King's Cross and back again
November 25, 2025
Hello! It's been a while since the last newsletter, and I'm delighted to be back in your inbox. Life has settled down a bit, and I'm ready to share what's been going on.
-[ Contrafibularities ]-
Back in the saddle
After a year-long newsletter break that was both necessary and challenging, I'm pleased to report that things are looking up. I also recently secured a new job doing Developer Relations at Tessl, a UK-based start-up building developer tools.
I'm in the Tessl office, near King's Cross station, three days a week, along with pretty much everyone else in the company. Every day that I'm in London, it's an 80-mile round-trip, which, I know, sounds mad. But I do love driving in the centre of town, even if it's still dark at 05:30 AM when I leave home. On the other two days, I either work from home or at a nearby co-working space.
This job change has been quite a turning point for me. I haven't been this excited by work since I started at Canonical, working on Ubuntu, back in 2011. Working in an office with other humans is something I miss from before [The Event], and really helps me bounce out of bed each day.
Last week, I helped run our first in-person "AI Native DevCon" event at Industry City in Brooklyn, NYC, USA. We're now planning the next one, likely in London.
Do you know of any cool venues we should look at?
With all that said, I won't talk much about work here in the newsletter, other than the odd highlight, or proud achievements that are personal to me.
-[ Create ]-
Newsletter workflow automation
I've finally tackled the insane manual workflow I've been using to produce this newsletter. No more copying to random websites and doing search-and-replace gymnastics. I built a proper automation script that takes clean markdown and spits out perfectly formatted HTML for listmonk.
The whole thing is now much more sustainable, which hopefully means more consistent newsletters going forward. Sometimes the best creative work is making the boring stuff less tedious.
Linux Matters
If I time this right, episode 69 (nice!) of Linux Matters will be making its way to your earholes. This marks the start of a new era for Martin, Mark, and me, as we are no longer part of the Late Night Linux Family. You can still support our friends on the LNL Patreon, of course, but that revenue will no longer be used for Linux Matters production.
Nerdy Day Trips
Since we last caught up here, I created a site called Nerdy Day Trips, a reboot of a long-abandoned site of the same name. It's a database of places to go around the world and accepts submissions via the Add Venue Form. I'm no web designer or architect, so the UI and infra are utilitarian and brutal. Sorry about that.
There's a bunch of open issues - includinghelp-wanted and pull requests - including new venue submissions.
I'd love to get some time to work on those, between all the other stuff that makes my brain fizz. Speaking of which...
Live Streaming
Once in a while, I'll launch OBS and start streaming to various places where viewers may chat about whatever I'm noodling with.
Most recently I played with Martin's Nøughty Linux, a somewhat "{pre-pre-pre}-pre-alpha" Ubuntu/NixPkgs Chimera of a ~~~distro~~~ "unconventional Linux desktop experience".
I've also spent a bit of time streaming while maintaining my published snap packages and other open source projects. More of that as and when I get time between my other responsibilities.
-[ Consume ]-
New Music for Everyone
Last year I blogged about Virtual Zane Lowe, a python script that manages three Spotify playlists, main, keepers, and sleepers. The goal is to present new music to me, so I get out of the rut of listening to the same things all the time.
I originally intended to run it for a month, but it's been running on and off for over a year now. I don't consume the playlist a whole lot, but when I do, there's always something there I like and haven't heard before. So that's a win.
For a long while, I've considered making this available for others, and now that process has begun.
More news on this, as it happens.
Reading/Listening/Watching recommendations
-[ Comment ]-
The aesthetic question
I have been pondering whether to modernize this newsletter's look. The monospace, minimal colour approach is deliberately retro and not particularly fashionable. But you know what? I'm going to keep it.
It's distinctive, it's readable, and it's me. If you've made it this far, you're okay with it, too. Sometimes being different is more valuable than being on-trend.
What's next
I'm planning to keep this newsletter going weekly or fortnightly. No more multi-month gaps. The automation should make that realistic, and I've got a backlog of things to write about.
If there are topics you'd like me to cover or questions you'd like answered, drop me a line. This is meant to be a conversation, not a lecture.
-[ Collateral ]-
A link or two
Thanks for reading. Good to be back!
-- popey
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© Copyright 2025 Alan Pope. All rights reserved
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