Status 2023-03-29

Morning, computer!

Slow morning in the cottage. P and #3 left hours ago. I'm alone for the weekend celebrating the goddesses Freyja, Ostara, Vesna, or whomever it is we're off work for. Maybe it's so everyone can watch the stream from Revision?

I've been slowly working through a french press of coffee and reading the morning paper, Dagens Nyheter. This time, however, I didn't just read on the web page. Instead, I'm trying to limit my news intake to just reading the morning paper. Once, in the morning. Not checking for breaking news again and again during the day like I usually do. I'm reading my subscription's PDF of this day's issue! Yes, wow, I didn't even know they had one!

You can probably guess I recently read Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism". This is the first full book of his I've read. Yes, I know I'm late to the party, as usual. It's really good. Well researched and very eloquently written. Lots of notes and references at the end, but nothing to interrupt your flow of reading.

He suggests a month of digital decluttering, so I've done a decluttering plan for April. After that month I'll revisit the "optional technologies" I have identified and maybe rejoin some things. If I'm not active in a "social" "medium" near you, that's why. I may still be posting announcement about blog posts, but I'm not actually participating. Let's see how it goes.

I have some more books by Cal in my reading queue. I'm also reading Jason Fried's and DHH's "Remote: Office not required". Yes, I know about the internal troubles at Basecamp but I think they might have some good points in this 2013 book. I've been working remote for quite some time already, but perhaps I get some more insights. Perhaps I'll just end up leaving the book at the Gothenburg office?

For Revision I've moved the loudspeakers from the living room and set up a comfy little corner where I usually work while at the cottage. Looking forward to some compos. I'm also looking forward to a video conference party with the original flatmates from the Area 41 days.

At work we released a new version of the FPGA bitstream for the TKey with some interesting updates, chief of which is a new hardware protection and incremental builds of the bitstream. We also published a blog post about a fixed firmware problem that is included in the new release. Beware of optimising compilers!

Spent three days in Gothenburg working on this stuff, then going to the Netnod Meeting (Thanks again for the invite, Siri! Sad to see you leave Netnod.) in Z'ha'dum for two days. Then off to the funeral the week after. Lots of travelling lately. Going back to Gothenburg for a few days soon, then off to Hamburg in late April.

Vernor Vinge is dead, as you probably know. I'm also re-reading "True Names" and some essays about this seminal work. Cyberspace and cyberpunk before cyberpunk! Also thinking a lot about death since both my dad's wife and my aunt's husband just died. What do we leave behind? What do we remember about the dead? Is this what they wanted to be remembered as? What do I leave behind?

Take care, MC