probablytom

Now

Updated 6 months ago.

(For information on “now” pages, see Derek Sievers’ original writeup on them.)

2024 — 06 — 18

I thought life would slow down while I was getting through corrections. No such luck. I’m not sure why the final few months of the PhD have taken so much out of me, but I feel spent. Can’t say why. Feeling spent.

Corrections are all but in now, though. They’re not not in — they’ve been approved and the university’s accepted them — but getting through a couple final notes that should have taken hours is taking days. Part of that is caused by constantly switching to work on Chrompartments — that’s been most of my time, in reality — but I’ve been working on Chrompartments so much partly because summoning the two extra hours of focus to just get the corrections sent to the library in fully polished form is beyond me.

Ho hum! Nearly there!

I played with Porta 400 and Porta 800 a couple of weeks ago, and the results are stunning. Who knew film stock could make such a difference? It’s a small thing, but shorts on the Portra look far sharper than on Gold. I imagine it’s because of the boost in ISO, more than the film chemistry more generally.

Recently found Tom Cardy, and damn, he’s good. Every track is catchy, and weirdly motivating too? It helps to have songs that are genuinely excellent but with lyrics entirely about going to bed on time or practicing basic self-care or calling your mum. Or my favourite, which is just a pep talk through the metaphor of Pluto’s planetary status. Genius. So well written! So catchy! I can’t stop singing them to myself.

2024 — 05 — 28

It’s been a really busy couple of months…

I’ve had my viva, and passed it, subject to corrections for which the magnitude is still kind of unclear to me. Minor? Major? I’m treating them like major. I’m also tearing through them as quickly as possible. Get ‘em done, get ‘em out the door. Move on to the next project. I’ve spent pretty much all of my 20s working on some version of the ideas in the thesis, and while there’s something satisfying about really inhabiting an idea like that — and my understanding of it has matured and matured and matured — I’m ready to put this figurative chapter and these literal chapters to rest. I’m also disappointed in parts of it. Ho hum. If I had my time again I’d certainly do things differently.

However, passing — and being about to submit! — is a really positive moment. I can’t wait!l to graduate! With any luck it’ll be in a month, after some cheeky pestering of the university. Not long now.

I’m trying to keep running up too — only a couple a week, but I’m getting a good 15km/10mi in across a typical week and that’ll suit me ok for now. When I’ve got a little more mental space I’m sure I’ll push harder. For now, I just want fo run consistently. Running constantly is another thing altogether.

I’ve been reading more lately, too. Investing in a Kobo was a game changer. A bit of fiction — Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem was a brilliant read for anybody with a passing interesting in physics, politics, and perhaps environmentalism. Recommend. Katherine Rundell’s biography of John Donne — Superinfinite — has also been a charming read, although I’m finding less time for it than I’d like.

I’m also jumping back into sections of Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running again. I finished the book a few months ago but it’s fantastic and well worth a read for anybody creative, discipline-starved, or who writes for a living. Not really about running at all in the same way that Coach Chris Bennett’s writing, speaking, and coaching on running is not about running. It’s about life.

A useful book to revisit in the final throws of a PhD thesis.

I’ve also been getting into photography more again. Photography’s been a really useful outlet on days where academic pressure has taken its toll. The last few days have seen me in the office until ~10pm — moments like that need outlets. Something creative that isn’t work.

The most significant change in my photography has been a serious lean into film. I suuuuuuuuck at film photography — with is essential, because these hobbies and creative endeavours seem to either become gear obsessions or learning obsessions, and the great becomes a great distraction when I hit a plateau on learning. How do we keep it nutritious? Find some other angle where there’s still lots to learn. I’m glad I’ve found a new type of photography that excites me and that I have so much to learn about.

2024 — 03 — 25

I have dates for my viva! 05-08 is the big day. It’ll be a couple of hours in the afternoon — I’m sure it’ll feel like a couple years in the moment.

There’s lots to do.

I’m still thinking lots about Aspect-Oriented Programming, about composing model components, about the relationship between model building and hypothesis testing, about how AOP’s been misconstrued in the literature to date…whether I’ll get the opportunity to get into all these details on the day is likely another matter!

2024 — 03 — 11

Time’s moved quickly lately. Prep for summer trips; wait for viva dates; Marta’s finally had some appointments we’ve been waiting for after what’s felt like aeons; winter’s finally begun to leave us, my enjoyment of cooking’s returned, a little passive burnout’s stayed. Refuses to shift. The city feels like it’s opening up to us, finally, which is both satisfying and a relief.

I’ve done my best to keep on top of things the last few months, but a couple things — especially catching up with friends — have really fallen by the wayside, particularly since the sprint to wrap up my thesis.

However, work’s yielded some success! The project I’m working on (chrompartments) started with some rather slow struggles to get things to build, which have mostly resolved. Some kind of cosmic mercy. Now I can get started on the task at hand and play with V8. We’re looking to provide some security (/performance?) enhancements to it using CHERI, and while getting it to compile we’ve had plenty of ideas as to what those enhancements can be. Now it’s time to play with them — finally! — fun.

I’ve been playing with photography more, trying to find ways to improve and to have a little more fun with digital…but I keep moving back to film. Frustratingly, my film photos rarely turn out how I’d like (which I’m blaming on my OM-1n’s broken light meter), but I enjoy the process so much more that I struggle to care. The practice is about having an excuse to see the world differently anyway.

Only halfway through Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things. It’s fantastic…but I keep getting distracted by John Berger instead. His notes on an interview with Bresson — page 157 of this .pdf on archive.org — or his notes on the theory of narrative — page 117 of the same .pdf — are just lovely, and always provoke some moment of clarity for me. Worth a read!

2024 — 02 — 07

Improbably, I’ve begun playing a little chess. I’m probablytom on chess.com.

Also, Bluesky just enabled public registration…! I’m @tom.coffee there. The mechanism they have for domain name verification is clever and simple; I love it! Not convinced I’ll actually end up using it, though. Is there any replacement for the Twitter of 2009? Or is that warm memory more a product of nostalgia than of the quality of the community there? Mastodon and micro.blog didn’t land any more successfully for me…maybe the problem’s less the services, and more how we use them.

2024 — 01 — 23