Under Construction Grunge Sign by Nicolas Raymond — CC BY 2.0 Every year, around this time of year, I start doing two things. First, I start thinking I could really start to understand monads and write more than toy programs in Haskell. This is unlikely to ever actually happen unless and until I get a day job where I can justify writing useful programs in Haskell, but Advent of Code always gets me thinking otherwise. Read more...

I’m just back from IDCC20, so here are a few reflections on this year’s conference. You can find all the available slides and links to shared notes on the conference programme. There’s also a list of all the posters and an overview of the Unconference Skills for curation of diverse datasets Here in the UK and elsewhere, you’re unlikely to find many institutions claiming to apply a deep level of curation to every dataset/software package/etc deposited with them. Read more...

Just a quickie to say that I’ve replaced the comment section at the bottom of each post with webmentions, which allows you to comment by posting on your own site and linking here. It’s a fundamental part of the IndieWeb, which I’m slowly getting to grips with having been a halfway member of it for years by virtue of having my own site on my own domain. I’d already got rid of Google Analytics to stop forcing that tracking on my visitors, I wanted to get rid of Disqus too because I’m pretty sure the only way that is free for me is if they’re selling my data and yours to third parties. Read more...

It looks like I’ve accidentally taken charge of bridging a bunch of The Carpentries Slack channels over to Matrix. Given this, it seems like a good idea to explain what that sentence means and reflect a little on my reasoning. I’m more than happy to discuss the pros and cons of this approach If you just want to try chatting in Matrix, jump to the getting started section What are Slack and Matrix? Read more...

Discussions of neurodiversity at #mozfest Photo by Jennifer Riggins The other weekend I had my first experience of Mozilla Festival, aka #mozfest. It was pretty awesome. I met quite a few people in real life that I’ve previously only known (/stalked) on Twitter, and caught up with others that I haven’t seen for a while. I had the honour of co-facilitating a workshop session on imposter syndrome and how to deal with it with the wonderful Yo Yehudi and Emmy Tsang. Read more...

Today1 the office conversation turned to blocking out background noise. (No, the irony is not lost on me.) Like many people I work in a large, open-plan office, and I’m not alone amongst my colleagues in sometimes needing to find a way to boost concentration by blocking out distractions. Not everyone is like this, but I find music does the trick for me. I also find that different types of music are better for different types of work, and I use this to try and manage my energy better. Read more...

It barely seems like it, but I’ve been at the British Library now for nearly 6 months. It always takes a long time to adjust and from experience I know it’ll be another year before I feel fully settled, but my team, department and other colleagues have really made me feel welcome and like I belong. One thing that hasn’t got old yet is the occasional thrill of remembering that I work at my national library now. Read more...

Photo by me I sit here writing this in the departure lounge at Philadelphia International Airport, waiting for my Aer Lingus flight back after a week at the 13th Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary (although I’m actually publishing this a week or so later at home). I’m pretty exhausted, partly because of the jet lag, and partly because it’s been a very full week with so much to take in. Read more...