theTangentSpace

Weekly digest 31

Happenings

• I started tracking my protein and calories to try and bulk up a bit. I'm using the MacrosFirst app, which is very good.
• It was my birthday on this week. This is the one day where I blasted so far past my calories target the app counted it as a failure. Mr 3 was insistent that to be a proper birthday, I needed balloons, bunting, a cake, and candles. So while I was at work, he (with perhaps a little help from my wife) made it happen. Other than that, my wife got me some nice vegan trainers, my parents a Bandcamp gift card, and my sister's family got me some pizza dough proving containers. Their first batch of dough balls is proving as I write this, made on Thursday to bake today. Genuinely lovely birthday, considering it was a mid-thirties "nothing" birthday.
• This week has been mainly report-writing week at work. We are encouraged to use AI, specifically Copilot for data protection reasons, to reduce the workload. I started off trying to use Copilot and I have to admit, the output was better than the junk we got from the app we used last year. But I don't think it reduced workload — Copilot was basically just slightly tarting up the list of points I gave it, and I spent so much time editing, copying, and pasting bits of output I eventually decided Copilot was slowing me down. I could just write the points I wanted to make in decent professional prose in the first place, and I found this both faster and more satisfying
• Been watching the Lionesses in the Euros, always good fun
• The first issue of Good Internet magazine arrived, edited by xandra of 32-bit cafe. It's a print magazine for hobbyist webmasters. The design is great.
• I started looking ahead to Blaugust Festival Of Blogging 2025. I'll make a proper post about it soon, but if you fancy dipping your toe in the blogging waters, this is a great time to do it — a friendly community encouraging each other to post stuff during August.
• Time to begin constructing my next crossword, I think
• Yesterday was a scorcher, so we spent all day in the garden. Unfortunately, this was also Mr 3's first encounter with a wasp sting.

Links

• The Price Of Software Freedom Is Eternal Politics.
• Artificial Intelligence is the opposite of education
• AI Coders think they're 20% faste but they're actually 19% slower — only because this (very small) study confirms my experience above of AI intended to speed me up actually slowing me down.

Reading

Finished the audiobook of Casey Johnston's (of She's A Beast) memoir A Physical Education. Really enjoyable listen, the writing is great.