I've wanted to do something like this for a while, and it only occurred to me to put it together with a newsletter-type thing when I was driving the other day. The idea is to do this on the first of every month, with a roundup of anything I found or was shared with me that I liked, but maybe didn't warrant its own post. I've toyed with links on my Media Diet but I don't think it quite works there.
I'm not entirely happy with this being so listy. I wanted it to be a bit more prosaic, and maybe that's how it'll be when this comes about through a month of writing, but as it stands now it's very listy. Sorry about that! I will either improve or give up - either way it won't be a problem for long.
This month I built a new keyboard. It was a great experience in terms of the build but I'm too used to having a significant physical split; I keep losing the centre of the board on this. Maybe if I practice I'll get it but we all know I'm not going to practice.
I rediscovered Death Cab for Cutie. I haven't got into their newer records yet but revisiting the three I'm already familiar with was fun.
Charlotte and I went for breakfast, at a restaurant, like grownups because Tabitha had to be at school for an open day. In the afternoon, Tabitha and I went for a little adventure. Very wholesome Saturday.
I quit social media. I have tonnes to write about this and I've probably spent more time thinking about social media, and friendships and relationships in general, in the last week than I have in the last 5 years so I need to organise some thoughts.
And we got a puppy. His name is Forest, and he is a handful. He reminds me a lot of Sudo, which is giving me mixed feelings, but I am happy to have a dog in the house again. Will be even happier when he chills out a bit.
Charlotte and I watched Those About to Die, and House of the Dragon. Raz must have known because he released a video about how he misses Game of Thrones. I never considered myself a huge fan of Game of Thrones - especially by the end - but I loved the first few seasons.
I watched Akira for the first time. It's always felt like something that I should be into, but the art style turned me off. I watched a video about Neo Tokyo and it made me want to try again, and I thought it was incredible. It's been so worth revisiting things for me, lately!
And I finished Yume Kitasei's The Deep Sky. I didn't love it; didn't hate it. That hasn't changed a lot in the intervening weeks. I haven't really thought about it at all, as my mind has been quite occupied with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which is probably going to take me about a year to finish.
There's a new version of Reeder this month. This has been the RSS reader I've used exclusively since it came out, but the new one is very different. I thought I wasn't getting on with it until I switched back to the old one and actually I much prefer the way you use this one. Funny how that goes.
Silent Planet are playing in Leipzig in February and Sven and I are going to go, which I'm excited about. I've never seen them before, and also never been to a different country to go to a gig. My top 10 artists for this month are:
- Silent Planet
- Death Cab for Cutie
- JPEGMAFIA
- 156/Silence
- Vended
- Every Time I Die
- We Never Learned to Live
- Amenra
- Chevelle - casually heard Tabitha listening to Breaking Benjamin in her room the other day, which filled me with a bit of pride! But I still prefer Chevelle, and every time I think of Breaking Benjamin it makes me want to listen to Chevelle
- Lizzy McAlpine - Dan is right about this record. It's so great, and I should listen to it more.
Song recommendations
I watch way too much YouTube, and that's not decreasing with the fact that I don't have Instagram to scroll any more.
- One Million Checkboxes and how people used it to send the creator messages. This is peak internet, in my opinion.
- One day I will build an F1 simulator rig, but right now my real-life car costs me too much money to put any into pretend cars!
- I had no idea that LTT is building a badminton centre. I want to go to it.
- I've wanted to get a ThinkPad, install Linux, and really immerse myself in that world, for a long time. I'll make lists of things from Mac that I need to be able to do on Linux; that list gets huge and scary and then I abandon the idea and move onto something else. I got quite far this month, though - even watched loads of videos on ricing, and how to actually install Arch on the ThinkPad I was looking at on ebay.
- Donut is building Hi/Low drag Mustangs. I loved Donut. I wouldn't have the Porsche without that channel, but it's sad how it's changed in the last few months. Everything's all about maximum profits and it's so soulless. That's not going to stop me watching drag Mustangs get the hi/low treatment though.
- Sylvan Esso remixed The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, and I attribute my revisiting of Death Cab to this video.
- Smash Mouth - All Star played on an ocarina made out of a melon. I found this way funnier than it actually is.
- This amazing restomod Porsche 914. You hardly ever see 914s get this sort of treatment. I didn't even recognise it, but I love the end result.
- How Venice is built. I didn't know any of this, and I feel like Casino Royale lied to me.
- For some reason, fern made a video on the McMillions scam. I prefer it to the HBO thing but I still prefer the Daily Beast original report. It didn't offer any noteworthy new insights.
- Jimmy Zhong's 50k BTC heist. This is wild. He came so close to getting away with it. Sad guy.
- This thing about Japan's favourite chord progression. Music theory is so interesting to me, but I am not good at it. Andy and I were talking about it at the weekend and I described it as applied maths, and I think that's probably why I have trouble with it. I use computers to pretend to understand maths.
- DankPods is using Linux. YouTube in their infinite wisdom stopped me from seeing DankPods videos but they started again! I love this guy
- Unboxing a petabyte. Slow Mo Guys need so much disk space.
- Dunkey reviews Astrobot. That's nice.
- Kurzgesagt - we need to rethink exercise. I'm a big fan of these videos, but this definitely ruined my motivation to exercise this month.
- Red Bull - Bike flip on a moving train. Sounds like it shouldn't be significantly more difficult than any other bike flip, but it is, because physics. I hadn't considered how instrumental wind resistance is when it comes to balance but of course it is! Reminded me of a Veritasium video I watched a few years ago, about how important it is to be able to use your bike's steering to make micro-adjustments to your balance. That's probably what you're learning to do when you learn to ride a bike, but I certainly never consciously consider that I'm doing it when I'm cycling.
- Sam Campbell on Would I Lie To You - we saw Sam live a couple of months ago and I find him so funny
- N++'s game design. I loved this when it released but I didn't stick with it and finish it. It's now on my Steam wishlist
- Exposing the flaws in our phone system. Terrifying.
- North Korean Hackers. I've talked to a lot of people about this video since I saw it. I always just feel sad for the people who live under this regime.
- The Verge tries Meta's AR glasses. Things that I will never put on my face.
- Shohei Otani breaking baseball. I'm not a baseball guy, but I am very interested in it as a subject, which I owe to Moneyball I suppose. I love that there are so many athletes breaking sports right now. Makes me realise how precarious things have become.
- Reimagining Apple's "best" keyboard. I love people's persistence and creativity. I would have given up so long ago!
- Hannah Fry on Quantum Computing. Not going to lie this scares the hell out of me. I don't feel threatened by AI, but I do feel very threatened by this.
- How F1 drivers brake. Since getting the Boxster, I have been interested in improving my driving technique. I don't think this is really applicable to the road but I love learning about all of the detailed techniques these drivers have. People talk a lot about racing drivers' reaction speeds, and they're obviously impressive, but the focus required to be able to do this for nearly 2 hours, pretty much every week, is amazing.
- McMurtry Spéirling this thing is a monster.
- Benn Jordan - Making a Sound Camera. Watch everything Benn Jordan does
- Aston Martin Valkyrie on the road. Good grief, this car is amazing. I'm not usually a fan of Astons but this thing is an absolute monster and I want it. Even just to be a passenger for a while would be fine.