Food motivated

What can I say? Maggie loves to eat!

VERY interested in a dog food delivery we spotted on our walk

Photo of a red/brown dog on a red leash outside a black residential fence. The dog is excitedly sniffing two Lyka brand dog food cartons that a deliver driver has left outside the fence.

Riveted by Nadia chopping beef on the kitchen counter

Photo of a red/brown dog standing in a dining room with wooden floor tiles. In the background of the photo are they dog’s food and water bowls. The dog is looking up, very attentively, at someone off camera.

Agreeing with Angela Collier on how bad Star Trek: Picard is

Today I finished watching Dr Angela Collier’s 3 hour, 48 minute long video essay titled ‘How Star Trek: Picard Ruins Star Trek’ and I want to state for the record that I agree with it 100%.

I don’t usually write posts about how much I dislike a piece of media. But as a long-time Star Trek fan, a couple of years ago I was compelled to write about how season 2 of Star Trek: Picard (ST:P) was ruined in editing.

Angela’s media analysis takes things up several notches and explains how not only each season of ST:P is bad, but how damaging many of the currently-airing Trek television shows are to the philosophy and the joy of watching Star Trek.

If you’re a Trekkie like me and you enjoy long-form video essays, I highly recommend you watch this.

[Photo walk] South Melbourne and Docklands - follow-up

I haven’t focused much on black-and-white photography.

The only times I think in black-and-white (especially when taking photos) are when:

  • I want to capture a texture that lends itself to a monochromatic look,

  • I find myself in a scene in which the colours are a distraction, or

  • I’m at a location where there’s strong light-and-dark contrast.

Three of my recent photos fit the bill, so I converted them to black-and-white to see how they would look.

West Gate Freeway drainage overflow pipes

Black-and-white photo taken from underneath an elevated roadway out of which two wide draining pipes are emerging.

Looking through to Yarra’s Edge buildings

Black-and-white photo of two tall, residential buildings as seen through a gap in the bare concrete underneath of a series of elevated roadways and off-ramps.

West Gate Bridge sign under the West Gate Bridge Freeway

Black-and-white photo of the back of a large overhead road sign affixed to an elevated motorway. The sign is seen through a gap in the bare concrete underneath of a series of elevated roadways and off-ramps.

I think they turned out pretty well :)

Here’s a side-by-side comparison. I actually think I prefer the black-and-white versions of all three! Though maybe the middle one (the buildings through the gap in the concrete) works both ways.

[Photo walk] South Melbourne and Docklands

I get my car serviced at a dealership in South Melbourne that’s a short walk across the Yarra River from where my office is in Docklands.

Naturally, I take a bunch of photos every time I take this walk – usually super early in the morning and then just returning before sunset (in winter).

Here are the most recent photos I took.

Early morning coffee in the shadow of Charles Grimes Bridge

Photo of a woman stepping out from around the corner of a building with floor-to-ceiling windows. The second storey of the building is bathed in warm sunlight from the rising sun, while the lower section is in cool blue shadow. The woman is wearing a long, grey overcoat and is carrying a disposable coffee cup in her hand.

Early morning traffic and tram

Photo of an intersection with a line of cars going through and several cars waiting. In the foreground of the photo is a green-and-yellow tram running on a set of tracks parallel to one of the roads. The photo is slightly washed out because of the bright glare of the early morning sun coming off a reflective office building.

Waving to the tram driver

Photo of a green-and-yellow tram driving through an area with several trees and bushes that is otherwise surrounded by tall office buildings. The tram driver is waving his hand at the photographer.

If it’s on the street, it ends up in the river

Photo of a Bandalong litter trap installed to one side of an urban river. This trap has collected a large amount of litter floating down this river. A sign affixed to this trap reads “It it’s on the street, it ends up in the river. Keep the Yarra River clean. Bin your litter.” In the middleground of the photo a wide footbridge (the Webb Bridge) spans this river (the Yarra River). In the background of the photo, on the other side of the river, are several tall residential buildings.

Sunset seating outside Hooks at the Yarra

Photo of outdoor cafe tables and chairs arranged next to a grid of very tall trees that are set into raised beds in an otherwise paved area. The tables are unoccupied and the whole place is lit with warm sunlight coming from the setting sun.

West Gate Freeway drainage overflow pipes

Photo taken from underneath an elevated roadway out of which two wide draining pipes are emerging.

Jaunty portal, serious hotel #2

Photo taken from ground level of a large concrete archway structure constructed around an elevated roadway. This otherwise-rectangular archway structure has been built with a slight rotation, so it looks like it is twisting anticlockwise. Behind the portal is the tall, thin building of the Novotel Melbourne South Wharf hotel. There is traffic stopped at a red light below the elevated roadway.

Layers of traffic where the West Gate Freeway meets Montague Street

Photo of an intersection above which there are two elevated roadways of different heights. A sight at ground level reads, “West Gate Br / Geelong”. A bright yellow DHL delivery truck is crossing the intersection at ground level while a refrigerated truck drives along the middle roadway.

Looking through to Yarra’s Edge buildings

Photo of two tall, residential buildings as seen through a gap in the bare concrete underneath of a series of elevated roadways and off-ramps.

West Gate Bridge sign under the West Gate Bridge Freeway

Photo of the back of a large overhead road sign affixed to an elevated motorway. The sign is seen through a gap in the bare concrete underneath of a series of elevated roadways and off-ramps.

This year I had only my 27mm TTArtisan prime lens with me (42mm full-frame equivalent) and the photos turned out really well. Though, to be fair, the gorgeous golden-hour light – both ways! – had a lot to do with that.

Last year I took photos with my 18-55mm Fujifilm zoom lens and it was a dreary, overcast day. Those photos look little different :)

[Photo walk] University of Melbourne #2

I’m on leave this week so I picked Nadia up from her office at the University of Melbourne. While I was there, I took a couple of photos.

End of the day at Dr Dax Kitchen

Photo taken from the outside of a nearly-empty cafe. A barista is making coffee behind the counter and there are two people sitting at the only occupied table.

Nadia on Royal Parade

Photo of a smiling woman walking towards the photographer. The woman is wearing loose pants with pink and yellow butterfly designs on it, a red top, and a gold necklace with a sunflower pendant.

Positive potato

Photo of several items on a shelf in a large wooden bookcase. The items are an intersectional pride flag set in transparent resin, a large blue-and-yellow mug, a crochet potato, a Newton’s cradle, and several books. The crochet potato has an eyes and a mouth, and it is holding up a sign that reads: “Positive potato. I might be a tiny potato, but I believe in you. Go do your thing!”

Back of the Howard Florey Institute building

Photo of the back of a large university building with floor-to-ceiling windows through which you can see a series of walkways, balconies, and office doors.

Haniya Aslam

One of my favourite people died last night. Haniya Aslam was a friend and fellow musician, and I can’t believe she’s not going to be around anymore.

I’m not one to grieve in public, but today is difficult. So let’s celebrate instead.

In 2005 a bunch of us in Islamabad got together to form the F-10½ Acoustic Project. We jammed at our place for a few weeks and then, over two weekends, performed a bunch of covers and originals at Civil Junction.

A flyer that reads “On Saturday 27th August at 9:00 PM in the first of two performances at CJ the F-10½ Acoustic Project presents original material by: Zeb & Haniya, Sheheryar Mufti, Sarmad Abdul Ghafoor, and Natasha Ejaz. And pays tribute to (among others): Suzanne Vega, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, Alice in Chains, U2, Coldplay, Crowded House, Blind Melon, Beach Boys, John Mayer, Simon & Garfunkel, Lisa Loeb, and The Beatles.”

We don’t have any photos from those jam sessions, rehearsals, and performances, but fortunately Sarmad Ghafoor recorded the entirety of our first show :)

Here’s some of what we performed that night.

This is Haniya Aslam performing Aitebar, with me on drums, Sarmad Ghafoor on lead guitar, and Shehryar Mufti on bass guitar.

And, on a more celebratory note, this is us performing Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson with Haniya Aslam on vocals and rhythm guitar, Natasha Humera Ejaz on vocals and tambourine, Sarmad Ghafoor on bass guitar, Nadia Niaz on shakers, and me on drums :)

[Photo walk] Lygon Street #4

First I was unwell and then I was super busy at work, so it’s been over three months since my last photo walk. It’s good to be back.

Today’s walk was a quick one down Lygon Street in Carlton. It was lovely, sunny Saturday afternoon and it’s nice to be heading towards the end of winter in Melbourne.

All these photos were taken with my (relatively) new TTArtisan 27mm pancake lens (42mm full-frame equivalent).

Performance space at Argyle Square, Carlton

Black-and-white photo taken from behind and to the side of a large, high-ceiling, covered outdoor stage in a large public park.

Brand new ‘Sapphire by the Gardens’ building complex

Photo of two tall buildings framed by bushes and trees in the foreground. The two luxury towers are connected by a large, multi-storey skybridge. https://sapphirebythegardens.com.au/

The brand new ‘Sapphire by the Gardens’ building complex – as seen from Lygon Street

Photo of two tall buildings framed by bushes and trees in the foreground. The two luxury towers are connected by a large, multi-storey sky bridge. https://sapphirebythegardens.com.au/

Beaded friendship bracelets in a car

Photo of two brightly-coloured beaded friendship bracelets (or maybe necklaces?) hanging behind the rearview mirror of a parked car.

Bicycle loops on Lygon Street

Black-and-white photo taken from ground level looking up at several metal bicycle-parking loops installed on a sidewalk. One bicycle has been locked to the loop farthest from the photographer.

Post-lunch service emptiness

Photo of the covered outdoor seating areas of several restaurants along a road. All the tables in the photo are currently unoccupied.

Gluten free pasta and pizza on Lygon Street

Photo of a sandwich board on a sidewalk with text written in blue and pink chalk on a black background. The list on items on the chalkboard reads lamb shanks, tomahawk steaks, Atlantic salmon, arancini balls, barramundi, and gluten free pasta + pizza.

Photographer reflections

Photo of a closed glass door set in a bluestone alcove. The glass is very reflective on this sunny day. In the reflection you can see a commercial street with cars parked on it. The main subject of the reflection is a man wearing white sneakers, black jeans, a bright orange jacket, and a dark driver's cap. The man is holding up a camera at chin height and is taking a photo of his own reflection in the glass door.

It's pronounced ah-sigh-eeh

Photo of the entrance of The Acai Company. Text in a speech bubble below the company logo reads “pronounced ah-sigh-eeh, not ay-chay!!!”.

Pizza oven on Lygon Street

Photo of a large, currently-empty, wood fired pizza over through the window of a pizzeria.

Affinity six-month free trial!

I am not a fan of Adobe and I go out of my way to avoid Adobe products, which is why my image and vector editors of choice are Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, respectively.

I’ve been using Affinity software for years and I love it. You pay a one-off fee and the software is yours for life (no subscription!).

So if you’re in the market for an image or vector editor – or desktop publishing software, for that matter – then I would highly recommend at least trying Affinity’s products.

The cool thing: everything is currently on sale for 50% off. Or you can get a six-month trial of all their products for free. Yes, completely free!

Give it a try. You won’t regret it.

Decision fatigue solved: what to watch next

How do you decide which movie or TV show you’re going to watch next?

Do you make lists? And if so, how do you organise those lists?

After years of trial-and-error and one-dimensional list making, I now have a solution that works exceptionally well for me. So let’s talk about it.

To get to my current solution I had to solve three problems.

1. Effort required to watch

Some media takes effort to consume, while other stuff is quick and easy to watch.

When I used to have all my movies and TV shows in a single, long list, deciding what to watch next became a chore in itself. As I went through the list, I’d need to keep track of which movies and TV shows I had the mental capacity to enjoy at the time. And because it took so long to pick something, I’d often just end up watching what was being broadcast on one of the movie channels instead – flicking through until I found something interesting enough.

I fixed this problem by grouping my next-watch items into three ‘brain power’ categories: 30%, 60%, and 90% brain. Now, based on how I’m feeling and how much effort I’m willing to expend, I can decide which of those shorter lists to look through. I also maintain separate lists for movies and TV shows, which makes the lists even shorter.

So what do those brain power categories mean?

30% brain

This is stuff that’s easy to watch – low emotional stakes, relatively straightforward plots; usually something fun and quick.

Action and comedy media tends to fall into this category, as does most YA stuff; some talk shows and panel shows too. Most reality TV doesn’t fit here though, since that to me is 10% brain media and I usually get bored watching it.

Some examples of 30% brain media that I’ve enjoyed watching recently are Obliterated, Wednesday, and FUBAR.

These shows might not be 30% brain for everyone, of course. But for someone like me who watches a lot of action and SFF (science fiction and fantasy), they all make for low-effort watching.

60% brain

This is stuff that has a bit of meat on it, but you don’t need to fully invest yourself emotionally to enjoy.

Plot-driven and character-driven action and drama media tends to fall into this category, as well as some SFF stuff with more advanced world building.

Some examples of 60% brain media that I’ve enjoyed watching recently are Reacher, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Fallout.

90% brain

This is stuff takes a bit of effort to enjoy. You need to invest yourself mentally and emotionally, but the resulting payoff is worth it.

The things that fall into this category are advanced drama, action, and SFF. Mostly stuff that you can’t or don’t want to binge-watch.

90% brain media I’ve enjoyed recently: The Peripheral, Shōgun, and Silo.

Yay for Tumblr

This way of categorising content into how much effort it takes to consume comes from Tumblr, by the way. I can’t find the original post (it was from a long time ago), but in it the poster had said they were tired and only had the energy to watch a “30% brain” TV show that night. This method of classification stuck and is now used quite frequently on that social network.

2. Priority-sorted lists

Grouping to-watch items into separate lists doesn’t solve the problem of having to go through each list every time you want to watch a movie or start a new show. So now I prioritise my lists, with the things I want to watch first placed towards the top.

Every now and then I’ll go through each list and re-sort it, moving the items I feel like watching sooner further up the list. This usually happens after I’ve listened to a podcast episode featuring someone who talks about a movie or TV show they were involved with.

3. Search-minimising processes

Maintaining three priority-sorted, brain-power grouped lists – one set for movies and one set for TV shows – didn’t solve all my problems though. I needed to create some additional processes to make everything run smoothly.

I did that by adding three more lists:

  • Inbox: This is where all new items go if it’s not already clear which brain-power list they should be sorted into.

  • Waiting: This is where I move TV shows when I’m waiting for the next season to start.

  • Watch next: This is where I put items that, regardless of brain-power level, I want to watch as soon as possible.

Now the first place I look is the ‘watch next’ list. And as I start to clear this list, I add items from the three brain-power lists to the bottom of this one.

Great success

Screenshot from KanbanFlow

I moved fully over to this system at the end of last year and it has been working incredibly well for me. So much so that a few months ago I adopted the same approach for the books I want to read.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering which tool I use to maintain these lists, I use the free version of KanbanFlow since that has all the functionality I need.

What system do you use for deciding what you’re going to to watch or read next? I’d love to know.

Franklin Gothic alternatives – follow-up

UPDATE (Oct 2024): In the first 1 minute, 12 seconds of this video on YouTube I show you my four free and four paid recommended alternatives (with download links in the description).

There’s a new, fantastic Franklin Gothic alternative in town: American Grotesk by Klim Type Foundry. 

In my earlier dive into Franklin Gothic alternatives I focused on affordable (and, in fact, free) alternatives. This time we’re at the other end of the spectrum because a 5-user, desktop-only licence of the American Grotesk collection (regular, condensed, and compressed) will set you back US$1,134.

But if you can afford that, it is totally worth it.

Graphic showing two columns of short text blocks and large heading and title text. The left column shows these in Franklin Gothic Book, Franklin Gothic Medium, and Franklin Gothic Heavy. The right column shows these in American Grotesk, American Grotesk Medium, and American Grotesk Black.

If you read American Grotesk’s design information, you’ll learn that some core aspects of Franklin Gothic’s identity were lost when it was translated from metal type to photo typesetting by the ITC type foundry in 1980.

Screenshot from the American Grotesk design information webpage showing typeface samples comparing, in the left column, News Gothic to ITC Franklin Gothic Book and, in the right column, Franklin Gothic to ITC Franklin Gothic Heavy. The News Gothic and ITC Franklin Gothic Book characters have numbered call-outs on them to highlight their differences.

And then you’ll read about what type designer Kris Sowersby did to maintain Franklin Gothic’s original industrial machine feel in American Gothic. If you’re a type nerd like me, you’ll enjoy getting into all those details :)

Anyway, this follow-up to my original post is just to note that American Grotesk is an excellent and gorgeous “reprisal” of Franklin Gothic that everyone should be aware of.

[Photo walk] Around Southern Cross Station #2

I left work a little after lunchtime and took a quick walk around Southern Cross railway station to take a few photos.

I’m starting to get the hang of my new, budget TTArtisan 27mm pancake lens (42mm full-frame equivalent) and I’m enjoying seeing its colour rendering in various lighting scenarios. Some of its colours are halfway to Classic Chrome, for example.

I’m also enjoying taking photos with a prime lens instead of my usual Fujifilm 18-55mm zoom lens.

Looking down Collins Street, Docklands

Photo looking down the street in the central business district of a metropolitan city on a clear afternoon. There are tall buildings on both sides of the street and two pairs of tram tracks runs down the middle. There are no trams on these tracks right now and so a man is jaywalking across them.

Waiting for his bus outside Southern Cross Railway Station

Photo of a man wearing jeans and a hoodie leaning against a wide pole next to the curb of a city street on a sunny afternoon. Behind the man is his luggage, which is a large carpet bag / roller suitcase hybrid, with its handle extended.

Furiosa marketing campaign in full swing at Southern Cross Station

Photo of one of the main entrances to a large, urban train station. There are three escalators and a very wide set of stairs taking travellers to the upper levels. The sides of each step is painted with a slice of the main Furiosa movie poster, so that when you look at it head-on, you can see the whole poster. Hanging down from the station’s high ceiling are several, extremely long Furiosa banners, each featuring either the main protagonist or the main antagonist.

Looking up at Mövenpick Hotel Melbourne

Photo looking up from the ground of a very tall, blue-glass covered building. The building has rounded edges and two large curves along its length, making it look somewhat like a fancy water bottle.

Bourke Street entrance to Southern Cross Station

Photo of an extremely wide staircase at the entrance of an urban train station. The staircase has several banisters running along the steps so people can ascend or descend safely. On the left side of the photo is a large way finding sign with headings for Metropolitan Trains, Regional Trains, and Coach Terminal.

Walking up the stairs at Southern Cross Station

Photo of an extremely wide staircase at the entrance of an urban train station. The staircase has several banisters running along the steps so people can ascend or descend safely. A woman wearing black pants and a dark mango coloured jacket is walking up the stairs.

Train tracks heading into Southern Cross Station - moody version

Photo of four train tracks and three train platforms in an urban, outdoor train station. The photo has been taken through a clear plexiglass safety barrier that used to have an opaque covering, parts of which have since been peeled off. The photo is desaturated and moody.

Train tracks heading into Southern Cross Station - negative version

Photo of four train tracks and three train platforms in an urban, outdoor train station. The photo has been taken through a clear plexiglass safety barrier that used to have an opaque covering, parts of which have since been peeled off. The photo is high-contrast, with the bright, beige, half-removed covering in the foreground standing out sharply against the tracks and platform, which are darker shaded.

Scratched-off opaque shading on a plexiglass barrier

Photo of a tall plexiglass safety barrier that has been erected along the side of a bridge that spans a dozen train tracks. Some panels of plexiglass have advertising on them. The one in focus has a plain, beige covering that provides shade from sun. About a third of this opaque covering has been scratched off so people are able to look through the plexiglass at the trains running underneath.

Cranbourne train heading into Southern Cross Station

Photo taken from a bridge, looking down at the front of a modern, blue, silver, and yellow train running along its track. A digital sign above front windscreen reads ‘Cranbourne’.

Flinders Street train heading into Southern Cross Station

Photo taken from a bridge, looking down at the front of a blue, silver, and yellow train running along its track. The photo has been taken through the holes of a perforated metal sound-and-safety barrier erected along the side of the bridge that the photographer is standing on.

107M heading into Southern Cross Station

Photo taken from a bridge, looking down at the front of a blue, silver, and yellow train running along its track. The lead carriage is numbered 107M. The photo has been taken through the holes of a perforated metal sound-and-safety barrier erected along the side of the bridge that the photographer is standing on.

Refurbished ThinkPad FTW!

I bought a laptop that replaces three devices with a single one.

The best part: it’s not even a new laptop. It’s a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 9) from 2021 that I bought from Reboot-IT :)

Product photos showing the front-on and angled views of a black, thin, and light laptop.

The three devices this replaces are my:

  1. Travel device: an underpowered and now end-of-life travel Windows tablet/laptop that, as of this month, no longer receives operating system updates;

  2. Portable device: a high-performance, but heavy and bulky gaming laptop with an almost-dead battery that I have since installed Linux on;

  3. Back-up windows device: a gaming desktop that developed a hardware fault a few months ago but is still my back-up Windows computer.

I have both Windows 11 and Linux Mint installed on my new (to me) laptop, with Linux Mint as the primary operating system.

(Windows I have on there just in case I need to use the full Microsoft Office suite for something or if my current gaming desktop dies and I urgently need to use Windows for something. Both scenarios are unlikely, but not completely out of the question.)

This isn’t even my first ThinkPad

This laptop is actually the third ThinkPad in my life. My current work laptop is also a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, though that is a sixth generation (Gen 6) model from 2018.

My first ThinkPad was a ThinkPad X210 Tablet PC that I bought in 2010. I saved up for three years to be able to afford that, and it was the most I’d ever spent on any electronic device in my life (equivalent to $4,800 in today’s money!).

Photo of a brand new, chunky, black ThinkPad tablet PC lying on a brown dining table. Lying on the left of the laptop are some users guides and warranty documentation. Lying on the right is a black, ThinkPad-branded wireless mouse.

I loved that laptop and used it for four years before replacing it with my first gaming laptop in 2014.

What’s even cooler is that it still works just fine! Here are my two ThinkPads side-by-side, with the chonky, twisty boy on the left running Ubuntu and the thin-and-light one on the right running Linux Mint.

Collage of two photos showing black ThinkPad laptops face-on. The photo on the left shows a small, chunky tablet PC and is labeled ‘Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Tablet PC (2010)’. The photo of the right shows a sleek, thin laptop and is labeled ‘Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 (2021)’.

The joy of underpowered devices

There are three reasons I went with a refurbished laptop instead of buying a new one (like I have every few years since 2006):

  1. My primary operating system on this laptop is Linux. And, unlike Windows, Linux doesn’t need fancy new hardware to run perfectly well for years on end. So there was no need for me to buy a brand new device.

  2. Refurbished laptops are a whole lot cheaper than new ones. You can buy 7-10 year old ThinkPads for $400-600 and 3-7 year old ThinkPads for $700-900. In comparison, a current-generation ThinkPad (Gen12) with the same specs as the one I just bought will set you back $3,400. Buying used or refurbished tech isn’t for everyone, of course. But I’m enough of a tech geek to be comfortable rolling with whatever I get.

  3. I didn’t need a high-performance device. I wanted something thin and light and capable, not something screamingly fast. This is the same reason why, earlier in the year, I bought a Lenovo Tab M8 eight-inch tablet ($170 on sale) instead of an iPad Mini ($830 for the lowest-spec model). I just wanted something to read books and email on, and that tablet lets me do everything I need. Same with this laptop. I already have a powerful gaming PC for all my gaming and multimedia editing needs so I don’t need my portable device to be top-of-the-line or even from this year’s product line.

Linux as my daily driver

What I’m looking most forward to, I think, is using Linux a lot more than I have in the past.

I’ve used Linux on and off since 1996, but I’ve never had it as my primary operating system. And, in some ways, it’s still not that. My gaming desktop is supremely capable and, in most cases, that’s what I’ll use first.

But now that I have a laptop that is actually usable (unlike my old Windows tablet/laptop) and portable (unlike my old gaming laptop), I expect I’ll have Linux in front of my a lot more often. That should be fun, so onward and upward I go :)

 

Squarespace sold to private equity

Well, shit.

Squarespace has, for all intents and purposes, been sold to Permira, a British private equity firm, for $6.9 billion. As a result, the company will go private by the end of the year – meaning it’ll no longer be publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Screenshot of the top of a news article dated 13 May 2024 from the Squarespace Investor Centre with the title ‘Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira’.

While I’m happy for CEO Anthony Casalena and his team at Squarespace, being sold to a private equity firm is traditionally a step towards enshittification.

This does me a concern because my personal website (what you’re reading this on/from) is built on Squarespace, as are two other websites that I manage. I love Squarespace and have been a customer since May 2012. I really don’t want to have to move to another no-code web host if this place goes downhill over the next few months or years.

The problem with private equity

“Why might things go downhill?” you ask. Well, when private equity firms buy companies they tend to squeeze all the value out of them before selling them off as empty, discarded shells.

To quote Cory Doctorow:

Fans of the Sopranos will remember the “bust out” as a mob tactic in which a business is taken over, loaded up with debt, and driven into the ground, wrecking the lives of the business’s workers, customers and suppliers. When the mafia does this, we call it a bust out; when Wall Street does it, we call it “private equity.”

Or Nicholas Shaxson, writing in the Guardian:

To their critics, private equity firms are blood-suckers that load healthy companies with debt then asset-strip them, leaving lifeless husks. The private equity titans counter with the opposite tale: they buy underperforming firms, install whizzy IT systems and inject far-sighted management, borrow money to juice up performance, and turn them into roaring engines of capitalism, making everyone rich. As ever, the reality is a mix of the two.

The core of private equity’s problem – for society, but not for its investors – is that many of the tricks in private equity’s toolbox just redistribute the pie upwards, generating immense profits but deepening inequality and sapping growth.

And research tells us that business bought by private equity firms go bankrupt ten times more often than other businesses.

So, yeah. I’m concerned.  

A sliver of hope?

All that said, Casalena is staying on as CEO and Board Chair, and two other major long-term investors are “re-investing” in Squarespace as well. So that might be good news.

And looking through the other technology companies that Permira has invested in, the sense I get is that, while those companies might be somewhat expensive, at least they’re not shit.

So there is hope that we won’t get screwed over too badly.

Not that I’m going to wait to find out. I’ll start playing around with alternatives over the next few months and get ready to move when the time comes. If the time comes. *crosses fingers*

 

Old desktop wallpapers

I was going through my old files recently when I came across the first computer desktop wallpaper I made with my own photos.

This collage features Rufus, our Labrador retriever, and I took these photos in 2006.

When I took the first photo I’d called down to Rufus but he hadn’t yet figured out where I was calling from. The second photo shows him figuring it out. And the third photo is his reaction upon seeing me.

Collage of three vertically-sliced photos, each taken moments apart, of a yellow Labrador retriever dog sitting on a patch of dirt and looking up at the photographer. In the first photo the dog looks puzzled as it tries to figure out where the photographer is calling him from. In the middle photo he looks up and sees the photographer. In the third photo his tail starts wagging and he is happy to see the photographer.

The collage above is a 1024×768 pixel image, so you can tell how long ago I made it!

The only other photos of mine of I’ve used as wallpapers are these ones from a trip to Alice Springs, Uluru, and Kata Tjuta in 2010.

Photo of Kata Tjuta, a group of domed rock formations in a desert that has red sand and patchy green flora (shrubs and trees) that gets denser the closer you get to the rocks.

These photos are 1920×1080 pixels in size, so you can tell I’d upgraded my monitor in the intervening years :)

Photo looking down at several footprints in red/brown desert sand.

I do love a good computer wallpaper, and I’ve collected dozens, if not hundreds, of excellent images over the years.

I’ve never used any of my other photos as wallpapers though. There’s no need to, when there are so many other excellent options out there – some of which I’ve been very happy to for, like the ones from Vlad Studio.

The monitor I’m working on now is an ultrawide 3840×1600 pixels, by the way, and this is my current wallpaper.

Close-up photo of hundreds of rounded pebbles in many dark shades of black and red.

Testing out my new 40mm lens

I bought a new camera lens!

It’s a TTArtisan AF 27mm F2.8 – which means it has autofocus, a 27mm focal length (40mm full-frame equivalent), and its lowest f-stop is 2.8. ‘TTArtisan’ stands for ‘The Thinking Artisan’, by the way.

I bought this lens for three reasons:

  1. Size: I wanted a pancake lens that would make it easier for me to carry my mirrorless camera around everywhere.

  2. Focal length: I wanted a 40mm full-frame equivalent prime lens because 27mm and 40mm are the two focal lengths I am most comfortable shooting at (which are 18mm and 27mm on my mirrorless, APS-C camera, by the way). I even did a whole ‘one focal length at a time’ exercise last year to figure this out.

  3. Availability: The Fujifilm XF27mm F2.8 R WR lens that I actually wanted has been out of stock since the end of last year.

This TTArtisan lens is one-third the price of its Fujifilm counterpart, so it’s not as good. But I didn’t want to wait any longer and I was willing to deal with whatever shortcomings it had.

The plan with my most recent photo walk, then, was to try out the new lens to see how it performs. And you know what? It does pretty well.

Yes, it has issues dealing with strong light sources: bright lights get overly glow-ey and, if you face the sun, your whole photo gets washed out. But these are things you can work around.

And yes, it has vignetting that gets worse the wider-open you shoot it. But (a) I rarely shoot wide open and (b) that vignetting is ridiculously easy to fix in post.

Finally yes, it has some interesting colour and contrast characteristics: its colours a little muted and its contrast is slightly soft. But that is what you would call the character of the lens.

I didn’t have time to do a long photo walk yesterday, so these are the only decent photos I managed to take. I think they came out quite well :)

Half-open train door at Southern Cross Station

Road expansion joint in Collins Street, Docklands

St. Brew Dining area on Friday afternoon (when this cafe is closed)

Roast meats in the window at China Bar on Elizabeth Street

Coop’s Shot Tower inside the Melbourne Central complex at sunset

My initial thoughts about this lens are that I quite like it. It’s less pancake-sized and more scone-sized, but it’s still much smaller than all my other lenses.

The photos I took with it weren’t brilliant right out of the box, but it took only a little tweaking to get them to where I wanted. And frankly that’s to be expected with a lens that costs a little as this one did!

So I’m very happy I bought this and I’m looking forward to talking lots more photos with it.

Thursday morning at Southern Cross

Yes, that is a gold-tipped, bright red, high-heel shoe on top of a train carriage at Southern Cross Station around 9am on Thursday morning.

Photo looking down at the top of a blue and silver coloured train carriage. Wedged into one of the grooves running along the roof of this carriage is a bright red high-heeled show with a gold coloured tip.

Hopefully there was a fun story to go along with this!

Flu shot 2024

Do vaccines even work if you don’t take a selfie afterwards? :)

Selfie of a man sitting in a car outside a Chemist Warehouse branch. The man has his t-shirt sleeve rolled up to show a piece of cotton wool stuck to his upper arm using a strip of medical paper tape.

[Photo walk] Around Flinders Street Station

I got the chance to take a couple of photos around Flinders Street Station this morning. And because I’m still considering buying a pancake lens, I restricted myself to shooting at only the 40mm focal length (which is 27mm on my APSC camera).

Haircut and free whisky from $40

Photo of a chalkboard sign outside a barber shop that reads (in pink and green chalk), “Haircut + free whisky from $40” above the ‘hair guys aus’ Instagram handle and the text “Walk ins welcome”.

Next Yarra River cruise is at 12:15pm

Photo of a small whiteboard on a small counter that's been placed outside an exterior door. Written on the whiteboard in red and black marker is, “Next cruise 12:15. 1 hour cruise sightseeing”. A tall blackboard attached to the wall behind this reads, ‘Yarra River Cruises’, lists cruise times for the day, and also reads, “Bar on board, free coffee/tea, free Wi-Fi, live commentary, and luxury seating”.

Photographer getting her clients ready for their newlyweds photoshoot

Photo of a photographer laughing as she talks to a newlywed couple who are standing on the steps of a train station in the middle of the city. The photographer is posing them before she photographs them.

Networking, security & backups in 2024

I made a couple of upgrades to our home network recently so I thought I’d map it out and talk about it a little.

Home network

About a year and a half ago we bought a house. One of its major selling points (at least for me) was that it came pre-wired, with ethernet cables already installed in the walls.

Here’s how I used that to set up our home network – one that provides high quality wired or Wi-Fi internet access in all rooms, bathrooms, and outside areas.

Network diagram titled ‘Home network’. The diagram shows four room locations, one roaming location, and wired ethernet cables in the wall of the house. The garage is where the internet is connected via an NBN modem is. That room also has a router, switch, NAS, and printer – all of which have wired connections. The downstairs living room has a network switch, TV, UHD player, and home theatre – all of which have wired connections. The upstairs retreat has a Wi-Fi extender + switch and TV, UHD player, and home theatre. All but the home theatre have wired connections. The upstairs home office has a desktop with a wired connection. Finally, we have some roaming phones, tablets, laptops, etc that are connected via Wi-Fi.

I had two main goals when planning this network:

  • Put all bandwidth-heavy activities on the wired network. This includes things like 4K media streaming to our TVs and the backing up of large media files from my desktop to the NAS. Doing that leaves the Wi-Fi network free for our laptops, phones, and smart home gadgets.

  • Make sure our work laptops are a single wall away from a Wi-Fi access point. Both Nadia and I work from home at least two days a week and both of us do lots of video conferencing. So our work laptops (which we use upstairs) need to have access to a strong Wi-Fi signal.

Happily I was able to achieve both of those goals.

With this set-up Nadia and I can do simultaneous video conferencing for work without any issues. And I can do things like download hundreds of gigabytes of computer game data to my desktop without interfering with the TV show Nadia that is streaming downstairs.

New router and a UPS

A couple of weeks ago I replaced our ailing primary router (all its ethernet ports had died) with a Synology WRX560. And because our secondary router is a Synology RT2600ac with the latest firmware installed, I’ve been able to configure that as an extender. So now we have a mesh Wi-Fi network throughout the house.

Finally, this weekend I put our primary router, NBN modem, and NAS behind a CyberPower UPS. I’m pretty sure our previous router developed its issues because of recent power surges and outages. This UPS has automatic voltage regulation so it’ll protect our primary networking devices (and NAS) while also giving us about an hour of back-up battery power.

Protecting our data and network

With everything always connected, I need to make sure our devices and gadgets are secure. I do this using the Swiss cheese model of layered network security.

All security layers have some holes (like a slice of Swiss cheese does) but, by adding multiple layers with differently-arranged holes, you can minimize the chance of anything getting through.

In our case we have protections at the router layer, operating system layer, and browser layer.

Screenshot of a diagram titled ‘Security strategy’. The diagram has three columns with icons for browser, operating system, and router. Each column is split into incoming and outgoing directions, with risk mitigation measures listed under each one. The router column has active threat protection, two-factor authentication, and auto lock-out under incoming; and it has Cloudflare DNS under outgoing. The operating system column has active threat protection, full drive encryption, and 3-2-1+ backups under incoming; and it has NextDNS under outgoing. The browser column has password manager, two-factor authentication, DNS over HTTPS, HTTPS-only, and uBlock origin under outgoing.

Incoming controls

Active defense against incoming attacks is managed through threat protection at the router and operating system levels.

Passive defense is managed by using things like full drive encryption (which means upgrading to Windows 11 Pro so we can use BitLocker) and a comprehensive back-up strategy (more on this in a minute).

Outgoing controls

Since malware and ransomware attacks are often triggered by what you do in your browser, we use layers of outgoing security to protect against this:

  • Our primary router is configured to use Cloudflare’s DNS service,

  • our operating systems (in our computers, phones, and tablets) are all configured to use NextDNS, and

  • our web browsers all use uBlock Origin and a bunch of other security and privacy-forward configurations.

Finally, all our online accounts use unique, long, randomly-generated passwords that are managed by the Bitwarden password manager. And we have two-factor authentication set-up (using Aegis) on all the accounts that offer this feature.

Recovering from a disaster

If, in spite of all those protections, things do go horribly wrong – or maybe if there’s a fire or natural disaster – our last line of defence is a comprehensive back-up strategy.

A 3-2-1 back-up strategy – the least you should be aiming for – says you need to have:

  • 3 copies of your data,

  • on 2 different mediums,

  • with at least 1 copy in the cloud.

We have a 4-4-2 back-up strategy with:

  • 4 copies of our data,

  • on 4 different mediums,

  • with 2 copies in the cloud.

Screenshot if a graphic titled ‘Back-up strategy’. The screenshot shows backups from a desktop. There are constant, selective back-ups to a cloud sync location; hourly, selective back-ups to a cloud backup location; and hourly, comprehensive back-ups to a NAS backup location.

How I do it

I use Sync.com to maintain a constant, synchronized copy of all my important files in the cloud. This gives me two copies, on two different mediums, with at least one copy in the cloud.

I then use Arq to simultaneously (a) backup a selection of key files to a cloud storage bucket and (b) backup all my files (which includes large, replaceable media files) to our network attached storage (NAS) at home. So that’s two more copies, on two additional mediums, one of which is in the cloud.

Naturally all these files are encrypted before leaving my computer and access to the NAS and all those cloud services is protected with unique, long, random passwords and two-factor authentication.

Keeping up with our needs

Doing all this takes time and effort, and it doesn’t come cheap. But so much of our lives is online these days that the cost of inaction – and the risk of losing that much of our lives – is much higher than the cost of doing everything I’ve talked about above.

It wasn’t always like this for us, of course. Our cost and effort has kept pace with what we’ve been able to afford along the way. We’re just privileged to be in a position where we can do something this sophisticated and automated. (Gone are the good old days of backing up to multiple 3½ inch floppy disks and, later, USB sticks.)

I hope, regardless of your personal set-up, that you too are doing the best you can to keep yourself connected, but protected.