28-09-2018
	
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	'Summer was gone when the heat died down 
	And Autumn reached for her golden crown 
	I looked behind as I heard a sigh 
	But this was the time of no reply...'  ~ Nick Drake, Time of No Reply
	
				* * *

	The weather has finally been changing in London, over the past few 
	weeks. That was without a doubt the hottest Summer I can remember, 
	aside from a few hazy childhood memories. For the past few months 
	I've been lucky enough to have only really been working a couple days 
	a week, and even though I'd created that time (by quitting one of the 
	two jobs I was working earlier this year) for 'productive' reasons, 
	in the end I couldn't help myself but just make the most of the 
	beautiful Summer months - lots of outdoor swimming, cycling, camping, 
	reading outdoors, falling asleep under the shade of trees in the 
	park, etc. No regrets. Time well spent.
	
	I had quit my other job to free up time to try and put towards some 
	self-learning projects; mainly learning some programming but also 
	just even more-so improving my computing knowledge/skills: linux 
	systems, the bash/zsh shells, sysadmin stuff, etc (I'm still an 
	amateur, and my work not really being anywhere in this field means I 
	only approach this stuff in an out-of-hours, hobbyist capacity). 
	Since the weather turned colder I have been getting into programming, 
	but I was never kidding myself that this would be a quick thing to do 
	- and it's not like I'm doing this for employment reasons so much as 
	just a personal passion to finally crack into software in this way 
	and see where it leads, either creatively or just in the sense of DIY 
	computing and an extension of the path that led me away more and more 
	from so many Web services, platforms and social networks, and back 
	closer to the terminal in computing - and also right here, towards 
	plaintext.

	One thing I've been realising in the time I've been browsing here is 
	that there's a real process of 'unlearning' going on with me. 
	Unlearning the rhythms and impact and even affective qualities of 
	many communication Web technologies (microblogs, platforms, social 
	networks, etc) and easing into this calmer, what I think is a more 
	considered speed; this flow of text syncing up with the pace of my 
	mind more-so than the Tweetdeck columns that I'd once thought were so 
	useful, a few years back, now looking more like Tetris on some 
	super-fast & stressful high level, all the things that capture your 
	attention falling fast and hitting hard.

	I have far more time for the 'federated' model of microblogging 
	compared to the other mega-platform social networks, but at this 
	stage I remain a little bit unconvinced, largely by the gaze/focus 
	that some of those platforms seem designed to veer towards: Web-based 
	social networks in the way we've been using/developing them this past 
	decade-or-so play into some very similar tendencies around the 
	presentation of identity, popularity, gamification, visible metrics, 
	etc. That's not to be too down on those other networks - I think its 
	great to depart from the major players and explore difference and 
	more decentralised models, and to try and determine what we want from 
	these networks. And that's perhaps why I found it easy to firstly 
	move towards federated cyberspace, but then actually to keep the 
	momentum going and keep moving, ending up more-so in gopherspace, in 
	one regard, but also even more offline/disconnected in other ways. 
	I'm less 'online' than I have been over the past few years, less 
	occupied by social networks and shiney Web stuff; unlearning and 
	walking away from those tendencies. And this is starting to open up a 
	much more preferable - much more 'me' - headspace and also freeing up 
	time.

			        * * *

	It's a fresh Autumn morning in London. Golden sunlight and calm. 
	Fresh-brewed coffee and blue skies, broken only by the trailing white 
	lines of flight paths.

				* * *