After a very busy end to last week, I was down with the lurgy over the weekend. Nothing serious but I did very little.
People I know are moving to BlueSky. Unless Mastodon goes really quiet I probably won’t be doing that, as I expect it to have a similar end to Twitter and is being financed by some weirdo blockchain thing. Now, it might be good over a reasonable time period before that happens, but I think I’ll just plod on where I am on Mastodon, which won’t suffer the same fate. If I ever won the EuroMillions or something, I’d fund Mastodon development, and if you have that sort of money and are reading this, please do that with no strings attached. The world needs a social media ecosystem that doesn’t operate for the benefit of billionaire owners. Message ends.
So what happened this week?
Monday
6h 34m sleep: 66bpm resting heart rate: no weight recorded. Earworm: I Believe in Miracles by The Jackson Sisters.
Decent sleep but since I’m not feeling 100% I worked from home. Catch up calls with one project and also with my friend and former colleague Carl, who is working on an interesting leadership coaching model. I’ve been on the receiving end of leadership development programmes in the past and they have horrified me, but this feels a bit more rounded and speaks to personal effectiveness more than things like influencing people. Too much leadership in a capitalist model is about gaining and using power, but the people I’ve seen be really effective are more in the background coaxing and encouraging others to build communities instead. I’m still thinking around this.
QOTD: “Fun fact: the National Farmers’ Union is not, according the UK regulator of unions, a trade union.” - @drandrewv2@freeradical.zone on Mastodon
Tuesday
5h 39m sleep: 65bpm resting heart rate: 15st 0lb weight. Earworm: Moon Rocks by Talking Heads.
Still have the lurgy, although I managed a walk out to the local supermarket to grab some supplies. Also had a good chat with the accountant, got some pointers on cash flow forecasting, and started drafting a business plan, which bizarrely is needed by a bank so we can open a business savings account. To be fair, we should already have one but I find it difficult to stick to plans, so writing down what we’ll do seems a guaranteed way to avoid it.
QOTD: “Billionaires aren’t self-made men. Trans men are self-made men. #internationalmensday” - @renegadejade@chaosfem.tw on Mastodon
Wednesday
5h 56m sleep: 65bpm resting heart rate: 14st 13.6lb weight. Earworm: Man-eater by Hall & Oates, not sure why.
It’s cold. I’m definitely improving on the lurgy front, but still working from home. Should be ok to go back to the Hub tomorrow. Did some more cash flow forecasting (our outgoings are much higher than I realised, we’ll need to address it), ordered a wi-fi booster for the house, and a bit more on the business plan.
In the afternoon I was on the inaugural Teams call for the Bath Spa University Employer Advisory Group, a first for me but it’s our opportunity to help influence the sorts of courses that the university offers. Really interesting and we’ll see how it develops.
QOTD: “The more I learn about cryptography, the more I think Alice and Bob should probably just talk in person.” - @preinheimer@phpc.social
Thursday
6h 11m sleep: 67bpm resting heart rate: 14st 13.2lb weight. Earworm: Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, NSW.
We have snow in Exeter! And I’m feeling better, well enough to go into the Hub and meet Simon but the snow made the journey a little treacherous. It also put a pause on works on Dad’s house, which is disappointing.
I completed the first draft of our 2025 business plan and circulated to other directors for comments, it’s nothing controversial. I also managed to complete a bit of preparation work for the changeover of our lead CKAN installation to its new infrastructure, but lots still to do on that.
Starting to realise that my earworms are getting cheesier, perhaps I need to listen to more 9 Inch Nails or something. Anyway, a very icy walk home. I’m supposed to be out and about a bit tomorrow but that’s looking unlikely.
QOTD: “Am I someone who reacts to something, someone who reacts to the people who are reacting to that thing, or someone who summarises all the reactions that everyone is having to the thing and to the people reacting to it? Life is hard.” - Simon considers the fallout from the Jaguar rebrand
Friday
4h 59m sleep: 66bpm resting heart rate: 14st 13.8lb weight. Earworm: This Corrosion by The Sisters of Mercy.
Rubbish night sleep. We’ve been watching The Listeners on iPlayer and I’m finding it a bit disturbing. Not sure if this is why I can’t get back to sleep once I wake up at 2am, but I’m pretty wiped out as a result.
The working day started with a bus trip into town to deal with solicitors and bank, and a phone call with the roofer who is getting on with stuff. Then headed to the Hub. Mostly worked on cataloguing datasets ready for the CKAN migration, which was nice low stakes work. At lunchtime I attended a session by Free Ice Cream about their work mapping the West of England creative scene using their graph database and visualisation engine, very nice and total catnip for funders. We did something similar (but a bit less polished) a couple of years ago for the Green Minds project.
QOTD: “7 things all kids need to hear:
- I love you
- I’m proud of you
- I’m sorry
- I forgive you
- I’m listening
- RAID is not backup. Make offsite backups. Verify backup. Find out restore time. Otherwise, you got what we call Schrödinger backup
- You’ve got what it takes” - @nixCraft@mastodon.social