Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

How to Work Better - Kev Quirk

2025-03-12T16:15:00.000Z

I was out with my family in Chester recently and I saw a quote on the side of a building explaining how to work better. I thought it was very well put, so I wanted to share it.

I'm not usually one for these inspirational "posts" (is it a post if it's on the side of a building?) But this one resonated with me, especially given the challenges I've been having in work lately.

The quote said:

HOW TO WORK BETTER.

1 DO ONE THING AT A TIME
2 KNOW THE PROBLEM
3 LEARN TO LISTEN
4 LEARN TO ASK QUESTIONS
5 DISTINGUISH SENSE FROM NONSENSE
8 ACCEPT CHANGE AS INEVITABLE
7 ADMIT MISTAKES
8 SAY IT SIMPLE
9 BE CALM
10 SMILE

I think I do most of these fairly well, but I can definitely do some of them better. Particularly multi-tasking, accepting change, and being calm.

Multi-tasking and me do not work well together. I am just shit at it. So I do try to do one thing at a time where possible, but context switching is also a challenge for me. I'm responsible for a large, global team, and my role basically consists of making sure my team has what they need, deflecting shit where required, and making decisions. All of this means lots of context switching on a daily basis, which is really challenging for my rather small brain.

I also tend to get stuck in my own head, as I like things to be done in a particular way. When things don't go my way, I get frustrated. It's something I've learned to manage over time - people do things in different ways, I get that. But my knee-jerk reaction is always frustration when people inevitably approach a problem in a different way than I would.

You would think I'd have learned by now, as I'm often wrong and these different approaches are usually a much better solution than I would have come up with. But I still get frustrated. 🤷‍♂️

The problem is, I care deeply about doing a good job; I love what I do and the people I work with. Maybe sometimes I need to give slightly less of a fuck? I dunno.

If you're interested, here's a photo of the quote on the building:

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Ter[ence|ry] - Terence Eden’s Blog

2025-03-12T12:34:32.000Z

My name is confusing. I don't mean that people constantly misspell it, but that no-one seems what I'm called. Let me explain.

British parents have this weird habit of giving their children long formal names which are routinely shortened to a diminutive version. Alfred becomes Alf, Barbara becomes Babs, Christopher becomes Chris - all the way down to the Ts where Terence becomes Terry.

And so, for most of my childhood, I was Terry⁰ to all who knew me.

There was a brief dalliance in my teenage years where I went by Tezza. A name I have no regrets about using but, sadly, appear to have grown out of.

So I was Terry until I entered the workforce. An overzealous IT admin ignored my "preferred name" on a new-joiners' form and, in a fit of bureaucratic inflexibility, renamed me "Terence". To my surprise, I liked it. It was my nom de guerre.

"Terence" had KPIs and EOY targets. "Terry" got to play games and drink beer.

While "Terence" sat in meetings, nodded sagely, and tried to make wise interjections - "Terry" pissed about, danced like and idiot, and said silly things on stage.

Over the years, as was inevitable, my two personalities merged. I said sillier things at work and tried a quarterly review of our OKRs with my wife¹.

I was Terry to friends and Terence to work colleagues. Like a fool, I crossed the streams and became friends with my colleagues. So some knew me as Terry and some as Terence. Confusion reigned.

Last year, I stopped working. I wondered what that would do to my identity. Who am I when I can't answer the question "What do you do for a living?"? But, so it seems, my identity is more fragile than I realised. When people ask my name, I don't really know how to respond.

WHO AM I?

Personal Brand is (sadly) a Whole Thing™. Although I'm not planning an imminent return to the workforce, I want to keep things consistent online². That's all staying as "Terence" or @edent.

So I've slowly been re-introducing myself as Terry in social spaces. Some people take to it, some find it disturbingly over-familiar, some people still call me Trevor.

Hi! I'm Terry. Who are you?

Except, of course, when I'd been naughty and my parents summoned me by using my full formal name including middle names. ↩︎
I was put on a Performance Improvement Plan. Which was fair. ↩︎
I completely sympathise with people who get married and don't want to take their spouse's name lest it sever all association with their hard-won professional achievements. ↩︎

Keep it Weird. - Westenberg

2025-03-12T04:44:47.000Z

Fuck it man. Just put on some Grateful Dead. Put on some Aretha. Print some kind of zine. Paint a sign. Start a band. Write a manifesto. Bootleg a t-shirt. Hand out stickers. Throw a party. Keep it weird.

Pattern Recognition vs. Pattern Lock-In - Westenberg

2025-03-12T02:41:30.000Z

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 cast a long shadow. France, humiliated and burning for revenge. Germany, rising and certain it had to strike first to stay on top. Every decision, every alliance, every military maneuver was shaped by one core belief: another war wasn’t just possible—it was inevitable.

And when folks believe something is inevitable, they stop trying to prevent it.

Germany wrote the Schlieffen Plan years before the first shots were fired. Not as a backup plan. Not as a last resort. As the script. It wasn’t a question of if war would come, but when. France and Russia were the presumed enemies, Belgium the collateral damage, and millions of lives were the price of a war that no one truly tried to stop.

Diplomacy became a game. Treaties became a tool for positioning. Leaders became actors playing a role they believed had already been written. So when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, when tensions rose, no one pulled the brakes. They followed the pattern. They marched forward. Right into World War 1.

And that’s the danger of pattern lock-in.

We see something happen once, twice, three times, and suddenly we stop questioning it. We start believing it’s the natural order. We mistake habit for destiny. We accept that this is just how the world works.

But history isn’t a loop. It’s a series of choices.

Climate collapse? Not inevitable. Oligarchy? Not inevitable. War? Not inevitable. These things don’t happen because they must. They happen because people in power convince themselves (and us) that they must. And when we believe them, when we accept the pattern, we let it play out.

The only way to stop a pattern is to name it, challenge it, refuse to follow the script. The only way to change the future is to stop assuming it’s already written.

Because the past doesn’t dictate the future. Unless we let it.

🍕

My goal this year is to make Westenberg and my news site, The Index, my full-time job. The pendulum has swung pretty far back against progressive writers, particularly trans creators, but I'm not going anywhere.

I'm trying to write as much as I can to balance out a world on fire. Your subscription directly supports permissionless publishing and helps create a sustainable model for writing and journalism that answers to readers, not advertisers or gatekeepers.

Please consider signing up for a paid monthly or annual membership to support my writing and independent/sovereign publishing.

Chrono Trigger is thirty years old - Joel's Log Files

2025-03-12T02:25:39.000Z

Do you see my logo up there? if you don’t, it’s probably because you’re reading this from your RSS Reader… anyway, if you visit my website, you’ll see my logo and since you are qutie clever, you’ll be able to know it’s just the initials for “joel chrono,” my username, duh! But why does the C looks like like that? and what does “chrono” mean anyway? Well, it’s actually ~~a complete rip-off~~ a reference, to one of the most influential works of interactive media in my life.

In March 11th, 1995, a videogame would come out, that would change the course of history as we know it…

Chrono Trigger.

The wonderful art of Akira Toriyama in full display!

Created by an assembly of the best people in the field, Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii, creator of Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama, creator of the Dragon Ball franchise. These individuals would be known as The Dream Team from then on, and with the music from the talented Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu, and the work of many other passionate artists, they would go on to make what I consider to be, the best videogame of all time.

Thirty years have passed, and there’s been countless attempts to bring the magic of Chrono Trigger back, from fan efforts in the form of the—sadly cancelled—Chrono Resurrection¹ project, the sequel known as Chrono Cross that deviated in such a radical way it became its own thing—although it does have its own merits—the Tokyo RPG Factory projects such as I am Setsuna or Lost Sphear, and the many indie project like Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes that have come the closest to reaching the heights of its inspiration. But after all these years, nothing is like going back to the original.

I played this game for the first time in 2016 I think, I was looking for random games for the SNES to play on my PSP, my emulator handheld back in the day. I saw Chrono Trigger in many lists, and I have to admit I was a little skeptical, but I decided to give it a go, and from then on, everything changed…

The art, the music, the gameplay mechanics, the story and characters, everything comes together in a magnificent way! I can’t help but love it.

However, this is not a review—I want to replay one more time before I fully commit to writing one—I am just happy to have played this game and I’m excited for some of the news about what Square Enix is planning to celebrate its anniversary! A Nintendo Switch release? An HD-2D remake? A full 3D reimagining? A sequel? Whatever it is, I am looking forward to it!

This is day 35 of #100DaysToOffload

This project is really so interesting, there is an alternate reality out there that got to enjoy this, and it’s simply incredible, here’s an interview I found that was quite amusing as well. ↩

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Pattern: Filtering over content firehoses - James' Coffee Blog

2025-03-12T00:00:00.000Z

Every week, BBC Scotland publishes a collection of photos as part of a Your pictures of Scotland series. Readers are invited to submit photos of anywhere in Scotland. The series has opened my eyes to all of the landscapes across the country. From morning frost over the hills to kingfishers by rivers, the series brings me great joy.

I wanted to follow the series in my web reader, Artemis. The BBC publishes RSS feeds for each category of content on their website. With that said, the feed to which I would need to subscribe to follow the Your photos of Scotland series included all BBC Scotland news. To counter this, I started using a feature in Artemis that surfaces only content that matches a keyword.

This got me thinking about a pattern that has been on my mind for months in information systems design: filtering over content firehoses. This involves storing all information from a content source, then allowing users to filter over that information to view what they need.

The alternative to this would be to only download and save posts that match my keywords. While this is more efficient in terms of storage, it adds complexity if I needed or wanted to change the keyword filter I had set. By filtering over the full web feed rather than only saving posts that match my keywords when polling, I have the ability to change my filters at any time and see the changes in real time.

Published on Citation Needed: "Crypto reserves: no public good, no principles" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-03-11T16:35:40.000Z

Published an issue of Citation Needed:

Crypto reserves: no public good, no principles

The formerly anti-establishment bitcoin movement abandons its principles in favor of number-go-up, applauds federal plan to stockpile seized crypto with no clear benefit to national interest

New German, Swiss, And Austrian Guidelines Recommend Trans Youth Care, Slam Cass Review - Werd I/O

2025-03-11T12:42:20.000Z

[Erin In The Morning]

While America is destroying the ability for trans people to participate in public life, over in Europe they're (rightly) improving care for trans people.

"In recent years, U.S. politicians have selectively framed European healthcare policies to justify restrictions on transgender care, seizing on a handful of conservative policies to claim that “Europe is pulling back.” The most extreme example, the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, has been wielded to justify a near-total ban on puberty blockers and even cited in U.S. Supreme Court arguments. But new medical guidelines from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland tell a different story. These countries have reaffirmed the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth and issued sharp critiques of the Cass Review, calling out its severe methodological flaws and misrepresentations."

They contain this specific recommendation:

“If, in individual cases, the progressive pubertal maturation development creates a time pressure in which health damage would be expected due to longer waiting times to avert irreversible bodily changes (e.g. male voice change), access to child and adolescent psychiatric or psychotherapeutic clarification and medical treatment options should be granted as quickly as possible.”

Once again, a rejection of the Cass Review is good news here: the widely debunked study was essentially propaganda for anti-trans interests and didn't represent broader healthcare perspectives.

But the bigger good news is that Europe is a safer place for trans people to live and be supported. I hope, one day soon, America comes to its senses and puts itself on a more supportive path.

#Democracy

[Link]

Progress (?) - Westenberg

2025-03-11T09:46:10.000Z

My first console - Joel's Log Files

2025-03-11T03:51:21.000Z

It was Christmas, I was still a child, we were in my uncles’ house and me and my siblings went downstairs to see the gifts under the tree! I remember my sister’s gift quite well, it was a Mega Blocks set of Dora the Explorer, actually kind of awesome, not gonna lie.

When I tore apart the wrappings of my gift, I remember being quite excited about it, it was a game console! What model? what brand… ? I have no idea at all!

You see, it was one of those so called Famiclones. Yep, my parents gifted me a bootleg console.

I still can’t help but wonder what made my parents think it was a good gift? It’s just kinda baffling to me, they don’t really like games, but they got this? It didn’t look like, high quality at all, but they still got it? Maybe they just thought it was cheap enough to give it a try or something, maybe they just didn’t even bother to look it up? I gues the internet wasn’t that huge back then. It’s still a mystery how they chose that over everything else I don’t really want to ask them. 🤣

No, it was not a Polystation, but this impostor was the king of the fake consoles back then

I was old enough to know this wasn’t really the best thing ever, and I was also old enough to be happy with what I was given. I think I had some conflicting feelings, but maybe it’s just current me thinking what could have been, could I have thrown a tantrum? told them to ask for a refund and just give me the money? At the time maybe I would have rather had an action figure or racing track to play with my toy cars, something like that. But it was fine honestly—I was a little jealous of the Dora The Explorer set my sister got, it was branded and the plastics felt really high quality in comparison with the buttons on the cheap controllers my console had.

The color scheme of it was rather weird, it was black and green, maybe orange. The d-pad was really, really bad, it was more like a flat analog stick, I remember because the cross pad broke off in both controllers after a while, leaving only a small protuberance that I could still tilt to control the games, even though it was rather painful and bruised my thumb when used for too long.

Despite everything, I remember taking it everywhere during that Christmas vacation, I would plug it to my uncle’s TV, some other family member’s TV too, and of course once we were home I would play it there as well.

I recall playing quite a bit of Duck Hunt there—the console came with a gun!—and some sort of Olympics game too. But of course, the main focus was Super Mario Bros!

There were lots of weird Mario clones or romhacks, my favorite was one that added Moon gravity to the game, and playing it would allow me to jump super high, until I was off-screen, and I could advance whole levels with only a couple of big jumps.

Eventually, the console fell off from somewhere and something inside started to rattle, when I used it too long it smelled like burned plastic, and I kind of lost interest in it after a while. I am not sure what happened to it, but I no longer have it.

Despite not being the best gift ever, it was still quite formative and entertaining for me, and it’s interesting to reflect on how things used to be. Nowadays, I am quite a fan of retro handhelds, and a lot of them have Bluetooth connectivity and HDMI output.

I could go back and play those old games and have a great time with them! I could also revive my Raspberry Pi and try to set it up with RetroPie or Batocera to recreate that retro experience. Of course, now I have a Nintendo Switch, which provides quite a lot of fun already, so I don’t really feel like doing such a project, for now.

Anyway, this little post was somewhat inspired because today is March 10…

Happy Mario Day!!

This is day 34 of #100DaysToOffload

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Finished reading "The Spellshop" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-03-11T03:40:37.000Z

Finished reading:

The Spellshop

by Sarah Beth Durst

Bramble, 2024. 377 pages.

cozy, fantasy, romance

Started March 10, 2025; completed March 10, 2025.

My blog post category suggestion tool - James' Coffee Blog

2025-03-11T00:00:00.000Z

When I was designing the publishing tool for this website, Create, I did so with the idea that the tool should specialise in blog post publishing. I was already happy with the text editor I used, and still use: Typora. By extension of specialising in publishing blog posts, I thought about the design and UX affordances I would like in my publishing tool that would be ideal for my workflow.

I write my blog posts in Typora, then I paste them into Create. Typora lets me copy the markdown representation of a post. When I paste a post into Create, two things happen:

The title from the markdown document is pre-populated into a “Title” field, and;
Sometimes, the blog post is automatically assigned a category.

Step #2 happens if the title meets one of several rules I have written. These rules comprise the category suggestion feature. The table below shows a few of them.

There are less than a dozen rules. These rules were informed by categories of posts I commonly write. The rules are case insensitive.

With these rules, some of my posts are auto-categorised. This means I have one less step to complete before publishing a blog post. This may be a small detail, but one that matters to me. It reduces friction in publishing, which can be a tedious process at times.

When a post title meets one of the rules, the Category form field is auto-filled, like this:

There are occasionally mis-classifications. But, I can always change the category if needed.

While there may be a more technical way to implement the suggestion tool, I like the way it is right now: it works, saves a little bit of time, and doesn’t get in my way.

This has me thinking what other design affordances would be useful? One thing toward the top of my TODO list is a way to preview posts before they are published but without posting a draft. It would also be nice if I could paste an mp4 link into the editor and have it auto-complete to a video tag without having to add the HTML manually.

Finished reading "Picks and Shovels" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-03-10T23:23:24.000Z

Finished reading:

Martin Hench series, book 3.

Picks and Shovels

by Cory Doctorow

Tor Books, February 18, 2025. 400 pages.

crime, thriller

Started March 6, 2025; completed March 10, 2025.

Leader of student protests at Columbia facing deportation - Werd I/O

2025-03-10T20:42:24.000Z

[Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Philip Marcelo at The Associated Press]

This seems completely in line with the First Amendment's protections against restrictions on speech and assembly by the US government:

"President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza."

Protesting Israel's right-wing government is in itself anti-semitic. And Mahmoud Khalil's status as a resident student rather than an American citizen does not make him any less subject to constitutional protections.

"Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and has an American citizen wife who is eight months pregnant, emerged as one of the most visible activists in the protests at Columbia.
[...] “The Department of Homeland Security’s lawless decision to arrest him solely because of his peaceful anti-genocide activism represents a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights advocacy group."

This seems like the very opposite of what America is supposed to be (or at least purports itself to be). Hopefully applied pressure will work - for this particular person, and as a precedent for American civil rights into the future.

#Democracy

[Link]

New Motorbike & Broken Phone Drama - Kev Quirk

2025-03-10T15:30:00.000Z

I recently bought a new motorbike and managed to drop my phone while riding it. Oh joy.

I've been having a pretty tough time in work recently and, as a result, in my personal life too. So I decided to do something for myself - I bought myself a new motorbike. Not just any motorbike though, I decided to throw caution to the wind and bought myself a brand new BMW S1000 XR TE with pretty much every optional extra included.

My new bike

Why not? We're only here once, and I can afford it. 🤷‍♂️

My wife was fully supportive and thought it would be good for my mental health - getting out on the bike is always a good way to lighten my mood.

Anyway, one of the options that the bike came with is the BMW sat nav preparation kit. At the recommendation of the BMW salesman, I decided to go with the BMW mobile phone caddy, instead of the full BMW sat nav.

They both connect to the same connector, and by using the BMW app on my phone, I can get 80% of the full sat nav functionality for around 1/3 of the price. So I bought one and connected my phone - which worked fantastically.

That was, until one day last week when I was riding to work and the music in my helmet suddenly turned off - I looked down and my 3 month old iPhone 16 was gone. 😳

I immediately did a u-turn to go hunting for my phone and I found it a little further down the road, glistening in the morning sunshine. Problem is, a van was heading towards it...and yes, the van hit my fucking phone square on with its tyre.

It was utterly fucked. The back was so smashed that it had multiple holes in it. But miraculously, the screen still worked.

My wife had an old iPhone, so I switched to that and called my insurance company. After a £100 excess charge, the phone was picked up, repaired and returned to me within 48 hours. What an excellent service!

Problem was, when I got the phone back, all the bezel still had chunks of aluminium missing and lots of scratches. I called the insurance company and they said they only repairs faults, not cosmetic damage.

Fair enough.

Complaining to BMW

I'm now £100 down for the excess on the repair, and I'm left with a phone that's full of scratches. So I called BMW to see what they can do about it, considering it was their recommendation for the caddy, and their recommendation to take the phone out of its case so that it "holds the phone properly".

I have to say, they were brilliant. They immediately apologised - even though it wasn't really their fault; they never set out to destroy my phone - and asked me to leave it with them. A couple days later the salesman called me back and said I have 2 options:

Give them the caddy so they can send it to BMW to see if it's faulty
They can pay for my initial service (around £250)

I obviously went with option 2. Not only that, but they said if I take the bike to them first, they will take it to their service centre for me, and will give me any bike from their fleet for the day. Obviously I'm going to pick the M1000R when that happens! 🙃

Since smashing my phone, I've decided to just throw more money at the problem and bought the official BMW sat nav - that locks into place with the bike's key, so I doubt I'll be losing that any time soon (I better not - it cost nearly as much as my iPhone).

How's the bike?

Bloody brilliant! The weather has been great here for the last week or so, so I've been out on it pretty much every day. I love it, and it's really helping me to find a balance. The good weather also means that I'm starting to spend time in the garden too, which is really helping as well. Fresh air + exercise in the garden doing things I enjoy = lots of endorphins.

All in all, I'm in a much better headspace than I was a few weeks ago, I just wish it hadn't resulted in me smashing my phone. 🙃

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How Terrorgram Collective Influencers Groomed a Killer - Werd I/O

2025-03-10T12:54:38.000Z

[A.C. Thompson, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, James Bandler, ProPublica, and Lukáš Diko, Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak]

A tragic story of a teenager recruited by a network of extremists, who ultimately murdered multiple people before taking his own life. It's also an example of why moderation and safety processes on social platforms are so important.

"And so in August 2019, Juraj Krajčík, then a soft-faced 16-year-old with a dense pile of brown hair, immersed himself in a loose collection of extremist chat groups and channels on the massive social media and messaging platform Telegram. This online community, which was dubbed Terrorgram, had a singular focus: inciting acts of white supremacist terrorism."

This is particularly relevant in a world where companies like X and Meta are cutting back on their safety teams and policies. It's not as easy as waving your hands and saying that it should be a matter for the courts; real lives are at stake. And at the same time, there is, of course, a real danger of falling into the trap of building a surveillance network.

The police at the time thought this was the work of a lone gunman rather than the international community of extremists it actually was. Uncovering this is also the kind of story that only investigative newsrooms can do really well:

"ProPublica and the PBS series FRONTLINE, along with the Slovakian newsroom Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak, pieced together the story behind Krajčík’s evolution from a troubled teenager to mass shooter. We identified his user name on Telegram, which allowed us to sift through tens of thousands of now-deleted Telegram posts that had not previously been linked to him."

Hopefully this work can help prevent this and similar networks from operating in the future. Likely a more holistic approach is needed, and if law enforcement, educators, and social workers are more aware of the potential risks and playbooks, hopefully they can be more sophisticated about prevention.

#Technology

[Link]

Book Review: The Man In The Wall by KJ Lyttleton ★★★★☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2025-03-10T12:34:33.000Z

It is always nice to meet someone in a pub who says "I've written my first book!" - so, naturally, I picked up Katie's novel as my next read. I'm glad that I did as it's a cracking crime story.

It starts slowly, with a brilliantly observed satire of office life. The gossip, banal slogans, venal senior managers, and work-shy grifters are all there and jump off the page. You'll have met all of them if you've ever spent a moment in a modern open-plan office. It swiftly picks up the pace with a lively sense of urgency and just a touch of melodrama.

I don't want to say it is a cosy mystery because, after all, it does deal with a pretty brutal death. But it is all small-town intrigue and low-stakes pettifoggery. The corruption may be going all the way to the top (of the municipal council).

The protagonist is, thankfully, likeable and proactive. Unlike some other crime novels, she's not super-talented or ultra-intelligent; she's just doggedly persistent.

It all comes together in a rather satisfying conclusion with just the right amount of twist.

The sequel - A Star Is Dead - is out shortly.

Started reading "The Spellshop" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-03-10T09:40:27.000Z

Started reading:

The Spellshop

by Sarah Beth Durst

Bramble, 2024. 377 pages.

cozy, fantasy, romance

Started March 10, 2025; completed March 10, 2025.

Week Notes W10 - Joel's Log Files

2025-03-10T03:38:44.000Z

The first week of March just vanished from thin air, I guess it’s because I’ve been practicing card magic again for some reason.

🔋 New battery for my PSP!

Even though my original battery still works wonderfully, I decided to replace it with an OSTENT battery that I got from AliExpress and it took like two months to get here. It’s considered quite a reputable brand and it has worked well so far. I’ll still keep the other one, after all, quick swapping would be neat, if I ever need to.

⌛ Ride on Time

I recently, finally actually listened to Ride on Time by Tatsuro Yamashita, the whole album and the main song itself and I have to say. That was definitely a ride. I was vibing to this album the whole way through and wow, just wow.

This artist does not have his music on Spotify or any digital platforms, so the only way to get a hold on his music is by exporting from Japan or, well, from other places, it’s some incredible stuff. I liked City Pop and Japanese music well enough already, but this man just raised the bar, I’m actually thinking of buying the album physically, just to have it.

✍ Lots of blog posts of mine!

This week was quite productive when it comes to blog post output, I don’t know how it happened but I guess it just did. For real though, I had quite a bit of free time at work this week so I managed to write a couple of drafts in Notepad++ and then complete them at home and publish them at night, quite happy with that!

I’m still some blog posts behind @hyde as of the writing of these weeknotes though.

📺 A random great anime pick

After finishing Mashle: Magic & Muscles, my sister and I were looking for something else to watch, she didn’t want to see anything too long and while scrolling on Netflix we saw Pluto, with only 8 episodes. We gave it a shot and, well, that was simply incredible! The episodes are a bit longer than normal anime, but it’s so good, we will definitely watch all of it!

🏋️ The gym is getting emptier

It’s March now, and I’m still going to the gym! I started to notice less and less people are going, which means their subscriptions are being cancelled. I am quite happy I’m still strong on this, and I don’t have to wait as long to use some machines now!

📖 Reading

I am still addicted to reading Hunter x Hunter, can’t really say more than that.

All of my book club finally catched up on our read of The Expanse series, so we will be starting book 4 soon!

🎮 Gaming

My main focus is still Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, I just beat chapter 27 and got some nice upgrades and story bits, I think I am close to the endgame now!

In the last dungeon of Ys: Oath of Felghana I reached a save point to a boss battle that seems rather challenging! I reloaded my save and decided to do some grinding and maybe try to upgrade my equipment once again, I found a new more powerful armor that should help too.

I finally returned to Astro Boy: Omega Factor as well, that was a bit of a letdown a while back, when I got stuck on a level filled with unavoidable obstacles that kept killing me, eventually I managed to survive and now I’ve been making steady progress again, with a bunch of cool boss fights!

I gave a first try to One Step from Eden on my laptop, the game’s fun! It uses the combat of Mega Man Battle Network, but in a roguelite form. I am still getting used to it but I like the challenge.

I played some UFO 50 at last, I did a match of Pingolf, a golfing game, and it was very fun! I still came in last place though, but I think it should be a cool challenge to tackle, for another time.

I did a single run of Hades, the first one of the year! I got to Elysium before I had to save and quit to do something else, haven’t returned but I was liking my build so far.

Spelunky saw a bit of action on an evening of local co-op gaming on my Switch, it was total chaos, we kept hitting each other or wasting bombs left and right.

I kept playing some Dicey Dungeons, making some progress with the witch! I quite like the mechanics of that character but I accidentally got rid of a great spell and I’ll probably die soon.

Week Links

Since I got into card magic again I watched a lot of different magic videos, but this routine by Dani DaOrtiz is just incredible, just watch it please. Also the blog post about how to clean the bathroom, it’s just great, it’s such an adventure! Check the rest too of course

Videos

This is day 33 of #100DaysToOffload

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Finished reading "The Gate of the Feral Gods" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-03-10T02:32:38.000Z

Finished reading:

Dungeon Crawler Carl series, book 4.

The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

Ace Books, July 2021. 608 pages.

fantasy, humor, litRPG

Started February 27, 2025; completed March 9, 2025.

Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

How to Work Better - Kev Quirk

Ter[ence|ry] - Terence Eden’s Blog

Keep it Weird. - Westenberg

Pattern Recognition vs. Pattern Lock-In - Westenberg

Chrono Trigger is thirty years old - Joel's Log Files

Pattern: Filtering over content firehoses - James' Coffee Blog

Published on Citation Needed: "Crypto reserves: no public good, no principles" - Molly White's activity feed

New German, Swiss, And Austrian Guidelines Recommend Trans Youth Care, Slam Cass Review - Werd I/O

Progress (?) - Westenberg

My first console - Joel's Log Files

Finished reading "The Spellshop" - Molly White's activity feed

My blog post category suggestion tool - James' Coffee Blog

Finished reading "Picks and Shovels" - Molly White's activity feed

Leader of student protests at Columbia facing deportation - Werd I/O

New Motorbike & Broken Phone Drama - Kev Quirk

Complaining to BMW

How's the bike?

How Terrorgram Collective Influencers Groomed a Killer - Werd I/O

Book Review: The Man In The Wall by KJ Lyttleton ★★★★☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

Started reading "The Spellshop" - Molly White's activity feed

Week Notes W10 - Joel's Log Files

🔋 New battery for my PSP!

⌛ Ride on Time

✍ Lots of blog posts of mine!

📺 A random great anime pick

🏋️ The gym is getting emptier

📖 Reading

🎮 Gaming

Week Links

Videos

Blog posts

Finished reading "The Gate of the Feral Gods" - Molly White's activity feed