Nathan Grey

London - Semptember 2023

We made it to London after a very long flight and went straight into the city from Gatwick Airport. The flight was over night so as soon as we landed, we got to jump right into the London commuting transit experience. I was surprised to see how complete the entire train system was. Trains came every 5 or so minutes, and they even had full tables to sit down and work while heading into the city.

After getting into the city, we rode the iconic double decker buses. Everything, went smoothly and got checked in to our hotel well before the time.

Our first stop of the day after checking in was getting a large English breakfast. It was our first time trying beans with breakfast, and to be honest, was not a huge fan. Everything was still so tasty, and felt a little more alive after the long flight. We went to Sheila’s Cafe, and really couldn’t recommend it enough. It is a small, personal diner with great food and personality.

Before we crashed from exhaustion, we got to see a small change of guards in Westminster. It was hot, and the show went on for a while. At the end of it, we saw the transition, and had to head back to the hotel for a nap.

After sleeping, we found a a lot of attractions and took a tour bus around London to speed run the sites. We definitely can recommend the Hop-on Hop-off buses to give a quick and detailed tour of a city.

We had some Lebanese food in SoHo that was incredible. We soon found out the food was just a lot more natural and satisfying. Regular restaurants just had the quality of high end restaurants in the United States. After visiting other countries after the UK, the trend definitely kept.

Our main spot was the London Eye. It was amazing seeing everything in the city and a glass of champagne didn’t hurt.

To end the day in London, we hopped on the bus and finished up the driving tour of the city. It was an incredible stop before Greece, and we will definitely be back soon.

The last morning before flying off, we were able to make it just in time for the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We had to bring all of our bags, but since we just stuffed backpacks, it was more than manageable.

→ 4:17 PM, Sep 11

One Bag Packing
For this trip, we wanted to be able to only take one backpack for the 3 weeks away. For my bag, I was able to fit a lot more than expected using some packing cubes. The goal is to use the day pack for walking around and just lugging the big bag for traveling.

Contents, roughly from the top to bottom
- Hat
- Beach towel
- Day backpack
- 5 t-shirts
- Underwear
- Socks
- Toiletry bag
- Tank tops
- Shoe socks, basically water shoes
- Power adapter
- Shorts
- Sleeping mask
- Ear plugs
- Laptop in the back pocket
Everything packed up! Travel pillow attached on the side and water bottle in the pocket.
→ 8:48 AM, Sep 5

Europe Trip
We’re going to Europe! We are planning on posting all things about this trip here. Follow along with us under the #Travel category.
- UK (2 Days)
- Greece (8 Days)
- Italy (7 Days)
- France (3 Days)
→ 5:00 PM, Aug 30

Verifying GitHub Profile with Mastodon
When signing up on Mastodon, I wanted to include a verified link to my GitHub. GitHub allows for adding HTML to your profile repository, but this does not come through as a verified link. I came across a great blog post by Simon Willison giving a detailed look at setting up a quick GitHub Pages redirect.

The concept is make a new repo, GITHUB_USERNAME.github.io, then add a page called index.html. My redirect snippet can be viewed in my GitHub Repository. At the time of writing, my index.html is as follows:
```
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title>Redirecting to github.com/overtfuture</title>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=https://github.com/overtfuture">
    <link href="https://github.com/overtfuture" rel="me">
    <link href="https://nathangrey.dev" rel="me">
    <link href="https://studioember.com" rel="me">
    <link href="https://mastodon.social/@ngrey" rel="me">
  </head>
  <body style="margin: 0; padding: 0">
    Auto redirect to GitHub
    <a href="https://github.com/overtfuture">
      github.com/overtfuture
    </a>
  </body>
</html>
```
This makes a bare minimum site that includes a simple page that will redirect via browser to a GitHub profile and allow for verification on Mastodon.
→ 5:05 PM, May 10

Let’s Take this Offline
A phrase that is said many times in meetings and rarely means without internet.

Offline Is Just Online With Extreme Latency - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Instead, you can think of online/offline as part of the same continuum just different measurements of latency. There are gradations of latency when you’re “online”, and “offline” is merely at the slowest end of that spectrum. For example:

Wifi: < 300ms latency
- 3G: 1s latency
- Offline: 30 seconds to days of latency (until you sync back online)
I think this is a perfect summary of how to design software in a hopeful pessimistic view that the internet does go down. There shouldn’t be a point where applications that are locally installed, just cannot show cached / downloaded files. I encountered this with Notion and quickly switched away from it after realizing it was strictly online only for practical use.

How To Use Notion Offline - First result when searching for Notion offline mode

Technically, Notion can work offline, but it doesn’t offer a great user experience. In fact, your possibilities would be so limited that it’s easier to simply wait to regain your internet connection.

The article summarizes Notion as functional offline for your last open page. Surprisingly, look and test these features, because workflows can be unknowingly interrupted at the worst times like traveling.
→ 12:33 AM, Apr 21

Welcome to my site, I’ll be posting and cross posting to my Mastodon profile here. Cheers 🍻

→ 12:05 PM, Apr 15