weeknotes for w/c 21/04/25

falling behind on things I should've done this weekend due to a shit night out on Friday eating into my Saturday doing-time, so this update will be a little more scattered and a lot less polished than usual (although still packed with my musings from this week!)

• I've realised writing takes quite a bit of concerted effort. I wanted to slap this update together in seven minutes, and it's taken thirty. however, I enjoy the ritual of writing my little updates and shall continue to do so as long as people read them
• AWS Summit London next week! absolutely dreading the noise, lights and crowds.
• learnt you can apply to be in the audience of television shows! applied to join the studio audience for a BBC classical music performance in London, but I didn't get it. I'll keep looking, though, as might be a good opportunity to travel to new places and get a free show!
• I've come to appreciate playing music at the very lowest volumes on my Sonos speaker setup. loud enough to be ambient and pleasant, but not loud enough to be overwhelming. I like it.
• been meaning to see A Minecraft Movie, but I've been ridiculously busy. I can't remember the last film I saw in a cinema, to be honest. I think I'll make time this week to watch it.
• sent out the emails for the next codebar workshop at Sedna! our contact is out of office, so I'm a little worried about whether it'll go well. if you're reading this, sign up and I hope to see you there!
• twil (this week I learnt) you can underpromote pawns in chess, although the move is incredibly rare
• also learnt about ordering of attributes in HTML, which was quite fascinating stuff. this RSS reader is coming in mighty handy!
• successfully presented an Innovate UK demo on Wednesday, which we seemed to have passed with flying marks!
• was supposed to meet with Hugh on Wednesday afternoon, but I felt horridly rundown after hours of meetings
• got drafted in on Wednesday evening to do cooking for Ration Club, but Ed had taken over by the time I got there. still glad I went despite the trek, as I met a bunch of cool people
  • met Jess who runs JessCamp, a summer getaway to bring together people that part of Twitter. it seems like it's like Jonestown, but everyone comes out more alive rather than less alive. I'd love to go but I'm stretched six ways to Sunday this year, so maybe next!
• joined the OpenInfra Summit Student Engagement Committee. it seems chill and low effort, and it'll let me be creative when speaking to students and telling them about how important open infrastructure is!
• turns out I have listened to quite a bit of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, but in disparate chunks! sitting down and listening to it, it's quite a good album and one for the no-skipper society playlist.
• What Was That by Lorde is such a good song, although I'm not particularly a fan of the music video. her music always manages to feel contemporary and nostalgic at the same time, and it's got the dark yet danceable synth-pop vibes of Pure Heroine (more specifically Bravado and Million Dollar Bills). it's apparently part of a new album, which I'm incredibly excited for!
• making my way through two house, after an introduction by Felix. now 2 is a good track.
• introduced the concept of proposals at work for large-scale infrastructure proposals. going to have my first proposal reviewed next Monday for a change we've been planning for a while to give the system a test drive.
  • also been toying around with the idea of moving to a modular monolith at work, specifically Polylith. the structure feels particularly elegant, although I'm not 100% sure of the trade-offs we'd make if adopting it. possibly the learning curve?
• finished Split Fiction on Thursday night with Krystal. the visuals are stunning, the combat feels snappy and dynamic and I really appreciate the crossplay. it's a joyous and heartfelt ode to video gaming, and I'd recommend everyone plays it. best thing is you only need one copy for two people to play (although bear in mind the person who owns the game gets the achievements!)
  • signed into my Microsoft account for the first time in a long time to retrieve some gameplay screenshots I took on Xbox. the sign in experience is, surprisingly, no longer shit.
  • however, my praise for Microsoft ends right there. for some reason, you can't access gameplay screenshots online. I'm on macOS, so I had to resort to manually copy-pasting sixteen screenshots from the Xbox app for iOS and then pasting them into Discord on my Mac. lovely!
• for those of you who remember, I lost my glasses back in November. I got an email from TfL's Lost Property Office that they found them, and I picked them up on Friday from their office in West Ham! it was a bit of a pain to get to, but I got there just before they closed!
  • paid a fiver to be reunited, which was less than I expected. apparently recovering a bicycle costs less than recovering an iPad.
  • funnily enough, it took them five months to reunite me with my glasses even though they only keep items for three months
  • the lovely lady I spoke to at the desk told me it was useful I remembered the brand and colour of my glasses
• after picking up my glasses, spent Friday afternoon working and riding around on the DLR. the old trains are very comforting, but I'm glad they're getting new stock (hopefully) later this year. I sadly missed KARG, though!
  • anyone who told you the transfer between the Elizabeth line and the DLR at Canary Wharf was easy is a filthy, filthy liar. West India Quay DLR is closer to Canary Wharf Elizabeth line (150m) than Canary Wharf DLR (250m)! Cabot Place, which you need to navigate through to change at Canary Wharf, is a maze with terrible signage. I hate it.
• planned to go out to karaoke on Friday night. invited other people, but turned out to be a generally miserable experience. I'm frustrated how the wrong people can ruin a perfectly good time out.
  • felt emotionally exhausted on Saturday, so laid in bed all day. it ate into some of the only free time I have to do stuff, so I'm deeply irritated at that
  • had a friend come over and keep me company on Saturday night, and we rewatched S7E1 of Black Mirror so I felt a little better. the mention of ADIs makes me want to settle down and rewatch Hated in the Nation this evening.
  • went for a meadow frolick on Sunday, and enjoyed the sun! glad the weather's improved, honestly
• cleaned some residue off my backpack with warm soapy water. glad it's all clean. :)
• discovered my Tailscale keys expired on a bunch of my servers, affecting networking in new, strange and unusual ways. I thoroughly enjoyed the remediation work on Saturday (sarcasm). thanks to Hugh for dropping in on such short notice on a Saturday to help me out.