Weeknotes 273

Well, that’s Q1 2025 basically over. How much did you get done? Me too.

A whole week off with nothing to do, filled with spring sunshine. I doubt life gets any better than this.

Among other pottering, I spent some time on Monday wiping my trusty M2 MacBook Air and installing macOS Seqouia. It’s still a great machine and having a fresh OS makes it feel new again. It always takes a while to get everything set up the way I like it — where do I go to enable three-finger drag again? — but it’s helpful to run through it every couple of years to remind myself of my current foibles.

For some reason I’m feeling more enthusiastic about using Docker for small tasks like running one-off tools and throwaway scripts. In particular it’s become so difficult to keep a working Python environment on my laptop (what package manager am I even meant to use? why does this dismal language persist?) that I’d rather just declare bankruptcy and set up a new container each time. So, for now, I’ve only installed Git, Vim and Ruby natively, and I’ll see how far I can get with confining anything else to a Docker prison.

On Wednesday I met Roz & James for lunch & coffee & chat, which was lovely.

I’d intended to go to Tate Modern on Thursday but couldn’t be arsed. Instead I cycled to Bounds Green and met Murray for a pint. It was a beautiful evening for a ride, and I arrived early, giving me the opportunity to sit outside in the dusk watching the lights come on and illuminate the trees from below.

I’ve spent the weekend on trains visiting family, so only five gym visits again, nonetheless bringing the average up. It’s so much easier to exercise when everyone else is at work.

Another month with no booze. I’m more unsure than ever what my plan is here.

I lost another four-ish kilograms in March, largely thanks to the extra time for cooking & exercise afforded by a week and a half of holiday. I feel much better and I’m happy with the steady progress; it remains to be seen whether it can survive contact with work.

I finally broke the seal on the latest batch of Astro Bot levels and finished them all. They were fun but I kind of wish they weren’t all difficult ones because the hair-tearing frustration of missing the same finicky jump ten times in a row isn’t always as charming as the rest of the game. I’d gladly pay for another set of the (presumably much more labour-intensive) normal-difficulty levels.

I rewatched District 9, which was pretty much as good as I remembered it being. It’s a fun, scrappy, inventive film with good writing and performances, and the visual effects still hold up fifteen years later. Such a shame Neill Blomkamp never made anything else.

I also watched Adolescence in a single sitting and came away with mixed feelings. It’s undeniably good overall, with excellent performances and some technically impressive sequences. But the least technically impressive third episode is by far the best one, and in the second and fourth episodes the format felt more like a distracting gimmick than something that added to the narrative.

Despite it obviously catching the zeitgeist I’m not sure it does much to explore or explain the “manosphere” beyond occasionally mentioning it in passing. I doubt someone unfamiliar with the subject would come away knowing any more about what’s going on with today’s misogynist culture. Also — not to be too cynical about it — I might’ve seen enough sad dads for a bit.

A new 2½-hour ContraPoints video arrived like a holiday gift from heaven and I watched it twice. It’s much better than the last one.

Murray recommended Type Help which I played for an hour or so and enjoyed a lot, but when I came back to it the next day it had lost my progress, so I’ll need to either start again or give up forever.

Hard to believe the first COVID lockdown was five years ago this week. Five years! It still freaks my nut out to this day.

One more day off.