Recent content on eRambler
Today, Thursday 6 November 2025 if I actually manage to finish and publish this today, is World Digital Preservation Day so I thought I would try and get a blog post out about some work I’ve been doing to rescue at-risk data. I’ve briefly mentioned this in my post about Library of Congress Subject Headings but not in much detail. The project is Safeguarding Research & Culture and I got…
I always feel like I have so much to write, so much that I want to write. So why is it that anytime I sit down to actually write my mind goes entirely blank? Even if I have a list of intended topics right in front of me, or a partial draft to work on, I start feeling like I have nothing interesting to say. The only thing I have much success in writing is these long, boring, self indulgent walls of…
Content Note For reasons that will become apparent as you read the introduction, this post has tangential references to a number of oppressed groups and other fascist newspeak as encoded in Library of Congress metadata standards. If you've been aware at all about the current political situation in the US, you'll be aware that the dude in the Oval Office has been issuing executive orders left,…
Recently I was at the 2024 Make Data Count Summit , at Wellcome Trust HQ in London. It's a follow-on from a project of the same name which has now become a more sustained long-term effort with a growing community, focused on metrics to measure the impact of data sharing and reuse. There was a lot for me to absorb, process and reflect on, but one thing I noticed was that some examples gave me a…
Why do we celebrate “efficiency” so much? Cuts to public services are vaunted as “efficiency savings”. Free markets (and by extension capitalism though they’re not technically the same thing) are touted as the most “efficient” way to distribute resources. New technologies are sold on promises of more efficient working practices. But we rarely question who…
This weekend I started reading Donella Meadows ' Thinking in Systems: A Primer and I cannot overstate how profoundly glad I am to have come across Systems Thinking as a whole field of study. It pulls together so many things that have interested me over the years, and makes sense of a whole load of things I’ve observed about the world around me. I used to tell people that my abiding interest…
Why is it that so many beginner programming tutorials assume that the learner is both a) comfortable with maths; and b) motivated to learn by seeing simple arithmetic? Go look at your favourite tutorial (I’ll wait) and I’ll give you good odds it starts with some variation of “look, you can use this as a calculator!” Seriously, there must be so many people who would be great…
I was hanging the laundry the other day, and ended up thinking about reasons why you might ignore those coded instructions on the care label of your clothing. I came up with quite a few… The label isn’t accessible to you (e.g. you’re blind or partially sighted) Your needs don’t match the assumptions of the manufacturer You habitually remove them because they itch You…
One of the reasons I’ve been blogging less lately is that the more I’ve progressed in my career the more aware I’ve been of representing my employer as well as myself and, let’s be honest, I have enough anxiety already without adding to it myself. So I’ve finally had The Conversation about this with my line manager and agreed that I can write publicly about stuff that…
My handwriting! It’s only taken me two years, but I’ve finally got around to transcribing enough pages to have a first try at training a model on my own handwriting . My workflow has been (roughly) this: Write something out longhand with pen and paper Scan the pages and upload to Transkribus Run layout detection, tweak any arrors and transcribe the text on desktop (while listening to…
If it seems like I haven’t posted here much lately then you’re right. Here’s a few bits and pieces I thought I’d share. Nix & NixOS I’ve been learning a lot about nix (the package manager) and NixOS (the Linux distribution) lately, and enjoying the consistency and stability it brings. The whole machine’s setup and my user config can all be specified in nixlang…
Just a quick note to say that since I’ve deleted my Twitter account, I’ve set up a static archive of all my tweets . Yes, even those embarrassing first ones. This was made possible by Darius Kazemi: https://tinysubversions.com/twitter-archive/make-your-own/ You can still find me on Mastodon as @petrichor:digipres.club or via any of the other links at the bottom of the page.
Last week I received an email from a friend inviting me to submit a video to a panel 'Missing narratives around diversity and inclusion in Research Software Engineering' hosted as part of SeptembRSE 2021 , the goals of which are: help create inclusive communities in RSE by centring on intersectional voices increase awareness of power imbalances that negatively impact multiple marginalised groups…
I’ve enjoyed learning Rust (the programming language) recently, but having only really used it for solving programming puzzles I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it for something more practical. At the same time, I’ve been using and learning about Matrix (the chat/messaging platform), and running some small rooms there I’ve been a bit frustrated that some pretty common…
I forgot to mention it at the time, but I’ve added “normal” comments back to the site, as you’ll see below and on most other pages. In place of the Disqus comments I had before I’m now using Cactus Comments , which is open source and self-hostable (though I’m currently not doing that). If you’ve read my previous post about Matrix self-hosting , you might…
Wow, it turns out to be 10 years since I wrote this beginners guide to Twitter . Things have moved on a loooooong way since then. Far from being the interesting, disruptive technology it was back then, Twitter has become part of the mainstream, the establishment. Almost everyone and everything is on Twitter now, which has both pros and cons. So what’s the problem? It’s now possible to…
My last post covered the more “traditional” lectures-and-panel-sessions approach of the first half of the SSI Collaborations Workshop . The rest of the workshop was much more interactive, consisting of a discussion session , a Collaborative Ideas session , and a whole-day hackathon ! The discussion session on day one had us choose a topic (from a list of topics proposed leading up to…
I’ve just finished attending (online) the three days of this year’s SSI Collaborations Workshop (CW for short), and once again it’s been a brilliant experience, as well as mentally exhausting, so I thought I’d better get a summary down while it’s still fresh it my mind. Collaborations Workshop is, as the name suggests, much more focused on facilitating collaborations…
I’ve decided to try switching this website back to using Hugo to manage the content and generate the static HTML pages. I’ve been on the Python-based Nikola for a few years now, but recently I’ve been finding it quite slow, and very confusing to understand how to do certain things. I used Hugo recently for the GLAM Data Science Network website and found it had come on a lot since…
The Disability Support Network at work recently ran a survey on “accessible communications”, to develop guidance on how to make communications (especially internal staff comms) more accessible to everyone. I grabbed a copy of my submission because I thought it would be useful to share more widely, so here it is. Please note that these are based on my own experiences only. I am in no…
I started running my own Matrix server a little while ago. Matrix is something rather cool, a chat system similar to IRC or Slack, but open and federated. Open in that the standard is available for anyone to view, but also the reference implementations of server and client are open source, along with many other clients and a couple of nascent alternative servers. Federated in that, like email, it…
@JanetHughes on Twitter: What do you miss the least from pre-lockdown life? I absolutely do not miss wandering around the office looking for a meeting room for a confidential call or if I hadn’t managed to book a room in advance. Let’s never return to that joyless frustration, hey? 10:27 AM · Feb 3, 2021 After seeing Terence Eden taking Janet Hughes’ tweet from earlier this month…
And the handwritten blog saga continues, as I’ve just received my new reMarkable 2 tablet , which is designed for reading, writing and nothing else. It uses a super-responsive e-ink display and writing on it with a stylus is a dream. It has a slightly rough texture with just a bit of friction that makes my writing come out a lot more legibly than on a slippery glass touchscreen. If that was…
Updates 2021-02-04 Thanks to Gene @dzshuniper@ausglam.space for suggesting ADHO and a better attribution for the opening quote (see comments below for details) See comments & webmentions for details. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — African proverb, probably popularised in English by Kenyan church leader Rev. Samuel Kobia ( original ) This quote is a…
I’ve updated my blog theme to use the quasi-proportional fonts Iosevka Aile and Iosevka Etoile. I really like the aesthetic, as they look like fixed-width console fonts (I use the true fixed-width version of Iosevka in my terminal and text editor) but they’re actually proportional which makes them easier to read. https://typeof.net/Iosevka/
If I’m going to train an algorithm to read my weird & awful writing, I’m going to need a decent-sized training set to work with. And since one of the main things I want to do with it is to blog “by hand” it makes sense to focus on that type of material for training. In other words, I need to write out a bunch of blog posts on paper, scan them and transcribe them as ground…
I wrote the following text on my tablet with a stylus, which was an interesting experience: So, thinking about ways to make writing fun again, what if I were to write some of them by hand? I mean I have a tablet with a pretty nice stylus, so maybe handwriting recognition could work. One major problem, of course, is that my handwriting is AWFUL! I guess I’ll just have to see whether the OCR…
Introduction As I mentioned last year , I was awarded a Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship to pursue the project of setting up a Cultural Heritage/GLAM data science network. Obviously, the global pandemic has forced a re-think of many plans and this is no exception, so I’m coming back to reflect on it and make sure I’m clear about the core goals so that everything else still…
Under Construction Grunge Sign by Nicolas Raymond — CC BY 2.0 Every year, around this time of year, I start doing two things. First, I start thinking I could really start to understand monads and write more than toy programs in Haskell . This is unlikely to ever actually happen unless and until I get a day job where I can justify writing useful programs in Haskell, but Advent of Code always gets…
Here is a selection of talks that I’ve given. {{% template %}} <%! import arrow %> Date Title Location % for talk in post.data('talks'): % if 'date' in talk: ${date.format('ddd d MMM YYYY')} % endif % if 'url' in talk: % endif ${talk['title']} % if 'url' in talk: % endif ${talk.get('location', '')} % endfor {{% /template %}}
I wrote a post on the problems with ISBNs as persistent identifiers (PIDS) for work, so check it out if that sounds interesting.
I’m just back from IDCC20 , so here are a few reflections on this year’s conference. You can find all the available slides and links to shared notes on the conference programme . There’s also a list of all the posters and an overview of the Unconference Skills for curation of diverse datasets Here in the UK and elsewhere, you’re unlikely to find many institutions claiming…
Iosevka is a nice, slender monospace font with a lot of configurable variations. Check it out: https://typeof.net/Iosevka/
I’m honoured and excited to be named one of this year’s Software Sustainability Institute Fellows . There’s not much to write about yet because it’s only just started, but I’m looking forward to sharing more with you. In the meantime, you can take a look at the 2020 fellowship announcement and get an idea of my plans from my application video:
Just a quickie to say that I’ve replaced the comment section at the bottom of each post with webmentions , which allows you to comment by posting on your own site and linking here. It’s a fundamental part of the IndieWeb , which I’m slowly getting to grips with having been a halfway member of it for years by virtue of having my own site on my own domain. I’d already got rid…
It looks like I’ve accidentally taken charge of bridging a bunch of The Carpentries Slack channels over to Matrix . Given this, it seems like a good idea to explain what that sentence means and reflect a little on my reasoning. I’m more than happy to discuss the pros and cons of this approach If you just want to try chatting in Matrix, jump to the getting started section What are Slack…
Discussions of neurodiversity at #mozfest Photo by Jennifer Riggins The other weekend I had my first experience of Mozilla Festival, aka #mozfest. It was pretty awesome. I met quite a few people in real life that I’ve previously only known (/stalked) on Twitter, and caught up with others that I haven’t seen for a while. I had the honour of co-facilitating a workshop session on imposter…
Today 1 the office conversation turned to blocking out background noise. (No, the irony is not lost on me.) Like many people I work in a large, open-plan office, and I’m not alone amongst my colleagues in sometimes needing to find a way to boost concentration by blocking out distractions. Not everyone is like this, but I find music does the trick for me. I also find that different types of…
It barely seems like it, but I’ve been at the British Library now for nearly 6 months. It always takes a long time to adjust and from experience I know it’ll be another year before I feel fully settled, but my team, department and other colleagues have really made me feel welcome and like I belong. One thing that hasn’t got old yet is the occasional thrill of remembering that I…
Photo by me I sit here writing this in the departure lounge at Philadelphia International Airport, waiting for my Aer Lingus flight back after a week at the 13th Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary ( although I’m actually publishing this a week or so later at home ). I’m pretty exhausted, partly because of the jet lag, and partly because it’s been a very full week with so much…
Photo by Sear Greyson on Unsplash I recently attended a workshop, organised by the excellent team of the Turing Way project , on a tool called BinderHub. BinderHub, along with public hosting platform MyBinder , allows you to publish computational notebooks online as “binders” such that they’re not static but fully interactive. It’s able to do this by using a tool called…
I’ve found it increasingly difficult to make time to blog, and it’s not so much not having the time — I’m pretty privileged in that regard — but finding the motivation. Thinking about what used to motivate me, one of the big things was writing things that other people wanted to read. Rather than try to guess, I thought I’d ask! Those who know what I'm about, what would you…
Following on from the excitement of having built a functioning keyboard myself, I got a parcel on Monday. Inside was something that I’ve been waiting for since September: an Ultimate Hacking Keyboard ! Where the custom-built Laplace is small and quiet for travelling, the UHK is to be my main workhorse in the study at home. Here are my first impressions: Key switches I went with Kailh blue…
I’m typing this post on a keyboard I made myself, and I’m rather excited about it! Why make my own keyboard? I wanted to learn a little bit about practical electronics, and I like to learn by doing I wanted to have the feeling of making something useful with my own hands I actually need a small, keyboard with good-quality switches now that I travel a fair bit for work and this lets me…
“Wenniger aber besser” — Dieter Rams {:.big-quote} I can barely believe it’s a full year since I published my intentions for 2018 . A lot has happened since then. Principally: in November I started a new job as Data Services Lead at The British Library. One thing that hasn’t changed is my tendency to try to do too much, so this year I’m going to try and focus on a…
Python is great, but I find it useful to have an alternative language under my belt for occasions when no amount of Pythonic cleverness will make some bit of code run fast enough. One of my main reasons for wanting to learn Rust was to have something better than C for that. Not only does Rust have all sorts of advantages that make it a good choice for code that needs to run fast and correctly,…
Photo by Andrew Hughes on Unsplash I’ve chosen not to make any specific resolutions this year; I’ve found that they just don’t work for me. Like many people, all I get is a sense of guilt when I inevitably fail to live up to the expectations I set myself at the start of the year. However, I have set a couple of what I’m referring to as “themes” for the year: touchstones that I’ll aim to…
!!! tldr “TL;DR” I’ve made Saga, a thing for compiling documents by combining code and data with templates . What is it? Saga is a very simple command-line tool that reads in one or more data files, runs one or more scripts, then passes the results into a template to produce a final output document. It enables you to maintain a clean separation between data, logic and…
When you’re writing analysis code, Python (or R, or JavaScript, or …) is usually the right choice. These high-level languages are set up to make you as productive as possible, and common tasks like array manipulation have been well optimised. However, sometimes you just can’t get enough speed and need to turn to a lower-level compiled language. Often that will be C, C++ or…
Trees reflected in a lake Joshua Reddekopp on Unsplash It seems like ages ago, but way back in November I committed to completing Advent of Code . I managed it all, and it was fun! All of my code is available on GitHub if you’re interested in seeing what I did, and I managed to get out a blog post for every one with a bit more commentary, which you can see in the series list above. How did I…