Mark Carroll's Journal

A small update

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 16:17:13 GMT

It's been difficult for me to get around to much lately around the day-to-day needs so here's a small slice of latest events. First, the weather's been glorious lately, it almost makes it feel okay to live in Glasgow; I could get used to this. Yesterday, we took our dog L. over to Glasgow Green and today I still hope we get to bring him for a walk along the Clyde.

Recently, we got coffee with R.'s childhood friend and their partner: they were passing through Glasgow, which was great. It is interesting to see here somebody who lived so near R. far away and long ago.

Yesterday, R. observed that our mattress really isn't great in how it transmits disturbance on one side of it over to the other. So, this morning we headed to IKEA to replace our VALEVÅG pocket-sprung mattress with an ÅNNELAND hybrid mattress. I was skeptical about how well we would be able to fold our old mattress and fit it into the car but R. led and it all worked out. The council waste centre was rather busy on a sunny weekend afternoon but there was parking near the mattresses and, with the help of R.'s sons, the mattress replacement is now complete.

We also stopped at Sainsbury's, which is near IKEA. It's one of the more pleasant supermarkets to shop in: the aisles are generally wide and the self-scanning handheld device's UI isn't annoying.

I realized that I've generally been sleeping rather well for quite some time now. I think it may be the change in job: having dropped a couple of grades in responsibility, going from leading teams to taking Jira tickets, the stress is reduced commensurately.

On not-in-office days, I've been using the cross-trainer more often than not. I am pleased to be achieving this change in habits. My calf is a bit sore but, as always, ignoring an issue seems to work fine: if I don't use it as an excuse not to exercise then the exercise tends not to make it any worse. My eating has not been anywhere near modest enough but the food has been tasty so, well, there's that.

At work, I have an on-site visit in NYC coming up and I have already checked that the hotel also has a cross-trainer. It will be interesting to try getting between Newark Airport and Penn Station by rail: it looks easily achieved but is a new experience for me. We do have business Uber but I got on so badly with the Uber app and their customer service that I am happy to avoid it.

Often, I've felt as if my body and mind were moving through molasses: I can do what I must but everything's effort, whether mental or physical. More recently, that's happened less. It seems premature to link the improvement with exercising but time might tell.

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Miscellany

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 16:27:22 GMT

Today is my first day of leave from work for over the Christmas break. This morning we sent the boys off back home to Asia to visit family, now it's just me and R. I am relaxing on the sofa with our dog L. while R. brings some sanity to the kitchen storage. I already feel my headspace increasing and have been getting some small postponed things done. Many more await.

I am quite good at sleeping. Given the opportunity, I can do plenty of it. This morning, I dreamt we lived somewhere else and I spied a sizable swirly unnatural-looking Weather Thing approaching, and turned to R. to strongly suggest that we leave the house now and drive elsewhere.

Again, I thought back to high school where one of my math teachers figured Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of a regular dodecahedron and, looking at one, I wonder what the straightforward strategy is for doing that. I like to think that enough staring and turning would help make it clearer. Now, this is where I wish I had a large desktop system with lots of PCI-e slots for used RTX 3090's or somesuch: it's the kind of thing I'm happy to try idly chatting to some opensource LLM about. It's not as if anything's riding on the answer. Perhaps they're rather better at classic book suggestions than anything analytic though.

I also got to wonder about mobile telephony. ( How might routing work? )

My mention of idly chatting to LLMs reminds me, I have three sizable pending purchases in mind: such a desktop AI system, a small laptop for use while commuting, and a cross-trainer. The interesting question is how to prioritize them though clearly the first there should actually be last while I cross my fingers for the bubble bursting. Also, I'm reluctant to spend too freely until I'm more ahead of the higher-interest debt.

In the meantime, I've found that, as usual, BBC iPlayer didn't exactly help me discover that there's recent Later… with Jools Holland to provide me with a somewhat alternative musical backdrop, albeit a considerably mixed bag of such. I've been enjoying ex-BBC's Stereo Underground recently which is also nicely varied. Given that it often plays the music of my childhood, it makes me wonder: I think of all the energy of especially some of the more punk-ish songs, and how exciting life seemed to me at the time, especially with books filling my head with new intellectual worlds to wrestle with. There's something there I'd be interested to recapture, about possibility and choice, about who I am and what I pursue. I may not quite know which destinations make sense but one of the many wonderful things about R. is how supportive they are.

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Recovering from the infection, returning to work

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 03:34:11 GMT

My illness ran the usual course of a cold, though it took its time somewhat. From yesterday, my head felt rather clearer, even though I still had plenty of physical symptoms. So, I could work, and felt like doing other things too, rather than just sitting and resting. I still have some congestion and a sore throat but they're just inconvenient, I don't feel anywhere near as rotten.

I'll head into the office today. Because of other things going on at home, e.g., I have a dental appointment on Friday morning, today would end up being my only day onsite this week, so I want to go in at least sometime, and in recovery I would think I am well past being infectious.

I am up in the middle of the night because something happened with the toilet cistern so it wouldn't stop filling. I don't know how it gets into that mode, it's easy enough to remedy temporarily, but anything non-trivial in the middle of the night wakes me up. What annoying timing, I already didn't feel great and now I get to be sleep-deprived before commuting for a full day in another city.

I'd feel better if I were already more productive at work. It feels as if I take a while to get to grips with each aspect of what they do and my colleagues already have much of that familiarity. And, whenever it feels like I'm getting nearer finished with a task, it becomes apparent that actually I am not. Nobody's said, goodness, you're dangerously slow here, what's your issue? but I feel it plenty just from myself.

Part of it is getting used to Java again but more of it that I have never used some of their frameworks (my relevant background is mostly Hibernate and Spring) and I am still learning how their code is arranged, and how people like things to be done. It's certainly clear that my intuition often doesn't match others', sometimes quite strongly; each time I misjudge that, more time is wasted. I don't see why I won't get there in the end but, a couple of months in now, I would already rather like to be contributing better than I am. In the meantime, I'll keep on plodding through, and hoping that others remain more patient with me than I am with myself.

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Coming down with an infection

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 09:46:05 GMT

I have been frustrated that I am not yet more rapidly productive at work. Yesterday was another example but my legs started off achy and, as the day wore on, it became clearer that I was coming down with some kind of a cold, and that my throat was not feeling good. Then, I didn't feel sleepy last night and stayed up late.

In the end, I slept. This morning, I woke up feeling quite rotten, especially my head, so I got out of bed in search of medicines and drinks. Having rested, I now feel a little better. I have even taken a bath and now feel up to actually dressing instead of lying around in my pyjamas.

At least we didn't have grand plans for this weekend. I expect to be feeling somewhat improved by Monday.

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Back to camping

Mon, 12 May 2025 17:28:53 GMT

We returned to camping last weekend and were quite lucky with the weather, the loch looked beautiful on our first morning and we saw small fish in the shallows. I am out of shape or just worn out though, I was very appreciative of having limited duties with the teardown in particular. I slept well, wrapped in my sleeping bag inside a sleeping bag atop a new air mattress. The sunny afternoons could be warm but the nights still get chilly. While different absolutely, I was reminded of the relative cooling when I was outside Tucson in the desert after night fell. In a different life, I might have ended up living in a trailer in the Sonoran Desert but that's something the multiverse can explore on my behalf. R. is excellent at organizing our camping, I am lucky to get to follow their lead.

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A nap then a walk

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 16:11:42 GMT

My sleep has not been great. Today, I awoke before 5am then was distracted by a tedious work issue with Discord and crypto wallets and suchlike. Unusually for me, I went back to sleep later in the morning, on our drawing room sofa. Our dog L. pawed at me sometimes, R. wonders if because worried by snoring, but I fell back to sleep each time.

What awoke me properly was what seemed to be a good few hundred Sikhs, we have quite a centrally located flat and their nagar keertan, with walking and music, passed by outside. I had not realized that Vaisakhi has come so I got up to see what was going on.

While I slept, R. had made lunch. After that, we took L. walking on Glasgow Green where there were even a few people sunbathing. We have been enjoying quite the unexpected consistent bout of sunny weather. Sometimes there is a cold wind too but today we were spared.

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Some lucky astronomy

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 17:48:11 GMT

It was rather cloudy here for today's partial solar eclipse but, fortunately, the relevant important moon-finding fellow in the Middle East apparently sighted the crescent in time so the new month starts and we get to celebrate Eid al-Fitr tomorrow, also I don't need to call the school on Monday to explain an absence. As summer time (daylight savings) starts this weekend, we were looking at breaking our fast at 7pm tonight but 8pm tomorrow. Now, tomorrow we get to eat instead.

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Developing software piecemeal

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 06:52:13 GMT

My programming at work recently has mostly followed a familiar sequence. For each component,

figure out how to make it work

for a missing piece, write its code, rinse and repeat

test and debug it.

Having finished that third step on Wednesday for a new page in a webapp, I am now in the midst of the second step for a related backend service.

The second step is hardest on my sleep when I think about detail of what to do next and just want to get up and do it. It is also the most interesting with its rinse and repeat in that, even if I do not start with a complete picture, if I keep filling in the next piece that I see that I need then eventually I end up having done them all. Sometimes, I find myself building a scaffold of increasing abstraction, such that I build pieces that enable other pieces to be built more easily: earlier pieces make the shape of other pieces clearer and simpler. Fortunately, it always seems that if any pieces remain to be done then at least one of them has a clear path forward, so they all get done in the end.

It made sense to complete my work on the webapp component first because the product and user experience people can test and improve it while I work on the less visible and interactive facets of the project. Further, the component I am working on now isn't strictly required for launch as long as it follows soon afterward. I expect to be able to finish it this coming week.

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A pleasant trip to the office

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 17:44:33 GMT

Yesterday, I headed into our Edinburgh office for the first time since moving to Glasgow. Technically I am wholly remote but I like to show my face occasionally if possible, there are empty desks for visitors. There are many trains between the two cities, and the express trains take less than an hour, it turned out to be a pleasant, easy journey. I walked through Princes Street Gardens on the way to the office, and I stayed after work to socialize before heading back home. It is most welcome to see colleagues now and again and it was noted that I have been employed with them for a year. Luck held well enough for me to avoid heavy rain. The day may have tired me out: I slept late this morning and felt lethargic afterward.

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A busy day

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 21:55:58 GMT

I have been sleeping a little too late, falling asleep after midnight and rising after 9h. My schedule is more naturally more like a rather early 22h to 6h so I have some adjustment yet to do. I shall get there, especially as, next month, I'll have a child here to help get out to high school in the mornings. I'll have to figure a way to designate the various kids in this journal, I had my other two over yesterday.

Anyhow, I overslept this morning and R. helpfully called me and I managed to get the car in for its booked recall work in reasonable time. Oddly, they didn't call me back for pickup, I guess it's running into tomorrow. I did remind them to actually note my telephone number. The loaner is a Honda Jazz of the same generation as mine so it required no introduction.

I attended to three work tasks and am glad to have gotten them done: I sorted out some diagrams and their generation, I adjusted how database configuration responds to command-line options, and I addressed a couple of unrelated issues that had been making continuous integration fail on that previous.

We also turned further attention to relocation preparation, such as the acquisition of warmer attire for arrivals from the tropics.

I ran three laundry loads and caught up on rather belated washing up, which isn't as bad as it sounds because I at least rinse the dishes promptly.

Feeling rather busy, and finding that frozen fish may not have survived too many months in the freezer, I opted for an easy, quick lunch of canned chicken jalfrezi with a piece of toast, followed by a Fry's Turkish Delight.

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Returned to Scotland

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 22:47:27 GMT

My return to Scotland went approximately to plan. ( I set off from Metro Manila, )

( connected through Dubai, )

( on Emirates, )

( then traipsed across Scotland. )

Once home, I headed out to Spar for easy food and basic groceries. Then, I slept for over ten hours.

Update: amended with strikethrough to correct for my fallible memory

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Emotion in dreams; erratic sleep

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 09:41:16 GMT

Typically, I am unusually emotionless in my dreams. At most, I will feel tension while infiltrating one of the facilities of the alien invaders. To take a couple of recent examples from dreams, when my passport was stolen shortly before a trip, I was simply irritated and made a mental note to call the consulate about emergency travel papers. And, when the curtains closed before I got there to close them, I merely wondered if I were unexpectedly telekinetic and had a go at consciously trying to remotely close the curtains in the next room as I approached those, which didn't work. However, last night, in a dream that involved my helping to keep some practical issues straight with our time machine, when we were a few decades back in the past, I was briefly overcome with emotion when asked if I might wish to contact anybody in that time period.

I may be remembering more dreams because my sleep has become irregular. I suspect that I am coping worse with external influences on my schedule. I fall asleep easily but don't sleep the whole night, instead taking a supplementary nap rather later on.

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Not reading enough

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:41:27 GMT

While I find it difficult to find further books that I want to try reading, partly because of the tendency of modern science fiction and fantasy to expect me to invest in reading many thousands of pages to reach any real resolution, there are still some books on my to-try list, ranging from Stephen King's The Stand to N. K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and I don't even get around to them. I used to read a lot but, in recent years, not so much.

This morning I wondered further about that. After all, I also watch less television, the time isn't going there instead. And, I've worked full-time rather consistently ever since first graduating. One thing I realized is, one factor may be that I am using public transport less. Books or Kindle are excellent for daily bus rides. Now, I don't even borrow from the library for, say, my flight to Manila this weekend. To start with, long-haul travel quickly makes me feel too tired to read, though not sleepy enough to sleep. Further, I am typically away for longer than the library return period for books.

I also realized that my memory has faded enough on a few books that were worth reading that I also have some re-reading to catch up on, they are safe bets as I already know them to be worth it. With luck, the books I own will finally arrive from the US at the end of this week. Still, by the time I have wrapped up the day's work, done the washing up, caught up on the day's news, attended to a couple of domestic or administrative chores, and chatted to R., it's getting about time for bed.

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Disappointing political parties

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:26:37 GMT

This morning, I wondered if the UK Conservative leadership are deceptive or^* ignorant; I concluded that, despite Hanlon's Razor, they probably share the current US Republicans' tendency toward the former. Having often felt somewhat to the right of many of my friends, I surprise myself in also feeling even somewhat left of Labour these days. My father opined that people move rightward as they grow older. If they do, the parties seem to be outpacing me.

Decades ago, I had the sense that, politicians may get it wrong but at least they were often at least trying to find their way to good policy. Recent decades have made it increasingly difficult to extend such benefit of the doubt. Well, I'll credit much of the US Democratic Party with that I believe they genuinely want impoverished minorities not to suffer then die, but that feels a low bar.

Maybe I just need a bit more sleep, I awoke somewhat prematurely this morning. Things may seem rosier then …

^*One may suspect and.

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A good day at work

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 22:18:40 GMT

New jobs are always an interesting challenge for me. For the job I took in moving to Scotland, I am eager to perform well but have been wrestling with a variety of technologies that are new to me and poorly documented. An additional impediment has been my working from Apple silicon instead of Linux x64.

Today I faced some sparse third-party documentation and used it to write and push some half-plausible code. This is most pleasing and feels like a turning point toward actual productivity. While I appreciate the faith shown by those who hired me, I do like to reassure them by tangible work product that they chose well.

Working nights from Metro Manila complicates the task a little but not too badly. Last night (afternoon) was unusually restless for me but, on finding myself rather awake, I simply got some work done. I didn't feel too bad after R. kindly let me sleep through to nearly 9pm before I started my workday properly.

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Reaching the end of transitions

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 20:40:49 GMT

Over the past couple of days I went through the long inventory from the letting agent, provided feedback accordingly, and submitted a maintenance request for the more serious issues with the flat; they'll stop over tomorrow to take a look. I also unpacked and set up the printer and scanner I bought, enabling various other administrivia like finally getting my 2021 taxes ready for submission, also my overseas voter registration. I feel silly for having arranged things so that, once my shipment arrives, I shall have two scanners and printers, but it's difficult not to have either with all the things people want me to sign and suchlike, including another form from the movers. Other chores included minor matters like sorting out my final account with the Oak Ridge city utilities, canceling the insurance on my sold house, trying out the laptop computer from my new employer, etc.

At least I am moving on to the less urgent tasks, things like registering with the doctor, dentist, library, finishing up the remaining address changes, etc. I still notice good things about being back here, everything from that retail stores quote prices inclusive of tax, to that I am again welcome to give blood. However, I am still working on getting to bed soon enough, my current plan is to close the curtains earlier, even though I love to see outdoors. The latitude makes the evening far lighter than it should be this late and I think it's fooling me into staying up late, just as the mild Tennessee winters fooled me into not lighting log fires.

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A very lazy weekend

Mon, 30 May 2022 22:23:56 GMT

I have plenty to do but I can't say that I did much of it this long weekend. I have had some moderately late nights and, unusually for me, even took over an hours' nap after my large lunch today. There is useful stuff I could, perhaps should, have done, but didn't make any concerted efforts. I like to tell myself that maybe I just needed the break. The warm weather may be a factor.

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Another early morning

Thu, 12 May 2022 09:23:36 GMT

My home telephone and cellphone each respond to both a US number and a UK number. Of course, there is always somebody who doesn't read the note about what these are and when to call. Having had days of recruiters calling before 5am, I now move on to letting agents doing likewise. We shall see how many of these need to be told repeatedly. In these trying times, the sleep would have been especially welcome.

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Recovering from jet lag

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 13:47:19 GMT

The twelve-hour time zone change is interesting. Last night, I got a fair bit of sleep, from around 8pm to 3am. Over coming nights, I suppose that it will slowly slip later to return me back to normal.

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Daylight hours

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 13:19:55 GMT

I do not welcome the arrival of daylight saving time. Actually seeing some daylight helps human brains to wake up in the morning, and I get up early enough to shower, eat, commute, etc. in time to park at work at around 8h. Now I get to do that early stumbling about when it's wholly dark outside and year-round daylight savings would make that even worse for winter. A darker evening is good if it helps me to become sleepier earlier. I hope not to have to shift my arrival at work into even more darkness as campus repopulates in the apparent aftermath of the pandemic that isn't actually over, we'll see how the queue of vehicles at the security perimeter develops in length.

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Sleep, dreams, reality, and online banking

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 11:36:46 GMT

This morning is unusual in that I noticed something from the real world affecting my dream. I dreamed that I was somewhere around Boston, using Google Maps on my cellphone to navigate a fictional instance of the rail network, when my real cellphone alarm went off and, for a moment, I thought that the alarm was on the dream-cellphone.

I set a 6h alarm even for Sunday because the consistency makes the Monday alarm far more palatable when it comes. Annoyingly, this morning was one upon which I awoke prematurely then did not easily fall back to sleep although, in the end, I must have, given that I was caught dreaming.

Incidentally, thinking of cellphones: I shall soon close my account with Virgin Money. Apparently, online banking is not an option, and I trust mobile operating system security so little that I do not want to use a personal banking app. I had already closed an account with Clydesdale Bank for similar reasons. With luck, this isn't a trend. I would consider a two-factor-only or read-only app but not a general banking app.

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Getting back to actually doing more

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 16:38:24 GMT

I look forward to this year with my house being in better shape, bringing me nearer the things I want to do in it. I am most eager to do various software (outside work) and music. I would like to indulge in board games, foreign languages, reading, writing, drawing, but I don't right now see when, I must be realistic about having to push at least some activities aside. After all, it may be more important to make time for exercise and meditation, also finally sorting and sharing old family photographs. How people fit in much at all outside sleep, paid work, food, chores, correspondence, personal hygiene, I still don't know. I have the annual treat of my tax filing coming up soon and, now some time into winter, I have yet to split the firewood. Further, for over an hour before bed, I need to unwind and relax, just watch some television or something, not even read anything too stimulating, else I shan't be able to fall asleep quickly.

What is clear is that my most precious resource at this point is time. I am already variously capable, I should be sure to do things with that rather than just preparing for future things. It's partly a case of making priorities that I can genuinely embrace and of summoning the willpower to make the habit of doing the things I want to, and that's easier if they are mostly things I truly care about. Thoughts drawn from few different sources make me suspect that I should work on being consciously engaged with my environment and circumstances, not just drifting through life passively on autopilot, killing time with my head in the clouds.

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Thoughts between sleep and wakefulness

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 16:12:39 GMT

When I am trying to fall asleep, I know that it is close when my thoughts become very strange and unreal, as if my dreaming is already starting. This morning, I was interested to notice that this was also true as I remained in bed for a while after awakening, experiencing similar strange thoughts, like imaginative daydreaming. It is not long after my thoughts turn to reality that I feel inclined to arise.

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Situation and progress

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 01:19:02 GMT

A few years ago I mentioned how I side with the minority here in placing the start of fall at the start of September. Again, it fits: lately the house has been mid-seventies, the air conditioning hasn't much cut in. Still, it was pleasant and sunny. I may even have mowed the yard had I slept better last night, or not eaten too much pizza for lunch. My weight had again dipped enough for me to briefly indulge in unrestrained consumption which, today, included a spinach feta pizza from Domino's. They're reliably quite good and my local branch is walkable, though not such that I want to walk there for carryout. I also ate a small butterscotch meringue pie. They are a little sweet for me, and I do rather like lemon, but I am also partial to butterscotch and those were the meringues significantly discounted.

Progress on the house is painful. More urgent issues involve leaks and drainage, for obvious reasons, also finishing the floors, for livability. With my now paying out of disposable income, everything else with the house, and there is yet plenty, probably has to wait for next year. I am coming to terms with this, it still gets me down. I think it is part of why I have not been getting much done lately on the domestic front.

Work is coming back under control. Practically, I am settled into a routine, with desk setup and meals and the like. My attention is mostly on three projects, on all of which I can try to make progress this coming week. The C++ project involves instrumenting existing code, the Java one is a web portal, the Python one is on deep learning. Soon I expect to be down to two on-site days per week. Recently I attempted to use an evolutionary algorithm, mutation guided by biases, to optimize spiking neural networks that I was using as classifiers of input sequences; they worked on easy problems but not on harder ones, so more investigation is indicated. I find that my work laptop has two USB C Thunderbolt connectors and the monitors provided me have, more or less, a dock built into the back of each. Linux support for such now seems decent.

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Writing software for GPUs

Sat, 07 Aug 2021 10:38:55 GMT

Using eight-bit microcomputers in my childhood, I became comfortable with programming at a low level, using assembler to manipulate the memory-mapped state of various microchips. In my working life, I have done some other programming with concurrent and distributed systems. Given that my current workplace runs many tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs), I figured that I ought to learn how to program those. My initial steps have been interesting and fun.

In one of my work projects, I found that I could use and instrument OpenCL-based applications on compute nodes based on the AMD MI100 GPU. Using the Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU on my work laptop, I have dipped my toes in the water with writing my own OpenCL-based code which appears to work and make sense. There is still plenty more for me to learn but it transpires that this is a domain in which I enjoy working. I wonder if there is a way to write kernels at a lower level than OpenCL C while remaining somewhat portable.

I can tell that my small project is engaging me because, after working on it a little over yesterday evening, still learning basic lessons like to use cl_int for ints that I am passing to my kernel, subsequently I thought of two changes that I want to make to my toy code and, after a night's sleep, I appear to have thought of six more. My brain appears to welcome this project, now I just have to find a GPU programming project at work. Next year, continuing the theme of accelerators, perhaps I could then tackle field-programmable gate arrays, of which we have fewer.

Incidentally, the Khronos Group's logo reminds me a little of Dreamwidth's though I suppose that Debian's is closer.

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