The Good

• 10k a day steps challenge – I have managed this every day again. That-is-11-months. Almost an entire freaking year. If I get to Christmas eve I will have actually done something I said I would do. Which in this whole crazy wreck of a year is something to be celebrated.
• 150 active minutes a week challenge – I hurt my thigh as I started running again at the end of October. I needed to rest that up for a week or so. But I banged into November with bad news (see “The Bad”) regarding my health. After the thigh issue cleared up I had an excellent run of it (pun gleefully intended). Most weekday mornings I would be out jogging before work and I got both fitter, and thinner as a result. I ordered an exercise bike which was said to be “next day delivery” that I have not seen any more about. I ordered before England locked back down so I was expecting to get a bike :(. Update: It eventually arrived 3 weeks later, but I haven’t had time to build it.
• Eating well challenge – (see the rabbit food ^^^) I don’t think I really ate too badly before but lockdown definitely accelerated the amount of crap I was eating. After the bad news (see “The Bad”) I went back to tracking calories. The act of having to scan barcodes and weigh spinach is so damn annoying that I definitely eat less as a result. The first bit of weight loss for me always goes really well. So into the baggy clothes and feeling good part of the process. Back to sorta where I was pre-lockdown when I started this series of posts. It is paying off.
• Audiobooks – I moved back to feeding my brain with Sapiens. It started by reminding me about the Naked Ape which I read a good 20 years ago. I am intrigued by the speculation around what happened 70k years ago when suddenly one of several species of tool using humans came to dominance. The theory is that there was a cognitive revolution after which one species was capable of more complex language allowing both gossip and shared fantasies like religions. This allowed evolution through co-operation instead of time consuming genetics. The most fascinating point was that this is why we have anxiety about various things that logically do not make sense. Genetically speaking we are not apex predators but it turns out we are purely because of cognitive abilities. We get anxiety about things that would kill us on the plains of Africa. We have obesity because sweet things are great for survival (high calorie content) but rare in nature. If a chimp finds a ripe fig tree they immediately gorge the whole supply. Exactly how we cannot stop ourselves with a box of chocolates. Looking forward to where it is going.
• Testing – I have done several testing projects this month. I learned lots of things. I found lots of things. This is always brilliant.
• PS5 – There was a whole awful Saga where I can rant about how crap the vendor I ordered from were. But it eventually arrived the day after launch more because of luck that I had a postal redirect setup than the effort of the vendor. It remained in its box until the 29th and then it was an expensive massive brick while it downloaded update upon update upon update. I haven’t really played it. The Spiderman game seems good.

The Bad

• I was tentatively diagnosed with a liver disease – This was found as a result of blood tests I had ordered due to me feeling extra shitty after moving house for weeks. The results said I had fatty liver meaning that I need to now actively lose weight and eat right for a real reason. We do not know the extent of the problem until I get an ultrasound and other tests done. But the chances are this is extremely early stage and if I lose weight the problem will reverse. That’s the hope. So I have thrown myself into that.

Highlights of the month

Football – Scotland Qualified for Euro 2020 through a delightful playoff win against Serbia. I honestly was calm throughout. I had no doubt we were going to do it and didn’t even waver when Serbia scored in the last minute. I just felt it was going to happen.

To be clear I have supported Scotland for a long time now and I have never once felt like that before. I have been hopeful, but always sort of knew it would implode. Because we had done the penalties so well in the previous game I just expected us to do it again when we had to play extra time.

InfoSec Community – The lovely people over at Ladies of London Hacking Society asked me to do a workshop on CVE bug hunting. Despite me being an absolute fraud with only one CVE to my name I took that on. It seemed like everyone had a good time – me included. It was recorded here. I am starting at 31 minutes and 05 seconds if you just want to see my face:

That’s all folks.