, based on his
behaviour, and it was Eliza’s reaction that made them realise it was abnormal.
He made sure Joshie recovered and waited for the ambulance arrived, giving the
paramedics a detailed description of the seizure that he had witnessed
first-hand. I asked him for his contact details to pass them on to Joshie’s
parents.
D. travelled in the Ambulance with Joshie, taking him to Perth Children’s
Hospital, where Joshie’s parents were waiting. Once settled in they called the
man who had helped us, who turned out to be the most senior ER physician at that
very same hospital. We were so lucky that he was there, 60kms north of the city,
on his day off with his family to help us!
2022-08-24
Took Jack to Melbourne on Friday to see AJR, his favourite band. Their shows are
great—big, operatic productions—and they are only touring on the east coast.
We flew out in the morning, arriving after 4pm (the flight was delayed), and we
took an Uber to our airbnb apartment in St. Kilda. After settling in we ate
gumbo, pulled pork po-boys and curly fries for dinner at Dog’s Bar across the
street, then walked to Palais Theatre for the show.
The queue for merch was massive, but we joined it and missed most of the warmup
act as a result. But Jack managed to get a t-shirt and a few other mementos. The
show itself was astounding, we both had a ball, and Jack was excited that the
sound of the crowd singing will be used on the next album.
Slept in the following day, then headed out to buy a Myki from a 7/11 and caught
a tram into the city. Great ramen lunch at Shujinko Flinders before walking over
to the NGV in the beautiful sunshine to spend a few hours mooching around the
Picasso exhibition. Then chilled out for a while at Hopscotch, drinking beer and
playing the Switch Lite, while waiting for Aladar. Great time reminiscing when
he arrived, and he then took us to eat dumplings at ShanDong MaMa, which was
amazing. Tram back to St. Kilda.
Woke up late with a headache, so installed the Macca’s app and ordered coffee
and brekky so I could throw back a few nurofen. Jack made cup noodles and added
some fries to the mix. Slowly packed up and showered, and ordered an Uber to the
airport for our 2:55pm flight. Got through security to find out it had been
cancelled, headed back out to the service desk and luckily got on a 5:30 flight,
so Jack wouldn’t miss school. Then had a few hours to kill, so Jack did some
homework (as he had done in Perth while waiting for our delayed flight out)
while sitting in a burger joint for a late lunch / early dinner. Flight back
home was comfy, great to see D. at the airport pickup. Great weekend away!
2022-08-18
D. and I went on a lovely hike in Roley Pool Reserve, followed by lunch at Seven
Sins. Nice food but lots of it! Always great whiling away a crisp and clear
morning in the hills. Must return during spring to see the flowers; along one
section of the walk the ground was covered with kangaroo paws not yet in bloom.
Had mum and dad over for roast lamb to celebrate D’s birthday, then the kids
slept over at their place the following night so we could go to “Flight Club”
with friends, followed by a nice dinner and an evening of Catan, Five Crowns and
generous lashings of single malt.
Caught up with Ade and Wil for a Monday roast at Durty’s. Good to have a chance
to chat with Ade after only seeing him briefly at his 50th.
Really enjoying Oliver Burkman’s “Four Thousand Weeks”. Lots of good advice.
Will keep mindful of this once I start my new job next week!
2022-08-07
Great catching up with the old gang for Ade’s 50th this morning at a Malaysian
buffet in East Perth. Lots of good memories from back in the day. And I’m still
riding, playing squash and sinking pints of Guinness after all these years. Need
to do more to keep in touch; should organise a monthly meetup or something like
that. Kids had a piano concert afterwards; they both played very well but Eliza
was super nervous beforehand and very hard on herself. She should be proud.
2022-08-03
Just signed on for a new role! Had two competing offers, both very similar, with
a good interview and technical evaluation at both. Applied for around 15 roles
altogether, over a 3 month period of slowly looking. Not all were good
experiences. Some recruiters suck, some are awesome, most are between the two.
Sometimes my application was rejected without comment, sometimes I was rejected
without comment after a non-technical interview for “cultural fit”. In almost
all cases the take-home programming projects were a lot of fun and I gladly did
them; about five in total. I only had one interview that asked “gotcha” trivia
questions (like fizzbuzz), which caused me to immediately disconnect from the
process. Had to sadly say no to three or four places that were looking promising
and where I really liked the people I met. Man, job hunting sucks. It’s both bad
for the ego and hard when forced to choose between multiple offers. Glad it’s
over!