You know the scenario. You're sitting (on the couch, in bed, on a train, wherever!) and find yourself between tasks. Next thing you know, some indeterminate period of time has passed as you use your smartphone to check social media / surf the web / play a game. No big deal really but stop for a minute – cumulatively, how much of our lives do we now spend mindlessly doing this instead of, well, pretty much anything else that could enrich us?!
...on the outcome of the US election, everyday life continues. I've just started 6 days of leave (10 days in a row including weekends), sorely needed after an intense period at work. It will coincide with Wales coming out of a period of national lockdown. It'll be an odd one, the first time since the start of the pandemic that Wales will have less stringent rules than England. I'm most looking forward to resuming our social bubble – while all these virtual tools have been great, I do like seeing people in more than 2 dimensions!
Nothing earth-shattering here but I've worked out how to link within a single page/post of the blog and added navigating options to the end of each post. Satisfying stuff, done in the wee hours of the morning when the world is quiet! Read on for the tips if interested!
I started this blog post ten days ago but work has been pretty intense recently. Autumn leaves have been falling for awhile now here in Cardiff, with the leaves turning shades of yellow, brown and occasionally red. It's a lovely time of year for walking and before the rain set in and the pace of work picked up I was taking advantage of it, strapping on the babe to wander upstream or downstream through the succession of green spaces running alongside the Nant Fawr stream.
Words, where do you want to lead me? (Streaming out of my fingertips To this blog post) Words, where do you want to go?
The light is starting to fade on a wet Saturday evening in Cardiff, as I listen to Francis Cabrel singing his song of the same title as this blog post. It's been a much needed low key day after a rollercoaster work week. A few hours of hanging out with the smallest one while The Canadian catches up on sleep, enjoying fun activities such as watching the laundry go 'round from her bouncy chair, followed by relaxing to the music of Jewel, Eva Cassidy (such effortless beauty in her voice, time suspended as each note hangs in the air) and now Francis Cabrel.
Finally got around to digging a little deeper into Latte Dock customisation and now have two different layouts that I'm happy with. The first one features a panel at the top with a global menu and a dock at the bottom, in the vein of Mac OS. In contrast, the second has more of a Windows 10 style panel at the bottom. There are times when I find myself wanting one or the other as a workflow so it's nice to have the option to switch between them. I guess I could have them set up on different KDE Activities but I've never found a compelling enough reason in how I work for multiple screens, whether physical or virtual. Anyway, more details and photos below!
My daughter is apparently at the stage when she starts to find other people eating fascinating. I guess we never completely loose this, which is why I've found myself tuning to the comforts of the Food Network late at night and in the early hours of the morning when on shift with her. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Man v. Food. The joy we find in eating and the discovery of places that feed more than just our bellies.
Down the CSS wormhole we go again, hunting for the perfect sans-serif font for my blog, to make it stand out and add a personal touch. I wanted to find a font like Avenir Next, which is the one I use on my Kobo Aura One e-reader. I also wanted to avoid Google Fonts. After some deliberation, I narrowed it down to three options from https://fontlibrary.org, all distributed under the SIL Open Font Licence:
To some degree or other we've always lived our lives in social bubbles, except that they normally overlap. Family, work, different sets of friends. Venn diagrams with you in the middle. The pandemic has thrown this into starker relief. We have virtual/online social bubbles, in-person but outside and 2 m socially distanced social bubbles, and one officially sanctioned social bubble (a.k.a “extended household” in Wales) where we can meet in-person, inside and hug if we want to.