Daniel Davies

Mark Steadman asked the question, 'What have you been up to?', and so I guess its only right I answer such a question. And a lot I have been up to lately. First, and perhaps, foremost, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Then there's of course been some doing, and then there's been my deliberate non-doing.

Thinking

I've been thinking the web takes a heck of a lot of commitment. There are routine things which we do, like RSS, Twitter (i.e. "social" web, or so we're lead to believe). These create a burden. Then there's the things which make our lives easier, such as getting train times, buying something, getting car insurance. These are non-routine, and make our lives easier. I've been thinking about this a lot... and I think I've found a pardox in the modern web, but I'm still unsure, so I'll write my thoughts in more detail when I understand them more. Essentially, a committment to accept these burdens is all that's needed to perceived to be an "expert" by those too busy not to accept the burdens. Any who, that's just my thinking.

Doing

Doing isn't so easy, thoughts can (and usually do) come in traffic on the M6. Coding isn't so easy to perform at such times.

Ubuntu UK Planet - I'm working on the theme for the new Ubuntu UK Planet. Its becoming very hard to find the time to commit to my least favourite actively, xhtml/css. But I'm slogging on none the less to make sure I get it done.

Rhubarb Radio - I've offered my help to Rhubarb Radio. At the moment I'm setting up their email for them, and using a little project of mine called Hermes to let them manage all of this through their Django admin.

This blog - I've been doing loads of work on this blog, in particular tidying up the code to act as a platform for all future developments I'm doing. You can see how its looking in the Subversion repository. I've also added a nifty little gallery, which I'll populate as soon as I've fixed iPhoto on the mac...

Non-doing

A side-effect of the "thinking" is that I've actually learnt to appreciate the satisfaction of being away from the Internet, in the "real-world", interacting physically. Its incredibly valuable, and the return on investment of seeing people for real far out-weighs that of a conversation online.

Thus I've been doing nothing at all, especially at the weekends. Here are the real world things I've been doing, in my deliberate attempt to relax with a little bit of non-doing.

Car Boots - I've been going to a lot of car boots lately, primarily because they are the best places to pick up dragons and Playstation 2 games dead cheap. I've picked about 15 games in the last couple of months from car boot, and my dragons are looking great with a few additions I've haggled on to my display case (which, by the way, cost £1 from car boot)

Crafting - I like to take things I don't really like, such as my £1 display box from car boot, and turn it in to something I do like and can use. This is, without doubt, a physical manifestation of the thing that ticks inside me every time I program. A tin of black spray paint, some gold and a lazy Sunday afternoon in the garden is all it takes to occupy my non-doing time. Now for a few light bulbs and its a full display cabinate.

Playstation 2 - I brought one for £30 a few months back, but never really played it. This is one of my best non-doing pass times for when I'm on my own now though, as I've accumulated a fair few games lately. I'm trying to track down copies of all Final Fantasys to play at the moment, and so far I've gone and got myself addicted to 7 again.