Weeknotes #385 — Garden karaoke

The latest heatwave has weighed heavily on everyone here. It is just too hot. All of my time seems to be spent working, watching World Cup football, or lying on my bed without any covering, hoping that I will be able to sleep.

On Thursday I met one of my neighbours on the train and he offered to give me a lift home. Our conversation turned, naturally, to how everyone is coping with the heat. He revealed that he and his wife have two fans in their bedroom. It left me wondering why I hadn’t thought of that. I’m probably going to have to wait until demand drops off a bit and prices come down, but fan number two is now on my shopping list.

This was a week in which I:

Met with two work experience students in the office. It’s work experience season, and we have had a steady stream of young faces visiting us. No two conversations are the same, and there’s always a quick process at the start of the discussion to try and discern what topics would be most useful for them.

Had another prep call with the training partners for our upcoming management team offsite meeting next week.

Enjoyed a communal lunch in the office to celebrate our regional CEO’s milestone birthday.

Met with the CEO of another one of our regional offices to discuss our approach to a key project there, as well as additional resourcing that we need on an ongoing basis.

Had some great conversations with my team about how we might restructure the way in which we manage our work. We’ve tended to tweak things every couple of years to unlock more value in the way we do things, and I think our latest ideas may solve a few issues across the team.

Had our regular committee meeting on information risk.

Caught up with a member of our internal audit team who wanted to discuss a finding in a recent audit report.

Met with colleagues to agree our response to a cybersecurity survey from one of our country regulators.

Had a meeting with our in-house legal team to talk through one of our vendor contracts.

Joined an interesting online meetup hosted by Evan Hahn called What I Know About Local Language Models, from the folks at ClimateAction.tech. I’ve not played with any local models, so it was a great opportunity to learn some of the basics and ask questions.

Did not stay up late on Sunday night/Monday morning to watch England play Mexico in the World Cup. The bar needs to be significantly higher for me to voluntarily be so sleep-deprived at the start of the week. Both of our boys watched it live. We’d said to our youngest that he could stay up if he wanted, but he’d still need to get out of the door for school, which, admirably, he did. I think it took him a couple of days to get over the jet lag. When I got up and headed for the bathroom on Monday, I had to chase my eldest out of it as he had just come in. Oh, to be young, carefree and able to stay up all night.

Felt tired and a little ‘all at sea’ on Monday and was struggling to get to a top-down view of the work landscape, despite not staying up for the football. One of the worst kinds of days I have at work is when I have a relatively meeting-free calendar, but get to the early evening feeling as though I haven’t made significant progress.

Made what I think is my first-ever political donation, to Count Binface. I love the fact that he’s getting so much airtime for the Clacton by-election. At the very least, the Count deserves some help towards the deposit he needs to pay to stand.

Went out for a colleague’s birthday drinks. She has been a driving force behind getting a bunch of us out to socialise since she joined the company a few years ago. It was good to go out and celebrate her and say thank you.

Had a wonderful time at the now-annual barbecue and garden party at my aunt and uncle’s house, close to the New Forest. Previous events have been accompanied by a band in the garden, but this time they hired a DJ with a karaoke machine. We had a great time, with so many family members joining in.

Had originally planned to cycle the 140 km down to their house, but opted out because it was just too darn hot. Even if I left at 7:30am, it would have been 30°C by the time I got there. So I chose to do the club ride instead. I was grateful for my life choices; it was about 15 km before my legs got the memo that they were needed.

Headed home from the New Forest in time to sit down and watch England in the quarter-final of the World Cup. The bar at Berkhamsted Football Club was showing the match on a big screen and we could hear the cheers from our house, nearly a mile away. It was great to see England win the match, but I will be very happy when the World Cup is done and dusted so that I can get some time back again.

Went to the cycling club’s annual summer barbecue, held at the tennis club. It’s always a bit strange to see your cycling friends without helmets and Lycra. The organisation of the food was excellent, and the desserts were superb.

Had a lovely meal out with our family at The Olive Tree. It’s always a treat to go there, partly because it’s so expensive. We’re conscious that our eldest son will soon be 5,000 miles away from us again when he’s back at university, so we’re trying to make the most of our time together.

Bought a couple of gifts for my cousin’s 50th birthday which she celebrated earlier in the year, as we were seeing her for the first time since then: Bob Spitz’s new biography of The Rolling Stones, and a framed vinyl copy of Elton John’s version of Pinball Wizard, which I know she loves.

Media

Articles

I caught up with Simon Willison’s article about how Claude Fable is “relentlessly proactive”. Given what it does, I’m not sure how anyone would want to use this type of technology on the same computer that they use every day.

Running coding agents outside of a sandbox has always been a bad idea—it’s my top contender for a Challenger disaster incident, as described by Johann Rehberger in The Normalization of Deviance in AI.

Fable is arguably smarter and hence more suspicious of potentially malicious instructions. But that smartness is very much a two-edged sword: if it does get subverted by instructions, the amount of damage it can do given its relentless proactivity is terrifying.

In pointless polling news, The Guardian reports that the recent heatwave in the UK probably led to mass sleep deprivation.

I had a conversation with a facilitator and coach about people bringing ‘their whole selves’ to work and whether that is actually wise. They shared this article on ‘the authenticity paradox’ by Herminia Ibarra, which argues that people should perhaps try out different behaviours in different situations and rewrite the stories they tell about themselves to see what works in a particular role.

Audio

I had fun at two album clubs. I hosted June’s WB-40 Album Club, delayed from its original date due to England playing in the World Cup. Everyone seemed to enjoy my pick of Terry Callier’s wonderful 1972 album What Color Is Love, a perfect antidote to a hot, stressful week.

The next evening I wandered around the corner to a friend’s house to hear Free’s Fire and Water. It’s an album I love, so it was great to sit down and give it another purposeful listen.

Books

Started reading The First 90 Days by Michael D Watkins, a book that covers transitions into new roles. The reviews on Goodreads seem quite mixed, so I’m approaching it with some caution.

For fun, I’ve picked up Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier’s biography of Steve Marriott. So far, I’m not taken by the style of the book, but I’m keen to learn much more about the musician.

I need to get back to Kae Tempest’s novel at some point, but the continued hot weather is preventing me from reading the book at night. Maybe I just need to buy the ebook version as well.

Next week: Our management team offsite, and more football.