Notes from March 2026
2026-03-01
I played two rounds of chess with my father today, and I lost twice. And I felt very stupid afterwards; stupid, as in, not intelligent. However, "you get better only by playing with a better player," as Guy Ritchie's "Revolver" taught me years ago; extra points for being about chess, as well, so I could recall it now.
We went to the Nativity scene museum today, again. The AC was not a selling point this time; we just wanted to show scenes to my parents. It turned out that some expositions have been changed—sadly, the refugee one was gone—so it was worth revisiting the place, and we need to repeat it in the future. Like the first time, I was impressed with how detailed those scenes are. Weeks, if not months, of work. But the result is simply amazing.
You should go there yourself: https://www.museodebelenes.com/
2026-03-02
In 9 hours and 11 minutes, I am going back to work. I feel restored enough to pick up where I left things; though, there were some developments (yes, I peeked on Slack on my first day off), so it's probably not gonna be exactly where I left it; but pick up regardless of that I feel ready enough. This made me think that at my age, life is more about resource management than it used to be; gone are the days of an almost infinite drive powering me.
I listened to a lot of Pat Metheny yesterday, and am listening today, and I gotta say, it's kind of bland but well done? Works very well as a background for working. I might experiment more with it. I might end up really liking it, coincidentally.
2026-03-07
The flea market again. I got Eels' "Souljacker" and R.E.M.'s "Automatic For the People," both being albums that I listened to a lot, and now joining my vast collection. I spent a total of 10 euros for them (5 for R.E.M. and 6 for Eels, but the seller handwaved €1, as it was easier to give me 10 euros of change). Reviews on another occasion.
To see Bluesky, and specifically Eurosky, I created an account there. Now, Bluesky is becoming, at least for the time being, a spiritual successor to the political Twitter; I guess because it's easier to onboard yourself on a network that is actually centralised; so, I decided to start an account dedicated strictly to politics. So far, it has worked well, and it gives me space to explore some topics more actively. I didn't want to use this account, which is more about culture and video games.
But I still don't believe in Bluesky as a long-term solution. Also, it has only 300 characters for a post, which is a poor choice in my opinion. A galaxy of scattered ActivityPub-based servers seems to be more resilient. But it's where the journalists went, so, well, something not much I can do about.
And as the world was ending, we played cards.
2026-03-09
I'm considering writing my next piece of fiction in American English. But this will not happen some time later this year, so there's no rush with the decision. It will feel weird.
Books read long ago
I was checking two books that I read 2 decades ago, and one costs 80–100 euros, while the other one, merely 18 euros (though, the hard cover is 60). Wow. But! I was checking on Amazon, in English. I found used ones in Polish (for around 1 euro each), and I'll go with those.
Elizabeth Hand's "Winterlong" and Richard Bowes' "Minions of the Moon."
Also, it turns out that "Winterlong" was only the first of a trilogy. Which reminds me that I also want to see how Jonathan Carroll's trilogy, which starts with "White Apples," ends.
30 minutes later...
Only, I'm learning now, "White Apples" did not start a trilogy. I was told decades ago that "Glass Soup" was a follow-up; it's not. Makes it easier to catch up years later.
2026-03-10
The nine favourite games
Choosing just 9 games is brutal (like, I would love to put both Switch Zeldas here), but you should catch the drift.
https://my9games.com/s/64613c79e4004d7a
2026-03-11
Wait, what, there was "Sleeping With Ghosts: B-Sides," and I missed that until now? Huh.
2026-03-12
My parents left for home yesterday. I haven't watched almost anything during their stay, and instead, we played cards (rummy) and Carcassone. I wouldn't mind giving up on most of my watching and have, like, 2 movies per weekend and read books from Monday to Friday.
I like all those shows, but I don't know, it feels a bit like empty calories sometimes.
2026-03-13
TIDAL is refusing to work, due to some network issues, so I'm listening to all the free music I amassed on Bandcamp. There is this account, @GetMusic, which regularly posts link to free music, and I collect it for days like this.
I suppose it doubles as #FollowFriday. Follow them.
10 days later...
It turned out to be an issue with the browser, so I'm experimenting with other means of listening.
ME, A BASED DEVELOPER: Every line of code is a liability.
AI AGENT: Hey, look! I've generated 10,000 lines of code.
2026-03-14
The highest insult in the AI world is: "Sloppy, very sloppy."
Brussels by Night
"Brussels by Night" is a Belgian movie from 1983. The story starts with a man who tries to commit a suicide in the very first scene, but decides not to, and instead, he leaves his house and starts wandering the streets. On his way, he meets an old acquaintance, then a bartendress and a Moroccan from a bar. There's a sense that he tries to achieve something on the way, but doesn't know himself what. I liked the bleak colours of December and 80ish music. I wasn't happy with the finale, though.
A spoiler revealing another movie with the same twist: The movie reminded me of Swedish "The Ape," where the main character was wandering more or less aimlessly, too, and at some point, I started suspecting there is the same explanation in both movies. And I was right. I understand that "Brussels by Night" is an early example of this, so I cannot really complain, nor accuse the movie of anything, but I would like to see a movie with a lighter reason to wander here and there.
"Brussels by Night" reminded me in the beginning of Jim Jarmusch's "Limits of Control." But then it spiraled into its dark backstory. I still recommend it, as it's a solid piece of cinema. And because it was shot in real scenery, it documents a world which is forever gone.
2026-03-15
Due to work-related stuff, I haven't updated my page since early December. I have the December done, but not January nor February, and then there is probably the longest thread so far, about "Heretic + Hexen," and something tells me that I'm not gonna finish it this weekend. But eventually, I will.
The Forgiven
"The Forgiven" is a story of a marriage that, driving to a party in a middle of Moroccan desert, hits and kills a young boy, which starts a chain of reaction. I was so afraid that it's gotta be a silly, Columbo-flavoured plot, but nothing of such: it's actually very well research and interesting journey of a man, intertwined with his rich (other) rich friends who party like there's no tomorrow. It reminded me a bit of "White Lotus." And Morocco is beautiful and shown quite decently.
Chainsaw Man
"Chainsaw Man" is an anime telling a story of Denji, a teenager who becomes the titular Chainsaw Man when a small devil replaces his heart; it all makes sense in the context. I expected a "monster of the week" formula, but it has actually pretty solid arc, and the Chainsaw Man is not even in every episode. At times, he doesn't feel like the main character of his own show. Strong characters. And wonderful visuals: buildings and cars stole my heart. And the Roman shower took me by surprise.
2026-03-21
AI enhancements in Firefox: blocked.
Agatha Christie's Seven Dials
I decided to watch "Agatha Christie's Seven Dials" because it's only 3-episode long, and I had 3 days left before a work-related trip. It's a rather average whodunnit, which kept me guessing (and wrongly!), and had a couple of nice characters, but yeah, that's it. Some of the characters in this story were also present in one other book by the author, so I wonder if they will want to follow the series. The ending is somewhat opened.
Mściciel przypływa z Rugii
"Mściciel przypływa z Rugii" (lit. "The Avenger Sails From Rugia;" I doubt it was translated to any other language) is a book by Ireneusz Gwidon Kamiński, with action set in the 16th century in Pomerania. It's a mixed beast, having, on one hand, a rather solid -- even if not the most original -- plot; and on the other hand, one of the more cheesiest language that I encountered, bordering on cheap and overdone pulp. But because the story and characters are good, I am going to assume that it was on purpose.
The story follows a turmoil between Protestants, the Great Inquisition, the Elector of Brandendburg, as well as Polish forces, all fighting for the dominance of Pomerania. Quite a mix. If I had to compare this to anything, it would be Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, although sans magic and technology. I had a lot of pleasure with this book, oftentimes due to its outlandish language.
However, how come I read an obscure 1984's book with almost no DuckDuckGo results? Funny you should ask. So, over twenty years ago, I would party a lot at a friend's apartment, and that very book was on the shelf in her room, courtesy of her boyfriend. It would be there, and we would often joke about what the plot could have been, but to my knowledge, no one ever read it. Fast-forward twenty years, the curiosity got better of me, and I finally found it on an Internet sale, and gave it a shot.
One more thing I need to compliment the book for, as an island aficionado, is that it taught me about Rügen (the titular Rugia, which is the Latin name), a small island in Germany. Back then, it was not so German. It's very picturesque, and three times the size of Malta -- my usual point of reference for islands -- which is way more than I imagined when I was reading the book.
I shall use all the available punctuation, to express myself better. Although, I suspect I might be in the neophyte phase, and overdo all this a bit; but that's how progress is made, so bear with me.
Nope
"Nope" is a movie whose trailer I must have seen when it was released, and it caught my attention because I was not able to figure out what the plot is about; far too many movies these days have trailers explaining the plot ahead, I guess to attract more people, but it doesn't work for me. It's a science-fiction movie, with subtle touches of horror, and it tells a story of a young horse rancher who discovers that something's not right. Something not right being UFO.
A lot of times, movies try to explain things; and to do that, they have to make up a lot of stuff, so we end up with elaborate alien dynasties, which are thinly-veiled human stories. Which is fine, I guess, if you're using aliens as an aesthetics. But not here. It's closer to Stanisław Lem's "Solaris," where they first had to understand what they're up against, and it was not human, so it didn't share our mental models. In other words, the alien here is alien, not a humanoid speaking English.
The later part reminded me of "Jaws," in a similar manner to "Jeepers Creepers 2." And at some point, I had suspicion that it might have similarities to the plot of "Under the Skin" with Scarlett Johansson (but you need to see it to see if I was on track with this one). I also liked the main character, OJ, who was very methodic; autistically even, we could say. Other characters were solid too. And the subplot with monkey! Really strong writing here.
I don't need to add that I was hyped to learn that a sequel might be on the way.
CD reviews
The soundtrack to "The End of Violence," 1997's Wim Wenders' movie, falls under my favourite category of soundtracks: it has songs and compositions from movies, in the order of how they happen in the movie, and mixed with quotes from the movie; very much like "Lost Highway." If your soundtrack is not like that, you're seriously missing out an opportunity here. I had it on my list, but with a lower priority because it's cheap and there's a lot of those. Then Christmas came.
My first CD of 2025 was Mazzy Star's "Among My Swan," so I am very glad that, without any suggestion from me, their earlier "So Tonight That I Might See" was the last one, again as a Christmas gift; a really nice closure here. While both their albums that I have are dream pop, this one is much more psychodelic, whereas "Among My Swan" was more folk. One song sounds as if it came from The Doors. Amazing stuff. I always love to immerse myself in their dreamy soundscapes.
Though, the final CD of the year turned out to be the soundtrack from "The Neverending Story," the musical. They were selling it at a decent price, and I thought that there might not be another chance, and it's a really good souvenir. I listened to it once, and I suspect I will not return to it too much, but because musicals should be watched on the stage, not screen, or listened to.
This year already had three new additions to my collection.
I bought Faithless' the best of, "Forever Faithless," because I like them, and there was "Insomnia" (the most known thing from them), "God is a DJ" (the first song I heard and liked), and "We Come 1" (in a version from the video, not the LP version, which is slightly different). Honestly, there is not much more to say here. As this is a compilation, there were tracks I didn't here before, and which sounds closer to trip-hop than what I usually have Faithless for. I think I might expand my collection with some full albums.
I got Faithless on a flea market, by pure accident, but the following weekend, I returned, this time prepared to buy something interesting. I located a guy selling CDs and went through his stuff. Alas, this was mostly old rock and classic hits, and while I cannot blame him for that, because I suspect it just sells better, it left me with less choice. But then again, maybe that was better 'cause otherwise, I would suffer having to choose. I settled for two items.
I read about R.E.M.'s "Automatic For The People" in an article about the x best albums of 1990s that you should listen to. I chose a couple of them, downloaded them, and listened to them; and this album turned out to be my favourite. I like how acoustic it is at times and kind of easygoing. "Drive," "Everybody Hurts," or "Man on the Moon" were the singles, but I also knew "Star Me Kitten" because the X-files CD had a version with William S. Burroughs. And now, finally, it's here, physically.
And the last so far, Eels' "Souljacker." I liked Eels for their second LP, "Electro-Shock Blues," which I listened intensively to in 1999 and later when my grandmother died, as it was inspired by death of Mark Everett's mother and sister. "Souljacker" has a completely different sound, it's much more harsh, more more rock, compared to a mixed and more experimental "Electro-Shock blues." And unbeknownst to me, it turned out to be a 2 CD edition, with 4 B-sides on the second disc. So, nice.
More on "Souljacker"
The interesting backstory to "Souljacker" was that, having been a fan of "Electro-Shock Blues," I watched Eels' live performance on Viva Zwei, and one of the songs was "Souljacker," about which I told my friend, also a fan of Eels. He replied to me that he never heard about this song of theirs before, but I insisted, and he did more research, and finally found it somehow. Mind you, it was 1999, and the Internet didn't have that many things on it; though, it's making the full circle.
So, for some time, all I had was an mp3 of live performance. The song is officially titled "Souljacker Part I" (there are two on the album), and I was a bit surprised when a couple of years down the line, a clip dropped for this song. In a moment, it went from a curiosity caught during a concert, televised but still, to a video by Wim Wenders.
And then there's "Jehova's Witness," which the aforementioned friend would find out on his own and was crazy about. I never really caught the hype, but the song remained known to me over the years. Now, having bought "Souljacker," I noticed that the B-sides disc has this song. So, yeah. Maybe I should reach out to my friend and share with him what I found on a flea market.
2026-03-22
I wonder what Heavenly Possum was doing that their account is blocked here on mstdn.social (I can see it on other instances, so I assume it's an issue local to my instance).
Lady Snowblood
"Lady Snowblood" from 1973 is a Japanese gory movie about a young woman seeking a revenge for what was done to her family. The film is known to inspire "Kill Bill," with The Bride's storyline and all. I was surprised when Meiko Kaji's song, which I knew from "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," started playing at the beginning. And then it turned out that Meiko Kaji is the actress. It's very bloody, and, similarly to Tarantino's movies, told out of order. As such, it got old extremely well. Kudos.
Though, in general, I think when we say "that movie got old well," it's actually more nuanced. So, at any point in time, different narratives emerge, and some of them take off and are continued, whereas others wither and die forgotten; and years later, we watch them amused. Some narratives are born, peak, then get forgotten. But those that are continued, are the ones that won the race, and it's not really that they got old well but that our timeline continues what they started.
6 hours later...
I might expand on it. In this shape, it's literally a note for myself.
2026-03-23
Windows resolutions
My first Windows' resolution was 800x600 [sic!], and although I've had higher ever since, and it's been not even years, but decades with more pixels, this one was imprinted in my brain. So, when I see an image with a similar resolution, I often think, "This would take more than the whole screen back then, and now, it's this small rectangle in the middle." Extra points if it's a small rectangle in the middle of a smartphone's screen.
And 800x600 was already more than the default, which was 640x480. I couldn't have set any higher, because my mum would say she couldn't see anything. I think it was the first LCD monitor in 2003 that broke that, because you couldn't really change the resolution on LCDs, not without going blurry. So, to summarise, I spend 8 years, between 1995 and 2003, with 800x600.
I learned now, by a pure accident, that there is trailer for "Dune: Part 3."
I played poker and black jack last week. It was a casino night at work, which means we didn't use the real money; everyone got 1,500 worth of chips, and we could play one of three games (there was also roulette, which I had enough of in my life; not necessarily in a bad way, I just played it a lot). I started with poker and was losing a lot, so I went to try black jack, and oh boy, wasn't it my game. It's more mathematical than poker, where you have to hot-read other players. I had fun with it.
Then, for the last round of the evening, I went all-in, and I lost. So, it doubled as a cautionary tale -- after all, for many, those were their houses or savings. Important thing to know about casinos is that the house always wins, so the best business model here is to be the casino. Another thing is, it's also possible that playing with real money would be too stressful, to either win or have fun.
2026-03-24
"Stochastic token machine." Noting for future use.
So, writing a correct English makes you a suspected AI user these days; by the said AI, of course. Oh, what times to be alive.
- For the context: "I'm Kenyan. I Don't Write Like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Writes Like Me."
I worked with one Kenyan once, and his English was beautiful. Funny that clumsy and slobby (sloppy? :D) language is meant to be the human one. And be careful, because if the LLMs were able to copy the proper English, they will master its other flavours, too.
Bloody AIs! Telling me I cannot use archaic English. You really gotta have a nerve.
255 followed. Truly FF timeline.
2026-03-25
After 6 years, "DoroHedoro" returns with new episodes. I think I stopped waiting at this point, so it's a very nice surprise.
Some thought about AI
Yesterday, I took a part in workshops for a tool that allows creating various workflows, which can be used to handle some of business logic but in a no-code manner. It's actually pretty neat. But that's not the point here. One of the aspects was AI integration, which boiled down to a step where we can send a prompt plus some additional context to AI of our subscription, and get a text response in the next step. Exactly what I would expect these days. Mostly, I sat quiet and observed.
One example was good on the surface, but in reality, it was outsourcing a simple operation, which could have been put together by a human operator at one-time cost, to an AI agent that would burn tokens every time to check a simple information. To say the least, I was not impressed.
[Ryan Reynolds in a hospital gown, asking "But why?"].gif
The other example was creating a workflow with a help from an AI agent. It processed a prompt for a couple of minutes, printing messages like "Mulling" one after another, and then it produced a code *that didn't work*. :D I was kind of hopeful for this part; I put a couple of workflows myself, and while the no-code part looks promising on paper, you are still going to be better at creating those workflows if you're a dev. Programming is not really coding; that's incidental.
A sort of okayish example, at least during the workshops, was a tool to analyse for breaking errors in workflows created by users, though, this was, if anything, an elaborate linter. Still better than nothing, and still something that could be useful. But not really a breakthrough. As my colleague commented on another occasion, after analysing use of AI in our company -- people don't want AI per se, they want automation; and oftentimes, it can be achieved easier and cheaper without AI.
But the main thing, which was not even interesting but terrifying, was how AI was treated. As if it was something more than a stochastic parrot. I had a similar conversation during a week-long retreat last week, where one colleague was talking about fine-tuning his diet with a help of ChatGPT, and he would call these chats "a research." I guess it's a continuation of people "researching" by typing queries into Google. There was no breaking through this wall of misunderstanding, either with him or people in the workshops.
A funny thing was when another colleague, one running the workshop, described how she wanted to get ChatGPT to help her with time zones, and it would get it wrong for days, and in the end, "it would even admit itself that it's not good with time zones." C'mon, ChatGPT with agree with you on anything. But apparently, it works on people extremely well; Politeness-as-a-Service. But, as said in the beginning, I mostly observed.
So, to summarise, the future looks bleak.
2026-03-26
I should read less news.
In William Gibson's "Idoru," one of the subplots is of an artist marrying a hologram artist -- which is the titular "idoru," which is something like Hatsune Miku, a.k.a. vocaloid, plus hologram. Now, one of the other characters has visual impairment, which makes him see a metal cylinder, not the hologram representation. And this is how I feel with LLM AIs and people cheering them. Hombre, you're talking to a metal cylinder.
The solution for the incoming energy crisis could be turning off all the AI data centres, which are legendary for their energy consumption; and as a bonus, I would throw in Bitcoin, which should amount to some savings, too.
Just as I was meaning to head off work, a pull request dropped; and in it, 63 files were peering at me, challenging me, mocking me. And I'm not a man of "Looks Good To Me," so I stayed a tad longer, to give a proper review.
A post from MostlyHarmless
Childhood is idolizing Batman. Adolescence is when Joker starts to make sense. Adulthood is realizing Commissioner Gordon doesn’t get paid enough to deal with their crap.
2026-03-27
The design of the Cloudflare DNS registry is a joke. The target input is very narrow, and I had to paste there long values that wrap up, and I cannot see them fully, so I need to scroll or copy outside to make sure they're correct. The horror, the horror.
I had a dream where I met Michael Wincott; I think he was at my place, though this was not my real place, only in the dream. I recognised him and said that I've seen a movie with him recently ("Nope"), and asked him if he was wearing a skirt there, to which he replied that no, it was a tunic.
I like using Markdown very much, but we need to acknowledge the fact that most people will not share my, ours, affection about it. We could teach using Markdown at school, though; that would improve the coverage.
Thanks to auto-generated caption on YouTube, I noticed, only now, that Arrakis sounds very similar to Iraq. Mind: blown.
A new N64 game. Apparently, there is a number of those. When I'm done with "Hexen" and a couple of other games, I might have a look into those.
https://github.com/lambertjamesd/n64brew2025
Ah yes, chowder.
2026-03-28
T2 Trainspotting
I recall that when "T2 Trainspotting" came out in 2017, the general opinion was that it was so-and-so, therefore, I skipped it. But now Netflix served it to me on a plate, so I decided to give it a shot, after all. And once again, I am proven that I should not listen to the general public, for they know shit. The movie's okay, telling a story of Mark, who visits old friends and catches up with them. I suppose it's not as breakthrough as the first movie, but I was never captured by it as much as people around me.
It could be that I have seen the first movie in my 20s, and this one now when I'm at age close to the characters again, and it just found the right moment. Timing is everything. I liked the music and how stuff that felt random turned out to be a Chekhov's gun. Always welcomed.
2026-03-29
It's Florida, Man
"It's Florida, Man" is an unusual documentary that depicts some of the most notorious headlines from Florida. It starts strong: with a man who went for night swimming, only to realise that he's surrounded by alligators. Then it gets weirder. The interviews with Florida Men (and Women) are mixed with reenactments by actors, with many interesting guests, a courtesy of the producers, among whom there is Danny McBride of "Vice Principals." Or so I'm guessing.
By the time I got to "Moonshine" (S02E05), I realised that Florida is like Russia in many regards; the same level of unhinge. Though, it's partially due to how law operates in Florida, which allows publishing info on people who were merely arrested. Tough luck.
I like how the reenactments are not played out seriously, and the show gets close to "Rick and Morty" or "Smiling Friends" levels, which I thought was not possible.
Season 3 is on the way, but it can probably run endlessly, thanks to an army of Florida People.
My bigger dog got some sort of pain in his heap, and we ended up in vet ER yesterday, and we had to go this morning again (where he stayed for the night), and it's been so overwhelming that I am literally distracting myself with news from the World War III (for instance, did you know Houthis join the action?). What a timeline to be alive.
2026-03-30
AI image generation peaked with DALL-E, which would take human visuals and produce something resembling what we asked for, yet uncanny. It was still not art by any definition, but it was a new perspective. The better it gets, the less value it has.
"I am human," I say in a robotic voice to a dimly-lit computer screen.
"Just do the captcha," the computer replies. "It's important for me."
2026-03-31
The doctors managed to find out what was bothering my dog: it was hernia. They administered treatment, and we'll picking him up in two hours and a half. That is such a relief. I was seriously terrified at one point that we'll have put him down, and I don't wish this to anyone (neither the pet, nor the owner). But, it looks like we're back on the track.
I started reading summaries of "DoroHedoro's" episodes on Wikipedia, to juggle my memory before season 2, which is coming up tomorrow, but it ringed no bells, so I think I'll just watch it all anew, and smoothly sail into the new season. It was fun, after all. Unhinged and surreal, just how I like it.