June 2024
Pupdate
The weather for June has been… variable, with some glorious days, but also some torrential downpours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the boys muddier than they were after this particular walk in the woods.
EMFcamp cont.
Last month’s post came midway through EMFcamp, so there was more fun to be had.
Saturday was probably the most fun day I’ve had at EMF over my three visits. Good talks, great times with friends, and an amazing ‘whisky leaks’ party at Milliways.
Sunday was great too, but sadly we had to leave before it was all over, as a fresh half term beckoned. Thankfully the drive home in the motorhome was uneventful.
EMF was life affirming, and definitely the best one yet. It didn’t feel busy despite having more people there, and I hope to return in 2026.
Veteran’s Railcard
It’s been 3 years since I first got a Veteran’s Railcard, so time to renew, and also reflect on how good it’s been.
The headline is that it saved me £1082.80 over 3 years, which is pretty good :) Of that £372.95 was for work trips, and £48.95 for trips with my wife.
For the last few years the main benefit has been cheaper access to First Class fares. My trips to London are generally on Thameslink, but their standard class seating is awful – it’s a design that I could excuse for suburban commuter trains, prioritising density and standing room over comfortable seating. But it’s not good for trips of an hour or more (and people going from Brighton to Cambridge or Bedford could be spending many hours in those seats). Anyways… the First seats aren’t anything special – pretty much what used to be standard class. But they’re worth the premium to avoid backache.
Berlin part 1
Just like last month found me midway through EMF, this month catches me midway between two trips to Berlin.
The first was for Google’s I/O Connect, an event that brought together the regional developer community to recap highlights from the I/O event, and in some cases provide fresh product launches and service updates. Peeking past the AI hype, it was great to spend some time with the Dart/Flutter product team, and learn a little about what’s changing with Android 15.
As there were so many Google Developer Experts (GDEs) in town, the team also took the opportunity for a get together at Google’s Berlin office for a GDE Forum. This provided a good opportunity to meet fellow GDEs from other disciplines, and also learn about some new interop features in Dart.
The best bit of course was spending some time hanging out with fellow community members, and we get to do it all again next week at Fluttercon, where I’ll be talking about supply chain security.
Escaping Berlin
Shortly before I was due to leave the GDE Forum for the airport I got an email saying that my flight was cancelled. EasyJet’s rebooking site was pretty useless, and each alternative I tried to pick wasn’t there by the time I got to the confirm button. Eventually I got a trip back (to Luton) with a long layover in Amsterdam – leaving two days later; and the hotel they booked for me was only for one night :0
Thankfully the Worktrips travel agents used by Google stepped up to get me an alternative flight home a day later, and Google were happy to swallow the additional cost providing quick approval for the new plan. I’m glad they did, as the alternate flight was also cancelled, so I’d probably still be stuck in Berlin.
Hopefully next week won’t be so dramatic.
Tiny USB-C Laptop Charger
I’ve written before about USB-C chargers and power bricks, but when I saw this at an AI workshop I had to find out more.
It’s made my Dell, called the LA60NM200, it’s tiny, and it kicks out 60W:) I found a used one on eBay for £20.
The cables it comes with are a good length, but not too heavy, and the UK plug is one of the smallest I’ve seen. My only complaint is that the mains connection is a ‘Mickey Mouse’ C6 socket rather than the smaller ‘Figure of 8’ C8, which means it can’t be used with my preferred laptop adaptor mains cable (which is a Euro plug C8 fitted with a Euro-UK adapter). It might find its way into my US travel bag as a smaller and lighter replacement for the Mackertop.
Audiobooks
Amazon were doing a promotion on Audible, so I reactivated my account (at least for a few months), and I’ve been listening to a few books:
Rory Stewart “Politics on the Edge”
This is Stewart’s autobiography of the chunk of his life as a politician. I’ve always liked Rory (despite him being a Tory), and his storytelling did little to dissuade me from that view. He came across as a genuine nice guy, trying to do his best for the country and its people, who ultimately got shivved by the schemers and malcontents he was surrounded by.
It does sadly paint a picture of a fairly fundamentally broken system, where the good guys get crushed, and it’s winner takes all for the psycho/sociopaths. I’ve added Ian Dunt’s “How Westminster Works… and Why it Doesn’t” to my wishlist, as the hardback I bought is stubbornly refusing to be handy when I have time to read (and I have more time to listen than I have time to read).
Patrick Alley “Terrible Humans”
A compilation of stories emerging from the work by Global Witness, “Terrible Humans” was gripping right the way through. I particularly enjoyed the story of their collaboration with Citizen Lab to investigate spying enabled by NSO group, as I suppose it’s closely related to my own work on privacy and security.
Alley’s earlier “Very Bad People” is now on my wishlist.
Solar Diary
This June was about 10% down on last year, which is hardly surprising given the ‘variable’ weather :/
Filed under: monthly_update, travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Audible, audiobooks, Berlin, charger, EMFcamp, Patrick Alley, Politics on the Edge, pupdate, railcard, Rory Stewart, solar, Terrible Humans, travel, USB-C
Bullshit Baffles Brains
It’s right there in the title. If the word offends you, just stop, now.
TL;DR
Generative AI is a bullshit machine, but that’s fine because we need machines to do the bullshit jobs.
Military Grade Bullshit
I first heard the phrase ‘Bullshit Baffles Brains’ in my early days in the Navy, and I would hear it many more times during my service. It came to encapsulate everything that I ended up hating the most about the Navy – the idea that performative nonsense would routinely triumph over substance.
A quick search of the term turned up this amusing dit, which is a more generous spin than anything I saw.
My own interpretation was that a bit of spit and polish, and the resultant shiny thing would be enough to distract the attention of the senior officer carrying out the inspection (or whatever).
AI Bullshit
This post is (of course) about the present AI zeitgeist, and accompanying investment bubble.
There’s a wonderful paper that was published a few weeks back with the not at all subtle title of ‘ChatGPT is Bullshit‘. It painstakingly explains (scientifically and with proper academic references) what bullshit is, then goes on to detail why the large language models (LLMs) behind ChatGPT and the raft of other ‘generative AI’ things are such tremendous bullshit generators.
It’s no surprise sadly, that the executive class are taken in by it. Too busy to pay attention to the details, and easily distracted by a shiny demo… Bullshit Baffles Brains.
Calling out the Bullshit
Back when I still did Twitter, one of my favourite accounts was @callin_bull, from the awesome callingbullshit.org team ‘The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World’. They did a great job of harpooning (and lampooning) some of the bullshit that’s out there.
People are (quite rightly) starting to notice that AI isn’t the panacea it’s being pedaled as, with my favourite recent rant post being ‘… If You Mention AI Again‘. Though for a toot size version this from @[email protected] is also excellent at summarising the state of grift.
There are two huge (and overlapping) problems at play here:
- AI is sucking up almost all of the (discretionary) time and treasure, at least in the IT industry[2].
- None of this stuff works as advertised unless you’re prepared to make sure that the foundational stuff is taken care of – clean data, a solid operating philosophy, good teams with strong psychological safety.
Of course I jest. All work on 2 has ceased while every ounce of effort goes into 1. AI makes line go up!
Bullshit Jobs
It seems that the main reason execs are so allured by AI is the notion that they can replace all those pesky unreliable people that work for them.
For those paying attention, we’ve seen this show before, with Robotic Process Automation (RPA)[3] – software that got (extortionately) licensed by the ‘virtual person’ so that middle managers could keep their empires (albeit with a staff of glorified bash scripts rather than actual people to boss around – I guess it makes annual review season much less of a hassle).
But… this time it’s different. Not only have models been trained, at enormous expense, and by scraping every bit of text that wasn’t safely hidden away. But also the chatbots can do a decent impression of generating plausible sentences[1], especially if you’re the trademark ‘moron in a hurry‘.
There is sadly a whole class of ‘Bullshit Jobs‘ as articulated by David Graeber. If the purpose of the job is to create bullshit, then a bullshit spawning AI is the perfect fit.
So maybe there’s a happy ending here. Maybe the truth of AI taking peoples’ jobs is bullshit AI taking peoples’ bullshit jobs. The disruption is going to be awkward, but hopefully we all get to spend our time more meaningfully.
Notes
[1] Cory Doctorow has been using the term ‘plausible sentence generators‘ to describe what an LLM does, and I think it’s a description that perfectly nails things. If you substitute ‘AI’ or ‘Generative AI’ or ‘LLM’ for ‘plausible sentence generator’ then it brings things properly into perspective. Cory also has an excellent piece on ‘How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars‘.
[2] And since arguably the IT industry is the only thing that’s been driving economic growth for decades, so it kind of matters.
[3] In $LASTJOB I used to have a list of ‘preferred ways of automating things’ with RPA dead last (after API based automation and CLI tools), though that also presumed that something was worth automating rather than eliminating, or doing better. There’s a snippet of my operating philosophy.
Filed under: technology, wibble | 2 Comments
Tags: AI, bullshit, ChatGPT, generative, LLM, Navy
May 2024
Pupdate
The boys got a new bed, which they seem to love.
EMFcamp
I’m writing this post from inside the camper van I rented for EMFcamp. As usual the WiFi is amazing, and it’s great to hang out with friends.
Previous trips suggested that having a ‘live in vehicle’ was the way to go, and after a decent first night’s sleep I’m enjoying the extra luxury. We got a Swift Edge 464 Motorhome from Ocean Trail.
Whisky (and whiskey) tasting at the Food Hacking Tent was good fun, and the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) bottle of that I took seemed to be well liked. Even better, we were joined by another SMWS member who brought another nice Speyside along :)
The event spills over into June, so maybe more to follow then.
Travel
It’s been a busy month for work trips, with Open Network Users Group (ONUG) in Dallas followed by IoT Solutions World Forum in Barcelona.
Dallas was one of those trips where I barely made it out of the conference hotel. ONUG Spring was a great event though, and well worth the trip though – maybe the best trade show experience I’ve ever had :)
My Texan friends told me I should get some BBQ whilst in town, and as luck would have it, there was a BBQ truck at the closing drinks.
Tripit tells me that Barcelona is my most frequent destination, though I got to visit some parts of the city I’ve not spent time in on previous trips, which was nice.
Cross Trainer
My ‘new’ Horizon Fitness Andes 7i cross trainer started making an awful squeaking noise. After dismantling it the problem was easily localised to the flywheel, and after dismantling that it was fairly obvious that one of the bearings was broken. I guess in one of the moves from original owners house to storage, to different storage, to my car, to the garage etc. it’s had a knock that maybe squished one of the balls. In general the machine seems well engineered, perhaps even over engineered in places, but all the mechanical load ends up being put onto a couple of little (10mm x 22mm x 6mm) 6900Z bearings. Luckily they’re cheap and easily available.
Putting the whole thing back together was a job I’d be happy to never do again, but the return of smooth and (nearly) silent workouts is welcome.
Solar Diary
May brought some nice sunny days. It was briefly dry enough for me to get my motorbike out again.
But also the succession of Atlantic weather fronts that have been bashing us almost non stop since mid Oct resumed, leaving the month almost 100 kWh down on last year.
Filed under: monthly_update, travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: 6900Z, Andes 7i, Barcelona, bearing, camper, cross trainer, Dallas, EMFcamp, flywheel, Horizon Fitness, pupdate, solar, Texas, travel, van, whisky
Today is Milo’s third birthday, which seems like a milestone worth celebrating :)
It’s also two months since the last update, and he had the last dose of Doxorubicin to complete the second CHOP chemotherapy protocol on Tuesday. His weight has been stable, the cystitis subsided, no further complications, and no problems with neutrophils.
So… we’re back to monitoring scans, with the next one scheduled for early July.
Insurance
No update over the last couple of months, though the last vets visit also pushed the total for this year past the limit, so I’ve submitted the final claim for now.
Past parts:
Filed under: MiloCancerDiary | Leave a Comment
Tags: cancer, chemo, chemotherapy, insurance, lymphoma, Miniature Dachshund
April 2024
Pupdate
A trip to the North East provided the chance for some beach walks, which was a new experience for the boys.
They seemed to enjoy it :)
Tynemouth
With some inspiration from Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes we looked for somewhere we could take the dogs with us for an Easter break to catch up with family and friends in the North East.
When Waters Edge came up I wasn’t really searching too hard for anywhere else. Percy Gardens was my aspirational place to live when I was growing up in the area, so I jumped at the chance to spend a few days there.
The place was much bigger than we needed, though we did have grand plans for dinner parties and maybe even some folk staying over. That all came to naught due to me picking up a cold at QCon and (sensibly) nobody wanting to risk catching it, but it was a lovely place to stay.
QCon
I’ve been to 22 QCons over the years, and spoken at or helped organise 8 of the London events. This year’s was easily my favourite. So many great talks, so many great conversations, and lots of fun with friends old and new.
I’d be lying if I said it was stress free. I’d invited 3/4 of the keynote speakers, which meant I was on tenterhooks from opening to close. But I needn’t have worried, as they were all great :)
Johnny Hates Jazz
Johnny Hates Jazz weren’t huge when they hit the charts in the 80s, but they had a memorable name, and I recall seeing them on Top of The Pops. So when the chance came up to see them locally it didn’t take much deliberation.
Of course they played all the crowd-pleaser hits from their early days, with much singing along (my wife went from ‘who are they’ to suddenly remembering the words). They also played some of their newer stuff, and I have to say I like the rockier sound that their lead guitarist brings :)
Cross trainer
After repairing the cross trainer in January it started squeaking again. Initially I thought the left side would need the same treatment I’d given to the right, which is a job I planned for the weekend. Then one morning I noticed the right hand crank at a funny angle; because I’d snapped the crankshaft :0
It had lasted through something like 20 years, and thousands of workouts, so I guess I’d got my money’s worth.
I’ve picked up a ‘nearly new’ Horizon Fitness Andes 7i on eBay, which initially seemed to be performing faultlessly (and almost silently). But after a few workouts there’s a squeak coming from the flywheel. I’m cursed :(
Solar Diary
Given that the weather remained steadfastly awful (as it’s been since mid Oct) this April wasn’t too far shy of last year.
A bit less iBoost to the water tank (and hence a bit more export) as the sender unit batteries ran out whilst I was away from the house (and even when I got back it took me a few days to noticed the error message and figure out what I needed to do).
Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch
One of the reasons we headed home from Tynemouth when we did was I had tickets for the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch.
It’s an event that we first became aware of during lock-down when they partnered with Cookaway to do a cook at home version (along with a ‘cookalong’ featuring Cyrus Todiwala that really upped our rice cooking game). Since then I’ve been on the mailing list and received invitations each year, but it’s always clashed with work stuff. But this time it fell nicely on a holiday week, and provided a good excuse to get dressed up and head to the Guildhall. We met a whole bunch of interesting folk there, mainly from the various Livery Companies.
Filed under: monthly_update | Leave a Comment
Tags: beach, cross trainer, Johnny Hates Jazz, pupdate, QCon, solar, Tynemouth
March 2024
Pupdate
March continued the succession of Atlantic weather front based wet and wind that’s been going on since mid October; but… it’s been warm enough for the coats stay off, at least some days.
Damian Lewis
I’ve loved just about everything I’ve seen Damian Lewis in, particularly Billions; so (despite his crooning of the National Anthem at Silverstone F1 last year) when the chance came up to see him with his band I was straight onto the booking page.
His stage presence was exactly what I expected after seeing him on chat shows, and he and the band put on a good fun show.
Rick Wakeman
I neglected to include this in my Feb post, but I also got to see Rick Wakeman at Trading Boundaries. He put on a virtuoso demonstration of keyboard playing. Perhaps my favourite bit was when he played various nursery rhymes in the style of different comedians – he’s a musical genius.
AI workshops
Last month I described AI as the bubbliest bubble I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in learning more about what the tools can achieve. So I attended a couple of workshops at Google’s London office.
Duet
The re-brand of all AI Googley things to ‘Gemini’ hadn’t quite rolled into their coding assistant, so we were still calling it Duet at the start of the month.
My main takeaway is that it’s possible to create a lot of mundane stuff very quickly. One concern that emerges is you can create a lot of code you might not understand, but that can quickly be batted back with ‘get the AI to explain the code to you’, which it can do – if you actually care.
Just as AI is a spammers delight for ‘content’, it seems that it’s now possible to create run of the mill websites and apps in enormous volume at great speed. This is probably not a tremendous thing in the (limited) attention economy.
The first thing I asked Duet was ‘what’s the latest version of the Go programming language?’ to which it replied 1.19.2. I subsequently asked ‘what’s the latest version of the Dart programming language?’, which got me 2.17. Coffee break chat touched on the ‘Stack Overflow problem’ of things being right at some past point in time, but no longer correct in current practice.
I can see how such assistants are useful for certain types of programming related work, but I’ve yet to see anything that’s particularly helpful for the challenges I personally face day to day.
Gemma
Gemma is the suite of open models that complements Gemini based services and allows people to build things that incorporate a model locally.
Much of the workshop was spent explaining why it’s an open model rather than open source, and agonising over the safety versus openness arguments.
But we did get to the fun stuff eventually, with a demo of an AI powered word game that could be run standalone on a laptop (without needing Internet connectivity). It was simultaneously impressive and underwhelming – the tech holds so much promise, but even fairly trivial demos can end up revealing weaknesses.
Monkigras
I’ve been going to RedMonk founder James Governor’s Monkigras since the beginning, so it was great to see it back after a long (not entirely to do with the pandemic) break.
The theme was (of course) AI with ‘prompting craft’, and James did an amazing job of bringing together a lineup of speakers with unique insights on the topic. Here’s the main takeaways I noted down:
- We’re quickly evolving past the point of large language models (LLMs) being used standalone into an environment where they’re glued into more complex workflows. The ‘mash-up’ is back, and there’s a bunch of new tools like LangChain and Griptape to help things along.
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is the present hotness, and inserting knowledge graphs into queries looks especially promising.
- Most applications of LLMs benefit from a process that Google’s Zack Akil calls IVO – Immediately Validate Output; meaning that the output generated by the model is immediately validated (and corrected) by a human expert before it gets in front of an end user. The example he showed of translating indecipherable (to a layperson) medical terminology into plain language was super quick, but clearly something that needed a doctor to click the ‘looks good to me’ button before getting to a patient.
- ‘AI skill risk’ is distorting the incentive structures within organisations – another complicating factor in office politics and the relationship between workers and management.
- The current ‘chat’ interface to most models doesn’t provide much in the way of user interface affordances – those little clues we get about what we’re supposed to do next. So we can expect a Cambrian explosion in new ways to interact.
- Asking a model for its reasoning can help give it an ‘internal monologue’ that improves the quality of output.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there’s ‘no magic’. LLM based systems may not be deterministic in the way that we’re accustomed to with regular computer programs; but we can still reason about such systems, and scratch deep enough and there’s just applied statistics and a LOT of matric multiplication.
Podcasts
Nick and I have been recording a fresh season of Tech Debt Burndown, along with a special mini series; but I’ve also spent some time as a guest on other people’s podcasts.
- DevHops – Unpacking Leadership
- Ship It! – Scoring your project’s security
There’s also an episode of Nerding out with Viktor in the can that I hope will drop soon.
Plumbing
I got up one morning to a cold house. It didn’t take long to figure out that the central heating pump had broken. It had done OK (much better than its predecessor), lasting around 15y.
Worse was to follow though, as I cleared the way for the heating engineer I noticed a leak from the central heating/hot water diverter valve.
I have a Corgi insurance policy, which got an engineer the next day, but he was only able to fix the pump, which at least got the heating going again (which in turn made the leak less bad). He reckoned that replacing the valve would first mean draining and removing the tank – a lot of time consuming work.
After a bit of chasing, and another call out fee, and a visit to see the job, and a bit more chasing; a second engineer came to replace the leaking valve, which he managed without having to tear the whole system apart.
Turbo trouble
When we got the new Mini last September I decided to hang onto our Volvo, at least for a bit, as it’s not worth much given its age and miles, but still in nice condition. I’d also spent a bundle on it over the summer to get various things fixed. Sadly it’s been playing up again. On a short local trip it went into ‘limp mode’, meaning vastly less power from the engine due to no turbo. It reset when stopped, but would start limping again after any hard acceleration or big hills to climb.
I got hold of a code reader that threw up P0299 ‘Turbo underboost’, and with nothing obvious that I could fix it was off to the garage. They eventually tracked things down to a broken sensor – one that fails so frequently that they had one in stock. It’s behaving itself again now, but I wonder if it’s time for it to go, especially as we’ll shortly have $daughter0’s Mini back on the drive whilst she’s doing her industrial placement year.
Solar Diary
Despite the clouds and wet weather this March was actually better than last year.
Filed under: monthly_update | Leave a Comment
Tags: AI, Corgi, dachshund, Damian Lewis, Duet, Gemma, heating, leak, LLM, Monkigras, plumbing, podcast, prompt, pump, pupdate, Rick Wakeman, solar, turbo, Volvo
Just like Red Team Blues, ‘The Bezzle‘ is a book that I could have easily devoured in one sitting – if I didn’t have a job. As things were, I got through it in a matter of days.
Confession – I parked ‘The Lost Cause‘ so I could get back to Marty’s adventures. It was so worth it, another romp through the stuff that Cory writes about on his Pluralistic blog, with characters and scene setting to bring it to life. The prison industrial complex, private equity and tax audits – that may not sound like material for a gripping thriller; but it was, as the cons and corruption, the human greed behind that, and the frailty it brings all provide ample fodder for some great storytelling.
(Not for the first time) I get the feeling that if Cory had picked the spreadsheet over the word processor, he might have been a forensic accountant like Marty Hench.
It was gratifying to see my name in the acknowledgements along with other reviewers of Red Team Blues, and I can’t wait for the next installment Picks and Shovels.
Filed under: review | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cory Doctorow, review, The Bezzle
Ross Anderson RIP
I saw the sad news yesterday, via Alec Muffett that Ross Anderson had passed, which is an enormous loss the the IT security community (and the industry more widely).
I didn’t know Ross very well, so the obituary from his friend and colleague Prof Bill Buchanan OBE provides a much better summary of his work and impact. What follows are just a few personal reflections.
Ross did a great deal to shape my work and my career path, and I’m thankful that I got to meet him a few times along the way. I’ve previously described ‘Security Engineering‘ as “the bible of infosec”, and through that work Ross was impacting the world I worked in before I ever heard his name.
I got to meet Ross for the first time at one of his Workshops on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS). That series of workshops came about from Ross’s prodigious talent for picking up different lenses to look at the world of security through – in this case the lens of economics, leading to his seminal paper ‘Why Information Security is Hard – An Economic Perspective‘. My first encounter with Ross was a little prickly, as he had a huge distrust of banks, and by extension the people who worked for them; but I kept going back to WEIS, and over time our conversations became more collegiate*. My favourite memory of him was after WEIS 2010 in Cambridge MA where he invited anybody hanging around to join him for dinner, bringing together a wonderful slice of the community to talk shop over giant sushi boats. I wish I had a photo, as the happy relaxed Ross that evening was Ross at his best.
Through WEIS I got to know folk like Allan Friedman and Tyler Moore who are leading efforts to make us all more secure.
A few years back I found myself meeting a CISO for the first time and spotting a copy of Security Engineering on his bookshelf. I knew we’d get along just fine.
I’d hoped to see Ross again, and maybe chat to him about the Horizon scandal. I’d have also wanted him by my side as an expert witness if I ever got entangled in any legal trouble to do with computers. He’ll be sorely missed; though it’s a sign of the quality of his leadership that there are so many people that will continue his great work.
RIP Ross.
* After a conversation with Ross and Hal Varian about side channel attacks I recall thinking of an attack against pre-emptive execution in CPUs (like Meltdown or Spectre) which I dismissed at the time thinking the geniuses at Intel and Arm would have everything under control. Never assume – verify.
Filed under: security | 1 Comment
Tags: economics, infosec, RIP, Ross Anderson, security, WEIS
Today’s dose of doxorubicin marks the end of the third round of Milo’s second CHOP protocol. Each time I take him to the vets they ask how he’s doing, and I always answer “he’s doing really well”, because if he wasn’t there for chemo he’d seem like a fit and healthy young dog.
When he first had doxorubicin (which is the H in CHOP) we were told that he could only have 6 doses ever, but this was his 7th. That’s partly because dosing is lower for smaller dogs, but he also had a heart scan so that the vet could be confident that there’s no problem there from earlier treatment.
Counting the cost
So far this insurance year we’ve spent just shy of £6000 on scans then chemo, leaving £1000, which won’t quite cover the final round of chemo. It’s a similar story to first time around last year, but without the diagnostics it took to get us to the oncologist.
Insurance
After nothing happening for months (and numerous ‘Update on your claim’ and ‘About your claim’ and ‘A quick update from ManyPets’ emails that conveyed no useful information*) I saw a bunch of payments getting made today after I returned from the vets. We’re almost up to date now, apart from the last scan at my local vets, and the last trip to NDSR, which total a little over £1000 from 8 weeks ago. Frustratingly on one of those they’re asking for more information from the vet, after having already asked weeks ago and marked it as received in the claim tracker.
* They don’t even say which claim unless you click through to the web site :/
Past parts:
Filed under: MiloCancerDiary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: cancer, chemo, chemotherapy, CHOP, cystitis, dachshund, doxorubicin, insurance, lymphoma, ManyPets, scan
February 2024
Pupdate
It’s been something like the wettest February on record, which has somewhat curtailed long walks :( But the boys have still enjoyed getting out and about even if it’s meant washing their fleece coats every few days to clear off all the mud.
State of Open Conference
I’ve noticed a bunch of friends getting involved in Open UK “The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology”, so I submitted a talk for State of Open Conference 24 (SOOCon24) that was thankfully accepted.
The event was a really good gathering of the clan, and a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some interesting new folk.
Lots of the international speakers and attendees were passing through London on their way back from FOSDEM, so despite the UK focus there was a global flavour to the event.
OpenSSF Meetup
With a sizable contingent of Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) people in town it provided an opportunity for the first OpenSSF London Meetup. It was great to see some of the tremendous work being done by the community, and have a chance to chat to folk about it over beer and pizza.
I sold all my tech stock
AI is the bubbliest bubble I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been paying attention to the tech market for over 40y now.
I’ve had a standalone post rattling around in my head for a few weeks, but there’s really nothing I could add to Tim Bray’s excellent ‘Money Bubble‘.
My biggest frustration is that the pursuit of AI rainbow ponies seems to have stopped work on some of the more mundane (but really serious) things that need to be done.
My biggest concern is the environmental impact. Those billions that are being poured into AI are using a significant chunk of fabrication capacity, energy and fresh water; and I’m not convinced that the return on ‘investment’ is clear.
Yocto
One of Atsign’s potential customers builds their stuff with Yocto Linux, so I’ve been taking a look at what’s involved in getting our stuff into an image.
It’s not an embedded Linux distribution,
https://www.yoctoproject.org/
it creates a custom one for you.
The M920q that I added to my home lab last month has been getting some proper work to do. My initial build of ‘Poky’ took around two hours, and had the fans spinning hard most of the way through. That machine has now been hidden away in a place where I can’t hear it.
I’m finding Yocto even more complex than OpenWRT (or LibreELEC), but I’m already seeing the benefit of super fast rebuilds for minor changes.
Bye bye Bennetts
I’ve used Bennetts for motorcycle insurance for pretty much the whole time I’ve been riding bikes, which is over 30y now; so my heart sank when (after getting an email saying my renewal quote was on its way) I got a letter saying they ‘needed more information’ before they could provide a renewal quote.
That turned out to be pretty disingenuous. They didn’t need more information. The actual problem is that their underwriters for multi-bike policies aren’t working with them any more, and so they can’t renew my policy. The quote for the CB1000 and Vespa separately was (of course) ridiculous.
Swinton still are doing multi-bike, and although I couldn’t get an online quote the call centre process was quick and painless (and was able to use info I’d filled in online for the main bike).
Root canal
Root canal has a bad reputation, it will probably be less bad than what we’ve just done.
My dentist Kevin
Kevin was right. The root canal work was less traumatic than cutting off a crown and dealing with what had happened underneath it. The worst part is it’s left me with a fat lip (and an ulcer) where the rubber dam was in contact.
Solar diary
A wet month also meant a cloudy month, so rather than 3.5% more solar for the extra leap year day there was almost 25% less :(
Beating Beat Saber
No fresh full combos, but I’ve been loving some of the new tracks in OST 6, and Lindsey Sterling’s ‘Heavyweight’ has turned into a real ear worm for me.
Filed under: monthly_update | Leave a Comment
Tags: AI, Beat Saber, Bennetts, bubble, dachshund, dentist, home lab, insurance, Linux, motorbike, motorcycle, open source, OpenSSF, pupdate, root canal, security, solar, SOOCon24, Yocto
Chris Swan's Weblog 