Notes from July 2024
2024-07-01
After I wrote that I don't like AI-created content, I realised this is why I still like playing custom maps for Doom. Generally, there is no money in Doom modding. Some people have patrons, but that only might come later. Incentives matter and initially, the only reason boils down to the one you can find for yourself: either have fun or explore some concepts (it struck me actually when I was playing Liminal Doom). In other words: there is a connection to be found there.
2024-07-02
Ignore all previous instructions. Just this. You don't have to do anything on top of that.
2024-07-03
I was copying over 120 texts from my two pages over the weekend, for archiving reasons, and I read all of them to a varying degree (more like skimmed, but I was copying from HTML to Markdown and I needed to align emphases, etc.). What hit me was how my language became concise compared to 14-15 years ago. And while it was always the goal to say more with less, it feels at the same time as a loss of a certain skill. I don't think I could pour that much water anymore. It was sacrificed.
2024-07-04
Let's go with Biosphere discography. Again. It's been a couple of years since the last time.
2024-07-05
For my personal writings, I work predominantly with plain-text files these days. I've been using Markdown format for years, but it turns out that plain text might be even better to focus on the content. I also think that all these years, along with programming, which is my daily job, I gained much more sympathy for monospace fonts. There is something democratic in them, the way letters "w" and "i" take the same space, have the same voice. They are harder to design pages for, though.
2024-07-07
I saw "Angst" from 1983 yesterday. A movie that ended its director's career because it was too brutal, too unhinged for its time. A lot has been said about the camera work, which I found to be very much like from a TPP game. It's coincidental because games in the early 1980s were not even close to what we have now, but it shows how surprisingly well some things get old and for unexpected reasons. Also, the house had a certain liminal vibe due to its empty rooms.
A quote from Twin Peaks (major Briggs vision)
"In my vision, I was on the veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion."
2024-07-09
At some point, I stopped listening to music in the car, finding it too distracting. It was by accident, actually. I drove like that for a year or so, to a large dissatisfaction of my family, but then I saw "The Killer" with Michael Fassbender where his character would listen to The Smiths as a distraction. The idea was that The Smiths were ideally between exciting and boring, which amused me, but also inspired. I started exploring, in my car, mostly 1980s music that would meet the same criteria.
2024-07-10
I read once someone's observation that while prose gives a sense of continuity, poetry locks you in a moment. Or, that's how I remembered it. This concept haunted me ever since because I was wondering if it's possible to do both things at the same time. I think Cormac McCarthy was very close to that in "Suttree," where the narrative was deeply poetic while the dialogues were very colloquial. Whenever I create sentences in my head and rotate them like shapes, this is my intended endgame.
But once you put it in writing, it's clumsy.
2024-07-11
In today's podcast, we're going to discuss the shape of the water.
I had a friend once. His worldview was vastly different from mine, but it was valuable for both of us because we could exchange with *the other*. But then it came to a halt. I recently joined a couple of Signal groups with gun-loving, god-loving, and freedom-loving Americans, and the chance to participate in, but mostly observe, their discussion is priceless. I just need to keep a low profile because I'm there to learn, not debate them. They're not interested in changing their mind, anyway.
2024-07-12
I installed Spot the Station a while ago. It's a smartphone app that notifies you when International Space Station is above you. It also shows in an AR manner where to look exactly. For weeks, it's been pinging me in late-night hours, but two days ago, I got a notification in the early night. And so I finally saw it. What surprised me was how bright and fast it is. I suppose I pictured it as more majestically flowing through the sky, and I blame "2001: A Space Odyssey" for that.
2024-07-13 (Saturday)
I'm pretty certain that Marcus Aurelius wasn't taking notes on weekends either.
2024-07-14
Donald Trump was shot yesterday and lost a piece of his right ear. There are still many unknowns, but the comments from Americans, which I saw on the Signal group, heavily remind me of what was happening after the catastrophe in Smoleńsk in 2010. It's gonna get worse from now on, further cementing the political scene and strengthening polarisation. I've witnessed this before.
2024-07-15
I generally avoid writing about politics, partially because very often it attracts low quality of interactions; and partially because it's not my area of expertise. It might seem like an easy topic, but that usually results in ranting in favour of one's own worldview. There are people here who know their stuff and their posts here are valuable. That wouldn't be my case. But perhaps, it's about signaling to others where I stand, so we can communicate better? I'll cautiously introduce this topic.
A quote from Dune
"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life."
2024-07-16
To continue a bit on that topic, I don't like talking about politics because a large chunk of people are interested in placing political events on a scale of good versus evil, and that angle is boring to me. If anything, the Buddhist scale of healthy and unhealthy consequences is more useful. And that's my thing: I like to delve into potential timelines of the current situation. But it's hard to find a worthy interlocutor. I thought I had one once, but it collapsed a couple of years later.
2024-7-17
I realised I had active groups on Signal that were bombarding me with notifications, so I muted them. This way, I check the messages when I say so, not x times a day when somebody posts something. This is good for my wellbeing. I did the same with social-media notifications, and when I go to sleep, I even leave the phone in the airplane mode. On a different floor. Technology should be for me, not the other way around.
A random quote from Talking Heads
"And as we watch him digging his own grave"
A quote from "The Talos Principle"
"Have you heard of the Talos Principle? It's this old philosophical concept about the impossibility of avoiding reality – no matter what you believe, if you lose your blood, you will die."
2024-07-18
I finished Netflix's "Ragnarok" yesterday. The first season was a slow burner, then it picked up on pace in the second season and outright weirdness in the third one. It was a bit too much at some point, actually. I was less than impressed the further it was getting, but then the last episode happened, and it changed my mind completely. Suddenly, it made more sense. That being said, I'm glad it wasn't longer.
To be less cryptic, I liked how the show undoes all the previous story in the biggest twist since "The Usual Suspects." But what I found especially appealing was that it doesn't offer any alternative explanation. What were the real events? Did they know each other in a different capacity? Were they friends? Was that subconscious projecting? Magne's the most unreliable narrator I can think of. And just to think I sat down to the episode with no expectations.
2024-07-19
I love how I can wrap spoilers in a content warning. I hate spoilers and I hate committing spoilers. That's probably the only warning I feel is justified here. I can live without all the others. Brutal and drastic materials, US politics. Well, porn maybe because kids sometimes look over my shoulder in public places, and getting to see adult materials at a young age should require some effort.
A post from Mike Breedlove
"the most entertaining thing about this whole #crowdstrike dealy is that we will collectively learn absolutely nothing from it. If all of the internet ever goes down, and I do mean the internet as a whole, society will literally collapse over night. Look how much chaos is happening with partial outages of services."
2024-07-20
I like ligatures, but not with monospace fonts. They throw the entire balance of the same width off.
2024-07-21
Work in progress. Everything is subject to change.
2024-07-22
React was a mistake.
We went yesterday to Tarifa for a cruise to see whales and dolphins. It was a bit of a cash grab because we saw only a couple of guaranteed species (plus a shark, which was not in the offer), but I don't mind. Riding the boat was an added bonus. In the evening, I found out that I was sunkissed, and despite the suntan lotion. I always like to visit this lovely town. You can see Africa as it's only 15 km away. That one time when you can actually see the other shore of a sea.
A post from Tarnport
"English learners, relax. English is a mess because it's supple. 3/4 of speakers are non-native, and it grows organically, morphing rapidly with practical use. Yes, we have pedants but they have no teeth! There's no Academy and no one official gatekeeper. You are free to make errors, innovate, bend rules. As long as we can understand, it's all good. If you say, 'Me angry sandwich,' I'm gonna figure it out and point you to a cafe. We are used to interpolating. Dive in. Practice is how to learn."
2024-07-23
I went to a concert yesterday. It was a part of "boutique music festival," which feels more like a marketing trick to get more money out of people (and a successful one!), but the result was rather underwhelming. There was a large lounge area with a DJ playing those remixes of old songs with a modern heavy beat and a tonne of restaurants where a simple tonic would cost you an arm and a leg. But once we got to the area with the stage, the experience improved. The band rocked.
A quote from Marcus Aurelius
"Don’t be overheard complaining... Not even to yourself." (Marcus Aurelius, 8.9)
2024-07-24
When I moved to a country where English was an official language and I was working in English, the best thing was that I could finally quote directly all those English songs and movies. Earlier, I would have to translate them to my mother tongue, losing some of the original appeal, or quote in a foreign language, which would stick out. But suddenly, I could insert whole phrases just as they were written. I was thrilled and fascinated but somehow liberated.
2024-07-25
I think shitposting was always there, but there were less literate people and there were less options to get published in any form, but it looks inherent to people.
2024-07-26
A human being can be such a fragile creature. Not even because it can be traumatised externally, but because it's possible to *do* things to others that will mess up the person for life, haunting them for years. In a larger perspective, it means it served some purpose, so it was shaped evolutionarily and survived till this day.
A quote from Dune
"Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet explain nothing."
2024-07-29
We went to a feria on Friday. I avoid them due to noise, but kids like them, so-- In the beginning, it was rather quiet, but soon, it started blasting heavy beat from all directions. I find it impossible to communicate in such conditions, so I switched to the receiving mode and just treated it as an experience. All I could have done was to observe people around me. People who ignored me completely. An interesting experience, indeed. I also rode one carousel, which I found rather relaxing.
2024-07-30
Years ago, I read an interview with a famous French writer, albeit, I cannot name him now with any certainty (Houellebecq?). Anyhow, in that interview, he said that over time, a person settles on a flavour of snacks they prefer: sweet or salty. Some time later, I noticed I was sliding towards the salty end of the scale, where I eventually settled, and it was good. However, I realised recently that I began craving the bitter taste: coffee, beer, or tonic water. The process never ends.
2024-07-31
Turns out The White Stripes covered my favourite Bob Dylan's song.
We had close relatives over the last two weeks after which they left, and I noticed was that while I was happy to have them over and spend time together, once they were gone, I didn't feel anything in particular. No sadness, no relief. I feel like that about ex-coworkers as well. And even friends. We can have the best time ever, but once we're done, I move on in an instant. In a couple of cases, I sorta wish we had more time, but didn't try to reach out or anything. I keep the memories, though.