The final Autodesk update

I got paid! And that’s the end of that saga.

The job hunt

I had a fourth-round interview scheduled for Thursday, but they had to reschedule at the last minute. Now it’s pencilled-in for a week on Wednesday.

So, please, wish me luck that it doesn’t get pushed back again. It’d probably be sensible to keep looking for other roles, but I really, really want this one, so I’m going to risk putting myself on hold for it. The money from Autodesk certainly gives me some buffer, at least.

Living

My landlord finally fixed my boiler! …in theory, anyway. I had ten minutes’ notice that my bathroom would be unavailable, and the plumber wasn’t convinced that the work my landlord told him to do would actually fix the problem anyway.

So, who the fuck knows? Let’s just see if it keeps leaking or explodes or something.

Travels

I haven’t been anywhere. I haven’t done anything. The chuggers are out in force for Christmas, and I’d rather starve than deal with them yelling at me.

I was pretty miserable after my interview got cancelled on Thursday, so I offered to take Alex out for breakfast. And right before we left, I found out that the family was hosting a “family crafting night” that I wasn’t invited to. So breakfast sucked. Everything fucking sucked.

Meshtastic

To remind myself that the outside world exists without needing to visit it, I pulled my Meshtastic nodes out of storage.

My personal carry-around node is Cariad 👩‍💻 AKA CARI, running off a massive battery in my backpack.

…and since that node gets lousy coverage inside these four walls, I’ve got Hazbin 📡 AKA HZBN blu-tacked onto a high window to relay over Exmouth and across the bay to Torquay.

Meshtastic’s fun! I’m still a bit self-conscious about saying hi on the public channel, but I do enjoy watching nodes come and go, and just seeing how far I can see. It’s just neat.

The biggest annoyance, and I don’t have a clue what to do about it, is time synchronisation. I believe the app shows messages in order of their attached (transmitted) timestamp, and not in order they’re received. And I believe that several of my local nodes have clocks that are hours and days behind mine. And so, I believe that’s why it’s utterly impossible for me to follow conversations.

I don’t know what to do about it, though, so I’m not doing anything.

Making things

I finished the “love” cross stitch I started a few weeks ago!

I know I fucked up the top-right of the “o”, and I know some of the stitches are a bit tatty, but I’m more than happy enough for a first shot!

I’m not sure how to describe how good that project was for my mental health. Having something to work on away from a computer, something physical that I could see develop day-by-day, was incredible, and I jumped straight into my next one; a little reindeer kit, also from Hobbycraft.

I know I’ve already fucked up a line, but I don’t think it’s worth unpicking and trying again.

I don’t know if I’ll finish before Christmas, but it would be cool!

Games

I completed Wilmot Works it Out’s story mode, and it’s brilliant! It’s such a solid little game, and the final puzzle even brought a little tear to my eye. I hope you all enjoy the twist as much as I did.

I learned about Martian Chess, and I’ll buy it as soon as I find it.

Bluesky

I created a Bluesky account ready for when I inevitably need to ask a brand for support. I hate it. I hate it.

There’s a real culture of folks reposting themselves every few hours for attention. It’s all self-promo and rah-rah feel-good sugar, not counting the twenty-something accounts I’ve already reported for intense transphobia. It’s just Twitter. Folks are trying to convince me it’s not, but it bloody is.

Mastodon is more respectful. Mastodon is more meaningful. Mastodon is just a better community in every conceivable way.

Storm Darragh

We had our first real UK Government emergency alert this week!

The government tested it for the first time last year, and on Friday evening they pushed out this alert to high-risk areas:

Severe Alert

Issued by the UK Government

A RED warning for wind has been issued in your area. Extremely strong winds associated with Storm Darragh are expected to cause significant disruption from 3.00am on Saturday 07 December 2024. Strong winds can cause flying debris, falling trees and large waves around coastal areas, all of which can present a danger to life. Stay indoors if you can. It is not safe to drive in these conditions.

The storm may damage infrastructure causing power cuts and disruption to mobile phone coverage. Consider gathering torches, batteries, a mobile phone power pack and other essential items you already have at home.

Stay up to date with the weather forecast for your area and follow advice from emergency services, network operators and local authorities. For more information search online for ‘gov.uk/alerts’ or Met Office warnings and advice.

The alert’s fucking loud. No complaints.

Video

The second season of Silo!

The first season was consistently ace. The second season is consistently ace whenever Juliette Nichols isn’t around. I’m not knocking Rebecca Ferguson; it’s just that Juliette’s story is by far the least interesting thing going on.

Perturbations

• My landlord still hasn’t fixed my fire alarm.
• The more rounds of interviews I have for my dream job, and the longer I had to wait for each round, the more paranoid I am about losing it.

The week ahead

Honestly, I don’t have any plans lined up at all. I’m feeling a bit on-edge about the job hunting, and I feel like I’ve been running on empty. More of the same, then?