If I've already failed to avoid buying used books on this trip, I might as well buy a small bag to check and load up on Spanish and Catalan language books while I'm here, yes?

Everything in the world is mostly still terrible and everything everywhere is still hard and I'm still weirdly hopeful. Apologies to everyone who has to deal with me, cannot even imagine how annoying this is to deal with.

Really excited to be speaking at this...oh dear, later this week 🫠

brb, I'm on a roll telling people what I think of them in great detail. This serves as a warning for folks who know me to log off if y'all don't want to hear an effusive monologue about the things I respect about you.

Insider travel hack: oh wow just don’t be a dick to service workers and you’re gonna have a much easier time.

Concerned that “finger” is apparently a normal and expected sweets shape in Spain

Going to spend the next two days walking around Barcelona and trying not to buy any used books.

Learning some Catalan in the most chaotic good way possible: joining folks in the street as they say cute little things to their cute little dogs on their morning walks.

Engaging in my fav form of spiritual self harm: looking at graduate programs I can't afford, that have nothing to do with my work

Headed off to Mozfest in Barcelona! Come say hi if you're there and please do not tell me about any local used bookstores, I have no self control and will try to learn Catalan if I buy books...

Wondering how using AI coding tools impacts how we learn technical skills? Good news: @rivea0.bsky.social and I are giving a talk about this at @ffconf.org in Brighton on the Nov 14th! There's still a few tickets left if you've been meaning to come along and say hello!

Need some kind of button I can press to sound a loud alarm every time someone accidentally brings up one of my special interests. 🚨🔔: Freshwater eels have just been mentioned, you have 30 seconds to find cover before Jess starts yelling

[My fellow] train nerds: City Lit has a 9 week SOCIAL HISTORY OF RAILWAYS course that includes guided tours of London stations starting Jan 13th. www.citylit.ac.uk/co... This referral code gets you [and me] £20 off any course, but you should take the train one w me citylit.mention-me.c...

Hey do y'all already know about @[email protected]? It's a conlang designed to be quick to learn, with a really fun chill community and I just think it's neat and wanted to show you https://tokipona.org/

[My fellow] train nerds: City Lit has a 9 week SOCIAL HISTORY OF RAILWAYS course that includes guided tours of London stations starting Jan 13th. www.citylit.ac.uk/co... This referral code gets you [and me] £20 off any course, but you should take the train one w me citylit.mention-me.c...

Someone bring the BBC Bweaking bot on here, I miss learning about big, weird news stories being followed by a postmodern chaser of owo

Got no sleep last night and just described a process as "snake eat snake" because the word ouroboros escaped me. Gonna be a real long day.

Have recently been introduced to https://bookwyrm.social as "what if Goodreads was Mastodon" and this description is 100% accurate. I love this.

Love seeing conservation orgs with tech roles, @greenpeace.org is hiring an analytics engineer. - Can work from Brazil, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. - 12 month contract workfor.international.greenpeace.org/o/analytics-...

London based product folks: The Tate is looking for a Digital Product Manager - London based - £40k - If you get this job, please sneak me in to see cool exhibits, thank you in advance jobsearch.tate.org.uk/jobs/job/TG7...

Live privacy? Looking for a tech job? Duck Duck Go are hiring for engineers, SREs, bizdev, product and more, all remote duckduckgo.com/hiring

Web standards nerds who also like data: there's a weirdly specific role you might love. W3C are hiring someone to lead their data efforts as they work on web standards. - Remote, Asia - Apply by Nov 18th www.w3.org/careers/data...

Internet friends: what weird research rabbit holes are we going down this week? Y’all learn anything new and cool and weird?

In a god-tier level of structured procrastination, doing my draft of my 2026 goals bingo card reminds me that I need to fix my personal website to be able to write about this weird annual habit 🫠

Turned off auto renew on a novelty domain the night before it renewed. Time to celebrate…by buying a silly domain name…?

Brb, rolling a D6 to pick this week's hyperfocus: 1 Cryptozoology conference papers 2 Moral injury research 3 Emelia Airheart 4 Eel reproduction cycle 5 Failed cryogenics companies 6 Georgian orthography

The lovely @dxw.com are an agency that work for public service clients. They rarely hire, but are currently hiring an account manager: - £45-55k - 12 month contract - UK remote w some client travel - Worker owned coop, hell yeah - All the people I know working there are v cool and v v nice

Hypothetically, how would you pitch using your annual learning budget for a course on bat acoustics analysis if you were a tech worker? Asking for me because I like bats and weird e-learning courses.

Rare global remote FOSS jobs combo @eclipse.org are hiring: Research director: eclipsefoundation.applytojob.com/apply/mgFMQb... Infrastructure engineer: eclipsefoundation.applytojob.com/apply/jCJb8w... Entry level support: eclipsefoundation.applytojob.com/apply/1hzX4n...

Posting more tech jobs that have a positive (or minimally evil) impact on the world as I find them: UK Centre for Ecology + Hydrology is hiring a web developer with #Drupal skills - 50/50 hybrid, from Wallingford, Lancaster, Bangor or Edi - £38-41k ceh.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CEH_Ca...

Have just learned that there's an online mobile phone museum, which inflicted a nonzero amount of psychic damage by showing me my past phones in a retro-museum context

The very cool privacy-minded folks at Calyx Institute create FOSS tools like CalyxOS. They're hiring an android BSP engineer right now: - US remote from WA/VA/NY or FL - $80-$90k - they're very cool and I would be jealous of your job job-boards.greenhouse.io/calyxinstitu...

"It's very clear that a lot of the new AI era is about dismantling the web's original design... a new Internet where there's no concept of consent for either users or those who create content and culture — everything is just raw materials, and all of us are fair game."

A tabletop RPG with gameplay themed around 70s Italian horror movies seems suspiciously well targeted for my household! Fully-funded crowdfunder with buy in from $13, ending in Nov!

Someone wrote Ask A Manager asking if they can keep letting jerks at work who won't listen to her mess things up, without chasing to try and fix things for them. I want this person to write her own advice column. I want her to be my life coach. I love her. www.askamanager.org/2025/10/can-...

International Medical Corps are hiring for IT and asset management in DRC (internationalmedicalcorps.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posti...), Python devs in Islamabad (internationalmedicalcorps.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posti...) And lots of other health + tech roles internationalmedicalcorps.hua.hrsmart.com

Starting a 2025 Q4 thread of not-evil* jobs in tech or using tech skills, which I'll reply to add to as I find new cool things over time *or minimally evil, as this is often the best we can hope for in these troubled times. Assessments based on nothing but my own vibes

I've got weirdly specific news for you if you're reading this and: - work in cybersecurity - really like birds - need a job RSPB is hiring a cybersecurity head , remote UK £70-84k app.vacancy-filler.co.uk/salescrm/Car...

Huge shoutout to @kathyreid.au for flagging that there's a Fediverse book social site! bookwyrm.social

Begging everyone to stop writing good books, reviewing good books and talking about good books. I have a budget to stick to. Please. Y'all. Please.

Anyone found a good Pocket replacement to pipe web content into Kobos for reading? I want this so much but am not finding anything yet.

Osaka runs an annual competition where kei truck owners show off the elaborate gardens and garden cafes they've built into their tiny trucks. I love them. www.zoenren-osaka.jp/index.html

Going to online estate sale auction sites and searching for "swords" is cheaper than therapy right up until the moment it's not, huh?

Genuinely impressed with my ability to spell things incorrectly in Indonesian, a language with perfect and pristine phonetic spelling.

Running people: how much harder is it to run 10k than 5k. I get that it's double, I'm really asking if trying to work my way up to this will kill me or make me very unhappy.

Everything is a lot right now, so I'm running some of my [always] free 1:1 tech career advice calls next Monday the 20th October. 📩 DM me if you would like to book a 30m call to get advice on breaking into tech, to plan your jobhunt or just to talk through whatever is on your mind.

Everything is a lot right now, so I'm running some of my [always] free 1:1 tech career advice calls next Monday the 20th October. 📩 DM me if you would like to book a 30m call to get advice on breaking into tech, to plan your jobhunt or just to talk through whatever is on your mind.

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