this weeknote is archived for the sins of being over 1 month old.

if you have good reason to read it, show anyway

Weeknotes 29

I'm pretty good at procrastinating. I think everyone is. This week, I am writing these weeknotes before getting distracted. This is a change from most weeks where I mean to do that, and then end up writing them just before bed.

In that effect, we have a special feature this week: each item in this note will be followed by an addendum describing what I would do if I were procrastinating right now, instead of writing about the section.

For example, here is such feature for the introduction:

procrastination option: reading about the International Fixed Calendar, a calendar system with 13 months of 28 days each.

Now, without undue distractions, what did I do this week?

ADVENTURES
1. I went on a river walk!
AT THE HACKSPACE
1. I ran craft night
2. Social Media and Outreach
WITH REGARD TO LIPU TENPO
ADVENTURES IN COMPUTING
Adventures at events
1. I explored the streets while football happened
2. I went to Sheffield Transformed
MISCELLANEOUS THINGS
1. I got two new umbrellas
2. I saw a local city councillor
CLOSE

ADVENTURES

I went on a river walk!

I meant to do this a few weeks ago, but I fizzled my attempt. This week, I managed it!

Actually, I know I said I wouldn't procrastinate, but... I'm just going to... just going to create a quick geoJSON file of the journey... be right back...

...

...ok, it's about 40 minutes in the future. But! I have some things! Some gifts! Some presents!

Let's run through those 40 minutes as a brief list of links and commands.

Here is a link to Overpass Turbo, which is a tool to view, edit, and save Open Street Map data. This link has a query which shows 4 of the 5 rivers of Sheffield (the Porter Brook, the Sheaf, the Loxley, and the Rivelin). The Don is not included because it is massive, and I created this map a few weeks ago to think about where would be nice to river-walk.

the map

Here is the River Sheaf on Open Street Map (OSM)

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/11890887

It is made up of a series of "ways", which are lines with coordinates, added by normal people.

I used Overpass Turbo (https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1OyD) to export a geoJSON file for the River Sheaf. I've had some experience using geoJSON because a while ago I used them for https://github.com/alifeee/mountain-bothies.

Then, I wanted to crop the geoJSON file to the section of the river that I had walked. I searched around and found out a way to do it using a command line interface called ogr2ogr. In brief, I ran this using WSL (having found the "top right" and "bottom left" bounding box coordinates by using https://www.openstreetmap.org.

sudo apt install gdal-bin
ogr2ogr -clipsrc -1.47927 53.34511 -1.49590 53.35812 export2.geojson export.geojson
sudo apt remove gdal-bin

Then, with the desire of creating a shareable link, I read the FAQ for https://geojson.io/, which suggested hosting a geoJSON file on a GitHub Gist. Now, I love GitHub gists, so I did just that, and...

you can see the route we took on the riverwalk here!

https://geojson.io/#id=gist:alifeee/bcb35365a10005cebd8f7d53de089104

Believe it or not, it just follows the route of the river. Grandiose.

editor's note: a useful resource for river stuff: https://www.wildswimming.co.uk/quick-guide-water-quality/, including a link to a map of "where is literal shit dumped in the river" (spoilers: it's "everywhere")

procrastination option: ok. I may have failed on step 1, and immediately procrastinated by doing the above. I promise it won't happen again.

AT THE HACKSPACE

I ran craft night

Craft night was well attended this week. There was lots of origami, pom-pom making, and sewing.

I made an eye mask out of some fabric and elastic, so now I can block out the sun to my heart's content, if I so desire (with the absense of a blackout blind).

I also chatted about modular origami a lot, and taught a couple of people how to make Sonobe modules. I did not actually know their name until someone there mentioned that they were famous. I also have only ever made a hexahedron (or Toshie's Jewel) with them, and hadn't considered that I could use more to make a cube, Triakis octahedron, or Triakis icosahedron (or more!), which the person I taught how to make them has been making.

procrastination option: I could get distracted trying to make a Triakis octahedron with the Community Kino leaflets I cut into squares to make into Sonobe modules yesterday

A few weeks ago I made a few social media posts for the hackspace, mainly by collecting images of cool projects that members had been making. I found that enough inspiration there for many, many posts! However, the people who have the logins for the accounts do not have time or desire to post that much. Ergo, I have thought of a fun alternate solution this week, which is to write "month updates" on the hackspace blog. It's not fully thought through yet, but already in July, hackspace members have been: wood-turning gonk bottle openers; making a cheap vertical pen plotter; exploring modular origami; planning a new bike build;...

...got distracted by seeing a picture in my gallery of a film festival in Sheffield: https://www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/sheffieldfilmfestival, looks neat, anyway...

...; laser cutting living hinges; a hand-made wood plane; a digit-blinking library for Arduinos; which is a lot of cool things!

I'm not sure how I'll organise it, but I reckon I might use GitHub issues or projects to collect the projects in a way that anyone can edit/comment on them, to alter captions and suggest images, which I will then collate into a blog post at the end of the month.

With regard to social media, I tried for a couple of hours this week to set up https://mixpost.app/ on my server, to no avail. Networking is difficult. I might try later on with help.

Finally, a note on things I actually did at the hackspace! Which was:

printed off two sheets of address labels for the current lipu tenpo print+post (I may need to run to the post office today to pick up some stamps before it closes)
helped a member of the hackspace again to set up their vertical pen plotter. It works manually! Now it's just firmware problems 👹

procrastination option: I could start organising the "month update".

WITH REGARD TO LIPU TENPO

This editions zines arrived

As you know, I organise the print+post scheme for lipu tenpo. The new edition, nanpa linja came out this month, so I ordered the printed copies for the Patreon members. They arrived a few days ago, so I am sorting out sending them off.

I needed to do a few things. One was print address labels, which you will see I did above. Another is buy several international £2.50 stamps. I went to the post office a couple days ago, and they didn't have any, so I need to go to a different post office. I may go to one today, and then I can get the issues into their envelopes, where they live snugly.

procrastination option: I could go to the post office right now

I was reimbursed for print+post

lipu tenpo e.V. finally got access to its bank account, so I was able to submit an invoice and get reimbursed for the money I have spent on the print+post system so far.

procrastination option: I could make another invoice since I have spent a little more since the last one

I was elected to the board of lipu tenpo e.V.

lipu tenpo is a "registered association" in Germany, or "eingetragener Verein" (abbreviated "e.V."). This means that it can have a bank account that is not associated with a single person, and other organisational benefits.

This week was the European toki pona meetup (or "tenpo kulupu pi ma Elopa"). I went last year (can you spot me?) in Maastricht, but Berlin was slightly too far for me this year.

Anyway, lipu tenpo e.V. had their annual meeting at the meetup, which I joined online. We went from two board members to three, and the third is me! It doesn't mean much, and I will continue doing what I was going to do anyway, but it is neat.

procrastination option: I could make some guides for people who want to help lipu tenpo with writing, illustration, layout, proof-reading, or website help

ADVENTURES IN COMPUTING

I calculated my historical rent levels

Rental agencies do not operate a high level of trust. They seem to be obsessed with guarantors and seeing your bank details. As part of a self-led investigation into "would I trust myself to pay rent?", I compiled a statistical collection of "all the rent I have payed in the past 5 years".

See a picture here

In summary: I have payed nearly £30,000 in rent over 5 years, for an average of about £490 per month. So... yes, I would trust myself to pay another comparatively measly year of rent.

procrastination option: I actually ended up watching a 5 minute Graham Norton clip on my phone. Can't remember how I got there.

Diana M. messaged me on SpareRoom again

I have a SpareRoom advert. I've found my last two places of residence via SpareRoom, and it's looking like that will become three soon (exciting!).

Part of the way a SpareRoom advert works is that your advert lasts 30 days and expires unless you renew it. I've been renewing my advert every so often (actually too much: if someone's ad is less than 7 days old you can only message them with a Premium account... shooting myself in the foot a bit).

The second piece of context is that I am not accepting applications from landlords or agencies on SpareRoom; I only await individuals. Since I don't like leaving people on read, I came up with a short paragraph of denial to send to landlords when they message me.

Most get the message, but Diana M. has messaged me about 9 times, and each time I reply with my copied response.

It's less fun than it seems, because Diana M. is definitely operated via a robot, because every time I renew my advert, they message me. However, it's fun to imagine the conversation as actual, with an invite followed by a rejection followed by an invite followed by a rejection followed by an invite followed by a rejection followed by an...

procrastination option: I could have been looking at people who are looking for a house on SpareRoom

I've been keeping track of flowers

As mentioned last week, I made a small, cute, self-hostable website for someone to host pictures of flowers. The source code is here. I've been refreshing the site every few days to find a lovely new picture (or pictures) of flowers.

procrastination option: I could have been implementing more features into the website, especially an RSS feed (I love RSS)

I compiled a list of events

I like events. There are too many to keep in your brain. I compiled a short list of them. It has events like BarCamp, Liverpool MakeFest, UK Games Expo, CSS Naked Day, Sheffield DocFest.

The list is in Notion, which also allows me to set reminders, so I am setting reminders around a month before each event. The goal isn't to attend all of them, but just to be aware of them. I cannot comprehend everything, but I can do my best.

procrastination option: I could have been finding more events for my list, perhaps by browsing fun websites like https://www.alt-sheff.org/

I used etherpad to collect information about a house

I like information. I like information to be out of my brain. I like information to be shareable. I like information to be collaborative.

With these goals in mind, I set up a pad on my Etherpad instance about the house that I might move into. It has plenty of information on there, and links to the original advert for the house, which I have re-hosted because it was removed from the Internet (grrr).

It has been enjoyed.

procrastination option: I could have been collating more information about the house

I got shown a train tracking app

I've been trying to track trains between signals for a while. This week I was shown a working version, which you can plug JavaScript apps into. It lives here. I can't show you pictures, but handily the example script is a CLI, so I can show you the output, which looks nice. When you run it, you get a visual representation of a train signal block, with train headcodes within it.

Here is part of the signalling system between Wingfield and Barnsley (i.e., Sheffield)

You can see the whole diagram (with live trains) here: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/spc5

This diagram comes from the above script, and is effectively an ASCII recreation of the opentraintimes website.

        ______[    ]>69______[1Y40]>77__________________[    ]>79____
                                                     \__[    ]>81____
        _____68<[    ]_______76<[    ]___78<[    ]__
           \_70<[    ]__/                           \___80<[    ]____

If you hook into the project, you can write a JavaScript file that takes a JSON input that is something like:

{
  '68': '',
  '69': '',
  '70': '',
  '76': '',
  '77': '1Y40',
  '78': '',
  '79': '',
  '80': '',
  '81': ''
}

Many ideas evolve from this.

procrastination option: I could have made another script which uses the train tracking app.

I did some review for gspread

Not much to say.

procrastination option: I could have done some more review for gspread.

Adventures at events

I explored the streets while football happened

There was a big football match. I saw a little of it, and also wandered around some urban streets while it was on. I like doing that a lot whenever there is a big sports match, as the outside feels a lot emptier, and surreal; almost like how the outside was during the depths of covid.

procrastination option: I could have gone for a wander and marvel at the buildings, trees, plants, streets, infrastructure, and generally everything around me

I went to Sheffield Transformed

Sheffield Transformed is a festival of left-wing politics and culture. I went to it, chatted to some people, went to Cut Up Collective's stall, and enjoyed the vibes. This was their first year, and it seemed well organised and a good level of busy for such an inaugural event!

procrastination option: I could have been reading my book about degrowth

MISCELLANEOUS THINGS

I got two new umbrellas

One was a gift. One was a purchase. I love my umbrella(s).

procrastination option: I could be looking on the Internet at more umbrellas for a colourful collection

I saw a local city councillor

While coming home in the dark, I saw a local Sheffield city councillor walking down the street. They were not wearing any clothes. I am still not sure what was going on.

procrastination option: I could... wander down the streets with no clothes on? I suppose?

CLOSE

I open at the close.

Remember, reduce-reuse-recyle is old advice. Now, recall the waste hierarchy: prevention, minimisation, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, disposal. Much catchier.

Until next time

alifeee

Comments

Email me :) -> alifeee.web@outlook.com or message me on any social :) -> https://linktr.ee/alifeee