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.

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.

Publishing

I’m still mulling over what to do with what I write here. Do I go full [[digital garden]] and shove it on a static host somewhere (or next to my blog), do I publish lots of it into a river of posts a la Dave Winner. I can’t decide. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s fun to tinker with this stuff, so I’ll have a play around with it all in the next few days.

Also still need to look at how obsidian deals with [[templates]] and such like.

Permission to dock

My [[Thinkpad]] dock (provided by employer) drives me mad. Some days the laptop will wake when I press a key on the keyboard, sometimes only when I press the button on the dock (sometimes instantly, sometimes after a large delay), sometimes I have to unplug to cable that connects the laptop to the dock and plug it back in, sometimes I have to unplug the cable and plug it back in and then lift the laptop screen and close it again.

It’s a great morning and post-lunch workflow.

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.

Threads

Had a browse of the new Threads app, it’s both polished and patchy, funny to see a rushed MVP to take advantage of a moment. It’s funny seeing an algorithmic on-boarding. They didn’t have anything like that when I joined twitter. I can certainly see why it boosts engagement and keeps down the bounce rate.

Social Graph

I have been wondering why webfinger (or FOAF, or anything like it) cant be utilised to a greater extent on the open web.

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. In an attempt to be positive and professional, I attempted to treat the situation as an opportunity, this was a mistake. I left and got a job somewhere else. It’s marginally better.

Dog

I got I dog. The dog is also intense. I’ve looked after dogs before, I’m very much a dog person, but I haven’t taken all that well to being a dog owner, it’s been a testing experience for me.

Off the waggon

As with not touching my laptop in nearly three years, this’s similarly true of my cycling. It’s one of those things that makes kind of sad, but not to the extent where I’m doing anything about it.

Back to tinkering

Which brings me to now. I picked up my laptop… I can’t even recall exactly why. It took me a good while to remember how to use i3 window manager and the rest of my setup. What do I start doing? Well, the same old shit of course: Tinkering around with Hugo.

This time I get it in my head that I can host my static blog alongside a GoToSocial instance and hack it to such an extent that it can act as an ActivityPub wrapper around the blog. Amazingly, it seems like it might just work and I’m excited to get it all done and see it working as I imagined, but of course, it’s slow going.

So, here I am, writing a new post on a half finished site based on a half baked idea. The css is a work in progress, the navigation is incomplete, the homepage is blank, the non-blog pages a bit of a mess, and I don’t know what it will all look like when it’s finally done. But the RSS feeds and all the links and slugs should be fine and stable… And I wanted to start writing, so here it is.

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. They finish, but they didn’t run the whole way.

At least I got to the end

Having said that, I had no expectation of getting here, to be honest. What value there is in that, or not I haven’t thought about at too much length. As I have said previously, I think I will save my postmortem until later. What did I get out of it, if anything, was it worth it, was it pointless, did I really do it justice how I wanted to? I will have to ponder.

Thanks all for participating and interacting and all the best to those still slogging away.

so it goes.

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. Both while drinking beer.

I thought about writing a postmortem on my 100 days to offload but decided that went against my plans to do nothing. So I’ll wait until it’s over and done with.

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. To make more room for pedestrians and cyclists.

Having ridden through the changed roads for the first time I can list what they have achieved. Made cycling much more difficult and unpredictable, made driving much more difficult and time consuming, and made walking slightly more dangerous than before.

Oh, and everyone is pissed off and blaming cyclists, so job well done, councilors.

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.

I like doing nothing, I like to slip in a day every now and again where I literally do nothing but laze around. It perplexes Mrs Basil a great deal and it usually leads to repeated questions about what she’s supposed to be doing.

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. On this page were options for my bill to increase by £65, £73, and £91 per month. Gee thanks. So, I do the thing you have to do, spend an hour on the phone to get a new contract for the same price.

Tale as old as time.

Insurance

House insurance, is there anything more dull. They didn’t seem surprised that I didn’t want my policy to automatically renew for a year for £250. Moved elsewhere for £90.

That’s enough for one day

Everything else can wait because it gets a little soul crushing. Next year will be worse as the fixed term on my mortgage will be up. Hopefully by then the banks will be offering products. I don’t need that stress in my life.

We have the dog for a couple of days so took him for a walk to shake off all the bureaucracy. This turned into a flaying ant dodging walk.

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.

Boredom by default

Really, I’ve always been like this, but it’s worsening in lockdown. I’m terribly bored and my mind starts drifting off to what career I might have followed instead. Rather silly, I’d likely be bored no matter what.

To quote every mother that ever drew breath. Boring people get bored

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.

I imagine they had no expectation that the the government would announce the voucher launch for a specific time and that it would be limited to 50,000 vouchers on a first come, first serve basis.

The jokes about cycling and poor infrastructure almost write themselves.

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.

Real Cycle Lanes

A promise of real, actual cycle lanes that meet a specifications (set out in Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/20) is the headline win. How many km of such lanes you get with the money set aside is another matter, but I’ll take it.

Poor cycle infrastructure is a waste. It wastes money and space and it is dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians and causes conflict.

It often entices novice cyclists with a promise of protection, only to abandon them when they need it most.

“Schemes which consist mainly of paint, which make pedestrians and cyclists share the same space, or which do not make meaningful change to the status quo on the road, will not be funded.”

This is music to my ears and an honest to god huge policy development.

Low Traffic Neighborhoods

Something surely even NIMBY drivers can get behind (lol, just kidding).

Power for councils to create low traffic neighborhoods. Prevention of rat running and the ability for communities to request street closure and more protection on school streets.

Rule and guideline changes

Strengthening of the Highway Code to better protect pedestrians and cyclists. Updates said to include recommending the “Dutch reach”, a method of opening car doors by turning and using the hand furthest from the handle, which forces drivers or passengers to look behind for passing cyclists.

Other potentially good stuff

• Cycle hanger parking in town centres, transport hubs, and residential areas.

• Bicycle training for children and adults.

• Ebike scheme.

• Repair vouchers.

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.

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.

Today we tried our luck with a cycle path parallel to a B road that was right on the very edge of some SSSI land (as in the other side of the road wasn’t SSSI). We were there 5 minutes tops before some jobsworth in a Land Rover was on us like a fly on shit.

Dunno what harm a drone can do to the landscape that all the passing cars won’t, but there you go.

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.

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.

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.

And then, when others cracked to hand them the prize on their day off, they romped home with ease, winning the league by 10 points, leaving 3 other teams to fight for 2nd spot.

Those 3 sides, all needing to win against inferior opposition. All failed. Meaning the side that came 2nd did so by virtue of the other teams choking in the moment even moreso than they did.

Pressure is a funny thing.

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.

Teemo’s owner is very sweet and has been sending us links to available dogs but I think now we refine our parameters and play the waiting game.

Useless GP

Later in the day Mrs Basil and I had to go to the minor illness walk-in centre at the hospital as she’s been feeling unwell for days and, although she finally managed to register with a GP recently, it seems they don’t answer the phone. 4 calls a day for 3 days. Nothing.

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. A concern since we’ve never had a dog of our own.

Finally, I hope that Teemo isn’t in a grouchy mood. He’s usually aloof with other dogs at first and friendly later, but on occasion, if a dog is bigger and boisterous and up in his shit he can get a bit defensive.

Everybody be cool

So there’s plenty that can still go wrong and as such we need to just take it as it comes. It’s made hard by the fact that it’s been 4-5 months since we decided to get a dog and this is the first one we’ve got to meet.

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.

We haven’t seen him since lockdown in March so, unsurprisingly, the same was true of last night. I’m absolutely hanging on. Barely keeping my eyes open at this point.

He’s usually more settled with passing days so tonight should be improved.

It’s days like this that confirm I wouldn’t hack parenting.