Misc

With the increased commercialisation of universities in the UK, one of the things that the Computer Science (CS) department unfortunately lost access to, by command from “up on high”, was the providing of publicly accessible web hosting.

Talking with someone about Apple ecosystem, linux, and cross-device integrations in general Made me realise how much of this is actually a pain I usually joke “It’s hell, but one of my own creation so I at least know which torture devices there are.

I am coming up on the end of my allotted time for my PhD and need to write up. There is little content of this follow-along-journal-kind out there (as far as I know), so I thought it might be interesting to document, if nothing else for myself to look back over someday.

I still like the idea of Digital Gardens which, since I posted the plan to make this website one, I have discovered are an entire sub-culture of websites. And as I’ve read more about these, what they are, and what the philosophy behind them are — slow, imperfect, small changes, which accumulate into something nice over time — I’ve also realised/decided that changing my website to try this different approach to online content will require taking the “gardening” approach to the switch itself.

Another year has passed, and I’ve enjoyed lots of different varieties and kinds of media throughout it. In a perfect world, I would want to write a full blog post on each of the things mentioned here, but in this annoyingly imperfect world with silly limitations like 24 hours in a day and the need for sleep, this will do.

A random idea for a fun progress and info-vis project I had.

There are many ways to measure how good a book was. A reasonable indicator for me has always been how quickly I finish it. A good book keeps you absorbed, encourages you to keep reading and explore the world that has been set up in your mind. And wow does the Broken Earth Trilogy ever do that!

Reading “The Starless Sea” is like watching an intricately put-together puzzle unfold and reveal its workings. There are stories within stories, fables, bits, and quotes, all of which initially seem unrelated, but weave in and out of each other, enhancing, revealing, exploring, detailing various facets of the story and its characters.

Past me set up GPG keys at a time where I thought I’d encrypt everything. I think I used them 3 times right after setting them up, and then never again.

As of today, 2023-06-30, my Reddit account (u/CodingCellist) has been deleted due to the ongoing controversy with API pricing and third-party apps. I’m aware this is a drop in the ocean or something, and I was genuinely sad to see my account go, but sometimes that’s just how things be.