Another quiet week, as the slow down for Christmas engulfs the world (or at least the bit that I interact with).
I popped over the bridge to Cwmbrân and had a great lunchtime meet up with MG, who I briefly ran into at GovCamp Cymru, but couldn’t spend too long with, as I was on duty. We chatted about AI, social media, automation, and old friends.
I also had a follow-up call with CF after the 'AI for Operations' workshop of her’s that I attended (virtually) last week. We talked a little about the workshop (the workshop was great), but mainly just chilled and exchanged ideas. Read her linkedin article here, or view the workshop here. I heartily recommend it.
Caught up on a lot of Generalist World activity that I hadn’t had the opportunity to dip into for the last week or so. There's alwasy so much good stuff going on.
The end of the week involved a couple of visits to town. A couple of Brighton friends were in town for the weekend, so we went for dinner on Saturday evening and then on Sunday went to St. Nicholas Market and the M-Shed. There’s always something new to see at the latter, and I found loads of inspiration for presents (not necessarily Christmas presents) for people in the former. And my step count was up for a change.
Also over the weekend, Roger Swannell’s latest week note has inspired me to re-visit some content I’ve been working on about the separation of information from its means of distribution and communication. More on that in the new year, I expect, as I’m not likely to do much more this year (if I can help it - my brain sometimes just won’t let me park things).
On a personal level, I wrote a piece about my relationship with Christmas - ‘The Shape of Christmas’. I also published another week’s worth of Ode Map advent calendar posts (they’re all quite short, so not a big effort in terms of proofing and editing).
I watched quite a lot of TV this week. I think, in part, because I’m slowing down on other activities and just found myself in the living room more often than I ordinarily would.
- Watched the first episode of “Hope Street”. This passed me by when it came out, but saw it on iPlayer and thought I’d have a go. It’s OK. Maybe I’ll watch another episode and see if it’s worth pursuing.
- Got up-to-date on: Pluribus, Down Cemetery Road, Shetland, Loot, and Return to Paradise.
- Watched the Strictly Come Dancing semi-final and results show.
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S1E3
- Finished my re-watching of the entire back catalogue of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Watched Love Actually. Cried (c.f. The Shape of Christmas, above).
And on the listening front (highlights only, or we’d be here all day):
- Black Tape for a Blue Girl - “The Rope (25th Anniversary - Remastered)” album. The track 'Memory, Uncaring Friend' seems appropriate with all the reminiscing that goes on at this time of year.
- Eat Static - “Back to Earth” album
- Cosey Fanni Tutti - “2t2” album
- JADE - “That’s Showbiz Baby! The Encore” album. Disc 2 is all new material, and 'Church' is epic.
- The Hu - “The Gereg (Deluxe Edition)” album. Mongolian folk/metal with Tuvan throat singing. Mega!