2022-11-07
We are moving to Berlin. I’ve been making that statement of intent to anybody who will listen for the past few months. I think (hope) we’re past the stage where I need to make that statement over and over to make it happen now. It has an inertia of its own. I have a job out there. Sarah has a job out there. I think it’s happening. By the end of January 2023, we should be living in Berlin.Hi
I’m Jack Reid. Here I mostly update the blog and keep track of things I’m reading or watching. I post few photos as I take them.
I’ve worked in software engineering for a few years now and I’m a manager now. If you’re interested, you can read a bit more about my work history here. Something that’s a common thread through my whole time and BuzzFeed and earlier is a focus on accessible web technology, there’s a bit more about that on the work page too.
Recent posts
2022-11-07
First off, here’s a DJ set I liked. Right now a lot of people are talking about leaving Twitter (here’s mine). Many of those that go ahead with it and turning up in Mastodon (here’s mine) and talking a big game about how the collapse of Twitter will beget a golden age for the decentralised internet. That’s nice. I don’t believe it’s really going to be that simple, though. On the topic of decentralised internet things: the FBI seized the Z-lib ebook archive!2022-10-07
First I have a whole collection of maps. There’s a map to show where in the world Wikipedia edits are coming from. There’s a map that shows all the different kinds of planning boundaries that overlap the in Britain. There’s an incredibly detailed weather map. Finally, here’s a whole series of maps that examine how much various governments fudged their COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation, and mortality rates. There are a couple of websites about making websites to share.
2022-09-07
POSTING. Why must you post? Why must the thoughts you have be assessed in public for their value? Be boring or interesting to yourself. For the sake of thinking unthinkingly don’t show your thoughts to others. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to think without an audience. I be thinking of secret shit then deleting it My mind’s on the internet, if I speak it I’m tweeting it — Open Mike Eagle, Informations2022-09-06
I’m interviewing for other jobs. It’s a very strange process that sometimes feels like having a professional affair. You arrange off-the-calendar meetings with some exciting new thing, because the old one has turned sour. I’ll stop myself before I go to deep on the “jobs are like relationships” simile, which I don’t really believe in. What I want to say is it’s a tiring situation to both have a job and be applying for jobs.
2022-08-24
First I have this amazing oral history of the production of certain aspects of the video game Red Alert 3. Specifically the story is about how this incredible cut scene, starring Tim Curry as a high camp Soviet general blasting off into space, came to be. It’s astonishingly detailed and manages to go far beyond “pretty funny clip”. It talks about how casting and producing these little fragments of video for video games works.2022-08-24
We’ve had successive record high temperatures everywhere, but most importantly to me, in London. There was a bit of respite for a week or so but yesterday the humidity starting rising and today the temperature will follow. I don’t think I’ll find 28° intolerably hot after getting used to almost 40° a couple of weeks ago, but the humidity doesn’t make it easy. Hyde Park is parched. The leaves have fallen off the trees weeks early, which I’m told is some sort of survival technique.
