A Year In Review
It's my birthday! As is customary, here's my year in review. See 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.
Sadly, I am a poor diarist, so if I've missed off something important to you - sorry! It has been a year of great change. A new house, new jobs for us both, new countries visited, and many books read.
November 2018
In the funniest session of the day, Terence Eden told us about his involvement with the W3C and collaborating on the HTML spec.
He’s a very engaging speaker, and his talk encouraged me to open a teeny tiny PR on the html spec!
- My very clever wife wangled us an invitation to dinner at Lincoln College, Oxford. Unbeknownst to us, we were sat at high table! Cue all the students standing to welcome us in, a Latin recitation, and a rather agreeable dinner. Such a bizarre evening surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance - but utterly delightful!
December 2018
- Twitter Bug Bounty of $3,000! I was awarded this in November, but wasn't allowed to speak about it until December.
- Celebrated with a holiday in Lanzarote
January 2019
- My Great-Aunt Sonia died. She was a ripe old age and had been the lynch-pin in our family. The last remaining member of the clan-of-aunts.
- Started a terrifying new job
February 2019
Had some fun working with the gang at Twitter in order to secure a 4-letter username.
It's officially official! This is the project I've been working on 😁 https://t.co/PmQkZSg6ah
— Terence Eden (@edent) February 19, 2019
Launching stuff is fun!
After watching Marie Kondo, we engaged on a spring clean of our possessions. In truth, these Babylon 5 books did bring me joy - but lugging them between homes did not.
Any #Babylon5 super-fans following me?
I'm selling my COMPLETE set of Babylon 5 scripts. See https://t.co/JOOM0XvrWP
Plus the Chronologies - https://t.co/P02ueAa15s
Also CNN DVD https://t.co/K035phMW8C
Cost around $1,600 new. Happy sell at a discount. Collection only. pic.twitter.com/sLvXbaAQXE— Terence Eden (@edent) February 26, 2019
Ultimately, sharing that joy with someone else is also a pretty good feeling.
March 2019
My wonderful wife won a place on a prestigious training course in Barcelona. Naturally I volunteered to accompany her! I'd not been to Barcelona since I worked Mobile World Congress.
Got hit by a powerful wave of nostalgia yesterday as the bus drove by the old Mobile World Congress venue in Barcelona.
Then mixed emotions about what my life would be like if I was still in the mobile industry.
Then my feet started arching at the memory of pounding those floors. pic.twitter.com/uaAsOJNNUC— Terence Eden (@edent) March 11, 2019
The #IWD19 marches in Barcelona were incredible.
Best sign I saw simply read "No som histéricos. Som històrics!"
— Terence Eden (@edent) March 8, 2019
April 2019
Days like this, I bloody love my job with @NHSX!
Open Standards ✅
Open Source ✅
Accessibility ✅I'm determined to get the future pretty evenly distributed.https://t.co/PxTGsjtY9D pic.twitter.com/fzf0zPSEd6
— Terence Eden (@edent) April 4, 2019
Gave up the running of Dabr.
Bit of a sad post this…
Would anyone like to take over the running of https://t.co/4Zrbxagjxv?
I don't have the time to dedicate to maintaining the open source project any more.
And, it looks like I won't be able to use the .eu domain in the future.
Free to a good home.— Terence Eden (@edent) April 10, 2019
I'd been running Dabr for a decade. Someone offered to take it on, then dropped out. That was annoying.
May 2019
Started going to meetings about AMP. Still not a fan.
A report from the AMP Advisory Committee Meeting https://t.co/CR41uu9DY8 pic.twitter.com/PREtQReYKi
— Terence Eden (@edent) May 14, 2019
My SVG talk got rolled out a couple of times - I was pleased with how this one went.
June 2019
Invited to a conference in Denmark. The plane ride and hotel were... not good. Hard to complain when someone else is paying. But I need to learn to check travel details more thoroughly when someone else is arranging them. That said, food was great!
Danish cheese is amazing.#CheeseNews pic.twitter.com/XVr66Z1M2J
— Terence Eden (@edent) June 27, 2019
I've also been doing some work with the friendly folk in Cheltenham. The locals seemed to like my talk on device security.
Lovely for the team to catch up with @sofa83669077 last night at @CyNamHub. Our students are fascinated by the ethics of Computing and the talk by @edent was just awesome and thought provoking. We can’t wait to debate these questions with the kids #cyberschoolshub @NCSC pic.twitter.com/G4fCNjOEsG
— WyedeanComputerScience (@WyedeanComputes) June 5, 2019
July 2019
I gave blood! A long time resolution which I've never quite fulfilled. It was quick, relatively painless, and I got some free biscuits.
I've another donation coming up shortly.
And the SVG talk again!
Omg! JS in SVG means you can make dynamic images like this calendar icon that always shows the current date 😮
How awesome is that?! #NottsJS @edent pic.twitter.com/tJPSqRFs05
— Carol ✨ (@CarolSaysThings) July 9, 2019
August 2019
Bought a new house! Stressful and expensive. But very worth it. Why have we moved? My awesome wife just got a brand new job at UCL. She is very clever. And it means I don't need to commute from Oxford to London each day.
At the end of the month, we visited Hong Kong. We'd booked a year ago, before the protests. Everything was fine. The weather was the most extreme thing about it. Lots of lovely veggie food, and some excellent sight-seeing.
September 2019
Most of the month was taken up with our Big Australia Road Trip Adventure. Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Lots of adventures, lots of family, lots of beer, lots of walking, lots of food. Exhausting and refreshing.
October 2019
Mostly homemaking. Drilling holes and redecorating. Settling into a new neighbourhood and routine is always exhausting. We generally move house every 5 years - but we were in our last place for 6. I don't know how often we'll move in the future. We're extremely fortunate not to have kids - but even just uprooting ourselves is mentally taxing. Is this our forever-home? Probably not - but I hope we'll be here a while.
We took OpenBenches to OggCam to discuss open culture. We got so much lovely feedback - including this gem:
Great talk, ridiculously wholesome project, love it 🙂
November 2019
My doctor has scheduled me for a colonoscopy next week. What a way to see in the new year!
What links here from around this blog?