w/e 2021-02-14
Hello again.
§ This week an album that I’ve ended up listening to more than I expected is Untold by Sophia Loizou. I can’t remember how I came across it now, which is annoying, but I guess it’s sort of Burial-y? Fragments of drum‘n’bass amid ambient rumblings and fragmented samples. Or “eco-centric cyber-dreams” as she puts it. Here’s a track from it:
§ After a few full work weeks I had more time to myself this week so could get back to something I started at the beginning of the year: moving my local development sites from Vagrant to Docker, and moving from Travis CI to GitHub Actions. Such excitement.
Getting both of these things working, Docker and GitHub Actions, required a lot of reading of documentation and blog posts, and lots and lots of trial and error.
I say “reading of documentation” but I realise that these days I hardly ever comprehensively read documentation. I look for an example (like a docker-compose.yml and Dockerfile) that sounds like roughly what I need and then I google my way to a working version, one problem at a time. Sometimes those googles end up with me reading a bit of documentation, other times it’s a blog post, Stack Overflow, or whatever. I should probably just… read the documentation?
Anyway, as ever, examples of how to use everything varied enormously so it was a case of, “That didn’t work, maybe add this line? [wait for the process to fail again] OK, maybe try this configuration option? [wait again] Hmm, how about putting them in this order? [wait again] Ooh, we got further that time! So, next problem…” etc. etc.
Eventually I got to a stage where I have some setups I can more-or-less repeat for other sites, so I’ve now got two Django/Postgresql sites using Docker, both running their tests through GitHub Actions before deployment.
I also have two PHP/MySQL sites working locally with Docker. After a frustrating and slow afternoon of trial and error getting the first up-and running, the second was an unexpected moment of joy: copy the config files, make a couple of tweaks, and… I had a website, without needing to wait for further images or packages or anything else to download. Just like that! An instant local server! It was the first moment that I’ve liked Docker, as opposed to feeling it’s maybe less-bad-(or-at-least-more-modern)-than-Vagrant-(which-I-also-dislike).
Let’s just hope that no technology ever changes again so I never have to update all this lol
§ Just after writing that Adam Curtis thread I, unrelatedly, got into an online argument about him which, obviously, was a mistake. I mean, as online arguments go, it was civil, but such things still leave me frustrated. How do I still not know that I shouldn’t argue online unless, maybe, if it’s about something actually important?
I find it odd when people are all wide-eyed and, “Wow, now I understand how the world works!” after watching Curtis’s stuff. He’s very good at what he does, but what he does seems manipulative, and his connections between things – the basis of his narrative – tenuous. As with conspiracy theories, I think he merely confirms what some people already believe, and makes them feel like they see the world more clearly than the unenlightened masses, despite the fact they’re not actually better informed.
I did enjoy the first things of his I saw, in the 1990s, but then progressively less so ever since. I think maybe 2011’s All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace was the last one I saw. The more I know, over time, the less useful his work is. So maybe he’s just QAnon for Guardian readers in their twenties.
§ We watched It’s a Sin this week which, as you may have heard, is very good and very sad/anger-making. I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch for anyone who was even vaguely in that world. As a young, straight, oblivious, boy having no sex or drugs in that period I might as well have been a world away. Which was all part of the problem.
§ No daffodils yet. Come on lazybones! I know it’s been chilly, but wake up!