The nights are getting darker but that means more chance for star gazing.
Monthly updates for practicalli projects, updating dependencies on the Clojure CLI Config and Project Templates repositories.
Testing out new toys for the bicycle, including an electric pump, RideNow TPU inner tubes and Continental Gran Prix 5000 cream & black tyres. Final maintenance before my weekend cycling adventure.
The Hyprland configuration seems very stable now, with only minor enhancements. I havent quite got a hand of the window layout system yet, at least not in the same way as I could with i3 (Regolith desktop).
Setup Clojure on Arch Linux for the first time. The packaging is well done, although the install location, /usr/share/clojure is different to the manual script install I am used to on Debian Linux.
On Sunday 17th August 2025 I completed 1,001 days of successive commits in GitHub (without cheating).
Some job hunting during the week included being contacted by a recruiter from Docker regarding an engineering manager role (security division). The recruiter that helped get me a position at Citi also got in touch for a healthcare engineering manager role.
Planned a longer cycling route to the Isle of Grain, one of the more remote parts of Kent. Grain village is right by the sea and there is a long sandy beach there. As its a remote location, there are very few people around usually.
I've taken several trips to Grain with my friend Gaiville who I trained and cycled with from Lands End to John O'Groats in 2019.
I've altered the start of the route previously used to accommodate people from the local cycling club.
September 5 covers the terrorist attach at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, told from the perspective of the people working at the ABC sports division who were able to broadcast live much of the tragedy.
A Simple Favour with Anna Kendrick in the lead role, as the perfect mom who gets involved with some 'interesting' people.
Matrix trilogy a relaxing bank holiday movie marathon and even after 25 years the movies looks great and are still very engaging.
Current TV shows:
Twisted Metal is quirky and fun show with bizarre and disturbing characters who are also quite likeable too.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds I find to be a very fresh and fun take on the Star Trek world, whilst still having darker storylines and background threads.
Gravity Falls watching this show again for about the 5th time, using it as my brain switch on / switch off show. I have watched Rick n Morty too many times
This week we have the pleasure of another heatwave in the United Kingdom. Its not quite as extreme as the one in July (37 degrees Celsius), but it will in the 30 degree range again for several days.
The week started with a cycle ride to collect some new shoes. In training for a ride up a mountain during a French trip I did two more ~100km rides back to back
112 Km ride to Box Hill was surprisingly good, I was more awake than the previous days ride.
Level 4 ride with Bigfoot CC was a good recovery ride, only 3 hours long and although hilly (all routes in Kent are) it felt a moderate 738 meters of climbing.
I use the Lake brand of shoes as they have a wide fit size. Although going through there very detailed sizing chart it was clear that not all shoes were wide enough for my feet (without being far too long).
OpenAI gives a curl command to initially test the account setup, then its nothing until a credit card is added to the account. So is it actually worth spending money on something I cannot try out first?
Watching Beacon 23 again and enjoying it even more a second time around. The first viewing I was a bit confused with the storyline jumps, but it makes a lot more sense now.
I tried using Hyprland with Debian Linux a few months ago but the packages are a little out of date even when using the unstable (SID) distribution. As I had been using SID packages, then the Debian Linux system had become a little too unstable for day to day use. Interestingly I installed the KDE desktop and that worked very nicely before I started again from scratch.
Hyperland is kept up to date in Arch Linux although there is a lot more work to learn and maintain arch linux compared to Debian Linux. pacman command options are quite cryptic and I found them hard to memorise. Its also easy to break things doing an update (the downside of a rolling release based distribution).
Garuda Linux adds some nice tools on top of Arch Linux (and can also used the Nix sub-system) to simplify overall package upgrades and a range of other maintenance tools.
Health and fitness continues to improve and the number of cycle rides and distance continues to increase. In July I completed 800km distance from 11 distinct rides, totalling around 35 hours of riding across the month (not including stoppage time).
Cycling maintenance seems to be complete for both the Ribble SL Disc and Bianchi 928 RC road bikes.
Aims:
DONE: new cleats for the black & red Lake shoes (and readjust cleats on white lake shoes)
Surprisingly, GitHub started showing a message about a billing problem. As I shouldn't be billed for anything I am aware of, further investigation was required. The issue was resolved really quickly by GitHub support, so I can continue with describing how I run Practicalli on a minimal budget.
Movies:
Arrival is a beautiful film with an engaging story, breathtaking cinematography and a very powerful message about the importance of language and communicating. The film opens and closes with the moving "On the Nature of Daylight" composition from The Blue Notebooks by Max Richter.
The week started slow as I was a little tired from the weekend riding. Blender was fired up to edit the videos from the Isle of Wight and Red Barn rides.
Fingers crossed I finished all the maintenance on my Bianchi 928 RC road bike, which I have had since 2006. The Bianchi is still in excellent condition after a great many journeys and Audax events.
I was hit by a large vehicle on the way back from collecting the new cycle computer. I was a bit shook up for a day or two but apart from some bruising I seem to be in one piece.
Transcendence - an excellent film about a technological singularity and how humans struggle to understand or trust an intelligence that doesn't look like them. Small minded people end up ruining the world because of something they feared rather than tried to understand.
Twin Peaks is a very quirky TV show that was hugely popular when I was in my early 20s. The show has many rich characters and a few very silly ones (depending on your point of view). The storyline is based around a tragic crime that is being investigated by Agent Dale Cooper. Agent Cooper is not your typical FBI agent and really makes the show worth watching all by themselves 😃
Bicycle maintenance and a few final ride this week in preparation for the ride around the Isle of Wight. There were more replacements than I first thought, brake pads, cleats, pedals. I have done lots of long distance riding for most of the last 6 years (except the COVID years) so I shouldn't have been surprised.
I have been looking at more products from AliExpress and revisited the Trace Velo video about Ali Express and if its worth it for tips on getting the most out of this website. If you know exactly what you are looking for and buy from established companies, then it is as good as using services like Amazon.
Panda Podium is a company that makes it easy to find quality products from China based manufactures, greatly reducing the risk. They also have some good reviews of products too.
Investigating the Rust language again this week, in between the cycle training, maintenance and heatwave 🤣 There is a great looking deployment platform called Shuttle for Rust apps, feels like the same enjoyable experience as Heroku.
Tv & Movies this week:
Blade Runner: The Final Cut - one of my favourite films of all time, I never get tired of watching.
Flow a wonderful movie (especially if you love cats, which I do). Animation and music were very moving.
