Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

This evening’s viewing was the Swedish border force thing on HBO Max, in which we learned that a magic mushroom growing kit is not actually illegal in Sweden and can therefore be imported, though if they’ve started sprouting, you’ll be in big trouble

And later, I read more of All You Need is Ears. He talks quite a bit about the technical side of things - not just things he did in the studio, though there’s a lot about that, but background stuff like how the Dolby system works to reduce the perception of tape hiss and so on

Thursday tomorrow!

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do the shopping at lunchtime. The change of projects for me is part of a complete reorganisation of all the development work in the portfolio, so almost everybody’s moving around including product and delivery managers, and the end result is that tomorrow will be almost completely filled with meetings: project stuff in the morning, and then in the afternoon I’ve got to do an hour of initial knowledge transfer about the old project with the other devs in case I get hit by a bus, followed by the all hands stuff that comes round every so often, then the fortnightly developer thing, and finally the portfolio devs thing

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

Watching the new series of Portrait Artist of the Year (Sky Arts).

Wasn't there some controversy about that a while back? I think it was about the quality of the artists / judging but I can't be bothered to search for it.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been an M&S Barnsley chop, with chips and beans. Very nice, very thick chop

In a sign of the dumbing down of the nation, it was labelled as a “double lamb chop”

The cooking instructions were a bit presumptuous too. I was supposed to preheat the oven to 170°C so I could stick it in there for five minutes after frying it. I’m not doing all that! Not to mention wasting all that energy! I fried it a bit longer and let it rest in the pan till the chips and beans were done, and it was fine

[xoggoth]

Usual sorta day. Old fart stuff this morning, Scrabble with old neighbours followed by coffee meet with local history society members. Afternoon fiddling around in the garden then local walky.

[ladymuck]

It took a good hour, not including the time spent sweeping up the back garden, to write an email to demonstrate how awesome I am. HMWBO verified it was a good email and he felt I was a great fit for the role.

Then I had a well deserved late lunch of scrambled eggs on toast.

Overcast now.

[NickFitz]

Pukka steak slice for lunch

Quite Simpsonesque out now

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Another sunny morning, with occasional lumps of fluff wafting past. Currently 16 degrees with a high of 18 expected. Looks like cloud will increase as the day progresses. Barometer up to 1029 mBar.

Sunrise 07:23; Sunset 18:10 BST

No news on that job. I expect that means it went to someone else. Currently having a lengthy email conversation about a job in Poole which I suspect will also result in nothing much.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It’s a sunny start with just a few scattered wisps of mares’ tails high in the sky. Chillier with the open sky at 9°C, but it’ll make it to 18° later when it’ll get cloudier, and also a bit breezier. The barometers have shot up to 1015/1023mB

I overslept somewhat again. I need to reactivate one of the later alarms, or maybe just get to sleep earlier

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Dry.

Grey, with rosy fingered dawn.

Bit misty.

17.6 deg in here, 17.5 in the kitchen, 15.5 in the leanto, 10 out the back.

1020 mBar, 30.1 in Hg, 765 Torr, 14.79 psi, (up from 1019 last night), 70% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 6th of April 2020, between 12:42 and 15:06: as per yesterday.

Entertainment: Jack Hargreaves & Simon Badderley Further out of town: Jack's new fishing punt. Pony club gymkhana, dressage. Spent more time looking at the cars than the horses. Ford Zephyr MkIV, Rover P5, Bentley, Hillman Imp, Morris Minor, VW Beetle, Ford Corsair, lots of Land Rovers.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the wan sunshine. 1 conversation with a LL.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: dashcam bollox S5 E3.

3 lawns duly met the mower. Fecked now. :.

Alaska Homestead rescue: bus dwellers in Virginia. Gosh. They were gifted a 150 year old log cabin skool house. Bus turned into a greenhouse. Marty dug a hole & found water. Installed a well. Built a treehouse/deer hide. Taught chap to use a compound bow for hunting deer. The skool house was put on a trailer & moved a couple of miles to the homestead.

Tea: Tesco battered haddock with Morrisons fishfingers. All in all pretty meh. Entertainment: PM.

Jack Hargreaves Out of Town. Breeding finches (again: it looks like a late 70s/early 80s film judging by the flares). The mule Yerra had his voice box operation. Again, judging by the flares it was late 70s/early 80s film clip. Programme has date of 1986.

Bab5 S5 E4 "A view from the gallery". Alien attack by s we've never seen before & will never see again.

Fogle: Canton, Maine homestead. Not very inneresting. The Raney thing is better. This is about some plant biologist living on a homestead. Wife topped herself. Home skooling the kid. Teaching kid archery and use of firearms.

Alaska Homestead Rescue: bears and more bears.

Interesting to read of a maintenance chap accidentally created mustard gas* when cleaning up a chemical spill. Reminded me of the brown volcano I created by mixing FeCl with resist stripper. That was fun. But obviously not as much fun as accidentally creating mustard gas*. .

*I doubt he created mustard, more likely it evolved chlorine gas.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Overcast but dry here. Expecting a lot of wind later.

[NickFitz]

This evening’s viewing was the rest of the fare dodger thing from yesterday

Later, more of All You Need is Ears, in which he’s finally signed the Beatles - only to end up with Cilla Black as well. Persuasive chap, that Brian Epstein

Tomorrow I have to start getting used to the idea of working with other people again. It’s been quite nice to just chug along as the only developer on this thing for the last few months, but now I suppose I’ll have to be collaborative and that

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been a chilli lambburger and fries; the burger proving very zingy from the green and red chilis therein

This involved the first use of my latest kitchen gadget, which was something of an impulse purchase at the weekend. I planned to get a stick blender for making soup, but ended up getting a quite expensive Braun thing that’s a stick blender, chopper, and food processor, all in one - well, all in a large box full of the various parts, but able to be used as all those things

So the chilis, onions, and garlic were first finely chopped with spices and stuff, then that was chucked in the food processor with the lamb mince and the whole lot whizzed together. And I’d found the paper discs for the burger press, which I couldn’t find for the life of me last time I made burgers. So there are three more in the freezer

[NickFitz]

Tuesday done, so just six more working days until my holiday starts!

Today, the thing I’ve been working on for the past year officially entered maintenance mode. It was also the kick-off for the third quarter, and I finally got some idea of what I’ll be working on next: some aspects of the departmental Intranet, including the “AI” chatbot

Clearly they hadn’t asked me if I fancied that, as I would have told them that I reckon chatbots are usually more trouble than they’re worth and a bit of work on beefing up normal search indexing would be preferable. But Number 10 is keen on “AI” so “AI” it is

There’s still a final and potentially quite big bit of work to do on the old thing. But that’s dependent on another team doing stuff, and they in turn are dependent on an external organisation doing stuff, and nobody can work out how to plan for it, including me. So it’s been shoved into the lumber room labelled “Tech Debt” and will probably end up being done in dribs and drabs, as and when there seems to be an opportunity to make some progress on it

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been a Pukka sausage roll, again - I bought two but they both expired today, hence the repetition of yesterday

Turned Simpsonesque out now, but still very windy

[ladymuck]

Morning all

A dull and cloudy start has given way to blue sky and sunshine. Damp from overnight rain. Currently 19 degrees ('feels like' 25) and that's the high for the day. Barometer up to 1017 mBar.

Sunrise 07:22; Sunset 18:12 BST

No plans for the day yet.