Practical.li provides free online books covering practical guides to Clojure programming and development workflows. Practicalli Engineering Playbook contains specific guides across the full spectrum of software development.
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A cold but sunny start to this week should turn into a mini heatwave by the weekend (maybe). No excuse to go cycling several times this week.
Practicalli work this week was on the Sustainable Life and Cycling books.
The Megalinter GitHub workflow generated a failing issues on the Practicalli Journal repository yesterday, indicating it failed because it couldnt find something to check.
Took the Bianchi in to get a new bottom bracket fitted. The bike has lasted 20 years and a lot of kilometers. Unfortunately there wasn't a Strava back in 2006 when i got the Bianchi bike, so most of the distance on the bike was never captured until 2019.
The week started full of promise but quickly fell to pieces 🤣 By the middle of the week I was starting to get some traction again and things were good again by the weekend.
A fairly pragmatic view of 'AI' tools was discussed in the DevEx Summit 2026 online conference.
After a false start, I have a fully working road bike again and am back on the road again. A nice long and hilly ride to end the week and a lazy Sunday recovering and organising camping gear for the Dragon Ride trip.
May the fourth (be with you) is a celebration of Star Wars.
As it also happens to be a public holiday (bank holiday) in the UK, a few friends and I did a celebratory cycle ride to Chiddingstone cafe for some delicious cake.
Feeling exhausted over the weekend and think I had a virus slowing me down. I dragged myself out for a few rides and by the weekend I was feeling much better.
The weather is much nicer this week so more training for the Dragon Ride in June. A typical ride at the start of the week with a huge 180km ride to Brighton and back mid-week.
Added the Practicalli install scripts for Neovim to the Neovim and Engineering Playbook websites.
A four and a half hour walk to Crystal Palace physiotherapy clinic on Tuesday for a steroid injection in my palm to alleviate my trigger finger. No side affects noticeable so far.
When testing updates to the Practicalli Neovim config with Practicalli Project Templates, I discovered an error when using Koacha test runner via a REPL connected editor when Portal wrap-portal middleware is included in the REPL startup. The issue was resolved in the latest Portal release.
Tested the Debian Linux post install scripts on a spare laptop. Apart from the Zsh install script failing and a couple of TUI tools that need the output files renamed, everything seems pretty good.
A couple of nice rides over the Easter weekend in the UK and one just before the weekend, already has my distance for April at 288 km (and 3,480 meters climbing). There are some sunny days this week, so its looking good for 1,000 km distance this month.
I travelled 753.6 km in March this year and have a current total distance of 1,943.5 km for 2026.
To relax over the long weekend, I started a Netflix subscription after hunting through websites to see if there were enough shows on Netflix that I actually wanted to watch (not that easy a task as all streaming services are very secretive about what shows they actually have).
Stargate SG-1 - very enjoyable military sci-fi with a heart and humour
Arcane future sci-fin anime - catch up with season 2
I was disappointed that season 2 of 3 Body Problem wont be release until then end of 2026 and with fewer episodes (6 rather than 8).
Movies
Kung Fu Panda 4 is the latest in the film series, seeing Po become the reluctant mentor. The best part of the film is the authentic Chinese music version of "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne.
K-Pop Demon Hunters visually stunning although not that deep a story line, enjoyable to watch anyway.
The Electric State is a fun Sci-Fi adventure with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.
The Uglies a coming-of-age sci-fi movie with an interesting plot. Seems to be part one of a two part film, but unclear if the sequil will be made as it took 18 years to get around to making the first one.
Rick and Morty Series 9 should be released on May 24th on Adult Swim, so I'll keep an eye out for it on Channel4.com from then on.
Continuing to migrate to Neovim 0.12 and AstroNvim version 6. There was a brief concern about nvim-treesitter repository being archived but it seems that project will become part of Neovim 0.13 release.
Continued my cycle training for the Dragon Ride in June. Designed some more routes to build up distance and hill climbing endurance.
Unfortunately an engineering manager role I applied for did not progress. The sub-text suggests they already had a candidate they wanted whilst I was being interviewed and although they liked my experience they decided to go with the other person. Its all useful experience and they seemed a good company.
I was never quite happy with using Markdownlint as the rules were very strict. Overriding the rules added complexity to the Neovim configuration and there wasnt much information on how to make it simpler.
Whist I still have Markdownlint as part of the CI workflow, I've switched to Marksman. The Marksman tool doesnt have strict format rules and it does provide in-page anchor links as well as links to other files.
I have a little injury so will be taking it easier this week. I am doing a lot more stretching and some yoga. I will aim for a hilly ride on Saturday morning (but not too early).
My mood is very low this week and finding it hard to get motivated. Focused on small tasks to start improving my mood again.
My mood wasn't helped by muscle strain around my hip and shoulder. After several hours of yoga my muscle pain is starting to ease and my legs feel pretty good. My shoulders are still very stiff after lots of stretching though.
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