Weeknotes for week 7, 2023

The week of February 13th.

First weeknote! I've enjoyed reading weeknotes by Denis Defreyne and others, so I thought I'd try it myself.

At work, this was the last week of cooldown.

I arranged for the customer support team to onboard us (the product development Public Site Team) so we can do it one day per cooldown. I think we'll learn a lot.

When I suggested this, Fred recommended two Rework Podcast episodes (Put Everyone on the Front Lines, Tales from the Front Lines). I listened to them in the back garden walking our indoor cat on a lead.

At our Friday afternoon social, I showed the Arc browser. I've used it for about two weeks now, and I really like it, despite some bugs and quirks.

I've been using my new Apple Studio Display all week. The single-cable lifestyle is great. The camera is the least good part – not so much the picture quality but the wide angle. Centre Stage gets you a more useful crop, but it's distracting how it tracks movement.

I tried a desk mat and wasn't a fan – I think I'll keep going without.

As part of our "cosy cabins and camps" theme, my partner and I watched The Parent Trap (1961) followed by The Parent Trap (1998). The 1961 version was great, and the special effects (making twins out of one actor) are impressive.

They supposedly only meant to have a few of those shots, but Walt Disney had them add lots more after seeing how good they were.

I appreciate that the newer one isn't a scene-by-scene rehash, but the parents are less charismatic and the emotional scenes don't have the same impact.

We also rewatched The Princess and the Frog (2009). It was fine.

I started watching The Last of Us (2023–). Never played the game. Two episodes in, it's pretty good. I love post-apocalyptic takes.

After a lazy winter, I've started doing more work around the house again.

I drove to collect some used Mackintosh-inspired chairs for our parlour/dining room (this model, but two for £60). They're going with an IKEA table and it's all being painted black. I've just primed the table with a shellack-based primer as I write this.

Having a big, solid dinner table is amazing – haven't really had one before.

I briefly tried the launcher Raycast as an alternative to Alfred. I love the confetti command, and it looks more modern. Other than that, I need to try it more.

I organised my notes in Notes.app a bit more, and watched some YouTube videos about note organisation (like this one). I love organising things, but I feel like I don't have my notes organised as well as I could. I'm curious about Notion and Obsidian.

I started modernising my personal site (this one!) and ended up re-implementing it with Middleman so it's easier to maintain now that it has things like weeknotes.

Our normally-greedy cat Vincent was off his food for several days, so we took him to the vet. Doing much better after some pills. Very grateful he will accept the pills in food.

I'm between books, which is always disconcerting.

I should probably pick up Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett. It's the sequel to Foundryside which was great in many ways, including perhaps the best magic system I've seen, but for some reason I'm not particularly keen to read more 🤷‍♂️

We went on a walk in Hardcastle Crags in the next town over.

We've been before, but hadn't gone into Gibson Mill previously. I love that they used to have summer camps and a roller-skating rink.