Weeknotes 358

Back to reality.

Three gyms. My body clock’s not settled down yet so I’ve been sneaking out at 5am rather than lie awake contemplating mortality, which then makes me sleepy in the evening and tempts me into an early night. I should probably force myself to stop going so early otherwise I’ll never break the cycle.

I tried going to LRUG on Monday to reset my brain but quickly realised I was too tired and hungry to enjoy it so gave up halfway through and skulked home in defeat.

Today I braved the rain for Sunday roast in Camden with Anna & Sana which was huge, delicious and restorative.

I killed some time on the plane last week by watching the first few episodes of Silo season three, and have since followed up with a few more at home for completeness’ sake. It’s mostly illegible nonsense, spread extremely thin to pad out the episodes, but with odd flashes of coherence whenever some plot happens.

This season benefits somewhat from the addition of a new narrative thread, i.e. Nate from Succession trying to get his end away in Ozone…

…because it provides some relief from watching people shouting underground for no reason. To my surprise I’m mildly invested in the Nate-frame storyline so I’m going to finish the season just to find out what befalls him and his end.

TOP PICKS FOR AN AUDIENCE OF NONE: I particularly enjoyed Simon Anthony’s solves of San Francisco Summer by Michael Lefkowitz, a delightfully surprising variation on an established formula, and Binary Whispers by Phistomefel, another artful meta-puzzle in which properly understanding the consequences of the rules is half the battle.

I’m continuing to chip away at Order of the Sinking Star very slowly. I keep getting intermittently stuck on Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes but haven’t been completely stumped yet.

It’s going to take years at this rate. The monotony of one block-pushing puzzle after another definitely lacks the thrilling momentum of The Witness, but it’s meaningless enough to be easy to dip in & out of without worrying about forgetting anything important.

I’m also playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2026) despite never having played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998). It’s charming, beautiful and refreshingly straightforward so far.

Obviously I’m not getting any direct nostalgia from the game itself but more generally I’m enjoying the comfort of recalling a simpler time when video games were more fun and less intentionally annoying. The music and graphics evidence an impressive commitment to making something as good as it can be, e.g. the ground fog is a lovely unexpected touch. What a treat.

I have, as mooted, excised Alexa from my life entirely by buying a couple of HomePods mini 2 and putting them in different rooms of my flat. Their voice assistant is fast and mostly accurate — certainly much better than the same assistant on my phone, tablet and watch — and the overall experience is good actually.

For the first time ever I feel confident speaking words into the air, at a normal volume and cadence, and having the right thing happen regardless of which devices I happen to be carrying at that moment.