Such good vibes and a great experience. I drank cocktails, mead, and beer (from a horn!); ate flæskesteg, pinnekjøtt, brussel sprouts, sweet potato, swordfish, salmon. All very delicious. We even got to select our main knife from a roll, like we were choosing wands at Ollivanders.
Skol!
2/2
A stamped leather coaster, green dye and yellow stitching, held at arm's length inside a car.
Mjølner restaurant in Sydney: heavy wooden beams over arched windows, solid wooden furniture, capturing the essence of an idealised Viking long-house.
Wait, where did the weekend go?? Beginners leather-working class on Saturday, with a long, delicious and boozy evening with friends at Mjølner Sydney—& a chance to use the coasters we'd made!
1/2
*thunderous applause*
I had one too! I wonder if it's still in my mother's house somewhere <and if that's enough of an excuse for the 9 hr trip to retrieve it?>
You mean Auntie's Choice, surely?
This is painful to see...
Our son has chickenpox, and today (day 4 of symptoms) is the first day he has been really uncomfortable. Poor kid. Fully vaccinated, for the record, and can only assume there will be more cases at school. "Better now than at Christmas" is cold comfort, turns out.
Is it still considered "doom scrolling" if it's all retro games, Babylon 5 art, Fursonas & OCs, and absolute bangers from @markhamillofficial.bsky.social ?
Lenny (a white ragdoll) sits on a cold barbeque, falling asleep.
Lenny (a white ragdoll) sits on a cold barbeque, barely keeping his eyes open.
Lenny (a white ragdoll) sits on a cold barbeque, closes his eyes for just a minute, relaxing.
Took the day off work today, "chucked a sickie" as they 'round these parts, and did basically nothing. Worth it. I've been working pretty hard (for a technologist) and it's nice to take a moment to de-stress and unwind a little. Genuinely trying to live mindfully.
Plans for the weekend?
I was looking at that exact one last night! I think you've just convinced me, thanks!
In defense of my recent "its" vs "it's" foe pah, Im feeling little under the whether at the moment, taking the day of work for my elemental health. But should be back on my game hopfully soon!!?!!!?!!
Hardest part (for my neuro-idiosyncracies) is not rushing, fixating on the end-goal and getting frustrated, then switching to another project entirely and leaving this to moulder. Hopefully acknowledgement and reminding myself of the journey-vs-destination thing helps?
IFF MX can boot then I'll still need to sort the wifi, but extracting from an official recovery image was surprisingly easy (clever people!!).
iGPU by default & dGPU on-demand is the goal, but I'll settle for a mostly working portable Linux box with decent battery life & plenty of USB-C ports.
A very dusty internal fan in a 2018/2019 MacBook Pro.
Think I know why this laptop is running hot: Trying MX Linux, which can select GPU on boot ... then carelessly selected the USB drive as installation target. Left it running while I reimaged and noticed that even with the iGPU its getting toasty.
Need a can of air and some antihistamines.
Gary Oldman in Slow Horses.
Jackson Lamb may be my favourite of Gary Oldman's characters: brilliant and cynical, positively grotty, downright despicable at times. Brilliantly played.
A brassy cryptex in a box with clue cards. Visible are: "A man for all seasons, and more!", "I doubt it, said the apostle", "...a need, a need for speed".
I often accuse my wife of being "extra" when it comes to gifts, but when she bought a cryptex for our friends' son I was 100% on board. Do I recognise similar neurospicy traits? Would I have loved this as a teen? Did I keep a diary in a cipher I made up for the purpose (& could I still read it)? Yep
Haven't gotten far, as installing xfce4 gives me a graphical login but it crashes when we get to the desktop. I've tried to enable the iGPU (force_igd=y in apple_gmux module options) but that just leads to a blank screen.
Taking a break to sit outside and ponder.
A small red ceramic cup sits on a silver MacBook laptop, surrounded by a Keychron mechanical keyboard and a USB network card.
Drinking yuzu sake and trying to install Debian on my 2018 Intel MBP, but struggling to either get the discrete GPU to run without crashing OR to use the integrated GPU. So far I've added the t2 kernel and extracted firmware from a recovery image, so it is time to install xfce4 and see what happens.
Screenshot from Outer Worlds 2. Blue cliffs, weird alien trees, a metal bridge.
Never got far in #OuterWorlds, but turns out I just needed to play #OuterWorlds2 on Cloud Gaming ... and let my wife have a turn. Way more commitment than me (she finished Cuphead after all) but I can have a little dabble from time to time. Good fun, even if I have no idea what planet we're even on!
Brick wall, pale blue sky. A coffee in a paper cup. A laptop showing markdown engineering documentation in Zed.
We bundled our son off to an overnight school art excursion this morning, so partner and I may go out for dinner tonight—or stay home for a "carpet picnic", which is probably more our speed—but I think I want to take things real easy today. Amazing weather too, so I'm working outside.
Close-up of the screen of a Thermalright Assassin Spirit 120 Vision ARGB CPU cooler, reading 64°C and 70% load.
Realising I don't use my PC enough to see utility value from an RTX 4070, I've swapped with my son's 2070. "I'm not giving it to you," I have to clarify (lest he turns around and sells it). But a good modern bonding experience.
CPU was still running hot, so upgraded from the stock cooler. Better!!
Respond with the same actor as a hero and a villain.
First time wearing a suit jacket in an even longer time, and the margin by which the trousers don't fit probably says much about my foundational behaviours, as well as changing corporate norms, in the ensuing decades.
I wish transport technology existed.
An AI-generated website with many errors. Reads: "AstroComp—Safeuguard Your Crew's Compentation Acrass the Cosmos”.
An "innovation award" evening for work–we didn't win–meant drinking games every time the MC said "AI”, so I'm drunk on public transport for the first time in a long time. A fun night, actually, even for one as awkward as me.
Logging on
An urban balcony, brick wall in the background, a chair, and potted plants to the fore.
So things are pretty good for me personally at the moment, even as other places on this single planet we share face absolutely heartbreaking horrors: war, starvation, genocide, the rise of fascism. In fact, it's the comparison that puts me in this frame of mind.
I hope you're safe and well.
5/5
A work colleague I went out with for drinks and roadmap planning, with a cartoon face courtesy of Gemini to preserve anonymity. Background shows a bar, tables and barrels under a patterned ceiling.
I put a *lot* into my work, but it finally starts to feel like maybe I can take the foot off the gas for a bit ... because I think we have the team that can get it done? I can step up to a higher abstraction and be strategic rather than tactical?
That could be fun?
4/5
Nothing Phone 3 in a rubber-edged case.
My treasured OnePlus 9 Pro has failed, so replaced with a Nothing Phone3. The OS is so clean it inspired me to delete most of my contacts, which I'd been data-hoarding, and I'm not rushing to reinstall every app I had before.
Feeling more mindful already.
3/5
A "Bondi bar" on a glass fence, with a pot of various herbs sitting on it. The green herbs blend with green trees beyond the fence.
Beach was fun, although the water was chilly enough to keep sensible people out—only the boy and I swam. Did a little "house" shopping, cushions and more plants, slowly building our tiny haven.
Got some kitchen herbs for the sill today. Hope they survive the sun, and our grazing.
2/5
White ragdoll cat sitting on a stool and pulling a funny face as he licks the side of his mouth.
How was everyone's weekend?
Feels like a busy one for us: beach day yesterday and "prep the week" today. I feel like I've barely kept my head above water for the last few years (decades?), spending too much time and energy on work, but I might be turning a corner on that now?
1/5
