London to Kirkcaldy 🚅
Leaving London, UK at 9:15pm (+00:00) on Thursday the 25th of January 2024 and arriving in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland at 4:50am (+00:00) on Friday the 26th of January 2024
Return from TAG f2f
w3ctag (16 out of 63)
- TAG virtual face-to-face meetings.
- Made apple crumble and beet brownie at the Community Kitchen.
- Foraged oysters in Ravenscraig Park, and chanterelles.
- Swam in the sea. Italian N came for a visit.
- Went for a hike in Weardale.
- One more day off work, then recovered from flu. Mostly stayed home all week. Skipped Community Kitchen pending full flu recovery.
- Did my tax return.
- Did some TAG work about third-party cookies.
- Lots of Co-op admin. Coordination around operations and strategy. Facilitiated a retro. Final logistics and agenda planning for next week's CoGM.
- Managed to sit on the beach most mornings for some braw sunrises. Really starting to feel like spring. Mustn't forget it could just as soon freeze again next week.
- Spent time with T, following the loss of sweet wee Lucy.
- Wetsuit swim in the sea.
- Finished reading Memory's Legion.
- Watched bits of She Hulk, Archer, For All Mankind, and Pandorum, Shotgun Wedding and possibly another couple of movies which left zero impression.
- Ate lots of chocolate. Ate things from the freezer and jars. Will hold off from buying groceries for as long as possible.. This is much easier when I'm only feeding myself.
- Cleared all the dead stuff out of the footpath garden, and turned all of the stray nasturtium seeds in so hopefully it will be full of surprise wild nasturtiums again. Also rearranged houseplants.
- Started sanding the bathroom cabinet that needs repainted, only a year late.
- Spent many hours emergency navigating Dave back from Finland at short notice. Alas Vipassana was not to be this time (they kicked him out because he was coughing, despite a covid test being negative and other people also coughing. Sounds like they made up policy on the spot. Sigh. Last minute international travel over xmas? Sure no problem. Never have I been more grateful for spending an extra few euros on flexible ferry tickets and an interrail pass!)
- Had lunch with K and M and Lowenna, and a beach frolic in Aberdour. Very Good Girl.
- Got re-elected to the W3C TAG.
- Slept for a day with a migraine.
- Co-op, co-op, I do not want to write about the co-op right now.
- Went to Edinburgh to pick up some stuff, and gave Dave a change of clothes so he can spend xmas in Edinburgh. Astonishingly he made it back with a few delays but nothing traumatising! After all that.
- Made vegan and keto-friendly mince pies.
- Enjoyed The Tiffin's wonderful food again after a while.
- Sat on the beach, but not as much as I shoulda.
- Started a new crochet project, and ate lots of chocolate.
- Finished Nova War. Distinctly mediocre. But started the next one - Empire of Light.
- Finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane (super!). Trying to rationalise the number of books I'm reading at once as I've had three on the go for a while, but it's not working as I also started The Birth of the Chaordic Age - though that doens't count as it's 'work', right? I still have a HP Lovecraft collection that I'm half way through.
- Acquired winter chanterelles for the first time.
- Wrote every day, on the beach.
- Made pumpkin pies at the Community Kitchen, and matcha/nut/chocolate cake, and nacho 'cheese' sauce at home.
- Visited with Jess and Maud.
- Went to look for shiny rocks.
- Generally snowed under with TAG and Co-op stuff. Stressed. Dave has been looking after me.
- Walkies and lunch with Max.
- Found shaggy parasols and chicken mushroom.
- Ended the week with 32,870 words.
- Finally did some work on the TAG Privacy Principles document.
- Had dinner in Edinburgh with Liz and Agnes.
- Made progress on some finance-related Co-op proposals; on S&W processes; on visa sponsorship admin.
- Baked. Ate so much chicken of the woods.
- Went to the first Grain & Sustain Supper Club.
- Made apple crumble cake and lime pie at the Community Kitchen, and matcha cookies and courgette rhubarb cake at home.
- A wellness weekend event near Leven.
- Watched the first two Matrix movies, but slept through half of Reloaded.
- London for TAG meeting, and dinner with timbl. Productive week, and marginally less awful time in London than usual.
- Enjoyed Kirkcaldy Friday market, featuring Kama Vegan Bakes (who I told about the KDY market when I saw them at the Scottish Vegan Festival) and lunch at the newly opened Kangus!
- Went on a long mushroom walk not far from home but didn't come back with much.
- Got chanterelles, but failed to put them on pizza.
- Good harvests.
- Went on a rock trunting hip to a new agate spot.
Derby to London 🚅
Leaving Derby, UK at 7:33am (+00:00) on Tuesday the 23rd of January 2024 and arriving in London, UK at 9:09am (+00:00) on Tuesday the 23rd of January 2024
To TAG f2f
Uttoxeter to Derby 🚅
Leaving Mum's, UK at 6:58am (+00:00) on Tuesday the 23rd of January 2024 and arriving in Derby, UK at 7:21am (+00:00) on Tuesday the 23rd of January 2024
To TAG f2f
Edinburgh to Mum's 🚅
Leaving Edinburgh, Scotland at 4:52pm (+00:00) on Thursday the 18th of January 2024 and arriving in Mum's, UK at 8:05pm (+00:00) on Thursday the 18th of January 2024
Train from Edinburgh to Crewe, lift from Crewe to Mum's. Transit between coop and TAG meetings.
TPAC 2023
I was on the fence about attending TPAC right from when the idea first entered my head, to the journey there. I'm glad I went though. It was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues from the web standards world, and to meet some wonderful new people as well.
The covid precautions taken by the organisers reassured me a lot. It was a four to five hundred person conference, with attendees from all over the world. In spite of relaxed standards taken across most of the rest of the world at this point, we stayed masked, ate outside, and they handed out as many tests as people needed to encourage testing every day. I know a few people who tested positive early on, and attended remotely from their hotel rooms; I hope everyone was so considerate. Last I heard there were a handful of cases reported, and a week later I've avoided it. While wearing masks during a heatwave in Spain for five days running was uncomfortable, I'm glad these were the requirements and I think it was worthwhile. I probably wouldn't have attended without this.
The food was rubbish though; apparently consistently for everyone, not only the vegans :)
The first two days were the most exhausting, and I used up pretty much all of my energy upfront.
I attended the Social CG meeting. I went to the AC meeting, and sat on stage for a TAG panel. I was anxious about this the whole time, as I had carefully arranged my life to avoid public speaking since I left academia, and don't do well thinking on the spot in front of a crowd. Fortunately none of the questions were about anything I had a strong opinion on, so nobody was expecting to hear from me in particular.
I didn't attend many breakouts as I had a few co-op meetings to fit in. I did join the Privacy Task Force breakout, which was a completely packed room, and a surprisingly (sorry, perhaps I'm too cynical) positive discussion. Seems like we're on a good track with the Privacy Principles (though much editorial work remains that I'm on the hook for but not on top of).
At various points I sat in on the RDF Canonicalization and Verifiable Credentials WG meetings. I'm a bit out of the loop, and these meetings were not quite enough to get back into it, but tensions seem high as various pieces of work near completion. I felt like everyone in that room is well overdue a holiday.
In between all of this I spent time in the "hallway track", having excellent conversations.
I was so happy I got to spend time with half of the TAG (Dan, Hadley, Tess, Sangwhan, Lea); as well as Evan, Tantek, Arnaud, Brent, Joe, Juan, Michiel, Amy, Sam, ... ; and Dmitri and Manu however briefly. I also made some amazing new connections, including Lola, Elena, and a bunch of people from Igalia who I was keen to talk about co-ops with. There were plenty of people there I wish I could have managed to see more of, too.
It was an intense week, and I haven't really looked at my email since, but I suspect I have a lot of things to follow up on. I took the scenic route back, via Morocco and Gibraltar, in an attempt to decompress before my whole-co-op meeting next week...
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🗁Added 55 photos to album Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar.
Five days in Sevilla for TPAC. Reconnecting with old friends and colleagues, and making new ones. I didn't do much touristing, but did manage to find decent vegan tapas. An exhausting but worthwhile week.
Week in review: 31st July - 6th August
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Week in review: 23rd - 29th January
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Week in review: 19th - 25th December
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Week in review: 21st - 27th November
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TAG nomination statement
My two year term on the W3C TAG has flown by, and it's election time again. If you're a W3C AC representative, you can vote here (link restricted to AC reps) or read all of the candidate nomination statements here. Please consider ranking me favourably!
I grew up alongside the Web, and have never known the world without it. Early tinkering with HTML and CSS shaped the course of my life and became a formative part of how I interacted with the world. It is deeply important to me to see the Web move forward as a positive force, and to push back against the surveillance, manipulation, and abuse that are routine across many parts of the Web today.
The TAG has a great record over recent years of promoting security, privacy, and accessibility as core parts of Web architecture. I have spent my efforts during my two years as a member of the TAG pushing to go above and beyond these foundations; as a member of the TAG's Privacy Task Force, as well as editor of the draft Societal Impacts Questionnaire. I intend to continue enabling and encouraging specification authors and implementers to consider the broader consequences of their work in the context of a global web which is part of an enormous and ever-changing landscape of cultural norms, legislation, and innovation.
I hold a PhD in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh, with a visiting year at MIT. My thesis builds on my personal experiences with online communities; I researched self-expression on the Web and how interconnected social and technical systems support or impede online interactions. At the same time, I helped shape the future of the social Web through co-editing and implementing several specifications of the W3C Social Web Working Group, including the ActivityPub specification which has seen recent attention due to a surge in public interest in decentralised social networks. I also spent a year and a half as the Working Group's Team Contact, which familiarised me with W3C processes and politics.
I spent the years since developing software to support openness and transparency for public good. I have worked with investigative journalists and open data activists, facilitating the efforts of civil society groups, governments, and the private sector internationally. I continue this work as a Director of Open Data Services Co-operative, building and maintaining tools that use the Web to promote civic use of data and fight corruption worldwide. I also work with Digital Bazaar on Web standards related to decentralisation, with the goal of enabling a foundational layer of technologies to support individual agency on the Web.
These experiences at the intersection of civic work and cutting edge standards development give me a unique perspective for my time on the TAG. There is no need for trade-offs between participation and privacy, or between community and autonomy, when building empowering Web technologies. My strengths lie in listening to input from a range of perspectives, discerning the common grounds on which to move forwards, and turning consensus into concrete specification text.
Should my term be renewed, I will continue to advocate for thoughtful and intentional design of web platform features which account for diverse perspectives and usage scenarios, as well as bringing this mindset to specification design reviews.
Find me at rhiaro.co.uk.
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Week in review: 22nd - 28th August
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Week in review: 25th - 31st July
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🗁Added 35 photos to album London, July 2022.
Some days in London for the TAG face-to-face. Great food at Mildred's, Temple of Seitan, Luminary Bakery.
Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy 🚅
Leaving Edinburgh, Scotland at 7:42pm (+01:00) on Thursday the 28th of July 2022 and arriving in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland at 8:28pm (+01:00) on Thursday the 28th of July 2022
Return from TAG f2f
Train from London to Edinburgh
45.90gbp (expensed) (£45.9)
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