@[email protected] @[email protected] ​As a counter example one of my cousins applied for Australian citizenship and was rejected but the process was shorter, cheaper, and the reasons given were clear cut (if borderline enough that they had tried applying regardless). The UK process was long and ridiculous in places, but it was always clear what you had to do next, and where you had to go to get it. The Italians rejected my request on the basis of a rule that they changed retroactively (yay, different right wing government of a few years back) but at least submitting the request took me a fairly small amount of time and money (hundreds of euros, maybe a day of work)

@[email protected] @[email protected] So firstly: some other countries suck as well, just to be clear. Just maybe not as much 😁 . My wife getting her UK citizenship was far harder than it had any reason to be (answer questions on British TV shows I had never watched​, do an English test that required a much lower level than she'd had to demonstrate for existing profressional qualifications from a UK university, etc).

But the main difference just seemed to be in the sheer volume of information you needed to find and submit, and obviously the more you submit the more there is that can be challenged, that you might have made a mistake on, that you might forget.

@[email protected] Spicy take! Now I'm curious: why would you choose both MVU and not to use Elm?​

@[email protected] @[email protected] "I've now finished this book and no longer need it, so I've sent it back."​

@[email protected] @[email protected] I have family members who have applied for (and in some cases received) naturalization to seven different nationalities. The US applications were the most time consuming and expensive by an enormous margin. Not because the actual requirements were more restrictive (all four US applications were eventually successful, while some of the others were not), but because of the process.

One more session to go on the current round of #interactivefiction writing courses, and the older teens have asked for the final session to be a deep dive into expanding a conversation because they felt it didn't have enough narrative depth.

So that's pretty awesome. And now I get to have a play with dialogue rather than the very different process which is #writing examples of functionality which are interesting but small enough to not obscure the thing being taught.

Obviously, if you try it and it's horribly broken in some way do let me know 😅

Managed to scrape together enough energy to move my blog from github pages to a repurposed Pi sitting in my home office. Because, well, reasons (gestures at world).

Took the opportunity to move it from .co.uk to .eu at the same time given I haven't lived in the UK for years. blog.mavnn.eu/

There are two problems in computer science:

1. We could do this better
2. We should not do this at all

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Organic, vegan, golden cables. No pesticides used or animal parts included in this cable!​

@[email protected] @[email protected] lots of phone reminders and a pill box marked with days of the week. Auto repeating reminders help me actually take the meds, the pill box helps me not take them twice. Or three time​s.

@[email protected] I think you've got an unfortunate typo in this post (assuming you like them? 😅) ​

@[email protected] @[email protected] just the level of trust and attention to detail you like to see in people offering checks notes assurance services!​

Hello people who enjoy #writing! I've had some interest in a 5 week online course for adult non-coders to try their hand at #interactivefiction - i.e. stories that include branching narrative based on the readers' choices. The course would cover some of the mechanics, but also advice on structuring interactive plots with managable complexity, looking at emotional hooks that work better or worse when readers have active agency, using interactive fiction tools to capture options to show editors and beta-readers in non-interactive works, and some examples of expanding existing writing into an interactive experience.

If you like this idea, I'm putting together a mailing list of potential course members who are keen enough they'd like to have a voice in the scheduling of the course. Send me your email via DM or email me at [email protected] and I'll let you know when there are updates on the course and nothing else; this is not a general purpose "get spammed by Michael" email list. Costs will likely run at around 55 GBP per person.

On a totally related note, if you're looking to get into coding or fine tune your skills I'm currently able to take on a few more people/small groups teaching web programming (frontend and backend), basic game development with #godot, or narrative game creation for non-coders. I've got enough experience with the UK school system I can also help you present evidence to the local authority for home educators.

I've started doing some mentoring with general coding skills as well as the online VisualInk courses, so to avoid any privacy concerns (waves at current world situation) we now have a private code server where mentees can share their code (using #forgejo).

Given I now have the server, it also makes sense to start moving the rest of my open source code there. The first public repository? VisualInk itself: code.mavnn.eu/mavnn/VisualInk

Not sure how to tag this footbridge in Chipping Norton NSW in OpenStreetMap.
surface=none
open_pit=yes
pedestrian=if_you_dare

@[email protected] I'd be more worried by them specifying natural potatoes. Unnatural potato​ crisps sound like something from, well, a @[email protected] novel.

Danger kitty has a question

@[email protected] @[email protected] does "reminding myself sternly not to build a project management tool every ten minutes" count? I'm not even completely joking.

More helpfully, org mode in emacs hits the best balance point so far for personal projects, but it is still very hit and miss how successfully I use it​