Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

WwJD: This is what Johnny.Decimal was designed for (video) - Johnny.Decimal

2026-07-17T04:58:04.000Z

A 'Working with Johnny.Decimal' video.

Managing complex tasks is not just possible, it's easy with Johnny.Decimal. Everything has a home, and you keep a simple index that lets you find it again, and everything looks the same no matter what app you're using.

Mango Nectar Mead Recipe - Cool As Heck

2026-07-16T19:25:00.000Z

Mango Nectar Mead

Created: 2026-07-14
Batch Size: 1 gallon
Style: Melomel (mango)
Target ABV: ~12–14%
Original Gravity: ~1.105 (estimate — confirm with hydrometer)
Final Gravity: ~1.010–1.018 (71B will finish semi-sweet at this OG)

Ingredients

Base Must

Langers Organic Mango Nectar: 1 gallon jug (minus ~2 cups reserved for topping up)
- 20% juice (Alphonso mango puree concentrate + mango puree), filtered water, organic cane sugar
- 528g total sugars per gallon (1.16 lbs fermentable sugar equivalent)
- Contains citric acid and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) — no preservative issues for fermentation
Honey: 2 lbs (orange blossom or wildflower — light varietal that won't compete with mango)
Pectic enzyme: ½ tsp (optional but recommended for clarity)

Yeast & Nutrients

Yeast: Lalvin 71B-1122
- Tolerance: ~14% ABV
- Partially metabolizes malic acid, softening the citric acid in the nectar
- Produces fruity esters that amplify tropical mango character
- Ferment at 64–68°F for clean fruit expression
Fermaid O: 6 tsp total (TOSNA 2.0 scaled for ~1.105 OG — 1.5 tsp per addition × 4)
Go-Ferm: 6.25g (for yeast rehydration)

Optional Secondary Additions

Frozen mango chunks: 2 lbs in a mesh bag for 2 weeks — the 20% juice nectar won't deliver intense mango on its own; this pushes the fruit character
- Pull at 14 days max to avoid off-flavors
Vanilla bean: 1 split bean in secondary for 7–10 days for a mango-vanilla creamsicle vibe
Allspice: ¼ tsp whole allspice in secondary for 7 days (tropical spice accent, go light)

Estimated OG Breakdown

Ingredient	Amount	Gravity Contribution
Mango nectar sugars	1.16 lbs equivalent	~53 pts
Honey	2 lbs	~70 pts
Total (1 gal)		~1.123

Estimate may run high — the nectar is mostly water with dissolved sugars, so actual OG depends on mixing. Expect 1.100–1.123 range. Confirm with hydrometer on brew day and adjust honey if needed.

Process

Day 0 — Must Preparation

Reserve nectar: Pour ~2 cups of nectar into a sanitized container and set aside.
Mix must: Pour remaining nectar into fermentation vessel. Warm honey slightly (hot water bath, not boiling) to pour easily, add to vessel. Shake/stir vigorously for 2–3 minutes to dissolve and aerate.
Top up: Add reserved nectar to reach 1 gallon total volume. Take OG reading.
Rehydrate yeast: 6.25g Go-Ferm in 125mL water at 104°F. Let cool to ~100°F, pitch yeast. Wait 15–20 minutes, then temper with small amounts of must (5-minute intervals) until within 10°F of must temp before pitching.
Pectic enzyme: Add ½ tsp at pitch (or 12 hours before if you want to be thorough).
Pitch yeast and aerate again briefly.

Fermentation Schedule (TOSNA — Day 0 = pitch day)

Day	Action
0	Pitch yeast, aerate vigorously
1	Add 1.5 tsp Fermaid O, stir gently to degas
2	Add 1.5 tsp Fermaid O, stir gently to degas
3	Add 1.5 tsp Fermaid O, stir gently to degas
4	Add 1.5 tsp Fermaid O, stir gently to degas (or at 1/3 sugar break — whichever comes first)

Primary Fermentation (Days 0–14)

Temperature: 64–68°F — cooler end preserves mango aromatics; above 72°F risks fusels
Airlock should show active bubbling within 24–48 hours
Stir gently during nutrient additions to degas CO₂
71B is a steady, moderate fermenter — expect a controlled fermentation, not explosive
If adding frozen mango in primary: Place in mesh bag, remove by Day 10 or when gravity hits ~1.040

Secondary Fermentation (Weeks 3–12)

Rack off lees when gravity stabilizes (~2–3 weeks)
Optional mango: Add 2 lbs frozen mango chunks in mesh bag for 10–14 days. Taste at Day 10.
Optional vanilla: Add 1 split bean after pulling mango. Taste at 7 days.
Top up with reserved mead or similar wine to minimize headspace
Bulk age 2–3 months minimum — mango flavor fades during primary but returns during aging

Packaging (Week 12+)

FG target: ~1.010–1.018 (semi-sweet — residual sugar supports the mango character)
Taste and adjust: The nectar already has citric acid; taste before adding any acid blend
Bottle: Still is traditional, but a light sparkle (¾ tsp corn sugar per bottle) works with tropical meads
Aging: Drinkable at 3 months, peaks at 6–9 months

Yeast Considerations

Yeast	Why / Why Not
71B-1122 ✅	Metabolizes malic acid → softens citric tang from the nectar. Fruity esters amplify mango. 14% tolerance → finishes semi-sweet, which suits mango.
QA23	Tropical ester bomb with passion fruit/mango notes. 16% tolerance → would finish drier. Solid backup if you want a crisper mead.
D47	Temp-sensitive (needs <68°F). Good mouthfeel but no tropical ester production. Fine for traditionals, wrong for mango.
EC-1118	18% tolerance → bone-dry finish, strips mango character. Would need heavy backsweetening.
K1-V1116	Neutral workhorse, 18% tolerance. Won't contribute fruit-forward esters.
Voss Kveik	Citrusy/earthy ale esters clash with mango. Needs 80°F+. Wrong profile.

Notes

Low juice content (20%): This nectar is mostly sweetened water with mango concentrate. The mango character won't be as intense as fermenting on real fruit. The optional 2 lbs frozen mango in secondary is strongly recommended for authentic mango flavor.

The "organic flavor" ingredient: Unknown composition. 99% it's fine for fermentation, but if the must stalls unexpectedly, this would be the first suspect. The ascorbic acid and citric acid are non-issues — they're common mead additives.

No water added: This recipe uses the nectar as the complete liquid base (no dilution). The nectar is already mostly water (80%), so it functions as the must liquid. If you want a lighter session mead, dilute 50/50 with water and use 1 lb honey instead — OG ~1.085, ~11% ABV.

Sugar from nectar: 528g total sugars (368g added cane sugar + ~160g natural mango sugars). This is roughly equivalent to 1.16 lbs of fermentable sugar already dissolved in 1 gallon of liquid — treat it as built-in gravity points, not as a separate honey addition.

Weeknote #2009 - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-07-16T18:41:50.000Z

I backed this pen Kickstarter despite breaking my rule of no hardware Kickstarters - the company, Antou, seem to know what they're doing but we'll see. They have a lot of nice stuff on their site including this pen rest. The pen should be arriving in August some time.

Pica is a new font management app that looks great and it's free. I need to get a handle on all the fonts I have.

I'm not a font designer but if I was I might need to make proofs and Hellbox is the one.

Two fascinating fonts I came across: Datatype is a "variable font that turns text into charts" and then this person built a chess rendering engine into a font which is wild.

Matt did a handwriting font, something I've done a couple of times to varying levels of success.

The last font and writing link is this post about backtrack-free cursive. I don't write cursive (or in lowercase for that matter) but this is really interesting.

What intrigued me about files.md is that it uses an API I wasn't aware of to access local folders and files. I'm not dropping Obsidian any time soon but this is an API I want to try out more.

Friend of the blog made equinox to test light and dark mode at the same time which is handy.

I'd come across but not heard of the XY problem before: "asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem". Nice to have a name for this scenario.

P4LETTE is another colour palette generator. Can't have too many.

Daily games is a thing now and I've been enjoying 4x3. I also found Gerrymandle which is interesting but doesn't spark joy for me.

Signalbox, a live train map, does spark joy though.

Finally this is a fun article about using public domain image archive for art ideas.

Finished reading Wasteland Warlords 6 - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-16T17:33:50.000Z

Finished reading:

Wasteland Warlords series, book 6.

Wasteland Warlords 6

by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.

Published 2024. 158 pages.

Started July 12, 2026; completed July 15, 2026.

📝 2026-07-16 17:05: Anyone using Pop!OS with Cosmic? I tried it when it was first released, but I... - Kev Quirk

2026-07-16T16:05:00.000Z

Anyone using Pop!_OS with Cosmic? I tried it when it was first released, but I looks like they've done a lot of dev work to it and it's improving all the time.

Considering installing it again...

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Gadget Review: Thermal Master DV2 - Infrared Birdwatching Scope ★★★★⯪ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-07-16T11:34:50.000Z

The good folks at Thermal Master have sent me their DV2 camera to review. As their name suggests, this is a thermal / infrared camera - they've specifically designed this for bird watching and animal spotting. Let's put it through its paces and see how it compares to the competition!

Straight away you can see it is different from normal IR cameras - they tend to have a small fixed screen and a rubber button interface. This has a lush touchscreen which displays the thermal image and is used to control the camera. The screen can go bright enough to be easily visible in full daylight, and you can dim it down to something more appropriate for night-time viewing.

OK, enough waffle, time to get snapping!

Photos

Here are some shots from the camera of various bits of wildlife near me. I haven't edited these images, they're exactly what you get from the camera.

The resolution is 512x384. There's no EXIF metadata - so no location information.

There's also no in-picture thermal gradient so you can't see the exact temperature of an object. This is designed for spotting animals, not working out how hot your electronics are. The datetime is burned in to the image but can be turned off.

It has the ability to almost totally remove the background "noise" of the sky - making it excellent for spotting things on the wing.

Filesize is about 20KB per photo. So you can fit will over a million images on the ~32GB internal storage. Digital zoom goes up to 8X.

Videos

The static images don't really do it justice. It's also possible to shoot video. This gives you a reasonable idea of what you'll see on the touchscreen.

Video resolution is the same as the photos - 512x384 - and runs at 30fps. File size is around 40MB per minute. So about 12 hours of footage can be stored. I've re-encoded these videos to be smaller while keeping the same quality.

Here's a friendly fox I found - I've cycled through the various settings so you can see how they work.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Fox1.mp4

Again, as with the photos, there's no metadata and the datetime is burned in. Here are a couple of cats playing around in the park.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Cat1.mp4

Twisting the lens allows you to adjust the focus - it is really impressive the amount of detail it can pick up.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Cat2-Focus.mp4

There's no video stabilisation (use the tripod mount if you need it) and there's no audio.

RTSP

You can also stream the video to a computer, VLC, or anything else which will take an RTSP stream.

The URl will be rtsp://[IP Address]:8554/ch0 - that will get you a 20fps stream of exactly what the camera is seeing.

Range and Detection

It reckons it'll detect a human's heat signature from around 900 metres away.

There are several modes which will let you see more or less detail. That's particularly important if you're just interested in the hottest part of the image, or if you need to photograph something against a relatively warm background.

The App

This'll pair with your Android phone using the Thermal Masters app. It's a bit of a beast - around 200MB. That's because it's the same app for all their cameras and contains PDFs for several different models. Despite the relatively high download numbers, it has zero reviews.

Like lots of software from hardware manufacturers, the app is basic but serviceable. It connects to your DV2 via WiFi. You can either be on the same network or connect the camera to your phone's hotspot.

Looking through the app's code, it appears to use OpenCV, ffmpeg, and some other popular Open Source libraries. Sadly, the required attribution is missing.

The app is great for monitoring the camera, you can zoom in on the image and fiddle with some of the settings. But you can't actually trigger a photo or video recording! That's a bit annoying.

Linux

For our penguin powered friends, this shows up as 1f3a:1000 "Allwinner Technology Prestigio PER3464B ebook reader (Mass storage mode)". It's a basic drive which lets you copy the media back to your computer via USB-C. Easy as.

Comparison

So how does it compare to the Topdon TS004 Thermal Camera? The Topdon is also marketed at the bird-spotting crowd and, on the surface, has fairly similar features.

The most obvious difference is the user interface. The TS004 is a Monocular - so you need to shove your eye into the end to see anything.

With the DV2, you've got a big screen to look at - which is generally much more pleasant. That display of the DV2 is a touchscreen which makes it pretty easy to interact with - whereas with the TS004 you have to repeatedly mash buttons to change any settings.

In terms of resolution, both have a standard 256×192 sensor. The upscaling on the DV2 is good - but doesn't fundamentally change how much thermal information there is.

But it is the thoughtful little extras which make the DV2 useful. There's a built-in laser pointer which is useful for working out exactly what you're aiming at. At the bottom is a standard tripod mount, so you can rig it up somewhere to monitor an area.

Slightly bizarrely, it comes with an optional Picatinny Rail adaptor. That screws into the side of your DV2 and allows you to add firearm accessories! So if you ever wanted to add a sniper scope to your thermal camera…

Alright, a regular range-finder will also attach to it 😆

The battery is a bit of an odd one. You can physically remove the battery and place it in its own USB charger. The battery is a 1INR22/71 which is a chunky beast. The charger comes with two slots (although only one battery is included) so you can quick-swap to a full battery if you need to. There is a USB-C port on the bottom, if you want to charge it the normal way.

With the TS004, the only way to stream video was via the app. The DV2 will connect to any WiFi network and present an RTSP stream. The built in WiFi is useful for grabbing firmware updates.

The DV2 also suffers a little from the lack of a trigger button for taking photos. When held in the hand, it feels natural to click the button under the thumb finger - instead, that toggles the laser. Taking a photo means tapping away on the screen to get to a sub-menu. Annoyingly, your phone can't be used as a remote control.

One thing in the TS004's advantage - it's lens cap is attached to the body of the unit. The DV2's is a separate rubber cap which comes off completely. Best remember to stick it in the supplied carrying case, eh?

The TS004 also has built-in animal recognition. It can detect heat signatures and tell you if they're a bird or a human. However, it always misidentified English foxes as Wild Boars! So was of limited use.

The DV2 uses AI to upscale the quality of the images rather than trying to detect what it is actually looking at.

In general, the DV2 is easier to use and produces seemingly better quality media. But having to tap the screen multiple times to take a photo or video is slightly annoying.

Price

All the infrared cameras I've reviewed have been expensive. This one is no different. At the moment it is in stock for £459.

You can use the code THERMBIRD10 for 10% off at the official store or from Amazon.com.

That's a chunk of change - but you do get a lot of tech for the price. This isn't designed for finding hotspots in your home, it's excels at picking out wildlife - and the screen is big enough for several people to gather round to see what you've spotted.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the better thermal imaging devices that I've reviewed. The large touchscreen makes it so much easier to control than anything else on the market - all the others have squishy rubber buttons. It is mostly a delight to use, if you can put up with the slightly strange process of taking a photo.

Thermal cameras are still very expensive - the sensors are low resolution and sometimes flaky. The DV2 does a great job of producing a usable images and videos.

The app is no worse than the competition. It really ought to inform users about the use of Open Source code though.

The addition of the laser pointer isn't as gimmicky as I'd thought. I've no use for the Picatinny attachment, but I can see how it could be useful.

If you want to go wildlife spotting, this is probably the device to get. It captures an incredible amount of detail and is excellent at picking up the faintest heat signatures.

📝 2026-07-16 11:47: A few of us were talking to one of the summer interns at work about... - Kev Quirk

2026-07-16T10:47:00.000Z

A few of us were talking to one of the summer interns at work about age:

Someone: How old do you think Kev is?

Intern: [with all the confidence in the world] 50?

I turn 42 in August. FML. 🤣

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Re: An IndieWeb Event for Southeast Asia / Pacific Time Zones - James' Coffee Blog

2026-07-16T00:00:00.000Z

Naty is hosting a new Homebrew Website Club event on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, at 5:30pm to 7:00pm Hong Kong Time (UTC+8). If there is interest, the event may turn become regular!

If the time works for you and you love chatting about websites, I recommend checking out the event. Homebrew Website Clubs are always fun, providing a place to chat about what people are building on their websites, the culture of the web, HTML/CSS, writing on the web, and more.

This event adds to several other online events, geared toward:

European timezones (HWC London/Europe) (which I host!)
The US East Coast (HWC Eastern)
The US West Coast (HWC Pacific)

Furthermore, there are in-person events that happen in several cities listed on the IndieWeb Events community page, and the IndieWebClub Bangalore website, all of which are run to provide a place to chat for people passionate about websites.

IndieWebClub Bangalore website Naty is hosting a new Homebrew Website Club IndieWeb Events community page European timezones (HWC London/Europe) The US East Coast (HWC Eastern) The US West Coast (HWC Pacific)

RE: We Need A Physical-Digital Music Experience - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-07-15T10:44:08.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? Olly wants a physical-digital music experience: browse the racks at your local record store, chat to the staff, listen to stuff, but instead of bagging the vinyl, pay them for a FLAC download and have the store clip the ticket. I think I’m into it…

While I still buy records physically, I often don’t have the time to get into the local record store weekly to dig through the crates. I purchase my records through a few stores online, often lining up with sales as vinyl is expensive.

When I’m buying a digital album, it’s usually through the artist or band’s website directly, Bandcamp, or Qobuz as a last resort. That way the sale goes through to the artist or band as directly as possible. But it does nothing for a local record store.

Sadly, my favourite local record store recently closed down. See: RIP to my favourite record store, Flying Out.

The book world already has this figured out. Libro.fm lets me link a local book shop, The Village Bookshop in my case, and whenever I purchase an audiobook through Libro.fm they get a slice of the purchase. I get the audiobook I was buying anyway, and a local shop gets supported for existing.

I’m torn though. Buying digital through a record store means the artist gets less, and that’s the whole reason I buy direct. Books are different: very few authors can sell DRM-free copies from their own website unless they’re independent, so something like Libro.fm filling that gap makes sense.

It would be cool to have the physical space where you can still dig through the crates, or flip through the shelves, scan a QR code and go direct to the artist website or Bandcamp. Could the record shop take a cut through the referring QR code? However, that’s just another dollar taken from the band. Physical stores are just so damn expensive these days.

I guess it’s more a case of a service like Bandcamp setting something up like the Libro.fm model: I link my local record store, and every digital album I buy sends a slice their way. The artist still gets their cut, and the store stays in the picture.

Yeah, I don’t know?

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BLAOW! BLAOW! LET'S GET ROWDY! - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-07-15T09:53:00.000Z

BLAOW! BLAOW! What’s going on, Internet? This banger of a track, Rowdy (BLAOW!), was introduced to me as part of Les Mills SPRINT release 43. We’re only up to release 44 but have been enjoying this track every other SPRINT class.

I’ve been playing it a bit for the kids, and I love it in the mornings when we get ready for a ROWDY drop off.

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Dinosaur Discovery Returns - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-07-15T08:00:00.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? Last year we discovered the dinosaurs at Auckland Zoo, and this year we went back for round two. They’ve added some new dinosaurs to the track this year, so it was well worth the revisit.

We made the trip with my brother and his kids again, and this year my parents were up for the week so it was a great family night out. The kids are all a year older, we stayed out later and they had a great time. My youngest who is two years old now was a bit scared, but was able to put on a brave face walking around with daddy.

I expect many more visits to the dinosaurs during the day as we visit the zoo during the upcoming weekends. I might never ever get to the NZ birds section (I have been trying with each zoo visit, lol).

Enjoy the photos.

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How I keep track of my gaming - Joel's Log Files

2026-07-15T04:01:12.000Z

Every weeknote and monthly summary, I list all the videogames I played. There are a few things that I do to help myself keep track of it all. Some tools I’ve mentioned here and there, but never all in a single post.

I won’t really be making any specific tutorials, but leads in the right direction, in case you are interested on tracking your gaming like me.

I’ll be honest, while a lot of these tools are pretty easy to set-up, there’s still a lot of manual work required to have it all nice and tidy, there’s an argument to be made that I shouldn’t really be obsessed by how much I play videogames and keeping track of everything. However, having a full history of everything gaming brings me joy, where as trying to remember what happened in the past and being unable to, does not.

After all, it is a bit sad that I have no idea when I realized Parasive Eve was a game I was interested in playing. I don’t really remember the exact date I tried Chrono Trigger for the first time. I have no memory of when I completed Ocarina of Time. Yes I have rough estimates, but that’s it, and I also lack the context of it all, which is kind of important sometimes.

I just wish I had kept some sort of journal entry that helped me figure out things, like where my headspace was at the time, and at least how long I have played certain games.

Newer consoles have finally started to include some tools to know how much I play videogames. Platforms like Steam have a built-in playtime counters, and well, thanks to all the tools I mentioned here, I can bring it all to a single place.

Playtime per console

First, I wanted to write about how I keep track of the gaming I do on each of my gaming devices, as all of them have different setup, be it using custom firmware or a separate app. Only one of them has a feature complete built-in tool, but we’ll get to that later.

Nintendo Switch

While the Switch features a pretty basic Profile Activity screen, showing how much you have played the twenty most recent games. This is an approximate and it won’t even start counting the time reliably until you play from 5 to 10 hours of a game.

Have no fear though, the Switch Parental Controls app features a great inteface to display my gaming per day, with a monthly view as well! However, this app does not have the full playtime of each game, and it doesn’t provide a full history either, as data vanishes after a few months.

A great option to see the full playtime is Exophase, a website I connected to my Nintendo account, displaying the playtime of each game I play. You need to launch a game you want to track at least once after connecting your account so it gets synced with the website, it will not automatically scan every game in your library.

It is unfortunate that the Switch has never had a proper Activity Tracker, especially because their previous handheld console has one of the best implementations I’ve ever seen, we’ll talk about that later.

Emulator handhelds

A few months ago, there was no good way to keep track of the games in my handhelds. The only one that worked okay was my Miyoo Mini Plus running OnionOS, although sometimes I ended up with duplicated data and other issues when renaming ROMs. Nothing to worry about, I wrote a post on how to fix those issues!

Nowadays I use the Anbernic RG35XX SP, and I prefer to use the muOS software. They have finally added a built-in Activity Tracker screen, which is awesome, although not as feature complete as the upcoming trackers.

You can access a particular game’s data by simply using the select button while it’s highlighted on the screen. For some reason, this only works when viewing the game list from the Library, it doesn’t work on the History or Favorites screen.

Of course, the full Activity Tracker can be accessed from the Info screen where you can see the full list displaying playtimes and times opened of every game in the handheld. Pretty useful, if rather simple.

Nintendo 3DS

In case you did not know this, the Nintendo 3DS has literally the best activity tracker implementation I have ever seen, and it’s completely native to their OS: The Activity Log. There’s no hacking necessary to have access to it, it just works.

Not only does it track the total playtime and the times a game is opened. It also has a full timeline of every single day, divided by the hour in both a graphic and a list view. It also displays the steps you take while carrying the 3DS in sleep mode.

There’s little for me to add here, it’s genuinely impressive stuff and I wish the Nintendo Switch had implemented something half as good as what this is. Absolute top tier functionality and features.

The surprise: PSP!

However, the PSP is the real reason I wanted to write this post in the first place.

For years now I have been wondering why the PSP did not have a built-in activity tracker. The interface already let’s you access information about a game by pressing the triangle button, but it doesn’t really have anything regarding playtime, which always seemed like a missed opportunity for me.

Since I mostly play JRPGs, I usually knew my playtime based on the in-game info, which was good enough for me, but it was still not a given on every single game, and I had to take some extra steps in some videogames just to know how much I’ve played it. For example, on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I had to exit a mission, go back to the main menu, load a save, and only then I would know how much I had played it, taking into account the loading times, it was a bit painful.

Thankfully, a couple months ago developer OniMock released a homebrew application and plugin that that can track PS1 and PSP games running on the device. It’s called GameDiary, and it’s incredible. To get it to work you need to have a modded PSP of course. I recommend this guide as of mid-2026. It seems like version 5 of that custom firmware is being worked on, but it’s not as stable as ARK-4 yet.

Anyway, if you’ve installed a PSP plugin before it should be quite simple, but the instructions are found in the link I already shared.

For me the plugin worked great from the start, it didn’t affect performance in any noticeable way. The new application looks amazing as well, featuring playtime for a current session, as well as the total playtime and other stats, featuring the videogame artwork and a really pretty interface.

This is a feature I always wanted, and it truly competes with the 3DS’s built-in tracker! I highly recommend giving it a go.

Keeping track of everything with Backloggd

All of the tools I mentioned often work by themselves, with different interfaces and functionality to each, some are built-in, some required some setup, but at the end of the day, all the information on them ends up in different places, be it locally, on an app, or a certain website.

For better or worse, I consolidate everything by hand using Backloggd.

I have been using this website for a few years now, and I don’t see myself ever leaving it! It’s full of incredible features and an amazing stats page that I absolutely love.

I personally don’t care at all about putting in the work. Every single day I play something, I log it to to the game’s journal, write a short text of what happened and the amount of time I played. You can sort in all manner of ways, but my favorite is sorting by Most Recent Session, since it removes all duplicates and displays full playtime of each game logged in order.

You can also create lists and other useful things, but well, you should really give it a try if you are willing to put some work into it. I guess you can simply put start and end dates like a normal person instead of being like me, you do you!

Personally, I’m super proud of my journal, so please give it a look and let me know what you think of it! Of course, if you decide to make an account there, give me a follow!

This is day of #100DaysToOffload

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Note published on July 15, 2026 at 1:40 AM UTC - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-15T01:40:12.000Z

fascinating economic discovery from Fidelity: houses actually are cheaper now than in 2020!*

* if you denominate them in an arbitrary asset that has appreciated over that time frame

next up from Fidelity: groceries aren't getting more expensive**

** if you denominate their price in World of Warcraft gold

This week at JDHQ – 2026-07-13 - Johnny.Decimal

2026-07-14T22:53:06.000Z

Originally sent to the mailing list on Monday 2026-07-13.

I've been finding it difficult, after taking a month off circumnavigating Taiwan by rail – counter-clockwise, starting from and returning to Kaohsiung City, great trip, recommended – to get back into the flow of things. Feeling distracted and without focus, I went back to an old friend: Cal Newport's Deep Work.

It holds up to perhaps its third reading, and was exactly what I needed. Because its advice is so simple, really, and so obviously true. In order to do good work – work that you're proud of, work that will be noticed – you have to be deliberate. You have to recognise the many distractions of the world and do something about them.

Cal gives the sort of advice that's easy to implement badly: plan your day; don't browse crap online; disconnect at night. But – as I discovered the last few weeks – none of this works as a half measure. A day half planned wasn't planned. Only browsing some crap still leaves your brain a mess. So I'm going all-in: here's my calendar.

The specific problem that I'm trying to solve is the one where you work all day, get to the end, look back, and think … well I was busy, but what did I actually achieve? When you allow yourself to bounce from task to task all day, it's easy to fall into the trap of busywork. There are only two of us in this little business: there's no time for busywork.

Practically, this schedule stops me from drifting away from a task. Those large chunks of pink are labelled either 'Product' (the making or improving of) or 'Marketing' (like sending this email). Figuring out either of those things is hard, and the natural tendency is to start something, do it for half an hour, and drift away from it. And when I say 'natural tendency', it really is: in Willpower, Baumeister and Tierney explain how our willpower is a finite resource, consumed throughout the day. But there are things you can do to help strengthen it, and this is one of them.

I've done spells of 'hyper-scheduling' in the past. It only works when you get to set your own schedule, which rules out a lot of jobs. But if you can, it's worth a try. I'll report my progress.

'The Work System'

Work has started on 'The Work System', aka a 'coping mechanism' for those of you stuck in some corporate situation. We know you probably can't reconfigure the SharePoint, but we should be able to give you something that helps.

Lucy has spent the week in discovery (ref. Workshop area 20-29) and we just reviewed what she has so far. It's nowhere near ready to share, but here's a teaser at how much we're working with.

We'd love to know what help people need 'at work'. Here's a short survey, every question optional: tell us as much or as little as you like.

This survey link will expire around 13th August 2026.

Typeform survey: Johnny.Decimal 'at work'

Giving structure to ideas

On the topic of structure, we're still trying to figure out how best to give structure to our many, many ideas.

(Image made with tldraw which I've just started using and am enjoying a lot.)

Ideas occur, and are saved mostly as simple lists of text in notes that we label 'P5 Ideas'. This extends the task and project management course's P1-P4 system of prioritisation. A 'P5 idea' is just that: a very low priority thing; not even a task. We have a lot of these ideas through our JDex. Let me see if I can … okay, that explains it! A quick grep across my 29 notes named 'P5 ideas' reveals 894 bullet points. That's a lot to try to make sense of (which is why we mostly can't).

We've got a bunch more stuff saved in the still-needs-a-proper-name 'imaginarium aka megablog'. I try to keep ideas out of Things; they might start life there, captured in my inbox, but at morning review I move them out to a P5 note. An idea isn't a task; don't dilute your task system with them.

I just started reading Bob Doto's A System for Writing – the first time I've really learned about Zettelkasten. (Loving the book so far.) ZK's similarities with our 'imaginarium' are striking: the tracking of many granular ideas, loosely connected, in service of surfacing broader ideas, such that content ideas (writing, for Bob – any content, for us) are revealed and can be planned and produced.

I've yet to find the right tool for this job. It's obviously not 894 bullet points spread across 29 text files. In the imaginarium video you'll see me using Airtable. It's too slow, and not visual enough. I need a database crossed with a whiteboard, and I think it needs to be local to be fast enough. I want to feel like Tom Cruise (eww).

I'll take a look at Notion later, but don't think it'll give me the moving shapes around on a canvas I'm looking for. I don't think Obsidian's Canvas will be enough, and this thing needs an actual relational database. Airtable has proven that much. If you've got any other app ideas, I'm all ears.

When we've figured this one out I'll write it up. I can see it becoming a mini-course: how to have, track, and make use of all your ideas, in the specific context of running a creative business.

Recording the 'projects' update to T&PM this week

As noted in the past, the 'projects' half of the 'task and project management' course needs an update. This is the result of 6+ months of thinking since releasing the course, and reflects how we run our own projects. There was a preview video the other week.

These lessons are mostly planned and I'll be recording them this week and next.

SBS Zoom sessions

The Small Business System Zoom sessions continue, one a week, alternating Tuesday/Thursday across timezones. They're 'intimate', shall we say, with just a handful of regulars so far. But the discussion is interesting, and we always learn something. It'd be good to see you there – and don't worry, if you want to lurk with your camera off, that's okay.

That's all for now. As always, we're here to help. Let us know what you need – just reply to this email.

📝 2026-07-14 23:24: I went for an 8km (5 mile) run this evening. I'm working my way up... - Kev Quirk

2026-07-14T22:24:00.000Z

I went for an 8km (5 mile) run this evening. I'm working my way up to 10km, but I think this was a little too much, too soon. We'll see how my middle-aged joints are in the morning...

Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is ace, and so are you. ❤️

You can reply to this post by email, or leave a comment.

The SFPD leaked its drone footage. It shouldn't be surveilling to begin with. - Werd I/O

2026-07-14T12:31:32.000Z

Link: A Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes the New Reality of Urban Surveillance, by Andy Greenberg and Dhruv Mehrotra in WIRED

I’m not sure I agree with this article’s implication that the problem with SFPD’s drone policing was that it accidentally leaked the data.

““There’s a certain trust given to the police to use these things correctly,” says Curry. “When you're watching a drone feed live, you can look into dozens of different apartments, you can see police zooming in on people, you can see arrests. The fact that all of this was exposed feels like a really big issue from a privacy perspective.””

I’d humbly submit that the privacy problem exists regardless of whether the footage was leaked or not: this is ubiquitous surveillance of a city’s citizens from above. That footage can be analyzed, both by humans and software, to track people and target them for any reason. There is very little oversight, and because the police department is using a private company to run it, the teams there presumably have access to an enormous amount of private footage.

The thing is, none of this actually makes us safer. As the ACLU of Northern California points out in its Seeing Through Surveillance report:

“The evidence is clear that while surveillance has increased exponentially, public safety has not. On the contrary, surveillance systems often make people less safe, especially for groups that have historically been in the government’s crosshairs. Modern surveillance technology makes it possible for the government to track who we are, where we go, what we do, and who we know. It fuels high-tech profiling and perpetuates systems of biased policing. It facilitates deportations, chills speech, and imperils the rights of activists, religious minorities, and people who need reproductive and gender-affirming care.”

Most importantly, it doesn’t actually help. As the report points out, the city of San Francisco itself learned that adding cameras to its highest-crime neighborhoods had no impact on crime. Regardless, it added more funding to the program and voted to remove oversight in 2023. The result is more money spent, less privacy, with no impact on public safety. And now we know that the footage is being accidentally leaked, the privacy footprint is obviously even worse.

In a world that is becoming markedly more authoritarian, it’s unconscionable that supposedly permissive cities would add more surveillance. It doesn’t work, it misuses funds that could be spent helping the vulnerable, and it’s data that could be used for undemocratic purposes. It needs to stop — and to do that, we need to apply pressure to our elected representatives and raise awareness of how backwards it is.

We need a PIT Crew for news - Werd I/O

2026-07-14T12:07:18.000Z

Link: Mamdani invests in tech capacity to “solve real problems”, by Pamela Herd in Can We Still Govern?

There’s a lot that newsrooms can learn from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral administration in New York City. His latest announcement is the Public Interest Technology (PIT) Crew, a set of dynamic, cross-disciplinary digital teams that will solve problems across the city using a rapid, human-centered approach.

As Pamela Herd notes here, this is a shift from contracting out to building internal capacity:

“Traditionally, the conventional wisdom since the 1990s and before was that governments could buy tech products like an off-the-shelf product. This led to a massive turn to contracting out, which was great for consultants but bad for government capacity. The outsourced approach often cost too much, delivering too little and too late.

[…] What people who know tech and government have been screaming for years is that building good tech needs in-house capacity, even when you are using contractors. It requires the government owning the design, development and delivery of technology, relying on rapid iteration to fix problems in a way that is impossible when contractors are running things.”

This dynamic is also highly prevalent in newsrooms, resulting in the same problems. If you rely too heavily on buying existing technology or working with outside contractors, you are building operational, functional, and intellectual dependencies on those organizations. You import their values and ways of working, which in the case of some vendors may be catastrophic in itself, but you also put yourself on their timelines and make yourself subject to their feature priorities and interests. And that’s before you consider security and trust profiles, which may radically differ between newsrooms and the vendors that serve them.

New York City isn’t alone; other governments are beginning to shift from outsourcing back to internally owned technology. The article links to a report explaining Colorado’s move back to internally-run IT, which states the issue plainly:

“There is an alignment problem: the issue is not effort, but that we have organized around internal structures rather than outcomes, and that misalignment has made excellent work harder.”

Mamdani’s PIT Crew sounds a lot like how a product team should work: directed groups of experts rapidly prototyping solutions to concretely defined problems anchored in real people’s needs. By doing it internally, he can make sure these solutions are built exactly the way the city needs, build institutional capacity and knowledge, and, theoretically at least, do it far more cheaply in the long run.

As these sorts of civic measures succeed, I think (or, perhaps, I hope) we’ll see more newsrooms translate those outcomes to their own businesses and begin to understand that they need to prioritize technical capacity too. All the same reasons apply here.

Of course, most newsrooms don’t have the budget of the New York City Mayor’s office. I think the solution to that is third entities: non-profit organizations that exist to provide shared technical capacity across newsrooms, based on newsroom needs, that behave as if they were part of newsroom teams. Think of it as a kind of PIT Crew for news, operated independently but in deep collaboration with newsrooms. By using a radically open source approach, newsrooms can pool resources together and solve shared technical problems more easily, on their terms and according to their values.

While there are always places for startups and tech platforms, the idea that the tech industry can always serve needs better than building institutional capacity is fundamentally broken; it’s also fundamentally right-wing. I’m delighted to see the New York City Mayor’s office move in a more productive direction. I hope it becomes an example for everyone.

I'm a USB-C Maximalist - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-07-14T11:34:26.000Z

My wife and I recently went on a 7 week holiday around Europe. Although we each took a massive backpack, we wanted to travel fairly lightly. I took a single universal power brick. This little unit was all I needed to charge my various gadgets.

It has a hefty USB-C PD (Power Delivery) port for rapid charging of my phone and laptop. Two other USB-C ports for my other gadgets. And a couple of legacy USB-A ports which were redundant. The pass through was useful for using the same socket as the hotel's TV / lamp / coffee maker.

Wherever we were in the world, I was 100% confident that I would be able to buy a replacement charger if I needed it. USB-C cables are everywhere too. What are the chances that I could find the exact charger needed for a GameBoy Colour? Or the puck for last year's Pixel watch? Or the weird barrel jack for an HP laptop?

No. One charger. One cable. One standard.

Here's everything I took which needed to be recharged.

Phone
- A Pixel 8 Pro (running GrapheneOS). It also has the ability to act as a power source and recharge other devices.
Laptop
- A Chuwi MiniBook. Small, light, decent battery.
eReader
- A no-name eInk device. I read a lot on holiday.
Watch
- A cheap but capable smartwatch. No magnetic charging dongle - just shove the cable into the body.
Toothbrush
- Again, a cheap and unbranded device. And, again, no charging dock - the bottom has a protected USB socket.
Tracker
- What if someone steals my bag? Hopefully the PebbleBee "Find My" device will help me recover it.
Battery
- Most trains, trams, and buses have USB power supplies. But sometimes you want your own hefty store of electrons. This one accepts PD charging and also outputs PD.
Headphones
- Some cute ear-cuff headphones. I feel a bit guilty about including these, because it is their case which has the USB-C port rather than the cans themselves.
Bug Bite Zapper
- This is a bit of a cheat. It uses my phone's USB port to heat up.

I probably could have gotten away with a single-port charger. The phone needs recharging every night, but most of the other devices can go days or weeks without being topped up.

As we were travelling light(ish) I didn't bother bringing the Nintendo Switch. We were in a major cities, so no need for our USB-C powered walkie-talkies. We were out sightseeing most days, so I didn't take the USB-C to HDMI adaptor which would have let us connect the laptop and phones to a hotel TV. Perhaps in the hotter countries I could have done with the USB-C neck cooler - instead I purchased a cheap USB-C rechargeable fan. Rather than bring a beard trimmer, I went to local barbers. If anything needed AA batteries, well, I could have used these rechargeable batteries.

I know there are some problems with USB-C. But the benefits far outweigh the glitches. Using my USB-C cable tester, I can be sure all the cables I have can deliver the amount of power my devices need.

There's simply no point buying any electrical gadget which uses a proprietary charging port.

You can read all my USB-C posts and all my gadget reviews.

What electrical items do you travel with which don't use the one-true-connector?

Commute to the gym & a gifted album - W28 - Joel's Log Files

2026-07-14T02:00:00.000Z

And well, here is another weeknote for y’all to update you on what I’m up to. I’m still following the World Cup, I have done a return to the gym and even went on a Saturday.

⚽ Norway lost against England, so now the stakes are clear. No Latinos want Argentina to win again for some reason, and same goes for me, if England took Mexico out, they better get to the finals and snatch that cup. You got this Bellingham.
🎨 Continued making a few more themes for the Nintendo 3DS, I made a theme for Terranigma—another SNES game I love—and another one based on TechDweeb’s iconic themes for retro handhelds!
🛡️Purchased some stuff from AliExpress which arrived today, including a case for my 3DS styled after Monster Hunter, a glass panel replacement for the upper screen, a screen protector and an analog stick cap replacement, in case the rubber of mine dies like it often happens.
🚲 Went to the gym on Saturday, and I did so riding my bike! Which means is the first time I left it locked without direct line of sight. I also had the bright idea of doing leg day. Riding back home was alright, but my legs and lower back have been achy for a while, send help.
📱 Wrote a blogpost already, but yeah, I lost my phone for a whole day, and it was quite the stressful time. It’s all in the past by now, almost as if nothing had ever happened, time sure is weird.
🛍️ Because of Summer vacation time, all of my family is now together yet again—so all the siblings are back here to annoy me!—that basically means we went window shopping to the mall again (and also buying some things too). My wallet is very light.
💿 Acquired a new album for my Bandcamp collection! Time Once Lost (Remastered) by Rozen. This was actually a gift from Bojidar because of my birthday—it took a while because Bandcamp screwed up—and it’s actually kind of crazy. It’s a bunch of remixes based on The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and IT RULES. Listening to it as I type this post.
🎧 Besides that album I returned to a Welcome to Night Vale and some really interesting episodes of 99% Invisible

Gaming

This was a varied week when it comes to the devices I played. Playtime on my Nintendo 3DS, PSP, Nintendo Switch and my phone too!

Started

Black Rock Shooter is a PSP exclusive I saw mentioned for the first time on the TWG Discord, since its graphical artstyle is one of the best in the system. We play as a cute/edgy black-haired anime girl with amnesia who is Humanity’s last hope in an apocalyptic future where machines are taking over. The game is a sort of rail shooter RPG where I move across stages and get close to the enemies to enter combat, which consists of shooting at them with a huge gun that the protagonist effortlessly carries somehow. It seems to follow the rule of cool pretty well, I’m interested in the story too, as the stakes are rather high! only completed like 5 missions so far.

Ongoing

Fire Emblem Awakening has become much more complicated now that I realized how pairing up characters together to make them get married affects the events in the game! The story has become very interesting now with some revelations I kind of saw coming but with implications far bigger than I thought. For now, I’m having fun! But definitely needed a little break, which is why I started BRS.

Finished

Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores was another DLC of the original Monument Valley and I really love how different the theme of each level was. The artistic style of this title is unmatched and timeless. Beautiful isometric themes with super creative levels that really broke my brain even more than the original levels and Ida’s Dream. That final eight level was truly something else, I had to find help for a part of it, but other than that, basically a sequel in an on itself—I’ll definitely play the other two games too!
Transistor is over, and it was very, very good. This game came before Hades and you can tell how it inspired it. The gameplay was very good in my opinion, a weird mix of action and turn based combat that kind of felt like Into the Breach

Reading

Kingdom - Up to chapter 873. After finishing Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie I was missing something more focused on action stuff and decided to return here. As always, it does not dissapoint, the Hi Shin Unit is going on the offensive now, as well as some other armies, but the great general and enemy of Qin, Riboku, seems to have a plan to make everyone understand his true might as a strategist.
Blue Lock - Up to chapter 353. Blue Lock’s next opponent is England, and they continue to discuss how to face off against them. There’s a bit of an unexpected visit that shakes the team a bit, but fun stuff is happening!
Spy x Family - Up to chapter 137. After Loid manages to escape the hilarious scenario of the previous arc, he’s way too exhausted and ends up in the hospital, where her fellow spy coworker—who has a huge crush on him—ends up trying to fulfill some super dangerous mission to earn his attention, but Anya doesn’t want any of it, other than candy.

Watching

I wanted to watch the sheep detectives movie but my siblings watched it without me first and I haven’t had a chance to see it on my own. However, I saw another masterpiece.

Megamind - I already watched this film this year, but this is one of those films that you just can’t help but love. What a fantastic film this is, both hilarious and actually epic. The best animated superhero film after The Incredibles. Way better than Despicable Me.

Around the Web

Blog posts

i went to the world cup and all i got was my umbrella taken away - a thoughtful slice of life from tiramisu reflecting on the world cup, football and the experience of it all!
Holiday reading, mostly from Standard eBooks - Neil shares some rather curious reads he chose from the public domain, I just like seeing people mention Standard Ebooks in the wild.
Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? - An piece from Brennan that shares some wisdom I hadn’t seen worded in such a way, it definitely got me thinking and I think you should check it out as well.
I Know Everything About You - Lou shares some life experiences related to his skill—one I’m jealous of—to actually remember details about people and their life.
My Nintendo 3DS XL - Syl wrote a wonderful piece inspired by my own post on the 3DS. I loved the pictures and especially the pendants she shared, lots of personality in a single photo. I should get some charms for my handhelds too…

YouTube

I Made My LEGO Gameboy Actually Playable! - I am aware of Natalie’s design using real Game Boy parts, but this alternative isn’t bad either! Good stuff.
Designing My Dream Retro Handheld - Ross has made this epic video where he shares a wishlist of features for the ultimate 4:3 handheld. I agree with pretty much every single point. It will probably never happen.
Ammo Counters - Oh man, this challenge is always a joy, and this retrospective on videogame ammo counters was incredible. The whole evolution of the mechanic until the modern day.
Nintendo Was Right - After Sony announcing that physical media will die, it seems like, as bad as Nintendo is, they are the least bad of them all, which I guess deserves some respect nowadays.

This is day 96 of #100DaysToOffload

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Finished reading Wasteland Warlords 5 - Molly White's activity feed

2026-07-14T01:51:43.000Z

Finished reading:

Wasteland Warlords series, book 5.

Wasteland Warlords 5

by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.

Published 2024. 131 pages.

Started July 12, 2026; completed July 12, 2026.