Weeknotes 144

I streamed four more times and made decent headway on implementing integers and floating-point numbers for my toy WebAssembly interpreter.

I’ve fixed most of the snags I spotted last week: I can see the live chat, the webcam’s mirrored, the microphone is louder (albeit noisier?), the orange dot is gone and I’m generally more comfortable with the whole setup. I start each stream with a little retrospective of what happened last time and I’m finding that a useful way to organise my thoughts and segue back into talking about the more technical details.

Progress is definitely slower than I’d anticipated but I’m having fun and — now that I’ve got everything set up properly — it’s pretty low-effort to sit down and turn on the stream for a few hours in the evening.

It’s a helpful reminder of why I work with computers in the first place. I find it relaxing and enjoyable to just bash out some code, speak my thoughts aloud, muddle through the problems and see what I can get working. It’s particularly gratifying that a few kind people are joining in and giving me suggestions & encouragement.

Elsewhere I’ve been doing lots of life admin and have had a small amount of movement on a few projects, so it’s possible I’ll find myself doing bits & pieces of work again by the end of the month. I’m going to try to make the most of my remaining downtime.

On Monday I met Chris in Soho to drink a beer and attend a RHLSTP recording. I’ve been to the Leicester Square Theatre many times, including once with Alice almost exactly six years ago to see Richard Herring’s mortal enemy Stewart Lee, but never for a podcast. I can’t tell whether the recorded episode will be a classic but it’s always interesting to see something spontaneous happening live.

Like everyone else who walks past the Prince Charles Cinema I wondered whether they’ll be changing their name. No, they won’t.

On Friday I had another very pleasant ride to Finsbury Park (I’m getting good at this route) for a coffee with Dan. It’s still sunny enough to sit outside and chat, yet cool enough that I don’t show up all sweaty and flustered. Perfect.

I watched the rest of Station Eleven and discovered my initial confidence was misplaced. By episode eight it consists entirely of Themes and stops caring about its characters, all of whom wander about in a trance with no motivation or internal logic, pausing occasionally to look sad and do some Shakespeare, which is profound.

It’s a shame because it’s a really stylish show, but at the beginning I was excited to hear the story and in the end, for all the faffing about with multiple timelines, there’s no story there.

So far I’m enjoying Mike Flanagan’s Spooky Thing 2022, i.e. The Midnight Club. The first episode has a silly quantity of jump scares which are, I think, bad enough that they wrap around and become good again. While not exactly highbrow storytelling, it’s a nice annual tradition and something suitably cosy to watch on a dark October evening.

I set up Tailscale and like it a lot so far, in as much as it immediately worked and hasn’t caused me any hassle yet. Impressive! Recommended!

Bear in mind that if one tiny thing goes wrong then I’ll become enraged and say I’ve changed my mind and it’s a piece of shit, because I am both entitled and capricious.

My phone number moved over to the new SIM card without incident for the first time ever. 🙏🏻