Generational differences in our Space Age

First All Women Spacewalk At The ISS

NASA streamed a milestone in Human spaceflight yesterday: an all women spacewalk at the International Space Station. Although it wasn’t exactly a thrilling ride (I’m pretty sure that when it comes to working in Earth orbit, “thrilling” isn’t what you want), it was still momentous in that both astronauts doing the spacewalk were women.

iss061e006501 (Oct. 15, 2019) --- NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (left) and Christina Koch are inside the Quest airlock preparing the U.S. spacesuits and tools they will use on their first spacewalk together. The Expedition 61 flight engineers are holding the pistol grip tools they will use to swap out a failed power controller, also known as a battery charge-discharge unit, that regulates the charge to batteries that collect and distribute power to the International Space Station.
Upcoming spacewalking duo Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, courtesy of NASA on Flickr

Generational gap

Watching the stream on TV left me with the sense that how we and our kids view these events is very much a generational thing:

Parents who grew up with rare televised Space stuff: “Hey kids, check out these astronauts working in space, right now! Wow! And this time they’re all women, wow!”

Kids who grew up with on demand streams of constant Space stuff: “Oh, ok … 🙄” <back to their gaming device>

Parents: 😲

About the spacewalk

If you’re interested in the mission (and likely older than 20-something), take a look at the NASA blog post about the mission:

Two NASA astronauts switched their spacesuits to battery power this morning at 7:38 a.m. EDT. Expedition 61 Flight Engineers Christina Koch and Jessica Meir are venturing out into the vacuum of space to replace a failed power controller, also known as a battery charge-discharge unit (BCDU). The BCDU regulates the charge to the batteries that collect and distribute solar power to the orbiting lab’s systems.

Female Duo Ventures Outside Station for Historic Spacewalk – Space Station

The video stream ran to almost eight hours, but it’s definitely watching, at least in part (this is the sort of video you may just have on in the background):

A CSS Grid refresher with Mozilla

I really like CSS Grid for layouts. My challenge is that I tend not to use it all that much in my day-to-day work (I provide a fair amount of CSS support, but it tends to be focused on narrower issues), so I don’t practice it all that much. Then, when I return to CSS Grid, I don’t remember any of the syntax beyond display: grid; 😜

Fortunately there are loads of resources online to learn CSS Grid. The latest is a video by Miriam Suzanne on the Mozilla Developer channel, titled “Build a Classic Layout FAST in CSS Grid” –

My favourite CSS Grid resources also include the MDN guide “CSS Grid Layout – CSS: Cascading Style Sheets“, and Wes Bos’ terrific CSS Grid YouTube series:

Mumford & Sons album Delta is awesome

I only just noticed that Mumford & Sons have a new(ish) album, Delta. I’m listening to it as I work, and it’s really good! I’ve basically had “If I say” on repeat for the last 15 minutes:

You can listen to the whole album on Spotify, and wherever else fine albums may be streamed or purchased.

Sunrise photowalk along the new Modiin city center boulevard

Exploring our new city center

Years under construction

I’ve been watching the site slowly take shape over the last four years. I captured the development’s progress on and off in my photographs, many of which are on Flickr 👉

Taking shape

My favourite feature of this boulevard is the center section that runs from the top opposite the municipality, and extends all the way to the bottom where it intersects with another road. It’s a really comfortable space to walk along, and there are water features, seating, and smaller buildings for coffee shops, restaurants, and bars.

Even though the center section seems mostly complete, the buildings on either side are still very much under construction, and it will probably still be some time before those are completed, and occupied.

Although the boulevard seems to be open to pedestrians, it’s still closed to cars (although that didn’t stop a few people from taking a drive through this morning).

Closed for cars

I like this sort of space in a city. It feels more open, comfortable, and I’m looking forward to seeing which stores open there. Mostly, I’m hopeful that we’ll have a few places open on Saturdays when stores are generally closed here in Israel.

I have a few more photos in my Flickr album, here:

Click to see my full album on Flickr.
Click on the collage to see my full album on Flickr

Vicarious adventures with GoPro

Vicarious adventures with GoPro

One of my new favourite YouTube channels is the GoPro channel. It’s an awesome channel for vicarious adventures, and some great music I wasn’t aware of. One of my favourite videos is this promo of the GoPro HERO6:

The track in this video is A Moment Apart by Odesza, and it’s my morning work anthem today:

unsplash-logoCover image by Chris Osmond

A curious sequence of events with Google and its YouTube recommendations

Well spotted there, Google! 🔭

I noticed a curious sequence of events this morning. I responded to a tweet about Donald Trump’s latest tweet where he referred to his “great and unmatched wisdom” using the Twitter app on my Android phone –

I then turned to our Android TV box where we were watching YouTube videos in the YouTube app, and I saw a recommendation for this Late Late Show video about Trump’s tweets:

That’s some pretty snappy algorithmic matching there, Google! 🤔

unsplash-logoCover image by Scott Webb

Sitting with difficult emotions

I noticed this quote on Tumblr. I’ve noticed on the few occasions I’m able to just sit with difficult emotions in a meditation, they tend not to be as monolithic as they otherwise seemed beforehand.

https://zenwords.tumblr.com/post/188147050745/being-with-the-body-and-sitting-with-what-arises

On a related note, it’s been a while since I read anything by Jack Kornfield. I really enjoyed his book “A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life” when I read it in 2006 during our honeymoon in the Drakensberg mountains.

In fact, I read the book here:

IMGP1843.JPG

In person kudos at the Automattic Grand Meetup

Appreciating our colleagues

We have an amazing culture at Automattic that includes giving each other kudos as one form of recognition for great work, whether that’s delivering happiness to a customer, or to each other.

Typically we use a Slack bot to share kudos, and that’s posted to an internal WordPress site dedicated to showcasing internal kudos.

At the Grand Meetup (which we attended in mid-September – I’ll probably share more from that soon), we also have the option of giving handwritten kudos to each other. I like the ease of giving digital kudos, and at the same time I really like being able to write a note to my colleagues to express my appreciation for their efforts.

Automattic kudos card
Kudos IRL

This year I was fortunate to receive a few cards from my colleagues, and really appreciate each of them.

I decided against sharing details of all of the cards I received as the messages can be pretty personal. At the same time, I’m grateful for each card.

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