-
Doughnut Day 2020
Good day today. From a high of 725 Covid-19 cases in August 25, Victoria has just had 24 hours of zero new cases and zero deaths. This is during a period of extensive testing in the north of the metropolitan, during a testing blitz in an attempt to contain an outbreak. Labs have been processing tests late into the night, with not a single one so far coming back positive. Continue reading →
-
It’s coming to the point where I think I need a custom text entry control on all my devices that, when I try to post something, throws up a prompt saying “Are you absolutely sure what you’re about to post is right? Did you proofread it? Is the spelling correct? Please check!”
Case in point: it took me 2 edits to get this post right.
-
Over the last few weeks, while Melbourne has been under lock-down to drive the Covid-19 cases down, the government has been ramping up it’s contact tracing infrastructure. It’s been quite flaky at the start but from what I hear now on Coronacast it’s in a pretty decent state. It has delt with outbreaks in both Kilmore and Shepparton, two regional cities here in Victoria.
Now the real test comes, with the potential of an outbreak at a school here in the north of Melbourne, a few days before restrictions are lifted. From what I’m reading, it looks like the testing and contact tracing infrastructure has moved in quite rapidly. The school has closed due to a precaution, popup testing sites have been deployed, and some 300 people have been told to self-isolate.
We’ll see how this goes over the coming days. If all goes well, then I will have greater confidence that the Vic government will be able to handle these outbreaks and we can move to Covid-normal like the rest of the country.
P.S. Only 5 cases today. This is a little higher than the 1 to 2 that we’ve been experiencing over the last week or so, but still quite good.
-
Reflections On Writing On The Web
I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole about writing and publishing online yesterday after reading this article from Preetam Nath and this article from James Clear. I’ve been thinking about creating and publishing on the web for a little while now, which is probably why these two articles resonated with me. These articles highlight the importance of creating and publishing regardless of what the topic is. There have been a few things that I’ve been wanting to share but I haven’t done so, probably because I worry about what other people think. Continue reading →
-
It wasn’t until about a week ago, when I was looking very closely at the Robot Or Not show art, that I realised how cleaver the name and logo of this 🎙️ podcast actually is.
-
I’ve removed Twitter my iPad and my phone. I’m starting to get a bit sick of it. It’s not doing anything positive for my mental health anyway.
No more news for the day either. Just RSS and micro.blog.
-
Daily walk after work, today through the forest reserve near my home. I didn’t think I had something to say until I started blogging, and the micro.blog community is the friendliest and most welcoming on the internet.
Melbourne, AU at 4:58 PM AEDT (+11 UTC) #adayinthelife
-
Unit Tests and Verifying Mocks
I’m working with a unit test that uses mocks in which every method in the mock is verified after the method under test is called, even if it is not relevant to the test. Furthermore, the tear down method verifies that every dependent services has no more interactions, which means that removing a verification that is not relevant to the specific test case will cause the test to fail. Please do not do this. Continue reading →
-
Looks like Google Play music is no longer letting me play the music I’ve got stored on the device without setting up a YouTube music account, which I’m not interested in doing. It looks like I’m going to have to start relying more on the music player app I’ve been building on the side over the last few months. Probably a good testing opportunity to iron out all the bugs that are still there.
-
After moving from Mac to Linux for work 1.5 months ago, I’ve lost the abiliy to be remember keyboard shortcuts on both platforms. Just now I’ve tried typing Option-Left Arrow to move back one word, and the browser window snapped to the left side of the screen.
-
Be forewarned: this might not be a happy post.
I’m feeling a bit dispirited this morning seeing 15 new cases of Covid-19 in Victoria over the last 24 hours, along with the Melboure average rise for the first time in 2 months. All last week the case numbers were just under 10, and the weekends usually have lower case numbers anyway, so seeing 15 new cases yesterday, and 14 cases on Saturday does not feel me with optimism.
It also doesn’t help listening to the ABC News Coronacast episode this morning where they were talking about how Victoria’s contact tracing system is coming up from behind. I can’t imagine it being easy overhauling the entire contract tracing infrastructure during a pandemic. I just wish it was up to snuff before the coronavirus came to our shores.
I understand the state government is doing all they can, but I am upset that these series of mistakes have led to this situation. I can only hope they can get on top of it as quickly as they can. Optimism can only take you so far, and I bet most people are just getting tired by the whole thing. I know I am.
Update: I feel a little better this afternoon, especially after hearing that 10 of the 15 cases seem to be linked with known clusters. The government is also expanding the number of people that are considered close contacts, which is hopefully why the case numbers are slightly higher today in that they’re catching these cases before they spread.
Update 2: I should also note that, as fustrated as I am about the numbers today, I still rather the state government do the safest thing they think is possible to avoid a third wave. If that means staying locked down for a while longer then so be it.
-
I don’t know how this keeps happening, but it feels like the Bluetooth stack on Android gets a little worse every release. Now with Android R, it takes a good 3-5 seconds since turning on my headphones before the audio is routed to them.
-
A Database Client Wishlist
I’ve recently started a new job so I’ve been spending a bit of time trying to become familiar with how the relational databases are structured. Usually when I’m doing any database work, I tend to use the CLI clients like mysql or pg_sql. I tend to prefer them, not only as they’re usually easy to use via SSH, but the REPL is a nice interaction model when querying data: you type a query, and the results appear directly below it. Continue reading →
-
I’ve only just realised that the Victorian CHO Twitter account includes a daily Covid-19 case breakdown report. The Twitter client is such a mess so I’m trying out the Feedbin Twitter integration to get these. If it’s any better, I might add some more.
-
Sharing links to private podcast episodes
There have been times when I’ve wanted to share a link to an episode of a podcast that I pay for, but I’m hesitant to do so as the feed is private and unique to my account. The episode is also available in the public feed, but has been trimmed as an incentive for listeners to pay for the show. I can always find the episode in the public feed and share that, but I’m wondering if there’s a better way to handle this. Continue reading →
-
Friday evening walk. The photo does not do justice to how lovely the evening light can be during this time of year.
-
We are potentially two weeks away from a significant reduction in restrictions, and this weekend is proving to be a bit of a test in Melbourne’s mettle. A spate of warm weather has driven people to the beach, and there have been reports of people not social distancing or wearing masks on Friday. The police have increased patrols to enforce social distancing restrictions and the local council has threatened to close the beach if people continue to flout the rules.
I can only hope that this does not cause a spike in cases. We are so close, and it will be devastating to see the effort of the last 3 months thrown away. The good news is that colder, rainier weather is on the way.
-
A good way to be reminded of all the services you’re currently subscribed to is to have credit card that will expire soon and have all these services send emails reminding you to update your payment details.
-
After reading the recent news articles, along with hearing what the founder prioritises, it’s looking like Nikola is just another money grab a. la. WeWorks. Here’s hoping it doesn’t poison the well for non-petroleum transportation companies.
-
Let's hold the line, Melbourne. We've got this.
Today is a good day. Melbourne’s 14 day daily Covid-19 case average is now 29.4, which is beyond the 30 to 50 band required to move to the next stage of reopening. Seeing the fruits of our collective sacrifice, bringing the daily case numbers from a peak of around 740 in August down to the 11 we saw on Monday, makes me proud to be a Melburnian. As much as I like for things to reopen sooner than planned, I think we should hold the line for as long as we possibly can. Continue reading →
-
I wonder if it’s possible to develop something like ambidexterity for Mac and non-Mac keyboard shortcuts.
-
📚 “The War of Art”, by Steven Pressfield. An excellent book about the creative process. Very easy read as well, can get through it in a weekend.
-
Good news is hard to come by recently, and the Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne are anything but easy. But seeing 21 new cases yesterday, and 14 new cases today, the lowest in 3 months, is encouraging. Lets see how this last week of Stage 4 restrictions go.
-
I used iPad OS’s markup feature on a multi-page PDF for the first time this morning. It works reasonably well, except that there’s no way to hide the overview, and it’s positioned where I usually rest my wrist to write. The palm rejection is not perfect either, so when I try to write something, it sometimes interprets my wrist as a tap, and sends me to another page.
I wish there was a way to hide the overview, or move it to the left side of the screen. It could even be configurable based on which hand you use to write with.
