November is always a turning point in the year. The days start to get shorter, the weather begins to feel more wintery and people start to realise that the year is almost over. Work is invariably busy, but with people making plans for the festive season ahead motivation can be a struggle.
We kicked off the November with Bonfire Night down at the local rugby club. Bonfire Night, also known as Fireworks Night, is in theory the celebration of the failure of Guy Fawkes to bring down the government on 5th November 1605. But, much like Christmas, the origins of the tradition have faded. It is an excuse to get together with family and friends, and marvel at the beauty of fire.
Whilst fireworks are increasingly controversial, I do feel there is an importance in getting people together locally. Who knows, next year we might be treated to a fleet of drones instead.
We’ve been trying to get Ethan to show an interest in cycling but with mixed success. We bike everywhere so we are keen to get him on his own bike but we aren’t there yet. He’s choosing to stick to the scooter for now.
Alicia and I had an incredible lunch at Villa Di Geggiano in Chiswick to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. We’d had to postpone this by a few weeks to accommodate travel.
Speaking of travel, Alicia was away for a couple of weeks this month and I had the boys to myself. I’m lucky in that they both picked up on the fact that my stress levels rise as I’m forced into ruthless prioritisation and do their best to help out. We had fun but the moment Alica came back it caught up with is. First Ethan had a week off nursery ill. Despite a raging fever, all he wanted to do was spend time in the grounds of Chiswick House.
No sooner was he back to full health than the symptoms started to repeat, this time it was me. I found myself unable to get out of bed for more than a couple of hours at a time.
On the first of December our Christmas tree arrived. We were remarkably organised this year. In years where we’ve been home for Christmas the tree hasn’t gone up until much later in the month. This might be the first time that I’ve appreciated the fact that you don’t buy tree decorations on mass, they accumulate one by one over the years. As each decoration came out of the box the boys debated where it had come from, who made it, and ultimately who was going to put it on the tree.
Work
With all that, work has been a blur. With a number of the team out taking a time off after a significant milestone things have been quiet. We’ve had a series of refreshingly open workshops around the implications of custom frameworks within large organisations. As with everything in software architecture decisions involve making a series of trade-offs. As the context changes around us, it is inevitable that we want to re-visit these decisions. Over time, tools that were once an asset start to feel like a burden. But rarely is the right solution to dismiss the tools and discard them outright. Getting back to the concerns they were designed to address and asking if the concerns remain valid, and if we have new ways to address them is far more productive. It has the added benefit of disarming any potential defensive behaviour associated with the implications of revisiting historic decisions. Change can be hard. It stands a better chance of being successful if that change is understood.
Media
- 📚 The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian - This is the first book on AI that I’ve read that didn’t appear to take a side. I found it educational while remaining interesting throughout. Much of the hype around AI seems to thrive because we have tried to mask an understanding of what is going on in these systems. Tracing the importance of goal alignment back through early work in the field reveals a thread of curiosity led research that intersects with our efforts to understand how we learn ourselves. One to re-read.
- 🍿 Zero Day - not enough tech, too much American politics. We need more good hacking stories.
Interest
- The Cozy Web - An illustration exposing the layers of the cozy web by Maggie Appleton
- All the concerns that make you a boring developer by Dave Rupert
- The ENIAC Operating Manual (pdf). February sees the 80th anniversary of the ENIAC computer. Be sure to read about the women of ENIAC.
- Through My Eyes - my manager has started to share his photography online.
I’m looking forward to December.
