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Sabbatical day 1
Yesterday was the first day of my 3 month, fully paid sabbatical. It’s a perk I’ve received, liked many others, for working at Automattic for five years. This sabbatical actually became available to me way back in November 2018 but due to poor planning and then the pandemic hitting it’s only now that I’m taking…
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Why is public money being doled out to politicians in Lichfield?
This week, Lichfield District Council’s cabinet approved a pilot to hand £14,100 of public money to councillors to dish out at their discretion with a scintilla of oversight that leaves the scheme wide open to abuse, in a step that seems to be a solution without a problem. In the report to cabinet, a lack…
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I’m building Newspack
As a freelancer at the time, contributing to Lichfield Live led to plenty of work in journalism from tiny startups like Hackney Citizen to established publications like Journalism.co.uk. I spoke at conferences and even once advised the regional editors at one of the UK’s biggest media publishers. Thanks to a recommendation, I won one of…
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RideLondon Training Update #1
Very nearly one year ago I joined a big family group to do the Memory Walk in Sutton to raise money for Alzheimer’s Society. We were walking in memory of my Dad who suffered from Pick’s Disease, a form of Dementia. We had a great time and smashed our fundraising target, generating over £1,000 for…
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TIL: array_push() is slow
Today I learnt (thanks Gary) that array_push() is actually kinda slow and it’s probably better to avoid it in most cases. There’s some (not very detailed but interesting nonetheless) tests in this StackOverflow answer.
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The Bullshit Web, and some bullshit about AMP
Alright, let’s start off by saying that I’m definitely a little biased – part of my job involves working with the AMP team at Google and the fine folks at XWP on the AMP for WordPress plugin. I wanted to highlight some things about this Bullshit Web piece that’s going around, though. In short: the…
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Happy 70th birthday, NHS, and thank you
Thank you for delivering me safely to my parents. Thanks for all the eye tests and glasses. Thanks for making sure I had healthy teeth despite my attempts to avoid brushing. Thanks for looking after my sisters as they gave life to my nieces and nephews. Thanks especially for nurturing the twins when they entered…
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12 Years
Of course my WordPress journey is much longer, having picked up the software a while before joining WordPress.com. At that moment, I didn’t even consider the idea that I might actually work at WordPress.com one day. I’ve come so far in those twelve years – I wonder where I’ll be in another twelve.
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Analysis: UK low-carbon sources generated more than fossil fuels in 2017
Great news that in 2017 low-carbon sources of power generation generated more than fossil fuels in the UK. That includes nuclear, which is pretty expensive and had obvious long term disadvantages by it’s great to see us relying less on dead dinosaurs! Image is Scout Moor Wind Farm and some people by Gidzy.