Parole by election

John Naughton on why the US election is consuming his brain, despite the fact he lives in the UK:

Maybe it’s because there’s a possibility that on November 3 something might change in the US, whereas we in the UK are stuck with the worst government in living memory for another four years. So we’re like long-term prisoners serving time and looking enviously over the wall at our fellow-prisoners in the US who might just be paroled on November 4.

Today is a Zoom-free day. That is a good day.

Lovely walk with the girls, despite the dreich weather.

Should you turn on your video camera during online training?

Another day in front of the ring light…

Ah, the BBC’s Autumnwatch. Balm for the soul.

Here’s an unexpected pandemic side-effect: after six months of recording online training seasons and editing them for later reference by trainees, I no longer detest the sound of my own voice.

Half term adventures.

A girl running through a flooded path at Woods Mill.

Wellies was the right decision.

I walked up into Old Shoreham yesterday, to pick up some things. It’s interesting seeing the traces of the old village concealed within more modern housing.

An Old Shoreham house in Shoreham-by-Sea.

Interesting opinion piece on the hijacking of the word “freedom” and why we need to push back with a good, solid understanding of what it means in a society.

Telling the stories of our wild places (by way of another childhood reminiscence).

Well now. Substack is adding custom domains for everyone (which is good), but is changing $50 to do it (which is not). A way of heading off or offsetting the inevitable support pain as people struggle with DNS settings?

I just started looking for some data for a lecture, and the third result was one of my own blogposts, which had exactly the information I needed.

Thank you, past me. I must remember to be as kind to future me.

Handy guidance here for leading journalists and authors: How to Avoid ‘Zoom Dick’ Incidents During Zoom Calls at Work

If you’re going to write 500 words summarising a report, you could at least do the reader the courtesy of linking to the original.

😤

The garden office as ‘sanity shed’ is a nice idea for those privileged enough to have both the money and the garden space to do it.

Maybe one day…

I know it’s a thing some SEOs like to recommend, but I do find webpages with no publication date on them immensely annoying as a user.

Interesting piece. The start of a shift from “proximity to work” to “proximity to lifestyle amenities” as a major determining factor in residential choices?

‘Zoom towns’ are exploding in the West

I’m trying an experiment. I’ve switched my default search engine on my iPhone to DuckDuckGo, and will see how I get on.