Thanks to everyone who got in touch re last weeks post about where people can follow me online. Yes I am aware that 2007 rang and want’s its internet back. We are where we are. Just … do your own thing on the internet.

Now, with all that said …

My host (dreamhost) is brilliant. Their support is fantastic and they are cheap. Despite my being an evangelist for hosting your own blog, using open protocols, and controlling as much of your own infra as possible – it does have its downsides.

Earlier week my site was lifted and shifted to a new sever as part of long planned and well signalled maintenance. My host was upgrading my server from MySQL 5.7 to 8. The upside is that I’ve already noticed a perceivable snappiness interacting with big sql tables like tags and internal blog searches. Website load times have dropped by a few milliseconds now putting me in 95/98 range for both mobile and desktop page speed index.

The downside was; I was part of a small cluster of users who’s database didn’t populate correctly after the move.

After updating my new IP and DNS details in Cloudflare my site looked like this:

Totally fucked.

After some back and forth with support, the working theory was that I had emoji’s in my category titles causing script issues.. I ended up restoring a backup from vaultpress. I lost 1500 words of writing – which was quite annoying. The restore however did resolve 95% of issues, but my webfonts were still not displaying correctly.

I spent about 24hs fucking about on and off with the cache settings and various other things yesterday. But couldn’t resolve the issue. In the end I gave up and deleted the fonts folder on the server and viola! Problem solved!

I see this incident as a final sign to move to a FSE theme.

I’ve been mulling it for a while, but later this summer I’m just going to do it. I think rebuilding this site on a blank canvas theme is going to take at least two days. I may have to write some SQL and do some db insertions too. Luckily an old job used to involve writing Transact-SQL so I have that knowledge stored away somewhere.

In other news, its my birthday on Monday (25th) and then Eve and I are going to Bristol to see some friends for a couple of days. I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t been to Bristol in years.

Photo 365

Permanently Moved

10 Tips For Creating Online

After 4 years and nearly 200 podcast episodes, here’s 10 tips for creating online in 2022

A big thanks to everyone who has read/shared/messaged me about this episode in the last 24 hours. I really appreciate it! 🙏 I think its one of my best, mainly as the subject is a result of 4 years worth of work! The snow notes blog post is heavily linked to where all the ideas/conclusions in the show came from.

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

• Writing about Codd, DnD, and multi-dimensional databases
• Fell down a BAYC hole
• Report writing
• Calls with guest instructors for New Centre DAO course

Dipping the Stacks

Populous to The Sims: a history of playing god | TechRadar

Absolute power corrupts. That’s when the fun really starts

Chinese Researchers Just Unveiled the World’s Largest Virtual Universe Simulation

It contains 2 trillion digital particles shaped into 25 billion virtual galaxies.

How Canadian researchers reconstituted an extinct poxvirus for $100,000 using mail-order DNA | Science | AAAS

A study that brought horsepox back to life is triggering a new debate about the risks and power of synthetic biology

BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month – The Verge

BMW is now selling subscriptions for heated seats in a number of countries — the latest example of the company’s adoption of microtransactions for high-end car features.

‘Tetris’ Helps My Stress and Anxiety Fall Away | WIRED

When I revisited my preferred childhood pastime, I wondered if the game would still serve as a mental reset. Turns out, it did.

Reading

I fired up Audible this week. It was too hot to even sit around reading.

I listened to all of Krieg by Steve Lyons. Krieg are one of the most interesting factions in the tabletop war game of Warhammer, they are also ‘my dudes’ in Kill Team. Krieg has a backwards / forwards – before / after structure telling the origins of the planets military. It’s a well told story, and it fills out the lore in some interesting ways. The audiobook performance was excellent.

Matt Ball’s Metaverse book dropped this week. I’ve had it on pre-order for ages. I have the audiobook and a physical copy to makes notes in/on. I’m only just passed the introduction and first chapter. It seems like the book is expanded version of his 2018 essay series. We’ll see how the book develops. I know it’s going to be good! But I already know it’s going to annoy me. lol

I put down the Metaverse book on Saturday as The Dark City by Chris Wraight dropped out the blue on Audible. I know it’s another warhamer book. Wraight is a fantastic writer, and the Vaults of Terra series is grimdark noir. This series is like crack to me.

Music

thejaymo.net Spotify Playlist

Superorganism – World Wide Pop

Superorganism (previously) have a new album out called World Wide Pop.

I don’t think their new album sounds as fresh as 2018’s breakthough debut. BUT there’s plenty of Indie Pop gems on this record to keep me happy for the summer.

My top three tracks on the album are crushed.zip and ‘Into The Sun‘ and Teenager.

Into The Sun especially is a wonderful and catchy tune.

What really stands out for me on this track are the lyrics. Such weird imagery.

I really hope this single gets lots of radio airplay. I can imagine someone hearing this song several times a day in their cars, then one day, stuck in traffic they actually catch the lyrics and think ‘what the hell?’

Don’t mind me, I’m just a fruit fly that’s floatin’ on by, just floatin’ on
And I can’t even look you in the eye

Remember Kids: