March 2025
Spring has arrived in Edinburgh, and March has been a packed month.
Looking back through my camera roll, it’s mostly of hanging out with Jack. His chatting is developing each and every day. We had several days out, including a fun one at Dobbies Garden Center to see the fish.
We spent a couple of days in Hexham visiting H’s family. I took the opportunity to go for a couple of nice runs.
We had a nice Mother’s Day out at the end of the month with lunch at Hectors and a walk in the Botanics. Jack made a card the night before, excitedly announcing “Mummy I made a secret card!” within two mins of making it!
JavaScript Meetups
I ran two JavaScript meetups: Sergio Castillo on Design Systems and Tailwind (hosted by Victoria Lampard) and Jaime Torrealba on Creating Immersive Experiences in the Browser (hosted by Ljupche Vasilev). In April we are taking a break from the regular schedule, with a hackathon in Edinburgh. We’ll be back at the BJSS office in Glasgow in early May, and (hopefully) at TravelPerk in Edinburgh.
I’m keen to speak to JS devs using AI in their development workflow, or building it into products. Give me a shout - I want to run a discussion and project sharing evening.
Exercise and Health
This month I’ve been trying harder at exercise and health. After Jack was born I seemed to get several Kg heavier, and it hasn’t shifted in two years, despite a fairly decent running programme. This month I watched a viral video of a guy “training like David Goggins for 100 days”. I don’t advocate his training plan, it seems very injury prone, and there are certainly better ways of getting and staying fit, however, I was inspired with his dedication to the bit. He showed that if you take it seriously then you (possibly?) can make fitness progress reasonably quickly. With this new found inspiration I have upped by gym-attendance from one to three sessions a week, and have become (temporarily) a Huel bro.
I mostly hit my weekly running target, with 96km clocked up over the month.
Reading
This month I picked through some of On Freedom by Timothy Snyder and read The MANIAC, Benjamín Labatut, a worthwhile fiction on John von Neumann and reflection on AI.
I attended the Edinburgh Progress Reading Group to talk about Bacteriophages and biotech.
The main reading event of March was the epic The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, a 1000+ page look at the run up to the bombing of Japan in World War Two. This tour starts with a detailed look at the scientific community of the early 20th Century, outlines the experiments and breakthroughs, deals with gas attacks and the development of new weaponry in World War One, Jewish emigration in the face of rising anti-semitism, and then finally the politics and scientific organisation behind Los Alamos, the supply of radioactive materials from across America, and then finally the bombing. I recommend this book. It is (at the moment) only 99p on the UK Kindle store. You should get it and read it. I found several things interesting: the organisation of scientific work across the international community, the excitement of breakthroughs, the gamble on practical applications of theory, the tension between the scientific, political and military communities, the momentum of the project, and the contrast and similarities between the first atomic bombs and the intense firebombing campaigns occuring throughout the war. We still should be thinking about the weapons we use and how to prevent war. We should study the past and learn from it.
I’ve added Dark Sun (on the Hydrogen Bomb) by Richard Rhodes and Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen to my reading list.
Coming up
In April I’m continuing with client work, attending the EdinburghJS Hackathon, planning a nice date night, going to visit friends, and celebrating my birthday.
Get in touch if you want to hang out / work together / speak at a meetup 👋
