Week Notes 48/2024

· Michael Dingler

Back to work week – well, kinda’, as my company is still looking for a project. So it’s been mildly relaxed. Internal projects a bit, with the most stressful part being the upcoming DevOps training…

I was about to write a paragraph on how hard it’s being a Senior Engineer who doesn’t care about a lot of the current technical hype, but there are so many bad things going on in the world that I don’t want to dump that in a week note. Still very privileged. (I think it’s less an issue in a dedicated blog post, not this “slice of life” format)

We also had a “company day” on Thursday where we both talked about the company’s current state and upcoming plans, then went for a old-nerd-appropriate active event – laser tag – finished by some very good Bavarian cookery. Talking to your co-workers, especially when everyone’s in their own little projects, is quite fun. Real-life nerd talk is way too absent from my current life. It doesn’t mean that I want to stop working from home, but maybe I should look for decent meetups again.

We also had snow here, yay!

Health #

“Got my steps in” most of the days, but I had a slight breakdown at the laser tag. Not quite dizzy, not quite out of breath. I recuperated quickly from this and was actually less petered out after the event than others, but it was a bit disconcerting. 

Gaming #

No real computer gaming, and one RPG group had to be canceled. So the only thing I basically did was my mid-weekly online Pathfinder RPG. And that’s in an interesting phase, where there’s a lot of politicking. I appreciate that this isn’t as rule-based as other high-level play, but it’s harder to get everyone onboard. Would be hard enough at the table. But maybe it’s good like this, if they’re not really into it they can surf or do their taxes, and get back once the topics are more to their liking.

Media #

Started and finished Dave Barry’s Swamp Story, which is basically a tale of Florida Men and Women. I haven’t read Barry for years, but still remember him from the earlier days of the internet, when reading his articles in a foreign newspaper online (!) was one of those global information highway things.

Working through* *Crack-Up Capitalism by Quinn Slobodian, which is centered on all kinds of extra- and supra-national enclaves and city-states, where regular taxes and tariffs don’t apply. This stretches from old Hongkong over Canary Wharf up to the “Metaverse”. Very interesting read so far.

Continued watching The Good Wife a bit. Michael J. Fox had two guest appearances already. 

Actually managed to catch a few full movies, e.g. Ready or Not. Forgot most of what I watched already, though.

I’m working through* *the Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff podcast from the start (again), and shortly after hearing the episode about the Toronto International Filmfest 2012, I noticed that arte does offer Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Penance in its monthly streaming program. I can’t let this coincidence pass, but phew, it’s tough viewing at the start

Consumerism #

I bought a once-expensive Ergotron monitor stand, but it was missing a crucial part. What I thought would serve as replacement didn’t work, so I’m probably ditching the whole thing, never mind the sunk cost. I got another Ergotron stand from the neighbourhood, and it’s actually better than the other (although that had support for three monitors vertically).

I also bought yet another monitor. I have a problem. Okay, this one is a medical monitor meant for x-rays, which means it’s both high-res and with good color, long-lived and meant to operate in portrait mode! But I really need to find out what I need for work and retrocomputing, and ditch the rest. I’ll do that once this monitor arrives, I promise!

Side Projects #

Being back to work and talking about internal and upcoming projects meant that I got a whole new set of new ideas. So I’m currently looking at whether those will replace others, which will be canceled completely, and which will just be on the backburner.

Not a lot of progress on the RPG writing side of things. Working on a Tunnel Goons Hack at them moment to get the creative juices flowing again.

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