Mark Carroll's Journal

Mailing letters got expensive

2026-04-14T18:09:06Z

I stopped to think about how I notice the price of mailing a letter in Britain. In my youth, it wasn't a cost I thought worth much consideration. So, I stopped to investigate.

The Bank of England turns out to have an excellent inflation calculator allowing users to, check how prices in the UK have changed since 1209, which warms my heart.

If I go back twenty years, apparently something costing £100 back then now costs around £175, handwaving whatever weighted averaging they do to determine that. At that time, a second-class stamp used to cost 23p so we might expect it to cost around 40p now. They actually cost 91p so it's no wonder that I'm noticing the cost in a way that I wasn't before.

I can see why this might be so. Fewer letters are mailed at all so scale may be much worse. No doubt we have the cumulative effects of various government austerity drives. Perhaps there's simply been incompetent management. After all, somebody ought to be paying large sums of money to the many innocent postmasters who were so culpably wronged by senior personnel over many years.

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Musing on progress through science, or not

2026-04-12T13:41:35Z

( Decades ago, many thought that science had much potential to improve our lives. )

I want to live in a world where experts truly are able to make our world better. Perhaps this ( was always a pipe dream. )

It's not as if I seek to be constrained by some soulless technocracy. Civil liberties are important to me. ( Experts should not decide everything for everybody. )

I just want institutional decision-making to be both well-informed and well-intentioned, even if it must also be open-minded. When I look at contemporary examples among social policy and technological innovation, it's hard to feel as if the future is filled with hope, in the way that some previous generation might have. Given the sea change that LLMs are causing in software development, I don't how much hope to have for even just my personal future.

Perhaps the Artemis program is an unusual exception, charging me with a little of that same hope that the 1962 Seattle World's Fair might have brought its attendees, reminding me of the perhaps naive optimism that experts would be able to guide our progress to a future worth embracing. Even if I am not part of it, I would still be glad for it to happen.

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More grumbling about out-of-print media

2026-04-12T11:40:38Z

Recently, in discussing other-media spin-offs, I was reminded of the three trilogies of Babylon 5 novels, which were decent enough that I would be happy to reread them. However, they are long enough out of print to be enough effort and money to obtain that I shan't bother. It seems a shame that such things just fade away.

Back when I first read them, I hadn't appreciated how that kind of book, like most manga, falls out of print, never to be reprinted. I don't know what ethicists might think but I would be quite open to a rule that put into the public domain any work that was once openly and widely available then was not similarly reoffered for a long period, assuming no conflict with the public interest.

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A week in Paris

2026-03-29T17:38:37Z

R. and I are back from a week's tourism in Paris. I enjoy how we continue to find ourselves agreeing often: R. certainly sees why I prefer Paris to London, it's so pleasantly walkable. ( I am always happy to go back. )

Being dragged reluctantly into the modern world, I ( tried using public transit via smartphone ticketing. )

For me, Paris tourism is typically some combination of walking and Métro around central Paris visiting various attractions and just taking in the environment. We hadn't prebooked much so we had some freedom to go as our whims and increasingly aching bodies would take us. The weather was generally good, I consider us lucky. We kept sufficiently on the beaten tourist path that I scarcely had to ( attempt to speak French. )

The gardens varied rather. Many of them seemed to be wide, dusty, pale gravel paths, lawns, conical shrubs, cuboid trees, statues, hedges with right angles, etc. We wandered through the Jardin des Plantes which at least had flowers, a variety of rather well-grown ones indeed, though no fewer right angles. I think the Japanese might be rather better at the kind of garden I like.

Paris has a considerable abundance of publically accessible magnificent buildings that I enjoy seeing and being inside. ( I enjoyed a few of the museums. )

In this visit, we did not ( eat out at fancy restaurants. )

Last night's return flight was from Charles de Gaulle into Edinburgh so we took our usual commuting route, the train into Queen Street, as part of our journey back home to Glasgow.

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Glaswegian matters and beyond

2026-03-09T23:28:30Z

At the weekend, I happened to be further up the Clyde at the right time to see the bow of a new Naval frigate being transported up the river to the shipyard where the warships are assembled. I didn't know what kind of ship it was for at first, I learned that later online.

Glasgow has a great city center, rather walkable and with the subway for longer hops. Next to Central Station is a fancy building some decades older than the converted Victorian mill that I live in. At least, there was, until a vape store somehow caught fire. Now there are cordoned-off streets, the smell of smoke, and a considerable number of sad, shocked people and even more rather inconvenienced ones.

I have no love for vape stores in the first place, I tend to avoid patronizing establishments that expand their range to vapes. Given vapes' propensity to catch fire in waste processing centers, etc., goodness knows who thought it a good idea to allow a vape shop to locate next to a critical transit hub in a historic landmark whose construction substantially predates fire safety codes. Perhaps we shall find out, with luck when I am not feeling grumpy and vengeful.

My commute may be quite unaffected: when I pass close to the area of the fire, I'm in a subway tunnel on my way to Queen Street, the other main railway station; I hope that tomorrow's train to Edinburgh isn't overly crowded by passengers displaced from Central which won't be open yet.

I refueled our car this evening, I figured that gas prices aren't dropping anytime soon. In probably 2003 I tried holding off filling the car with gas, back when I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria (with around a seventy litre fuel tank), but eventually I had to give in and pay the higher prices. At least, with mostly just driving around the city in our hybrid in the near term, today's gas should last us for a good while.

Update: My morning train's quite full but I arrive comfortably early enough to have snagged a seat easily. A pox on the selfish passengers who use their coat and bag to occupy two seats while others are still boarding.

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Broken record of recurrent thoughts

2026-02-07T18:12:07Z

I mention a few recurring topics, probably because I still haven't properly addressed them. For instance, ( I remain overweight and unfit. )

I also need to get back to writing code in Haskell and in Rust. Quite how and when this happens, I am not sure. I do need ( to sort out my personal computing. )

R. is thinking about when and how we move to live somewhere else. For a couple more years yet, high school catchment area remains quite a constraint, though I can look around ( for where we might move to someday. )

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A frustrating day

2026-01-11T15:36:02Z

Last Saturday included a combination of things that made me wish that things were done better in general.

( I was annoyed by football fans and other things … )

( … and by further things. )

I just want things to work as they should and I still find it notable they seemed to work rather better back when I was staying in Metro Manila than they do in Glasgow. I know, I should be part of the solution but this is my journal so I can moan when I like when things don't go smoothly.

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Accessing His Majesty's Government services online

2025-12-20T15:23:47Z

My goodness, all I wanted to do was set up e-mail reminders of vehicle tax, which I'd already managed to pay online. I already have my Government Gateway login details all set up, etc. But, no, I had to go through a whole other palaver involving setting up my GOV.UK One Login mobile app with a new account and photo ID and suchlike, before I could set up those reminders.

I'll give it to them that at least they don't change the system every year but a smoother migration to whatever the critical new functionality is than just set up an entirely new account would be appreciated.

(Of course, I have a separate login for the Scottish Government but that seems reasonable. Accessing any US Federal Government services is a pain without a US cellphone number.)

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Scattershot update

2025-12-03T16:22:49Z

I took a few days off work, I'm back in the office this Friday. My time off has kept me rather busy with all manner of unexpected things, to some extent that looks to continue. To give one example, on the evening before Thanksgiving, with a raw turkey marinating, there is a large puff of smoke, the power breakers trip, and our electric oven appears to die. Fortunately, the top element for grilling still seems to work, with which R. coaxed us a turkey after all. The new oven arrives this weekend, when we'll see if we can replace the fitted oven ourselves or if we fall back to summoning a tradesperson. Also, for making one of the pies: canned pumpkin seems to have largely disappeared from the general supermarkets, we ended up ordering that from Amazon.

Not wanting to bother with VPNs and Peacock and such, I usually find one of the free Thanksgiving parade streams that shows the centre of the action from some other city than New York. I think it may have been Philadelphia or somesuch last year, this year I stumbled upon Chicago's, not the best choice as it turned out to heavily promote some sponsor's product for cleaning up fæces.

Among other things keeping me busy, today I did my office desk booking for the rest of the month, and tomorrow we are to get our SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations: I seem to have found local Moderna which costs us £85 each but the risks are too high to not do this at least occasionally.

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This morning's commute

2025-10-28T22:18:29Z

I still see new things from the railway carriage, or at least things I forgot seeing previously. This morning I saw some fields that had actual scarecrows. I wonder how effective they are.

I also saw somebody leave their bag on the seat beside them when we stopped at a station and people boarded to find a seat. I used to have a list of ways that drivers annoyed me but it grew so long it seemed a bad idea; I shan't start a railway passenger annoyance list.

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Pulling teeth from railway operators

2025-10-27T13:21:10Z

Late one evening back in July, I boarded a CrossCountry train at Edinburgh Waverley that then failed to proceed further. In the end, my journey was delayed by an hour so, under the Delay Repay scheme, I was supposed to be eligible for a refund.

CrossCountry's claim process wanted a QR code and and a ticket number. Unfortunately, I was using one of their flexi season tickets in their mobile app, which prevents screenshots, and the day's ticket wholly disappears once the day is done. So, I asked their customer service people how I can claim. I asked several times and got no useful response at all.

Eventually, I fell back to an effective last resort: post them a paper letter. This triggered a slow sequence of back and forth by e-mail but, last week, they finally paid me my refund. It's absurd that it took three months, and probably cost them as much to deal with me as the £7.55 they paid me, but I still don't have my answer as to how people with those tickets are supposed to claim.

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Venting about Labour's immigration policies

2025-10-04T16:20:57Z

My recent entries make it easy to predict what I think of His Majesty's Government's proposals surrounding indefinite leave to remain. Perhaps I should have been clearer: it's not just that we need immigrants, it's that we are already hostile to them, they were never the real problem, yet the government seems happy to go along with the narrative that they are, perhaps because they make for a convenient scapegoat. I can understand that, in a democracy, the government might be a bit leery of trying to introduce sections of the electorate to reality but, inconveniently, reality has a way of determining the outcomes of policies so it would be responsible to face it anyway. In the meantime, innocent people suffer.

A more general theme of incompetence is emerging. For instance, this nonsense about digital identity cards for proving right to work. Could we have a clear problem statement please and an explanation of how this fixes it? There are already largely adequate procedures in place for checking one's right to work, R. and I have enjoyed them again in recent months in starting with a new employer. Is Starmer seriously suggesting that people come over in overcrowded dinghies then produce a convincingly forged birth certificate, or what? There is certainly a black economy issue that needs solving but how this proposal makes a whit of difference to it remains far from clear to me.

Is the government meant to be sounding this clueless, this soon into a term in which it has a large majority? If only any of them had the spine of, say, the late Robin Cook. At least Corbyn seemed to care more about people than votes. Could we perhaps swap the current lot for any group that has the courage to admit what the actual problems are (apart from, that the right-wing media has the bigots riled up again) and suggest anything that might usefully address them? Bonus points for having some compassion. I may have had some scorn for Labour at times but I didn't expect their pandering to fools to make me angry enough to consider relegating them off the worth considering list. Starmer is turning out to be like Badenoch: the more they say things, the less I like them.

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The cost of family immigration to the UK

2025-09-21T09:36:35Z

I had mentioned our family visa fees. To give a clearer idea of how much the process costs to bring a family member to settle here in the UK, the full route from initial application to citizenship costs well over £8k in fees and well over £5k for NHS access during that period. That's per person, so tripled for R. and two kids. We get a bit of a discount because R.'s youngest is under eighteen but we're still looking on the order of £40k in total, and that's without legal fees which, if we were using a solicitor's team for the process, would probably increase it by half again. Of course, it doesn't cost the government anything like that much to process the applications, the equivalent process in the US is very much cheaper. Still, it strikes me that ability to pay the fees at all should be sufficient evidence of ability to support ourselves without resorting to public funds.

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The state of our things

2025-09-15T18:00:58Z

R. and I sometimes head into Edinburgh on the train for in-office work, sometimes on separate days, sometimes together. Today, R. went in, and I stayed home and helped out with pet care. I hope that I am becoming more productive as I grow more familiar with my employer's codebase. I also look forward to getting around to personal programming projects at home but not quite yet it seems, still I have to figure how and when to fit that in. A task this evening is to schedule our influenza vaccinations. COVID-19 vaccinations are becoming a distant memory, it's a pity our BUPA health insurance doesn't reimburse them.

( Our expensive family visa journey continues. )

I read John Wiswell's Someone You Can Build a Nest In which was gentle and engaging. Whether in science fiction or fantasy, I always enjoy insight into a fairly non-human character. Definitely a nice enough way to pass the time. (Though, R. noted that it is far more gory than I had noticed, somehow that all passed me by.) I might be running out of television to watch, though. There is a bit more Chief of War left but it is far more buttocks than smiles and R. noted arrant ahistoricity in the portrayal of Zamboanga (languages, buildings, clothing). We are giving The Mayfair Witches a try on Netflix, R. read the books long ago.

A local Tesco Express convenience store has opened quite near us so we have a very handy source of heavily discounted food that must be sold before it turns into a pumpkin, assuming it isn't already one. So, among other things, we found ourselves eating sandwiches recently. With luck, the store will soon correct their loud alarm siren that warns whenever somebody outside walked near the customer entrance.

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Immigration and wealth

2025-08-30T14:34:11Z

Living in Aberdeen, seeing the grand things around the city centre, it was notable that many of them dated from the Victorian era. I suspected it to be no coincidence that the Victorians saw the height of the British Empire's exploitation of its colonies. With the wealth of others, we built our shiny things. The bridge I walk on to work is nineteenth-century.

In the meantime, Britain declines. Local councils now struggle to provide even basic services. The health system is becoming several kinds of joke, despite the dedication of those working within it. Even those graduating with good undergraduate degrees typically can't get a job that pays well enough for them to be soon on the road to buying a house within reach of the job.

Furthermore, our population is aging. As we end up with fewer working people, and more people needing assistance, the situation can only worsen. Given that our history puts us somewhat in others' debt, I would like to imagine that we could kill two birds with one stone: welcome young families from the British Commonwealth so they can live and work here, providing services and paying tax, ideally building new towns and cities too, while probably also sending some money back home to their families.

Of course, what I describe is not far off the immigration policy we had between, er, around WWII and Margaret Thatcher. We've seen how the Windrush generation has been treated since. Further, populist anti-immigrant rhetoric abounds so we're not about to be saved by welcoming workers from overseas. So, what's the plan? We could make domestic families have lots of babies (not that they can afford anywhere to put them) or we can erode the health service far enough to stop the old people from living for too long.

Looking at the high prices, poor services, and xenophobia, I'd be happy to self-deport. However, for the meantime there are kids in education that I don't want to disrupt. Once everybody graduates, I wouldn't fault any of us for moving elsewhere. In the meantime, I can continue to hope and vote for change, both in the UK and the US.

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Keyboard shortcuts and modifiers on the Mac

2025-08-30T09:20:40Z

Given that I am so used to Linux, having a Mac for work always slows me a little. Especially, aspects of the window management and focus ongoingly impede my usual workflows. Another aspect is the keyboard shortcuts. To take a simple example, for cut, copy and paste, where I might be used to control X, C, V on other systems, of course I'm using this command key on the Mac. Except, within Emacs on the Mac, which seems to behave more as I'm used to. Of course, the Mac has a control key too, and it's a common modifier for some other purposes, so I'm often left guessing. For instance, if I recall correctly, in IntelliJ I do use control in pulling up a type hierarchy.

This switching of shortcuts between Linux, Mac, and Emacs-on-Mac is awkward partly because, as above, some of these are quite similar, and I don't yet see a system that helps me remember. Far easier for me was back when I used to use a Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout at work, and regular Qwerty at home, partly because those are just so clearly different. Also, probably it helped that I wasn't switching frequently, just a few times per day.

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Battling with messaging apps

2025-08-17T14:40:03Z

Having accidentally started group chats a few times, I've discovered WhatsApp's awful swipe up to talk. It's really annoying, given that one also swipes up simply to get to the latest in the conversation. I don't yet know if this worked but I've tried removing general microphone permission for the app, in case that restrains this feature.

Previously, working in cryptocurrency I had to have a Telegram account. It's mostly good for scammers and spammers. Recently, I kept finding myself being added to people's groups for random dodgy work tasks. I've now found some invites setting under privacy and security, which I have tried adjusting in the hope of ending this particular annoyance.

It would be nice if I could find such fixes for Gmail's web interface, which I use at work. Among other things, it's too easy to accidentally do things then too hard to undo them, and it's one of these interfaces that pops some control up right under your mouse pointer after you've moved it so you end up clicking on something that wasn't there a moment before.

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The UK's Online Safety Act: content creators and governmental missteps

2025-08-07T17:24:54Z

After the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation, many smaller US organizations took the simple option of blocking the EU from their websites. It's for that reason I have a US-based web proxy in my back pocket for checking US news from local sources.

Now, the UK's passed the Online Safety Act which seems to be at least as onerous. I was chatting with a creative British person today. There is some website (I didn't ask which) that hosts their writing and art, and it's become inaccessible to them. So, like so many other British people in recent days, they've now subscribed to a VPN service.

The OSA seems to be a deleteriously blunt instrument. Children now seem to be barred (by easily bypassed means) from seeing all kinds of information that, frankly, it's good if they can see.

I am curious to know how this got so far without being stopped. It certainly says something poor about the powers that be, that pressure to do something resulted in pushing through legislation that had been widely warned about by many. It's not at all unique, we even had the Clinton administration trying to push the Clipper chip, but this example seems to be turning out unusually badly.

The Labour government had already burned up its honeymoon period but they still make unforced errors that the Conservatives make hay from. Amid all this, we also get to watch the Chancellor square the circle they've painted themselves into (with the Conservatives' help). An outbreak of political competence would make a welcome change.

Update: Very shortly after posting this, I read of moves in the EU to resurrect efforts to prevent communications from being wholly private.

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Commuting and retirement planning

2025-07-29T17:54:22Z

Just on my walk to work this morning, twice I had to dodge tourist groups blocking the entire pavement. I thought that I had avoided this in escaping Cambridge, England, but apparently not. Not being attired for leisure, I occasionally have people ask me for help with local navigation. At least, a no-steps route at the Edinburgh end worked well for me today and took little longer. I don't feel enormously steady on many-steps and can experience some vertigo so it would seem foolish to make a frequent habit of them.

In considering the prospect of moving house a little south, it occurred to me that Glasgow's buses are best avoided and the south-side trains will go up to Central, not Queen Street from where the better Edinburgh trains depart. If I want an easy commute, it behooves me to remain near a subway station from which I can easily transfer at Buchanan to Queen Street. I wonder if there is any prospect of finding a garden flat (so better for L. the dog) in our youngest's school catchment area within easy reach of the subway; it seems a tall order.

At the last part of my way home tonight, I stop to pick up the car from a local car park. I left my parking space clear because the electricians are fixing a light above it. I did so on a previous day when there was word of their arrival, on which they helpfully spent their time partly on other activities that did not require cars to have been moved. So, second time lucky, one hopes. That first was a while ago, their work was interrupted by an unexpected-by-us holiday on their part.

Pensions guys presented to us at work and got me to thinking: I have a mountain of debt at a reasonable APR and I am in a high income tax bracket. I don't have much in pension savings so old-me will be in a low tax bracket. I expect that my debt grows faster than my pension. However, I can pay pre-tax money into my pension. So, better to direct spare post-tax money toward the debt or pre-tax into the pension? I wonder if a cranking of approximate numbers yields an obvious correct answer. It would be nice to not think about secondary factors like less debt means better APRs or that I can deduct paid mortgage interest from my US taxes.

Years ago I implemented a composable simulation language into which, were it handy now, I could easily plug these questions for a year-by-year simulation. Back when working on demonstrating that technology's application to financial planning, I was amused that such inevitably led to the question, when do you plan to die?, so this pensions question is a nice exception in that I can simply optimize for starting far-off retirement in the best position.

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Cross-season cliffhangers, again

2025-07-19T18:48:46Z

Now Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back with us, I was reminded by the first episode that apparently something is going on. Lots happened and we are in the middle of something and I forgot so much that I didn't even realize we were still with the … well, the relevant alien race. As it is, I started off mostly being happy that I kind of recognized most of the regular crew and had half an idea who most were. At least it mostly made sense as it went on.

Regular readers will know that this isn't the first time I've mentioned this issue. It's been happening at least as far back as the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise which they ended in the middle of some plot involving time travel and changing the timeline and whatnot which I had no hope of jumping right back into so very many months later. Still, goodness, why are the programme makers still doing this? Or is it just me who starts the new season finding myself in the middle of some long-forgotten multi-threaded plot?

At least, the consolation is that, had such shows been cancelled, I wouldn't have been troubled by the lack of resolution because I didn't remember what was going on anyway.

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Miscellany

2025-07-17T18:10:29Z

Again, a small update with unconnected trivia:

Some while ago, I noted that I should read Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. (I never attach actual reasons to such notes.) I finally got around to starting it and found the story to increasingly match details of a series we had started recently on Netflix. R. helpfully reminded me that the latter's named … The Secret Agent. The plots don't match each other wholly; I have yet to learn how far they diverge.

Previously, I read Iain Banks' Raw Spirit, a book about travelling around Scotland trying different whiskies. I had not read it before, the subject matter not greatly appealing to me. Still, I am glad I did: it was generally entertaining, and mixed whisky notes with driving and car thoughts, also tellings of all manner of anecdotes. It is strange to get a sense of the author from his quite personal writing, and to have him travel so many now-familiar places, given that he passed away some time ago. Belatedly, I get to know a local whom I shall never meet.

Last weekend, R. and I went camping with our dog L. It was a rather hot weekend, which R. found draining. I was surprised not to have to wrap up very well overnight. On the first evening, I managed to slip on loose moss and face-plant onto a rock; I still sport a fine black eye. Also, my leg remains rather stiff, I suppose it will sort itself out in time.

My in-the-office days continue to be tiring. Annoyingly, I remain in a poor position to use the transit time well: I feel up to reading people's journals here, etc., and the free newspaper on the train home, but little more. I often feel fairly tired and just want to rest instead. Perhaps cooler weather will help, or I will get more used to the new routine. Until now, I hadn't had much of a commute since high school and my previous two jobs were wholly remote. In my last couple of years of school, I got into the habit of napping on the bus home.

( I grumble about Uber. )

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Miscellany

2025-07-05T19:05:58Z

It has been some days since I made an entry here. While R. works on making some ube (purple yam) cake, I can write up and share various tidbits. R. is pleased to have found salted duck eggs at a good price earlier today in what passes as the closest area Glasgow might have to a Chinatown.

( I watched some science fiction. )

I found myself in an odd mood for more mellow electronica lately, Alexa managed to play me things like Synergy's Ancestors and Jean-Michel Jarre's Computer Weekend without getting songs mixed up.

eBay irritated me. I bought two of an item, then found ( it difficult to request a refund for one, then the other. )

At work it's interesting to see how I have a pattern of afternoon meetings at the moment, given that I work closely with US-based colleagues, though we do also have engineers in Pune. Back at Zilliqa my meetings tended to be in the mornings, as I worked with people in the Middle East and Asia.

( I found that I have various money, and I read some science fiction. )

( I am still experimenting with commuting for days that I work on-site. )

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Rating online purchases of fungible items

2025-06-28T15:52:43Z

I bought some plain black shoelaces through eBay, as part of my effort to buy not-Amazon where I easily can. eBay would now like me to take a two-minute survey about my experience. I really don't think I have that much to say: the shoelaces turned up in an envelope, they were entirely as expected, I laced my shoes accordingly. There was no disappointment, surprise or delight at any point. It's rather like when I buy, say, some screws, and a little bag of screws turns up, and it feels a stretch to ascribe superlative excellence to any part of the experience. Any missing stars in a rating is taken as suggesting some problem, which leaves no room for giving extra credit for those times when a purchase truly exceeds expectations.

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A first week at work

2025-06-20T20:22:52Z

I survived my first week at work. I went on-site in Edinburgh for the first three days, initially picking up my shiny new MacBook M4 Pro running Sequoia. The office turns out to be a pleasant dog-friendly space with the amenities one might hope for. Being a hybrid worker, I book desk space when I need it from the hot-desking pool. The desks are motorized adjustable desks that can become standing desks. There are very many onboarding things to do over the coming weeks, a lot to do and learn, and plenty of friendly, helpful people to meet. Despite the open-plan layout, it's not too hard to focus, not very distracting.

As usual, there's some wrestling with the Mac but, in all fairness, plenty of things did just work quite well. The most obvious wrestling was the usual: Mac users love to see things in blurry-text. Okay, all the problems I ran into this week arise because I have the temerity to plug the Mac into non-Apple hardware. For instance, the external monitors on the desks have low pixel density and recent versions of the OS have removed useful options for fixing that. I was able to solve the blur by installing iTerm2 and unchecking Anti-Aliased. For working from home, other pending issues include it applying the wrong keymap for my external keyboard and imposing some godawful acceleration on my scroll-wheel but they're in progress, I want to get some actual work done too.

Nice though the office environment is, being in transit for at least three hours per day makes me appreciate fully remote work: Wednesday felt as if it should already be Friday. I am currently taking the more expensive option: subway over to Queen Street, and the frequent faster trains aren't as crowded as I'd heard, quite tolerable. (Work has provided my laptop a privacy screen to limit viewing angle.) My current route to the office includes climbing the 124 News Steps which means I get the hardest part of my workday out of the way at the start. The bus would be cheapest except I'd probably want extra bus to and from the stations: at each end, the bus station is further than the railway. A compromise might be the limited rail ticket: I'd end up working long days but could probably just walk at both ends around the intercity portion. Belatedly, I also wonder if I should be masking for the railway journey: perhaps it's outstandingly the riskiest among my habits.

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Speculating on where to settle someday

2025-06-09T08:42:49Z

I have probably mentioned my disappointment in various British things. We can't manage anything from easily accessed healthcare to reliable rubbish collection. Hearing even the Labour government talk about reducing carer visas, not taking trans rights seriously, etc. really doesn't augur well.

Of course, we nearly ended up living in the US instead, which is even more of a dumpster fire given the lasting damage from the current administration. Both countries' officials seem unwilling to take on the task of responsible governance, instead we see performative policy that harms people without making any real sense.

I got to wondering: after the kids are grown and educated, perhaps we could go somewhere else? I took a look online on where people say is welcoming to immigrants and, ha ha, dismissed any list that includes the UK or the US.

The Scottish summer is currently cool and rainy. R. would be glad not to return to the hot humidity of the tropics. I like to think that we can find some middle ground.

In looking into what the options might be, I discovered that Spain's digital nomad visa could easily allow me and R. to live there someday. Then, we may be on an accelerated path because of the (colonial guilt) agreement that allows R. to qualify for Spanish citizenship more quickly. We would remain within easy reach of our children if they remain in Britain.

I have never been to Spain and know little about it. The language would certainly challenge me: it would be a considerable success if I could come to speak intelligibly, even with a dreadful accent. Nevertheless, as idle fantasies go, it is an interesting one to consider so perhaps I should try to reduce my ignorance in coming years. At a glance, reading about the current protests in Madrid seems an exciting start.

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