Heads down in marking at the moment but also managing a few side quests. Last night tried out a virtual whiskey tasting with Raasay Distillery. A lovely set of fresh Chinkapin oak, ex-Bordeaux red wine and ex Rye whiskey casks, unpeated and peated.

Ellen and Holly did a great job of talking us through each of the drams. Was a little weird doing this over the internet but was fun and I can imagine it would be great doing it with a few friends in the same room. Chinkapin was my favourite and could really taste the red wine influence in the Bordeaux cask. Still, a bit weird sitting at your desk trying these out but definitely recommended.

In prep for my framebuilding 101 course I booked in a Bike Fit with Kate Corden at Hackney Bike Fit. An excellent few hours working out the right position for me. One suprise was the difference the 165mm cranks was making to my hip comfort - I went back to testing 172.5 (which is on my other bike) and realised it was way less comfortable. So measurements prepped and I think I am going to go for flat bars with SQ Labs inner barends on the Stayer.

Have also been continuing running the solar panel tests. Now have on 50W in the back garden with a UNO Q and one in the Garden Lab at work with 100W running a RPI5. Have finally got them both running consitently.

My current experimenting with 12V LiFePO4 batteries meant the first UCL East PhD Futures event was interesting. A series of talks on Lithium based products and the implications for product lifecycles and recovery. Interesting talk from local company Recycleye would be good to go and visit their facility.

Looking at links.duncanwilson.com, these parts of the internet crossed my path this week:

• Matt has created a nice library for ESP32 prototyping
• the PVPI’s arrived so time to open the GitHub repo
• an interesting hackers guide to internet shutdowns from EFF
• a maps of bike thefts from Litelock - I like the open spirit behind this.