Weeknotes 355

Hello GMT.

It’s been wet and windy, but today’s a beautiful sunny autumn day.

Three gyms.

I got my flu vaccination, and somehow this one didn’t hurt at all.

I’m making slow but steady progress in Order of the Sinking Star. It takes long enough to solve each puzzle that the bookending doses of noxious chat are few and far between. The puzzles — at this stage of the game — are still quite good, and I haven’t got completely stuck yet. I’m still curious enough to keep going and see what happens when I complete the four opening areas.

I started playing Silver Pines on the basis of a single good review. I like the atmosphere and aesthetic but so far the gameplay is absolute toilet.

St Helen’s continues to disappear.

I received a jury summons for the week before Christmas. There’s no suggestion that “ten working days” means anything special around the festive season, so I assume I’d have to cancel my plans (including forfeiting my nonrefundable hire car) and stay home for Christmas instead of visiting my family. On that basis I’ve asked for it to be deferred to the start of January but haven’t heard back yet.

For the best part of a decade I’ve suffered through the dual voice assistant ecosystems of Sonos (via Alexa) and HomeKit (via Siri) without any way of unifying the two. However, a new Homebridge plugin called Sonos Control Pro appears to have mysteriously sprung into existence at version 3.1.0 (???) at the start of August, so I gave it a try and it’s been working perfectly for controlling my Sonos devices through HomeKit. This might be what I need to rid myself of Alexa forever.

This is fine isn’t it? Late-stage capitalism delivering abundance and prosperity for all? Simply panic-buy tinned meat, wet wipes and a wind-up FM radio? Remain indoors?

Heating on.