Good morning, it's raining, it's the first of November, and I'm immediately on a nanowrimo-related wikiventure.
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Notes (16 out of 1251)
- Everywhere we fucking look we have ads and paywalls. See: media streaming services, the cinema, print newspapers and magazines...
- Please, I beg you, go involve yourself in some kind of co-operative, collective, mutual aid, community organisation, literally anything that isn't just transaction/exploitation based, and consider that maybe there are other ways to exist.
Spent two hours with a giant flipchart and markers to prep for nanowrimo. Started with a vague idea and a blank page, and now I have 3 MCs, 3 parallel but interconnected stories, a fleshed out world, some meaningful (to me) themes, and a plot twist. No longer terrified of starting yet another project, pretty excited in fact.
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I had a new world idea a little while ago, and recently I've started to discover some stories in it too. I'm anxious about starting something new for nanowrimo when I have uh several unfinished novels sitting around, but...
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The sound of The News is so distinctive (at least UK TV and radio but I think it's pretty universal) and after having avoided it diligently for some years now whenever I hear it in passing I get such a visceral horror reaction.
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I budgeted wrong and used all of my social energy up on Monday, day 1 of this 5 day conference.
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Stuck in Madrid for three hours longer than planned/ideal. I couldn't make the reservation that needs to go with the interrail pass for the Madrid-Sevilla train except in-person (myself - tried to send agents in advance, no go) at the station. After standing in line at two different renfe ticket offices before being told "not this ticket office" I waited for 30 minutes at the third to be told the last seat on the 5pm train went to the person in line before me. I blame the massiveness of Madrid station. So my only next option was first class on the 1958, which gets me in way past my bed time. Alas. At least first class was only 3eur extra.
And I have discovered that there are free toilets after the baggage security check. The WiFi at Rodilla cafe near platform 15 works, and the nice person at Rodilla filled my water bottle with ice cold water for me.
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Unexpectedly amazing sleep on the Paris to Toulouse night train. Probably because I tired myself out stomping randomly around Paris all afternoon. But comfortable couchette, silent co-passengers, dark berth, reasonable AC and soothing train noises certainly helped!
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First terrible mistake of the trip: getting the time of my eurostar wrong. Realised in time to not miss it, but not in time to eat the delicious lunch I'd just ordered at Thenga which I'd been looking forward to since I woke up at 5 ;_;
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Feeling fancy that my agenda for today involves lunch in London and dinner in Paris.
The rest of my agenda involves spending the entire weekend on trains, to get from Fife to Sevilla for W3C TPAC. Pretty sure I'm not going to be able to fit in any meals tomorrow at all.)
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Sometimes people think it's weird that I log all of my purchases on my website, but do you you know exactly how long a 2.5kg bag of chocolate chips lasts you? I didn't think so. (It lasts me one year minus one day.)
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Delighted to report that the UK gov emergency alert test didn't come through on either of the phones currently about my person. I had assumed it would work over whatever lets you call 999 without a network connection, but turns out it requires such new-fangled concepts as "4G" and/or "Android 11+".
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A three-day, quite intense and tiring but overwhelmingly positive Open Data Services Co-op CoGM this week. We're in a state of flux at the moment as several complex and interdependent internal moving parts come together in support of the co-operative future we want, and that can often lead to frustration and stress. We had a lot of alignment this week, collectively, but (and) there also remains a lot of work still to do.
I was taking today off to rest, but accidentally drafted a Remuneration Strategy based on thoughts percolating in my subconscious from the past few days instead. (I continue to surprise myself when I reflect on what my job seems to entail these days.)
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I'm very tired* of the assumption that the Web needs advertising in some form to continue to exist as a widely accessible service. I will not accept this false dichotomy of ads or paywalls.
* tired in the sense of exhausted and weary, and also in the sense of mind-numbingly bored by.
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I'm going on an overland/sea trip to Finland from Scotland, starting tonight. Remember when I was a full time no-fly nomad, doing multiple consecutive nights on public transport without even noticing? Let's see how easily I slip back into that.
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For everyone who replies to skills-based job application questions with a response from ChatGPT, that's really smart and cool and might work if only you did it, but when hundreds of other people also do it it's kind of obvious and also a very unpleasant waste of the reveiwers' time and definitely earns you zero points.
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An incredibly braw morning, with the sea soft and shimmering. The cold temperatures and clear skies are giving the luminous effect I usually associate with November.
I awoke from dreams of wanting to be in the sea but not being able to.
Fortunately, once awake after my sunrise coffee, I had no impediments, and got straight into my wetsuit for a refreshing swim/float before breakfast.
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