Vaguely generic update

If it seems like I haven’t posted here much lately then you’re right. Here’s a few bits and pieces I thought I’d share.

Nix & NixOS

I’ve been learning a lot about nix (the package manager) and NixOS (the Linux distribution) lately, and enjoying the consistency and stability it brings. The whole machine’s setup and my user config can all be specified in nixlang and applied reproducibly and consistently on multiple computers. The configuration is declarative: instead of specifying the steps to configure the system (install this package, modify that file) I specify the desired state of the system (these packages are available, these apps are configured like this) and nix updates the actual state accordingly. I can also specify isolated, reproducible environments for individual projects, and deploy services to the cloud, using the same tooling. The language grammar is simple, but the way it’s interpreted takes a bit of getting used to and I’m finding my appreciation of its elegance growing as I understand it more. This website is now built and deployed using nix!

Thursday 20 July 2023 Jez Cope Meta Update

Just a quick note to say that since I’ve deleted my Twitter account, I’ve set up a static archive of all my tweets. Yes, even those embarrassing first ones.

This was made possible by Darius Kazemi: https://tinysubversions.com/twitter-archive/make-your-own/

You can still find me on Mastodon as @petrichor:digipres.club or via any of the other links at the bottom of the page.

Monday 10 July 2023 Jez Cope Social Media Twitter

Request for input: the missing narrative of libraries in research software engineering

Last week I received an email from a friend inviting me to submit a video to a panel 'Missing narratives around diversity and inclusion in Research Software Engineering' hosted as part of SeptembRSE 2021, the goals of which are:

help create inclusive communities in RSE by centring on intersectional voices
increase awareness of power imbalances that negatively impact multiple marginalised groups in research
provide a call-to-action for diversity and inclusion

Obviously I'm always flattered to be asked my opinion, but I wasn't sure what a straight, cisgender, middle-class white man could offer to an event on diversity, so I had a chat with one of the organisers. We agreed that issues of race, gender, sexuality, disability and many more would be well covered by other speakers, and that I would focus on another narrative also frequently missing in discussions of Research Software Engineering (RSE): librarians.

Thursday 23 September 2021 Jez Cope RSE Librarianship

mxadm: a small CLI Matrix room admin tool

I’ve enjoyed learning Rust (the programming language) recently, but having only really used it for solving programming puzzles I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it for something more practical.

At the same time, I’ve been using and learning about Matrix (the chat/messaging platform), and running some small rooms there I’ve been a bit frustrated that some pretty common admin things don’t have a good user interface in any of the available clients.

Wednesday 4 August 2021 Jez Cope Rust Matrix Open source Communication

Comments are back

I forgot to mention it at the time, but I’ve added “normal” comments back to the site, as you’ll see below and on most other pages. In place of the Disqus comments I had before I’m now using Cactus Comments, which is open source and self-hostable (though I’m currently not doing that). If you’ve read my previous post about Matrix self-hosting, you might be interested to know that Cactus uses Matrix rooms for data storage and synchronisation and I can moderate and reply to comments directly from my Matrix client.

Tuesday 29 June 2021 Jez Cope Meta Matrix Fediverse

Intro to the fediverse

Wow, it turns out to be 10 years since I wrote this beginners guide to Twitter. Things have moved on a loooooong way since then.

Far from being the interesting, disruptive technology it was back then, Twitter has become part of the mainstream, the establishment. Almost everyone and everything is on Twitter now, which has both pros and cons.

So what’s the problem?

It’s now possible to follow all sorts of useful information feeds, from live updates on transport delays to your favourite sports team’s play-by-play performance to an almost infinite number of cat pictures. In my professional life it’s almost guaranteed that anyone I meet will be on Twitter, meaning that I can contact them to follow up at a later date without having to exchange contact details (and they have options to block me if they don’t like that).

Sunday 11 April 2021 Jez Cope Fediverse Social media Twitter

Collaborations Workshop 2021: collaborative ideas & hackday

My last post covered the more “traditional” lectures-and-panel-sessions approach of the first half of the SSI Collaborations Workshop. The rest of the workshop was much more interactive, consisting of a discussion session, a Collaborative Ideas session, and a whole-day hackathon!

The discussion session on day one had us choose a topic (from a list of topics proposed leading up to the workshop) and join a breakout room for that topic with the aim of producing a “speed blog” by then end of 90 minutes. Those speed blogs will be published on the SSI blog over the coming weeks, so I won’t go into that in more detail.

Series: Collaborations Workshop 2021

Collaborations Workshop 2021: talks & panel session

I’ve just finished attending (online) the three days of this year’s SSI Collaborations Workshop (CW for short), and once again it’s been a brilliant experience, as well as mentally exhausting, so I thought I’d better get a summary down while it’s still fresh it my mind.

Collaborations Workshop is, as the name suggests, much more focused on facilitating collaborations than a typical conference, and has settled into a structure that starts off with with longer keynotes and lectures, and progressively gets more interactive culminating with a hack day on the third day.

Series: Collaborations Workshop 2021

I’ve decided to try switching this website back to using Hugo to manage the content and generate the static HTML pages. I’ve been on the Python-based Nikola for a few years now, but recently I’ve been finding it quite slow, and very confusing to understand how to do certain things. I used Hugo recently for the GLAM Data Science Network website and found it had come on a lot since the last time I was using it, so I thought I’d give it another go, and redesign this site to be a bit more minimal at the same time.

The theme is still a work in progress so it’ll probably look a bit rough around the edges for a while, but I think I’m happy enough to publish it now. When I get round to it I might publish some more detailed thoughts on the design.

Saturday 3 April 2021 Jez Cope Meta Design

Ideas for Accessible Communications

The Disability Support Network at work recently ran a survey on “accessible communications”, to develop guidance on how to make communications (especially internal staff comms) more accessible to everyone. I grabbed a copy of my submission because I thought it would be useful to share more widely, so here it is. Please note that these are based on my own experiences only. I am in no way suggesting that these are the only things you would need to do to ensure your communications are fully accessible. They’re just some things to keep in mind.

Saturday 20 March 2021 Jez Cope Stuff Accessibility Ablism