30/03/2020

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

# I had forgotten that I had modified the output for the daily emails to show a link to YouTube videos so last night's test was null and void. At least it confirmed that everything is okay with the daily RSS feed.

# It's frustrating that email clients have varying degrees of support for embedded video in HTML emails, this is why the daily email currently replaces the video with a link - it's done in a very hacky way but at least it works.

I've tried replacing the iframe with embed, object and video tags with little success so think I'll just leave things as they are. Unless I have some kind of brain wave.

# I'm covering the late shift today, it started at 10:30am. Without the commute there was no rush, no strict timescale to follow for getting up and out of the house but I still set my alarm at a similar time. This gave me a couple of hours to myself at home rather than the couple of hours it would take to commute; a couple of hours in which I finally returned to my morning pages.

There was nothing special, just some thoughts about easing back in to the routine and how I'm not yet used to working from home; that working from home still feels weird and awful and isolating. But then everyone is still getting used to the new normal.

I wrote about how the sparrows that congregate outside the bedroom window of a morning were on good form but that their chirping was displaced by an hour. They know nothing of daylight savings so continue their normal routine based on the rising of the sun rather than some arbitrary measure of time. Oh to being a sparrow in these troubled times.

At least I picked up the pen and wrote something.

# We are trying to avoid the major supermarkets at the moment to cut down on the number of people we are near so visited a local farm shop yesterday to do our essential shopping: fresh meat, fruit and veg, etc. We were amazed by how well organised they were.

There was a large marquee serving as a controlled entry point with a one-way system for entry and exit, plenty of hand gel and a disinfectant pump for the shopping baskets. Inside they were keen to encourage shoppers to stick to social distancing guidelines and had tape delimiters around all of the serving counters for customers to stand behind.

The shop was busier than we would normally expect (others likely had the same idea) but the shelves were still very full and we were able to get everything we needed, and more. It has been difficult getting the fresh food we need from the larger retailers so knowing the farm shop is both well stocked and taking everyone's health and safety so seriously is a major boost. And it's good to support local business.

# Dave winer reminded me about the notion of starting each day fresh on the blog:

"Every day I start with a blank slate here on Scripting News and I wonder if I'll find anything to put here."

It takes me back to thinking about what to put on the Today page if there are no posts.

I have presently settled on showing yesterday's posts but am intrigued about the idea of having nothing, starting from scratch, a blank slate every day. Just the note saying "No posts yet today" and a link to yesterday at the bottom.

Is that crazy?