I was asked to come into the office for the first time since the start of the pandemic. It felt strange to wear a shirt again, something that I haven’t done since March. It also means that I’ll need to relearn how to iron it. #mbnov
While I did say that I might have gone Chromebook over iPad two days ago, I must also say that the new Macs with Apple Silicon look really exciting and I look forward to hearing about how well they perform. #mbnov
We’ve had zero new Covid-19 cases for several days now so I took a risked and visited my elderly grandmother. We were both very careful, we both wore masks during the visit, and were maintaining 2 metres of distance. But it was good to see her again. #mbnov
The ads from Google are getting worse. I continue seeing an obviously fake one offering me advice on how to get rich (the claims of being an Aussie while using the NZ flag is a giveaway). If I keep seeing this, it will force me to setup Pi-hole. #mbnov
An anecdote regarding the removal of iSH from the App Store
Around April this year, my old Android Nexus 9 tablet was becoming unusable due to it’s age and I was considering which tablet to move to next. I have been a user of Android tablets since the Nexus 7 and I have been quite happy with them (yes, we do exist). However, it was becoming clear that Google’s was no longer interested in maintaining first-party support for Android on a tablet, and none of the other brands that were available were very inspiring.
I took this as a sign to move to a new platform. It was a toss-up between a Chromebook or an iPad. I understood that it was possible to get a Linux shell on a Chromebook by enabling development mode, so for a while I was looking a possible Chromebooks that would work as a tablet replacement. But after hearing about iSH from an ATP episode, I got the impression that it would be possible to recreate the same thing with nicer hardware and app ecosystem, despite how locked down it is. So the iPad won out.
If at the time I knew that Apple would be removing iSH from the App Store (via Twitter) I’m not sure I would have bought the iPad, and would have probably gone with the Chromebook.
If there’s something that I’ll take away from the events of this year, it’s that adversity can, in some circumstances, bind us closer together. #mbnov
I think my recent pattern of constantly refreshing web-pages is going to inflate my internet bill, as I seek news updates on the Coronavirus and the US elections. #mbnov
It’s puzzling but I’ve been finding myself having lunch earlier in the day than usual. I think it’s because I’ve joined a company that has their head office in Perth, which is 3 hours behind me at the moment, and the mornings are really quiet now. #mbnov
It’s cold and wet today. The steps leading to my front door, which I think is called a stoop in the US, can be pretty slippery on days like this, so I’ll have to be a bit careful. #mbnov
Passed by a kangaroo during my evening walk a couple of days ago. I was surprised by how unphased he seemed to be by my presence, given how near I was to him. #mbnov
Tracking Down a Lost Album
Here’s a short story about my endeavours to find an album that seems to have disappeared from the face of the internet. I’m a bit of a sucker for original sound tracks, particularly instrumental ones. One that I remember being very good is the music from The Private Life of Plants, a documentary series from David Attenborough made in the mid 1990s. It was one of those sound tracks that occasionally popped into my mind, particularly when looking at lovely autumn leaves or other scenes from the show. But it has been a while since I last watched it, and I never though to look at whether an album of the sound track actually existed.
It was only earlier this year when I discovered that this was a possibility. I was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and one episode featured a scene which had the music from the documentary series in the background. I recognised it immediately and after some quick searches online, I discovered that there did exist at one point an album of the sound track.
I started looking around to see if it was available to listen to. I started with Spotify, the music service that I’m subscribe to, but searches there did not return any results. I then went to the other streaming services that were available, like Apple Music and Amazon music, but there was no luck there either. I then started looking to see if I could get the physical CD. I looked on Amazon, eBay, JB Hi-Fi and even Sanity, a music shop that is still operating here in Australia. None of these sites turned up anything indicating that this album was available. I then tried my local library, the online ABC shop, and the BBC shops, but those turned up with no results as well. It looked like this album was no longer available for sale anywhere.
I then started making generic web searches on Google and DuckDuckGo. There were very few hits, most of them referencing the documentary series itself. It was here that I started venturing into the abandoned areas of the web, with old pages, riddled with ads, that are barely functioning at all. I found a last.fm page for the composer with looked to have the track list of the album, but attempting to play the tracks through the in-browser player only produced errors. Going further through the abandoned web, I found an old download site which looked to have links to some of the tracks on the album. After following the links however, it looked like the site has since stopped operating: the links only produced 404 Not Founds, and attempts to go to the main site only produced a page indicating that the domain was for sale.
It was then that I remembered Wayback Machine, and I went there to see if it was possible to get to the archived version of the site. Sure enough, there existed a snapshot of the site from 2006. The site itself looked to be an old online music store that at one time offered the album for sale. The album page was there and was indexed by Wayback Machine. Better still, the site posted 5 of the tracks online, I’m guessing as samples, which were also indexed by Wayback Machine and were available for download. Success! I was able to download the 5 sample tracks from Wayback Machine and play them on my computer.
I don’t know if there’s a moral to this story. I guess if it’s anything, it’s that preserving these archives is important, especially for media under the control of gatekeepers that can pull it from distribution at any time. It’s certainly made me appreciate the important work that the Internet Archive does, and I have since made a small donation to them to allow that work to continue.
I think it’s also fair to say that this story is not yet over. I don’t care how long it will take me, I’ll continue to track this album down until I’ve found it and be able to play it in it’s entirety.
The events of this year have been enough to astonish anyone. I can only speak for myself, but I’m hoping that I can get a break from feeling this way, at least for the next few weeks. #mbnov
I’ve had some difficulty coming up with today’s Microblogvember post. I’m finding it hard to concentrate today, probably because it’s early morning and I haven’t had my second coffee yet. It doesn’t help that tomorrow is going to be a public holiday anyway. #mbnov
📚 “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. A great read and one of those books that can be read in a weekend (I read it in a day).
October has felt rather dreary this year. I know people that find this quite dissatisfactory, and they have been yearning for the warm weather that starts occurring around this time. Personally, I prefer the cooler weather we have been experiencing. #mbnov
Offical support for file embedding coming to Go
I’m excited to see, via Golang Weekly, that the official support for embedding static files in Go is being realised, with the final commit merged to the core a couple of days ago. This, along with the new file-system abstraction, will mean that it will be much easier to embed files in Go applications, and make use of them within the application itself.
One of the features I like about coding is Go is that the build artefacts are statically linked executables that can be distributed without any additional dependencies. This means that if I wanted to share something, all I need to do is to give them a single file that they can just run, without needing to worry about whether particular dependencies or runtimes are installed prior to doing so.
However there are times when the application requires static files, and to maintain this simple form of distribution, I generally want to embed these files within the application itself. This comes up surprisingly often and is not something that was officially supported within the core language tools, meaning that this gap had to be filled by 3rd parties. Given the number of tools available to do this, I can see that I’m not alone in needing this. And as great as it is to see the community step in to fill this gap, relying on an external tool complicates the build process a bit1: making sure the tool is installed, making sure that it is executed when the build run, making sure that the tool is actively being maintained so that changes to the language will be supported going forward, etc.
One other thing about these tools is that the API used to access the file is always slightly different as well, meaning that if there’s a need to change tools, you end up needing to change your code to actually access the statically embedded file.
Now that embedding files is officially coming to the language itself, there is less need to rely on all of this. There’s no need to worry about various tools being installed on the machines that are building the application. And the fact that this feature will work hand in hand with the new file system abstraction means that embedded files would be easier to work with within the code base itself.
So kudos to the core Go development team. I’m really looking forward to using this.
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Although not as much as many other languages. ↩︎
Advice to those working with annotations in Preview
For those of you using Preview in macOS for viewing an annotated PDF, if you need to move or delete the annotations in order to select the text, be sure to undo your changes prior to closing Preview. Otherwise your changes will be saved without asking you first.1
This just happened to me. I have a PDF annotated with edits made with the iPad pencil and I wanted to copy the actual text. The annotations seemed to sit on top of the text in an image layer, which means that in order to select the text, I have to move or delete this layer first. I didn’t want the annotations mixed up with the ones on the other page, so I decided to delete this layer instead of moving it. This was a mistake.
I copied the text and wanted to get the annotations back. I probably should have just pressed ⌘Z to undo my changes, but I saw “– Edited” in the title bar so I assumed that if I just closed Preview, it would discard my changes and I would be able to get my annotations back just by reopening the PDF. But it turns out, after closing it and opening it again, the changes were saved without asking me first, resulting in my annotations being lost.
Developers of macOS: this is a terrible user experience that needs to be fixed. Preview saving my changes from under me has now resulted in data loss, the cardinal sin of any software. Either ask me before saving changes when the application is closed, support a notion of versions, or do something else. But do not just save my changes without asking me, and do not imply that Preview is aware of pending changes by having “– Edited” in the title bar if it isn’t going to discard the changes, or confirm that they should be saved when I close the app.
Ugh, I need another coffee now.
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This is macOS Mojave. I hope this has been fixed some way in later versions. ↩︎
Seeing the photos in this article of an empty airport, especially one I’m familiar with, is somewhat haunting.
I’ve justed walked all the way to the shops before I realised I completely forgot my wallet. I didn’t come back with a coffee, but I did just setup Android Pay so that this will never happen again.
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.
As good as this news is, I’d imagine the government wants to remain cautious here. The easing of restrictions that were scheduled for yesterday have been delayed, I guess to make sure that contact tracers are on top of things in the north. As disappointing as this is, I can see why they did this. It makes sense that they take advantage of the current situation to get as much information about where the virus is as they can. I don’t believe anyone wants to go back into lock-down a third time so they really have one shot of this. The government is still confident that we are on track for lifting restrictions before November 1st. I guess we’ll see what happens when they give their briefing this morning, but after going through this for 4 months, I can wait a few more days.
For the moment, it’s good seeing this result. Truth is, things were always touch and go in Victoria even during the relative period of free movement that we experienced in June, when we last had a day of zero new cases. Seeing this now, with the restricted movement and testing blitz, gives me hope that we can keep this virus suppressed until a vaccine comes in.
Update at 15:45: Results from the testing blitz from the northern suburbs have been trickling all day, and so far still no positive cases. It looks like the Victorian government is happy with this result because they have announced that the state will be moving to the 3rd step of re-opening on Wednesday.