I think doing this daily photo thing makes months seem longer in retrospect, but it also makes any cool things we do seem smaller.

Charlotte and I went to see Architects' new album release show at the start of the month. It was at a very small (for them) venue and was a great atmosphere.

We also went to the opening of Helm's new show, which felt like a very civilised evening. I don't really like taking pictures in galleries but there was this super nice light behind the glasses at the bar, so I got something usable without other people's art in!

It was Tabitha's 12th birthday, my mum came to visit and we had Baked Alaska.

I was also a bit more active on Mastodon than usual. I can't figure out whether I'm worth following on there, but things are definitely happening!

links

• Building links with LLMS is nothing to do with AI, don't panic. It's a cool idea about breaking up your content on personal sites.
• A decent article echoing some of my thoughts on why it's important for people to have personal sites.
• The Yamauchi No.10 Family Office site is a lot, in a good way, and it's a rare example of scrolljacking that I will tolerate.
• I learned about the concept of a Webring from a new Mastodon friend. I like it but it does rather give you a lot to go through.
• Simone's Computer is such a cool throwback. So much effort must have gone into this.
• There's a lot going on in America at the moment, and none of it seems good. I read this article about Elon Musk and a Trumpworld Power Couple, which I hate as a concept. I really don't understand how he's getting away with all this. There's also this on more specifics of what he's been up to, but I think I'd have liked more detail. You might need a 12ft ladder to get into these. McSweeneys also has a helpful list of every gross thing Donald Trump has done in office. But since they're not using official channels to communicate any more, this probably goes even deeper than we'll ever know.
• GQ's Insight into the Fight to Save American Selvedge Denim is a super interesting article on the modern trials of a very old denim business. Would be a shame for this all to vanish.
• One of the School Dads was talking about Stoolball at a netball match. Never heard of this!
• I started on a new mini-project at work that uses SolidJS. I like SolidJS.
• Dan found this privacy-focussed VPN. I have my own setup here that works fine for when I need to seem like I'm home when I'm out, but I do like the idea of using something like this more regularly. I obviously don't do anything nefarious online that warrants hiding, but I do believe everyone's behaviour should default to private and I'm sick of these snooping companies trying to know as much about you as possible. Think I just sold it to myself.
• I can't believe this picture of Pluto.
• I'd love an Ooni spiral dough mixer. Whenever I make pizza I get cross at our mixer because the dough always climbs the hook. I'm not spending that on a mixer for one thing, but it's cool.
• Ladybird is a brand new browser and rendering engine, uncoupled from big companies who feel like they're entitled to know everything about you just because they made some software. I ditched Chrome a while back because Google already knows enough about me and they broke adblockers, all whilst hand-waving that it was because they are incompatible with the new manifest version that they created. I'm now using Firefox which has inferior dev-tools, and apparently Mozilla are getting pretty bad.

music

• new BRUIT ≤
• new Thornhill. These guys are basically a Deftones tribute band but I like Deftones.
• new Sleep Token.
• new Rivers of Nihil - I love this
• new Pigsx7, featuring El-P. Weird collab but I'm into it.
• new Superheaven. Never heard of them before but they're giving 90s vibes.
• new Benthos.
• new Chevelle.
• new Volumes.
• new House of Protection. There's a lot of hype around these guys but this single is decent.
• new Invent Animate and Silent Planet collab that I cannot find to buy anywhere.
• new clipping.
• new Deafheaven.
• new Spiritbox.
• new Jason Isbell.

youtube

• Benn Jordan - You Are Witnessing the Death of American Capitalism - another amazing video from Benn.

we are in a constant battle with billionnaires who don't want us to own things, but rent them

• A Pushmo Retrospective. I loved these games on the 3DS but, as with most puzzle games, I reach a point where I'm done with them before they're finished.
• Bite me, Disney. I'm back to discs. We gave up our Disney+ subscription. Something just feels wrong about paying monthly to watch the same things over and over.
• We are quitting badminton. I love Greg and Jenny, and this was sad to see, but I'm glad they're going to be focussing on their channel. It really is decent badminton content.
• Sonic Galactic - I love that SEGA doesn't go after Sonic fangames. There's some brilliant ones and this is no exception.
• Lord Gaga on SNL. I found this funnier than it probably is.
• I will never tire of watching this amazing indoor bowls shot.
• Very nice custom bike showcase. I want to ride the last one.
• Japan's Indigo Dyeing industry is as cool as you'd expect. I love their blue hands and now I want to watch Serenity.
• The exposure advice that transformed my photography. It's so funny seeing things like this from trained photographers. All that time spent to learn how to do things properly, just to figure out that art comes from going by feel, not by numbers and graphs. I felt weirdly vindicated watching this.
• How to get insanely good at guitar in your 30s, 40s, and 50s. Probably won't.
• I learned that there's such a thing as note-taking influencers. A few months ago I switched how I organise pretty much all of my files and it is slow-write-fast-read, which is kinda annoying at times. I essentially stole Drafts' functionality to write now, organise later, and it works quite well but feels like I've had to hack a pretty fundamental flaw in my own system.
• Michael Jordan was good at basketball.
• The Teenage Engineering OP-XY looks cool, but I don't need one and I wouldn't use it if I had it.
• I won't connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud. I like to think I'd have discovered this before buying a dishwasher but it's so stupid that I likely wouldn't have even considered that it was a thing. All this stupid smart, connected stuff is annoying and it leads nicely to...
• When expensive music gear becomes obsolete. This applies to anything, actually. I'm trying to avoid buying things that have computers in. You're then reliant on the manufacturer to keep supporting them for them to stay useful. You can't fix your own stuff, you can't have access to the OS (for the most part), and the manufacturer gets to tell you when the product is obsolete. I'm absolutely sick of that (see Benn Jordan above).
• The Origins of Dwarf Fortress - I haven't played Dwarf Fortress but I am very interested in how it came into existence. Noclip documentaries are brilliant.
• Hidden Japan: Secret Apartment Bar. Cool, but I bet his neighbours hate him.

That'll do for this month I think! Have a good one and I'll see you in May.