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I spent six days at the start of this year serving as a juror at Isleworth Crown Court. I served on two trials, each lasting 2–3 days.

The few people I spoke to beforehand who have served on juries in England before all advised me to “bring a (good) book”. There was a fair bit of waiting around, but I was lucky: I spent most of my time in trials and talking to other jurors. I barely read a chapter of Extrastatecraft. As someone who works from home at least four days per week, interacts with his colleagues primarily through text and video calls, and otherwise has very little interaction with adult humans, I actually found it refreshing to have a short commute every day to an “office” where I “worked” for solid blocks of uninterrupted time and socialized with my “colleagues” in the gaps. Of course, most jobs don't let you arrive at 10am and leave at 4pm, and over time the novelty would wear off and the trade-offs would become clearer again. In any case, I'm now wondering how to get more face-to-face interactions into my working week.

It's rare for 100 grown adults to be shepherded in a room, forbidden to leave and forced to make friends: several people independently said it felt like the first day at school again. I got to know 5–10 people from a variety of backgrounds in different stages of life. I'm not sure I'll run into them again, but I had meaningful conversations and learned many things. (Did you know that Ada Lovelace, the mathematician, lived and was married in Ealing, within walking distance of me? I didn't!)

The first two people I spoke to both happened to be Oxford alumni too. Given that less than 1 of the UK population went to Oxford or Cambridge, is a jury pool with at least 3% Oxford alumni seem representative? I can't find data showing education background per region which would directly answer this, but I did find that while around 13% of the UK's population in 2011 was in Greater London, around 26% of students admitted to Oxford in 2016-2018 came from Greater London. So – yes, I think this is probably about right.

Sylvan Esso – Die Young

Daughter – No Care

#thisismymarmalade

I came across this clap detection library some years ago, and it made me want to create Reichotron 3000: a piece of software that detects the rhythm ♪♪♪𝄾 ♪♪𝄾 ♪♪𝄾 ♪𝄾 and starts clapping along with you.

I've never found the time or inclination to write this. If you need an idea for the next Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon, why not steal this one? Someone's made an iOS app but it doesn't sound quite the same.

#stupidsoftwarenooneneeds

Culture, Media and Sport

After a bit of a music drought in 2018, 2019 had some great releases from familiar and new-to-me artists. Some highlights:

• 65daysofstatic's Unreleased/Unreleasable Vol.4 subscription is a rare glimpse into how an experimental band experiments, and their new album Replicr, 2019 is an unusual example of a post-rock band becoming something different, successfully. Try five waves.
• By way of contrast, Psapp sprung back out of their cave with Tourists, which fits firmly into their well-established groove, if perhaps a little more mellow at times. I love it. Try Progress.
• I came across Anna Meredith's 2016 album Varmints mid-way through the year and had never heard anything like it. The album spans almost as many genres and moods as it has tracks. Her latest album Fibs came out at the end of the year and is even better. Try Inhale Exhale or Paramour.

A couple of albums with stand-out tracks:

• I find Buke & Gase's Scholars a bit harder to listen to than their past work, but the title track is up there with all their past work.
• Stealing Sheep's Big Wows fell a bit flat, but maybe because the lead single, Jokin’ Me, tops the highlight of from last album, Apparition.
• On 30^th December, I stumbled upon Memory Mirror, The Octopus Project's 2017 album. Mendoza is the highlight.

I read 30 books, of which I would recommend:

• Exhalation by Ted Chiang, and his previous collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, which I happily re-read. Two great collections of science and speculative fiction short stories.
• Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green. A powerful, sometimes harrowing graphic novel/memoir dealing with mental health struggles and assault.
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Fun and highly-readable sci-fi novellas.

On a more sombre note: towards the start of the year, Dau finally made its way into the world, briefly. I didn't go to the exhibition in Paris, and I expect that very little of my technical work made it into that installation. Towards the end of the year, I was floored to learn that Alexei Blinov had passed away. Alexei was one of the first people I interacted with when I first became involved with the project, and the last person I bid farewell on my last day back in 2016. I imagined that our paths would cross again some day, somewhere at the intersection of art and technology, but in fact that was the last time we spoke. Alexei was a welcoming and fascinating individual, with great imagination; I'm glad I had the opportunity to work with him and count him as a friend.

Work and Pensions

Near the end of the year, I became Director of Platform at Endless, walking further down the engineering-management fork in the road. I've gratefully received advice from developers who've followed this branch in the road (and in some cases turned back). Several people recommended The Engineer/Manager Pendulum by Charity Majors, which I would also recommend.

After a few years with minimal travel, last year I went to Brussels (for FOSDEM and a GNOME Advisory Board meeting), San Francisco (visiting the Endless office to work on the product roadmap), and Thessaloniki (for GUADEC, where I gave a lightning talk). I've not done much public speaking for a while. Maybe I can do more of that this year.

Health and Social Care

After years of trying and failing for various reasons, I donated blood twice. Please do the same if you are able to.

Children, Schools and Families

My daughter turned two. She's the best! I rounded off the year by shaving my beard off for the first time in over 7 years. She asked me whether I “cleaned it off; was your beard dirty?”, which for someone who didn't know beards can be removed is a reasonable and insightful question.