Posts
Rewatching Pixar short films
I rewatched lots of Pixar shorts the other night. So much of Pixar’s storytelling is fixating on parenting, growing up, child development. Also it seems like each Pixar short is some kind of experiment in animation or storytelling. A great example is Piper, the story of a sandpiper on a beach learning to find shells in the sand. The animation of the surf, and the sand with all its different consistencies and levels of water saturation is amazing. Also, there’s experimentation with really pushing the virtual camera’s naturalism. There’s a shallow depth-of-field to emulate a macro lens like we’re used...
The data scientist who didn't have time to stop all the coups
— “I Have Blood On My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation, Craig Silverman, Ryan Mac, and Pranav Dixit in BuzzFeed News
Week Notes - 7th September 2020
Ideally all the books in the API should stay in the store even if they haven’t been included on any of the named shelves in the last Goodreads scrape. When a new scrape is run it would add any books that don’t appear, shift any books that are in the store but don’t appear in the latest scrape to a no-shelf status (representing books I know about but have no relation with, I guess). All of that is much easier if Goodreads has a persisting book ID. If the data persists I can add my own columns to the data...
Swimming in pools and lochs
We've had a lot of peace. We're spending a lot of evenings in the pool, where only twenty people are allowed at a time and only swimming in a clockwise loop. We've been taking sick days when we feel worn out. I've been reading a little more. Emma has planted the raised bed at the end of the garden with bulbs that are supposed to sleep over the winter and erupt in spring. She forgot to check they were the right way up, but faith and bad statistics tell us about half of them will grow okay. Tom got back...
A seal
We've been on the coast of North Devon. Today the younger ones struck off from a larger group of trundling adults and children to get into the sea (we were standing on the headland and the water looked so calm and blue that Emma couldn't think of anything other than finding somewhere to get into that sea). We found a small rocky beach at the end of a crumbling single-track road. Emma and I went ahead in one car and wondered whether the others had lost their nerve on the way down. That was until we saw the others walking...
Accessible Buzzfeed
This article was originally published on the BuzzFeed Tech Blog Last month, external accessibility experts certified buzzfeed.com as compliant with the best accessibility practices for the web. That simple statement, ripped straight from the headlines of a boilerplate internal email, does not do justice to the two-year process that brought us to that point. Nor does it embody what the achievement means to our team, especially myself, on a personal level. In 2004, I watched my grandad build a remote control plane from scratch in his garage. I sat cross-legged at his feet on the grubby floor, ten years old....
Swimming Notes
I’ve grown up with a Pavlovian connection between swimming pools and chocolate bars. When I was a kid I was often taken to the local swimming baths and would stage a successful whinging campaign afterwards to be given 50p for a chocolate bar from the vending machine in the lobby of the baths. Now when I go swimming as an adult, something about climbing out of the chlorinated water in the echoey tiled hall, yanking on socks and jeans to my still-damp body, it makes me crave a chocolate bar from the machine on my way out. I don’t know...
Ann Syrdal, Who Helped Give Computers a Female Voice
— Ann Syrdal, Who Helped Give Computers a Female Voice, Dies at 74, Cade Metz in The New York Times
Gym and jolof
I woke up early and lay in bed for a while knowing Emma wanted a big lie in to catch up on sleep from a bad week. Eventually I got up and booked a slot at the gym and cycled there. I’ve been running less and going to the gym more, is that a more vain balance of exercise? Jay Rayner was back at the gym, and this time James Nesbitt was there too. I’ve told a couple of people this and I know that there’s nothing to care about but I still feel like I should do something with...
Back to office
I might be getting back to work in the office soon. I always used to value the physical and mental separation of work and life. I think I still do and I’m looking forward to having it back for two days a week, which is the plan at first. A lot has changed since I left the office, though. I am much more invested in my home. For one, it’s gotten much bigger and can therefore accommodate work mode more easily. I also have gotten to like sitting in my own garden as I break for lunch and the flexibility...
Good for nothing
Some days are good for nothing. It's Friday and I've left work early but I haven't been able to concentrate all day anyway. I feel unhappy and all I can think is I should go to the gym or play the piano or practice my Spanish or draw something or... Instead I'm going to flit between things, getting agitated at nothing.
It's very hard to tear down a bridge
— Robert Caro Wonders What New York Is Going To Become , Christopher Robbins in Gothamist via Kottke
The Universe Has Made Almost All the Stars It Will Ever Make
— The Universe Has Made Almost All the Stars It Will Ever Make, Caleb Schwarf in Nautilus
Historical Cookbook Database
— A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks Is Now Online, and You Can Help Improve It, Reina Gattuso in Atlas Obscura
Scraps from the Isle of Mull
A few weeks ago I went camping in Scotland. Below are some scraps I wrote down while I was on the Isle of Mull. There are significant magnetic anomalies around the islands of St. Kilda. The name St. Kilda is an oddity: there is no such saint. One theory is that it comes from “sunt kelda”, Norse for sweet wellwater. Another is that it is a corruption of the local pronunciation of the island name Hirta. The local accent has a guttural /h/ sound that could sound like /k/ and an /l/ for /r/ swap. Machair is a fertile and...
How the Pandemic Revealed Britain’s National Illness
— How the Pandemic Revealed Britain’s National Illness, Tom McTague in The Atlantic
Rich writers showing themselves up about COVID-19
— The Afflictions of the Comfortable, Michael Massing in The American Prospect
How South Asian corner shop culture helped the UK survive Covid-19
— How South Asian corner shop culture helped the UK survive Covid-19, Sana Noor Haq in Gal-Dem
Tom arrives
It's been a good week. We came back from Scotland and spent a week relaxing at home around my birthday. Then Tom arrived in Heathrow having run the gauntlet of the travel restrictions imposed by the Indian government, UK government, and the various airlines. He's been decompressing here for a week or so, and making us incredible amounts of food and drink in the meantime. It's good to have your habits disrupted. Yesterday Tom and some friends spent most of the day in our garden. There's a project to build a raised bed at the end of the garden, but...
The Pandemic's Biggest Mystery Is Our Own Immune System
— The Pandemic's Biggest Mystery Is Our Own Immune System, Ed Yong in The Atlantic
Why the Pandemic Is So Bad in America
— Why the Pandemic Is So Bad in America, Ed Yong in The Atlantic
The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free
— The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free, Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs
British Slave Businesses
— There are British businesses built on slavery. This is how we make amends, Catherine Hall in The Guardian
Falling Fertility Rates
— Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born, James Gallagher for BBC News
Igbo Orthography and The Ndebe Script
— Writing Africa's Future in New Characters, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sú in Popula