Weeknotes 2023 W26: Brighton

Quick bits:

• I bought a book stand. It holds the book at a good angle and keeps the pages open. It’s so nice. It works for my ebook reader, too.

• After last week’s picnic, I ended up with a sunburn, exclusively on my left leg. Why just my left leg? Literally no idea.

• At work, I tried to use Microsoft Teams’s new built-in note-taking functionality. It is terrible: I couldn’t figure out a way to export notes, and even copy-paste did not work. My workaround: take a screenshot of the notes and run it through OCR. Needless to say, I will not be using MS Teams for note-taking in the future.

• I’ve got all of next week off. I don’t have a plan yet. I’ll probably do quite a bit of reading and writing. But if I don’t, then that’s fine too. Let’s hang out?

On Friday, I attended the Brighton Ruby conference. My head wasn’t really in the right space for it. I didn’t really enjoy the conference, but that’s a me problem, not a problem with the conference or the people I met.

At least I’ve got Ruby socks now. Thanks, Andy.

I did meet a bunch of people whom I’ve previously only known from The Internet. That was quite nice. I wish I was mentally in a better spot to be able to make good use of that time.

In part, the reason why Brighton Ruby didn’t click for me is because I’ve lost my passion for software development. If 2023 has made anything very clear for me, it is that creativity is far more important than I ever thought, and having come to that realization, I now need things to fuel that creativity into — and software isn’t it.

I’ve been rather unprepared for my trip to the UK:

• Until the day before the trip, I had forgotten that post-Brexit, a passport is required for me to travel to the UK. Luckily, I had one. Luckily, too, it was not expired yet (I’ve got until early next year).

• I also somehow forgot that UK power plugs are different from EU power plugs, so I didn’t bring my travel adapters. A rookie mistake.

• I didn’t bring my Oyster card.

I blame COVID-19 for making me not travel for so long and forget these things.

CW: death (feel free to skip to the next section)

The death of a friend (see Week­notes 2023 W25: Friend) has been weighing on me this week.

An entire day of traveling, with lots of waiting, made my mind wander and ruminate. I was not feeling well by the time I arrived in Brighton, but decided to hang out with a bunch of conference goers anyway. That distracted me for a while but felt myself slipping and had to make a quick exit. In my hotel room, I burst out into tears. It hit me, finally, and it hit hard.

I cried about all the other people I lost, too. Grief is unpredictable, and it tends to rip open old wounds.

I went on a long walk along the coastline, and watching the waves relentlessly hammering the stony shore was cathartic. When I got back to the hotel, I scheduled a therapist appointment in Berlin for coming week — a new therapist recommended by a friend. I’ll pay out of pocket for this, but I need professional help.

Anyway, have two random Brighton beach photos.

Entertainment:

• I am about halfway through the System Shock remake. It is very enjoyable.

• Silo’s season one finale wasn’t great. I think the problem with this show is that it doesn’t respect the intelligence of its audience. I’ll likely pass on season 2.

• I saw Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but my mind wasn’t in the right place. The theme of death and grief, even though only touched upon briefly, threw me off balance. I’ll have to rewatch it some time.

Links:

• Streak Redemption (Lukas Mathis)

• Videogames Have A Creativity Problem (and it’s not the one you think) (Adam Millard)

• I read the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision so you don’t have to (Garrison Hayes): Insightful!