Weeknotes 2026 W26: The heat

Quick bits

• The heat! Ugh! I skipped going to the office all week, because I did not want to die. My initial plan was to use the coworking¹¹1 Co-working, not cow-orking. Leave the damned cows alone, you piece of filth.  space near me instead, because it has AC, but the AC was turned way down and the cold airflow made me nauseous, and I couldn’t get the Wi-Fi to work there either. So I stuck to my temp studio, where I’ve been suffering; having windows only on one side meant I couldn’t get any airflow going.

  At least it wasn’t as hellishly hot as it was in Berlin.

• I’ve come to realise that I am prone to getting barometric pressure headaches — you know, the kind of headache that tells you a storm is approaching. Psychic.

• When I casually threw in a comment last week about how it’s madness to orient maps in the direction of travel, I had no idea that I would stir up some controversy. Oh my! How divisive. And it’s not even a clear split: different circumstances call for different types of map usage. (I still don’t rotate my maps.)

• Yesterday I attended my first-ever English village fair. Quaint! Highlight: Biscoff ice cream. Lowlight: accidentally hot lemonade (eww). And even though I brought my camera, I didn’t take any photos because I wasn’t feeling like it.

• Why does my iPhone wish me “good morning?” I don’t want my tech to behave like a human. Only sentient beings get to wish me a good morning. A piece of machinery saying “good morning” means nothing.

• I’ve come to quite appreciate Actual. It’s powerful, even though it still lacks multi-currency support.

• I learned that the abbreviation EKG (for Elektrokardiogramm) instead of ECG is also used in English, for historical reasons. (Don’t worry; my heart is fine.)

• Did you know that Latin used to have the letter K? Kalendae! Karthago!

London bits:

• London internet is so fast. A welcome change from Berlin’s.

• I have discovered Shreddies, and it slaps. Next up on the list of things to try: Grape Nuts, and malted milk biscuits.

• Stratford International is the Holy Roman Empire of train stations: neither Stratford nor international. (Also: a glorified ditch.)

Shower thoughts

• I keep confusing ADHD and AD&D. To be fair, I imagine there’s some overlap in the communities.

A moving update

I am getting the keys for my new place coming week! The movers won’t come until the Monday after, so I’ll be in a rather empty home for a few days. That’ll be weird, but I’ll manage. Also no internet for a while, but I can tether.

For now, I am still living in a studio, and I truly dislike it. My bedroom is so close to the hallway that I can hear people come and go, and I can’t run the dishwasher overnight because that thing is 1.5m from my bed. I have a small table that fits barely more than my laptop; my ZSA Moonlander keyboard is too big for it. The place feels very much like student accommodation… but somehow extraordinarily expensive too. I can’t wait to move out.

There’s also nothing in the area — heavy traffic and industry. I knew it wouldn’t be glamorous when I moved in, and that was fine because it was only meant to be temporary, but I’m so over it.

Soon. Soon.

On the Berlin side of things, not everything is sorted out 100% yet. A little under a year ago, I wrote how I switched to a cheaper internet plan, not realising that it tied me to my ISP for another two years. I’ve had to go through the Sonderkündigung²²2 Extraordinary cancellation  process, but I’ve got an upcoming full-price charge for this month anyway. I’ll have to place another call and whip out my best German to get this resolved.

In better news, I got a partial refund for the shoddy Berlin move-out cleaning. The English-speaking cleaning service did such a poor job that half of the cabinets were clearly still dirty. Filing a complaint worked, and I’m happy with that!³³3 There is a chance that my landlord will withhold part of my deposit because of this. I hope not, in any case. 

A minimal game

Perpetually desiring something to work on, and having abandoned two previous projects, I’ve started working on something else: a minimal text-based web game that I can most accurately describe as a minimalist city builder, akin to a stripped-down Banished or Age of Empires, combined with some RPG elements, highly inspired by A Dark Room.

With no graphics and sound, the focus can be much more direct, as if I’m only creating a prototype for something bigger later on. The precise mechanics are still in flux, but the minimalist nature of the game will allow me to iterate quickly.

For working on this game, I’ve picked a more disciplined approach: before I start any work, I describe what exactly it is that I want to accomplish, and only then start working on the implementation. I find that level of focus to be useful.

Tech-wise, I’m using Preact with signals. I started with pure JavaScript, but I honestly think that Preact+signals allows me to move much quicker than otherwise, and it’s remarkably efficient, too.

I just need to make sure it does not get too close to A Dark Room. That game sure is an inspiration.

Links

• How to sell you furniture (Kendra Gaylord): This video has the best description of IKEA I’ve ever heard: “The Backrooms, but Swedish.”

• Gerrymandle: I am cackling as I play this.

• Reality is a Camera Trick: Film, Bodycams, and the First-Person Shooter (Jacob Geller)

• The Prime Minister resigned after this video (Chris Spargo): My man Chris went from talking passionately about bins… to… what? (Also: this is the only coverage of the G7 I’ve ever watched.)

Tech links:

• Deno Desktop apps: Neat. I’m always interested in Electron alternatives!