Weeknote 159

Design ethics, W3C meetup, website upgrade

• I spent a good chunk of last week in the office thanks to a design ethics workshop led by Cennydd Bowles. It was nice to have something like this scheduled within office hours, and it’s left me with plenty to reflect on, both in how we design more ethically and how we champion that approach with others.
• Mid‑week I spotted that there was a W3C TAG meetup happening in King’s Cross. I don’t think there’s been one for nearly a decade, so I went along and ended up seeing lots of familiar faces, some I hadn’t crossed paths with since the last event. There was plenty to learn in the world of web standards, and I also had some great conversations with new folks working in accessibility and cross‑government spaces.
• After putting it off for far too long, I finally tackled the equivalent of an OS upgrade for my website cautiously. I’m still on a hosting setup where I have to maintain all the underlying plumbing myself. To my surprise, everything went smoothly and the update was done within an hour, with minimal code‑tinkering and nothing breaking.
• We took Bagheera back to her home in north London over the weekend. She seemed to enjoy the almost 2-hour taxi ride through central London's busy traffic and stayed calm throughout. She was, however, unimpressed to discover that three other cats in the neighbourhood had visited her home while she was away. Once she realised, she made her feelings very clear with much hissing and growling when the other cats arrived looking for food and hangout in the kitchen.