Denis Defreyne

Weeknotes 2026 W36: Mounting anxiety

August 31​–​September 6, 2026

Quick bits

  • Because windows open outwards in the UK, you cannot really keep them open during the rain, lest they get wet. I learned this the hard way. I miss German-style windows, I think.

  • I started preparing a talk on the “goal” pattern, which I’m planning to give at LRUG later this year. I’ve not given a talk in a long time, so it’ll be nice to get back into it.

  • My Dell U3423WE display started flickering, but it seems like it was nothing more than a bad connection. Whew — I thought the display itself got damaged. But it’s all good!

Drama school

I have applied to a part-time drama school for an accredited full-year course. I’ve got an audition for it coming up in a few days.

Anxiety is mounting. Perhaps I am, as usual, far more anxious about this than I need to be. I still need to put in all the effort to prepare, mind you, but that’s mostly just memorising a page of dialogue. My prior experience with preparation should be sufficient to guide me.

Some amount of anxiety is helpful, I find. It has done so in the past: I was worried about my English-language test and I ended up getting literally the maximum score. Maybe I’ll do just fine for the upcoming audition? En tout cas, restez branchés.1

But one thing is not clear to me: this is just a foundation-level course, so what is the value of the auditioning process for the teachers and organisers of this course? The bar really can’t be that high, so is it just to weed out people who wouldn’t be a good fit? Like an entrance exam at university. Filter out the people who don’t show commitment, perhaps? Filter out people who aren’t open for learning and taking feedback? If so, then I think I shouldn’t have too much of a problem.

There’s still the question of why I want an accreditation in the first place. The accreditation isn’t what is the most important; what I’m looking for is to have a high-quality course that runs over a longer time period. A course being accredited implies (hopefully) that it is of high quality. And of course, an accreditation helps on a CV if I ever wanted to make use of that.

Goodbye, 1Password

The company behind 1Password donated $300,000 to white supremacist DHH,2 and that was the last straw. I have now cancelled my 1Password subscription. It hurts, because 1Password is good software. But a donation to someone (DHH) who compares Romani people to wolves that need to be shot is beyond the pale.3 The thought of having funded Nazi ideology makes me sick.

I’ve migrated all my passwords to Kee­Pass­XC. It works well, even if the UI is a bit of an acquired taste. I’ve set it up to synchronise over WebDAV and Tailscale so I can use it on my phone, too.

Relocation update

It is crystal clear to me by now that my current place is not sustainable: the noise of trains at night has prevented me for months from getting a solid night of sleep, and I am still sleeping on a bare mattress on the floor.

My search for a new place has not yielded any result yet. I’ve done plenty of viewings, but none of them clicked for me. I’m going with an “I know it when I see it” approach: if I don’t feel good about a place, I’m not going to say yes.

That said, I’ve added a few things to my list of requirements:

  • It needs to be in a good location. It needs to be well-connected, of course — that is not new. But it also needs to be in a clean area: not one where rubbish is visibly piling up. The area also needs to be calm — certainly not facing a four-lane road, and certainly not right next to a train line!4

  • It needs to have a clear and nice entrance. This might be oddly specific, but I’ve seen many uninviting front doors. It made me wonder whether I was at the right address! I’ve seen nondescript doors that look like an office’s side entrance, doors you can only reach after crossing a car park, and ugly steel gates covered in barbed wire reminiscent of the back entrance of a prison. I’d like the entrance to my home to (at the very least!) not be actively repulsive, thankyouverymuch.

I’ve now fully shifted my focus to only unfurnished places. But even when setting the filter on Zoopla and Rightmove to show only unfurnished places, some furnished ones will still show up. I’ve had property agents push me towards rentals, too, and some of them have even suggested that I sell my furniture. Ugh. I want high-quality furniture that reflects my tastes. I’m really not going to rent furniture, and I’m growing stronger in that conviction day by day.

I’m also beginning to figure out which real-estate agencies are worth it. Too many try too hard to sell shitty places. Some are hostile, too: after a one-minute viewing, one letting agent said “you’re still here” in a condescending tone as she failed to coax me out of the flat.

I don’t know whether my priority is to find a good-enough place (better than what I have right now), or a place I can love.

Nanoc site migration

I moved the Nanoc web site to nanoc.denisdefreyne.com. Nanoc is a personal project, and so it belongs under my personal brand.5

At the same time, I’ve moved away from Netlify onto Uberspace, and I’m happy with that change: builds and deploys are so much faster, and I retain a Git history of the compiled web site, too.

The automated search is no longer working, but I’ve been planning to replace that anyway. It’s using Algolia’s DocSearch at the moment.6 I’d like to replace it with something I can fully host myself, which should be easier now that I’m no longer using Netlify.

Tech links:

  1. Translated from French: “In any case, stay tuned.” I’ve been listening to French podcasts often enough that French figures of speech are popping up unannounced in my brain. More evidence that my week­notes really are a brain dump with rather limited amounts of editing! ↩︎

  2. David Heinemeier Hansson, “1Password and 37signals become Distinguished Corporate Patrons,” Omarchy News, August 31, 2026, accessed September 6, 2026. ↩︎

  3. David Heinemeier Hansson, “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies,” July 21, 2026, accessed September 6, 2026. ↩︎

  4. Or an airport. There are a surprising number of properties for rent in or near flight paths. Yeah no thanks. ↩︎

  5. “Personal brand”?! What am I, an influencer? ↩︎

  6. I must’ve been one of the first users of DocSearch. I got signed up before it was publicly available, even before there was any GUI for it. ↩︎

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