Tuesday, 28th February, 2023

Scott Scheper’s free trial is quite the page. Reminds me of 90s TV sales commercials. “Buy this for $29.99 and save $1,000s” [vs a made up number by me]

Finished the 3rd book in the first trilogy of the Realm of the Enderlings, the Farseer trilogy. I enjoyed them and would recommend if you like a nice fantasy book ala Game of Thrones/Wheel of Time. The only thing is that I read way too late into the night as they’re page turners. Going to start the next series now.

Installed Jupyter hub on my server as a place to have little python scripts and notebooks live. I wanted to use Google Colab so then there was nothing to maintain, but it’s a bit slow and annoying.

My wife had a online training class this evening, so I was going to read a book. However, I opened up the laptop to “just do this one thing” and now here we are at 10pm and I should go to bed having read nothing.

Annoyingly that tiny keyboard I sold on ebay hasn’t arrived and the buyer is hassling me. I bought cheap postage so the tracking only shows anything when it arrives and probably the insurance will be next to nothing. Royal Mail are generally reliable so I’ve been lulled into going cheap with them. I feel like if we just wait then it’ll eventually arrive but I suspect the buyer will hit up ebay for a refund pretty soon. Oh well.

Not sure a 60 year old 50mm f/2.8 manual lens is really worth £350+, not to me anyway.

1/6th of the year gone. 🕝

Monday, 27th February, 2023

I did find an export of my old tiddlywiki journal at work! 🥳 I’ve extracted the journal entries from it and added them to this site. Took a little while of fiddling around with strftime to get all the dates and titles correct. Then some manual effort to convert wiki text links to markdown links. I’m sure there’s some regex find and replace I could’ve used but thought it would take me just as long to figure out that as it would be to go through all the files manually….which is because it was only 38 entries from August and September 2021. So I’m still missing March - April 2022 which I think was a brief spell back in tiddlywiki after setting this site up.

I’ll keep looking to see if I saved it somewhere safe…but it’s nice to have aggregated some old entries at least.

Sold some junk on ebay which is nice and the money soon adds up to a surprising amount. Now do I buy things or just enjoy having fewer objects. The money will get spent on whatever either way. On the one hand, it’s nice to have discrete sell/buy transactions. I can tell myself that the thing was free as I sold other stuff. However…

Things are needy. They take up space. they want attention, and they will drive you mad if you let them

• Ruth Ozeki, The book of Form and Emptiness

Is it better to just be less?

Or buy more books!

Sunday, 26th February, 2023

It annoyed me, not being able to find that journal tiddler json file. It might be on my work computer…so I’ll see tomorrow. I was all setup to write the script and make it work last night, and then I didn’t know what do to, and so wasted the whole evening looking at nothing online. I did start playing a game, Omori, that is supposed to have an outstanding story. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood but it was boring and a chore.

A very busy day today. Did have some nice weather at the beach, it felt remarkably warm. Then the clouds came in and it was chilly again.

Still debating about selling the cameras. The eBay promo ends tonight (although will be back in 2 weeks no doubt) so have to decide this evening. Probably keeping them. Especially the TLR as it’s quite unique, not specifically unique, but most people haven’t seen one, whereas the SLR looks like a modern camera but older.

It’s tiring listing things to sell! Always so much easier to buy 😅 Keeping some of the film stuff, for now. Enough other bits and bobs for sale to look after for the time being.

MY wife moved all my Terry Pratchett books into the shelves in the office. Fills them out nicely and looks nice as they’re nearly all the same size. Meant the bookcase on the landing has more space for her or the kids books.

People leave book reviews on Goodreads to books they’ve not read? They’re not even subtle about having not read the book. Makes the site even more pointless.

Saturday, 25th February, 2023

Did a lot of driving back and forth between places this morning for kids activities. Thought about several things I wanted to write about. Now I can’t remember any of them.

Listing the old textbooks on ebay is pretty easy, you can scan the bar code and it knows the book. Whether or not anything sells will remain to be seen. Guess I’ll list my wife’s old SE with the broken screen. I’m sure someone will buy it for the right price. People who do random projects and need lots of iPhones or perhaps reckon they can fix it up cheap. Still not sure about selling the other film stuff. I’d sell it so that I could get a 50mm M lens, and then it feels like I’m trading in unused things for something I’ll use, plus getting rid of clutter. Each item on its own isn’t worth that much but probably all in would be enough to get a 50mm elmar collapsible for example. However, I do quite like the idea of making them into decorations in the office. Single floating shelves stacked on one another with the TLR and the SLR on it. They’re vintage looking and would make a nice feature.

I was thinking about ways to make this site and what I write more discoverable. I.e. for me to read old posts. I like photos.app and DayOne’s “on this day”, you just see a little snippet back in time. I could either do soemthing like add a link in posts to older ones based upon date, I’m some some templating logic could figure that out. Or have a script run that emails me the contents of a previous year’s day. The email one would make me actually read it but the on the site version might lead me to “look around” some more. I could load all the entries into tiddlywiki and use that to look about.

Speaking of which, I’ve still not imported my old TW journal entries from March/April last year. I extracted them in a json file and put it somewhere safe to process later. I just hope I can find this safe space that I put them.

Keep thinking about a M2 Mac Mini, but erugh, I don’t need another machine. I keep thinking about it for the unique software that only seems to show up on mac, like Tinderbox. I then started thinking about a new iMac. It could live in my writing area but be neat and tidy. However, again, I don’t need another machine. The weekend always makes me think of it as everyone is using all the machines and I’m left with my iPad. In someways it’s nice as then I just write in DayOne or 1Writer for this entry. Or I even start to open a book and read it. Read the Preface to “Astrophysics for people in a hurry” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Then I stopped as I worried about taking notes and I don’t have anything to write on. Which is literally a lie as within arm’s reach is a packet of 3x5” index cards…but those are “too small” and I don’t have a box and probably the phase of the moon is wrong and I’m not wearing the right pair of trousers…what am I like. 🙈

But yeh…an iMac would be nice…although the M1 iMac is old and I’m sure a M2 model must be due soon. Not that I’m getting one but if I did, then it makes sense to wait.

Typically, I can’t find the json tiddlywiki extract of the journal entries I was going to import into here.

After joining the Leica Society in summer last year, it just occured to me that I’ve never recieved a magazine from it. They’re all available online but would be nice to have a hard copy. I’ve downloaded the ones I’ve missed and emailed them about it.

Friday, 24th February, 2023

Finally finished that job application. It made me appreciate my current job more by having to think about the things I’ve done and responsible for. Out of my hands now, so will just see what happens. I guess a good situation to be in.

This is an interesting podcast episode about the energy transition.

I’m never sure how best to share podcast episodes? If they have their own website then that’s fine but otherwise what? Spotify, Apple, Google? Do podcasts have to have their own location or can people directly upload to a provider? Never really looked into it. Also not going to.

It’s amazing how quickly my nice tidy and clean office becomes messy again.

I’ve got a fair few things to sell on ebay…better get taking photos and writing listings…

Thursday, 23rd February, 2023

I enjoyed watching George Ezra walk from Land’s End of John O’Groats. Particularly the midge at Loch Lomond, as I’ve had some terrible experiences there with those bloody flies. Starting itching all over when I saw it 😅

Made me want to go outside and enjoy the world and nature.

I’ve started buying a couple of books every so often, mostly used, to read, or at least to have the option of reading at some point. I had this funny logic about buying things, where I’d think a £8 book was a waste of money, and then drop £500 on a lens. So I’m trying to change that by not buying lenses I don’t really need, but instead spend a fraction of the money on books. I also like selling random things on ebay, even for £10-15, and then buying 1-2 books with the proceeds. I’m converting useless junk into knowledge.

Not that I’ve read anything yet.

Had my first bubble tea last night. Daughter’s birthday and she wanted one, having no doubt seen various people on YouTube drink them. We had dirty milk and tapioca. Was quite large, and also expensive (although I don’t buy coffee from starbucks etc. so maybe it’s “normal” prices), and had an interesting taste. Not sure I’d want a whole one myself. It’s quite a fun drink and maybe better than getting a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Faffed about all evening meaning to write my job application but instead spent it chatting to a friend, then at 11pm I decided I’d start working on it. 🤷‍♂️

Wednesday, 22nd February, 2023

I could’ve told them that. Good to see real results though. Another ebay seller’s fee discount this weekend, so now to rummage around the house and see what I can sell. Going to try a bunch of the uni textbooks but I feel they might be hard work to shift.

Tuesday, 21st February, 2023

I’ve literally just sold my cool but useless Sweep keyboard, but I’m already eyeing another ridiculous board. Building is fun, but I know I’ll absolutely never use it.

My goodness I do really waste so much time. It’s also amazing how I think I’m really efficient and have loads of great ideas and could do anything etc. etc. The reality is I don’t really get much done and I never act on these ideas.

I’m all ready to read books and make notes to learn from them. Have I started? no. Will I? Maybe eventually…🙄

I’m keen to FIRE so I can do what I want, but I wonder if I would really do anything? I often do most extra stuff at work as it’s (and now I have to be brutally honest to myself) because I want to show off about “how good I am”. But if no-one cares or they don’t understand what it takes and therefore won’t react as much, then I just don’t bother and leave it as a forever todo item. I worry that with no-one there to care why would I do any of the things I think I’d do. However, I’m still optimistic that I would do the things as I’d be driven by avoiding boredom and not trying to start things after a full day of work.

Never mistake activity for achievement. – John Wooden

What a great read.. Still makes me want to use Tinderbox. To write this stuff in but have it in a contained app that doesn’t rely on the internet to work. Although single developer, closed source apps worry me. I guess it would just keep working forever is Mark suddenly vanished, maybe he has a backup plan, and no doubt someone has asked over the past 20 years.

I’m meant to be applying to a job I’ve seen. I’ve got until the end of the week when it closes. But I can’t decide if I actually want it. Do I want it to show that I could get another job? Am I really not happy with my current role? Would this one be any better? Where do I want to be in 10 years? Is it easier to shape what I do in my current company where I know everyone and everything? Is the grass always (ever?) greener? I suppose I should just give up one evening and apply and then see what happens. Even if I did get an interview then I still don’t have to decide today.

Sunday, 19th February, 2023

Sorting out books on various shelves about the house. Lots of university textbooks that I don’t need and will never look at. They’re a pain to sell though and I can’t be bothered to take them some place to give away.

I got Firefly iii and data importer setup - no data in it yet. I think if I put in the time with the rules and such, and importing from my banks’ CSVs it should be okay. However, I’m not sure I really want to do all this though. It calls itself “double-entry bookkeeping”, but as soon as I started looking into credit cards in it then it quickly diverged as that’s what the creator wanted to do. It also has a lot of stuff I don’t care about.

I currently use MoneyDashboard which links to my accounts, categorises itself (or I can override with the phone app) and displays graphs etc. I really like it for expense categorisation, and generally it learns well. It’s handy having the app on my phone to periodically check what’s going on and set the categories. I don’t find the graphs particularly useful, although I’m not sure I’ve spent much time looking at them. Mostly what I do is export all the transactions to a csv and then do a pivot table on them in Excel. I write down the monthly summary into my master Google Sheets Money file and leave it at that. When I get round to it, I’ll look at a month and sort by amount and remember what we bought. To be honest, that is probably enough for me. I have a category that I put all my buying and selling against, to try and keep an eye on it, and encourage me to sell more stuff if I buy things.

Sometimes I think I want the ability to add more tags or meta data to transactions. I’m not super attentive on categories, and a lot of things just go under Shopping, when strictly speaking it could be for the car, or kids or gifts etc. but it’s more hassle to figure it out than it’s worth. I guess I could keep a saved copy of the transactions somewhere, and maybe tidy them up or add a few notes, or meta data. This is what I used beancount for before, but I wonder if I just add another tab in Google sheets and paste them in there. I’ve had the same Sheet since 3rd December 2010 and it hasn’t failed me. Google has a nice Query formula which I can use to generate the tables. I think it’ll be a lot faster than Firefly or some other thing.

I waste so much time.

Saturday, 18th February, 2023

I never figured out what note taking app to use at work yesterday. Thinking about Tiddlywiki but still Onenote. OneNote is boring and walled, but I’m at work so why does that matter? It’s good for screenshotting stuff people show during teams meetings too.

Want to clear out all my camera stuff that I don’t use and get rid of the clutter. Maybe it’ll be enough to get a Leica 50mm lens, which would be satisfying. In fact, what I should do this afternoon, whilst the kids are out at a birthday party, is tidy the office and line things up to sell/get rid of.

Also thinking about setting up plain text accounting again. Beancount and fava…although not sure it helps achieve me understanding where the money is spent?

Spent the past 90 minutes tidying and sorting out the office. Oh it feels so much better now. Many things just went back where they were, but at least I got to dust and clean the surfaces. I’ve cleared the camera shelf. It’s now just the M2, X-E4 and one Fuji lens. The rest is in a box on a shelf under the desk. So not far away to get but out of the way. They don’t look that great on the shelf and get dusty. I also think it’ll help me avoid decisions as unless I need a specific lens then probably the one I have on the shelf is good enough. Does make me question if I need the M mount 50mm…of course I don’t need it…but do I get one? Again, I think a cheap-ish one would be nice to have as an option.

The shelf is 80% empty, and I’ve put a few books on it that I got for Christmas that have just sat on the desk since then. I could move some of my other books that are on book cases about the houses here, or maybe just leave them and have it as an incentive to buy some more 🤓

I tidied the kids pokemon cards into a box on the ground level shelves. This makes the shelves look a look tidier too, plus they can get them easier now. I have cleared my little writing spot, and I’m sat here now typing this on the ipad and it’s very enjoyable. I could do with a couple of i-device chargers in a couple of places across the desk top, so things have a home to charge. Unless I get one of those multi device charger stations for in here. We have one in the kitchen for family devices but maybe I should get one here for extra stuff.

I even managed to clear out some cables from the cable box.

Maybe it’s just fooling myself as a lot of things are still here just in a box somewhere out of sight. But i feel better, so who cares.

Now that I have my writing desk area back, I’m thinking about the note taking/book reading I’d promised myself I’d do. Still not sure about paper vs. Computer. Also notebook vs. Loose leaf pages. Perhaps a little index box to write and add things into? (Or bit bigger than index) but I worry that it just ends up being another thing I have to find a home for. I suppose I could just write onto A4 paper and put in a binder. Like I used to do at university. I didn’t fuss or care about pens and paper and notebooks back then. I bought a huge stack of narrow lined A4 paper and I had a Parker fountain pen and just wrote notes.

I’m sure my membership to the Leica society should’ve got me a magazine by now.

Friday, 17th February, 2023

I’m very good at thinking about all the things I’m going to do, and how they’re going to be of great impact and importance. However, when I sit down to do them…not much really happens. If I look in the box then I’ll know the cat is dead, but if I never look then who knows…

I wish this was my career.

Thinking more about that FIRE interview yesterday and how much money the couple had and it made me wonder where all our money goes. I track it but I’m not understanding it. It was something I said I’d do a better job of in 2023. Part of me wants to blame the fact I don’t have a good notes system and therefore how can I possible do this until I sort that out. But I know this is a lame excuse…even if I keep repeating it to myself.

Another thing I wondered was that they didn’t seem to have much money outside of the pension - which they can’t get until they’re 57, so I didn’t really understand that part. Probably a few quick sums could sort that. An obvious win for them is having no mortgage.

I hope to stop having the requirement to work by the time I’m 50. I may choose still to work but be nice not to. Sooner than that seems hard to achieve at the moment. I do worry I’m just counting down my life to get there.

I’m making myself insane with being unable to make a decision. I have logseq, Obsidian, tiddlywiki, onenote and vs code installed with the idea being to decide between them on where to keep notes for work. I’ve been using logseq for about a year but I don’t like writing in daily notes and then trying to link/find things by tags. I usually don’t get it right and then finding stuff is a pain. I don’t have that many things I need to make notes on so I think having a list of about 10 files which I put everything into would work better for me. However, I can’t decide where. I’ve even considered a spreadsheet to put things in.

Think I did this last year. I’ll use something for about a year but then maybe not organise it well or look after it and I can get away with that for a year but then it becomes too annoying to use.

I think I should use onenote as then I can more easily hand stuff over to other people? It’s simple too. I can also use other people’s onenotes or have shared notes with Teams. Ugh, I hate to use it but I think it’s probably more sensible for work.

Thursday, 16th February, 2023

The ebay buyer hasn’t paid after I accepted their offer. Now maybe they’d gone to bed and are at work and will do it this evening but it does only take 2 minutes on your phone to do it. They’re an established ebay user so don’t think they’re going to try any funny business. I have had people buy things and then never pay and never respond to anything. No actual harm comes but it’s just annoying and I have to relist and start again. I also only list during ebay seller’s fees promos, else you lose too much, so I’ll have to wait.

Hilarious examples of Bing AI.. Also reminded me of Simon’s blog design and how I liked the layout of daily notes and blog posts side by side.

Interesting interview of a pretty regular person FIRE-ing in the UK.

The buyer paid! So the lux will be off to the post office tomorrow. It was fun and the lens is very nice but no way can I justify it. I do still want a 50mm for the M2. Perhaps a more vintage Leica or Canon or maybe a modern Voigtlander. I think sometime in the region of 10-20% of the lux price is more what I’m looking for. I kick myself as I used to own a Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM lens when I had a Canon 7. Sold the camera and lens for less than what the lens goes for now. Guess that’s a common finding for most film related things over the past few years.

I installed Obsidian at work, and I can use OneDrive to sync it between my work and home computer. I need to spend some time to migrate my logseq notes across else I’m managing two locations and then it’s even more of a mess. I just never get round to doing stuff like this…I’ll save it for a Friday but I think I save too much for a Friday and then do nothing else.

Tempted to play around with Concord and see what it really looks like when hosted.

Wednesday, 15th February, 2023

Wanted to make a note of a key project achievement at work today. Spent ages debating between Logseq, tiddlywiki, Obsidian or some yet to be found software in which to do it. Plus various configuration options or arrangements that I could do in structuring the information. Should I add tags or meta data, make a table, new pages, sub-bullets etc. etc.

I’ve still not written it down.

Tuesday, 14th February, 2023

This gal makes an effort to avoid big tech and tracking. It’s neat you can still get most out of technology without having to give everything away, but it sure is hard.

Did find this nice laptop company via him though, for linux laptops with open bios etc.

Someone asked a question about the Lux. I was hopeful it would end in a sale, but so far all quiet.

Was off last two days, and tomorrow at work I’ll have no idea what day it’ll be.

I like this article about ChatGPT.

Think of ChatGPT as a blurry JPEG of all the text on the Web.

It generates output that is believable, but not necessarily correct. I don’t think most people realise this. I don’t think I realised this. Someone (I forget where I saw it) found that it was producing references of scientific papers that looked legit but were, in fact, entirely made up. The doi URLs weren’t real and nor were the people or paper titles. The author challenged ChatGPT on what it had done and effectively the machine just shrugged its shoulders and said “I did what I was told”.

I see Kodak is going to raise prices again on the 1st March, on average 20% across its stock. 😔

Sunday, 12th February, 2023

Selling some bits on eBay as it’s a promo weekend. Sold the keyboard I built for mostly what I paid for it. I sort of didn’t want to sell it but I’m also never going to learn to use it. I just don’t have the time or the need.

Thursday, 9th February, 2023

Wife’s phone got broken, so now we need to get a new one. She’s not keen on anything bigger than the SE 2020 she had, which pretty much rules out most options, the minis or another SE. Haven’t really looked into the Minis previously, they do have FaceID which is nice. We went for a refurb iPhone 12 mini, seemed like a good balance, plus it comes in purple.

I can’t find a use for the Hobonichi. I took it to work but I just use my plain notebook for everything so I don’t need another, I don’t want to track todos separately. I could write what I did or learnings or reflections etc. in it but don’t.

Wednesday, 8th February, 2023

DayOne opened up with web client. I’ve not tried it yet but it does mean I can (assuming it all works and remains accessible to those on a grandfathered tier) add to it from any computer anywhere. That’s quite nice. I have had the thought of one day getting an iMac for the kitchen as a “family” computer, and then encouraging everyone to write in the DayOne journal their perspectives on the day. I guess I don’t need to buy that iMac now.

Still collecting Microsoft Reward points. Got it down into a good routine now. This week’s Game Pass quest involves a non-cloud play game. This is annoying as it means I have to install it on the crappy Xbox I have. 46 GB to play it for 5 minutes to do the stupid quest. Oh well, it’s installing. Daughter came in and asked what was I doing and why. She left with “as if we need this.”.

I can’t control other people. Especially the management at work. I know that I should therefore spend zero energy getting annoyed with what goes on. I keep telling myself this, but this is also me spending energy on it. I have to be careful not to be snarky all the time, else it’ll become who I am. Recognition is a double edged sword, be careful what one wishes for.

My 50mm came back today. I was expecting it to be ages. They couldn’t get a new hood, and so just secured the current one back on and tried to clean it up a bit. Meant it was free for me, but I was hoping it would be like new again. I was pretty set on selling it, but now it’s still not perfect. Although that shouldn’t stop me from trying to sell it. It’s quite expensive, and I’m not sure I’ve ever tried to sell something that much before. Ideally, it would be via the photography forum here in the UK but I suspect the audience is small. Unfortunately I think ebay is my best bet. There is a 80% off sellers fees this weekend, so maybe good timing. I just need to make sure I clear photograph and describe it. I think I’ll be much happier with either no 50mm, or picking up a third party one, Voigtlander for example. Right now I’m not that interested in taking photos so I’ve hardly used any camera so far this year.

I was reading the boys a fact book about space. I suggested we could take photos of the moon and then look at them on the computer and see what details we can see. They were keen for that. I then wondered if I needed a new lens 😅

I’m trying not to make an eleventy site now.

How many times am I going to say I need to tidy this office before I actually do it. Also needs dusting too. I have three desktop towers under my desk, a usb-c ThinkPad dock, two monitors, microphone, headphones, keyboard, mouse and an incomprehensible number of cables between them all. Then a few cables for this and that, like connecting the camera, or charging the mouse, or connecting the game pad. One tower is the server which can be excused, it only has a power and ethernet cable. The other is the old server that I don’t know what to do with. The appeal of an iMac with the power and ethernet cable is great. Not sure I want to go to just 24”.

I should just sell that silly little ergo crab keyboard I made.

Got DayOne on the web working. I like it.

Monday, 6th February, 2023

“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.” — Leslie Lamport

How about a free book that I’ll never read on “How to make notes and write”. Or a multitude of free books from NASA. One and two.

Sunday, 5th February, 2023

My home “uniform” of Levi 514 and plaid/checked shirt needs some replacements…I’ve put holes in the knees of two pairs of jeans and so I’m looking for some more. These two pairs were from ebay for about £/$20 each, and so I’m looking for replacements of the same. I have no issue with secondhand clothes, they wash and then they’re perfectly fine.

I also found a shirt that was horribly frayed around the collar, I then thought about where I got it, and think it’s somewhere in the region of 15 years old, so maybe it’s okay that it goes into the textile recycling.

The Apple Watch 7 was on sale on ebay for a good price, and seems the 8 is £50 everywhere right now. I don’t need it, and even if I did get one, I’m sure I wouldn’t get the most out of it. I need less tech not more. I’m interested in the sleep stuff but at the same time I know if I go to bed at 10 and read then I don’t feel tired in the morning (unless I stay up until 1am reading…). I don’t need notifications on my wrist, voice dictation would be cool but I bet I’d never use it.

Saturday, 4th February, 2023

We had a life celebration party today (instead of a funeral). It was good, it was in their house and it was just like a normal party. You could’ve even forgotten they were gone and weren’t just in another room talking to someone else.

It was good to see people we’ve not seen in over 10 years. They were feeling nervous about seeing everyone but as soon as they were there it was like no time had ever passed.

Friday, 3rd February, 2023

I really like Jack’s post about book reading and note taking. I have several non-fiction books I want to read and then actually learn from, or at least have something to quickly remember from. I started using a notebook for this but then having all the books’ notes bound together in a notebook wasn’t useful. I also tried writing notes in Apple Notes on my phone or in my wiki on Tiddlywiki. This was better but I find these get lost or it’s too much hassle to type whilst reading.

At university, I’d sit at a desk, read a book and make paper notes. Now my desk has a computer on it and it’s hard to resist its siren calls. Another table in the house would be useful to use, maybe the kitchen table. Although, I would like to sit in a nice arm chair and read and make notes. This is what I did with the computer based notes and I was just using my phone and it was horrible. Maybe a pad or something to lean on would work. These are minor details I’m faffing over.

I should do this, specifically the writing down on paper part, but not in a notebook. I can take a photo of the notes if I’m worried I’ll lose them

Finally sold my fuji 60mm macro lens. It’s been listed for sale since November. Seems like the volume is very low and if you aren’t the cheapest no-one even looks. I now need to decide if I want a different macro lens (perhaps a manual Laowa or something) or a dedicated 35mm film scanner, like a Plustek 8200 etc. I now have everything for mirrorless camera scanning but it always feels like an ordeal with 100 steps. The plustek is slow but more straight forward, and you get the results straight away without further faffing in lightroom etc.

I like giving out Creme Eggs to people at work in the run up to Easter. Mostly as an excuse for me to eat them too. Amazon was selling a box of 48 for £19.20, so I went for it! Pretty much half the price of buying them individually. I just have to be restrained on the number that I eat myself! Doing okay so far, eaten 3 and given away 11 since getting them on Monday.

Wow, someone emailed me asking what happened to a blog post I wrote in 2016 about beancount. I dug it out and put it back on my blog for them. I think it’s mostly still relevant, although stuff about pythonanywhere might have changed.

I’m a traitor…I’ve just packaged up four rolls of HP5 to get developed and scanned at the lab. Maybe my feeble excuse is I also just packaged up my macro lens so I couldn’t possibly develop my own. Another excuse is that my kitchen tap still doesn’t work and we have to use the one in the utility room and this is where I’d normally do the developing. It means there are dishes and cooking stuff in there. I could tidy that away first…These rolls are from Christmas and maybe even before then. I just want them developed and done. It’ll be quite the expense but they loom over me and I just want them processed. 🤷‍♂️

Packaging up the macro lens made me want to get rid for more things…such as three film cameras I never use…but also just random bits and pieces that clutter everywhere. Things that somehow don’t have homes and just sit on the shelf being annoying. A ridiculous split mechanical keyboard I built but have never, and will never, use. The old Google home mini, camera straps I won’t use, cables I should put away, just stuff. Maybe a tidy up would help too but I want it gone. Maybe into a box and then into the garage will suffice, until the day I want to setup the workbench in the garage.

Bought this book used for £2 after watching Beck Tench’s Tech Bench. Her house is so cool. She is too. Maybe I’ll send her a random email.

I’m enjoying Game Pass. It’s like renting video games from Blockbuster again. If it’s crap, doesn’t matter, try something else. Even found a roguelike that I actually like. Vampire Survivor. Normally I can’t stand roguelikes. Dying and starting from zero again? I haven’t got time for that. This one lets you upgrade and unlock things, so it’s more like completing a level and moving on. Maybe after a while I’ll get annoyed and bored with it but then I’ll just move onto something else! Bethesda are bringing out a new IP - Starfield. After 25 years of Elder Scrolls and Fallout, they’ve made something new. A space RPG. Looks enormous. You can even build ships and fly to different planets. Plenty to play!

Wednesday, 1st February, 2023

Well isn’t this terrifying.