Happy February! I’m not quite sure where January went, which is why this newsletter is even later than usual.

My month was dominated my house, which I’m trying to sell. On the one hand, it’s a lot of paperwork and planning; on the other hand, it’s remarkable how easy it is to decide you want to sell your house. I keep expecting a grown-up to come along and check I really want to do this, or point out a mistake in one of the forms I’ve written. Many of my possessions are now packed into boxes and cupboards, to make the house look appealing for potential buyers.

Between house stuff, I’ve been on several adventures in London to explore some new places – and I was excited to tick off a couple of new-to-me stations.

Here are two photos from my days out:

Both of these photos were taken in South London, which might give you a clue about where I’m looking.

What have I been writing?

All the house paperwork got me thinking about my digital security, and I wrote two articles about my personal security posture: Where I store my multi-factor recovery codes and The passwords I actually memorise.

I’ve been working on some backend changes to my website, especially around how I define topics and help you find similar posts. I wrote about this in Swapping gems for tiles. The other blog change is smaller but still fun, and touches on some colour science: Using perceptual distance to create better headers.

Finally, I've been having some fun with CSS Grid – first in The Good, the Bad, and the Gutters, then in Parody posters for made-up movies.

And four "notes" (which are going to replace "today I learned" to encompass short bits of info, some of which I already knew):

• The caret anchor (^) matches differently in Python and Ruby
• Quick-and-dirty print debugging in Go
• Python f-strings cheat sheet
• Who is Bufo the frog?

What’s made me smile this month?

Aside from new train stations?

🍎 I’ve had Lilith by Nikki Marmery on my shelf for ages, and finally read it in January. It’s a modern retelling of a myth I know almost nothing about, and I enjoyed learning more.

✍️ Will Richardson’s article Add a Signature to Your Website is a fun use of SVGs, and something I’m tempted to copy for my site.

🧚 Chris Spargo’s video about the “Peter Pan clause” in British copyright law is a lovely bit of history, and a nice change to some of the thornier aspects I dealt with when I worked in museums.

I hope you all have a lovely January, and that February is the same. I’ll email again soon!

Best,

~ Alex (they/she)