Bloc Party's Silent Alarm is an album that I revisit about once a year and I'm surprised by how much I love it. The M83 remix of The Pioneers is featured in the final series of Netflix's Dark, and it's so perfectly chosen, I have to go all the way back through the record again.

The Last of Us is so unrealistic. Joel finds scissors everywhere, and I can't even find them in the drawer I put them in. I guess there's not really anyone round to use them and not put them back in The Last of Us.

The Week Before My Birthday

07/03/2020

The week that both went quickly and felt like it would never end.

Shortcuts for GIFs

07/02/2020

I love GIFs. I use them all the time. On my laptop, I have a LaunchBar custom bookmarks index that lists them all so that they're searchable and I can access them easily, but that's more difficult in iOS. I decided to see if I could use iOS' Shortcuts app to give me some sort of search UI for them, and it turns out I can!

We're ending free movement to stop all the bad immigrants and also make it infinitely more difficult to leave this country for any reason but mostly don't forget we're doing this because of immigrants and not because millions of people were tricked into voting for something that wasn't adequately explained to them and now everyone has to suffer.

I hate this country and everyone in it.

Horizon Zero Dawn

06/28/2020

When this game came out, I think it was super close to Breath of the Wild (I could look it up but why would I), so I was completely distracted. I'd been meaning to play it. It looked great, but Zelda just got in the way.

Since we have been isolating, I've been writing my journal frequently. Journals are somewhat incompatible with 2020, in that you don't share. There's no immediate audience. My audience is the romantic notion that someone will find all this after I'm dead, and read it, and just remember I was alive for a moment before tossing those pages in the bin and continuing to search for anything of value I might have owned.

The best thing about writing for people who will read after you're dead is that you can say whatever you want. You can write the most emo nonsense imaginable and people will go "wow so profound" because you're dead. And even if they don't; who cares? You're dead now. And they have to still be alive. Idiots.

My point is: write a journal. Get yourself a nice pen and some nice paper and write what you did today. It won't always be a scintillating tale, but I can confidently assert that you won't regret the time you spend writing it.

(unless a person you write about reads it dear god don't let that happen)

Lightning

06/26/2020

I've always wanted to capture some lightning. Wish I'd got a proper camera set up on a tripod ready to go for this sort of thing but I can't live in such a prepared state so I'll have to settle for a few slow motion video clips. I think they came out cool. iMovie on iOS is hard work though.

Friday

06/20/2020

Not a lot of time for taking photos at the moment, but work is fun so it's not all bad.

We started watching Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and I absolutely love it. It's the perfect intersection of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and Louis Theroux. Anthony Bourdain is a brilliant host and interviewer. I'm so glad there are twelve seasons of this.

Kids profiles on Disney+ are for people who post reviews on Common Sense Media; almost completely devoid of any edge whatsoever.

Sunday

06/14/2020

We went for a walk. Most things are portrait today. That happens sometimes.

Tabitha watching Qi'ra kissing Han in Solo: they do that loads
Charlotte: what, kissing?
Tabitha: yeah
Charlotte: they're in love!
Tabitha: did you and daddy kiss loads when you were in love?
Me: 😒😭

Week

06/13/2020

This week was marginally less crazy at work. Client handover went super well on one thing, and wireframes and planning going well on another.

Context-specific aliases with fish shell

06/12/2020

We're using Docker for everything now, which is great but it's a big ask of some of our frontend devs who aren't as comfortable with a CLI as others. Fortunately, there is a way!

When Barbossa says in Pirates of the Caribbean "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request", "acquiesce" already includes a reluctance component, which makes the use of "disinclined" redundant. He's essentially saying "I am reluctant to reluctantly comply with your request".

A nice walk

06/06/2020

We went for a walk. The good thing about walking when the weather is bad, is not seeing other people

Getting back into guitar

06/06/2020

Not really sure why but after 10+ years off I want to play guitar again. I have never been a good guitarist; that's a lot of effort

I quite like these photo dumps

06/03/2020

I just don't have the time or motivation to try and make some sort of nice photo post with some structure or theme, but I do still take photos I'd like to share.

Sometimes I wonder if people I work with realise how lucky they are to be still getting paid their full salary and actually have a job right now. People acting like they're waiting for money to run out so they can get furloughed and chill a bit whilst everyone else is desperate for that to not happen.

Next