Weeknotes 87

After I dropped off last weekend’s rental car in Edgware Road I found myself walking past the Marble Arch Mound and decided to go up it before they started charging for tickets.

It’s weird and perfunctory, like the whole thing is an elaborate front for a money-laundering or perhaps Elder-God–worshipping scheme. I could wander straight in on a whim because they weren’t even bothering to check tickets. The view from the top is not very interesting, just trees and road. I thought you were meant to be able to descend into the bowels after climbing the outside, but that bit was closed off, so I had to shuffle awkwardly back down past people heading up.

I was going to say “I wouldn’t pay to go up it if I were you” but while writing this I discovered that tickets are now permanently free, so… I dunno… maybe have a quick look if you happen to be nearby trying to find a hire bike?

CONSUMERISM PT 1: I used some store credit from work to replace my ageing Wilfa Classic + coffee machine with a Wilfa Performance.

While this upgrade wasn’t strictly necessary as long as the Classic was still soldiering on, the Performance is nicer to use in pretty much every way. The water tank is removable so I can fill it directly from the tap instead of going back and forth with a jug like an animal; the new carafe design is far easier to pour and is shaped to sit perfectly in a matching indentation in the base; the filter cone lifts out for filling with ground coffee, instead of having to swing the shower head out of the way (with the attendant risk of forgetting to swing it back); and the shower head itself is made of something other than the bare metal of the Classic, which corroded so aggressively that I had to replace it a couple of times.

Making coffee is the first thing I do every morning so I’m really enjoying the small increase in how pleasant the start of my day is. Also, coffee is a nice drink. Recommended.

CONSUMERISM PT 2: look, this is embarrassing, but I’ve bought and returned several HDMI switches in an attempt to find one that works, and this week I finally did, so I’m going to write it down in case it helps anyone who’s desperately searching the web for answers.

My TV’s bad audio support has annoyed me for years, so a few months ago I cracked and bought a Sonos Arc and HDfury Arcana to allow sound to bypass the TV entirely. The Arcana extracts audio from an HDMI signal and sends it directly to the Sonos via eARC, so I can plug the PS5 or Apple TV into the TV through the Arcana and get high-quality sound with no latency. Which is great, except the Arcana only has one input, so I have to faff about with plugging and unplugging cables every time I want to change from watching a film to playing a game.

The solution is to connect an HDMI switch to the Arcana’s input, but most of the switches I tried were no use in this setup. Either their auto-switching didn’t always kick in, or the audio stopped entirely sometimes, or they didn’t pass HDMI-CEC through reliably (to let the source turn the TV on and off). But the one I got this week doesn’t have any of those problems!

So, dear internet stranger: the Awakelion HDMI switch (available from Amazon UK) actually works with the Sonos Arc and HDfury Arcana. You’re welcome.

(I had to disable HDMI-CEC on my PS5 to stop it from turning itself on all the time, but that’s a small price to pay.)

We did eventually finish The Leftovers and I found the ending satisfying. It tied up three mysterious seasons neatly but not too neatly, with enough ambiguity to allow more than one legitimate interpretation of what happened, and hit all the emotional notes I was hoping for.

It’s a bold and ambitious show so I’m glad I watched it all the way through. Inevitably some of the plot is quite silly but the cast, writing, direction and soundtrack are all strong enough to make it worth taking seriously.

I had a talk accepted at RubyConf 2021. It’ll be an actual (vs spiritual) sequel to Programming with Nothing — which was ten years ago, grandpa — assuming I can write it in time.

My original plan was to travel to Denver and speak in person but it’s looking increasingly unlikely to happen. Ironically that means I’ll have less time to write the talk since they’ll need a prerecorded video well in advance of the conference, in stark contrast to the traditional approach of letting me get really stressed about finishing it in a hotel room the night before.

In some (coronavirus-related) ways it’d be a relief to avoid getting on a plane, but I’d be sad to miss the opportunity to meet some of my teammates for the first time.

I idly went to view a house yesterday. I’m happy with my current place but it’s been slowly dawning on me that I wouldn’t choose it if I was looking today — although I still want to live in London, there’s no real need for me to be so central now that I work remotely.

So, yeah, I looked at a house a bit further out to see what it was like. The two-part answer was “very expensive” and “not enough of an improvement to be worth the hassle”, so maybe that’s the end of that.

It’s getting pleasingly autumnal outside. Cool breeze, blue skies, orange afternoon light. Hello, September.

I just checked and found I said almost exactly the same thing about autumn a year ago. Strangers may well be unpredictable but I’m not.

Treadmill still works.

14.7kg down. My goal feels within reach for the first time.