brainsteam.co.uk/brainsteam/content/posts/2023/10/29/weeknote-cw43-20231698573691.md

---
date: '2023-10-29T10:01:31.694257'
post_meta:
- date
tags:
- personal
- weeknote
title: Weeknote CW43 2023
type: posts
url: /posts/2023/10/29/weeknote-cw43-20231698573691
images:
 - http://brainsteam.co.uk/media/2023/10/29/1698571919_.jpg
thumbnail: http://brainsteam.co.uk/media/2023/10/29/1698571919_.jpg
---



 <figure>
  <img src="http://brainsteam.co.uk/media/2023/10/29/1698571919_.jpg" width="400" alt="the view of a stage from a theatre auditorium. Two people are stood on the stage under blue lighting with smoke effect" />
  <figcaption>We had a great time at Peter Pan goes wrong - lots of silly slapstick</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
  <li>This week the weather has taken a turn for the worst across the UK.</li>
  <li>
    Work has been relatively quiet and I managed to avoid going up to London all week. I did get the chance to spend some f2f time with my CEO on Thursday and do some whiteboarding about our product strategy for the next few months which was cool. I also finished a tech due dilligence project that I've been running on another software startup which is always really interesting and insightful. I love to see what other (non-competing) businesses are doing, process-wise, and see if I can learn anything.
    <br />
  </li>
  <li>On Tuesday Mrs R and I went to see Peter Pan goes Wrong at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. We really enjoyed the show, there was lots of silly slapstick comedy.</li>
  <li>
    I started spending a bit more time looking at substack because <a href="https://newsletter.thoughtshrapnel.com/">Doug</a> and <a href="https://freshlybrewed.substack.com/">Laura</a> started posting more over there, there are some other interesting things going on over there too. Amongst others, I've been following <a href="https://garymarcus.substack.com/">Gary Marcus </a>who is a fellow AI specialist that is pretty scathing about the current hype, <a href="https://wheresyoured.at/">Ed Zitron</a> who has some spicy takes on silicon valley and <a href="https://www.garbageday.email/">Garbage Day</a> which is a bit of a random collection of online "stuff. I've noticed Substack has started to pick up a fair bit of interest and traffic recently despite some <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/14/substack-ceo-chris-best-doesnt-realize-hes-just-become-the-nazi-bar/">big controversies earlier in the year</a>. Also, regardless of political connotations there's still the whole "you don't own your stuff" argument for not publishing there (or at least syndicating there from an independently owned site). I enjoyed <a href="https://elizabethtai.com/2023/10/22/what-i-learned-from-one-year-of-substack/">Elizabeth Tai's</a> recent reflections on the platform.
    <br />
  </li>
  <li>Yesterday I published about <a href="https://brainsteam.co.uk/posts/2023/10/28/a-musical-interlude-last-dinner-party-and-dream-theater1698481925/">some cool happenings in music </a>and updated my <a href="https://jamesravey.me/">professional landing page </a>and my <a href="https://brainsteam.co.uk/now/">now</a> page. I'm forever wanting to fiddle and tweak my website and I'm never quite happy with the layout and the way it's all set up. I'm intrigued by the new Wordpress ActivityPub integrations and forever interested in whether I should be separating my blog outputs based on content type (for example keeping brainsteam "personal" and posting tech/programming stuff somewhere else).</li>
  <li>
    This coming week I'm in London a couple of days and then we have some time off and a mini-break in Bournemouth towards the end of the week.
    <br />
  </li>
</ul>