I’ve been using Authy as a code generator for some time now. The key feature for me is that it has native apps for my Mac and phone and iPad, and syncs data between them, so I’m never scrabbling to find another device when I need to enter a code.
But to automate connections, I’d love to find a solution that allows command-line access to codes, rather than relying on a UI. Has anyone come across a code generator that works from the command-line?
Since the beginning of lockdown, it has been obvious that people who don’t agree with government rules call them “confusing”, and the BBC News facilitates this by airing their complaints and fermenting the confusion.
Witness WATO today. Plenty of wannabe holidaymakers complaining about the travel restrictions. Can’t help thinking that anyone who wants to travel internationally during a pandemic is quite loopy.
And the airline industry always sounds very weaselly on the issue. I would not trust Willie Walsh’s advice on travel safety, since he has such a strong financial incentive to get people traveling.
All this talk of traffic-light signals… do people not know what amber traffic lights mean?
Listening to the World at One on R4 earlier today, there appeared to be great dismay amongst football enthusiasts about a new programme of mid-week matches that some clubs are organising amongst themselves, rather than going through normal channels.
There was much talk about how this new setup is some sort of “closed shop”, while at the same time floating suggestions that the clubs and players involved should be barred from existing competitions and international play. Which, um, sounds like restrictive practices enforcing the current closed shop.
It was also notable how incapable many of the enthusiasts were at explaining their unhappiness. Apparently this is all something to do with big money taking over the top of football. Unlike today, presumably, where an amateur ethos pervades the sport.
The new system sounded a little bit like Formula One. Ten teams involved, big money, a limited programme of events around a wider geography, and no concept of promotion or relegation.
Twice now Deliveroo have refused to refund me for items missing from an order. And have offered no explanation.
Since the middle of last year we’ve grown to depend on Deliveroo for our regular grocery deliveries. Most weeks I place an order with Aldi and an order with Morrisons, and between the two, we get much of what we need to feed us for the week.
Our Aldi orders occasionally have missing items, and our Morrisons orders often have missing items. We’ve learned to check everything when it arrives, and mark the missing items on the Deliveroo website for a refund. Which has worked well.
Until the beginning of this month.
The refund process changed on the Deliveroo site. Now one has to upload a photograph of a receipt when one makes a report of a missing item.
Morrisons do not provide a receipt.
A fortnight ago Deliveroo refused a refund for a missing item (an Easter egg at £4.20), and didn’t explain why. I was annoyed, but assumed it was a glitch, and couldn't be bothered to follow it up at the time.
Until it happened again, with today’s order. Deliveroo refused a refund for another missing item (Quorn Bacon at £2.10 for those keeping track at home). Again, they didn’t offer a reason for their refusal. This time I did follow it up.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Colin the Caterpillar cake, or any of his trade-mark-skirting brethren. I don’t feel as though I’ve missed out of one of life’s great experiences, but it feels odd that public discourse is filled with appreciation for a product that is beyond my ken.
When it comes to factory-made supermarket cakes, I reckon Battenberg has the edge. My truth is that marzipan trumps icing.
I received a cheque through the post today from Utilita for £1,076.94.
Which was nice. I didn’t expect it, and I like it when I receive an unexpected grand. But also worrying, ’cos I couldn’t remember having had an account with Utilita, and there was no explanation in the covering letter.
I sent Kate off into St A to pay the cheque into the bank. Into our old RBS account, as I have no idea how to pay a cheque into my Monzo account. This is the first cheque I’ve received in years.
Then I had a good search through my emails and scanned letters. I use a service called Flipper to automatically switch to the best energy deal, so I barely know who my actual supplier is at the best of times. Turned out that we’d been with a company called Eversmart when they went bust back in 2019, and my account had been automatically transferred to Utilita under Ofgem’s “Supplier of Last Resort” process. And then Flipper had moved me on to a new supplier. I’d paid attention to the new supplier, but not the intermediate one.
Utilita sent me a letter back in May 2020 confirming my final Eversmart bill, and noting that my account was £1,076.94 in credit. It took them eleven months to get a cheque to me.
At lunchtime I meandered along to Andrew’s house with some shopping we had for him. With blue skies and sunshine, we sat out in his garden with a drink, enjoying the warmth. Until it started snowing and I came home.
I find it quite eye-opening how many people are complaining about the television schedules having changed this weekend. In this world of online streaming and virtual box sets, do that many people actually watch broadcast television? And if so, why?
Of course, maybe they don’t actually watch live television, but just want to complain about it anyway.
A bank holiday is a day to get things done at work. My English colleagues have their bank holidays off, but in Scotland we work through and have floating holidays instead.
While most of my immediate colleagues are also in Scotland, somehow the English bank holidays feel like some of my most productive working days. There are fewer interruptions, fewer meetings, and just a few fewer Slack messages.
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kateaw is out of the house on Thursday mornings, so echodarkly and I take the opportunity to have veggie bacon for breakfast. Kate is not fond of the smell of it cooking.
Fifteen years ago I started working for Scotland Online, as the business was called back then. I started contracting through an agency in March ’06, and then when we realised I’d be there for a longer run, directly contracting from September the same year. And when it was obvious that I’d be about for a longer longer run, I became an employee in September 2010. All seems like another world.
When I started I think I was one of two software developers working for a company that was mostly focused on systems and infrastructure work. I spent the first couple of years writing PHP and MySQL, a skill set that meant I was well placed to develop the internal tools for handling the 1911 census project when we won that. And I’ve been doing the same sort of thing ever since, with technologies changing as the years have passed.
The company name changed to Brightsolid Online Publishing, then DC Thomson Family History, then Findmypast, but it is still the people I work with, and the history we work on, that continue to make work a pleasure.
At work our holiday year starts at the beginning of April, so there is always a rush to take one’s remaining hols before the end of March. I always keep a couple of days of holiday to hand in case I need to use them at short notice, so end up taking them around this time. Hence being on holiday yesterday and today. But I’m back to work tomorrow.
This past year many colleagues didn’t take as much holiday as usual, for obvious reasons, so have been taking weeks of holiday in the past couple of months. Makes sense, but has left work feeling quite sparsely populated at times.
On our work Slack I suggested that we could solve this in the future by giving everyone their own holiday year, cycling on their birthday. That would spread the pinch points throughout the year. It may not be common to do this, but other organisations take similar approaches. But it obviously wasn’t popular with my lot, as the idea was shot down, with an unexpected level of negativity. I suppose people get quite attached to the structure of their working life, and any suggestions for change feel like a threat. Or just a lot of hassle.
I’ve been using Keybase for years, most recently as a way to transfer things like Azure and AWS credentials to partner organisations. Back in 2019 they added some kind of cryptocurrency wallet to their app as part of a deal with Stellar, and in doing so furnished all of their users with some XLM Lumens. At the time, around £50 worth. I happily took the handout and, with little interest in cryptocurrencies, happily ignored it.
But when I opened the app earlier this month I noticed that my wallet was worth nearer £420, which is a sum to pay attention to. I figured out how to transfer the Lumens to Coinbase and from there into pounds in my Monzo account. And then £400 into savings, and the remaining £20 into pizza via Papa John’s.
I’ve been mostly working from home for over a decade, with my contract specifying that I only need to be in the office one day per week. That one day was typically in the local Dundee office, and then I’d spend maybe a week each quarter working in the London office.
For a year now I’ve been working from home 100% of the time, and it has been a fantastic working year. I feel more productive and happier with my team working from home than I ever did with colleagues in the office.
Zoom calls, particularly for pairing, have been a great success. I find it far easier to work on technical tasks with a colleague on a call, than it is to sit next to them. With my eyesight, when sitting next to someone I struggle to read text on their screen.
Meetings are far more personal and egalitarian if everyone is on their individual connection. I don’t want to go back to the grim days of connecting in to a meeting room, where as a remote participant I can’t easily hear what people are saying, or for that matter tell who is talking. And worse, company meetings where a meeting room in London is connected to a meeting room in Dundee.
And as a result of our Zoom calls over the past year, I now know the names and faces of far more people in the London office. Which is good.
I hope we don’t lose the benefits of working from home when people start heading back into the office. Although my observation is that there is a significant minority who, like me, never want to go back.
We’re hiring again for data engineers. Part programming, part database work, and part systems work. Do you fancy working with big historic datasets?
https://apply.workable.com/findmypast/j/A80172A332/
What’s this? About four years since I last looked at LiveJournal. Has anything changed while I’ve been away?
