Declan ByrdAll summary posts published to the journal on Declan Byrd's personal site.2024-03-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/Declan Byrd2024 Week Notes - Week 122024-03-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week12/<p>No basketball for me this week. I was due to have a game on Tuesday against Worthing D&D black, but the game was cancelled a couple of hours before it was supposed to start. Unfortunately the sports hall roof was leaking and the heavy rain meant that there were puddles underneath each basket.</p>
<p>Spent significant hours trying to locate an image of every pair of basketball shoes that I've played in, and then <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/basketball-shoes/">wrote about it</a>. This was much harder than I had anticipated and as a result I gave up trying to find some pairs. Thinking about using this collection to create themes that can be applied to this site.</p>
<p>Becka needed to visit Manchester for work, and I got to tag along. So I spent most of the weekend travelling to and from Manchester on the train. I did get to have a bit of an explore while I was there, though most of this was on Sunday when it had stopped raining. Managed to get a lot of reading done while I was on the train too.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li><code>p-summary</code> for all my journal posts now have a value that is not undefined.</li>
<li>The description meta tag previously had a name of "Description" so I've now made sure it is lower cased.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781739434304/">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R Weaver</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading#now">Upgrade by Blake Crouch</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/108545/season/1">Season 1 of 3 Body Problem</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/624788">Black Bear (2020)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 112024-03-18T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week11/<p>On Tuesday, I had a basketball game for <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/35866828.html">Worthing D&D White against Horsham Hawks where we lost 72-86</a>. We never really recovered from the first quarter where we allowed Horsham to score 33 points and open up a 16 point lead. Despite the loss, I thought I had a good game and made a timely three-pointer in the second quarter.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3933330/europa-league-dream-over-but-albion-finish-on-a-high">Brighton win 1-0 against AS Roma</a> in the Europa League. AS Roma had a four goal advantage from the first leg, which required Brighton to also score a minimum of four goals to progress into the next round. Despite winning 1-0, the atmosphere in the stadium was flat at full-time. What should have been a celebratory moment of winning another game in European football turned into a moment where all you could think about was what could have been. Prior to last year, I would never have thought Brighton would play in a European competition in my life-time, so to be able to witness it happening for the first time has been incredible.</p>
<p>I've been working on a Node.js script that will create a template for my week notes. In the past I've tried using VS code snippets, but these only created a heading structure and left most of the frontmatter incomplete. I realised that I already have pages on my website that show what I am currently reading, and what I watched over the last seven days. The script I'm currently testing is using the same data sources to populate some of the week note template.</p>
<p>Also booked a holiday this week which I'm very excited about.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I changed the layout for any short notes and Mastodon posts. The date is now at the top of the card, and links to the page for the note/Mastodon post.</li>
<li>I had a restructure in the source code, and then <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/how-i-eleventy/">wrote about it</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/855262">Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/110971/season/3">Season 3 of How To with John Wilson</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 102024-03-11T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week10/<p>More Horizon Zero Dawn on the PlayStation this week. I managed to progress the main story a bit and no longer have a level considerably higher than the suggested level for the story mission. My struggle now is that I don't know how much time a particular mission takes, so often avoid starting it until I know I have several hours free.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Becka and I went to see <a href="https://barrycantswim.com/">Barry Can't Swim</a> at the <a href="https://www.concorde2.co.uk/">Concorde 2 in Brighton</a>. I had never visited the Concorde 2 before so I wasn't sure what to expect, but its a nice little venue. It was a sell-out so finding somewhere with a bit of personal space was a challenge, but we eventually found a good spot at the back. The music was very good and I enjoyed the gig.</p>
<p>I've been working on a rather large site refactor this week. In my 2024 to-do list, I wanted to group the markdown files for journal posts by the year that I published them. There was a bit of scope creep and I ended up moving a lot more files around. I haven't pushed the changes yet as I'm still writing about the process.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3929339/forest-felled-as-albion-return-to-winning-ways">Brighton win 1-0 against Nottingham Forest</a>. Not the most entertaining of games, but nice to see another win.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week10-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Barry Can't Swim on stage at the Concorde 2 in Brighton. To the left of the stage, a band member is wearing a jelly fish like hat that covers their face and is playing the drums. Barry is in the center of the stage behind a keyboard, and another band member is to the right of the stage." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Barry Can't Swim at the Concorde 2.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/110971-how-to-with-john-wilson/season/1">Season 1 of How To with John Wilson</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/110971-how-to-with-john-wilson/season/2">Season 2 of How To with John Wilson</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 92024-03-04T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week9/<p>Not much of note this week, so the notes are a bit brief.</p>
<p>On Thursday I had a basketball game for Worthing D&D White against South Coast Outlaws in the Basketball Sussex plate competition. This was the first of a two legs, and we managed to come away with a win.</p>
<p>I've been playing a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn on the PlayStation. Making lots of progress in the side quests, and now progressed to a level which is 10 higher than the recommended level for the story mission that I've been neglecting.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a couple of chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114481/season/1">Season 1 of Iwájú</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/246789/season/1">Season 1 of The Jury: Murder Trial</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 82024-02-26T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week8/<p>No basketball for me this week, as the schools are using the sports halls for exams.</p>
<p>I've been playing a bit more of Horizon Zero Dawn on the PlayStation. There are a lot of distractions from the main story objectives so I haven't progressed the story very far. Still enjoying the game though.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3908717/dunk-rises-to-the-occasion-to-earn-albion-a-point">Brighton draw 1-1 with Everton</a>. A somewhat frustrating game, given how much pressure Brighton applied in the first half. It was noticeable that the longer Brighton went without scoring, the louder the Everton supporters were - sensing that their team could find a way to win the game.</p>
<p>Its been nice this week to finish work and it not be dark outside.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>There's now an introduction section on the home page, and <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/introduction/">I wrote about my thought process when writing it</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a couple of chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/112693/season/2">Episodes 4-8 in season 2 of Kin</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/2493">The Princess Bride (1987)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/752623">The Lost City (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 72024-02-19T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week7/<p>I had an email from IFTT this week that warned me that the webhook service that my Mastodon bot is using will be shut down by the 22nd February unless I switched to a paid plan. I switched, but not to the IFTT paid plan. My bot now uses <a href="https://mastofeed.org/">mastofeed.org</a> to send the latest item in an RSS feed to Mastodon. The setup took minutes and there was no need to interface directly with the Mastodon API. Would recommend if you need an RSS feed to be posted to Mastodon.</p>
<p>I had a basketball session on Thursday. I was playing on a team where I didn't see much of the ball and found myself only really making an impact defensively. I came away from the session frustrated.</p>
<p>On Friday, Becka and I spent the day in Brighton. We had a very nice lunch at <a href="https://goemonramen.com/">Goemon Ramen bar</a> in Gardner street. We then played the ocean course and gamers paradise course at <a href="https://oneunder.co.uk/brighton/mini-golf/">One Under mini-golf</a>. The amount of sunshine throughout the day was also welcomed.</p>
<p>Sunday was Bruno's birthday. He got a new beanbag for the lounge so he now has somewhere to rest his chin while everyone else is watching the telly. He liked it so much that he spent most of the day on the new beanbag regardless of where everyone else was in the house.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-4020w.webp 4020w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-4020w.jpeg 4020w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week7-320w.jpeg" width="4020" height="4020" alt="Bruno the Sussex Spaniel sat on a wooden seat in front of some wooden garden fencing." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Birthday boy.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made on <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/112693/season/2">Episodes 1-3 in season 2 of Kin</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84777/season/3">Season 3 of Sunderland 'Til I Die</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/609681">The Marvels (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 62024-02-12T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week6/<p>I was supposed to have a basketball game this week for Worthing D&D White against East Grinstead Flyers but the game was cancelled. We would have only travelled with six players and one was carrying an injury. I was looking forward to playing, but I was also grateful that I could have an early night.</p>
<p>My own rule of writing a journal post for each change that I want to make for this website, has frustrated me slightly this week. I've found I'm writing more, but not making as much progress as I would like to. I'm currently writing about the process of adding an introduction paragraph to my website and while the end result should only be a couple of paragraphs, I've written more about the process than the introduction itself.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I travelled to London to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3888498">Brighton lose 2-1 against Tottenham Hotspur at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium</a>. Gutting to lose the game by conceding a last minute goal. The best part of the day was the stir fried Leghmen that I had at <a href="https://etleswalthamstow.com/">Etles Uyghur restaurant in Walthamstow</a> before the game.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week6-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the away end at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. The players of Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur prepare to kick-off." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Tottenham (A).</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made on <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/118642/season/1">Episodes 4-8 in season 1 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/109939-our-flag-means-death/season/2">Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/197803-here-we-go">Seasons 1 and 2 of Here We Go</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 52024-02-05T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week5/<p>On Monday, I had a basketball session in the evening. Not the best session I've had and I grew increasingly frustrated with how little the basketball was being shared amongst the team.</p>
<p>I was more excited about the drive to and from basketball than the session itself. The driving experience in my new car is a massive improvement on my old car. Not having to wait 10 minutes for the windscreen to demist also meant I got home earlier.</p>
<p>I had a basketball game on Tuesday, playing for Worthing D&D White in a loss to Bognor GSD. We got into foul trouble early in the game and were out-rebounded on both ends of the court. I thought I had a bad game all-round.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I visited my old secondary school to watch my younger cousin play the role of Shrek in the school's production of Shrek (the musical). They did very well, and it wasn't bad for a school production.</p>
<p>I started playing Horizon Zero Dawn on the PlayStation this week. I got bored of the repetitive tasks in the Assassin's Creed games and wanted something different. I'm enjoying Zero Dawn so far.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3878104">Brighton win 4-1 against Crystal Palace</a>. It was the kind of game that felt like a must not lose, and I wasn't feeling optimistic before kick-off. A superb win in the end.</p>
<p>I wrote this week's notes on my phone using Obsidian and then copied and pasted the file into the GitHub mobile app that commits the single markdown file. I'm unsure if this will be my preferred publishing flow, but it does mean that I can write my notes as they happen. I'm still tempted to build something that automates the copy/paste step of publishing these notes.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week. I have a draft post that I'm working on which hasn't been published yet.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A few chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/118642/season/1">Episodes 1-3 in season 1 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 42024-01-29T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week4/<p>On Monday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3864964">Brighton draw 0-0 against Wolves</a>. Not the most exciting game.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, I had a basketball game for Worthing D&D White in a 80-74 win against SE Tigers in the plate competition. I knew what the score was this time because I asked for a photo of the score sheet after the game. I made three three-pointers and a free throw for my first double digit game of the season which I was very pleased with. There was a lot of condensation on the court in the second half which made playing quite difficult but both teams were determined not to have the game called off. It ended up more like walking basketball by the end of the game.</p>
<p>On Friday, I got to collect my new car. It also meant saying goodbye to my first car which I used in a part-exchange. I'm very happy with the new car and all the new things that come with it that my old car didn't have.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I travelled up to Sheffield to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3868841">Brighton win 5-2 against Sheffield United in the FA cup</a>. This game was more exciting to watch than the game against Wolves on Monday and worth making the long journey for.</p>
<p>I also started the first few puzzles in <a href="https://www.journal29.com/">Journal 29: Oblivion</a>. Some pages are already causing headaches.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2024/week4-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the away end at Bramall Lane. The players of Brighton and Sheffield United prepare to kick-off." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Sheffield United (A)</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/930564">Saltburn (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/670292">The Creator (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/96608-the-stranger/season/1">Episodes 4-8 in season 1 of The Stranger</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 32024-01-22T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week3/<p>On Tuesday, I had a basketball game for <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/35866713.html">Worthing D&D White against Brighton Cougars</a>. Despite being on the losing side, I thought I had a good game, making two three-point shots.</p>
<p>I made a start on one of the items in the 2024 to-do list, and I started writing about adding a more human introduction to my site's homepage. As the outcome of this is will likely be something that I iterate on in the future, I'm trying to document as much of my thinking as possible.</p>
<p>Not much else to write about here this week.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I published the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/room-for-improvement/">first iteration of my 2024 to-do list</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/122226-echo/season/1">Episodes 3-5 in season 1 of Echo</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/675353">Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/526896">Morbius (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/96608-the-stranger/season/1">Episodes 1-3 in season 1 of The Stranger</a>.</li>
</ul>
2024 Week Notes - Week 22024-01-15T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week2/<p>This was my first five day working week since the end of November. Definitely feeling drained at the end of this week.</p>
<p>I had a basketball game this week, playing in Worthing D&D White's home loss to Worthing D&D Black. This game was rescheduled from December where the game got cancelled mid-way through the third quarter. I didn't play as well as I know I can and struggled to adjust to the pace of the game after long periods sat on the bench.</p>
<p>I spent the weekend car shopping. The intention wasn't to buy a car this weekend - I just wanted to see what kind of car I would like when I did have to buy a new one. After a test drive in a Toyota Aygo and concluding that the car was too cramped, I ended up test driving a larger car at a different dealership and signing some paperwork to purchase that car.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I posted my 2023 review.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/122226-echo/season/1">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 1 of Echo</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/0/episode/5">Taskmaster's New Year Treat 2024</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 in review2024-01-14T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/review/<h2 id="reading">Reading</h2>
<p>I finished 26 books in 2023. That is very likely the largest number of books I've ever read over the course of a year. The biggest reason for the increase in the number of books I finished were <a href="https://www.panini.co.uk/shp_gbr_en/magazines-comics-books/marvel/superheroes/bookazines.html">Marvel "bookazines"</a> which were short stories that didn't take long for me to read and reminded me of how much I liked reading graphic novels. 14 of the 26 books that I finished in 2023 were Marvel stories.</p>
<p>I don't really want to start comparing how many books I read year on year. Life happens and I see reading as a healthy habit so I don't want to discourage myself because I didn't read as many books as I did in a previous year.</p>
<p>If I was to chose which books I enjoyed reading most, they would probably be <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781839762024/">Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff</a> and <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781405930253/">Anxious People by Fredrik Backman</a>.</p>
<h2 id="gaming">Finished PlayStation games</h2>
<p>I could have named this section "games I played in 2023", but every game that I completed the story mode in was played on the PlayStation 5. It has become my console of choice over the last 12 months due to the large catalogue of games available and that I don't tend to game-on-the-go as much anymore. I've found I only pick up the Nintendo Switch for platform exclusive games.</p>
<p>I did purchase The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would and so I still haven't completed the story.</p>
<p>The PlayStation games I completed the story mode in, are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart</li>
<li>Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales</li>
<li>Shadow of the Tomb Raider</li>
<li>Star Wars Jedi: Survivor</li>
<li>Guardians of the Galaxy</li>
<li>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge</li>
</ul>
<p>There were many more hours spent playing games such as Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 23, EA Sports FC 24 in online matches.</p>
<h2 id="tvAndFilm">Cinema trips</h2>
<p>I only made it to the cinema four times in 2023. The films I was able to see were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Matilda the musical</li>
<li>Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3</li>
<li>Barbie</li>
<li>Antman and the Wasp Quantumania</li>
</ul>
<p>Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 was probably my favourite, with Barbie a close second. I'm hoping to see more films at my local cinema in 2024 and feel less reliant on waiting for the films to come available on any of the several streaming services that now exist.</p>
<h2 id="music">Music</h2>
<p>There's a running joke in my family that if I'm going to a gig its either going to be Fatboy Slim or Royal Blood. I like to think my music taste is a little more varied than that, but in 2023 I saw:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fatboy Slim at the Brighton Centre in March.</li>
<li>Dermot Kennedy at the Brighton Centre in April.</li>
<li>Royal Blood on Brighton Beach (On the Beach Festival 2023: Day Five) in July.</li>
<li>Fatboy Slim at The Old Market in December.</li>
</ul>
<p>So yeah, aside from the Dermot Kennedy gig it was either Fatboy Slim or Royal Blood. The Fatboy Slim gig at The Old Market in December was my favourite of the gigs that I attended.</p>
<h2 id="sport">Sport</h2>
<p>There was less basketball success in 2023 compared to previous years. Worthing D&D White - the Basketball Sussex men's team that I play for - were knocked out of the Sussex cup competition at the semi-final stage and finished second out of the teams based in the west of Sussex.</p>
<p>Following Brighton and Hove Albion through 2023 has been quite the adventure. Getting to see them qualify for the Europa League was something I never thought I would see and I was fortunate to attend a number of away games in addition to the home games that my season ticket covers. A real highlight was visiting Marseille in October with my dad and brother to watch Brighton collect their first ever points in a European competition.</p>
<h2 id="travel">Travel</h2>
<p>I managed to visit some places in 2023 that were new to me. In addition to the 72 hour trip to Marseille and Toulouse for the football, I also got to visit San Sebastien for a family holiday at the end of May, and Becka and I visited Antwerp in October.</p>
<p>I also travelled to Tallinn twice for work in April and August and got to meet the rest of the team I work with. I need to leave more time between connecting flights in the future to make the trips less stressful.</p>
2024 Week Notes - Week 12024-01-08T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2024/week1/<p>To celebrate my birthday, I went out for brunch to <a href="https://oeuf.cafe/">Oeuf café in Hove</a> with my family. I had the cheesy onion frumpets (French toast battered crumpets) and a side of pigs in blankets. Very good food.</p>
<p>I had one basketball session this week. I'm normally very rusty when I haven't played in a while, but I played much better than I thought I would. I had been excited to try out a new pair of basketball shoes that I had been gifted for my birthday and was pleased that there were no signs of rubbing by the end of the session. I had planed on attending a second session later in the week, though that session was cancelled due to some leaks in the sports hall roof and heavy rain.</p>
<p>I've made little progress with my 2023 review post. I created the markdown file at the start of December in anticipation that I would struggle to find the time to write the post in one sitting. I've only managed to write three paragraphs since then, and all of those were in the past seven days. I find the review posts useful to look back on, so I'm hoping the 2023 edition will get published eventually.</p>
<p>I started to make a list of things about this site that I'd like to improve. I'm trying to avoid the mentality of "to write a blog post, I must first completely redesign and implement the new design for my website from scratch". Maybe I'll publish the list once I've caught up with the other posts that I want to write about first.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910979/">Amazing Spider-man: Dark Web Omnibus by Zeb Wells</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781787330580/">Flake by Matthew Dooley</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/233629-bodies/season/1">Season 1 of Bodies</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/220801-fool-me-once/season/1">Season 1 of Fool Me Once</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 522024-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week52/<p>The week started with Christmas day, which was very busy but it was nice to spend time with all the family.</p>
<p>Most of this week was spent wondering what day of the week it actually was. Some days felt like they were skipped over, and some completely forgotten about.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3840722/joao-spot-on-again-as-albion-end-year-with-thrilling-win">Brighton win 4-2 against Tottenham Hotspur</a>. A great win to finish the calendar year.</p>
<p>The week finished with a family meal at Very Italian Pizza in Saltdean. It was a very nice meal, and the calzone I had was particularly good.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>There were some links that were not underlined. All links on the site now are now underlined.</li>
<li>I've got a new Open Graph graphic, so when my site is shared on social media, my face is no longer the big picture in the card.</li>
<li>A couple of dependency updates.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Amazing Spider-man: Dark Web Omnibus by Zeb Wells</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/979287">Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174/season/0/episode/23">Ghosts (UK) 2023 Christmas special</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/335977">Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/91363/season/2">Season 2 of What If...?</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/112693/season/1">Season 1 of Kin</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 512023-12-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week51/<p>On Tuesday, I had a basketball game for <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/35866682.html">Worthing D&D White against Worthing D&D Black</a>. Unfortunately, the game was cancelled part-way through. The court became too slippery due to the condensation in the sports hall and in the interest of health of safety, the referees decided it was best for the game to stop before anyone got seriously injured.</p>
<p>My car broke down on my way back from the basketball game, which was rather annoying.</p>
<p>I spent most of the week visiting Becka's family. It was nice to be able to spend some time with them in the build up to Christmas.</p>
<p>I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins on the PS5 this week. After accidentally missing it out and jumping straight into Assassin's Creed Odyssey earlier in the year, I decided to stop playing Odyssey and complete the story in Origins first. I've enjoyed the game so far, though I've not progressed the story very far because I've been completing all of the side quests instead.</p>
<p>Becka and I continued to play It Takes Two on the PlayStation. Because we didn't finish the level when we stopped playing last week, when we attempted to continue where we left it we had to restart the level. We did eventually defeat the evil vacuum cleaner and have made sure that the game saved, so that we can continue the next level later.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I added my notes for <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780349139180/">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780349139180/">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/520758">Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/923939">The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1172676-poison">Poison (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1172674-the-rat-catcher">The Rat Catcher (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1172675-the-swan">The Swan (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/91363-what-if/season/2/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 2 of What If...?</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 502023-12-18T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week50/<p>This week was my last working week of the year. I'm looking forward to having a break until January.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3823054/six-of-the-best-for-joao-as-albion-march-into-last-16">Brighton win 1-0 against Marseille</a>. Not the best game from a footballing perspective, but the scenes when Brighton scored were something else. There was a great sense of relief at full-time. It was amazing to say I was there to see Brighton top their group in their debut season in European football.</p>
<p>On Friday, Becka and I went to see Fatboy Slim at The Old Market. Our tickets were an early Christmas present from my auntie and uncle. It was a much smaller gig than the previous ones I had attended, with roughly 300 people in attendance. I can now cross off being in the front row of a concert from my bucket list. This was the best gig I've been to.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week50-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Fatboy Slim on stage. A solar system is being projected onto the walls behind." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Fatboy Slim at The Old Market.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to the gig, Becka and I went for dinner at <a href="https://www.sojubrighton.com/">Soju Korean kitchen & bar in Brighton</a>. I tried Tteokbokki for the first time, as well as eating Korean fried chicken and a bibimbap. Definitely planning to go back in the future.</p>
<p>Becka and I have been playing It Takes Two on the PlayStation this week. We've not yet finished the first level, but enjoying the game so far. We stopped playing after a couple of attempts at the first boss level against a giant vacuum cleaner. I wasn't aware it was not a single player game until I reached the start screen, though it does have the option for the second player to join online instead of playing locally.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No visual changes this week - just some dependency updates.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1031306">Apocalypse Clown (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/447404">Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/635731">Pig (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 492023-12-11T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week49/<p>I had a short work week this week, only working from Monday through to Wednesday.</p>
<p>On Wednesday I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3810653/hinshelwood-heads-the-winner-as-albion-come-from-behind">Brighton win 2-1 against Brentford</a>. A dominant win in the end, and it was great to see yet another teenager score for Brighton. I was back at the American Express stadium on Saturday too to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3815312/adingra-on-target-but-keeper-trafford-defies-albion">Brighton draw 1-1 with Burnley</a>. A little more disappointing this time.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Becka and I went to Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth to do some Christmas shopping. We managed to pick up pretty much everything we needed, and I was also able to get some things for myself.</p>
<p>On Friday, Becka and I walked into Shoreham for the Christmas market. It was very busy but worth looking around. I was able to pick up some Christmas presents from the shops that had extended their opening hours for the evening.</p>
<p>Sunday was spent making sausage rolls. As is tradition in our house, these get made each year so that there is ready-made food for the days after Christmas. This year's sausage meat flavours were pork, pork and leek, and Toulouse.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I wrote about <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/100-consecutive-weeks-of-notes/">100 consecutive weeks of notes</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155292-scott-pilgrim-takes-off/season/1">Season 1 of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/335787-uncharted">Uncharted (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 482023-12-04T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week48/<p>On Tuesday, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/35866555.html">Worthing D&D White's defeat to East Grinstead Flyers</a>. I can't remember the score, but I'm pretty sure we lost by around 20. The Basketball Sussex website isn't updating the fixtures with the scores anymore either so I might have to update this post later if I find out what the score was. I didn't have the best game and struggled to get going off the bench in what was a very cold sports hall.</p>
<p>I picked up The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom again this week. I'd pretty much forgotten the controls in the time that I'd stopped playing and continued to accidentally throw my melee weapons instead of firing arrows using the bow.</p>
<p>I had good intentions of keeping up with <a href="https://adventofcode.com/">advent of code</a> this week, but I've already made the decision to stop. My initial idea was to solve the problems in a language that I hadn't written any code in before (Go) and blog about what I had learned each day to solve the two-part problems. I realised quite quickly that this was over-ambitious and hadn't accounted for the time it would take to get familiar with the standard libraries. It took me a day and a half to get a solution for the first part of the first day's problem and I knew that I would need more time than a free evening to provide a working solution for each day. So I've stopped. For now anyway. I still think there is value in writing up my learnings with a new language by completing an advent of code, but I'm not going to limit myself to the month of December.</p>
<p>By publishing these notes, I will have now written notes about my week for 100 consecutive weeks.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress made with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/777270">Belfast (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 472023-11-27T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week47/<p>I was back to working a normal five day week this week.</p>
<p>I had two basketball sessions this week. I was shooting the ball well in both sessions, making multiple three pointers. It was much harder to keep running in the second session and my knees were feeling sore the following morning.</p>
<p>My free evenings this week spent playing career mode in EA SPORTS FC 24 on the PlayStation. On reflection I could have used that time to start a new game from the ones that are currently in my backlog, or even finishing the main storyline for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I definitely struggle to estimate how much gaming I can achieve in one evening.</p>
<p>I've been thinking about how the journal section of my site has been overwhelmed by week notes. I guess its easier to write week notes because I immediately see the value in them, but the value of other posts are not as obvious.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I travelled to Nottingham to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3794423/ten-man-albion-fell-forest">Brighton win 3-2 against Nottingham Forest</a>. A great performance from Brighton to hang on for the three points despite losing two more players to injury and then self-inflicting further damage by having a player sent off.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week47-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Beyond the goal which is situated in front of the away fans, the players of Brighton and Nottingham Forest prepare to kick-off. The home fans in the three other stands that are visible, are holding red and white scarves above their heads." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Ready for kick-off.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A couple of chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/10">Episode 10 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/945729">A Haunting in Venice (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 462023-11-20T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week46/<p>I had another shorter working week, working only four days. There's a lot of context that I've missed while I was away from work and its been quite difficult to catch-up.</p>
<p>This site ranked 6th overall in the <a href="https://www.11ty.dev/speedlify/">Eleventy leaderboards</a> that were updated this week. I always feel conflicted when my site ranks highly, because while I think its cool that a computer thinks my site is fast, I have very little insight into the experience when people visit my site. Up until last year I was guessing what the experience was like when viewing my site in Safari because I didn't own an Apple device.</p>
<p>I spent most of the weekend on the PlayStation. I managed to complete the story mode for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and for once I didn't resume the game with only one level remaining in the story. I really enjoyed this game and I think a part of that was because the gameplay had a lot of similarities with the Star Wars Jedi games that I've also enjoyed playing. I've now downloaded the previous Ratchet & Clank game that was initially released for the PlayStation 4 and hoping it is as good as Rift Apart.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/2/episode/15">Episode 15 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4538-the-darjeeling-limited">The Darjeeling Limited (2007)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16">Episodes 8 and 9 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248/season/3">Episodes 7 and 8 in season 3 of Upload</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84958/season/2/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 2 of Loki</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 452023-11-13T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week45/<p>Not a lengthy set of notes this week. I had a week where lots of things were going on but I'm choosing not to disclose all of them here.</p>
<p>I had a short work week this week, working only Monday and Tuesday. I'm glad I decided to use some time off this week as it gave me a mental break. I could have chosen to work more, but I don't think it would have been considered a good choice.</p>
<p>I spent the weekend at Centre Parcs in Longleat to celebrate a family birthday. It was nice to be able to spend time with everyone and take part in activities like archery and pickleball that I wouldn't have otherwise tried. The site was already covered in Christmas decorations, and playing Christmas music. I found it a little overwhelming to be exposed to Christmas quite so early in such a full-on way.</p>
<p>I've got a backlog of TV to catchup on next week as most of the series that I have been watching were releasing episodes later in the week and I haven't got around to watching them yet.</p>
<p>I started working on a page that would display links to all the RSS feeds that I've made for this site. I've got four RSS feeds available now but it isn't obvious that they exist unless you click the RSS icon on the page that the feed is generated from.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2">Episodes 13 and 14 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/7">Episode 7 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 442023-11-06T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week44/<p>Wednesday was a busy day. I had to attend an in-person meeting in London at 9 am, so I was up early to get the train. I collected my day travel car from the train station, only to find I had bought the travel card for the day before and so I had to purchase a new ticket. Then the train I was travelling on was eventually cancelled before it could reach London. I eventually got to London, over an hour later than planned and half an hour late for the meeting. I did get half the cost of my train ticket refunded due to the delay.</p>
<p>I had a work social event that afternoon which was good fun. It was nice to be able to chat with some of the other UK based software engineers and the challenges that their teams are facing. My social battery was pretty much empty for the rest of the week though.</p>
<p>No basketball again this week. There was a session Friday evening but I was mentally exhausted and thought that I would not have enjoyed myself if I had attended. Worthing D&D White don't have any games scheduled for a couple of weeks so I have a while before the next game.</p>
<p>I've still been playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on the PS5 this week. I've managed a total of over 10 hours of gameplay according to the PlayStation app. Much like some of the other games that I've played where there are side quests in addition to the main story, I've been completing every side quest that I've come across which has slowed the progress of the story.</p>
<p>I've now read a total of 25 books so far this year. I'm particularly pleased because last year I managed to read 10 books, and excluding the graphic novels I read this year, I've read 11 books with a month still to go. It helps that I'm starting to identify which books I think I will enjoy reading and which ones I think I won't.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>There's now an <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/photos/feed.xml">RSS feed for the photos page</a>.</li>
<li>For the notes that I've published directly to this site, there is now a bigger space between the note content and the links to where the note was syndicated to.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780262036474/">For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher Tozzi</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781633693869/">Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI by Paul R. Daugherty, H. James Wilson</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84958/season/2/episode/5">Episode 5 in season 2 of Loki</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2/episode/12">Episodes 12 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248/season/3">Episodes 3 and 4 in season 3 of Upload</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 432023-10-30T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week43/<p>The NBA season started this week. My League Pass subscription renewed so I was able to watch some of the games during the day, rather than at 1 or 3 in the morning. The hard part has been avoiding the scores and headlines but then it has given a good indication of which games are worth watching and which games are better to just watch the highlights of.</p>
<p>No basketball again for me this week. The sports hall is still being used for exams so we didn't have practice, and there was an away game that I wasn't able to attend. I haven't been told the score, so I'm assuming it meant that Worthing D&D White lost and I won't be playing in any cup games this season.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3753754/lift-off-in-the-europa-league">Brighton win 2-0 against Ajax in the Europa League</a>. Fantastic to see Brighton's first win in a European competition and against (historically) one of the biggest teams in European football too. Ajax played very negative football though and it wasn't really a surprise given their current league form. With 65% possession over 90 minutes, Pascal Gross doing Cruyff turns, and two well taken goals, it was a comfortable win in the end.</p>
<p>I'm making a bad habit of leaving video games unfinished when I have less than an hours gameplay left in the story. This week I finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the PlayStation, which took me roughly 45 minutes. I'd been putting off playing more of the game because I thought there was a larger proportion of the story left but it was actually just one side quest and one main mission. I enjoyed the game though.</p>
<p>The rest of my gaming this week has been on Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. The game has a similar feel to the Star Wars Jedi series but with less lightsabres. I've been enjoying the game so far.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was back at the American Express stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3758942/ferguson-strikes-then-its-frustration-for-albion">Brighton draw 1-1 against Fulham in the Premier League</a>. A slightly more frustrating game this time.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher Tozzi</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/5">Season 5 of Ghosts</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/109939-our-flag-means-death/season/1">Season 1 of Our Flag Means Death</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84958/season/2/episode/4">Episode 4 in season 2 of Loki</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2">Episodes 10 and 11 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/season/5">Season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248/season/3">Episodes 3 and 4 in season 3 of Upload</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/139155-folk-med-angest/season/1">Episodes 2-6 of Anxious People</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 422023-10-23T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week42/<p>On Monday, I had my first basketball game of the season. I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/35866534.html">Worthing D&D White's 92-77 loss against Bognor GSD</a>. The Basketball Sussex website hasn't updated the page with the score yet, but I'll link to it anyway in the hope that it gets updated later. I thought I played quite well, and I was particularly pleased that I made the only three-point shot that I attempted. I had no practice sessions this week as the sports halls are being used for exams.</p>
<p>I didn't have a lot of motivation to do pretty much anything after work each day this week.</p>
<p>I played a couple of games in EA Sports FC 24 but started to get frustrated at the match-making for seasons games. Despite having settings that are supposed to limit the quality of the opposition teams to the same level as the team I play as, the match-making was pairing my team with teams that are significantly higher rated than my own.</p>
<p>I had a nice walk over to Shoreham on Sunday. Becka and I ate breakfast burritos from Drift, and Bruno got to have a vanilla flavoured dog ice cream from <a href="https://www.cottsandlinz.co.uk/">Cotts & Linz</a>.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta/name/theme-color">theme-colour meta tag</a> was previously passed an empty value. I updated the template so it should use the correct colours in light and dark mode.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher Tozzi</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/5">Episode 5 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84958/season/2/episode/3">Episode 3 in season 2 of Loki</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2">Episodes 8 and 9 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248/season/3">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 3 of Upload</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/219443/season/1">Season 1 of Boiling Point</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/72710/season/1">Season 1 of The Continental: From the World of John Wick</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 412023-10-16T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week41/<p>I was off work again this week, instead spending the working week in Antwerp (Belgium). Becka and I got the Eurostar from London St Pancras station to Brussels-Midi/Zuid station and then hopped onto another train from Brussels-Midi/Zuid station to Antwerp Central. The journey was about 3 and a half hours and included a time zone change so my maths might be wrong here.</p>
<p>We stayed at the <a href="https://www.nh-collection.com/en/hotel/nh-collection-antwerp-centre">NH Collection Antwerp Centre hotel</a>, which was next to Antwerp Central station. Aside from our journey into Antwerp, we walked everywhere during our visit though there were a lot of transport options around the city.</p>
<p>Some of the places we visited:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.chocolatenation.be/en">Chocolate Nation</a>. One of the best things about the visit to this chocolate museum was that at the end of the visit, you are given a spoon so that you can try all the flavours of chocolate that are sold in the gift shop.</li>
<li><a href="https://museumplantinmoretus.be/en">Plantin-Moretus museum</a>. One of my favourite things about our trip to this museum was that they were bragging about how many type faces that this family owned. It was somewhere around 900 but likely higher. I think this was similar to the number of typefaces web developers go through before deciding to use system fonts.</li>
<li><a href="https://kmska.be/en">KMSKA - Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp</a>. I don't know anything about fine art but we walked around this museum and thought it was interesting.</li>
<li>The observation deck at the top of the <a href="https://mas.be/en/content/welcome">MAS Museum</a>. Entry was free and there are great views over the city.</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-1-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Five chocolate tasting machines, each with a description of the chocolate they contain hanging on the wall above them. In front of the machines is a large chocolate fountain with caramel coloured chocolate." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Chocolate tasting.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the landmarks around Antwerp we walked past on our way somewhere else. Brabo's fountain, the Cathedral of Our Lady, the statue of Nello & Patrache, and Antwerp train station, all fall into this category.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-3267w.webp 3267w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-3267w.jpeg 3267w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-3-320w.jpeg" width="3267" height="4896" alt="The MAS museum. In the bay of water in front of the museum is a tennis ball advertising the tenning tournament being held in Antwerp." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>The MAS museum.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the places we ate:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.fishagogo.be/">Fish A'Gogo</a>. A tiny restaurant that has a handful of tables. We ate mussels and chips here.</li>
<li><a href="https://meat-factory.be/">Meat Factory</a>. Round the corner from Fish A'Gogo, we had steak and chips here one evening.</li>
<li><a href="https://compagniebelge.com/">Compagnie Belge</a>. Belgian waffles.</li>
<li><a href="https://havearoll.com/">Have a Roll</a>. Cinnamon rolls.</li>
</ul>
<p>We had a rather strange ending to our stay in Antwerp. I mentioned that the hotel we stayed in was right next to Antwerp Central train station. On the day we were due to travel home, <a href="https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/10/13/antwerp-central-station-reopens/">Antwerp Central station was closed due to two suitcases being left unattended</a> in the train station. We were initially unable to leave our hotel due to its close proximity to the train station, and we had armed police outside the front of the hotel updating us on the situation. Eventually we were allowed to leave the hotel with police supervision but we were not allowed near the train station. Kind of annoying when your travel plans were heavily dependent on rail travel. We made it on a bus that took us to Brussels-Nord train station and managed to get to Brussels-Midi/Zuid station in time for our Eurostar train back to London.</p>
<p>The hotel staff could not have done more in that situation. They were really helpful in trying to find us alternative transport to Brussels, constantly kept us updated with information, and somehow managed to keep calm throughout.</p>
<p>On reflection, I'm not surprised that I felt really tired by the end of the week. Also, for anyone keeping up with my week notes, yes that is the second time in as many weeks that I've been escorted by police in a European city.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-2132w.webp 2132w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-2132w.jpeg 2132w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week41-2-320w.jpeg" width="2132" height="2835" alt="The Antwerp Central train station building at night. The facade of the train station is lit up with white lights that reflect off the gold fixtures on the extorior of the building. The dome at the top of the station is illuminated with a soft yellow light." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Antwerp Central train station.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher Tozzi</a>. The chapters are rather long in this book, so I'm finding it harder to pick the book up knowing that a chapter is over 50 pages.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/4">Episode 4 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84958/season/2">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 2 of Loki</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/531219">Roald Dahl's The Witches (2020)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1/episode/8">Episode 8 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2/">Episodes 6 and 7 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 402023-10-09T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week40/<p>I had one basketball session this week. A couple of weeks playing without a proper warm-up has come back to haunt me, as this week I lasted a couple of minutes before a pulled muscle in my right leg made things more challenging. Basketball Sussex released the fixtures for the men's league this season so I started to add those games to my calendar.</p>
<p>I only worked two days this week. I'd been looking forward to having a bit of a break as I hadn't really had any time off since the start of June.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I started the journey to Marseille to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3723039/pedro-on-the-spot-as-albion-make-their-point">Brighton draw 2-2 against Olympique Marseille</a>, by flying to Toulouse. We stayed in Toulouse for the night before taking train the next morning to Marseille. The train was just over four hours, so instead of draining my phone's battery by playing games, I slept instead.</p>
<p>Once in Marseille, we had something to eat and a few drinks, collected our match tickets from a designated pick-up point and made our way to the Stade Velodrome on the buses that were provided for Brighton fans. A convoy consisting of those buses, police vans and police motorbikes, took us on a long tour of Marseille's dual carriageways as we made our way to the stadium. There was a lot of chanting and singing on the bus I was on, which received applause from some passers-by and middle fingers from most of the Marseille fans that had to pull their cars over to allow the police convoy to get our bus to the stadium.</p>
<p>The most noticeable thing about the Stade Velodrome was the amount of noise that the Marseille fans made. Armed with megaphones and lifeguard chairs, their singing sections made coordinated and continuous noise for 90 minutes. Amongst the 60,000 Marseille fans it was almost a surprise that the 3,000 Brighton fans could be heard in the TV coverage of the game. It was good game of football and the first point earned in a European competition.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-1-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="My view of the Brighton vs Marseille football game at Stade Velodrome from the away end. Beyond some black netting that covers the away section, the players from Brighton, Marseille, and the match officals are all lined along the side of the pitch. The stand to the right of the stadium is covered in blue and white Marseille flags and the back of the stand is displaying a large tifo which reads 'Votre haine est notre fierté' (Your hatred is our pride)." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>First point in European competitions.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Friday involved more travelling. This time taking the train from Marseille back to Toulouse and then flying from Toulouse back the UK. I managed to get a lot of reading done in that time, finishing one book and starting another.</p>
<p>While travelling, a debate was sparked between my brother and my dad about whether or not they dream in colour. I wasn't sure I did, which has now made me more conscious about what I see when I dream.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was at the American Express Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3730055/dunks-decisive-finish-earns-albion-a-point">Brighton draw 2-2 with Liverpool</a>. Not a bad way to finish the week.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-2219w.webp 2219w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-2219w.jpeg 2219w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week40-2-320w.jpeg" width="2219" height="2976" alt="Declan's brother, dad and Declan posing for a photo from their seats in the Stade Velodrome in Marseille." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Unforgettable memories.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher Tozzi</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/10">Episode 10 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61828-detectorists/season/0/episode/2">The 2022 Special of Detectorists</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16">Episodes 2 and 3 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 392023-10-02T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week39/<p>I had two basketball sessions this week. I was tired before the first session started and so I found it hard to mentally and physically keep up with the pace of the games. I thought I played much better in the second session but I felt very tired by the end.</p>
<p>On Saturday I travelled to Villa Park to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3705954/fati-strikes-but-its-a-day-to-forget-for-albion">Brighton lose 6-1 against Aston Villa</a>. It was Brighton's heaviest defeat since 2012 when they lost 6-0 away against West Ham. Unfortunately I was also at that game.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week39-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="My view of the Brighton vs Aston Villa Premier League football game at Villa Park from the away end. The Brighton players wearing their home kit of blue and white striped shirts, blue shorts and blue socks, are getting ready to kick-off from right to left against Aston Villa in their home kit of claret and blue shirts, white shorts and blue socks." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>A game to forget.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I've been playing the new EA Sports FC 24 game on the PS5 this week. Most of that time was in the online seasons mode where I can play as Brighton against other players.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>@11ty/eleventy-img has been upgraded to version 3.1.1.</li>
<li>robots.txt was updated to block access to the Google-Extended bot.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2023/38/ballers-ball-or-nothing">Season 1 of Ballers: Ball or Nothing</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/9">Episode 9 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1/episode/7">Episode 7 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2">Episodes 4 and 5 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61828-detectorists/season/1">Episodes 3-6 in season 1 of Detectorists</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61828-detectorists/season/2">Season 2 of Detectorists</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61828-detectorists/season/3">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 3 of Detectorists</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 382023-09-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week38/<p>I had a good basketball session this week. I made a couple of three-point shots, played well on defence, and got myself open on offence to score some easy baskets. The school whose sports hall we use were having an open evening so I couldn't get there early to get some shots up before the session started and so for the second week running I didn't get much of a warm-up.</p>
<p>I started thinking about how I want to publish these week notes from my content management website. I didn't get as far as writing any code, but my thought process was to use the GitHub API to create a branch that I could keep committing to each time I made a change to the week's notes. When I'm ready to publish the notes, I would create a pull request using the GitHub API which I could then merge from my phone. While I could just use the browser's local storage to keep what I've written, I've found that I add to my notes on different devices so I would need a way to sync the notes. For now I can continue using Google Keep to sync my drafts between devices, but I'd like to be able to publish any content to my website from the content management website.</p>
<p>I managed a few more hours playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the PS5. I didn't advance the story at all and instead completed a few side missions and completed a couple of challenge tombs. I'm still yet to decide if I want to try and complete the game or just complete the story.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the American Express Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3693675/joao-is-spot-on-but-albion-lose-europa-league-opener">Brighton's debut in the Europa League, losing 3-2 against AEK Athens</a>. It was an exciting occasion. Even though Brighton lost, I thought it was a very interesting game of football to watch. Athens pressed all game and every Brighton player was being marked by an Athens player which made it difficult for Brighton to advance up the pitch. The weather was very bad leaving the game and I got completely soaked while waiting for the train.</p>
<p>I had a nice meal out at <a href="https://crabshackworthing.co.uk/">Crabshack</a> with Becka on Saturday. We were able to sit outside and eat while the weather was still quite warm. The food was very good.</p>
<p>I was back at the American Express Stadium on Sunday to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3698892/mitoma-magic-as-albion-pick-off-the-cherries">Brighton win 3-1 against Bournemouth</a>. The first half was very flat and Brighton were almost pressing the self-destruct button at times. The second half was much improved and that showed in the score. It was also nicer to return home dry this time.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Still reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/8">Episode 8 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2">Episodes 2 and 3 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61828-detectorists">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 1 of Detectorists</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/81356/season/4">Season 4 of Sex Education</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404/season/16/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 16 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 372023-09-18T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week37/<p>Most of my spare time this week was spent working on my micropub/custom content management application. I say custom content management application because at the moment, that's where I'm focusing my development time. It also gives me a chance to use what I build early on in the process. I decided to re-write the web interface using Preact. Having to encrypt each HTML page with PageCrypt and inline all the CSS, JS and static assets would be time consuming. With Preact, I knew I would be able to integrate a more robust authentication provider in Auth0 and also get progressive web app capabilities out of the box.</p>
<p>By the end of this week I was able to publish notes to my site and then syndicate them to Mastodon, update the book I'm reading, and publish notes for a book that I've finished reading. I felt very smug adding my reading notes and updating the now reading section without having to touch my laptop.</p>
<p>I had one basketball session this week. I thought I played alright and enjoyed myself a bit more compared to previous weeks. I didn't give myself enough time to warm-up properly so I wasn't surprised when there were a couple of aches and pains the next day.</p>
<p>I spent nearly all of Sunday playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the PlayStation. I've been completing all of the side missions, so the story hasn't progressed as quickly. There were quite a few jump-scare moments during combat sequences that I wasn't prepared for.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I added a new layout that will be used for showing notes created by my custom CMS.</li>
<li>I now show where short notes have been syndicated to.</li>
<li>Short notes published directly to this site are now displayed the same as Mastodon posts.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780241512425/">The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/139155/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 1 of Anxious People</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929/season/2/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/290250">The Nice Guys (2016)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/7">Episode 7 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/624860">The Matrix Resurrections (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/602269">The Little Things (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 362023-09-11T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week36/<p>I had a frustrating basketball session this week. Not long into the session, I was competing for a loose ball and took an unintentional blow to my right calf which resulted in a dead leg. Rather than doing the sensible thing and sitting out until the numbing sensation went away, I tried to carry on playing. I was subconsciously over compensating every action on my right leg so when trying to jump straight, I was jumping slightly to the left and every time I shot the ball I was already off balance. I left the session early, feeling disappointed that the session didn't go as well as I'd hoped.</p>
<p>I started playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the PlayStation. I played the previous Square Enix Tomb Raider games on Google Stadia and had enjoyed them both so I had been looking forward to starting this game. I managed around 6 hours of gameplay according to the PlayStation app, and I managed to pet all the llamas!</p>
<p>The weather has been uncomfortably warm this week. Temperatures have peaked at upwards of 30°C during the daytime and the evenings haven't been much cooler. I've avoided going outside (more than I normally would) and chose to site in front of a fan instead.</p>
<p>I spent a bit of time this week working out the format that I need my short notes to be in so that they can be displayed on this site. Most of this work is making sure that I set frontmatter properties to values that work with the existing data that I have, and the templates that I already use to display my Mastodon posts. It is possible that this could result in a major refactor but I'm keen to avoid that scenario.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a few chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/93544-top-boy/season/3">Season 3 of Top Boy</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1">Episodes 3 and 4 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/153425-screw/season/2/">Season 2 of Screw</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 352023-09-04T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week35/<p>The week started with a bank holiday, so Becka and I took advantage of the long weekend by spending the day in Brighton. I managed to pick up some things I needed and it was nice to be able to enjoy Brighton in the sunshine. We had a very good meal at <a href="https://www.salt-shed.co.uk/brighton">Salt Shed</a> - the pastrami steak here was particularly good.</p>
<p>I started playing <a href="https://murdle.com/">Murdle</a>. Despite the name, it has very little in common with Wordle other than that the game refreshes daily. I had bought the book version while in Brighton and started playing the online version so I could understand how the puzzles are solved. That resulted in me trying to solve the puzzles for the rest of the week with varying levels of success.</p>
<p>For the last time this summer, I had two basketball sessions in a week. It only took all summer but I was finally shooting the ball better and had a greater confidence in my three-point shot. I definitely pushed myself too hard in the second session though and found it much harder to keep up with the pace of the games as the session went on. There's only one session per week from now on due to the availability of the court.</p>
<p>I spent a couple of hours working on my micropub server and client, which at the moment is starting to look more like a custom built CMS. Really I'm just trying to publish to my site without relying on git being available on the device I want to publish from. I managed to deploy the proof of concept client with password protection this week. Basic HTTP authentication wasn't an option, so I instead used <a href="https://www.maxlaumeister.com/pagecrypt/">PageCrypt</a> as a temporary means of adding single-user authentication.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at The American Express Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3667228/ferguson-stuns-newcastle-with-brilliant-hat-trick">Brighton win 3-1 against Newcastle</a>. Evan Ferguson rightly gets a lot of the credit for scoring three goals, but the overall team performance was significantly improved compared to last week's defeat against West Ham. With fixtures against Ajax, Marseille, and AEK Athens to look forward to in the next few months its definitely an exciting time to be a Brighton fan.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781405930253/">Anxious People by Fredrik Backman</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/576845">Last Night in Soho (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/11129">Human Traffic (1999)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114461/season/1">Episode 1 and 2 in season 1 of Ahsoka</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/5">Episode 5 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building.</a></li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 342023-08-28T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week34/<p>I was in Tallinn for most of this week to work in-person with the rest of the team. I found it weird to be working in an office again. I forgot how many distractions there are and since I was only in the office for three days I didn't want to spend that time with my headphones on. My social battery is completely empty now and I feel pretty exhausted.</p>
<p>All three of the flights I was on this week were delayed. The delayed flight to Tallinn was not a problem since it just meant a later arrival at the hotel, but the journey home required getting a connecting flight in Frankfurt. So when I found out that my flight from Tallinn to Frankfurt was delayed, I started the mental gymnastics of working out the fastest route from one end of Frankfurt airport to the other while factoring in the time I would be waiting in passport control. Thankfully, on arrival in Frankfurt I found out that my connecting flight had also been delayed so instead of having 10 minutes to run to the gate, I had 25 minutes that meant I could make it to the gate without running. I probably could have planned the flights better so I either had no stops or gave myself enough time between connecting flights that delays would not be an issue.</p>
<p>I added a couple of endpoints to my micropub sever that I was working on last week. These new endpoints are to manage the books that I've either started to read or have finished reading. I'm still thinking about what I want the micropub client to look like and the environments that I expect to use it in. There's plenty of ways I could overcomplicate the implementation but I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possible.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the American Express Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3653728/record-for-gross-but-albion-are-beaten">Brighton lose 3-1 to West Ham</a>. Brighton looked sluggish at times and West Ham deserved to win. It's easy to highlight the mistakes when your team loses and at the moment, it feels like Brighton haven't really got the whole squad up to the high levels that were set last season. Hopefully any new signings that are made before next Friday's deadline are able to gel quickly with the rest of the team.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781444775815/">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a>.</li>
<li>I started, and read over 200 pages of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">Anxious People by Fredrik Backman</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/4">Episode 4 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 332023-08-21T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week33/<p>I was back playing basketball this week, participating in two sessions. I expected to struggle, particularly in the first session but I played better than I thought I would. By the second session I had a better idea of when I needed to sit out and managed to find a pace that was manageable.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I travelled to Molineux stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3640283/albion-march-to-top-of-the-table">Brighton win 4-1 against Wolves</a>. Very good performance from Brighton, some great goals, and the result meant that Brighton finished the weekend at the top of the Premier League table! I wasn't so appreciative of the flame throwers that were used pre-match and when the players walked out for the second half. It was already rather warm being stood in the sunshine and then it got uncomfortably warm every time the flame throwers were used.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week33-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="My view of the Brighton vs Wolves Premier League football game at Molineux from the left hand side of the away end. The Brighton players wearing their home kit of blue and white striped shirts, blue shorts and blue socks, are getting ready to kick-off from right to left against Wolves in their home kit of gold shirts, black shorts and gold socks." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>"We're Brighton and Hove Albion, we're top of the league!"</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I've been exploring the idea of creating a Micropub server. I'd like to be able to share things to my website without having to use git on the device I'm authoring from. I managed to get a proof of concept working that would publish a note to my site when I submitted a HTML form. Eventually I'd like to be able to publish my week notes or other articles, small notes, photos, and finished books, all from a Micropub client.</p>
<p>I didn't really spend much time on the PlayStation this week. I think I managed maybe an hour of Star Wars Battlefront 2. The co-op missions I played in seemed to have started quite a bit before I joined the game so I got to play for around 5 minutes before the mission ended.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I moved my week notes back into the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal">journal</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3/episode/3">Episode 3 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 322023-08-14T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week32/<p>I'm feeling much better at the time of writing these notes than compared to <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week31/">last week</a>. I was still feeling a bit lethargic earlier in the week, but that quickly went away.</p>
<p>I got to go to the cinema this week so see <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/346698">Barbie (2023)</a>. It was definitely not a kids film. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, though I was initially concerned that I'd seen the first 15 minutes of the film in the trailers.</p>
<p>On the PlayStation this week I continued to play the co-op missions in Star Wars Battlefront 2. I'm starting to finish in the top three players at the end of missions. I also started to play The LEGO® Movie Videogame. The LEGO games have a repetition that I find quite relaxing and 100% completing the games is often a trivial task once each level has been completed in free play mode. The number of cutscenes in this particular game is rather annoying but I guess unlike other LEGO games, they already had an entire film that they could use for cutscenes.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the American Express Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3630184/subs-seal-impressive-win-for-albion">Brighton start the new season by winning 4-1 against Luton Town</a>. Brighton probably should have scored more given some of the chances that they created, but it's pretty difficult to complain when you win by three goals.</p>
<p>I finished the week bottom of my family's fantasy football league. My decision to captain João Pedro instead of Erling Haaland played a part in that.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I created a robots.txt file and asked it to block access to GPTBot. Since I do not use any OpenAI products, I see no benefit to letting them use my site to train their models.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read one chapter from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218086-everyone-else-burns/season/1">Episodes 3-6 in season 1 of Everyone Else Burns</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113/season/3">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 3 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1148445">Mark Cavendish: Never Enough (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/346698">Barbie (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/821792">Bull (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/807196">Boiling Point (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 312023-08-07T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week31/<blockquote>
<p>Content warning: Covid</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I managed to complete one basketball session this week. Despite last week's improvements, I was still struggling to score from chances that I had been consistently scoring from last season. I promise I'll stop moaning about this, eventually.</p>
<p>I wasn't feeling too great later in the week so took a Covid test. It was indeed Covid.</p>
<p>Initially, I decided to carry on working. My PlayStation is on the same desk as my work laptop, so I felt that if I could play on the PlayStation, I could work. This was not a good rationale. I know now that the two activities should not be compared.</p>
<p>I did eventually take a sick day and spent nearly the entire day in bed.</p>
<p>When I was feeling a little better over the weekend, I was playing on the PlayStation in short sessions with lots of breaks. Most of this was spent playing co-op missions in Star Wars Battlefront 2. I managed to level up the heavy trooper class by 80 levels.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The link to the site formerly known as Twitter has been removed from the page footer.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/71915/season/2">Season 2 of Good Omens</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155508/season/1">Episodes 3-6 in season 1 of Black Ops</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218086-everyone-else-burns/season/1">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 1 of Everyone Else Burns</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 302023-07-31T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week30/<p>Another two basketball sessions this week. I felt that I played much better compared to last week and didn't feel that I tired as quickly either. I'm still not shooting the ball as well as I did towards the end of last season so I'm coming away from each session knowing I can play better than I have been.</p>
<p>I was in charge of walking Bruno this week. It meant getting up earlier in the morning to walk him before starting work, much to the disgust of my internal body clock. I definitely felt more awake when I started work, though I think some of the bad weather we encountered while walking may have contributed to that.</p>
<p>On Saturday, Becka and I went to Brighton beach to see Royal Blood headline <a href="https://onthebeachbrighton.com/">On The Beach 2023</a> - Day Five. I had no idea who any of the support acts were and they weren't really the kind of music that I like. Fortunately, I did enjoy Royal Blood's set. It was very windy on the beach but I had a good time.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-3892w.webp 3892w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-3892w.jpeg 3892w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week30-320w.jpeg" width="3892" height="2189" alt="My view of Royal Blood at On The Beach in Brighton. There is a large stage with a yellow banner across the top of the stage that reads: 'ON THE BEACH'. Either side of the stage are vertically mounted big-screens and there is an additional big screen in the center of the stage. All big screens are showing a close up view of the lead singer and have a blue filter applied to the vide feed. On the stage are a keyboard player, the lead singer and guitarist, and the drummer." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Royal Blood performing on Brighton beach.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The next/previous entry links are now aligned with the text above them.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No progress with <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/435218">Lost in London (2017)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/13183">Watchmen (2009)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6 in season 1 of Secret Invasion</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/580489">Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/13258">Son of Rambow (2007)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/512747">The Bromley Boys (2018)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 292023-07-24T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week29/<p>I had two basketball sessions again this week. I found both sessions quite challenging and didn't play well in either. I was ready to go home after an hour in both sessions but convinced myself to stay for the full hour and a half.</p>
<p>I was playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 on the PS5 this week. I wanted to continue the story mode but accidentally entered the quick match mode and joined an online game. I wasn't particularly good but I found that game mode rather addictive. I didn't get around to continuing the story mode, but I played many more online games.</p>
<p>I was mentally exhausted by the end of this week. I think a large factor in that has been the amount of pressure I put on myself. As a result, I haven't really felt relaxed and finding the motivation to do small tasks has been difficult.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>One chapter from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/97084/season/3">Season 3 of Dave</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/136315-the-bear/season/2">Season 2 of The Bear</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5 in season 1 of Secret Invasion</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 282023-07-17T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week28/<p>School sports halls are no longer being used for exams, so I was back playing basketball this week. I managed to attend two sessions and had a good time at both. I hadn't touched a basketball since the season ended in May so I was very rusty. I tired quite quickly in both sessions and it was significantly more noticeable in the second session where I scored twice in quick succession before missing all my other attempts. I recovered quite well between sessions, so hoping to repeat the same sessions next week.</p>
<p>I bought a new domain name. I'd been looking for a short domain that I could experiment with and that resulted in the purchase of <a href="http://dec.lol/">dec.lol</a>. Initially I was hoping that some of the common misspellings of my name might be available as domain names but they were either taken or they didn't have a top level domain that matched. At the moment dec.lol redirects everything to <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/">declanbyrd.co.uk</a>, but I don't intend to use the short domain as the primary domain for my personal website.</p>
<p>I finished the story in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5. The game felt shorter than the first Spider-Man game, and if my play time stats are anything to go by, it's because I spent an additional 10 hours in the first game. Most of the remaining PlayStation trophies either required starting (and completing) the "new game plus" mode, or replaying some of the levels. I'm looking forward to playing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 when it launches later this year.</p>
<p>I wrote some Node.js scripts to populate the frontmatter for the book note markdown files. This meant I no longer needed to request data for 30 books at build time and could make modifications to the data before deploying the pages. I also wrote about <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/generating-frontmatter-from-api/">making the Node.js scripts</a>.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>There are no longer duplicate tags in the journal.</li>
<li>Notes for all the books I've read now have the book data stored in the frontmatter of the Markdown file.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read the first six chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/4">Episode 4 in season 1 of Secret Invasion</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 272023-07-10T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week27/<p>I started playing Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5 this week. It's feeling very similar to the first Spider-Man game but with a couple of new combat controls. My strategy of completing side missions early on in the game means that I haven't progressed the story very far. I earned 12 PlayStation trophies though, so it at least feels like I've done something.</p>
<p>I went for a run on Monday, managing 5 and half kilometres in 44 minutes. Its not the fastest, but I felt good by the end of it. Running into the wind was a bit challenging though I'm glad it wasn't raining like it did in the later half of the week. I didn't manage to run on any other days but that's something that I'm trying to work on.</p>
<p>I set-up my fantasy Premier League team for the new season. Most of the players I picked are placeholders since it is too early to tell how often some of the players will play. I found an API endpoint towards the end of the last season that would allow me to display how my team is getting on as the season progresses, so I had a look at using D3 with Eleventy. Unfortunately I couldn't get anything working, so I need to explore other libraries that could render charts without client-side JavaScript or write my own implementation.</p>
<p>I also looked into decreasing the number of API calls that my site makes at build time. Each book that I have read has all the details about that book fetched from the Google Books API, so there are quite a few requests being made. There is also the issue of the API returning unexpected values such as the author's name in capital letters. Ideally I would like the book data to be written in the file's frontmatter so that I can edit it if needed. My current thinking is to use a Node.JS script outside of my website's source code to create a file with the fetched data already in it.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>All future Mastodon posts will have timestamps that are displayed in UK time.</li>
<li>Sometimes the Google Books API returns the author's name in all capital letters. I now have a way of overriding the name so that if the API returns a bad value, I can use local value instead.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910542/">Guardians of the Galaxy Omnibus Vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781846536892/">Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#now">A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/226268">Convenience (2015)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3 in season 1 of Secret Invasion.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/225335/season/1/">Season 1 of Tour de France: Unchained</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 262023-07-03T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week26/<p>I was on the PlayStation for most evening during the week. I completed the story mode for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which was really fun. Not ashamed to say that I adjusted the difficulty for a couple of the "boss fights" at the end of the game. I could have continued with the difficulty that I used for the rest of the game but I also wanted to progress the story once I realised I was nearing the end of the game. In total, it took me approximately 28 hours to complete the story.</p>
<p>Instead of making progress in any of the other games that I started playing, I found some time over the weekend to start and complete the story mode in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. According to the PlayStation, I completed the game in approximately 2 hours. I might keep this one installed since the multiplayer mode looks like it could be fun.</p>
<p>I noticed this week that I'm starting to procrastinate less. I no longer have access to as many doom-scrolling sites, thanks to rate limiting and the extinction of third-party apps. I've found that as I'm not picking up my phone as much when I get bored, that I'm picking up other things instead. For the first time (that I can remember) I started and finished a 400+ page book in the same day. I doubt I'll be making a habit out of it, but it made a change to spending the same amount of time in front of a screen.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Instead of making API requests and handling the cache for each of the data sources that this site uses, I'm now using <a href="https://www.11ty.dev/docs/plugins/fetch/">Eleventy fetch</a> to handle the caching of API requests.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/colophon">colophon page</a> has been updated to show the data sources that this site uses.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781846532894/">Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Omnibus by Kurt Busiek</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781787463004/">Win by Harlan Coben</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/2">Episode 2 in season 1 of Secret Invasion</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155508/season/1/">Episodes 1 and 2 in season 1 of Black Ops</a> .</p>
</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 252023-06-26T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week25/<p>I had a day off work on Monday this week as Juneteenth is a company holiday.</p>
<p>I spent lots of time this week playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on the PS5. After playing for most of the afternoon on Monday, I then wanted to continue playing most evenings this week after work. I made a lot of progress in the story.</p>
<p>I also decided to apply a new font to this site. Bungee which I used for headings was extra bold and trying to find a fallback font which reduced layout shift on page load had proved difficult. I was starting to look at re-designing the site to remove Bungee since I felt it made it look like I was shouting every heading. I decided the easiest thing to do was to replace Bungee with a new font, <a href="https://www.impallari.com/fonts/quattrocento/">Quattrocento</a> rather than waiting for a complete re-design.</p>
<p>A while ago I read <a href="https://darekkay.com/blog/rss-styling/">Derek Kay's article about styling RSS feeds</a> and I had bookmarked it as something I wanted to do on this site. That same article appeared in my Mastodon feed this week and gave me a nudge to finally implement it. Thankfully because most of my CSS is element selectors, styling the RSS feed was relatively straightforward and did not take long to finish.</p>
<p>Last week I tried to write all my notes on Sunday and found it difficult to remember what I wanted to include. This week I added bullet points to a Google Keep file on my phone that has helped me keep track of what I wanted to write.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Quattrocento is now used as the font for all headings.</li>
<li>The RSS feeds are all styled to match the rest of the pages on this site.</li>
<li>Shortcodes that weren't being used were removed.</li>
<li>There were some visually hidden link descriptions that were not descriptive of where the link would go. Those visually hidden link descriptions now describe which page the link goes to.</li>
<li>I'm now using a container query on the home page to set the flex-direction of the heading and icon.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No reading this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114472/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 1 of Secret Invasion</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/229039/season/1/">Season 1 of Wonders of the World I Can't See</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/603692">John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 242023-06-19T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week24/<p>I got angry at Gran Turismo 7. I haven't played the game much, but it feels like every time I want to play it, the servers go down. Shouldn't be a problem if you want to play single player, except this game requires a connection to the server to play the campaign mode. Pretty much means I can't play at all if the game's servers have gone offline. I've learned my lesson and won't be buying another game that requires an internet connection at all times.</p>
<p>Still wanting to play on the PlayStation, I uninstalled Gran Turismo 7 and installed Mortal Kombat 11. I had briefly played Mortal Kombat 11 on Google Stadia before it shut down so I was slightly familiar with the controls. The balance of gameplay and cut scenes feels very uneven though. I spent some time playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor too, which I felt I'd neglected since I started playing Tears of the Kingdom.</p>
<p>I managed to clear some tasks off my to-do list that I had been avoiding. There wasn't really a reason avoiding them. It's strange how small tasks can feel really big sometimes.</p>
<p>I found it difficult to add to the notes this week. I've been writing the notes at the end of the week, but I find that I then spend hours trying to recall what I actually did that week.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I split the JSON file containing the design tokens for this site into separate files. This way, each token category (colours, spacing, font-sizes) all have their own file.</li>
<li>Mastodon posts now have some styling applied to them. Each post now has a border, and the timestamp and site that the post was created on are now aligned to the right.</li>
<li>When I cleared the build cache last week, some of the book covers changed and the number of pages a book had were undefined. I changed a couple of the ISBNs for books that I read as e-books (since e-books don't have an ISBN), so that the covers matched the copy of the book I read. I also copied the number of pages the book has into the frontmatter for the file about that book.</li>
<li>I noticed that I had been adding <code>.reverse()</code> to my Eleventy collections and that can cause the order to change sometimes. Instead of reversing the collection in the JavaScript file, I'm now reversing the collection using the Nunjucks filter <code>| reverse</code>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A couple of issues from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Omnibus by Kurt Busiek</a>. Roughly half way through now.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/42009/season/6/">Season 6 of Black Mirror</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/501929">The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 232023-06-12T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week23/<p>I was back at work this week after having last week off. I had a bit of difficulty catching up with things I missed while I was away.</p>
<p>I bought a tower fan, just in time for the UK to have its hottest day of the year so far. The built-in sleep timer has been particularly useful.</p>
<p>I released version 0.2.0 of <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive">eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive</a>. This version resolved one of the biggest onboarding issues with the plugin which was that you would be missing posts if you used the plugin and had more than 40 public posts. I installed the latest plugin version for this site so that I could verify that I have an up-to-date archive of my Mastodon posts on each build. Pretty cool to have all my Mastodon posts available on this site as <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/notes">notes</a>.</p>
<p>The time I spent on the PlayStation this week was mostly in a FIFA23 career mode. Despite its repetitiveness, I find it very easy to spend hours playing and don't need to spend time familiarising myself with the controls each time I play. With the growing number of games now I've started and not finished yet, I need to set aside some time to complete some of them before more games that I want to play are released.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>If there is a long URL, it will now wrap to a new line instead of causing the page to scroll horizontally.</li>
<li>I'm now using version 0.2.0 of eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive.</li>
<li>There was a duplicate header on the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/">reading page</a> that has now been removed.</li>
<li>There was an empty div that would render in social posts because a conditional statement was missing a length check.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A couple of issues from the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Omnibus by Kurt Busiek</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/76600">Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/460465">Mortal Kombat (2021)</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/785084">The Whale (2022).</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/22538">Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 222023-06-05T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week22/<p>This week I was on holiday in San Sebastián. The weather was pretty good for the duration of our stay, apart from maybe 15 minutes of rain on our way to dinner one evening. It was very warm though. I struggled a bit with the heat, particularly at night. Ordering food was a bit of a challenge. I tried to order some pintxos a few times, but most of the dishes didn't have labels so I was having to guess what the food was while I was ordering it. It didn't go badly, but it's something I wished I was better prepared for.</p>
<p>Despite being on holiday, I found it really difficult to relax. I probably should have allowed myself more time to have a break either side of the trip.</p>
<p>I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom while on the plane. The game is starting to feel a bit too similar to Breath of the Wild in that I already know what I'm looking for and so I'm not trying to explore as much as I did in the previous game. It's still a lot of fun though.</p>
<p>I had a very large spike in traffic to my site this week, with 213 visitors on Tuesday. Given that the previous week had 15 unique visitors and I didn't publish anything, I was interested to understand why I had a large spike in traffic. It looks like someone was trying to scrape my site and was using a new browsing context for each page they were visiting. Ideally I would have liked to know before that happened so I could have pointed them to the source code which is on GitHub instead.</p>
<p>Fresh off completing a course of antibiotics for a tonsil infection, I now appear to have a grass pollen allergy.</p>
<p>I had a bit of a lightbulb moment while trying to work out how to get the games I'm currently playing on to my site. I use <a href="https://raindrop.io/">Raindrop.io</a> to collect bookmarks. Raindrop scrapes the site you have bookmarked to find an image that it can use as a thumbnail next to the bookmark. I realised I could bookmark the page for the game I'm playing (either the Nintendo website or the PlayStation website) and Raindrop would extract the cover art for that game. I can then query the Raindrop API to get the games I'm playing. There's no play time information or achievements, but the games are now listed on my <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/now/">now page</a>.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I updated the alt text I used for the open graph images and social posts.</li>
<li>I added some <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/photos/">photos</a> from my time in San Sebastián.</li>
<li>I have a <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/now/">now page</a>!</li>
<li>I restructured my global data files so that I can use <code>now.reading</code>, <code>now.gaming</code> and <code>now.watching</code> to access the data for the now page.</li>
<li>I removed the descriptions for the navigation items in the footer.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No reading this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episode 9 and episode 10 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15">Season 15 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/137043/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 in season 1 of Connect</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 212023-05-29T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week21/<p>A shorter set of notes this week, only covering Monday to Friday.</p>
<p>I was experimenting with <a href="https://airtable.com/">Airtable</a> this week. The Airtable mobile app includes the option to scan a barcode and insert the value of the barcode into a table. I thought that would help with logging the books that I read, since the barcode contains the ISBN-13 value which I then use to query <code>node-isbn</code>. I could then pull the data from Airtable back into this site and use it in place of the markdown files that I'm currently using to record the books I've read. At the moment, I'm not sure if the benefits of using Airtable would make it worthwhile moving my data there.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3486691/julio-hits-another-stunner-as-albion-seal-europa-league">Brighton draw 1-1 against Manchester City</a> and mathematically secure a place in the Europa League next season. That was probably the last time I'll see some of the players wear Brighton's shirts before they inevitably move on to bigger and possibly better things. It would be sad to see them leave, but I'm grateful to all the players for making so many weekends (and a couple of weeknights too) very happy ones. Hopefully the good times continue next season.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The recent gaming section on the homepage was removed. The API it was pulling data from required manual authentication which didn't work with my current deployment infrastructure.</li>
<li>The preview images that I use for my photos are now slightly larger.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Omnibus by Kurt Busiek</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114922-citadel/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6 in Season 1 of Citadel</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 6-10 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/6">Season 6 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/920125-untitled-white-men-can-t-jump-reboot">White Men Can't Jump (2023)</a></li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 202023-05-22T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week20/<p>I've been playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this week. Being able to play in handheld mode was a large factor in the reason for that. In that time, I completed my first temple and a couple of shrines.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I went for another run after feeling positive about the one I went for last week. In total I ran 6km and while it wasn't particularly quick, my time per kilometre was around a minute faster than last week. I had bought some bone conductor headphones which were particularly good for running as they allowed me to hear my surroundings while also listening to music.</p>
<p>I got tonsilitis. Not nice.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3448240/europe-here-we-come">Brighton win 3-1 against Southampton</a> and qualify for European football next season. I'm still in shock at how this season has played out and how despite everything that has happened. The team have delivered something that would have been unthinkable not that long ago.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fixed an issue where the page count for some books was undefined even if I had included the page count in the frontmatter.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781399402804/">Football Murals by Andy Brassell</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Episode 5 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114922-citadel/season/1">Season 1 of Citadel</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Episodes 6-8 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/4/">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/5">Season 5 of Taskmaster</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Episodes 1-5 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/6">Season 6 of Taskmaster</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Episode 8 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15">Season 15 of Taskmaster</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 192023-05-15T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week19/<p>I started this week with a run. I'd never really done a run before. I tried to do couch to 5k a while ago, but I never really got into it. Instead, I adopted a pace I felt comfortable with and ran 5k without stopping. It took me just under 40 minutes so it wasn't exactly fast, but it has given me some confidence in my running ability. My legs were very sore for the rest of the week.</p>
<p>On Monday, I was also at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3327398/a-night-to-forget-for-albion">Brighton lose 5-1 against Everton</a>. The less said about that the better.</p>
<p>I stumbled across the <a href="https://psn-api.achievements.app/">psn-api</a> this week. I'm now using it to show my recently played PlayStation games on my homepage. The games that are currently listed probably won't change for a while, since I'm still enjoying Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. It will still update with the last time that I played each game though.</p>
<p>I also started playing <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/The-Legend-of-Zelda-Tears-of-the-Kingdom-1576884.html">The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</a>. The small amount that I played was enjoyable. Familiar controls and mechanics with a new story and enemies.</p>
<p>On Friday, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/34632939.html">Worthing D&D White's 110-86 loss against Eastbourne Lions</a>. I say played, but it was only 1 and a half minutes at the end of the fourth quarter, so I didn't really have an impact on the game. That brought an end to my season so I've got no basketball now until July when school sports halls are no longer being used for exams.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I went to the Emirates Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3345249/three-and-easy-as-magnificent-albion-move-up-to-sixth">Brighton win 3-0 against Arsenal</a>. A brilliant day out and a much better performance than earlier in the week.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>My recently played PlayStation games are now shown at the bottom of the home page.</li>
<li>I removed the book updates from the journal.</li>
<li>The book cover images are slightly larger.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A couple of chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Football Murals by Andy Brassell</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 1-4 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/114922-citadel/season/1">Season 1 of Citadel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/2">Season 2 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/3">Season 3 of Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 1-5 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/4/">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 182023-05-08T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week18/<p>I discovered Frumpets (French toast battered crumpets) this week. Becka and I went to <a href="https://oeuf.cafe/">Oeuf Café in Hove</a> where they serve them with a range of toppings. I had mine topped with bacon, melted cheddar cheese, caramelised onion and chilli jam. I still think about that meal sometimes.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/34612866.html">Worthing D&D White's 91-63 win against Haywards Heath Panthers</a> in the quarter finals of the Basketball Sussex play-offs. I really struggled to shoot the ball well and found it difficult to get a shooting rhythm, failing to score from 6 three-point attempts. We now play <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/34632939.html">Eastbourne Lions away in the semi-finals</a>.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I was at the Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3300383/mac-allister-is-spot-on-as-albion-climb-to-sixth">Brighton win 1-0 against Manchester United</a>. It was starting to look like one of those games where Brighton just couldn't quite find a way through. To win the game by scoring a penalty against a team that had knocked us out of the FA cup on penalties a few weeks ago, felt almost scripted. It feels a bit strange and I don't really want to jinx it, but it's looking more and more likely that Brighton will be playing in a European competition next season.</p>
<p>I spent all of Saturday playing <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/star-wars-jedi-survivor/">Star Wars Jedi: Survivor</a>. I made quite a bit of progress once I realised that most of the collectibles in the game are purely cosmetic and I only needed to focus on the stim canister dispensers and force essences. I got a bit stuck when I discovered a force tear and after several attempts I gave up and carried on with the story objective. When I played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on Google Stadia, I would get frustrated that I could only save at meditation points since Stadia would end the game session after a period of inactivity. It's nice playing on the PS5, that the game state is preserved when the console enters rest mode. Meaning that I don't need to reach an auto-save point in the game in order to stop playing.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I went to the Dome Cinema to watch Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. I was quite glad that I didn't have to explain the Infinity Saga to my parents and they were able to understand the premise of the film without needing a full recap on the events within the MCU.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804911150/">Marvel Select Non-stop Spider-man: Big Brain Play! by Joe Kelly</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Football Murals by Andy Brassell</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/615457-nobody">Nobody (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/5">Episode 5</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/6">Episode 6</a> in Season 15, and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/1/">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/447365-guardians-of-the-galaxy-volume-3">Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 172023-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week17/<p>This week, I got to fly out to Tallinn to meet my work colleagues in-person for the first time. Before this week, I'd only interacted with them virtually and I found the in-person interactions I had this week to be very valuable. One of the reasons for this, was that we placed as much emphasis on getting to know everyone outside of work, as we did getting to know how each of us works when we are working. The near constant socialising did mean that my social battery was very much empty by the end of the week.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week17-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="The view of Tallinn old town from the Patkuli viewing platform. " class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Tallinn from the Patkuli viewing platform.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Saturday, I was at the Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3245199/back-on-track-with-six-of-the-best">Brighton win 6-0 against Wolves</a>. Great to be able to celebrate six goals. I was particularly impressed with Billy Gilmour and Deniz Undav who played very well considering they had struggled in the games that they'd previously played in.</p>
<p>I started playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on the PS5 this week. I didn't play for long as the game only saves when you reach a meditation point. I also forgot that when you meditate at any of the checkpoints, all the enemies respawn. I'm looking forward to playing more of the game.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I had a lot of time waiting at airports and on the plane, so I managed to finish reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781529019001/">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Marvel Select Non-stop Spider-man: Big Brain Play! by Joe Kelly</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't watch anything this week.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 162023-04-24T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week16/<p>I started the week by playing for Worthing D&D White in a <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593496.html">90-41 win against Worthing D&D Ballers</a>. This was the last game of the season before the playoffs so it was nice to finish with a win. I scored two three-pointers to finish the game with six points, though I didn't feel I shot the ball very well and missed too many attempts. I also had a basketball session on Tuesday which gave me a chance to practice in a slightly less competitive environment. I shot the ball better in that session and felt the benefit of playing for the second time in a week.</p>
<p>I published a new version of <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive">eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive</a> this week. Version 0.1.5 adds the shortcode and URL of custom emoji that are included in a post. I opted not to replace the shortcode in the post with an image tag since there is no data that is returned from the Mastodon API that could be used as alt text for the custom emoji. The Mastodon UI handles this by using the shortcode as the alt text, though this is impractical when the shortcode is something like <code>:wave2:</code>.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was at Wembley to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3231077/its-wembley-heartbreak-as-albion-are-beaten-on-penalties">Brighton play Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final</a>. Brighton were incredibly unfortunate to lose on penalties, having given everything over 90 minutes and extra-time. I feel really sorry for Solly March who has had a brilliant season but has been unfortunate enough to miss in two consecutive penalty shootouts.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week16-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="The view from my seat at Wembley Stadium, which was in the third tier and behind the goal. The big screen behind the goal at the other end of the pitch reads: 'Emirates FA cup Semi-finalists 2023 Brighton & Hove Albion v Manchester United'. On the pitch, Brighton are getting ready to kick-off, playing in blue and white striped shirts and blue shorts. Manchester United are at the other end of the pitch in red shirts and white shorts. " class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Penalties a cruel end to the game.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/8">Episode 8 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/4">Episode 4 in Season 15</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1068141-mighty-morphin-power-rangers-once-and-always">Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 152023-04-17T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week15/<p>On Tuesday, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593472.html">Worthing D&D White's 89-55 win against Worthing D&D Ballers</a>. I shot the ball quite well this week, finishing the game with six points having made two three-point shots.</p>
<p>I managed to spend some time on the PlayStation this week. Most of that time was spent playing career mode in FIFA 23 because it didn't require a lot of attention and could be played in shorter sessions.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was in Worthing for the <a href="https://worthingtaptakeover.co.uk/">tap takeover</a>. In total, we visited seven pubs and sampled beers from different independent brewers. Bruno was particularly pleased that he was able to join in by sampling dog biscuits and various water bowls.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-2268w.webp 2268w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-2268w.jpeg 2268w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week15-320w.jpeg" width="2268" height="4032" alt="Bruno the Sussex Spaniel, resting his chin on a Worthing tap takeover beer mat which is placed on a wooden table." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Bruno having a rest.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I looked into how design tokens could be implemented in an 11ty project. It didn't take me long to create a JSON file of variables, use Nunjucks to convert them to CSS variables and then refactor the CSS files to use the design token values. I'll probably create a blog post on how I've used them on my site. <a href="https://utopia.fyi/">Utopia.fyi</a> was a great resource for generating fluid spacing and typography variables.</p>
<p>I got to watch some of the NBA playoffs this week. The first round of the play-offs have included a couple of games that tipped-off earlier so I wasn't having to stay up to the early hours of the morning to watch them. Now I just have to filter out all the results so I can watch the rest of the play-off games without seeing the scores.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>This site now uses design tokens for spacing, typography sizes and colours.</li>
<li>The colophon page was updated with resources from <a href="https://utopia.fyi/">Utopia.fyi</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/7">Episode 7 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/3">Episode 3 in Season 15</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 142023-04-10T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week14/<p>On Monday, I was at the Brighton Centre with Becka to see <a href="https://www.dermotkennedy.com/">Dermot Kennedy</a>. Not really my kind of music but it was enjoyable.</p>
<p>I set-up my first Mastodon bot this week. The bot is registered on <a href="https://sportsfeed.me/">sportsfeed.me</a> which is an instance that had other accounts which were posting updates from sports team's RSS feeds. I used <a href="https://ifttt.com/">IFTT</a> to monitor the <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/rss.xml">RSS feed for Brighton & Hove Albion's website</a> and then send a webhook request to the Mastodon API that would publish the latest item in the RSS feed as a status on <a href="https://sportsfeed.me/">sportsfeed.me</a>. I still need a profile icon for the account though, Brighton has strong brand guidelines that prevent logos synonymous with the club from being used without explicit permission. You can find the bot <a href="https://sportsfeed.me/@BHAFC">here</a>.</p>
<p>I've been experimenting with the idea of including a bookmarks page on my site. I was using <a href="https://developer.raindrop.io/">Raindrop.io API</a> to fetch a list of bookmarks. Most of the problems I faced were around how to display the bookmarks on this site. Each bookmark would need some context around why I've bookmarked it, any quotes, and a tag so that I could group similar bookmarks. This will likely be something that I re-visit next week.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I went to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3141215/kane-able-to-end-albions-unbeaten-away-run">Brighton lose 2-1 against Spurs</a>. Very frustrating game. I could easily rant here, but that wouldn't change the result or the fact that the Brighton players gave everything despite having every decision go against them.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week14-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the away end inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where there are two big screens located in each of the corners showing the score, current minute of the game, and a live feed of the pitch. Brighton, playing in crimson red are about to kick-off against Tottenham who are playing in white." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Top of the PGMOL apology league.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Some of the source code still contained references to <code>renderData</code> which was removed in 11ty 2.0. This meant some of the pages on this site were showing template placeholders in the page metadata. Those references have been updated to use <code>computedData</code> instead.</li>
<li><a href="https://docs.netlify.com/netlify-labs/experimental-features/netlify-graph/">Netlify Graph is being deprecated</a> which meant I could delete some code. It was being used to fetch data about the last track I listened to on Spotify, but it was never really reliable.</li>
<li>There are now five journal entries shown on the home page.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No reading this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248-upload/season/2">Season 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248-upload">Upload</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/6">Episode 6 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/2">Episode 2 in Season 15</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 2, 3, 4 and 5 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218344-blue-lights/season/1">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218344-blue-lights">Blue Lights</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 132023-04-03T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week13/<p>On Tuesday, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593481.html">Worthing D&D White's 94-69 win against Angmering GSD</a>. I found it tough to get a touch of the ball in the first half, but didn't have the same problem in the second half and particularly the fourth quarter. I finished the game with 3 points, making the only shot I attempted and I also had quite a few assists.</p>
<p>I discovered this week that Brighton & Hove Albion's website has an undocumented <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/rss.xml">RSS feed</a>. The only things I look to Twitter for is football news, so finding out that the club has an RSS feed means that there is no longer a reliance on social media to get the latest news and opportunity to bring the RSS updates to the Fediverse. I started to register for Mastodon accounts on instances that accept bot accounts which post updates from RSS feeds, but I'm yet to hear back from those instances in regards to whether the account registration has been accepted.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3131057/mac-allister-on-the-spot-as-albion-fight-back-in-thriller">Brighton draw 3-3 against Brentford</a>. A very entertaining game for neutral fans but no so much for Brighton fans. Defending and attacking corners and free-kicks has been a weakness all season, so it was frustrating to watch Brentford score from two set pieces while Brighton never looked like scoring from the 14 corners they had. To come from behind to draw three times was impressive though and shows that there is real belief amongst the players that they are capable of getting points in every game.</p>
<p>I was still playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey this week on the PlayStation. I've started to find some of the open world activities a bit repetitive, particularly when some of those locations I've had to return to later in the game and found that the environment had reset. The suggested levels for the main quest have caught up with the level of my character so I haven't been completing the main quest objectives. I started to explore the areas that were lower than my character's level and synchronise as many of the vantage points as possible so I can fast travel to them later in the game.</p>
<p>Becka asked if I had any multiplayer racing games since she often walks past me playing on the PlayStation and wanted to join in. I was surprised at the lack of filters for multiplayer games in the PlayStation store and after doing a (very) quick search I bought Gran Turismo 7. What the game details neglected to mention was that multiplayer is not available at the beginning of the game. A quick search on the internet explained that two player mode is only available once a milestone had been reached in the game's story mode. We ended up taking it in turns with a single controller since it would have taken a lot of time to unlock multiplayer and eventually gave up on the idea of split-screen races. I'm still struggling to understand why two player mode could not have been enabled by default.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read anything this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248-upload/season/1">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/86248-upload">Upload</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/5">Episode 5 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/15/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 15</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218344-blue-lights/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/218344-blue-lights">Blue Lights</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 122023-03-27T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week12/<p>For the second consecutive week, I only worked for three days. I had some holiday that needed to be taken before the end of March otherwise it would have expired.</p>
<p>Most of this free time was spent on the PlayStation. I found that how I game is quite similar to how I work, in that if I know I have distractions coming up, I will try to avoid committing to completing something. Knowing I wasn't going to have many distractions when I was playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey meant I was completing more of the story objectives that I knew would be time consuming. I also had a major brain-fart when playing, realising that I somehow skipped Assassin's Creed: Origins despite also having it in my game library. Guess I'll have to go back to it once I've completed Odyssey.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I travelled up to Horsham to play in Worthing D&D White's <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593468.html">91-95 loss against Horsham Hawks</a>. We were missing two of our starting line-up and so we only travelled with six players. We did very well to keep the score as close as we did. I had a very poor game shooting the ball, only making one three-point shot from approximately ten attempts. The one I did make was just as the shot clock was about to expire so I was quite pleased it went in. I played well defensively though, as I felt like I had to make up for how poorly I shot the ball.</p>
<p>I spent some time this week thinking about the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/">journal</a> page on this site. At the moment, it only really shows my Mastodon posts and any longer writings. It doesn't really reflect the same things that I used to keep in a bullet journal and I wanted to make the journal page more than just what I've written or posted on social media. I started to track the books that I've finished reading in the journal page now and started to think about how I could track other activities in there too while keeping it all on a static website.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Books that I've read are now included in the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/">journal</a> with status updates.</li>
<li>I added a book icon for the book updates in the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/">journal</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804911143/">Marvel Select Secret Invasion: Meet The Skrulls</a>.</li>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1083055-fatboy-slim-right-here-right-now">Right Here, Right Now (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/4">Episode 4 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 112023-03-20T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week11/<p>My week started with a basketball game as I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593499.html">Worthing D&D White's 86-99 loss against Worthing D&D Black</a>. Having not had a game for the past three weeks, I found it difficult to find a shooting rhythm and missed the two shots that I had.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3111017/super-solly-sinks-palace-as-albion-march-on">Brighton win 1-0 against Crystal Palace</a>. It was about time that Brighton won in this fixture though it wasn't a great game to watch. It was a really important result that put Brighton closer to the European qualification places and put Palace even closer to the relegation places.</p>
<p>I was at the Brighton Centre on Thursday to see Fatboy Slim. I particularly enjoyed the references to the football score from the previous evening which included Solly March's goal celebration on the big screen and Fatboy Slim waving a Brighton scarf in the air. A really enjoyable evening.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week11-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="A crowd of people with their hands in the air, in front of a stage on which Fatboy Slim is stood with their arms raised. Above the stage is a disco ball that is reflecting white light. Above the disco ball is a big screen which shows a video feed of the stage and the crowd." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Right Here, Right Now.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I spent some time on the PlayStation this week. Most of the time I was playing career mode in FIFA 23 but I also picked up Assassin's Creed: Odyssey too. In addition to my normal habit of not progressing the main story in favour of completing side missions, I also found a new habit of wandering into areas that contain enemies that are significantly higher levelled than my character and subsequently desynchronising. I've found myself opening the map much more often to make sure I stick to areas that are the same level as my character.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was back at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3116523/wembley-next-as-albion-cruise-into-fa-cup-semi-finals">Brighton win 5-0 against Grimsby in the FA Cup</a>. This game had the potential to be a really tough game for Brighton and the score at half time probably reflected that. Some really well taken goals meant that Brighton progress to the semi-finals of the FA cup and a game against Manchester United at Wembley stadium in April. Not always easy to comprehend that I would have seen Brighton play at Wembley twice in five years when there were certainly times where it felt like it would never happen in my lifetime.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Not a visual change, but the Week Notes tag is now applied from the directory level. This means I don't need to add Week Notes to the list of tags on each individual week note post.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I still have <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a> in progress, but I didn't read any this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/3">Episode 3 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 102023-03-13T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week10/<p>I managed to watch Brighton play twice this week. On Wednesday, I was at Brighton's training ground in Lancing to watch the <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3100665/albion-knocked-out-by-injury-time-goal">men's under 21 team play against Valencia in the Premier League International Cup</a>. A very entertaining game of football saw Valencia win 3-2, scoring the winning goal in the last minute of added time at the end of the second half. Brighton played very well and it was interesting to see how they've tried to adapt to play a similar style of play to the first team.</p>
<p>On Saturday I travelled up to Leeds to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3103193/mac-allister-and-march-on-target-but-albion-are-held">Brighton and Leeds draw 2-2</a> at Elland Road. It felt like two points dropped but Brighton never really did enough to win the game. Too often it felt like Leeds were running faster and wanting to win more than the Brighton players.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week10-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the away end inside Elland Road (Leeds). The away end is located in one of the corners of the ground. Brighton playing in red are preparing to kick-off against Leeds who are playing in white." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Entertaining game but felt like two points dropped.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I've been enjoying reading comics recently and discovered this week that my local library has a large collection of comics available on Libby. I borrowed a couple of Marvel ones that I had heard of and read them on my phone and Surface tablet. It's not the same feeling as reading the paper based equivalents but it has saved me around £30 compared to buying physical copies. The only issue I've found so far is that not all e-books have ISBN numbers, so tracking the books that I'm reading has so far involved finding the ISBN for the physical copies and using those instead.</p>
<p>I played some Assassin's Creed: Odyssey this week. I've not really advanced the main story at all because I keep finding other things to do instead. I think I have completed more caves than I have quests.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781302933630/">Moon Knight by Lemire and Smallwood: the Complete Collection</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781302520205/">Doctor Doom Vol. 1 by Christopher Cantwell</a>.</li>
<li>I didn't manage to read any more of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 5 and 6 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/3">season 3</a>, and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/4">season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts">Ghosts</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 4 and 5 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better/season/1/">season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better">Better</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/2">Episode 2 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8077-alien">Alien<sup>3</sup> (1992)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/722149-luther">Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 92023-03-06T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week9/<p>Any free time I got this week was spent playing on the PlayStation, with a large amount of this time spent completing the story in <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/marvels-guardians-of-the-galaxy/">Guardians of the Galaxy</a>. I liked that puzzle solving was an important part of the game and that most boss battles required more than pressing the shoot button repetitively. I then moved onto playing <a href="https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/assassins-creed/odyssey">Assassin's Creed: Odyssey</a>. I chose to play in "exploration mode" rather than the guided mode that featured in previous Assassin's Creed games. I found it a bit confusing that I was able to trigger a side-quest that required a skill that I hadn't unlocked yet when I discovered a cave while playing the first part of the story. The exploring mode feels a lot more natural to how I would chose to play the game and places a lot less emphasis on advancing the story while rewarding the completion of side-quests.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3094104/irresistible-albion-hand-out-another-hammers-blow">Brighton win 4-0 against West Ham</a>. West Ham may have been poor, but Brighton were so clinical. In recent seasons, that Brighton team may have settled for the one goal lead rather than trying to score as many as possible. The positive approach that the players are now taking into every game is not only winning games but also making us very fun to watch. I can't remember Brighton scoring this many goals in a season since maybe the year we finished second in the Championship to get promoted to the Premier League.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I managed to read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 4-6 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/2">season 2</a> and episodes 1-4 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/3">season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts">Ghosts</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3 in Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better">Better</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian/season/3/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian">The Mandalorian</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 82023-02-27T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week8/<p>On Wednesday, I commuted up to London to work in the office. I met a friend at the train station who was waiting for the same train. It turned out that they were working in an office that was a 5 minute walk from mine so we had a good catch-up during our commute. Working in the office gave me a good chance to interact with people that I wouldn't normally talk to but I was socially exhausted by the end of the day.</p>
<p>I published <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive">eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive</a>. I had some free time this week, so the code that I used to fetch all my public Mastodon posts is now available as a plugin. It took me a few attempts to publish a version that had complete documentation so it went from version 0.1.0 to version 0.1.4 quite quickly.</p>
<p>I don't normally play games on my phone, but this week I discovered <a href="https://gridpop.co/isle/">Isle of Arrows</a>. I really like the tower defence and board game combination and my phone battery statistics suggest that I also found it addictive. I managed to spend some time playing Guardians of the Galaxy on the PS5 this week too and completed a couple of levels.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The Mastodon posts in the journal are now fetched using <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive">eleventy-plugin-mastoarchive</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week8/reading/9781804911136/">Marvel Select Ant-man: World Hive</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Coders by Clive Thompson</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/1">Season 1</a> and episodes 1-3 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts/season/2">season 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/17174-ghosts">Ghosts</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/503736-army-of-the-dead">Army of the Dead (2021)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 72023-02-20T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week7/<p>Most weeks I try to avoid writing about work, but work this week took a toll on my mental health and I want to acknowledge that. There were layoffs this week at work, and while I wasn't impacted, it caused uncertainty. Having to process the changes that were happening and attend meetings about those changes, in addition to the demands of my role, caused me to feel completely drained. I didn't really have the motivation or energy to achieve anything outside of work, even playing on the PlayStation felt like a chore as I was too tired to focus on the game I was playing.</p>
<p>Saturday was Bruno's 10th birthday! He insisted on a visit to the pub on Friday night so he could indulge in a couple of packets of Red Leicester flavoured Mini Cheddars.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-2268w.webp 2268w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-2268w.jpeg 2268w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week7-320w.jpeg" width="2268" height="4032" alt="Bruno the Sussex Spaniel staring at a packet of crisps which are out of shot. His brown fur is a little shiny in the light, his mouth is open and his tongue is almost hanging out of his mouth." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Mini Cheddars on his mind.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Saturday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3071013/frustration-as-albion-suffer-first-defeat-of-2023">Brighton lose 1-0 against Fulham</a>. One of those games where the longer it went without Brighton scoring, the more likely it felt that Fulham would have one clear chance and score. Shame that again the refereeing isn't consistent and took the focus off enjoying the game.</p>
<p>I felt like I needed to get myself away from my desk after this week, so on Sunday so I went to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania at my local cinema. I enjoyed the film, though I can see why it might not prove popular.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I wrote about creating <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/vs-code-snippets-with-variables/">custom VS Code snippets to auto-fill the front matter in the Markdown files</a> so that I wouldn't have to fill them in manually when I want to write a new post.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910214/">Marvel Select She Hulk: Superhuman Law</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Marvel Select Ant-man: World Hive</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 1 and 2 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better/season/1">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209183-better">Better</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/640146-ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania">Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1002305-untold-the-rise-and-fall-of-and1">Untold: The Rise and Fall of AND1 (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 62023-02-13T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week6/<p>I managed to spend some time on the PlayStation this week, completing a few levels in the Guardians of the Galaxy game. I find it difficult to start and stop playing this game as I prefer to complete whole levels rather than leaving them part way through. I also picked up Star wars Battlefront 2 and FIFA 23 for a couple of quick games later in the week when I didn't think I had enough time to complete a level in Guardians of the Galaxy.</p>
<p>In a slight change to my seemingly weekly routine of watching Brighton play football, I visited the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre (Brighton's training ground) to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3055010/under-21s-through-in-international-cup-despite-defeat">Brighton's under-21 team play Sparta Prague in the Premier League International Cup</a>. It was entertaining game despite Brighton losing 1-0. It was probably the coldest I've been at a football game in a long time (double socks and thermals did little to keep me warm) and I'm pretty sure my kneecaps were frozen by full-time.</p>
<p>I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593489.html">Worthing D&D White's 103-82 win against Horsham Hawks 2</a> this week. Another game where I struggled to find a rhythm shooting the ball, but I managed to make a couple of three-pointers in the second half to finish the game with 6 points. I've not got any games or training sessions for a few weeks now.</p>
<p>Brighton played Crystal Palace in the Premier League this week. I didn't go and it's the one team that as a Brighton fan, you don't want to lose to. To prevent myself from spending all afternoon biting my fingernails, Becka agreed to trip to a place where it's socially unacceptable to use your phone - the cinema. <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/668482-matilda">Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022)</a> wouldn't have been my preferred choice (Becka's pick) though it did stop me from looking at my phone for a lengthy period of time which also happened to coincide with the duration of the football game. I was very relieved to find out that the score finished 1-1 when I left the cinema.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>This site is now using Eleventy 2.0.</li>
<li>As part of the upgrade, I had to change how I populated the title and description meta tags for each of the pages that contain my reading notes.</li>
<li>The data for each book is now being cached using <code>flat-cache</code>, which has improved the build times by ~12 seconds.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910238/">Marvel Select Legion of Monsters</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Marvel Select She Hulk: Superhuman Law</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/399174-isle-of-dogs">Isle of Dogs (2018)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/482321-ron-s-gone-wrong">Ron's gone wrong (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/668482-matilda">Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/674324-the-banshees-of-inisherin">The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 52023-02-06T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week5/<p>I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593487.html">Worthing D&D White's 84-62 win against Bognor GSD</a> this week, but finished with 0 points. It was one of those games where it felt like every pass to me was either at my ankles or over my head, so I frequently found myself having to pass the ball out of a position that I normally would have shot the ball from.</p>
<p>I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3048710/more-mitoma-magic-as-albion-leave-it-late">Brighton win 1-0 against Bournemouth</a>. Not the most entertaining game, but on another day it could have been a game that we had lost or drawn. So good to see us find a way to win against a team that sat deep, hoped to score goals on the counter attack and continuously wasted time in dead ball situations.</p>
<p>With Twitter announcing that their <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1621026986784337922">API will no longer be free to use from the 9<sup>th</sup> of February</a>, I deleted the workflow in <a href="https://pipedream.com/">Pipedream</a> that I used to automate the syndication of my week notes to Twitter. That also means this week's notes and any future notes won't be syndicated there. Pipedream worked very well when I was using it so I'm now looking at other things I can use it for.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The code that I previously used to archive my tweets to this site has been deleted. It used the Twitter API but I also don't tweet anymore so thought it would be better to delete it.</li>
<li>I added my notes for <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781839762024/">Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781839762024/">Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/3/episode/6">Episode 6 in Season 3 of Happy Valley</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/93166-the-capture/season/1">Season 1</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/93166-the-capture/season/2">Season 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/93166-the-capture">The Capture</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 42023-01-30T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week4/<p>I had consecutive evenings of playing basketball this week. In addition to a training session, I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593503.html">Worthing D&D White's 85-82 win against Angmering GSD</a>. I thought I shot the ball well when in the training session, but I surpassed my own expectations the next day - scoring from 4/5 three-point attempts and finishing the game with 12 points.</p>
<p>I finished reading the collection of Marvel select comics that I'd bought at the start of the month, so in January alone I've now read half as many books as I'd managed in the whole of 2022. The comics aren't anywhere near as lengthy as some of the books that I read last year so in some ways this isn't a fair comparison but they all have ISBNs so I've included them in the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/">reading page</a>. They've helped me to spend less time in front of a screen and I've found that they compliment the longer books that I've been reading, so this week I ordered some more.</p>
<p>I was at the Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3040813/its-magic-from-mitoma-as-albion-beat-liverpool-again">Brighton win 2-1 against Liverpool in the FA cup</a>. Kaoru Mitoma's goal was incredible and the whole team played well. It's a shame that some players appear to be badly advised by their agents and no longer feel that Brighton is the club they want to play for.</p>
<p>The description for the week notes were getting a bit repetitive so I've changed it up a bit this week. Might change it back in next week's notes.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week4/reading/9781804910245/">Black Panther: Who Is the Black Panther? (Marvel Select)</a></li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/3/episode/5">Episode 5 in Season 3 of Happy Valley</a>.</li>
<li>Season 1 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/81349-devs">Devs</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 32023-01-23T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week3/<p>I had a basketball game for Worthing D&D White this week. We played <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593482.html">away at Bognor GSD and won 66-75</a>. I finished with 6 points, scoring twice from behind the three-point line.</p>
<p>Google Stadia finally went offline. I spent over 463 hours playing on Stadia so I was grateful that it gave me the opportunity to play games that I might not have otherwise played. Being able to play without needing a subscription, on a device that I already had, wherever I felt like playing (internet connection permitting) was great. While I could have spent Stadia's final week playing games there, I chose to spend the time on the PlayStation instead. Aside from the longer sessions spent playing the Guardians of the Galaxy, I played a couple of games in seasons mode on FIFA 23.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3031868/its-fergie-time-as-evans-late-leveller-lifts-albion">Brighton draw 2-2 away at Leicester</a>. The positivity in the away end was infectious and really contributed to the atmosphere. <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3029470/lallana-de-zerbi-believes-were-only-at-60/">Roberto De Zerbi thinks the team is currently playing at 60% of its potential</a> and we're playing great football, it's going to be great fun as the team gets closer to fulfilling that potential.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/2023/week3-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the away end inside the King Power Stadium (Leicester). The away end is located in one of the corners of the ground. Above the goalposts at the other end of the ground, the big screen shows the final score: Leicester 2-2 Brighton. The sky that is visible in the photo has started to fade from blue to orange." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>A draw felt like a fair result.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Some of the books I read would have 0 pages. This seems to be an issue with the API that I get the book data from. I've added the correct page numbers for any of the books that were previously showing 0 pages. I've been trying to add more to the reading page, but I definitely read books with more pages than that.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Guardians Of The Galaxy Team-up! (Marvel Select)</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910269/">Curse of the Man-Thing (Marvel Select)</a></li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Black Panther: Who Is the Black Panther? (Marvel Select)</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 8-10 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/204554-legacy-the-true-story-of-the-la-lakers/season/1">Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/3/episode/4">Episode 4 in Season 3 of Happy Valley</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 5-8 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials/season/3/">Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials">His Dark Materials</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 22023-01-16T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week2/<p>I had my first basketball session of the new year this week. I felt like I had a good session, shooting the ball well and I still being able to run by the end. I hadn't done any exercise over the Christmas period so I was somewhat pleased that I didn't need to take a breaks and could continue playing. I felt the consequences a couple of days later though, feeling very achy.</p>
<p>Something I struggled with last year was choosing to read when I had spare time instead of reaching for my phone. Part of the reason for that was my choice of reading material and the pressure I placed on myself to finish a book if I had started reading it. This week I managed to read most days, finishing two books and I started a third.</p>
<p>I spent a couple of evenings on the PlayStation this week, engrossed in the Guardians of the Galaxy game. I discovered that the non-playable characters (NPCs) react when I don't follow them to the next objective, making sarcastic comments when I choose to look for collectibles instead.</p>
<p>I was at the Amex on Saturday to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3018873/super-solly-leads-the-way-for-rampant-albion">Brighton win 3-0 against Liverpool</a>. There have been times this season where I wondered if that was as good as it would ever get, and then things just keep getting better. The only disappointment was that the match highlights portrayed the game as even, highlighting Liverpool attacking the same number of times as Brighton. The game was one-sided, Brighton dominated possession of the ball, created more chances and genuinely looked a significantly better team.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The base template previously contained a broken link for an RSS feed that has moved. The template has been updated so that link is for the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/feed.xml">Journal RSS feed</a>.</li>
<li>Visited links now have a different text colour. This should help make it easier to see if you've clicked on a link before.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780321965516/">Don't Make Me Think: Revisited by Steve Krug</a>.</li>
<li>I read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781804910184/">Marvel Select - Doctor Strange: Under The Knife</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#currentlyReading">Marvel Select - Guardians Of The Galaxy Team-up!</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/593643-the-menu">The Menu (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 8-10 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/65495-atlanta/season/4">Season 4 of Atlanta</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 1-7 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/204554-legacy-the-true-story-of-the-la-lakers/season/1">Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/3/episode/3">Episode 3 in Season 3 of Happy Valley</a>.</li>
</ul>
2023 Week Notes - Week 12023-01-09T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2023/week1/<p>I was back to work this week after a break over the Christmas period. Despite it being a shortened work week I definitely found it hard to adjust, feeling increasingly more tired as the week progressed.</p>
<p>Most of my time this week was spent trying to finish my <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review">year in review</a> post for 2022. I think I spent more time making small changes than actually writing it. Hopefully by next year I'll be able to use it as a template and it will make writing it easier.</p>
<p>When I was little, my dad used to buy my brother and I comics when we had tidied our bedrooms. Well I tidied my room, so I bought myself some comics. I picked up some Marvel Select bookazines which will add some variety to my reading list.</p>
<p>I started playing Guardians of the Galaxy on the PlayStation. Some of the early gameplay is similar to the Tomb Raider games which I enjoyed, so I've got high expectations.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I added a Netlify redirect for <code>/.well-known/webfinger</code> so that it points to the webfinger for my account on indieweb.social. This means that searching for <code>@declan@declanbyrd.co.uk</code> in the Fediverse will show my Mastodon account.</li>
<li>I refactored the template for rendering the links to my social media profiles.</li>
<li>I added IDs to the years on the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/">reading page</a> so that I could link to the books that I'd read in a particular year.</li>
<li>I published my <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/">year in review post for 2022</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a couple of chapters from Don't Make Me Think: Revisited by Steve Krug.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Episodes 3 and 4 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials/season/3/">Season 3</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials">His Dark Materials</a>.</li>
<li>Episode 1 and 2 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/3">Season 3 of Happy Valley</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 1-7 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/65495-atlanta/season/4">Season 4 of Atlanta</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/661374-glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery">Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/38700-bad-boys-for-life">Bad Boys for Life (2020)</a>.</li>
</ul>
What did Declan do in 2022?2023-01-08T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/<p>One of the things that I started in 2022 was publishing a summary of what I got up to each week in the form of a week note. The notes evolved in structure throughout the 52 weeks, but the general idea was to log what I watched, what I read, if I'd changed anything on this site, and anything else that I wanted to make note of. With the help of those notes, here is a summary of what I got up to in 2022.</p>
<p>This post is quite long so I don't expect anyone to read through all of it. Here's a list of links so you can jump to the bits that might be of interest:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#newJob">New Job</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#fediverse">Fediverse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#reading">Reading</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#gaming">Video Games</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#tv-and-film">TV and Film</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#sport">Sport</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#music">Music</a></li>
<li><a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/review/#travel">Travel</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="newJob">New Job</h2>
<p>I started a new job as a software engineer at Twilio. I went from hybrid working to working for a remote-first company so I no longer have a commute which has been great and I've appreciated the additional time that I now have each day. I managed to visit the office in London for a social event, though I still haven't met (in-person) most of the team that I work with as they are all located outside of the UK.</p>
<h2 id="fediverse">Fediverse</h2>
<p>I ventured into the Fediverse at the start of the year by creating my first Mastodon account. I moved accounts a bit, had a go at running my own single-user server, but in the end I settled on <a href="https://indieweb.social/about">indieweb.social</a>. It's great that more and more people have found Mastodon in the past 12 months for various reasons and that there are no algorithms.</p>
<h2 id="reading">Reading</h2>
<p>To try and prevent sitting in front of a screen all day, in 2022 I started recording the books that I had read on this site. I managed to read <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/#2022">10 books</a> and though I felt like I should have read more, it was also the same number that my mum's book group read so I'm not going to feel bad about it.</p>
<p>The one I enjoyed most was <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781529100617/">Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir</a> though I know the notes that I wrote for it don't reflect how good I thought the book was. Some of the books that I chose to read this year made reading feel like a challenge rather than a way to unwind, so for 2023 I've chosen to only add books to the reading page if I finish them. I probably wouldn't have finished <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780544338012/">The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien</a> if I hadn't already added it to the reading page in anticipation that I would add notes later.</p>
<h2 id="gaming">Video Games</h2>
<p>My alternative to reading books when I finished work for the day was often to play video games. At the beginning of 2022 I was using Google Stadia as my preferred platform and then used the Nintendo Switch when there were games that I wanted to play which weren't on Stadia. Then it was announced that Stadia was being shut down. As Google handed out refunds for all Stadia games and hardware, I was able to buy a PlayStation 5 digital edition. This meant that I hardly picked up the Switch or a Stadia controller for the rest of the year, immersed in the catalogue of new games that I could play. Of the games that I played this year, my favourites were <a href="https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP9000-CUSA11995_00-MARVELSSPIDERMAN">Marvel's Spider-Man</a> and <a href="https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP2333-PPSA02101_00-STRAYSIEE0000000">Stray</a>.</p>
<h2 id="tvAndFilm">TV and Film</h2>
<p>A consistency in my week notes was the list of TV and film that I'd watched each week. While most of what I watched was consumed on the smaller screens of my phone or laptop, I did get to visit my <a href="https://domecinema.co.uk/DomeCinema.dll/Home">local cinema in Worthing</a> to see some films on a bigger screen.</p>
<p>The two I enjoyed most on the big screen were <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/414906-the-batman">The Batman</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/545611-everything-everywhere-all-at-once">Everything Everywhere All at Once</a>. The Batman was the first film I saw at the cinema where social distancing was no longer in place so while there was less personal space, the film had me gripped throughout. Everything Everywhere was just ridiculous, but the kind of ridiculous where despite thinking it could not get any weirder, it continued to.</p>
<p>The two TV programmes from 2022 that I enjoyed most were <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power">Rings of Power</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor?language=en-GB">Star Wars: Andor</a>. Rings of Power made me feel like there was some of The Silmarillion that I did understand, and I did like the story it told. Andor was a pleasant surprise and although I'd pretty much forgotten who Cassian Andor was before I started watching it, the story was very good.</p>
<h2 id="sport">Sport</h2>
<p>I also logged all the football games that I attended in 2022. In addition to watching Brighton play at home, I also got to watch them play away 6 times, only losing twice - <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2472917/fa-cup-journey-over-after-defeat-at-spurs">3-1 away at Tottenham in the FA cup</a> and <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2990544/albion-pay-the-penalty-as-they-exit-carabao-cup/">losing on penalties to Charlton in the Carabao cup</a>. I didn't take well to Graham Potter very quickly leaving Brighton to join Chelsea, so while I enjoyed watching the big wins against <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2607677/albion-thrash-united-on-an-amex-occasion-to-remember">Manchester United</a> and <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2780412/brilliant-albion-hit-five-past-leicester-in-amex-thriller">Leicester</a>, I particularly enjoyed watching <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2880820/albion-four-midable-as-de-zerbi-celebrates-first-win">Brighton win 4-1 against Chelsea</a> to give Roberto De Zerbi his first win. Brighton now have a world cup winner in the squad in Alexis Mac Allister too. It's an exciting time to watch Brighton heading into 2023.</p>
<p>My week notes started to sound a bit repetitive when I mentioned how often I was playing basketball. I was only on the losing team once in 2022 and won the Basketball Sussex Men's league and cup in the 21/22 season.</p>
<h2 id="music">Music</h2>
<p>I got to see some live music in 2022. In March, Becka and I went to see Royal Blood in Bournemouth. A couple of days later I tested positive for COVID-19 but I really enjoyed the gig. Becka and I also got to see Fatboy Slim on Brighton beach for the <a href="https://www.fatboyslim.net/2022/03/24/big-beach-boutique-20th-anniversary/">20th anniversary of Big Beach Boutique</a>.</p>
<p>The artist I enjoyed listening to most in 2022 was <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/4oLeXFyACqeem2VImYeBFe?si=Jhi_hMcURpaG73UgQjc-5Q">Fred again..</a>. The <a href="https://boilerroom.tv/recording/fred-again-1">Boiler Room set</a> appeared on my YouTube recommendations and while it feels weird watching the people standing in the background, I must have watched multiple times rather than opening Spotify. I also liked the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/4O0noIPlmEkVFvyj7TOKpA?si=K7vwNBD3SOKLEmEgDprrig">Actual Life 3</a> album that was released in 2022 too.</p>
<h2 id="travel">Travel</h2>
<p>I was fortunate enough to go on two holidays in 2022. Becka and I <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week27/">visited Bude in Cornwall</a> in July for a UK based holiday that didn't require thinking about international travel and COVID restrictions. I'd been to Bude before but it was interesting to see how it changed since my childhood. Before I started my new job, we decided to take the Eurostar and <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week38/">visit Amsterdam</a>. I hadn't been to the Netherlands before but we both very much enjoyed Amsterdam.</p>
Week Notes - Week 522023-01-02T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week52/<p>I've been spending quite a lot of time on the PlayStation this week. I finished Stray which I really enjoyed. What the game lacked in length, it made up with its storyline and puzzles. I liked that the gameplay kept the controls simple and all the actions were mapped to single buttons and not combinations. Need for Speed: Heat, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and FIFA 23 also got some play time this week.</p>
<p>We had a family meal at <a href="https://pizzavip.co.uk/">VIP</a> on New Year's Eve. I had a very nice calzone filled with fior di latte cheese, ricotta, mascarpone, black pepper, salami and topped with tomato sauce.</p>
<p>After the meal, most of us went to the Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/3002690/brave-albion-beaten-by-the-leaders">Brighton lose 4-2 to Arsenal</a>. It wasn't the best performance from the team, but without our first choice midfield pairing in Mac Allister and Caicedo, and some costly mistakes, we struggled to stay in the game. Delighted for Evan Ferguson, scoring his first Premier League goal.</p>
<p>Celebrating the new year is a bit different for me as it's also my birthday. We welcomed in the new year with a brunch, an afternoon of board games and some very nice mini white chocolate and raspberry cheesecakes.</p>
<p>That brings an end to my week notes for 2022. If you've been reading these notes, it's appreciated. I hadn't really thought that people would be reading these notes when I started them back in January but it's helped keep me motivated to keep writing them. Here's to another 52 weeks worth of notes in 2023.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I created a new template for pages that show when they were last updated.</li>
<li>I updated the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/colophon/">Colophon page</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any books this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials/season/3/episode/2">Episode 2 in Season 3 </a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials">His Dark Materials</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/438631-dune">Dune (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/436969-the-suicide-squad">The Suicide Squad (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/0/episode/4">Taskmaster's New Year Treat 2023</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 512022-12-26T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week51/<p>With no work this week, I put my work laptop out of sight and I've been enjoying some time off.</p>
<p>A Christmas tradition in our house is to make (a lot of) mini sausage rolls that we can then snack on over the Christmas period. I was in charge of making them this year so I spent a couple of days this week making a mess in the kitchen and eventually making things that resembled mini sausage rolls.</p>
<p>When I wasn't making sausage rolls, I was on the PS5. I finally finished the story mode for Spider-man when I completed all the side missions. I really enjoyed playing and now looking forward to playing the Miles Morales sequel. I started playing Stray too. I'd heard really good things about the game and it's definitely living up to expectations.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, I went to watch Brighton play Charlton Athletic in the Carabao Cup. This was more like a pre-season friendly than a competitive fixture with both sets of fans struggling to create an atmosphere and the lack of quality on the pitch. The highlight of the entertainment seemed to be how Brighton managed to take such poor penalties during the penalty shootout. Normal football has now resumed.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week51-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View of the pitch from the upper tier of the west stand at The Valley. The players are lined parallel to the touchline having just walked out the tunnel." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Normal service resumed.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was a bit late adding these notes, forgetting that Christmas day was the end of the week when I'd normally be writing my notes. I spent Christmas day eating too much and playing board games with Becka and her family. Merry Christmas if you celebrate and if you don't I hope you had a good week regardless.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I removed the hover animation on some of the links. These are now underlined so they look like the other internal links on this site.</li>
<li>I refactored how the reading page gets the data for each book. Previously, I was using an async shortcode for each page which would get the data about that book. I've moved the data fetching to an 11ty data file that adds the book data to each page.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I was reading Don't Make Me Think: Revisited by Steve Krug.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials/season/3/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 3 </a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/68507-his-dark-materials">His Dark Materials</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/774752-the-guardians-of-the-galaxy-holiday-special">The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/995133-the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse">The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/67804-motherland/season/0/episode/3">Motherland 2022 Christmas special</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 502022-12-19T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week50/<p>My week started with a very cold basketball session. The temperature in the sports hall was 1°C and we had more players at the session this week so I had to try and keep warm when I was on the bench. When I was on the court I didn't shoot the ball well and noticed more aches and pains as the session went on. I didn't enjoy this weeks session as much as the session last week.</p>
<p>I finished work for the year on Thursday. I've now got a nice break and don't start work again until January! I'm sure I'll have a list of things I want to achieve and by the end of my break I will have done very few of them.</p>
<p>Becka and I visited Gunwharf Quays for some shopping on Friday. I hadn't been back to Portsmouth since I was at university and we were told that all teaching was going remote due to covid. Gunwharf Quays always felt expensive as a student so it was nice to go back with a slightly bigger budget and come back with a few more things.</p>
<p>It wouldn't be time off work without me spending hours playing video games. I managed to spend most of an afternoon playing seasons mode in FIFA 23, often getting frustrated at the colour contrast between team kits. When the frustration got too much I switched to playing Spider-man and have apparently reached 80% completion of the campaign despite choosing to complete as many of the side missions as possible.</p>
<p>I also watched the world cup final on Sunday. Thrilled to see Brighton's Alexis Mac Allister play so well and get to lift the trophy!</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I added my notes for <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a>.</li>
<li>I no longer have the book that I'm currently reading included in the collection of books that I finished. If I don't finish the book that I'm currently reading then I don't need to list it with the ones that I did read. It also means that there isn't a page "in draft" if it takes me a long time to finish the book.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week!</li>
<li>I started reading Don't Make Me Think: Revisited by Steve Krug.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/10">Episode 10</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/139380-nativity-2-danger-in-the-manger">Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 492022-12-12T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week49/<p>My week started with the arrival of a dual monitor arm that I'd ordered last week. I had to wait until I'd finished working for the day so that I could set it up. I've since spent most of the week moving the monitors around so they're at the correct height and position. It has freed up a lot of additional space on my desk which is great and I noticed that I wasn't slouching while working.</p>
<p>I had a good basketball session this week too. I shot the ball <strong>really</strong> well which is unusual for me, especially given how cold it was in the sports hall. It felt like every time I shot the ball it went in. I tried to avoid taking a break because as long as I kept running I was staying warm. Only one more session now until the new year.</p>
<p>I've been trying to finish the book that I've been reading since September. I set myself the goal of reading 12 books this year but I'm currently on the tenth so I've got some catching up to do. Hopefully I'll finish this book next week and give myself a chance of reading another two books before the year ends.</p>
<p>I haven't spent a lot of time on the PlayStation this week. I played a couple of games of FIFA but didn't spend as much time playing as I have done in previous weeks.</p>
<p>This week was also my last full week of work before the end of the year. I have a four day week next week which I'm excited about.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>One of the ISBNs that I used in the reading page wasn't being recognised by the API. I changed it by using an ISBN that it is able to recognise and therefore the site builds successfully.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read another 6 chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/9">Episode 9</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/664469-amsterdam">Amsterdam (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 482022-12-05T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week48/<p>No basketball for me this week as the session was cancelled. Instead I used that evening looking at feed readers, eventually settling on the 14 day free trial of <a href="https://feedbin.com/">Feedbin</a>. I've got a couple of feeds in there already and will look to add some more before I decide if I want to commit to paying for a subscription.</p>
<p>This week I set up a GitHub project to track all the things that I wanted to change about this site before the year ends. I made a good start and some of those changes went live this week. I decided not to redesign the whole site and instead chose to build on top of what I already have so that I don't spend the whole time procrastinating. I've been working on adding some more pages which are still in draft at the moment.</p>
<p>I spent some time playing Spider-man on the PS5 this week. I managed to finish the second act, completed all the side missions and most importantly I'm still enjoying the story.</p>
<p>I was getting an error with an obscure error message when I was trying to watch game replays on NBA League Pass this week. This error message wasn't documented in the FAQs or appearing in any search engine results. Eventually I tried logging out and logging back in again, which worked. I managed to watch a couple of quarters from some of Sunday's games.</p>
<p>The Christmas tree and decorations are now up. 🎄</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>There's now navigation in the footer. At the bottom of each page is a set of links for all the pages on this site.</li>
<li>I removed the links to the colophon and the reading page from the header. These are now found in the footer of every page .</li>
<li>I removed the about section from the home page. I'm in the process of moving this to a new page.</li>
<li>I wrote some bad HTML before. The <code><h1></code> on each page is now the title of the page, and not my name.</li>
<li>I'm now highlighting the book I'm currently reading on the reading page.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read 2 chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/10">Episode 10</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 9 and 10 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/season/4">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows">What We Do In The Shadows</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/8">Episode 8</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 7 and 8 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/95403-the-peripheral">The Peripheral</a>.</li>
<li>Season 1 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92209-truth-seekers">Truth Seekers</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/51052-arthur-christmas">Arthur Christmas (2011)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 472022-11-28T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week47/<p>I had another basketball game this week, but didn't win this time. I made a short appearance on the court as <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593475.html">Worthing D&D White lost 88-82 against Worthing D&D Black</a> in a very close game.</p>
<p>I subscribed to PlayStation Plus Extra for a year. Given that I don't really play online multiplayer games, the deciding factor for me was that the subscription gave me access to a catalogue of games that I could play for no additional cost. There were quite a few games in the catalogue that I had bought on Google Stadia but never got around to playing so I'm looking forward to playing those when I get a chance. I got some use out of online multiplayer too, spending most of my weekend playing seasons mode in FIFA 23.</p>
<p>I started to think about visual changes that I want to make to my site before 2023. There are some new pages that I would like to include and doing so would require the navigation to be re-worked which I've wanted to do for a while now. The colophon link for example shouldn't be at the top of each page, it's not that exciting. I've been looking at <a href="https://penpot.app/">Penpot</a> as an alternative to Figma to help me visualise the changes I want to make. I'm also thinking about creating a snapshot of my website at the end of the year and making this available on a sub-domain so that I retain a visual history of my site.</p>
<p>Not a lot else has happened this week. I've had the football on in the background most days but I'm rapidly losing any remaining interest I had in watching the world cup.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes to the site this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I haven't read any of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/12">Episode 12</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/9">Episode 9</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 7 and 8 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/season/4">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows">What We Do In The Shadows</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/7">Episode 7</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 462022-11-21T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week46/<p>This week I had my first basketball game of the season. This season I'm playing for <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/team/241860858/327699995.html">Worthing D&D White</a> and we started the season with a <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/33593466.html">114-36 win against Horsham Hawks II</a>. I finished the game with 4 points (I got fouled shooting a 3 pointer which went in and I made the resulting free throw).</p>
<p>On Wednesday this week, I made my first trip to the Twilio office in London. Being the only member on my development team that is based in the UK, it was a great chance to network with other people. I'd been invited to a social at <a href="https://electricshuffle.com/london/location-canary-wharf">Electric Shuffle in Canary Wharf</a> where we were split into teams and competed against each other in various games of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_shuffleboard">table shuffleboard</a>. I pushed my social anxiety to the limit, and despite finding it hard to approach people while I was in the office, I did have positive and meaningful conversations with some of my colleagues while at the social event. I was very tired for the next couple of days.</p>
<p>I played Spider-man on the PS5 this week and I'm still choosing to finish the side missions before advancing the main story. I can easily spend hours playing so I've mostly been playing this over the weekends.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes to the site this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read over 100 pages of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> during my commute to the office this week. Going to try and commit to finishing the book by the end of the month.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/11">Episode 11</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/8">Episode 8</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 5 and 6 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/season/4">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows">What We Do In The Shadows</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 2-6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/95403-the-peripheral">The Peripheral</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 452022-11-14T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week45/<p>I was back playing basketball this week! Admittedly, I was very rusty and didn't shoot the ball well. I had some kinesiology tape wrapped round the index finger of my right hand which didn't help trying to grip the ball and it needed replacing a couple of times, but it added some support to the tendon that I damaged a few weeks ago. Eventually I just took the tape off which made quite a big difference and my shot improved. My basketball season starts next week so it was good to have a practice after not playing for a while.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I took a trip to the cinema to see <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/505642-black-panther-wakanda-forever">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>. I was sceptical about watching this film and how a sequel can be made without the main actor from the first film, but I really enjoyed the film in the end.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was at the Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2907708/mac-allister-scores-after-49-seconds-then-villa-hit-back">Brighton lose 2-1 against Aston Villa</a>. Not a great performance in the end but we're still 7th in the table. We looked lost at times and didn't exactly create a lot of chances. Some players looked like they were just trying to survive the 90 minutes so they didn't risk their chances of appearing at a World Cup. I hope Brighton's players do well but I can't really say I'm excited for the World Cup next week.</p>
<p>Most of my gaming this week has been NBA 2K23 on the PS5. This week I discovered that the My NBA mode in NBA 2K23 lets you choose which era you want to start your career mode in. I chose the Kobe era which starts in 2002 and lets you play through to the present day. The reason I got excited about this is that some of the first games I played on the GameCube were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Courtside_2002">NBA Courtside 2002</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Live_2005">NBA Live 2005</a> so I was able to play with those same players but in a much higher resolution. Pure nostalgia.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I now have some real webmentions on this site, so I was able to make some improvements to how they are shown at the end of my writings.</li>
<li>In light theme, some of the inline code statements had very low colour contrast. I fixed this.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/10">Episode 10</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/7">Episode 7</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/505642-black-panther-wakanda-forever">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 1-4 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/season/4">Season 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83631-what-we-do-in-the-shadows">What We Do In The Shadows</a></li>
<li>Season 1 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/201874-blockbuster">Blockbuster</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/95403-the-peripheral/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/95403-the-peripheral">The Peripheral</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/766475-see-how-they-run">See How They Run (2022)</a></li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 442022-11-07T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week44/<p>After deciding to make my Twitter read-only last week, this week I worked on making Mastodon the social media that I actually want to read. I feel that it's going well so far and I'm spending less time on Twitter as a result. I also set up a monthly contribution via Patreon to help with the costs associated with running <a href="https://indieweb.social/">indieweb.social</a> that was cheaper and better value than a blue checkmark next to my name.</p>
<p>One of the improvements that I wanted to make to my notes page was to re-build my site when I make a new post on Mastodon so that my notes page could stay up-to-date. This week I learnt that each Mastodon profile has an RSS feed and I spent some time exploring ways to use this as a trigger to re-build my site. I managed to get something working, so next week I will try to write up how I've achieved it.</p>
<p>I've spent a bit of time gaming this week. I used to really enjoy the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 on the PS2 and this week I've been playing the more recent version of the game on the PS5, also called Star Wars Battlefront 2. I'm not very good at it. I played a bit of Spider-man too, but I'm now at the point in the game where the side missions are becoming a bit tedious and the story has increased in pace which makes me feel like I need to play it in a longer session than I currently am.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I went to Wolverhampton to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2891609/gross-grabs-late-glory-as-albion-win-at-wolves">Brighton win 3-2 against Wolves</a> and move into the top 6 in the Premier League table. It was a tense game and it was great to get the win. There's a real buzz amongst fans at the moment and the team is playing some fantastic stuff.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I made a change to the data file that fetches my Mastodon posts. Re-blogs are included in the API results but are shown as activities rather than posts. I didn't want to display these anyway as they are not my posts to archive, so I have made sure that only my own posts can be included in my notes page.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read four chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week. I may have to find a time to just finish this book soon. I'm less than half way through and while I enjoy it, it also feels like I'm not making progress reading it.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/9">Episode 9</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/6">Episode 6</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/894205-werewolf-by-night">Werewolf by Night (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/136315-the-bear/season/1">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/136315-the-bear">The Bear (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/829280-enola-holmes-2">Enola Holmes 2 (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 432022-10-31T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week43/<p>I've been catching up on the NBA this week by watching the full game replays on NBA League Pass. I wish they had an option to watch the full game without the breaks between quarters and the half-time entertainment. There is an all possessions option but that doesn't preserve the flow of the game and will skip the players bringing the ball over half court.</p>
<p>I've been playing lots of Spider-man on the PlayStation again this week. I'm still spending more time completing the side-missions than progressing the story but its still very enjoyable. I bought some more games this week which I'm looking forward to playing soon.</p>
<p>I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2880820/albion-four-midable-as-de-zerbi-celebrates-first-win">Brighton win 4-1 against Chelsea</a> at the Amex. It was a deserved win and one of the best atmospheres I've experienced inside a football stadium. Everyone was getting behind the team and the noise for the first and fourth goals was quite something. a "conversation" I had with a Chelsea fan after the game who claimed that Brighton were below average and that there was no way Cucurella was worth £62 million. The thing is, Chelsea's owners had bought our player of the season, sacked Thomas Tuchel and then decided that they needed our coaching staff (paying £20 million to do so). It sounds a bit like they wanted to be a below average team. Brighton certainly weren't below average.</p>
<p>While I still have a Twitter account, this week I've effectively put it in read-only mode. My profile now makes it clear that my account is only to syndicate content from this site and includes a link to my Mastodon profile. In the short term, I need to explore options for automating syndication to Twitter. I have already configured <a href="https://pipedream.com/">Pipedream</a> to automate the process of sharing my weekly note.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes to the site this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read two chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/7">Episode 7</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/8">episode 8</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/5">Episode 5</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 422022-10-24T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week42/<p>Aside from work, most of my time this week has been spent playing Spider-man on the PlayStation. I'd been really excited to play this, and it's definitely my kind of game. I chose to complete as many of the side quests as possible before progressing the story (something I have picked up from playing the Assassin's' Creed series) which has resulted in my character levelling up quite quickly and therefore unlocking more skills.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2859104/albion-held-to-frustrating-draw-with-forest">Brighton draw 0-0 with Nottingham Forest</a> at The Amex. This felt familiar to many a Brighton home game from the past couple of years. Brighton created lots and couldn't score, while the opposition struggled to get a shot on target. A frustrating evening in the end.</p>
<p>The NBA season started this week and I've decided to pay for a league pass subscription as the UK price has been lowered for this season. While I won't be watching many live games, I'll be able to watch Sunday games that tip-off in the evening in the UK and watch other games the following day.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes to the site this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No reading this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/396535">Train to Busan (2016)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/4">Episode 4</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 412022-10-17T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week41/<p>A rather quiet week this week so shorter notes than usual. Again I had no basketball due to my hand injury which has been very frustrating as it hasn't healed as fast as I had hoped. The sports hall is closed for the next few weeks as it is being used for exams so I'm hoping that I'll be back playing again when the hall is reopened.</p>
<p>I spent a large part of this week writing up how I syndicate my Mastodon posts to create a social media archive. I forgot how empty the notes section of the journal looks at the moment despite spending lots of time syndicating everything back to my site. One day I'll get the hang of sharing things on social media.</p>
<p>In addition to spending a few hours playing career mode in FIFA 23 on the PS5, I was also able to spend a bit of time playing on the Nintendo Switch this week too. Most of the games on my switch are either Nintendo exclusives or ports of games that I hadn't played on previous consoles. Portal 2 was one of the games that I hadn't played before and after the completing the first game a while ago I started the sequel. I can't play it for long periods of time though, jumping through portals for too long gives me motion sickness due to the way the game camera corrects itself.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I wrote about how I've <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/mastodon-pesos/">syndicated my Mastodon posts</a> to this site to create a social media archive.</li>
<li>I made some changes to how webmentions are displayed on this site.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read two chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/9">Episode 9</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/16">Episode 16</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/17">episode 17</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/18">episode 18</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/6">Episode 6</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/8">Episode 8</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1018648-the-redeem-team">The Redeem Team (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster/season/14/episode/3">Episode 3</a> in Season 14 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/63404-taskmaster">Taskmaster (UK)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 402022-10-10T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week40/<p>I had no basketball this week due to the injury I sustained on my shooting hand two weeks ago. I did however contact my GP about it this week who recommeded I have an x-ray to check for a potential fracture as there's still swelling on my hand and it's still causing pain. As I chose not to go straight to A&E when I did injure my hand, the results of the x-ray have gone back to my GP so I will hopefully find out next week exactly what I've done.</p>
<p>I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2844013/albion-frustrated-as-kane-wins-it-for-spurs">Brighton lose 1-0 against Spurs at the Amex</a>. It was a shame we were not able to get more from Roberto De Zerbi's first home game, one defensive mistake proving the decisive factor. There were glimpses of De Zerbi's methods being imposed on the team, encouraging the opposition to press Brighton players causing groans and shouts of "just clear it" or "get rid of it" coming from the home fans. Brighton games will certainly be more exciting that's for sure.</p>
<p>A reminder that people are only human this week, as mastodon.technology is being shut down. Unlike social networks where the servers are ran by companies, most mastodon servers are ran by individuals who are not on-call 24 hours a day to resolve any issues or being paid to maintain the server. Unsurprisingly, these servers can be shut down at any time as they are essentially a side-project for the maintainers. The major benefit of mastodon being part of the fediverse (federated social networks) is that I can move my account to any other mastodon server. So this week I moved my account from mastodon.technology to <a href="https://indieweb.social/@declan_byrd">indieweb.social</a> which also automatically moved all my followers to my new account.</p>
<p>I've been able to spend some time gaming on my PS5 this week. At the moment, this has mostly consisted of playing career mode on FIFA 23 but I'm looking forward to playing more games that take advantage of the controller's haptic feedback and dynamic resistance.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I updated the link to my mastodon profile in the site's footer and updated the code to PESOS my mastodon posts.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/8">Episode 8</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/12">Episode 12</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/13">episode 13</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/14">episode 14</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/15">episode 15</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/5">Episode 5</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/7">episode 7</a> in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/4">episode 4</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/5">episode 5</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/6">episode 6</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood">Sherwood (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 392022-10-02T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week39/<p>I enjoyed the break I had after leaving Honeywell and this week I started a new job at <a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a> as a software engineer. I enjoyed my first week and I'm excited about what's to come.</p>
<p>Basketball didn't go very well this week. I was planning to attend two sessions this week, but just half an hour into the first session I managed to injure my shooting hand. I wasn't able to continue playing and it was no better on the day of the second session. Disappointed because I was looking forward to attending both sessions this week.</p>
<p>Google announced that Stadia was shutting down. This was my main gaming platform alongside the Nintendo Switch and I used it to play the games that I wanted to play that were either badly ported to the Switch (FIFA 22) or not available on the Switch. The most disappointing thing about the announcement was that it had been coming for a while now and it was evident for a while that Google was not as committed as their customers to making a success of the product. I could use Stadia on all the devices I already owned, I didn't have to wait for any games to download or update, and the games library for Stadia included games that I wanted to play. The performance of the games on Stadia made me confident about the future of cloud gaming. Anyway, that went well. I'm supposed to be getting a refund for all the games that I bought on the platform which is a nice gesture at least. I managed to buy a PS5 over the weekend which I'm very excited to play on.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I updated the home page to show that I started a new job.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read three chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/7">Episode 7</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/10">Episode 10</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/11">episode 11</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/4">Episode 4</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1/episode/4">Episode 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/4">episode 4</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/5">episode 5</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/6">episode 6</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1">Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 382022-09-26T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week38/<p>This week Becka and I went on a trip to Amsterdam. We took the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal which took just over 4 hours. There are a <em>lot</em> of bikes at Amsterdam Centraal station and apparently they are building an underground bike storage because they need more space to store their bikes.</p>
<p>We stayed at <a href="https://www.conscioushotels.com/hotels/conscious-hotel-vondelpark/">Conscious Hotel Vondelpark</a> which was a great location for our trip. We were able to walk to all of the places we wanted to visit, but also had the option of taking the number 17 tram which stopped not far from the hotel and terminated at the train station.</p>
<p>Some of the highlights of the trip were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Visits to the <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en">Van Gogh museum</a> and the <a href="https://mocomuseum.com/locations/moco-amsterdam">Moco museum</a> in Museumplein.</li>
<li>A canal tour by <a href="https://www.thosedamboatguys.com/">Those Dam Boat Guys</a>.</li>
<li>A very moving visit to the museum at <a href="https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/">Anne Frank's house</a>.</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-3024w.webp 3024w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-3024w.jpeg 3024w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-1-320w.jpeg" width="3024" height="4032" alt="Declan and Becka wearing matching red and black checked shirts in the reflection of Mungo Thomson's Time." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Becka really embraced her time in Amsterdam as shown by her use of the Dutch angle.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The food and drink were also very good. Some of the places we stopped for food and drink at were:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://coffeedistrict.nl/">Coffee District Willemsparkweg</a> - a little shop on a street corner that sells coffee and pastries that we found on our walk from our hotel to Museumplein.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.restaurantmaru.nl/">Maru</a> - a Japanese restaurant that was a short walk from our hotel. The food was so nice here we visited twice during our stay.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.mrgyoza.nl/">Mr Gyoza</a> - an intimate dining experience with very fancy cocktails and some adventurously flavoured gyozas. The staff would talk you through every detail of the dish you ordered or the cocktail they were preparing.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.foodhallen.nl/amsterdam">Foodhallen</a> - the options here really appealed to me and I wished I was capable of eating more than I could. I tried my first bitterballen here from <a href="https://www.foodhallen.nl/amsterdam/food-and-drinks/de-ballenbar">De Ballenbar</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://vanstapele.com/en/home/">Van Stapele Koekmakerij</a> - they only sell one type of cookie and are open from 10am until they sell out. Becka had pre-ordered some from their website to collect and we arrived just after 10am - there was already a queue to get into the shop. They were very nice cookies and I can see why people were queueing for them.</li>
<li><a href="https://pizzaperla.nl/">La Perla Pizza</a> - a short walk from Anne Frank's house, the pizza here was really good.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.craftanddraft.nl/">Craft & Draft</a> - there were 40 beers on tap here and it was very close to the hotel. I wasn't able to try them all or get the chance to participate in their <a href="http://www.craftanddraft.nl/morebeer-tour/">beer tour which ends with a free t-shirt</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>We arrived back in the UK on Friday, sad that our trip had come to an end. I spent most of the weekend compiling this week's notes.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-3024w.webp 3024w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-3024w.jpeg 3024w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week38-2-320w.jpeg" width="3024" height="4032" alt="Declan wearing a red and black checked shirt over a black t-shirt with black jeans and white trainers, holding his camera, and stood in front of some railings on a bridge over the canal. To the right of Declan is a plant with lime green leaves which blend into the leaves of the trees which line either side of the canal in the background." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Becka took this nice photo of me by the canal.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Due to Netlify graph being unstable I have removed the now playing widget from the home template. The widget was logging errors to the console which affected the lighthouse score for this site.</li>
<li>I added <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/photos/20220921/">some photos that I took while on the canal tour</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/9">Episode 9</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5</a> in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/3">Episode 3</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/425909-ghostbusters-afterlife">Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209437-am-i-being-unreasonable/season/1">Season 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/209437-am-i-being-unreasonable">Am I Being Unreasonable? (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>The first three episodes of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83867-star-wars-andor/season/1">Star Wars: Andor</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1/episode/2">Episode 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/206013-don-t-hug-me-i-m-scared/season/1">Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 372022-09-19T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week37/<p>I had to manually delete 36 tweets to start this week. The pipedream workflow that I configured last week, to tweet a link for new week note posts by reading the RSS feed, needed to know which posts were new. I might have forgotten to set this to be anything newer than the previous week's post. This meant that at 9am on Monday, 36 tweets were published which each contained a link to one of the 36 previous week note posts. I'm pretty sure I've corrected now.</p>
<p>Monday was also my last day at Honeywell. I enjoyed my time working there and got to work with great colleagues. I've now got a little break before I start my next job.</p>
<p>My basketball session this week was good. I made a couple of shots but I'm still struggling to shoot the ball consistency particularly towards the end of the session when I am noticeably more tired. It was a good workout though.</p>
<p>I got a new library card. I wanted to register so I could access the e-books and audiobooks that are available through <a href="https://libbyapp.com/">Libby</a>, now that I have a touch screen tablet that is comparable in size to a hardback book. The process of getting a new card took about 15 minutes and the librarians were very enthusiastic about me joining.</p>
<p>I finished the story in <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-20-year-celebration">Rise of the Tomb Raider</a>. It was fun but I won't be trying to 100% complete it. While I'm not overly keen on games where you are being shot at, I liked that this game focused more on the puzzles and that it included the option to use stealth which could be used to avoid combat altogether.</p>
<p>I started playing <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/rdr2">Read Dead Redemption 2</a> and completed the first couple of missions. I'm a little confused by this game, as I haven't played the first one and it feels more focused on being a film than a game. The game is highly rated so I'm willing to stick with it, but the pace feels a little too slow for me.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I've updated my introduction on the home page.</li>
<li>I fixed the timestamps for social media posts so that they are all shown in UK time.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read 4 chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/7">7</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/8">8</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/4">Episode 4</a> in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/2">Episode 2</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 362022-09-12T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week36/<p>A much improved basketball session this week. I made a couple of three-point shots, got some exercise and most importantly had fun playing basketball.</p>
<p>From the highs of celebrating <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2780412/brilliant-albion-hit-five-past-leicester-in-amex-thriller">Brighton's 5-2 win against Leicester</a> last week, came the crashing low of <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2786233/graham-potter-leaves-albion-for-chelsea/">Graham Potter leaving the club to join Chelsea</a>. Then it was announced that Bruno Saltor, the former Brighton player and member of the coaching staff that our family dog was named after, was also leaving the club to be part of Potter's staff at Chelsea. Disappointment quickly turned to grief. Graham Potter is a top manager and deserves the chance to manage a team with greater resources than Brighton, but the timing of his departure from the club has certainly left a bitter after-taste. Had this happened before the season had started, there would be a much greater acceptance that this was a progressive move and not money talking. I am now excited to see how well the club has planned for Potter's departure and what the team can achieve over the rest of the season. Apologies in advance to whichever club's fans are about to go through the same rollercoaster of emotions when Brighton appoint their club's manager.</p>
<p>I've been experimenting with <a href="https://pipedream.com/">Pipedream</a> to automate the syndication of my weekly notes to Twitter. I've connected the <a href="https://pipedream.com/apps/rss/triggers/new-item-in-feed">New Item in Feed from RSS API</a> trigger to some custom Node.js code that will tweet when a new week note is added to the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/summaries.xml">journal summaries RSS feed</a>. This workflow runs at 9am every Monday morning so if I've configured it correctly I won't have to manually write a tweet with a link to this week's notes. If it's successful then I'll be exploring the Mastodon API to automate syndication there too.</p>
<p>I moved my Mastodon account to a <a href="https://mastodon.technology/@declan_byrd">new instance</a>. I was self-hosting my Mastodon account on Azure and was funded through a Microsoft developer account (assigned to me via my work) which gave me $115 a month in Azure credits. It was a fun way to learn not only how to set something up in Azure but to also see how Mastodon worked from an admin's perspective.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I updated the link to my mastodon profile in the site footer so that it now points to the new server.</li>
<li>I've added permalinks to all notes in the journal. This means that I now have an archive of all my Mastodon and Twitter posts on my own site.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch </a>this week and updated my notes for the book.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780735282353/">The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/4">Episode 4</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/">She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/5">5</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/6">6</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/2">Episode 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood">Sherwood (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/1">1</a>, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/2">2</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1/episode/3">3</a> in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/84773-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season/1">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty/season/6/episode/1">Episode 1</a> in Season 6 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/60625-rick-and-morty">Rick and Morty</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/336843-the-maze-runner-the-death-cure">Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/616037-thor-love-and-thunder">Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 352022-09-05T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week35/<p>A frustrating basketball session this week. Occasionally, one player will try to do <em>everything</em> themselves and score all the team's baskets without the input of the remaining four players on their team. I was on a team like that this week and I wasn't the one player trying to break the record for the most consecutive missed shots without passing the ball to another player on their team. Still, I ran around a bit which is better than spending more time sat down.</p>
<p>I've now logged over 85 hours in my attempt to 100% complete <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/LEGO-Star-Wars-The-Skywalker-Saga-2157160.html">Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the Nintendo Switch</a>. I've completed just under 80% of the galaxy which mostly consists of side missions and still have to 100% complete some of the levels too. I managed to play some <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-20-year-celebration">Rise of the Tomb Raider</a> this week too, though it isn't as easy to play for short periods of time.</p>
<p>On Sunday, I was at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2780412/brilliant-albion-hit-five-past-leicester-in-amex-thriller">Brighton win 5-2 against Leicester</a>. Alexis Mac Allister scored the best non-goal I've ever seen, followed by one of the best free kicks I've seen at The Amex. VAR contributing 4 minutes to the total of 7 minutes of added time at the end of the second half seemed far too long for something that was supposed to be correcting 'clear and obvious' errors.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read two chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch </a>this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>The last 3 episodes of season 1 and all 6 episodes in season 2 of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/88028-dead-pixels">Dead Pixels (2019)</a>.</li>
<li>The first four episodes of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1">Welcome to Wrexham (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/155243-sherwood">Sherwood (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 342022-08-29T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week34/<p>My basketball session this week was a better test of stamina than in previous weeks. Fast paced games that were finishing with tied scores after 7 minutes meant that "next basket wins" became the most used phrase that evening. I found the intensity of the games quite challenging and struggled to shoot the ball well but made a couple of lay-ups which I was pleased with.</p>
<p>On Wednesday I travelled to the village of Nailsworth to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2759003/albion-ease-through-in-carabao-cup">Brighton play Forest Green Rovers in the second round of the Carabao Cup</a>. The Brighton side consisted of squad players that had limited minutes so far this season and some of the under 21 players. While some players looked sharper than others, Brighton played well and won 3-0. Despite the ground having a reputation for only selling vegan food, I wasn't tempted to try any and instead opted for fish and chips before we got to the ground.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week34-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View of the pitch from the terrace in the away end at The Bolt New Lawn Stadium. Brighton are playing in blue and white striped shirts with white shorts and Forest Green Rovers are wearing lime green shirts that have black 'tiger' stripes and lime green shorts." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Forest Green Rovers (A).</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just the two games of football this week, as I was also at The Amex to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2761945/gross-grabs-the-glory-as-albion-climb-to-third/">Brighton win 1-0 against Leeds United</a>. Some days everything just goes your way and Saturday felt like one of those days. In addition to the result, train journeys to and from the ground were the most relaxed that I can remember, with little queueing. Brighton finished the weekend 4th in the table so very little to complain about there.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I haven't read any more of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch </a>this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/10">Episode 10 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/2">Episode 2 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
<li>The first four episodes of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/88028-dead-pixels">Dead Pixels (2019)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 332022-08-22T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week33/<p>Basketball was a bit more fun this week. Teams were selected before the session started which was different compared to the way they've been selected in previous weeks and as a result talent was more evenly distributed. Court time wasn't dominated by a single team this week and each game was competitive.</p>
<p>I made the trip to the London Stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2753405/albion-fourth-after-another-great-day-in-the-capital">Brighton win 2-0 against West Ham</a>. Away days are always better when your team wins, and Sunday was no exception.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week33-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View of the pitch from the lower section of the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand inside the London Stadium. West Ham and Brighton players are ready for kick-off." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>7 points from a possible 9 is not a bad way to start the season.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Another chapter from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a>. I'm nearly at the half way point of this book now.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/9">Episode 9 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/132376-all-or-nothing-arsenal/season/1">Episodes 7 and 8 of All or Nothing: Arsenal</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/296-terminator-3-rise-of-the-machines">Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/534-terminator-salvation">Terminator Salvation (2009)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/1">Season 1</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley/season/2">season 2</a> of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61244-happy-valley">Happy Valley</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92783-she-hulk-attorney-at-law/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 322022-08-15T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week32/<p>Basketball this week was a struggle again. Our teams are picked based off the order in which everyone scores a free-throw which is normally random enough to generate teams that are able to compete with each other but some weeks this causes "super teams" where the distribution of better players is not particularly even. This week was one of those weeks and my team didn't win many games.</p>
<p>I was at The Amex for Brighton's first home game of the season as they <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2741009/frustration-as-albion-held-at-the-amex-by-newcastle">drew 0-0 against Newcastle</a>. A difficult game against a team that has improved significantly but on another day we could have scored a few goals from the chances we created. The only negative from that day being the journey into Brighton on a packed train with no air conditioning, very poor air circulation with no open windows and this resulted in sweat patches on your clothing where the sweat didn't belong to you. That was by far the hottest and most uncomfortable I've ever been on a train.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>In a headless environment such as the one created when using the lighthouse-cli, errors were being logged to the browser console. I've now made sure that if the Spotify data cannot be loaded, then no errors are logged to the console and the now playing widget isn't rendered. Netlify graph still seems very unstable so this change will also make a difference in the production environment when it is unable to get my last played track from Spotify.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Two chapters from <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a>. 50 page chapters feel a chore when I read roughly a page per minute so it was nice that the chapter length started to decrease slightly. As much as I moan about chapter length, I am actually enjoying the storyline.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/8">Episode 8 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/718789-lightyear">Lightyear (2022)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/136044-the-outlaws/season/2">Episodes 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Season 2 of The Outlaws</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/132376-all-or-nothing-arsenal/season/1">Episodes 4, 5 and 6 of All or Nothing: Arsenal</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 312022-08-08T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week31/<p>This week started with a trip to the office. There were some IT issues with my laptop the last time I was in the office but those were quickly fixed and I was able to get some work done. I find it harder to concentrate in the office and missed the productive routines that I'd formed when working from home like when to take breaks and having long periods of productivity without interruptions.</p>
<p>My weekly basketball session was rather tiring. I had a longer warm-up than previous weeks and managed to find a good shooting rhythm but really struggled to shoot the ball consistently when the games started.</p>
<p>I've been playing a lot of <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/LEGO-Star-Wars-The-Skywalker-Saga-2157160.html">Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the Nintendo Switch</a>. All of the story mode has been completed so I've been re-playing each episode on free-play. In story mode each level feels much longer (I guess because of the open world style missions that are used to prolong the story) but in free-play those levels only last about 10-15 minutes.</p>
<p>Brighton's season got off to a flying start as they <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2729380/gross-at-the-double-as-albion-make-dream-start-to-the-season">won 2-1 against Manchester United at Old Trafford</a> and a great way to end the week!</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I made some performance fixes this week.
<ul>
<li>I resized the favicon png image to 64x64. If the browser supports it, an SVG favicon is loaded first, though the png fallback is often loaded too. Resizing the png favicon reduced the file size to kilobytes.</li>
<li>I removed some quote marks that were included in the URL of a font-face definition. Including the quote marks would load the font file from the URL. However, I wanted to preload the font and because the font file was already loaded I needed to treat the pre-loaded font file as a local one.</li>
<li>I inlined some SVG icons to reduce the number of http requests required to load the homepage.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>A chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a>. Not been reading this as regularly as I would have liked so trying to get through a chapter (~20 pages) a week at the moment.</li>
<li>Though I haven't read it, I did stumble across <a href="https://sre.google/books/">Google's Site Reliability Engineering books</a> which I thought I'd bookmark here.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/7">Episode 7 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/4574-x-men/season/1">Episodes 5 to 13 in Season 1</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/4574-x-men/season/2">episodes 1 to 7 in season 2</a> of X-Men (1992).</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/132376-all-or-nothing-arsenal/season/1">first 3 episodes of All or Nothing: Arsenal</a>. I find it interesting how other Premier league clubs operate but I was hoping for more clips of them failing to win against Brighton.</li>
<li>Episodes 5 and 6 to finish <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/203817-avoidance/season/1">Season 1 of Avoidance</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 302022-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week30/<p>My basketball session this week got off to a fast start with my team winning 6 games in a row and therefore occupying the court for half an hour of the 90 minute session. This was a much better test of my fitness levels than in previous weeks where it was much harder to get that amount of court time. By the last half an hour most of my team tired and we didn't win any more games.</p>
<p>I returned to The Amex stadium to watch <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2700485/its-a-trossard-treble-as-albion-hit-five">Brighton play Espanyol</a> in a pre-season friendly. A 5-1 win is not a bad way to prepare for the new season which starts next week. Despite the initial photographs showing Brighton's new home shirt having a big letter H on the front, I ran into the club shop before the match to see if it looked any better in person. I queued up for half an hour to have a name and number printed on the back of a newly purchased shirt and then ran to my seat just in time for kick-off.</p>
<p>I also made a rare appearance in the office this week so I could collect some new equipment. I'd been assigned a new desk since I was last in, so I spent most of my time moving things and organising cables.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Netlify released a new update for their graph functionality this week, so I reauthenticated in the web UI which has fixed issues with displaying my last played song on Spotify.</li>
<li>I converted and resized the image that I use to represent social media posts. The result of this process is that the image size has decreased from 76kb to 1.09kb.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No reading this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/6">Episode 6 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/203817-avoidance/season/1/">Episodes 3 and 4 in Season 1 of Avoidance</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/4574-x-men/season/1">The first 4 episodes in Season 1 of X-Men (1992)</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 292022-07-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week29/<p>It's been an exciting one this week. There's some things I can share now and some things that I'm going to have to wait a while before publishing.</p>
<p>I had another basketball session this week which happened to be on the hottest day of the year so far. Thankfully, the temperature had cooled slightly by the evening so we weren't playing in 30°C heat (which was still cooler than in other parts of the UK). I felt a little less rusty this week and was able to make some shots, but with 27 players at the session court time was limited so my stamina wasn't exactly tested.</p>
<p>On Thursday, I went to Brighton beach to see Fatboy Slim headline the On The Beach festival. Marked as the celebration of 20 years since Big Beach Boutique 2 (which 250,000 people attended), this gig was significantly smaller but had just as much excitement built up about it. It was a great day out.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-3899w.webp 3899w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-3899w.jpeg 3899w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week29-1-320w.jpeg" width="3899" height="2193" alt="My view of Fatboy Slim on the stage. The lights from the screens behind him leave only a shadow visible on the stage." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Right Here, Right Now.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I spent some time working on this site this week too. There were some pain points in getting my development environment set-up but most of those seem to have been fixed now.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I refactored the template that I use for the home page so that the static text is now in a markdown file.</li>
<li>I added my social media content from Twitter and Mastodon into the Journal page by pulling in the data from the Twitter and Mastodon APIs. I can now use a Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate on my Own Site (PESOS) approach to sharing content.</li>
<li>I've added sections to the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal">Journal page</a>. You can now filter based on if the post is an article, a social media post or a summary post (like week notes).</li>
<li>Netlify graph appears to be really unstable in my development environment and is no longer working in production. I'm not sure if this to do with me changing my laptop or if there are changes made on the Netlify end (I do see a lot of new integrations that randomly appear in the GraphQL explorer). Minor annoyance though, just means I can't show my last played track from Spotify.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I read a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/5">Episode 5 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/203817-avoidance/season/1/episode/1">Episode 2 in Season 1 of Avoidance</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 282022-07-18T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week28/<p>My big excitement this week was that I've upgraded my laptop and now have a <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/d/surface-pro-8/8qwcrtq8v8xg?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab">Surface Pro 8</a>. It feels a little strange to be using a tablet as a development machine, but I've been surprised at how comfortably it has coped with some relatively power hungry applications. Being able to write these notes from somewhere other than my desk has greatly improved the writing experience.</p>
<p>I was also back playing basketball this week in my first session of pre-season. The warm weather, lack of practice and a lack of fitness levels meant it was a much tougher session than normal.</p>
<p>I've been gaming a fair bit this week too. Many hours were spent playing <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-20-year-celebration">Rise of the Tomb Raider</a> and taking advantage of the ability to play on my Surface and Chromecast with Google TV. The prequel <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/tomb-raider-definitive-edition">Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition</a>, took me 12 and a half hours to finish the story. At the time of writing, Rise of the Tomb Raider has consumed nearly 11 hours and judging by walkthroughs available online I'm roughly half way through the story.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn't read any of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a> this week.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/6">Episode 6 of Ms. Marvel</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/4">Episode 4 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/203817-avoidance/season/1/episode/1">Episode 1 in Season 1 of Avoidance</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/156988-the-undeclared-war/season/1">Season 1 of The Undeclared War</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 272022-07-11T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week27/<p>A much needed break from work this week as I went on holiday to <a href="https://www.visitbude.info/">Bude</a> in Cornwall with <a href="https://twitter.com/becka_louise_">Becka</a>. In addition to snacking on pasties, we ate at some great places in Bude, namely <a href="https://pottersbude.co.uk/">Potters</a>, <a href="https://www.thebankatbude.com/">The Bank at Bude</a> and <a href="https://www.laboccabude.co.uk/">La Bocca</a>. Admittedly I was too busy eating to remember to take any photos of what I ate.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-1-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="View from the South West Coastal Path by Bude. There's a dirt path surrounded by green grass that lines the clifftop. At the bottom of the cliff is a sandy beach." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>The section of the South West Coastal Path just north of Crooklets Beach.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also took a trip to <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle/">Tintagel Castle</a> which has great views along the coastline but is a bit steep in places. The bridge which was installed in 2019 that connects the mainland and the island does remove a large section of steep climbs. We then had a brief stop at the medieval harbour in <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/boscastle">Boscastle</a> on our way back to Bude.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-4896w.webp 4896w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-4896w.jpeg 4896w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week27-2-320w.jpeg" width="4896" height="3267" alt="An attempt at a selfie by Declan and Becka with the Tintagel coastline behind them." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Becka and I at Tintagel Castle.</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I added <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/photos/20220706/">my photos from our trip to Tintagel Castle</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I managed a chapter of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a>. The past couple of books I've read have had chapters that are at most 10 pages and this one had 30 pages in the first chapter, so finding the time to concentrate for 30 pages is a bit of a challenge.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/5">Episode 5 of Ms. Marvel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2/episode/3">Episode 3 in Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/76479-the-boys/season/3/episode/8">Episode 8 in Season 3 of The Boys</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 262022-07-04T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week26/<p>At the half way point of a level in a Super Mario game there's a checkpoint flag that appears where you can respawn from if things don't go to plan. There's no save point here though, just my notes from the last seven days.</p>
<p>Work this week was a slightly slower pace than normal and most of my time was spent resolving small issues that improve the quality of the application we're developing.</p>
<p>I've encountered a bug in <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/LEGO-Star-Wars-The-Skywalker-Saga-2157160.html">Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga</a> on my switch that stops me from continuing The Empire Strikes Back so I started looking through other games to play. I downloaded the <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Portal-Companion-Collection-2168991.html">Portal: Companion Collection</a> and gave myself motion sickness by finishing a play-through of Portal in one sitting.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I moved the links for <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/">what I've been reading</a> and <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/colophon/">the colophon</a> out of the footer and into the header. I'm not particularly good at design but this change feels a bit more organised and puts all the navigation items in one place.</li>
<li>I added <code><meta name="generator" content="Eleventy v2.0.1"></code> to the head of my base template. The generator meta tag helps automated tools determine what static site generator was used to build my site.</li>
<li>I modified my build commands so that I was no longer using the globally installed version of 11ty and instead use the version I specify in <code>package.json</code>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780356510446/">The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781447297581/">Dark Matter by Blake Crouch</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/4">Episode 4 of Ms. Marvel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/197588-man-vs-bee/season/1">Season 1 of Man vs Bee</a>.</li>
<li>The first 2 episodes in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/107113-only-murders-in-the-building/season/2">Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/76479-the-boys/season/3/episode/7">Episode 7 in Season 3 of The Boys</a>.</li>
<li>Episodes 8 and 9 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/66732-stranger-things/season/4">Season 4 of Stranger Things</a>.</li>
<li>The last 5 episodes in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/75006-umbrella-academy/season/3">Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy</a>.</li>
<li>All 10 episodes in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/65495-atlanta/season/3">Season 3 of Atlanta</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 252022-06-27T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week25/<p>I'm kind of surprised I've managed 25 weeks of consecutive notes. Some weeks have been much more detailed than others and this week definitely feels like one of the weeks where I've just about scraped enough together to create a post. It also makes writing a summary of these notes much harder when there's not a lot to summarise. Anyway, here's a brief overview of what I've been up to the past 7 days.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>No changes were made to the site.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I've read a good portion of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780356510446/">The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford</a> and could finish the book before the end of the month.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/3">Episode 3 of Ms. Marvel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92830-obi-wan-kenobi/season/1/episode/6">Part 6</a> of the Obi Wan Kenobi mini-series. I'm not sure what story this series was supposed to tell, the main characters couldn't die yet kept finding themselves in life and death situations where the outcomes were already known. I think the biggest mistake this series made was having Obi Wan Kenobi (Ben) and Darth Vader aware of each others existence so early on.</li>
<li>Episodes 4, 5 and 6 in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/76479-the-boys/season/3">Season 3 of The Boys</a>.</li>
<li>The first 5 episodes in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/75006-umbrella-academy/season/3">Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 242022-06-20T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week24/<p>Tasked with collecting some customer feedback regarding some of the products my team is developing, I attended an in-person sales conference this week. Thanks to some of the sales team who are significantly better at networking than I am, I didn't spend the entire event standing awkwardly by one of the stands and did manage to get the opinions of some of the attendees. I was able to present my findings to the rest of my team later in the week.</p>
<p>This week I also took steps to cut down on how much I spend on social media. Though I don't share a lot, I do spend a lot of time reading through it all. On my Android phone there are Digital Wellbeing settings that can restrict access to certain apps once they've been open in the foreground for a specific period of time. For some of the biggest offenders like Twitter, I've set a 15 minute timer so that when I've been browsing for longer than 15 minutes I can no longer access the app. As with most of these applications, if I really wanted to use them I could still access them via a web browser after a timer has expired or on another device.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I updated the footer to show that all content on this site is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 4.0</a>. This license best reflects how I wanted to share the source code and the content of this website.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780857868787/">The Humans by Matt Haig</a>. I'd been setting myself the goal of reading one book a month, but this one I managed to read in a weekend.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780356510446/">The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/2">Episode 2 of Ms. Marvel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92830-obi-wan-kenobi/season/1/episode/5">Part 5</a> of the Obi Wan Kenobi mini-series.</li>
<li>The first 3 episodes in <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/76479-the-boys/season/3">Season 3 of The Boys</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/136044-the-outlaws/season/2/">first two episodes in Season 2 of The Outlaws</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week Notes - Week 232022-06-13T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week23/<p>I'm trying a new format to my notes this week. I felt the past couple of weeks worth of notes had become a bit of a chore to write and in some cases didn't show much else than what I'd been watching. By breaking down my weekly activities into defined categories I'm hoping that it will help form better habits (like reading regularly) and also more accurately log what I've been up to.</p>
<h2>What has changed on this site:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I moved the week notes back into the journal. Over time I'd like to make my journal a more accurate reflection of what I get up to so keeping the week notes separate didn't make much sense to me when they would become a summary of what was happening in the journal.</li>
<li>I made some changes to how the styles for this site are loaded. All critical styles are now provided inline while non-critical styles are loaded asynchronously.</li>
<li>I removed functionality that would preload the Bungee font in WOFF format. The font is still preloaded as a WOFF2 file.</li>
<li>I added a new entry to the journal - <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/blog-post-thoughts/">What I think about when I think about writing a blog post</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780241425428/">The Man Who Died Twice</a> by Richard Osman.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780857868787/">The Humans</a> by Matt Haig.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What I've been watching:</h2>
<ul>
<li>The first 7 episodes of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/66732-stranger-things/season/4">Stranger Things Season 4</a>.</li>
<li>The last 5 episodes of <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/72792-safe">Safe</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92782-ms-marvel/season/1/episode/1">first episode of Ms Marvel</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/48891-brooklyn-nine-nine/season/8/episode/9">final episode in Season 8 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92830-obi-wan-kenobi/season/1/episode/3">Part 3</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92830-obi-wan-kenobi/season/1/episode/4">Part 4</a> of the Obi Wan Kenobi mini-series.</li>
</ul>
Week 222022-06-06T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week22/<p>For the week starting 30th May:</p>
<ul>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.songkick.com/concerts/39993386-script-at-brighton-centre">The Script at The Brighton Centre</a>. I can't say I'd listened to The Script much before this gig and couldn't name many of their songs.</li>
<li>I had the week off work. I spent most of the week away from my laptop, trying to avoid spending all day in front of a screen.</li>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/433941-dave-made-a-maze">Dave Made a Maze</a>. I'm still confused by the ending of this film.</li>
<li>I read a good chunk of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780241425428/">The Man Who Died Twice</a>. Nearly finished the book now.</li>
</ul>
Week 212022-05-30T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week21/<p>For the week starting 23rd May:</p>
<ul>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/545611-everything-everywhere-all-at-once">Everything Everywhere All at Once</a>. This is the kind of film that I feel I need to watch more than once to truly appreciate it. Lots of laughs though and well worth a watch.</li>
<li>I watched the first two episodes of the <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/92830-obi-wan-kenobi">Obi-Wan Kenobi series</a> on Disney+. Set between the <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1895-star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith">Revenge of the Sith</a> and <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/11-star-wars">A New Hope</a>, I found the two episodes quite difficult to focus on. Many of the characters shown are also in A New Hope which meant any danger to those characters was easy to dismiss.</li>
<li>It may look like I only watched TV and movies this week and that is sort of true. I'm hoping to do some more side project work next week when I have some time off.</li>
</ul>
Week 202022-05-23T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week20/<p>For the week starting 16th May:</p>
<ul>
<li>I played in Worthing D&D's cup final win against Eastbourne Lions. A close game that finished with a final score of 88-105.</li>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2629952/albion-secure-ninth-spot-with-final-day-win-over-west-ham">Brighton's final game of the season, a 3-1 win against West Ham</a>. Fantastic way to end the season and to finish in the top 10 despite "needing a striker" is a sign of just how well coached this team are.</li>
<li>I've been working on a way to publish notes and bookmarks to this site. I could have used a content-management-system (CMS) for this and provide the CMS a template for each, which would then render both to this site with specified formatting. The issue with that approach is that its another dependency to my site which I don't necessarily need. Eventually it would help me move to a publish on own site and syndicating elsewhere (POSSE) content strategy.</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-2172w.webp 2172w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-2172w.jpeg 2172w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week20-320w.jpeg" width="2172" height="2172" alt="The Basketball Sussex League and Cup winners trophies that were awarded to each player in Worthing D&D. The league winner trophy is grey with a basketball about to go through the basket and is approximately 9cm in height. It is inscribed with 'BasketballSUSSEX 2021/22 Mens League Winner Worthing D&D White. The cup final winner trophy is gold painted and has a basketball about to go through the basket and is approximately 13cm in height. It is inscribed with 'BasketballSUSSEX 2022 Mens Cup Final Winner'. " class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>League and Cup winners 2021/22.</figcaption>
</figure>
Week 192022-05-16T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week19/<p>For the week starting 9th May:</p>
<ul>
<li>I read an article on <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-create-reliable-biological-photovoltaic-cell-using-algae">using algae as a power source for small devices</a>. While the targets of this research focused on how it could be applied to IoT devices, it will be interesting to see how long these devices could be powered and in particular if the same technology could be applied to smartphones. It also had me thinking about <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9781529100617/">Project Hail Mary</a> by Andy Weir and that maybe they should check how the sun is doing too.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780241425428/">The Man Who Died Twice</a> by Richard Osman. It's nice to be able to pick up a book for 5 minutes without having to commit to an hour just to finish the chapter.</li>
<li>I started playing <a href="https://stadia.google.com/game/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-20-year-celebration">Rise of the Tomb Raider</a> on Google Stadia.</li>
<li>I've been thinking about how I can publish shorter notes and bookmarks to this site. A limitation of my current stack (11ty + Netlify) is that I have to build my site every time I want to publish content. One option would be to have a separate static site that could <a href="https://css-tricks.com/generate-a-pull-request-of-static-content-with-a-simple-html-form/">create a pull-request on a form submission</a> and then manually merge the commit in GitHub or even bypass the pull-request by <a href="https://docs.github.com/en/rest/repos/contents#create-or-update-file-contents">creating a commit via the GitHub API</a>. I also like the idea of making the publishing site a progressive web app so that I can <a href="https://mxb.dev/blog/indieweb-link-sharing/#h-mobile-share-target">use the share menu</a> on my phone to simplify publishing bookmarks.</li>
<li>I've been thinking about whether or not my site's source code should be open. Recently my site's source on GitHub has been forked a couple of times which means they have copies of all the source files for this site, including the photos and posts. I wanted to keep the source open as this was something I've used to learn from in the past and being able to see how a feature was built on another site creates opportunities to learn from different techniques and perspectives. At the moment, the forks appear to be used as examples that people want to reference later but this feels like it should really be a bookmark. Closing the source would make it harder for a direct copy of my site to exist but would also remove it as a learning resource. For now it's staying open.</li>
</ul>
Week 182022-05-09T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week18/<p>For the week starting 2nd May:</p>
<ul>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/648579-the-unbearable-weight-of-massive-talent">The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent</a> at <a href="https://domecinema.co.uk/DomeCinema.dll/Home">The Dome Cinema</a>. This was a much better film than I was anticipating and an overall good laugh.</li>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/453395-doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness">Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness</a> at <a href="https://domecinema.co.uk/DomeCinema.dll/Home">The Dome Cinema</a>. For those that have yet to watch it, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/85271-wandavision">WandaVision</a> features much more in this film than I was expecting and detracts from the storyline if you haven't seen it.</li>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2607677/albion-thrash-united-on-an-amex-occasion-to-remember">Brighton thrash Manchester United 4-0 at The Amex</a>. It is worth noting that this Brighton team has been criticised all season for not having a striker and the Manchester United team was not exactly under-strength. This game featured a once in a generation player but honestly you'd have thought they were playing for Brighton and it wasn't Cristiano Ronaldo.</li>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780547951980/">The Silmarillion</a>. This was a real slog and I'm now looking forward to reading something that I'll enjoy and comprehend. I will be adding the notes later in the week.</li>
<li>All of my journal posts and week notes are now compatible with <a href="https://microformats.org/wiki/microformats2#Summary">Microformats2</a>. I plan to use this with webmentions in the future to accumulate all the links to posts that I find useful each month and document them here rather than leaving them in my browser bookmarks. Microformat support will also make it possible to syndicate my content to other sites by using services such as <a href="https://brid.gy/">brid.gy</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week 172022-05-02T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week17/<p>For the week starting 25th April:</p>
<ul>
<li>I set up my own <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> instance. Hosted on <a href="https://toots.declanbyrd.co.uk/">https://toots.declanbyrd.co.uk</a> and not owned by Elon Musk, everything I share is stored on my own server.</li>
<li>I played in Worthing D&D's final league game of the season, a <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514920.html">95-68 win against Horsham Hawks</a>. We finished the season having won all 11 of our games and were the only team to score more than 1000 points over the course of the season.</li>
<li>I realised that I had a very large disk attached to my Mastodon instance which was burning money so I had to move my mastodon instance to a smaller and cheaper virtual machine. This resulted in my server being down for a few days and took most of the week trying to restore but I'm now well rehearsed if I needed to move my mastodon to a different machine.</li>
<li>I've added webmention support to this site. At the moment, this will only show webmentions that were sent before the site was last built but I'm planning on adding support to include webmentions that were sent since the site was last built too.</li>
</ul>
Week 162022-04-25T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week16/<p>For the week starting 18th April:</p>
<ul>
<li>I played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514881.html">Worthing D&D's 63-89 away win against Angmering GSD</a>. With only 1 league game left to play and yet to lose a game this season we claimed the league title.</li>
<li>I attended the <a href="https://sas.org.uk/EndSewagePollutionProtests/">End Sewage Pollution Protest</a> in Worthing. Unfortunately, the chant of "What do we want: Southern water to take some responsibility for dumping untreated sewage into rivers and the sea, when do want it: now" was a bit to long and didn't really catch on so instead it was replaced with "what do we want: no more poo". If you shut your eyes at any point you would have thought you were in a future where people were trying to ban their own digestive systems.</li>
<li>The third Thursday of the month meant I had a personal development day at work. I spent most of the day trying to understand how <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/">ActivityPub</a> (a decentralized social media protocol) worked and how it could be used to make a personal site act as a social media feed. I also built some templates in <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> so that I could document what I was working on, any blockers and any tasks that I needed to complete that weren't associated to a JIRA item. When it comes to my team's daily stand-up I then have a note for each day with what I need to update the team with and if there any items I need help with.</li>
<li>I watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2589569/frustration-as-albion-are-held-by-southampton">Brighton draw 2-2 against Southampton at The AMEX</a>. Two points dropped in the end after a very fast start. Was also nice to be able to celebrate goals at the Amex, something which has felt very rare this season.</li>
</ul>
Week 152022-04-18T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week15/<p>For the week starting 11th April:</p>
<ul>
<li>I've been getting started with <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a>. Interested by the prospect of a decentralized social network that is driven by the community as opposed to a single entity, I wanted to see how it compared to the social networks I am currently connected to.</li>
<li>I read Rob Dodson's article on <a href="https://robdodson.me/posts/your-home-is-a-virtual-power-plant/">the concept of virtual power plants</a>. The concept of switching things off when they're not in use is nothing new, but this automated solution sounds an interesting one.</li>
<li>I'm still playing Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the Nintendo Switch. It's become an easy game to pick up during short breaks.</li>
</ul>
Week 142022-04-11T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week14/<p>For the week starting 4th April:</p>
<ul>
<li>I'm now no longer testing positive for Covid. Sore eyes and the occasional headache remain but otherwise back to normal. Would not recommend getting Covid - 0/10.</li>
<li>After two negative LFTs on consecutive days, I was able to play for Worthing D&D in their <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/32121209.html">Basketball Sussex cup semi-final win over Brighton Cougars</a>. A very close game in the end with D&D being up by 15 at half-time but Brighton Cougars started the third quarter strong and pulled level going into the fourth quarter. Final score was 85-92.</li>
<li>I've been playing Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the Nintendo Switch. It has a similar open-world feel to the Lego Lord of the Rings game where there were lots of side-quests that would unlock extras but it can get confusing when levels have started and when you're advancing the story in the open world. I've also lost track of the number of times during the Episode 1 story that Qui-Gon Jinn has mentioned that they "have a particular set of skills".</li>
<li>I started looking at ways to share notes without a dependency on any social media platform. In particular, I've been researching indie web note publishing methods that would allow me to publish (on my) own site once and syndicate elsewhere (<a href="https://indieweb.org/POSSE">POSSE</a>). Max Böck wrote how to <a href="https://mxb.dev/blog/syndicating-content-to-twitter-with-netlify-functions/">syndicate content to Twitter using Netlify functions</a> which looks a useful resource for when I eventually try to build it for my own site.</li>
</ul>
Week 132022-04-04T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week13/<p>For the week starting 28th March:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>I tested positive for Covid. Thankfully, being triple-jabbed this could have been much worse and no one else in my household has tested positive. What started out feeling like tonsillitis eventually moved on to a fever, sinus pain and fatigue. Not like having a "normal" cold.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I have been reading about the <a href="https://indieweb.org/">indieweb</a> and how some of the principles can be applied to this site. I've had a look at <a href="https://indieweb.org/Webmention">webmentions</a> in the past as a way to show interactions to the content that I share but adding this data would either require scheduled builds or client-side JavaScript. I also didn't want the content I created to be defined by their interactions</p>
<p>I did like the idea of "use what you make". The most common use-case I have seen for this is to create a starter-project for others to use that includes the key features from your own site. This is something that I could develop in the future.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I started documenting positive feedback in <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a>. Earlier in the week I'd received some feedback during a demo and wasn't convinced I'd be able to remember it later, so created a new markdown file in Obsidian and used a tag of <code>#feedback</code>. Using this system I can associate the feedback to products, technologies and periods of time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I finished the story in Assassin's Creed Syndicate on Google Stadia. The use of two protagonists with different upgradable skills, felt like an improvement on previous games where there is one omnipotent character. I also liked the associate activities within the game that made side quests feel more rewarding.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Week 122022-03-28T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week12/<p>For the week starting 21st March, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Played (and scored 3 three pointers) in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31862365.html">Worthing D&D's 115-52 win against Angmering GSD</a> in the quarter-finals of the Basketball Sussex Men's Cup. A semi-final fixture against Brighton Cougars is scheduled for next month.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Have been (re)playing <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/ASSASSIN-S-CREED-THE-EZIO-COLLECTION-2171132.html">Assasin's Creed: The Ezio Collection</a> on the Nintendo Switch. I played the original games on an old laptop and the remaster definitely brings new life to the games. The controls have been taking some getting used to though because I've only just got used to the layout for the newer Assasin's Creed games that I've been playing on Google Stadia.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Saw <a href="https://www.songkick.com/concerts/39816824-royal-blood-at-bournemouth-international-centre?utm_source=46422&utm_medium=partner">Royal Blood at the Bournemouth International Centre</a>. With one guitar, a set of drums and a loop pedal it was amazing the sound they were able to generate.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week12-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Singer for Royal Blood on stage with the drummer on a stand behind them. A big screen is behind Royal Blood showing a live video of the singer. The crowd in front have their hands in the air with some holding their phones up to record." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Royal Blood at the Bournemouth International Centre.</figcaption>
</figure>
Week 112022-03-21T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week11/<p>For the week starting 14th March, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Made a trip into the office to help with some interviews for an intern position.</li>
<li>Participated in the first "development day" through work. The idea is to use the day for personal development so all meetings were rescheduled or cancelled. Having struggled a bit assessing the interviews earlier in the week, I started Jem Young's Frontend Masters course on <a href="https://frontendmasters.com/courses/interviewing-frontend/">interviewing for front-end engineers</a>. The course goes into detail on how to give better interviews as the interviewer, which I found really insightful.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2536987/report-poor-run-continues-for-albion">Brighton lose 2-0 at home against Spurs</a>. The international break couldn't come any sooner, and hopefully a chance for the squad to reset the bad run of form.</li>
<li>Shipped version 2.0 of this site.
<ul>
<li>There's a new colour scheme and a new font.</li>
<li>The week notes have been moved out of the journal and into their own section of the website. As the links to the existing week notes have changed, I set up a redirect in Netlify to point to the new locations. This breaking change meant a bump to the version number.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Week 102022-03-14T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week10/<p>For the week starting 7th March, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514899.html">Worthing D&D's home win against Brighton Cougars</a> and then <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514912.html">won against the other Worthing D&D team</a>. Two more league games to go and still top of the league.</li>
<li>Added an entry to the journal on <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/netlify-graph-spotify-now-playing/">building the now playing section</a> for the home page.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2527935/albion-succumb-to-title-chasing-liverpool">Brighton lose 2-0 at home to Liverpool</a>.</li>
<li>Spent most of the weekend playing <a href="https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/assassins-creed/syndicate">Assassin's Creed Syndicate</a> on Google Stadia.</li>
<li>Read a couple of chapters of <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780547951980/">The Silmarillion</a>.</li>
</ul>
Week 92022-03-07T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week9/<p>For the week starting 28th February, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Played for <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514879.html">Worthing D&D's away win against Eastbourne Lions</a> with a final score of 61-98.</li>
<li>Started reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780547951980/">The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien</a>. I can see why this book is often described as a challenge. I've only read the Ainulindalë (the creation story) and the Valaquenta (descriptions of the spirits) so far and had to re-read multiple pages.</li>
<li>Watched The Grand Budapest Hotel on Disney+.</li>
<li>Added a now playing section to the home page which shows my last played track from Spotify. I used the new <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/announcing-netlify-graph-a-faster-way-for-teams-to-develop-web-apps-with-apis">Netlify Graph</a> feature to achieve this and definitely want to use it again for more projects.</li>
<li>Reduced the duration of my builds on Netlify from 9 minutes to 2 and a half minutes by using <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/netlify-plugin-cache">netlify-plugin-cache</a>.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/414906-the-batman?language=en-GB">The Batman</a> at the Dome Cinema in Worthing. Though nearly 3 hours long and the ending somewhat drawn out, the remainder of the film was an enjoyable watch.</li>
</ul>
Week 82022-02-28T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week8/<p>For the week starting 21st February, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514887.html">Worthing D&D's 96-46 win over Shoreham Spartans</a>. Still top of the league having won 6/6.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Added the <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/">reading page</a> to this site. I'll be using it to track the books that I've been reading and what I thought about them as I read them. I haven't added the notes for the books that I've read so far or published the journal entry about how I built it but sometimes its better to release something and update than not release at all.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Took my camera out on Friday while walking Bruno and got a few photos of the sunset from Shoreham beach.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-4896w.webp 4896w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-4896w.jpeg 4896w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220225-3-320w.jpeg" width="4896" height="3268" alt="Sun setting behind waves with an orange sky." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Sun sets behind Worthing pier.</figcaption>
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<p>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2506828/match-report-albion-beaten-by-villa">Brighton lose 2-0 at home to Aston Villa</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Took my camera out again on Sunday to capture another sunset.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-5686w.webp 5686w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-5686w.jpeg 5686w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220227-1-320w.jpeg" width="5686" height="3795" alt="In the foreground are waves breaking onto the rocks that line Shoreham Beach. People are walking between gaps in the rocks on the beach with sea spray creating a mist so the people look like silhouettes. A wind surfer is packing away their equipment in the distance to the right of the photo and their colorful kite can be seen next to the setting sun. The town of Worthing and Worthing pier are in the background." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Sunday sunset.</figcaption>
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<p>Finished reading <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/reading/9780356500843/">Ender's Game</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Week 72022-02-21T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week7/<p>For the week starting 14th February:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>I've been creating a reading page for this site to log the books that I've been reading. Once I've written the notes on the books I've read so far this year and written a piece on how the page works it will appear on this site.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It was Bruno's 9th birthday. He celebrated with grated cheese and lots of treats.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-4843w.webp 4843w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-4843w.jpeg 4843w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week7-320w.jpeg" width="4843" height="3303" alt="Bruno the Sussex Spaniel laying on a red rug with his chin resting on top of his left paw, looking away to the left of the photo." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Worn out from birthday celebrations.</figcaption>
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<p>I watched Brighton lose 3-0 to Burnley at The Amex. The worst team performance this season but hopefully a learning experience for the younger players in the squad.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Week 62022-02-14T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week6/<p>For the week starting 7th February, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Had no basketball fixtures.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Spent most of my free time playing through career mode in FIFA 22 and Assassins Creed Syndicate on Google stadia.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Tried shooting and editing photos in RAW. I'd previously had the output format on my camera set to JPEG and having made the change I can immediately see the advantages. While it does take longer to develop and process each photo, the final images are much more aligned to the desired outcome.</p>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-6024w.webp 6024w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-6024w.jpeg 6024w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/photos/20220211-2-320w.jpeg" width="6024" height="4020" alt="A gate and fencing with a blue/yellow sky in the background." class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>A photo shot in RAW that I developed.</figcaption>
</figure>
</li>
<li>
<p>Started reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I've not really enjoyed the few chapters I've read and since learning about <a href="https://www.glaad.org/gap/orson-scott-card">Orson Scott Card's anti-LGBTQ views</a> I've been put off reading more of the book.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Week 52022-02-07T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week5/<p>For the week starting 31st January, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31584725.html">Worthing D&D's 84-67 win over Shoreham Spartans</a> in the cup.</li>
<li>Ranked #3 in <a href="https://twitter.com/eleven_ty/status/1488195108658946055">11ty leaderboards №17</a>. The leaderboards are created using <a href="https://www.zachleat.com/web/speedlify/">Speedlify</a> which measures your site's performance over time. I'm rather pleased that I've managed to climb to third but would also be thrilled if I am moved down in the standings. The more sites above mine in the standings, the more people are building fast and accessible websites.</li>
<li>Finished reading <a href="https://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/project-hail-mary-hc">Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir</a>. Yet to read a book by Andy Weir that I haven't enjoyed.</li>
<li>Started learning React Native from <a href="https://kadikraman.github.io/react-native-v2/">Kadi Kraman's Intro to React Native course on Frontend Masters</a>. Interesting learning about the similarities between single-page React applications and React Native ones.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2472917/fa-cup-journey-over-after-defeat-at-spurs">Brighton get knocked out of the FA cup in a 3-1 loss against Spurs</a>. A new ground checked off and a disappointing performance in the end.</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-1280w.webp 1280w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-1280w.jpeg 1280w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week5-320w.jpeg" width="1280" height="720" alt="View from behind the goal in the away end as Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur players ready for kick-off inside the Tottenham Hotspur stadium" class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>No FA cup run this year.</figcaption>
</figure>
Week 42022-01-31T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week4/<p>For the week starting 24th January, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Played in <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514877.html">Worthing D&D's 90-70 win over SE Tigers</a>.</li>
<li>Upgraded my website to use the recently released <a href="https://www.11ty.dev/blog/eleventy-one-point-oh/">version 1.0 of 11ty</a>.</li>
<li>Replaced the image optimisation on my website with the <a href="https://www.11ty.dev/docs/plugins/image/">11ty image plugin</a>. When I upgraded 11ty, the previous image optimisation plugin stopped working so it felt a good time to replace it.</li>
<li>Started playing <a href="https://stadia.google.com/store/details/3f40802097224fa1aaa0dcc4555828b7rcp1/sku/569fd572ad0a4bb6b3f1a08237fc69c0p">Humankind on Google Stadia</a>. I was particularly interested in the direct touch controls that meant I wouldn't need to use a controller to play the game on my phone.</li>
<li>Continued reading <a href="https://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/project-hail-mary-hc">Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir</a>. Didn't manage a lot of reading time this week so only managed to add 100 pages since last week.</li>
</ul>
Week 32022-01-24T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week3/<p>For the week starting 17th January, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2453292/websters-header-bags-albion-another-point-against-chelsea">Brighton earn a deserved point in their game against Chelsea at The Amex</a>. Some of the best football played this season and showing the strength in depth within the squad while key players were missing.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Tried out the <a href="https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/play">Xbox cloud gaming service</a>. While the library of games only contained a handful of games that I would actually play, I was interested how the streaming technology compares to <a href="https://stadia.google.com/">Google Stadia</a>. I've cancelled the auto-renew of the Xbox cloud subscription and will be sticking with Stadia for the time being.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Went back to the office for a day to collect some equipment. I don't miss the commute.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Still reading <a href="https://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/project-hail-mary-hc">Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir</a>. 250 pages in now and there's a lot of science.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2460221/welbeck-heads-in-again-as-albion-take-deserved-point">Brighton come from behind to draw against Leicester at the King Power stadium</a>. On track to break the record for most draws in a season but still only lost 4 times in the league. This team is fun to watch.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<figure>
<picture>
<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-320w.webp 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-720w.webp 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-1020w.webp 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-4032w.webp 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<source type="image/jpeg" srcset="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-320w.jpeg 320w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-720w.jpeg 720w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-1020w.jpeg 1020w, https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-4032w.jpeg 4032w" sizes="100vw" />
<img src="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/img/journal/weeknotes/week3-320w.jpeg" width="4032" height="2268" alt="Brighton players celebrating by the corner flag in front of the away fans after scoring in a 1-1 draw against Leicester at the King Power Stadium" class="undefined" loading="lazy" decoding="async" />
</picture>
<figcaption>Yet another late equaliser.</figcaption>
</figure>
Week 22022-01-17T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week2/<p>According to the my site analytics a grand total of 3 people read my <a href="https://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week1/">week notes from last week</a>. This is particularly impressive because I forgot to tweet that I'd started writing weekly notes.</p>
<p>For the week starting 10th January, I:</p>
<ul>
<li>Spent most of my working week developing a new feature and attending work meetings that won't make the national news.</li>
<li>Played my first basketball game of the new year in a <a href="https://www.basketballsussex.co.uk/match/31514870.html">114-46 win for Worthing D&D against Chichester Knights</a>.</li>
<li>Finished reading <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306551/warcross/9780241321447.html">Warcross by Marie Lu</a>. Despite being marketed as a children's book, its one of the better science fiction storylines I've read. The sequel, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308205/wildcard--warcross-2-/9780241342442.html">Wildcard</a> has been added to my reading list.</li>
<li>Started reading <a href="https://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/project-hail-mary-hc">Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir</a>.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/news/2447704/dominant-albion-have-to-settle-for-point">Brighton and Crystal Palace play out a 1-1 draw at The Amex</a>. An important game not to lose and in the end a good result.</li>
<li>Watched <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9032400/">The Eternals</a>.</li>
<li>Walked around Lancing Ring. On a clear day there are good views towards Brighton and Worthing.</li>
</ul>
Week 12022-01-10T00:00:00Zhttps://declanbyrd.co.uk/journal/2022/week1/<p>I'd seen the concept of publishing a weekly summary of events and notes online, but like most of my side projects while I entertain the idea but lacked the motivation and time to see them through. The deciding factor in committing to publishing 52 sets of notes is a simple one. I'm rubbish at blogging.</p>
<p>When I made my first iteration of this site, I added a blog section. At the time I thought it would be somewhere that I could add features that were good learning tasks, like adding a search bar. Problem is, I didn't really have any content ready to put in the blog so there was never a need for a search bar. The blog page on this site has since been renamed to the journal as I felt it was a more accurate reflection of what I have been writing.</p>
<p>Mid-way through my final year of university, I started writing in a bullet journal. I was convinced that I'd procrastinate at every available opportunity after the Christmas break and I needed to hold myself to account by writing down what I wanted to achieve on each day. That bullet journal eventually covered everything from finishing university, to my day-to-day activities while the UK was under lockdown for Covid-19. I still write in one now and it also does a great job at giving an overview of what I've done in the last week.</p>
<p>So, my notes from my journal for the first week of 2022:</p>
<ul>
<li>I made the long journey from my bed to my desk (just over 1 meter) to power on my work laptop. Having been on holiday since the 17th December I've had a good break.</li>
<li>I was back playing basketball again, having not played since mid-December.</li>
<li>I finished reading <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/110/1108611/eleven-rings/9780753556382.html">Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson</a>. An interesting read on how Phil Jackson managed to win repeatedly with different teams and the challenges of motivating players after they'd achieved a first championship.</li>
<li>I started reading <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306551/warcross/9780241321447.html">Warcross by Marie Lu</a>.</li>
<li>I went to see West Side Story at the cinema. I don't enjoy musicals. This one was tolerable due to there being conversations that weren't in the form of a song.</li>
</ul>