Toots for chris_e_simpson@hachyderm.io account

Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-21 at 20:42

Spent about an hour adding better debugging to a section that turns out not actually to be broken

I suppose at least it's going to be easier to test from now on

[#]coding

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-21 at 17:37

Well colour me delighted. I just learned a tricky section of the Puccini I'm currently rehearsing with the orchestra

Sure, maybe it's only 8 seconds of the 45 minutes, but delighted nonetheless :)

[#]cello #music

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-18 at 17:47

Hey Siri, is it good core exercise to attach a 2 year old high energy dog's leash to your waist?

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-18 at 07:01

"So you're in charge of the rejects?"

"They don't like being called that"

"What do you call them?"

"The rejects"

I do enjoy Slow Horses

[#]tv

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-17 at 20:01

Once again I find myself in the position of running low on scatterbrain meds and having not booked a refill appointment yet. 12 days remaining and the earliest phone appt. I can get is early March so I gave them a call to see what they could do

Thankfully, after being put on hold several times with the typically teeth grinding quality hold music*, I was able to get an earlier call, though I was (mostly gently) scolded several times for not booking significantly earlier

Thanks to today's dose, I resisted the urge to point out the paradox of requiring scatterbrain meds (that, lets face it, don't actually work all that well) and being organised enough to stay on top of such things . Instead I just promised that I would try

• dear audio engineers, I know it's not glamorous work, but if each of you did 15 minutes pro bono work per week, you could rid the world of gnarly hold music and make the world a better place :)

[#]adhd

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-17 at 16:38

For mastodon, I currently run phanphy as a standalone web app in Firefox. One issue I have with is is that it doesn't allow pinch zoom except for when you open an image

Despite the, every now and again I somehow accidentally pinch zoom right in and then I'm not able to zoom back out again

I have found that swiping the app away from the current open apps carousel (not sure what that called) to close it and then reopening resets the zoom and I'm mainly writing this here in the hope of remembering this for next time

[#]android #mastodon #accessibility

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-16 at 23:45

Yay, Google automatically enabled it's LLM so I immediately dived into the settings, then to admin console where I found the "off" button in the software equivalent of a locked filing cabinet, hidden in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-16 at 20:24

My very excellent wife is away for a couple of weeks so I'm in charge of the house, the three pets, the teenager, et al. On top of that I have a late project to complete and an impossible amount of extremely advanced cello music to learn for a concert in March

Ideally I would put together a simple plan with a daily checklist, best times to do repeating things, upcoming important events and what I need for them, and also the things I don't yet know and need to find out

So instead I just spent the last 90 minutes making a playlist of simple guitar music. I'm not entirely sure why

And now I'm double checking the grammar and spelling for this unnecessary post

[#]adhd

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-15 at 00:30

I really can't get enough of this tune (the whole album TBH). It's so different from Mount Kimbie's early stuff. Bit of a Joy Division vibe, in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXSbdfIyZw

[#]music #coding

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-14 at 15:49

I have to admit this headline threw me for a minute. And then I realized that not all surveys involve asking the general public's opinion about something

Astrophysicist: "Excuse me random layperson, how many hidden supermassive black holes so you think there are?"

Me: "Uh, a squillion"

Astrophysicist: makes notes "Gosh, that's way more than we thought"

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-survey-hidden-supermassive-black-holes.html

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-14 at 15:36

I'm sure there will be plenty of hand-wringing and comments about decency, but these folks are heroes in my book

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2025/jan/13/15-is-dead-just-stop-oil-activists-paint-over-charles-darwin-grave-video

[#]environment #JustStopOil

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-13 at 18:08

A study by the University of Portsmouth calls for human rights to be at the heart of any economic development

I guess I'm glad it was said but shocked it had to be said

I find it absolutely amazing that we still primarily consider growth and overall value in economic terms

One thing I learned as a software developer, is that metrics are a vital way to monitor the health of a system but they are ALWAYS fallible

Base a team's success solely on a specific metric and then squeeze them they will game the shit out of the metric and real value will decline (For example, bots and trolls are great for increasing sign up numbers on a platform)

Money as a tool for trading makes some sense, but as a large scale metric for success, it's daft. In terms of gaming, we've reached the "collateral debt obligation" level of sophistication

[#]economy #welfare #politics #rant

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-benefits-economic-experts-human-rights.html

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-13 at 15:39

A small victory for the truth. The Times is forced to correct their misleading narrative (lie) about electric vehicle demand

https://bylinetimes.com/2025/01/13/the-times-was-forced-to-correct-a-misleading-article-claiming-electric-vehicle-demand-is-falling-when-its-actually-rising/

[#]misinformation #ev

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-12 at 18:55

Today I will be rehearsing for the very first time with an actual real orchestra. If I had made a "5 year plan" 5 years ago, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have been on it

I'm determined to put all the brain science reading of the last few years to the test today by:

• Recognizing any physiological discomfort as the bodies preparations for doing my best
• Enjoying the whole experience, especially the awkwardness
• Not considering this a make or break situation
• Making sure I have a few calories and some water in me before I start

[#]cello #anxiety

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-10 at 17:04

Darn, my electric coffee grinder is no longer grinding properly. Have disassembled and thoroughly cleaned but I can't see anything wrong. Any coffee grinder experts around? (It's a 5yo Encore Baratza)

Good job the hand grinder is still working!

[#]coffee

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-09 at 18:58

I was loving the part in Amanda Montell's (so far great) book The Age of Magical Overthinking about labelling the things we do as "important" or "urgent" and making sure we understand the difference between the two

And then the figurative record scratched and my inner monologue hopelessly yelled "but how the hell do you know when it's time to do the important thing"

Moments later I sheepishly realised I've been trying to build an app to solve exactly that problem for the last 4 and a bit years so I really should have an answer by now

[#]books

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-09 at 00:53

Hey accessibility experts, I was looking into guidelines about accessible tabs and realized I hadn't added the aria-controls attribute yet. It then occurred to me that rather than have two separate attributes that identify the target container id for each tab, I could throw away the one I was using and just make use of the aria-controls value. This would ensure I'm always setting this attribute.

Is there any reason I should avoid reading aria attributes from javascript?

Thanks!

[#]coding #accessibility

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-05 at 01:56

Tried to get a selfie with Henry on our hike today, with hilarious results

[#]DogsOfMastodon

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-04 at 14:33

Last night at 10:00pm

• Me*: ok brain, I've set the alarm for 7:00am for the hike tomorrow, let's get a good night's sleep!
• Brain*: great plan, let's do it

This morning at 5:00am

Brain: DO YOU EVEN KNOW IF YOUR ALARM WORKS ANY MORE, YOU HAVEN'T USED IT FOR AGES? ALSO, I HAVE SEVERAL IDEAS I WOULD LIKE TO RUN THROUGH WITH YOU NOW. FIRSTLY, LET'S REINVENT THE SPREADSHEET ....

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Written by Chris Simpson on 2025-01-03 at 19:42

Stand Together by Beastie Boys just came up on a random play on the playlist I call "greatest" and, oh boy, that really is tune deserving of the playlist its on

Unfortunately it interrupted me from my work and made me post here so not ideal coding music

[#]coding #music

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