https://trivial.observer/blog/ Recent content in Benign Commentaries on Trivial Observations Hugo -- gohugo.io en Fri, 26 Jan 2024 22:06:40 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240126/ Fri, 26 Jan 2024 22:06:40 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240126/ Tomorrow morning Mrs Basil is heading off to Rotterdam for a week to attend the “Rotterdam Lab” at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. It’s a 6am flight, her hotel doesn’t allow check-in until 3pm, and the event begins at 2pm and lasts until late evening… She’s going to have a bit of a day. That’s on top of her usual anxieties when attending professional events like this. It will be a rollercoaster of emotions for her as ever. https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240122/ Mon, 22 Jan 2024 18:47:17 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240122/ After seeing it crop up a few times, either from people I interact with on the fediverse and/or folk who’s blogs I read, I’ve signed for an account with omg.lol. I don’t really know what to describe it as… A “small independent hosting collective” is the best I can come up with. I thought I’d perhaps use it as an un-anonymised alt to my usual semi-anon online presence here. As part of the £15 a year membership you get some light web hosting (a profile page, a now page, a basic markdown blog, a very old school microblog), a text pastebin and image pastebin, a mastodon account at social. https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240115/ Mon, 15 Jan 2024 18:47:01 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240115/ I accidentally ended up being too helpful at work and it’s backfired. I’ve been lumped with a load of work that never seems to end, without the authority to actually make any decisions about it. Happy days. The work in question is the configuration of a complicated web app (A validation lifecycle management system). Four things are making it difficult: the system is maddeningly complicated and bizarre the system and its configuration is poorly documented the configuration file is an Excel workbook our computer system validation process, which is being computerised, poorly defined and muddled. https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240114/ Sun, 14 Jan 2024 15:41:05 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2024/01/20240114/ Huzzah! It works. I finally have obsidian-git working on my phone. Meaning I can blog much more easily without my laptop. Zettle Notes Until now I’d been using Zettel Notes to push changes to my site, it’s a pretty impressive little app, but as a day to day tool for blogging it simply doesn’t work. First because the UX is a bit clunky, and second because I rely too much on my obsidian configuration for adding content. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/10/20231024/ Tue, 24 Oct 2023 22:20:33 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/10/20231024/ I had one of those painful family tech support moments today. It involved a parent and a printer. The horror. Thankfully, last time I was with my mum, I had written instructions on how to request remote assistance in a text file. And I was confident, because my mother can work a computer. She used to be a typist, she taught me how to use MS-DOS and Word Perfect. However, my confidence was misplaced. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/08/20230821/ Mon, 21 Aug 2023 22:58:20 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/08/20230821/ Mrs Basil has been out of the country for work (In Jordan, to be specific) and so I have been a single dog dad for a while. She returns home tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to not having to constantly deal with the dog. I always get a bit glum when I’m stuck on my own for more than a few days, I feel like I just get in a rut. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230729/ Sat, 29 Jul 2023 17:53:45 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230729/ Yesterday, I was able to bunk off work early, which was helpful, because I needed to go and do some auditing of parts of the National Cycle Network for Sustrans. I’d allocated the task to myself at the start of the month, but then July of the never-ending rain began. I’m a shadow of my former self I thought I’d be able to get this all done in one big ride, but after loading the route in my cycling computer, I was informed that it was 80km. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230724/ Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:27:36 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230724/ Today’s work was mundane, more boring tasks revolving around computer system validation documentation. More on-boarding of a new contractor. I have a call with the new contractor tomorrow to give them a walk-through of the system we want them to write a test suite for. I am dreading it because I find the communication so difficult. One depressing element to this particular ongoing task, is that he is based in Odesa, and so I was genuinely worried about his safety after he didn’t reply to an email this morning. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230723/ Sun, 23 Jul 2023 16:18:33 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230723/ I did manage to get through some of the book I got on Friday, it’s mercifully short so I may even finish it. It isn’t all that relevant to me as it’s heavily aimed at those doing academic research and the like, so I’m not sure it’s going to be of any use to me at all, but I will see what nuggets I can take from it nonetheless. What reading the book certainly has done so far, is given me the urge to carry around a little notebook everywhere with me again. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230721/ Fri, 21 Jul 2023 16:47:02 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230721/ The most noteworthy thing that happened today was that the postman shoved a book through the letter box and the dog didn’t make a peep. Almost came downstairs to check if she was dead. The book was another to add to the pile I’ll probably never actually read - How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. Mrs Basil is at the Cinema, perhaps I’ll read chapter 1. Website Shenanigans Living off yesterdays work some more, I’m happy with the progress I made this week with the hugo config / css tweaks. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230720/ Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:00:33 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230720/ Today, despite my protests, I was part of an interview panel. We are hiring for a software tester and today was the first interview. To say it was a bad interview would be underselling it. The poor woman being interviewed should never have made it to this stage and the only explanation is an admin error. It was a complete cringe educing wreck from almost the first 5 minutes. Since it was clear she wasn’t suitable after 10 minutes, I spent most of my effort trying to steer the interview in such a way that didn’t make it too much of an ordeal for her. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230718/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 22:47:04 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230718/ Completely done-in today. Absolutely manic at work. The lead dev’s final day. Sitting in on interviews for a junior tester, submitting drafts of specification documents, configuring Azure DevOps permissions for new contractors. Not a single line of code written. The main calamity is the discovery of an oversight in the requirements. The (outgoing) dev, system owner, and the PM don’t seem to care that we keep scoping and delivering work that isn’t fit for purpose. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230717/ Mon, 17 Jul 2023 09:30:10 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230717/ I’ve attempted to setup Zettel Notes on my phone to have low friction note taking on the move. I honestly can’t remember if the draft flag in Hugo just works or if it’s something I have to configure. I believe it’s the former. Day Drinking Yesterday was spent day drinking in Ouseburn with mates. Unfortunately there was some kind of festival on which made for lots of crowd dodging. We were able to find a few quieter spots after an hour or two. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230715/ Sat, 15 Jul 2023 09:39:30 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230715/ Website content files are re-organised and sed scripts added to hugo deployment to translate the Obsidian links into web links (section/file.mb => /section/file/). Now I need to write a bunch of redirects for anything I moved or renamed. An afternoon of the dog sleeping on my legs after a thunderstorm passed over. Writing the redirects in my Caddyfile took all night. Praying I never have to do that again. New Books Two new O’Reilly books arrived. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230714/ Fri, 14 Jul 2023 21:56:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20230714/ Main task for today has been re-organising the content structure. As in, splitting the blog into YYYY/MM subfolders. I had always avoided this because I knew I’d never write enough articles for it to matter, but If I’m aiming to publish more regular rambling stuff like this then it needs doing. It’s going to need a lot of redirects configuring for the old posts, not that anyone would notice, but I hate link rot. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200713/ Thu, 13 Jul 2023 01:03:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200713/ Continued on from yesterday with writing up the problems I’m having (and potential solutions) with publishing these notes to hugo but it was getting long so they now live here Tomorrow I might finally merge this notebook with my website content. Implications to ponder other than those in the notes above: managing draft status of daily blog url redirects in caddy for any broken links Mrs Basil and I are off out for a meal at Miso in Newcastle. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200712/ Wed, 12 Jul 2023 13:48:00 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200712/ Made a fair chunk of progress on the website CSS in the last few days, homepage looks decent. Getting into the meat of it now and can already see that long tail coming… that’s when it gets hard. A big ah-ha moment (that seems obvious now) was realising that a regular html page will be rendered perfectly fine by GoToSocial if you just rename it to .tmpl file. So after my hugo site is build and I rsync all the sub-folders to my web server, I can copy index. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200709/ Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:48:00 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200709/ Think I’ve finally got if set in my head how I want my website to be organised and some kind of writing flow that will hopefully keep me writing, time will tell. I’m now trying to figure out if I should just throw the content into a the content folder of the site or maintain a separate repo as a sub-module. The latter is neater but can imagine it will complicate things a lot https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200708/ Sat, 08 Jul 2023 13:48:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200708/ Finally got around to writing up what my GoToSocial Hack does. Complete with a post creation flowchart and everything. This was mainly to see what Mermaid looked like in obsidian (which is a very odd thing to type), but it was actually quite a helpful exercise in getting the process clear in my head. Score another one for writing and drawing things aiding understanding. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200707/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 13:48:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200707/ I have too much to do today because I was slacking yesterday. Need to write developer docs for a system that guy leaving is handing over to me, I also need to write some validation documentation for the system that was supposed to go live in mid January 2023. Doing some tweaks to my blog, mainly around publishing bookmarks and some refactoring to make merging GoToSocial into my fork less painful. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200706/ Thu, 06 Jul 2023 13:48:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/07/20200706/ Started using obsidian. I probably wont keep at it, but the ideal is it helps me write much more than I do. I might even get this book How To Take Smart Notes Managed to get it syncing to git (maybe for later publishing, who knows). The options for using git on Android are awful so I’ve set up Zettel Notes pointing at the same repo. And will use that instead of the obsidian Android app for any quick capturing I need to do on the phone. https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/06/20230625/ Sun, 25 Jun 2023 23:40:08 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2023/06/20230625/ Well, it’s been a while, I set this blog down after completing 100DaysToOffload and I pretty much didn’t touch my laptop for nearly 3 years. A fair amount happened in 3 years, all of which I can use as blog fodder in future, but to sum up a couple of the highlights… Work Work got intense. Some very key people left the company I worked for (there were only about 20 employees to begin with), I took on a new role. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200803/ Mon, 03 Aug 2020 09:03:08 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200803/ 100 Days to offload. Completed it, mate. Sort of. I don’t really feel like I finished the challenge properly. I have been limping home from just past the halfway mark. Walked to the finish I had hoped that I’d be able to get by with short diary posts filling out between larger more fleshed out posts of greater interest to me. I didn’t really achieve that for the whole way. A bit like a someone with ok fitness that tries to run a marathon without training and walks the 2nd half. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200802/ Sun, 02 Aug 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200802/ I feel like I’ve written this blog posts before but I took a day off to extend my weekend and made a point of doing very little on all three days. It was exactly what I needed. I hope I don’t feel like I’ll need it again come the end of the week. Trash movies and beer Aside from the small bike ride I mostly either sat in the garden or watched rubbish movies. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200801/ Sat, 01 Aug 2020 22:54:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/08/20200801/ A little cycle today. We took the easy route to Wylam and back. A flat 40km. We had a nice surprise, we bumped into Teemo out on his walk, he greeted us enthusiastically before barking at us when he realised we weren’t getting off our bikes. That was definitely day made for Mrs Basil. Road changes Gateshead council have put out a lot of cones and a closed some roads as many have for social distancing. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200731/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 22:52:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200731/ Summer was on a Friday this year, so I took the day off work and sat in my garden with the dog. It was too hot to venture out with him without a lot of care and attention and I just wanted a relaxing day. So in the garden we stayed. I drank beer and fed the dog watermelon. It was good. Doing nothing Mrs Basil decided to take the day off too, but as ever, was soon confused by the notion of not doing anything. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200730/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 22:39:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200730/ It’s coming up to the end of year 1 as a homeowner. Which means it’s switching and renewal time. Media My “introductory offer” from virgin media is up so they sent me an email saying that, if I was happy on my package, I could do nothing and my bill would only go up £50 per month. If I wanted something else I could go online to the offers section to see what else I could do. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200729/ Wed, 29 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200729/ Another day where I did not a lot. Working in isolation on small tasks seems to cause me issues. Constant switching When starting the next thing, procrastination kicks in every time. I’ll think about one problem for a little, get to a hard part, abandon for another problem instead. Repeat until I’ve lost an hour. Male a coffee. Feel like I need to do some menial labor for a while. Cleanse the palate. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200728/ Tue, 28 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200728/ In an amusing, yet highly predictable, turn of events the government website for signing up to the bike repair voucher scheme is on its arse. How to build your own DDoS I imagine the Energy Saving Trust isn’t really used to more than 3 people visiting it’s website at the same time. They probably thought the website people would make sure it could handle it before they knew what ‘it’ was. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200727/ Mon, 27 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200727/ Lots of cycling announcements from the government today. I’m going to file all of it under good news. Would I like it to go bigger and further, sure. Are there some token gestures in there rather than real big plans, sure. Is it all talk and no action at present from a bunch of truth twisters, sure is. But I’m not going to let perfect, or even great, be the enemies of good. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200726/ Sun, 26 Jul 2020 22:16:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200726/ Once again a week that lasts 1,000 years and a weekend that lasts 10 minutes is behind me. The main development being that I got my welcome pack for my new volunteer role with Sustrans so I guess I’m officially a Sustrans Ranger. Although I still have some training / induction stuff to complete. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200725/ Sat, 25 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200725/ Mrs Basil is currently struggling to get sorted out with a drone flying license. License You do a course and a test, which mostly covers your legal responsibilities and restrictions, and you log X hours of flight time. But let me tell you, finding a place where you are permitted to fly is one hell of a challenge. Searching for the promised land So the next few days we will be scouring maps for publicly accessible land isn’t in a built up area, that isn’t a no fly area and isn’t SSSI designated, which around these parts, doesn’t leave you with much. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200724/ Fri, 24 Jul 2020 22:51:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200724/ A low key end to the week. Work was an admin day. Bit of cards after work, a little beer and a little reading. Spent some of the day gobsmacked once again at how deranged the US President is but then decided not to think about it for to long. No football or dog hunting to report for a change. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200723/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 22:05:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200723/ I watched the first 2 episodes of Fear City, the Netflix documentary about the FBI Rico case to take down the 5 New York crime families. I started watching it because the story interests me and I’ll probably continue to watch it for this reason. That said, I feel the program could be a lot better. It feels a little bit haphazard from a storytelling perspective, rather over produced, and quite drawn out. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200722/ Wed, 22 Jul 2020 22:59:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200722/ Another reminder, yet again, of how much of elite sport is won and lost in the head. Then Leeds United utterly crumbled under pressure last year. As their lead wore away to 3 points. Needing 7 points from their last 3 games, they got only 1. While trying to keep a grasp on their last hope, a calamitous 20 minutes saw to it that all was lost. And now This year could so easily have gone the same way but for a few moments relieving the pressure. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200721/ Tue, 21 Jul 2020 21:58:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200721/ Today was a bit of a bummer. A failed meeting with potential dog and hours spent in hospital. Thankfully they were unrelated Waiting game The date with the dog did not go well. The dog was much larger, much younger and even less trained than described. So even though part time dog Teemo didn’t particularly get on with the dog, it wouldn’t have worked for us anyway. I will say that the photos they took do not do him justice and he was one of the sweetest most handsome dogs I’ve ever seen. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200720/ Mon, 20 Jul 2020 22:19:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200720/ Finally, after umpteen applications, Mrs Basil and I have an appointment to go and meet a dog. This dog is at the Dog’s Trust so Mrs Basil and I will be heading down their with Teemo, our part time dog, in the hope that we all get along. First date First of all, I hope the dog takes to us. Secondly, I hope the dog isn’t too big and too unruly for us. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200719/ Sun, 19 Jul 2020 19:32:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200719/ Carrying on the dog theme. Late last night we received a very last minute request to look after Teemo the West Highland Terrier for 2 night. We agreed, because we love having him around, but we knew what was coming. Restless night The first few times we ever took care of Teemo over night, and again the first few nights in our new house he was extremely restless and fidgety overnight. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200718/ Sat, 18 Jul 2020 22:33:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200718/ Mrs Basil and I were ramping up our search for a dog right when Covid rocked up. Lockdown put the breaks on the search but now the rescue centres are slowly opening up again. Lockdown Pastimes There were shortages of baking consumables, DIY good, exercise equipment, and bicycles as people took up hobbies or ways to pass the time in lockdown. Now it seems people want dogs. Lockdown Companions An employee at one of the centres said they are all very concerned about the surge of interest they are getting in adopting. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200717/ Fri, 17 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200717/ I was 19 years old when I started waiting for this day. I’ve drink and am drank. On any normal year I’d probably be outside the stadium right now. But it isn’t, so I’m not. All Leeds Aren’t We. Marching on Together. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200716/ Thu, 16 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200716/ I’d been pondering and hoping to write something a bit more thoughtful around this, about sporting highs and lows, elation and anxiety, but I have struggled to make any inroads. The big sleep It’s been 16 long and annoying years since Leeds United went stumbling out of the English Premier League like a football club impersonation of Frank Spencer. After a few false dawn’s and final hurdle stumbles sprinkled in amongst the years of dreary nothingness and calamity, maybe, just maybe, they are finally back. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200715/ Wed, 15 Jul 2020 21:37:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200715/ That’s my only observation of the day. Literally everything is now turned into a battle. An Us Vs Them. Everything is politicised. Crikey, it’s exhausting. Even ignoring it takes conscious effort. The amount of people who are vindictive, thick as mince, or both amazes me everyday. Was it always like this? Maybe it was and I was just better at ignoring it. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200713/ Mon, 13 Jul 2020 22:59:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200713/ After pointing out my unwavering procrastination when faced with small fixable problems, here’s another character flaw for you. I have a tremendous ability to just stop reading a book that I’m allegedly enjoying. Self loathing I can forgive myself to some extent for not wanting to read. For getting a book and never getting around to it. For starting a book and abandoning it for not liking it. Enjoying a book and just stopping, I hate myself for it and I can’t explain it, but I do this over and over. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200712/ Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:33:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200712/ Mrs Basil wanted to go on another ride the chip away at her virtual pilgrimage. So we headed out at around 9am on a loop that took us out to the Derwent Valley. The land of oak and iron The name Derwent comes from the old Brittonic meaning Oak Walk. This means that there are rather quite a few Derwents scattered across the country. This Derwent was one of the iron epicentres of the country, as high quality imported ore from Scandinavia had easy passage up the Tyne, and coal was obviously abundant. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200711/ Sat, 11 Jul 2020 22:42:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200711/ I finally fixed the garden gate. A trip down the road to Toolstation. £8 for a pair of gate hinges. An hour out of my day. That’s all it took. A daily annoyance Both hinges had corroded and one had almost snapped, the floor clearance was nonexistent and the latch would stick. Opening the damn thing, especially with bags or a bike in tow was a real pain in arse. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200710/ Fri, 10 Jul 2020 22:00:55 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200710/ After a few months of belt tightening I allowed myself to restart my Spotify subscription. This meant I could finally see if I could get ncmpcpp (stupid name) to play music from spotify. I’d already setup mopidy and configured the mpd and spotify plugins but hadn’t been able to test the connection. It kind of just worked So, although I did have issues getting mopidy set up originally (I think pulseaudio / permission issues). https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200709/ Thu, 09 Jul 2020 22:57:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200709/ Tonight there was a 30 minute long filler program on between football matches. It was a fairly run of the mil documentary about the Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa. The kind of program that is only watched by fans of the subject matter that is cheap and easy to churn out. In this case, that’s me, and I’d just watched Leeds win 5-0, so I watched it. It was perfectly fine. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200706/ Mon, 06 Jul 2020 22:55:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200706/ Mrs Basil is waking up at 3am to go and film the sunrise at the coast. So, fingers crossed it’s a good one. She asked me if I’d like to join her, I had to glance up from what I was doing to double check that she wasn’t joking. Reader, I will not be going. Daydreaming I spent a chunk of the evening daydreaming about the renovations we want to make to the house. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200705/ Sun, 05 Jul 2020 22:56:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200705/ The main challenge we are having with the garden at the moment is how big everything is getting. Inhospitable weather The wildflowers have almost all capsized under the weight of all the rain of the last week. The potatoes are only just still standing after the rain and the gale force winds. I only recently read that Maris Piper should be avoided for windy areas due to their height so… Good to know. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200704/ Sat, 04 Jul 2020 22:46:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200704/ Today was a stay indoors sort of day. There was a lot of football going on and I watched plenty of it along with a very distressing documentary on Netflix called Athlete A. Horrible story It was a well made program but difficult to recommend since it’s such a horrible story of the abuse suffered by the girls in US gymnastics program. The worst of all is it seemed to barley scratch the surface. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200703/ Fri, 03 Jul 2020 22:32:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200703/ I followed through on my plan to make a conscious effort to sit my arse down to work first thing and do nothing except concentrate on my main task. I did ok for the most part. Got distracted a few times, but not too much or for long. Got more done today than the rest of the week put together. Working soundtrack I got a coffee, put my headphones on, and listened to brain. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200702/ Thu, 02 Jul 2020 22:43:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200702/ Today was a bit manic at work. Tomorrow I will attempt to sit down and smash out 3 hours solid work before getting distracted by auxiliary tasks and the wider world. You know, like how the pros do it, or something. Bought some furniture I had been looking for a blanket box for a while and finally got my hands on one. Socially distanced buying and selling is tricky. She had tried her best by wiping down the whole thing with antibacterial wipes (my confidence is low that this has any effect on a virus but I know nothing). https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200701/ Wed, 01 Jul 2020 22:52:37 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/07/20200701/ Beer, junk food, and football. That was my evening, and it was good. I watched 2 good matches in the top 4 race. There were goals and controversial incidents and it was excellent. Most enjoyable football viewing since lockdown easing. Leeds shenanigans I’m still watching Leeds’ progress through my fingers and my confidence is currently 50%. One typically stupid development is the situation around one of their strikers. Signed in January on a 6 month loan with a permanent fee agreed in the event promotion is achieved. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200630/ Tue, 30 Jun 2020 22:58:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200630/ Days of late have been spent only half concentrating on work and pondering the things I could be tinkering with instead. Evenings have been spent not doing any of those things. It would be folly, however, to suggest this is a new skill. I’ve been a world class procrastinator for as long as I can remember. Mrs Basil insists I am subdued. Perhaps she is correct. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200629/ Mon, 29 Jun 2020 21:51:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200629/ Not much going on today, bit of a comedown after a decent weekend. Incredibly dull day at work. Struggling with boredom, motivation / giving a fuck, but at least I still have a means to pay my mortgage which is more than can be said of a lot of folk. One slight development is I received my welcome / induction email from Sustrans, so should be a volunteer ranger by the end of lockdown, whenever that is and whatever that looks like. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200628/ Sun, 28 Jun 2020 23:33:06 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200628/ I had a productive Sunday. Well, after my obligatory lie in until 10am. Walked down to Screwfix with Mrs Basil to get an LED batten light and some electric cable, because this nonsense just couldn’t continue. My old light I seem to have done it right As ever with these things, I don’t really know what I’m doing so it’s remarkable I’m not dead. My new light Now I have a relatively well organised cellar with some space to move around and work. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200627/ Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:07:36 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200627/ Sorting out my cellar is coming along. After hanging my bikes from the beams (and shoving the robot behind the door) I have moved the timber slats that were acting as a partition wall across a few feet and assembled a workbench to run along it. Same space, more access There was an enormous table down there but it was difficult to move around and just ended up as a dumping ground, now I have one wall of worktop and shelving that I can actually access. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200626/ Fri, 26 Jun 2020 22:38:30 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200626/ After getting up early (relatively) in order to squeeze in a bike ride before the early afternoon rain and mid-afternoon lightening storm. The poor excuse for a storm passed us by. Mrs Basil always scoffs at British thunderstorms, she’s right, they are usually not much of anything. A Coastal Loop The ride was decent. The first 40km was on ok cycle paths along to, and then up, the coast. horses The last 20 wasn’t great, nasty roads and paths and 2 incidents. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200625/ Thu, 25 Jun 2020 22:45:34 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200625/ Mrs Basil and I had planned to go on a ride this weekend but the forecast can be summarized ‘pissing it down while the sun is up’. As a workaround, I’ve thrown in a last minute morning off work, and I’m going to drag her round a 60km coastal loop before the forecast thunder storm hits in the early afternoon. It will be by far the longest ride she’s done. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200624/ Wed, 24 Jun 2020 22:51:50 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200624/ Took the afternoon off and went with Mrs Basil to the beach. We had to try and pick a place that is nice and open and wouldn’t be crawling with people so we went with Low Hauxley. Not the most idyllic beach around, but it fit the criteria well. Mrs Basil adores the sea. It calms her nerves and relaxes her in a way that I think the pub does for me. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200623/ Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:51:24 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200623/ Toward the end of the afternoon, out of the blue, I decided I’d had enough of our disorganised heap of a cellar. I ordered some cheap shelving and workbench space which should be arriving at the weekend and pondered how best to store the 3 bikes. Given the space is only 180cm high, hoisting them up would achieve nothing. Hanging them parallel to the wall individually would take over the entire space and hanging them on the same hook would be a faff and difficult for Mrs Basil to get to hers on her own. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200622/ Mon, 22 Jun 2020 23:20:22 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200622/ Most days when I’m looking around the garden I’ll see stuff and I’ve no idea what they are. Thankfully the internet exists and I can usually find out with a reasonable degree of certainty rather quickly. Be it the bird call app I’ve blogged about before or webapps that attempt to id plants and insects from a photo. I love how much easier it is these days. I remember when I was a kid I would always get frustrated by / become bored with something because I didn’t know something and had no means to discover the answer. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200621/ Sun, 21 Jun 2020 23:27:06 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200621/ Today was spent outside. Well, I watched Leeds United do a Leeds United, then the day was spent outside. After cleaning the bikes, attention turned to harvesting our early potato crop. We dug out the 6 plants and the yield is now drying in the cellar. I’ve no idea if this is a good return or not. Potato yield in a bag Happy with the growth Next job was to get the shears out and stop the lawn encroaching on my wild flower bed. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200620/ Sat, 20 Jun 2020 22:32:38 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200620/ Today I took Mrs Basil for a bike ride. Just 30km, but as with most rides here, plenty of ups and downs due to zig-zagging the valley sides. I planned the route before we set off and it was difficult, trying to find a loop that stayed within a certain distance, only had so many tough inclines, and didn’t hit any intimidating roads. No car? Fuck you Frankly, it was impossible, and I found myself getting more and more angry at the state of the infrastructure available to casual cyclists. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200619/ Fri, 19 Jun 2020 22:49:00 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200619/ The first weekend of lockdown football in England is upon us. Ignoring how awful it is watching stadium sports in silence and the cringe worthy lengths people are going to in order to soften the blow. From the artificial atmosphere, to the zoom call watch-alongs and the big screen fan cams. There are some things that made me laugh. Bailing water from a sinking ship Maybe these things were being done because they wanted to be seen taking precautions and perceptions matter. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200618/ Thu, 18 Jun 2020 23:57:33 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200618/ A quiet and lazy day. Work was spent writing tests to expose all the bugs on my list to fix next week. Easy work. Testing the optics I was able to see if my old camera was up to its new job of garden bird photography when a Jay paid a visit. Jay bird on a fence It isn’t a huge zoom on the lens but it’s better than nothing and the auto-focus isn’t great but it’s certainly better than I could do. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200616/ Tue, 16 Jun 2020 19:29:06 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200616/ Nothing much of note passed through my mind today while I wasn’t at work. I dug out my old Nikon and the battery charged. There’s a small mark on the inside of the zoom lens but nothing to worry my intended use. Who the fuck camps overnight to get into Primark? The main thing that caught my attention today was the apparent need for everyone to go and buy socks. I tried to walk my way to understanding. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200615/ Mon, 15 Jun 2020 20:03:51 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200615/ Today a pair of great spotted woodpeckers appeared in one of the trees in out neighbours garden. So I attempted to take picture. It did not go well. Great Spotted Woodpeckers Then, for extra comedy attempted to photograph them trough the lens of my binoculars, without any real success. Great Spotted Woodpeckers I had seen a male woodpecker once or twice earlier in the year but, though you can see from these images, this appears to be a female and juvenile. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200614/ Sun, 14 Jun 2020 21:54:06 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200614/ Today Mrs Basil and I went on a bike ride over to Wylam and back again. We headed up to the Tyne and crossed over the swing bridge, which is the best Tyne bridge. I mean, the thing spins with a hydraulic press, that’s just marvellous. After passing the house where George Stephenson was born, we crossed back over the river and headed back home. George Stephenson’s Birthplace The cycle path that runs along the south bank of the Tyne, the Keelman’s Way, goes past Clara Vale. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200613/ Sat, 13 Jun 2020 22:58:06 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200613/ I need to stop waiting until I am completely shattered before blogging (reader, he will not stop). Aside from what felt like the 100th zoom call of lockdown with all the in-laws, today was a day for doing things that I hadn’t done in a while, that I used to do a lot. It finally stopped raining, so I removed my old tyres, scraped out all the old dried up sealant, and spent an hour swearing as I struggled to put my new tyres on (I really don’t know why I’m so bad at it). https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200612/ Fri, 12 Jun 2020 22:21:26 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200612/ Not a lot going on today, yet more documentation writing at work. You can even tell from my output that I’m sick of it. There are definite diminishing returns. One thing that has saved it from being truly insufferable is recording my screen to short gifs. A godsend. Cards in the evening I didn’t mess on with my computer much today. Tried to add a colour scheme to vim and failed miserably, then decided not to get sucked in, and spent the evening with Mrs Basil playing cards. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200611/ Thu, 11 Jun 2020 22:57:38 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200611/ Happily, after a tedious day at work, I found out that Firefox had a feature similar to the old prism functionality. Single Site Browser You can turn on a feature flag in the firefox about:config page called browser.ssb.enabled. Once dome you can launch a site in an isolated firefox window with firefox --ssb https://site.tld. It just works™ … mostly. Stow my shit This meant I could add a masto.desktop file like this one (and a png icon) in ~/. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200610/ Wed, 10 Jun 2020 23:34:21 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200610/ The cackling of magpies felt never ending this afternoon. It’s quite a grating noise that they can produce and I spotted 6 of them flying from tree to tree, roof to roof. Unsure if it’s 3 pairs guarding their territory from each other, or a non-breeding flock. Either way, it brought back memories of my last home. Wakey Wakey Right outside the bedroom window, at the the front of our Tyneside Flat, was a tree that was home to some magpies. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200609/ Tue, 09 Jun 2020 23:58:43 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200609/ I was reminded today about my stash of old computing books that I’ve held onto for various reason. I have a set of books from my 3 university modules on Formal Aspects of Computer Science and my final year dissertation. I keep these because they were the only element of my degree that I found remotely interesting or enjoyable. I found these books the be genuinely enlightening. Until they become too difficult. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200608/ Mon, 08 Jun 2020 11:49:43 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200608/ Yet more repetition. I’m still tweaking, walking back, breaking and fixing my desktop config. So I’ve not much else to talk about. Have ditched polybar as I found it too complex and have gone minimal so my i3bar only appears on holding the mod key. I might even switched back to dmenu if I can style it just a little. Here’s a screengrab (that I’ve no idea how will render) for those who care. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200607/ Sun, 07 Jun 2020 23:14:49 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200607/ Had one of those days where I sit down at my computer hoping to tinker with it to do something interesting but then I can’t get it to work, despite over an hour of shaving yaks. So I say fuck it, and pick a different task that won’t be as difficult, and after an hour and 3 more bald yaks, that doesn’t work either. Rinse and repeat 2 more times. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200606/ Sat, 06 Jun 2020 22:53:49 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200606/ Bit of a round up post today. Utterly sick of the naff weather, hailstone showers every day at the moment, windy, grey. Get in the bin. Decided we needed exercise regardless, so went for a passeggiata which turned into a 3 hour trek. It worked out better this way, because it allowed me to stop at the shop for beer on the way home. Colonel Mustard Some effort was spent earlier this week attempting to identify the largest of the flowers in my wild flower patch. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200605/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 23:41:14 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200605/ I tried to use vim for the first time today. I’ve opened it a few times to read files, so the cursor navigation was familiar and after I think for a moment I can remember how to exit, but today was the first time I actively wanted to use it to modify a file. I needed to paste a character into a text file and figured it would be something a little exotic and I better search for the shortcut. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200604/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 23:08:03 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200604/ Yes, I am still spending my time faffing with my laptop setup. A series of efforts to re-purpose the Caps Lock key have failed. It is currently disabled and that’s better than the default, at least. I have mapped a couple of keys I don’t use to be Home and End and already the keyboard is much less annoying. I still haven’t got around to fine tuning i3bar. #todo This is my first post from my new environment after using Forestry. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200603/ Wed, 03 Jun 2020 23:44:00 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200603/ These last few days it’s been a case of not wanting to stop what I’m doing to write a post. Like how at work I don’t log my development because I’m too busy doing it. Here I’m not blogging about what I’m thinking or what I’m up to because I’m busy enjoying doing stuff and thinking. So I’m coming close to falling off the 100Days waggon. Three software Tonight I’ve carried on pissing about with i3 after watching some config walkthrough videos by a guy that can’t pronounce the word ’three'. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200602/ Tue, 02 Jun 2020 21:42:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200602/ Utter dross day at work, started out with a load to get done, but then acquired some paperwork which took 3 hours, during which time another problem reared its head. So I finished the day with more work than I started. Alt-Tab is deep in my muscle memory Spent most of my free time this evening messing around with the i3 config while finishing off my Wylam English Quad. It’s taken me back to my crunchbang days and faffing about with dmenu and conky. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200601/ Mon, 01 Jun 2020 22:06:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/06/20200601/ Today was not bad. Good weather, good bird spotting, a win at cards. A problem at work turned out to be not a problem. More money on rubber I took this energy and tried to convert my bike back to a tube setup before realising I didn’t have enough inner tubes. Then decided to try and change the flat tube on my backup bike before realising that it was flat because the rim tape was ruined. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200531/ Sun, 31 May 2020 19:08:14 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200531/ Another tail from Basil’s lockdown gardening diary, I’m afraid. This morning I rushed out the house to stand the tomato plants back up as they’d toppled over at some point overnight. Having scavenged some poles from the veg bed netting to prop then up, all now seems well. The majority of the day was spent with this bad lad. Which I used to hack my way through several bushes. An empty bed with a rosemary bush The utter nonsense I pulled out of these hedges. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200530/ Sat, 30 May 2020 19:04:39 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200530/ Today I’ve been boring the bastard out of people on the fediverse with pictures from my garden. So, naturally, I thought I’d play the same tune over here. Mrs Basil and I were very keen to make the most of finally having a garden, this plus the novelty of doing things for the first time, plus ye olde lockdown is the perfect storm for spending a lot of time gardening. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200529/ Fri, 29 May 2020 20:37:59 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200529/ On an evening walk around the fell this week with Mrs Basil, we walked past the entrance to Heathfield House. The mansion, that is now a set of fancy apartments, was built in 1856. It was designed by John Wardle, one of developer Richard Grainger’s architects (of Grainger Town fame). Heathfield House It has a very obnoxious front gate, so it’s hard to miss, but it does have one odd aspect to its past. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200527/ Wed, 27 May 2020 23:04:04 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200527/ I think, I’m not sure, but I think that the blackbirds have abandoned the nest. Another day was spent working outside today and I didn’t see any activity, nobody in, nobody out. Shame. I was paid a visit by a rather inquisitive squirrel who walked up, about 10cm from my foot, with a mouth full of something. Gave me a long hard look and pranced off down the garden. I didn’t bother trying to get a photo. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200526/ Tue, 26 May 2020 23:17:47 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200526/ After a rubbish weekend and feeling like it had just flashed by, as a wasted lump of nothing. Thankfully, I had a trouble free day at work. Magpie watch Midway through the morning, as I was about to make my second brew, I decided to take my laptop outside and do a spot of al fresco development. This had the added benefit that I could attempt to chase off any magpies trying to raid the blackbird nest in my garden. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200525/ Mon, 25 May 2020 21:36:17 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200525/ I had looked forward to the long weekend, but I feel I needed it to be about another 14 days longer and a lot less windy. I’m struggling for any sort of motivation at the moment, never mind motivation for work, and I’d had quite enough of working from home a good long while ago. I did at least get a small amount of gardening done. Proton Mail has been annoying me a great deal today but I’m going to stick with it for a while and see it it becomes a smoother experience. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200524/ Sun, 24 May 2020 23:00:27 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200524/ I finally got around to signing up for a non-google email account. I had to balance the risk of trusting another company vs trusting my ability to not bollocks up hosting my own server. I always knew it would be the former. A false start I had always looked upon a de-googling exercise as folly, given the phone I have and the services I use, but had decided to revisit this with a more measured view and attempt to reduce my exposure where I can easily do so. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200523/ Sat, 23 May 2020 23:08:37 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200523/ The wind kept waking me up just as I was nodding off. At half past 2 I had to go and close the side gate after it blew open and started slamming against the side of the house. So I had zero regret for sleeping until 10:30 and arose to find half a sycamore tree’s worth of leaves in my back garden. Day Trimming In the afternoon I headed out for the first time in a while to go food shopping and to get some loppers to trim back some garden overgrowth. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200522/ Fri, 22 May 2020 19:39:18 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200522/ I finished watching The Last Dance, the sports documentary about Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls. Forgive this hot-take of half formed thoughts, but it’s #100DaysToOffload so it is what it is. I played basketball as a kid, a tiny bit, and I had a subscription to a few sports magazines that covered basketball so I remember a fair bit of the story but had never seen much of the actual play, because it was the 90s so we had 4 TV channels. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200520/ Wed, 20 May 2020 15:48:46 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200520/ After complaining about having to put the heating on in May due to a working from home, terrible weather, poorly insulated house trifecta. I was informed that the weather is improving and that Wednesday in particular will be nice. Never one to miss an opportunity to sit in the sun doing sod all, I literally seized the day and booked a day off. Was going to faff about on my laptop but there seemed like a real risk it would catch fire, so I put it inside. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200519/ Tue, 19 May 2020 22:58:02 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200519/ The main thing to happen today was that, after briefly flirting with the quite frankly laughable notion that I could scale it back, I resigned my daily life to being saturated with surveillance software and bought a Pixel 3a. Through the wars My poor old Moto, it’s had a rough time, and it put in a shift. A rather comical fall from a breast pocket onto my handlebars, then floor, to bounce into my pedalling foot, to get kicked down the path and ran over. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200518/ Mon, 18 May 2020 22:26:03 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200518/ In between my shite workday, that was an endless parade of annoying humans, and a terrible evening movie (The Day Shall Come, no really, don’t watch it). My Mother paid a visit to have a socially distanced chat and to drop of a carrier bag of old nonsense. In amongst my old chess set and some LPs were the obligatory childhood photos (there are some doozeys) which Mrs Basil took great pleasure in. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200517/ Sun, 17 May 2020 16:30:31 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200517/ Well, I finally got around to it and confirmed my suspicions, I’m useless at fitting any kind of tire. After watching this video showing how to seat a tubeless tire without an air compressor or a charger pump I thought, despite always struggling with tire fitting in the past, I’d give it a try. Looks a doddle, how hard can it be? Let me tell you. ABSOLUTELY, FUCKING, IMPOSSIBLE. Aftermath After 45 minutes, I gave up. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200511/ Mon, 11 May 2020 18:15:16 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200511/ I Just spent the thick end of £100 on some rubber. I have been without a functional bicycle for most of lockdown because one of my tires finally gave up on holding air. In an attempt to spread out my expenses I’d put off replacing them until now. How hard can it be I was going to take them to my bike shop to get them fitted but, given we’re all still being vigilant and saving lives, I thought I’d give it a go myself (then, when I fail, go to the shop). https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200510/ Sun, 10 May 2020 22:13:53 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200510/ The weather has gone to shit, so I hardly did anything today. Finished up (mostly) my webmention code, faffed about getting notes half set up on the site. Back to work tomorrow, not because of Boris, but because it’s Monday. Having been off since Wednesday I’ve enjoyed dossing about doing sod all for 5 days. So much so, that I very much have zero motivation for going back to “normal”. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200508/ Fri, 08 May 2020 22:08:37 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200508/ So today was the VE Day street party, the bunting was out, there were cakes and biscuits as far as the eye could see, and everyone was half heartedly keeping 2 meters away from everyone else. It was really all rather surreal. I managed to show may face for a a few hours in a couple of shifts dotted throughout the day whilst avoiding any of the singing, these folk love to sing. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200507/ Thu, 07 May 2020 19:07:48 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200507/ Today was a mixed bag as I’m off work, spent a good couple of hours in the garden, in the sun. I played a game of cards, drank some good coffee, and had a nice lunch. All great stuff. On the other hand. I was trying to add incoming webmentions to the blog, you know, as a bit of fun. This was a mistake. I’ve been having a great time, both writing in, and messing with this site in the last week or so. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200506/ Wed, 06 May 2020 15:33:20 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200506/ Today marks the same number of times the earth has rotated on it’s axis as it had rotated, when I was expelled from a birth canal, measured from an arbitrary point in the earths orbit around the sun 35 orbits past. To celebrate the achievement of maintaining my existence, as is the custom, I have been receiving gifts and selfishly partaking in things that I enjoy with less regard, than is usually considered acceptable, for the wishes of others. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200505/ Tue, 05 May 2020 15:33:02 +0100 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200505/ So I’m off work for the rest of the week. Bank Holiday, on a Friday, the world’s gone mad! etc. I remember back in happier, simpler times when there were stories on BBC News of families whose holidays were put into doubt and couple’s wedding plans thrown into chaos because Monday the 4th was no longer a public holiday. Ah to return to the days pre-pandemic, or if we’re being greedy, pre brexit. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200504/ Mon, 04 May 2020 12:33:48 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/05/20200504/ Couldn’t get to sleep last night, no clue why. Might need to go for a long walk today to try and burn some energy. Always doubtful a half hour burst on my turbo trainer would be enough most days. I find indoor, internet connected, exercise to be very useful, but it’s obviously never going to replace a big dose of fresh air. On the subject of technology substitutes. At lunchtime a group of us at the office would often play cards or a game of some description. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200429/ Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:25:31 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200429/ Over the past few weeks I’ve made my way through the 9 episodes of The Innocence Files. I’m a sucker for true crime stuff like this, be it dramatised or documentary, if it’s well made, it’s likely gonna appeal to me. tl;dr It’s a great series, and you should watch it if you have access to it. Entertaining, but Infuriating The overwhelming feelings both throughout and at the end of watching the show were rage and indignation. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200427/ Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:47:20 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200427/ So, day 2 of #100DaysToOffload. They wont all be this long, I can tell you that. New Home, New Garden, Old Hobby I’m rather fortunate that my new home is in amongst some rather enormous gardens and estates with a large number of trees. So, the amount of birds in and around my garden is, for a suburb, huge. This is one of my favourite things about the house as I’ve always enjoyed being around birds and since we moved in last autumn, I’ve been having a great time sat in the garden or at my back window. https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200426/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2020/04/20200426/ Ok, fine, I’ll try it. I will fail, but fuck it we’re in lockdown. Kev, the nutter, came up with 100DaysToOffload. Write something on your blog every day for 100 days. Funny joke, right. So here we are, new Hugo site, new url, same lack of content. These days, I am spending most of my time getting my arse kicked by my turbo trainer, fucking up at growing things in the garden, going for long walks, bird watching, and complaining about working from home. https://trivial.observer/blog/2018/stack-edit/ Fri, 09 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2018/stack-edit/ So right now I appear to have food poisoning or some such nonsense and have eaten 3 forkfuls of rice since Tuesday night so am a little worse for wear. But being as bored as I am I figured I’d try out an alternative content management method. Using stackedit markdown editor on my phone I have a “workspace” that is synced to the content folder in my GitHub repo where my blog markdown files live. https://trivial.observer/blog/2018/bright-eyed/ Sun, 04 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2018/bright-eyed/ So, after some spring cleaning, this makes it two blog posts out of two that are about the blog itself. Over the course of 7 years. Thus confirming I’m one of those people. I have moved the hosting to Netlify because it is magic and I love it. Builds and deploys triggered by pushing to a named branch of a git repo. Built in CDN. Automatic HTTPS. I love it. https://trivial.observer/blog/2011/dr-jekyll/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2011/dr-jekyll/ This post is rather obsolete in its relation to this blog but is being kept for posterity and in case I need to refer back to it. So I finally cracked and moved my blog to a new platform. I was happy with my wordpress blog, it never gave me any bother. From Wordpress.com to my self hosted install. It treated me right. I must admit there was one thing that often bothered me. https://trivial.observer/blog/2008/the-george-cross-island/ Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:45:10 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2008/the-george-cross-island/ I am, it has to be said, rather looking forward to my upcoming holiday. 8 nights in Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean. If on the off chance any one reads this who has been, let me know how you found it. I’ll finally get to meet some of the famously friendly natives and meet up with my friends. Moreover, it’s going to be great to get away from the sub freezing temperatures that have descended on the UK this week. https://trivial.observer/blog/2007/listen/ Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2007/listen/ This may one day be a blog of substance that other people will find intriguing. Until then it will be a hotchpotch of random tomfoolery until my motivation dies. So it goes… https://trivial.observer/blog/2007/why-me/ Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://trivial.observer/blog/2007/why-me/ Billy licked his lips, thought a while, enquired at last: “Why me?” “That is a very earthling question to ask, Mr Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?” “Yes.” Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady bugs embedded in it. “Well, here we are, Mr.