Still in a holding pattern for consulting jobs, but got some first stage interviews going. That mostly means talking to recruiters, who don’t know anything about the job offering, telling you to prepare your CV for the HR department, who barely knows anything about the job. So we’re emphasising “key words” like it’s 2003 (where everybody all at once knew everything about XML, SOAP etc). I fully expect that soon all corporate communications will resemble a game of telephone, involving at least two sets of LLMs…
Otherwise it hasn’t been an eventful week for me personally. I went to my home town again to meet up with my mom & brother, and everyone’s doing fine, which is always a great relief.
News-wise, it started with an endless steaming stream about our former chancellor Angela Merkel’s memoirs, and then finished with quite a few humdingers from the middle east. We’re certainly living in interesting times.
Health #
I’m doing fine, but still too lazy.
Media #
I didn’t read the Merkel memoir, but started with Annika Brockschmidts America's Holy Warriors, for, well, reasons.
Watched
both
versions
of The Manchurian Candidate, for, well, reasons.
I think I saw the more recent one soon after it came out, but it didn’t
really stick with me. It’s not a bad movie, and neither is the original
one, but for conspiracy movies they’re rather predictable. But it’s very
intriguing to see remakes anchored in their respective political climate
and how the various pacing and casting choices differ.
Cross on Prime is about 4 episodes too long, whereas Black Doves was a somewhat bland, but entertaining snack. (Which is good, I generally have a hard time even starting series these days, let’s not even talk about finishing even a short season once it starts to drag its feet or gets too fashionably grimdark)
Gaming #
Nothing. The one tabletop RPG session that was planned got canceled last minute. At least it was online, so no packed bags.
I need to get into a bit more computer gaming. Hmm…
Consumerism #
No purchases beyond groceries, but I did tend to my birthday & Christmas wish lists…
Side Projects #
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That “advent” effort of telling people about one of my projects daily on Mastodon works very well. Worked out some glitches, came up with new ideas… “Development in the open” could be done for others, but I think I’d need this “today’s topic is…” factor. Random table for this?
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Fiddling around with go template engines is a bit of procrastination, but I’m also learning a lot.
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My Angular/Rust side project is resting for a bit. Just not that interested in the theme right now, as it includes some corporate-ish blogging, and every time I look at a medium or linkedin post, I’m running towards escapism
Links #
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Vintage digicams aren’t just a fad – There’s a mastodon hashtag called “#shittycamerachallenge”, and I wanted to get more into that. Current state is looking too much at ebay than through the lens of a ‘00s digicam, let’s see how this improves in winter. Maybe I should look for an early model with decent low-lite performance.
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Full-Bleed Layout With Modern CSS – It looks a bit like a LaTeX tutorial, but apparently it’s easier than ever to achieve the effect of having a centered, narrow text column, with some elements where the background extends to the edges of the browser.
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Everything You Need to Know About JavaScript Import Maps – It’s actually possible to deliver your web frontend’s JavaScript code in separate modules, but without any bundling. Probably less interesting to the Typescript crowd, though.
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Combat Maneuvers, The Easy Way – A very simple “old school” way of doing tricky stuff, like disarming an opponent, climbing on the back of a giant etc: Say what you want to do, and if you hit either the opponent accepts the damage, or the maneuver works.
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Tarkovsky’s Solaris – it seems like all of Tarkovsky’s movies are now on YouTube, full version, fully legal, English subtitles. Solaris & Stalker are worth a watch, definitely at this price level.
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Chinese “Multimedia” Computers – Apparently there were a bunch of these educational computers available in China in the 90s, and most of them are basically a Nintendo Famicom/NES with some custom firmware. The form factors are very interesting, a bit like a computing boombox.