DanThornton

Tech, Geekery, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous

Weekly RoundUp #1 April 22-28, 2019

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I’m trying to get back into regularly updating the sites and projects which are most important to me. So part of that will be an attempt to summarise anything particularly interesting or important from my week on Sunday nights. I’m hoping it may help me to crystalise my thoughts and plans for the coming week as well.

So I’m almost at the end of what can only be described as a cacophonus April. It included a Bank Holiday, an Easter school holiday, and three big family birthdays, with two effectively bookending the month. Plus some other personal commitments, work, normal family and life stuff, and some illnesses in the household.

But as I posted on Facebook, ultimately the bad stuff wasn’t as horrific as it might have been, and the good stuff was generally better than expected.

This week was actually relatively quiet. But with possibly the most important birthday of all, especially as my son has recently become obsessed with skateboarding after discovering my old deck in the garden shed.

So obviously having ordered him a board (along with a helmet and pads), it seemed logical to pick up something cheap for myself as well. Because he obviously needs some company at the local skate spots when he’s starting out.

My board on the left, and my son’s first board on the right…

Having searched in vain for a local skate shop to try helmets and pads for size, the nearest place was a branch Skatehut in Corby. Frustratingly, their complete deals with board, pads and helmet can only be ordered online, but luckily it arrived promptly and without any issues.

And after a few hours at a relatively quiet local skate park I’d started to rediscover how to control a board (and how much it can make legs ache), while my son was getting the hang of it – and we made friends with some local scooter riders.

Basically I was reminded how cheap and easy it can be to find something to enjoy outdoors, rather than relying on the Xbox and streaming movies for lazy entertainment.

Speaking of which, there’s a new series of the always enjoyable detective series Bosch now on Amazon Prime. Which has been a welcome break from my girlfriend’s current hobby of recording as many slightly terrible horror films as possible – in the last week I’ve sat through Anaconda (cheesily terrible), Lake Placid 3 (cheesily more terrible), and the Final Girls (which is a great idea turned into a reasonable film, but could have been so much better).

Aside from that, my music listening has been limited to the Rush/Led Zeppelin collision that is Greta Van Fleet. I find it perfect to just have on repeat play all day whilst working, although apparently my girlfriend gets tired of it after hearing it for the third or fourth time in a row. And gaming has mainly been Apex Legends. Because it’s a free-to-play Battle Royale I can actually play to an average standard, and I decided to reward the developers by buying the Battle Pass for the current season.

There’s a couple more hectic days left in April, so I’m really looking forward to May as a chance to hopefully reap the rewards of the busy period, catch my breath and get back to developing some of my side projects in a more meaningful way. And that may include a delivery from Chillblast that I’m very, very, very much looking forward to.

I’m also intrigued to experiment and find out whether regular, more personal updates are something anyone wants to read. Especially in an era of email newsletters, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat etc. I’m experimenting with some different types of posting on various accounts, and different approaches to blogging to try and mix things up after more than a decade, and see what works for me as a writer, and you as a community… So if you’ve enjoyed it, hated it, think it’s pointless, or would rather see more structure covering the various topics (e.g. separate sections for areas like music, books, food etc in the manner of the excellent Documentally email newsletter), then do leave a comment.


2019 – Back to Reading and Blogging

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It’s been a bit of a strange start to 2019 so far. The end of 2018 was fairly busy and stressful due to a combination of work and family commitments. And when we did finally stop for the festive season, it was an invitation to every possible illness doing the rounds to come and infect us. So plans and resolutions all got put on hold. Now it’s February, and it feels like I’m finally well enough to actually begin the year…

I’ve never found resolutions work particularly well, and I’ve seen enough psychological evidence suggesting that it’s more productive to start new habits in small and manageable ways. Rather than resolving to completely change my life, it’s been better to do things like just not buy junk food (so it isn’t available), go and buy a vape kit and start using it (no more smoking), and start exercising on a daily basis (my small routine of simple workouts was going well until illness interfered).

There’s always things I’d like to improve in my personal life, but generally I’m pretty happy with most of the improvements I’ve made. It’s taken time and a little effort, but I’m a bit healthier, happier and confident about continuing to get a little better at various aspects of daily life.

For example, it’s now more than 18 months since I smoked a cigarette. I’m spending quality time with my son every week, and I’m fortunate enough to be in a great relationship with someone I care about very much.

The One Habit That Got Away

There is one habit which I haven’t been fulfilling. And it’s surprising as during my childhood and teenage years, I was a voracious reader. Every night ended with me devouring page after page.

But somewhere in adulthood my reading dropped – probably because my days involve so much reading and writing online that I found myself putting off relaxing with a good book.

I wanted to change that – there’s been plenty written about why books offer a different experience than online articles, so I’m not going to rehash it. But somehow, I didn’t quite get back into reading as regularly as I’d have liked.

Getting some great books for Christmas should help develop my reading habit again

So now the focus is back on ramping up my reading. And having some great books helps. I’ve recently finished Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which has definitely reminded me of the value you get from settling down with a good book rather than sitting at my work desk in front of a screen. Plus, I also got back into fiction with Ready Player One.

And thanks to some very kind people sending me some of my Amazon wishlist for Christmas, I now have the following to help my reading:

Getting Back to Blogging

Due to work, illness, the release of WordPress 5.0 changing how blog posts are written, the need to switch hosting providers and not having had a rest from writing for my various sites in years led to a bit of a hiatus for the past few months.

Initially I felt like I’d failed by just pausing from posting on all of my sites. But given that they’re primarily side projects for pleasure at the moment, I also felt like I’d burned out. Having taken on more work, and devoted more time to family life, I’d had less time to dig out inspiration, less time to sit and write without feeling like I’d finished enough client work, and feeling increasing unwell wasn’t helping…

But it’s turned out to be a good thing. Traffic to my sites hasn’t disappeared overnight. I’ve been able to rest and recuperate. And focusing on client work has kept my business and income at the level required for a reasonable standard of living.

And now I have the itch to make progress again, I’ve had time to think about how I can do it more effectively. My aim is to create more things worth sharing, and to build up my sites to become a more sustainable, productive collection of titles that people really enjoy and want to be part of.

Plus it’s obvious that the new Gutenberg WordPress editor is here to stay, so it’s time to really get to know it for my client work, and my own sites. I’ll be sure to share tips and guides on TheWayoftheWeb as I discover more.

So 2019 really starts here. And I can’t wait!

It’s Time For Peterborough STEM Festival 2018

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October is always a big month for me. It was the month that I originally started working for myself full-time, eight years ago. And by the end of the month, I’d realised that there didn’t seem to be a local network for people working in digital, particularly those working alone at home. So I happened to contact web developer Jonathan Frascella, and that led to the first Digital People in Peteborough meetup.

Almost a decade later, and DPiP has continued to grow. The monthly meetup has expanded to 700+members and a non-profit company to support it. A few years ago, the very talented Tia from WhoAteMyCrayons got involved in Digital People in Peterborough, helping it to gain a lot of momentum. And then came up with the seemingly insane idea to create a free STEM Festival for children in the local area. Around a year later, Peterborough STEM Festival arrived in 2016.

After great success in 2016 and 2017, it’s time for Peterborough STEM Festival 2018. And if you’re connected to me on social media or know me offline, you’re hopefully aware of it already. I think I’ve managed to shoehorn it into every conversation I’ve had for a few months now. Because it’s an amazing achievement for everyone involved, and this year more than 3,000 free tickets have already been booked.

Peterborough STEM Festival 2018

If you’re able to make it, I highly suggest coming along. You just need to be accompanied by a child if you’ve over 18, so they can explain all the complicated science, tech, engineering and maths to you. There’s a huge amount happening, from TV presenter Maddie Moate and Horrible Science author Nick Arnold giving interactive talks to F1 simulators, forensic science, engineering experiments, virtual reality, retro gaming and more.

And if you’re interested in volunteering, exhibiting or sponsoring, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s incredibly rewarding to see children inspired and encouraged to get involved, ask questions and learn while having a great time.

It’s an amazing tribute to the current organising team of Jonathan, Andy Reedman (at Mind of Design), and Liz Randell (at LizCreates). And to Tia, who has since emigrated to New Zealand, and is now organising the Tauranga STEM Festival for 2019.

I’m pleased to be volunteering again for the third year, accompanied by my son. And he’s already coming up with ideas for how to market and promote the event for this year, and in 2019. Which makes me incredibly proud of my small contribution to DPiP and the STEM Festival.

And in a strange turn of events, Liz and I met via DPiP and began dating earlier this year. We now live together, and I’ve seen first hand how much time, effort and commitment it takes to organise an event of this scale and magnitude. Plus how it’s brought my family together with Liz and my son swapping marketing ideas. Which generally end up with him finding new ways to have fun at the event, and more work for her!

I can’t give enough credit to the organisers, sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers that make the STEM Festival and DPiP happen every year, but hopefully this blog post goes some way to saying thank you to everything they do.