It looks like I'm going to have a fairly interrupted work day today. I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by a pretty impressive storm. While most of the lightning was IC, it was almost constant for a good thirty minutes or so. Given it was still dark, it was an impressive show.
Around 08:00, it started up again. Some time between 08:00 and 08:30, I lost broadband. A quick check of the status page showed it wasn't just me...
That 19:00 expected fix time doesn't look so good for getting a lot of quality work done today. I would expect that to be an initial pessimistic estimate, but it still suggests it's likely not a straightforward issue.
You've got to be somewhat thankful for a couple of bars of 5G, an unlimited plan for mobile data, and a Mac-to-iPhone tethering setup...
So after the screw-up by Openreach and EE, where I was promised full fibre and then it never happened, I'd assumed that nothing was going to happen for quite some time. I was told that (likely) Openreach would contact me when they'd solved whatever the problem was, but I wasn't holding out much hope that it would be a swift turnaround.
Yesterday, however, I got an email from EE claiming that full fibre was available at my address. While sceptical about this, assuming it was just some marketing nonsense that wasn't paying attention to the details of where I live, I called them to check. I explained the problem, I had them read the notes on my account, I had them acknowledge all that had happened and they reassured me that, for real, no kidding, no nonsense, this was all gonna happen this time.
So... watch this space. I already have an installation date (it's next month) just from the order-planning call -- something which didn't happen the last time. Within the next few weeks, I will either finally be returning to streaming, and enjoying all the other benefits of full fibre, or I'll be writing yet another post about how EE and Openreach messed up.
After last weekend's attempt at making a couple of stotties, I thought I'd have another go. This time the aim was to try and get the classic shape, mostly by trying to ensure they were rounded and also flatter before going into the oven.
The dough post-rise:
Ready for the oven:
Fresh out of the oven:
Side view:
So... still viable bread. Still going to get eaten. But I think this is obviously another fail when it comes to the (lack of) thinness and the shape after they come out of the oven.
There will be another attempt. I'm going to keep trying this until I get it right!
Damn. Oh damn. My Reddit account is now old enough to buy beer1. O_o
While I probably have accounts somewhere that are older than this, that's still a pretty long time to have held an account somewhere and still be actively using it.
I remember I'd been reading Reddit for a couple of years before I finally made an account; I can't quite remember what prompted me to do that. In that time I've been more or less active there (although seldom one to post things or make comments -- normally I just consume and vote). From what I can tell that suggests I was starting to read Reddit within a year of it being launched.
I vaguely remember those old days. I remember all the conversation when it moved away from being developed in Lisp. I can't remember if I was visiting it around that time.
I do have the charter member badge because, back when gold was launched, I was reading the site a lot and it seemed sensible to support it at the time. I've long since let that subscription lapse. I see zero benefit in Reddit Premium.
For some time, a couple or so years back, when they killed off most third-party clients, I stopped using the site for a while. These days I have got back into the habit of reading it again. While I do occasionally check in on a handful of Lemmy subscriptions, and do keep thinking I should probably look into lobste.rs2, it's hard to break the habit of opening the Reddit app and scrolling for a wee while. I've yet to finally and fully replace it.
I should go look at some of my other longer-serving accounts on websites and services and see exactly which is my oldest one.
When I moved to Newcastle, as a student, back in 1986, I was introduced to many new things. So many new things. Different folk. Different accents. Different backgrounds. People from the south! But, as well as all the eye-opening things that student life had to throw at a working-class Yorkshire lad, there were also all the things that Tyneside had to offer too.
Without question, my absolute favourite discovery was the stottie. This became my go-to food, especially in my second and third years, when I was no longer in halls.
I left Newcastle in 1989 and never went back1, and sadly, have never had a stottie since. While I'm sure I could have found some niche place in the various places I've lived since, they're not a thing you find normally in Hampshire, Lincolnshire or Midlothian.
Meanwhile...
Earlier this week I was sat watching some TV and the cat was chilling on the sofa too. She's a ragdoll, a magnificent collection of floppy liquid floof. It occurred to me that she's not a cat that loafs, she stotties! Seriously, she sits there and just flows into a huge furry circle. I mentioned this to my partner, and then realised that I'd have to explain the concept, given that they're not familiar with the North East of England.
The ensuing conversation resulted in the idea that, to fix my wish to have a stottie again (after I'd done an Internet search for them around the Edinburgh area), I should just have a go at making them!
Which brings me to today. I attempted making a stottie and it actually wasn't a complete disaster.
While I've made plenty of bread in the past, I've never been too brilliant at it and, honestly, it's not something that really excites or interests me. For some reason though, making my own had never occurred to me. So, with some yeast, water, sugar and white pepper...
Plus some flour...
Which I threw together, along with some salt...
And then kneaded for about 10 minutes, then left to stand for an hour while I went for a walk.
I don't think it managed to rise quite as much as it should have, but it also didn't seem like enough of a disaster to stop there. Besides, the lack of faffing is sort of the trademark of a stottie, so I also decided this might be fine. I then gave it a bit more of a mix before cutting into two halves and getting it ready for the oven.
I think this was a step where I went a little wrong. I wanted to try and get the size and thickness I remember (and which you see in plenty of photos online), but I was somewhat hesitant when it came to flattening it out. I was concerned I'd made it too thin at this point anyway and it wouldn't rise much. I was wrong. Next time2 I think I'll flatten it a lot more.
Anyway, I threw both proto-stotties into the oven and about 20 minutes later I had something that was passable!
Neither was really quite the nicely-round shape I was hoping for, and both were quite a bit thicker than I would have liked too. But both were baked well, and looked and felt fine inside too, with the texture having the chewy density that I remember.
As for the taste: they were actually good! They made for good sarnie bread for a slightly late lunch, and also got finished off along with dinner.
Overall I would say that things didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, but for a first attempt they came out okay and tasted just fine. Now I know how I'd do things differently in the future, and it's also given me the confidence to have another go at some point.
As for the cat that inspired this, it's only fair I pay the cat tax.
This is the Internet after all.
I've travelled through plenty of times, but it's been 37 years, and counting, since I was last in toon. ↩
Despite the fact that I am not, in any way, superstitious, I kind of have this rule: don't make definitive statements about the absolute happening of an event until it happens; it kind of feels like you're tempting the universe to prank you. I don't always follow it, I know it's kind of silly, but it's there and hard to shake. It's normal. It's human.
Sometimes it happens that it looks like I should stick to that rule.
Eleven days back I wrote about how I was aiming to return to streaming thanks to the fact that I'd once again be the proud owner of a full fibre connection. The thing that, in part, prompted me to write about that was the fact that I'd had an email, that morning, from Openreach, to let me know they'd done some work and that fibre was now available at my property.
The email proudly stated:
Hello Dave,
Congratulations, you can now get Full Fibre on the Openreach network at [my home address].
With Full Fibre broadband, you can choose your package based on the download speeds you'll need from 40 Mbps to 1.6 Gbps. Need some help choosing? Then read our blog before ordering to find out what's a good download speed.
We also have the UK's biggest choice of broadband providers, so you can find a package and price to suit you.
After a button that linked to a site for finding a provider, it went on to say:
After you've placed your order with the provider of your choice, we'll arrange a day and time with you for one of our engineers to connect Full Fibre to your property if it isn't there already.
They may need to drill a small hole in your wall, or they may be able to use the same access point as your current line. Either way, they'll take care of everything and leave you with a broadband that's ready to deal with anything the future brings. You can find out more about what's involved in our handy Full Fibre installation video.
I found this whole email mildly amusing because it was obvious that the work they'd done, that made this possible, will have been the result of the call I made to EE back in March to order fibre in the first place, when it became apparent I was finally able to request it.
So, yeah, when Openreach -- the people who do the cables and stuff -- email you to let you know they've as good as hooked your place up, you know it's a safe bet.
Today was the day. This morning, between 08:00 and 13:00, was the window I'd been given for one of their engineers to turn up and do the hole drilling and the box screwing and all the stuff and then this evening I'd be in a position where, once again, I could download the whole Internet and stream utter nonsense in the highest quality (both creating and consuming). I was looking forward to this.
Everyone in the house was.
The time window started, and kept going, and kept going, and eventually it was 13:00 and nobody had turned up and my house had no extra wires or holes and I was on the phone to EE to ask WHERE IS THE GLASS INTERNET PIPE?!?
Long story short: it wasn't turning up. At all. It appears, at some point in the recent past, Openreach simply cancelled the order and nobody thought to tell me. Openreach (the people who sent me the email 11 days ago) didn't think to tell me. That's the same Openreach who sent me the SMS on the 7th of this month to give me the date of the work; apparently they could not send me an SMS to let me know they'd decided against this.
Of course, it's not all on Openreach. It would also seem that EE knew, from their own system, that the order had been cancelled and they too had failed to email me, message me, call me, something, to let me know I'd be wasting my time clearing half my day to receive them and have the work take place.
So: pretty shitty service all round.
The main explanation I've been given is something to do with a "CBT"1, or something related. This means that it's just not possible to deliver fibre to my address. This is after:
I called to check in March
I was told in March it was possible
Openreach checked things out, said more work was needed, did the work
I literally saw them doing the work, with a trench and barriers and everything
I was emailed by Openreach after the work took place to say they'd done the work and I could have fibre
Even today, even right now, if I go on their site and put in my exact address:
Not "no". Not "eventually". Not "soon". Now. It says now.
At this point this is where I have to say, after making a bit of a mess of all of this, EE have done all they can to smooth things over (especially given there's sod all they can actually do about this). They've compensated me for the missed appointment (despite the fact it wasn't technically missed; it had been cancelled and nobody had let me know), left me to hang on to all the new equipment for if/when the fibre does turn up (meaning I'll have a backup router I guess), and have also compensated me for 3 months of my current copper-based broadband by way of an apology.
On top of that they didn't just brush me off with a "sorry, can't do anything about this", they went to bat for me during a 90 minute phone conversation, chasing up more detailed explanations of what the issue was with Openreach, as we talked. While I don't actually have a solution that is anything other than "you'll have to wait", at least now I have something of a better explanation as to what the actual problem is.
So where does this leave me? Here's what I do know:
The issue that stopped my installation is solvable and, in all likelihood, is the sort of thing that will be solved in the next few months (mention being made of a reasonable range of between a 2 to 6 month wait).
Almost every alternative provider I could go to would have the same issue, as they all work over the fibre that Openreach would install.
From what I can see no provider that isn't Openreach-connected is even the least bit interested in providing fibre.
Openreach have promised that the moment they have a solution to the technical problem that stops the installation, they will call me and arrange to kick things off again (or at least, I guess, let me know it's safe to place the order with EE again).
To be clear too: we're not talking about providing a service to a house in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, not even a house in some out-of-the-way village. I live in a reasonably large town, far bigger than the village I lived in before where I did have full fibre.
All of which concludes with: I started today excited by the prospect of fast downloads, fast uploads, and returning to talking nonsense on YouTube while being terrible at playing games; I'm finishing the day with no clear path to having fibre, and a wait time that could extend well into the rest of this year, and perhaps even into next.
I hope it won't be that bad, but I am deflated and disappointed.
Also, on the very remote chance that either Sharon or Neil from EE ever stumble on this blog post: thank you for all the effort you went to to get actual answers for me. It's a shame that it needs to be said, but it is rare these days that you call a customer support line at a service or utility company and get people who are willing and able to work in a way that isn't just following a script.
Well, except for the bit right at the end... I'm fine Neil, I don't need to swap mobile provider. ;-)
I'm sat on the sofa, MacBook perched on my lap, going over some photos and generally feeling pretty tired in a really satisfying way.
We've just had a brief weekend run to one of my favourite places on the planet, back in the county I was born in: Whitby.
The plan for the weekend, as it always is when we do a run down there, was to head down, wander around town and do some vague tourist-type things in the afternoon/evening, wake up early in the morning, head to the east beach and go fossil hunting.
Neither of us are fossil-hunting experts, but it's something we like to try and do at least once a year. For me it's a bonus that it's in Whitby as that's a place I just never get bored of. Its connection with all things Gothic and photographic is a constant draw for me.
As for the hunt itself: we managed to find a good few fossils, some being easily uncovered on the beach, some being found as ready-to-pick-up fragments, and some deeply-embedded in nodules that we've brought home to extract at a later date.
Backpacks came off the beach heavier than they went on.
We were pretty lucky with the weather for the trip. While we saw some heavy rain while walking around on Saturday evening (which was enjoyable anyway as the skies were pretty dramatic for it, and we got a pretty neat rainbow as the reward for the wee soaking), Sunday was cool but sunny all the time we were on the hunt. The tide was very much in our favour too (although we'd planned it that way, of course) with low tide being around noon.
We did manage to cut it fine getting back off the beach though. This is a thing you have to watch out for while on the hunt there. While we had plenty of sand/rock to be walking around on where we were hunting, by the time we headed back to the slipway back off the beach the tide was up enough that we had to hop over a crashing wave or two. That part of the beach can be misleading so it's something you do have to watch out for.
So, like I said: I'm happy-knackered on the sofa and satisfied after a fun weekend away. We keep promising ourselves that we will hunt other spots on the North Yorkshire coast, and probably even hunt other parts of the UK, but Whitby is an easy drive and a fun place to just hang out.
It's been a wee while since I wrote anything here (been about a month) so I thought I'd make mention of what's going on.
The main news is that I'm employed again!
Once the news about the Textual layoffs hit I, of course, started the job hunting process. This lasted for a wee while (and I have a couple of stories about that -- perhaps I'll write them up one day). I officially became "unemployed" on April the 1st (yeah, I know), and by the 23rd I had an offer for a new position, which I accepted.
As of the time of writing I've been in that position for a touch over 3 weeks and it's going really well. Right at this moment I'm doing zero Python work (that will change, I strongly suspect) and, actually, for the first time ever, I'm writing some TypeScript (it's tempting me to dive into that some more).
The team I'm working in are great and I'm also really impressed so far by the practices they have in place relating to getting stuff done. It's actually a refreshing change to work in a bigger organisation and actually find it not massively frustrating!
I'm also back to working from home full time. This isn't that big a deal for me as I spent around 22 years doing so up until 2018, and of course it isn't that big of a deal to many folk these days anyway thanks to the 2020- period. This prompted me to finally clear out the spare room (I've only been in here a touch under 5 years so of course there were a lot of "I'll sort those soon" boxes and stuff in there), buy a second desk, and make a work-coding area that is away from totally separate from my for-fun-coding area.
This has turned out to be a really good decision. I love my main hacking space in the living room, and have done a lot of work there, but that was always on the odd days here and there when I'd work at home. Now that working at home is a full-time role it felt important to make the distinction.
Weirdly though, all of this means that I'm spending less time working on personal stuff. When I was working at Textualize, most days, I'd be spending the best part of 3 hours in the day getting to and from the office. I thought that perhaps getting that time back would translate into having more time to tinker with my own stuff. Actually what I'm finding I'm doing is I'm spending the time on more general self-care and domestic things. This is a good thing.
Doubtless once things really settle down and I form my new routine I'll dive back into FOSS coding more again, and perhaps get back to streaming while I code.
Meanwhile though you can find me steaming many late evenings, mucking about on my PS5. Right at this moment I'm finally playing all the way through Just Cause 4 (a game I bought back in 2019 and never finished). In fact last night I finished the main story.
Expect a lot more PS5-based streaming nonsense over the next few months.
One other change I have made is to my VR video publishing schedule. For the longest time I had the time and was playing so much that I published a video every day. This wasn't a schedule I set myself, this was more a case of I was playing so much that to publish less frequently would mean there would be a huge backlog. These days I'm back to working 5 days a week (previously I was working 4 days) so I have to cram a little more into my weekends, and also I want to try and do other things during weekends too. So recently I changed to an every-other-day schedule.
And, really, that's about it. For now expect to see a bit less Python-based content on here, and also quite a bit less Textual-based stuff too. Currently my focus is elsewhere and it also seems that Textual is a bit of a moving target recently, throwing in some fun new bugs and breaking changes which are tricky to keep on top of. That said, you will still find me in the repo, lending a hand when I can, and of course in the Textual Discord too; just don't expect to see me quite so omnipresent there, especially during the work day.
While I have been on the receiving end of redundancy once before, that was after 21 years of service at a company that, while it was in part about software development, I would never have called it a "tech" company.
So, as of today, I can finally say that the "tech layoffs" came for me and I'm one of 67% of employees being let go from a tech startup.
Achievement unlocked, I guess?
To be clear: I'm not annoyed about this, I'm not even shocked about this; I planned for this from the off and realised and recognised the gamble I was taking back in 2022.
I am disappointed about this. Not in a "I'm disappointed in you" kind of way, but disappointed for all involved and what it says about how FOSS projects are funded and maintained.
It's been an interesting journey, and it's been a privilege to do something I've been wanting to do since the 1990s, when I first read the GNU Manifesto and subsequently watched the free software and open source movements develop and grow: work on FOSS for a living. In doing this I've developed my thoughts about the feasibility of such an endeavour, I've refined how I feel about working in very small teams, I've learnt a lot of useful lessons I'm going to draw on in the future (keeping a journal of my experience has been a great move; I have a lot of notes and thoughts written down that I'll be reviewing and distilling for myself over the coming weeks).
So... what happens now? Well, of course, right now, I'm looking for a new position. If you're reading this and you are looking for someone who's kinda handy with Python and a bunch of other languages and who loves learning new stuff, or if you know someone who is looking for such a person, do drop me a line!
As for what happens with Textual, and my involvement with it...
Well, what happens with Textual is Will's call, of course. As for my involvement with it: I care about FOSS and I care about Textual; I also care about the folk who have been kind enough to use their time to explore it, test it, build with it, commit to it and make neat stuff with it. My intention, as long as free time allows, is to carry on being involved, both on GitHub and in the Discord server.
It's my sincere hope that, as a community of FOSS-friendly developers, we see Textual over the 1.0 line and beyond.
But all that starts next week. It's a bank holiday weekend and I think I might have deserved a run, a bit of mucking about in VR, a beer, and just a wee bit of down time.
