01 September 2024

Work

I suggested Show The Thing format at work as a replacement of the drier financial updates. I went first with showing the legacy point-of-sale system I am integrating with as part of my work with Openr. Two other colleagues showed a thing as well. I think this format suits a consultancy quite well.

Saturday

🏃‍♂️‍➡️ We visited K's godfather. Took the opportunity to try Squerryes Winery Parkrun. Loved running through the vineyard. Would like to return to the taproom.

Sunday

The boy ran junior Parkrun in additional to Saturday's 5k. He's determined to get a fast time. His mate comes first every week, at around 7 mins 30 seconds.

🌻 I am going to grow spinach over autumn and winter. I finished off preparing the right-hand side raised bed by removing as many weeds and wood chips as I could, improving the top layer of soil by digging in soil improver in the form of farmyard manure. Then I planted three rows of spinach 'Gigante d'Inverno' seeds spaced 30cm apart. In a few weeks time, I'll sow again so I spinach is growing through to the winter.

📺 The boy and I watched Instant Family which is about the emotional journey through fostering and adoption, followed by Ninja Warrior Juniors USA final!

🎧 Listens

Whilst listening to another podcast about the rise of SQLite, the guest talked about aphantasia which is a condition that prevents individuals from visualising images in their minds. After doing a brief, not very scientific test on myself, this is something I probably have to some degree. I definitely can't summon images into my mind. I didn't realise this was even a thing.

I gave the latest Nick Cave album a listen. What stood out most was the use of a gospel-ish backing singers and Colin Greenwood on bass!. Very interesting read about Nick Cave's relationship with theology, particularly with Christianity and the references to this in Wild God.

Notable reads

I read another blog post about databases. This time Ethan McCue's Just use Postgres blogpost.

Martin Fowler revised his original post on Strangler Fig, the metaphor to describe a gradual approach to legacy modernisation. We used this lots at MoJ. It's easier said than done but I came to be a believer in that its mostly the only workable method, but takes time, just like nature takes time to do its work.