Shellsharks Blogroll - BlogFlock

Farewell Cadence - Posts feed

2026-08-04T21:55:00.000Z

I've decided to retire Cadence, my iOS and macOS Navidrome client. This isn't a post I was planning to write and it wasn't the easiest decision. I originally created Cadence because there wasn't a Navidrome or Subsonic client I was happy with or enjoyed using. That is no longer the case.

Cadence was the first native app I'd authored in years and was an interesting challenge. Navidrome's support of the Subsonic API is well documented and clear. But streaming and dealing with audio is not easy. It likely wasn't the best choice of app to dive back in with, but I learned a lot.

I could continue to support it on its own merits but, of all the things I maintain for myself, I found it to be the most demanding. It felt like I was spending a disproportionate amount of time on a solution to a problem I no longer had.

I could riff on this some more, but the crux of it is this: I don't love mobile app development and the apps I wanted to see emerged while I was building and using Cadence. I've been using NaviBeat. I love the design, the wealth of features and the fact that it's ubiquitous across all Apple devices. Arpeggi, Nautiline and Narjo are also good options.

This has nothing to do with me continuing to maintain and develop Ribbon. It's a much narrower, less demanding app and one that I do remain passionate about.

If you bought Cadence recently or otherwise want a refund, I encourage you to request one from Apple. I've removed the App Store listing, but it will remain available in your purchase history.

Lastly, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that supported Cadence.

Not paranoid, but respectful - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-04T15:45:00.000Z

Andreas posted some interesting thoughts, wondering if maybe we are too paranoid when it comes to AI slop. Please, go read his words first, I only intend to add to the conversation here, not to put him in an uncomfortable position or something, we are friends and everything after all—even if he barely mentions my posts on his Link Dumps… 😭

As someone who posts to the internet and exposes a fair chunk of my thoughts out in the open for everyone to read. It is undeniable that, as free as we are, we do care about what others think of us and our opinions, and most of us would rather avoid getting in trouble.

We limit ourselves all the time, some of us learn about certain dog whistles or slang to avoid which may seem funny and even popular in the mainstream, yet they originate from dark places we’d rather not support. Of course, we also don’t really talk about certain things that could break the law, such as sharing copyrighted material.

Both situations can end up with pretty harsh consequences, and both of them are relatively easy to avoid. I think that the same goes for media generated with AI. It’s a matter of respect, for the original artists whose work got stolen, and for the audience who interacts with the work you put out there.

It’s true that we can end up policing each other, I have seen people who don’t ever give the benefit of the doubt for things like this, immediately attacking someone because their post contains an image whose origin they didn’t even know. As humans we definitely should be more understanding of each other.

Of course, there is also people who purposefully generate images, who think they are pretty, and may be naive about the complexities and harms of their use. Sure, some don’t care at all, but I’m happy to avoid those people and move on with my life.

So, yeah, while it’s a bit of a burden, and it can be annoying to feel once again limited by other people’s expectations. Isn’t that something we already do? We already know not to promote certain symbols in the wrong context, we also avoid to refer to people in a certain ways, it’s mostly common sense.

It’s true however, that it’s not very easy to tell nowadays when it comes to some pretty convincing slop. There is no golden rule other than maybe just, not sharing things whose origin we are not familiar with altogheter.

Especially when it comes to blog posts that are just text anyway and may not even require it. Some of us are very fixated on having a graphic somewhere, to gather more attention and bring more eyes to what you share. I have had this feeling before, I’ll probably have a banner image on this post because why not—or not because I’m lazy. But again, text should be able to stand by its own, and I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are there for your words, and not necessarily the graphics around.

Of course there’s something to be said about the beautiful work some people do to make awesome theming on their websites and special posts that end up turning a page into a unique piece of art, but that’s a different point to make!

In the end, it is annoying, and we can definitely feel the pressure of having yet another thing to worry about when sharing things online. But I think that burden is easier to carry when we know we are respecting other people by doing so.

Now with Blaugust going on, a lot of conversation has shifted to how the event decided to handle AI generated stuff. Personally, I don’t want anything to do with any of it, but I also know it’s not easy to police and don’t really have any reason to lash out against any specific person about it. I will simply not read, nor promote any of the blogposts I see that make use of it, out of respect to myself and those who read what I say here.

This is day 9 of #100DaysToOffload, day 4 of #Blaugust2026

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse

📝 2026-08-04 15:43: Thinking about selling the 64GB RAM from my laptop and paying off my mortgage... - Kev Quirk

2026-08-04T14:43:00.000Z

Thinking about selling the 64GB RAM from my laptop and paying off my mortgage...

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.

Gig Review: Belle & Sebastian - If You’re Feeling Sinister at Margate Dreamland ★★★★★ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-04T11:34:22.000Z

It's 1998 and Doogie⁰, the guy across the hall in our student accommodation, will not stop playing The Boy With The Arab Strap. Eventually I crack and ask him who the band are. He infodumps on me with all the authority of an 18 year our music snob about this cool new Scottish band called Belle & Sebastian. I slip him a tenner, a couple of Smirnoff Ice, and the promise of my help on the next assignment we have - in return he pops into town and grabs me If You’re Feeling Sinister. Despite my obsession, the band never tour near our uni until literally the day after I leave for good.

It's 2023 and Dan, my mate at Twitter, invites me to fly to San Francisco to speak at a conferences he's running. Twitter will pay for my flights, hotel, and sundries. I look at the tickets for Belle & Sebastian at the Roundhouse that I'd booked for my birthday. Ah well, I get to celebrate in SF with a bunch of American friends I've not seen in years. I reluctantly cancel the tickets and spend the refund on flight upgrades. A few days later, some twunt¹ buys Twitter and cancels all conference spending - including my flight over. In the meantime, all remaining gig tickets are snapped up.

It's 2026 and Liz, my wife, declares a previously unmentioned desire to visit the coastal town of Margate. By coincidence, Belle & Sebastian are playing there this summer! We snap up tickets and book a cute apartment on the sea-front. By the time the apartment tells us they're double booked and are cancelling, the hotel prices for Margate have rocketed. The best we can do is a Travelodge in a shopping centre nearer Ramsgate than Margate! The train to get us there is severely delayed², I get a touch of food poisoning, and the bus to the venue is snarled in traffic.

At which point I reluctantly conclude that the universe doesn't want me to see Belle & Sebastian³.

Nevertheless! We saw them and they were fucking brilliant!

Much like the Kula Shaker gig I attended a few years ago, this was an anniversary concert. They played the album If You’re Feeling Sinister in its entirety. The second half of the concert was a bunch of old hits - including one of my personal favourite "Seymour Stein".

The support act were Saint Etienne. I knew "He's On The Phone" and was pleasantly surprised to discover I half-remembered a few more of their songs.

Both bands gave plenty of audience interaction. I'll never understand the artists who basically ignore the crowd except to say "Hello *checks notes* Wimberlyton!" It didn't feel too forced or scripted. There was a lovely game of adult peak-a-boo⁴ to round things off.

Dreamland is a pretty decent venue. Crowd control was handled well and security were perfectly pleasant. The astroturf grounds were reasonably comfortable to sit on before the gig. I didn't feel the need to pay a fiver to go on any ride, but kinda nice to see them there. Several big advertising screens let people know that free water was available - as well as showing details of upcoming gigs.

The crowd skewed old⁵ although there were a fair few starry-eyed dreamers not all of whom appeared to have been dragged there by their parents.

I am delighted to finally be in the demographic where all my old childhood favourites are being aggressively monetised.

I'm reasonably sure his real name was "Chris" - but we already had a Chris on the corridor so he was renamed Doogie because he looked (a tiny bit) like Doogie Howser. ↩︎
Though lacking both the depth and warmth. ↩︎
Four whole pounds in Delay Repay compensation! ↩︎
I concede it might also be time travellers preventing me from seeing them for inscrutable reasons. ↩︎
An encore. I remember seeing James Marsters ending his set by saying "I'm going to pretend this is the end of the show and you're going to pretend me coming back on for one last number is a big surprise." ↩︎
Not me though. Never! ↩︎

Spider-Man's great, more handheld gaming - W31 - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-04T02:28:21.000Z

When the events I share on my weeknotes are few and far between, it’s often because I wrote a lot of posts already talking about stuff that was interesting to me during the week, so, yeah it happens sometimes! In any case, this is some of the other stuff that happened between July 28 and August 3, 2026!

📅 In case you missed it, I joined Blaugust for 2026, a month long event where the point is to write and participate as much as you want! Of coures, I’m going for the full 31 posts, though there are plenty of tiers available to choose a challenge that fits you best. As long as it gets you to blog it’s okay!
🕹️ So the Anbernic RG SP is about to come out and it’s exactly the same form factor as the original GBA SP, so better looking than the bulkier RG35XX SP I own, and I want it so badly because it looks so good but I also know I should not get it since I literally have no need for it. In any case, do consider it if you are looking for an alternative handheld, it’s extremely good.
🏠 I was home alone once again! It’s the reason I got to complete a game on my Nintendo Switch—which you’ll see down below—as I played it on the living room and had an awesome full TV screen in the dark experience with it.
🔧 Remember when I said our house flooded because of heavy rain and the plumbing being a mess but that it got fixed? Well… it wasn’t fixed. Thankfully we’ve been at home and able to do damage control successfully.
🎥 Once my parents returned from the trip we actually set-up a super tight movie day where we watched Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but we hadn’t eaten yet so we got super fast chinese food, ate in fifteen minutes, and didn’t even stay for the credits because we had a different appointment. It was a flash but it was fun anyway.
💪 No gym at all this week. Once again, being alone most of the week means I prefer to be at home than to do stuff outside. I am returning for sure this week though. I have to admit I didn’t even use my bicycle on the weekend again. I need to commit before the hobby goes cold, I won’t let that happen.

Gameplay from Gris and some Fire Emblem on my 3DS, art from Centuria, and the Spider-Man poster

Gaming

Started

Star Wars Episode III (GBA) - Well my sister decided she’d start this game after borrowing my Anbernic RG35XX SP for a bit, and I had to help her get through the first boss fight, only for her to give up soon after. I ended up picking this up and have made quite a bit of progress on it already! It’s a beat’em up with lots of combos, unlockable moves and an actually great combat system for the duels, from what I experienced thus far in the boss fight against Count Dooku. Will probably have it in my rotation for a while before I finish it, or maybe I’ll see it all the way through in a few days…

Ongoing

Super Mario 3D World - Me and friends finally returned to this awesome platformer. This time, we dedicated ourselves to collect more of the missing green stars and stamps in earlier levels instead of continuing with the stories. I just feel like we may as well! Given how good of a platformer this has been, and I don’t really plan on revisiting it once I beat it once, so yeah. Super fun either way!
Fire Emblem Awakening - I beat a couple of side quests to level up characters in my roster, but I made no progress on the main story this week. I did try and failed a couple times, as I lost some characters early on that I wasn’t meaning to. In any case, I am hoping to get better and beat the chapter this week.
Donkey Kong ‘94 - This is also a reason why I slowed down on Awakening. This game is simply super fun! I have been doing world after world and now I’m at the 5th one, with a dozen levels for me to go through. I’m trying to get all the collectibles and most of the RetroAchievements, which makes for a wonderful incentive for me to keep going at it. Wonderful level and puzzle design!

#$# Completed

✨Gris - Early in the week I decided to give my Nintendo Switch some love, and I thought I’d play one of the games I chose for the Summer Game Challenge! I am extremely happy I chose this one. Gris is a wonderful and short experience, a platformer with light puzzle mechanics and an beautiful art style with pastel colors that really does look like a moving painting. It’s just a wonderful experience that I’ll have to write a review for soon. Rest assured, it’s a good one.

Watching

Masters of the Universe - We saw this on Amazon Prime (it’s a shared account I don’t pay for btw) and kind of really enjoyed it! It was a very self-aware movie that really felt like a Saturday Morning Cartoon. I never watched the original He-Man, but I felt it would be a fun time. We ended up laughing quite a bit at how ridiculous it was, worth a watch I’d say.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day - Now. No jokes here. This movie is Tom Holland’s best Spider-Man film, and this is by a very, very long margin. The best Spider-Man film since the Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. The character, the plot, the conflict at hand, everything was handled extremely well. This is also the best looking Marvel movie in ages, it feels like actual film done by people who know the character and truly had a story to tell. Of course, the action does not stay behind at all. The choreography and sequences were truly epic, everything here is top notch. Maybe my favorite film of the year. Even my parents want to watch it again in a couple weeks (because they are busy this weekend). It’s that good.

Reading

Leviathan Falls - Chapters 12-31. That’s about 20 chapters since last time I mentioned it! Since Sotolf told me I should read more books other than Manga, I decided I’d follow his advice. The last book from The Expanse has proven to be an absolute rollercoaster, with a lot of points of view from conflicting characters which are incredibly interesting to me. The story has started to collide and I can see the point of no return coming soon, I’m going to finish it this week!
Centuria - Chapters 3-38. Well, this story sure managed to catch my intersting. Since the first couple chapters, that main character has met new allies, fought against a bunch of nightmare-ish creatures of the forest, rebelled against a whole kingdom, defeated a powerful enemy and losing another ally in battle. Quite a wild ride, so I’ll keep reading for another bit. I made the mistake of looking up reviews and having people hating on it and affecting me but, I’ll try to see it with my own critical view.
Uncle from Another World - Chapters 26-27. The chapters of this one are much longer than the other, but actually reading my book also cut away some of my time here. In any case, a fun couple of chapters to entertain myself.

Around the Web

Blog posts

AI or not? - it’s kind of scary to read new authors when it could just be AI slop.
MicroSD cards - Arent they kind of neat? I sure do love them.
How the Miyoo Flip broke my heart - The sad story of a guy who refuses to buy an Anbernic clamshell handheld.
All Friends Are Real - Friendships, even those developed online, should not be lesser than others!
A Dad Moment - This is so adorable, I’m glad parenting is going just fine for Robert.

YouTube

Zelda x Wallace & Gromit: The Hero of Cheese - This is a fan animation and it is absolutely beautiful, made by humans.
The entire Ocarina of Time Soundtrack, if The Beatles made it (Sentence Mixing) - This needs to be heard by everyone, it’s also made by humans.
Why Breaking into Zelda’s Castle at Night is a Bad Idea - Just some good old game-breaking glitchy stuff.
Are Older Games Better At Low Resolutions? - PS1 and N64 on a CRT are something else.
How Spongebob Lost Its Underwater Atmosphere - A deep dive on SpongeBob’s early animation style compared to today’s.
How One Word Broke The Number One Rule Of Writing Heroes - The Spiderverse animated movies are quite great.
Exposing Flipbook AI Slop - I really loved seeing some of the real flipbooks featured here. Good stuff.

This is day 8 of #100DaysToOffload and day 3 of #Blaugust2026.

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse

Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 13 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-04T00:00:00.000Z

The thirteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:

In Episode 13, I chat with Sophia, the author of Fractal Kitty about, among other things, making interactive web pages about mathematics, the intersection of art, words, and math, the math blogging community, and more.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.

The thirteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed

Book Review: The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' by Sidney Dekker ★★★★☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-03T11:34:02.000Z

This is such a useful book. It makes the case that there's no such thing as "human error" - instead most catastrophes are caused by system issues, misaligned incentives, and unrealistic processes.

You are not the custodian of an otherwise safe system that you need to protect from erratic human beings.

By its nature it is a little repetitive. I suspect it's the sort of book students and business leaders will be expected to dip into on an ad-hoc basis for their MBA studies.

It's also chock-full of anecdotes which demonstrate how quite serious failings are often erroneously reduced to "human failure". Some of those stories are rather distressing - featuring death, dismemberment, plane crashes, and the like - but they also feel a little like "just so" stories. They illustrate the points well, but felt to me a little voyeuristic.

I'd go so far as to say it is probably one of the best management books that I've read:

holding people accountable is fine;

• but you need to be able to show that people had the authority to live up to the responsibility that you are now asking of them;

• if you can’t do that, your calls for accountability have no merit, and you’d better start looking at yourself.

I'm a big fan of using bullet-points for books like this. It is far too easy for important insights to get buried in the middle of a paragraph of waffle.

And it isn't just for management types. Anyone involved in computers needs to read and understand this.

new technology allows a system to be driven closer to its margins, eroding the safety advantage that was gained.

Although it doesn't venture into politics and government, I think it also applies there. Consider this:

What people were doing was reasonable in the eyes of those on the inside the situation, given the pressures and priorities operating on them and others doing the same work every day.

Modern political discourse often implies that decision makers are incompetent buffoons who frequently make errors. I think the truth is rather closer to what the book suggests. Given all the information (which the commentariat rarely have) and the systemic incentives (which are often set by the electorate) - most decisions look reasonable from the inside. A more systems based view rather than hindsight analysis would be useful for everyone.

There are a few slightly naff clip-art illustrations which are probably better suited to a crappy PPT than a serious book.

It is also a pity the eBook is so malformed. The HTML is full of things like <p class="h1"> rather than using proper semantic headers, which means the built in style-sheet must be used, which means you can't easily change the default font colour (dark grey on eInk looks rubbish). I'd love to see some of the tools and techniques proposed in this book applied to the organisation which created this rather terrible formatting.

The author is extremely generous with his citations and points to hundreds of resources for readers to explore.

A worthwhile book for anyone who deals with even moderately complex systems - if you can put up with the error-riddled formatting.

am - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-03T00:00:00.000Z

The shortest words —
the most weight:
I, a, (e)m.

Transistor - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-02T22:50:07.000Z

Before Hades, Supergiant Games already had a place in the indie gaming scene, even though their previous games didn’t get as much of a spotlight, they were known for delivering quality from the start.

One of their first titles was Transistor, a sci-fi themed action/tactics RPG hybird released in 2014—about four World Cups ago in case you are wondering. In it, we control Red, a famous singer in the city of Cloudbank. The story kind of begins with a murder mystery, as we find Red besides a corpse, stabbed with a giant sword, which we soon realize, has somehow absorbed the man’s consciousness. Red has also lost her voice for some reason, so the sword itself— called the Transistor—becomes Red’s companion and narrator throughout the game, as well as our weapon to weild throughout the adventure

Official artwork of the game

Red has to weild the Transistor to defend herself against hordes of robot enemies, who we come to know as the Process. Slowly but surely, they are corrupting the city of Cloudbank, which up to this point had been a cyberpunk utopia, that could be modified and acommodated to the citizens’ taste.

As Red advances, she will encounter the remains of multiple important people of Cloudbank who were “integrated”—killed—and the Transistor will be able to absorb “functions” from them, which Red can use during combat as new attacks or enhancements. Each one of those functions also show information of the character they were absorbed from, their profile and motives, including story elements. As you use the functions in different ways, you can unlock new aspects of their backstory.

Red embarks on her quest to look for clues as to what's happening, on a pretty cool bike

The combat is one of the game’s most defining aspects, extremely unique when compared to anything else in the entire genre. It is a polar opposite to Hades’ button-mashing style that needs quick reactions and attacks. Pretty much every movement is fairly slow—Monster Hunter’s Great Sword combat slow on normal combat—However, you have access to a special Turn() function which is the meat and potatoes of it all.

You see, when you trigger a Turn, the environment goes dark, and time completely stops. You can move in any direction, perform attacks, see how the resulting damage builds up, undo previous moves and then commit to perform them. Each move has a certain cost, so you can only “queue” a few actions before you have to commit. Once you finish a turn, you’ll return to normal and do all the attacks in one fell swoop, with the enemies simply taking all the hits you got on them.

You are pretty much programming a sequence, hence why the moves are called functions, and even named as such, like Turn(), Switch() or Spark(). This mechanic feels like a mix of turn based and tactics combat, as you have to think about plenty of parameters, like positioning, attack range and even enemy alignment.

One big caveat here is that not everything you do in your sequence may go as you expect. For example, if you chain multiple attacks without moving, the first couple may land well, but the last may miss, if the enemy was knocked back too far from the attack’s area of effect and you didn’t account for it. You will need to learn how some attacks affect the enemy, and take it into consideration during a Turn.

The isometric style of the game. Notice the bottom bar, with the moves available to the player

When it comes to story, the delivery of this one is rather obtuse. You follow a linear path from beginning to end, finding new characters and functions to use. You slowly see the Process integrating all of Cloudbank, alterating the environment and making it much more sterile, you also come to understand what caused the Process to get out of control, and how each person you find was murdered/integrated in the first place though the why is often obtuse.

There’s also terminals you can access all throughout the journey, which let you read news and reports of what’s happening in the background, this is also one of the few places where Red communicates, as she can type her thoughts there. The terminal access let’s you chat with certain characters too, though this is not something the player controls, just a way to progress the story and give us more information.

The narrator will make fun remarks quite often, I vibe with the humor myself

There’s a backdoor area of the game, separated from Cloudbank somehow, where you can relax for a while and also enter special doors. They are pretty much separate challenges that will require you to understand the mechanics and functions at your disposal.

Each challenge focuses on a different aspect, from speed to efficiency of moves, it’s honestly a very fun set of rooms to try and beat multiple times, since you can use them to practice and optimize your playstyle. Besides, it’s a way to unlock songs from the game which you can play at will during your stay there.

Oh right, the songs, the music, the score… Darren Korb is an absolute genius, something I discovered thanks to Hades and can fully confirm here as well. The soundtrack of this game is magnificent. It simply sparks joy, what else can I say?

The voice work too. Even though Red lost her voice, we get to see a few cutscenes of her singing, and of course, the Transistor, our narrator and companion, does a fantastic work throughout the whole journey. Later in the game some other characters with voice lines will appear, and I must admit, it’s really good stuff. All of them fit and you can feel the weight of each word similarly to Hades, they are excellently done.

The environment becomes more minimal as the story goes on, while this is a bad thing, it looks neat

The art feels very minimalistic and futuristic, it’s the same isometric view we can find in Hades (and most games from Supergiant), and here the artstyle is much more abstract. It kind of looks like everything is a painting, full of straight lines and angles, somewhat cell-shaded too.

The good

An intriguing story and premise.
A linear adventure where you can rarely get lost.
Deep combat system that is easy to understand and fun to master.
Excellent voice work and soundtrack.
Well written script and characters.
Fantastic artstyle and atmosphere.
Does not overstay its welcome.
It was a New Game+ mode.

The bad

The story may feel a bit too slow to progress, like it’s dreep-feeding information.
Sometimes an attack sequence may break or behave unexpectedly.
A few of the enemies can be quite bothersome, but nothing too bad.
A lot of screens with a lot of lore you may miss.
Some of the events or dialogue may go above your head

Overall

This game was really enjoyable! I played it on my Nintendo Switch and finished it less than six hours, in the span of ten days, mostly during my commutes to and from work! I wore wired earphones for most of the story, though I also enjoyed it at home on the TV.

The performance was perfect and I really liked how the story unfolded, even if sometimes it felt like some dialogue contained a lot of words without really saying much.

The sci-fi setting was one of the most intriguing for me, I never really understood how it all worked, though I don’t think we are meant to. A part of me wondered if we even play as humans, or if we are just some super futuristic version of it all, given the powers we have and the enemy we face.

Anyway, I’m just theorizing at this point, it’s not really spoilery, I think, but yeah. It’s a game that gives you quite a bit to think about when it comes to reality and how we write our future as people. Definitely worth a play given its lenght, in my opinion.

This is day 7 of #100DaysToOffload and post 2 of Blaugust 2026

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse

Taylor Swift Moshpit - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-08-02T19:42:36.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? Love Story is my favourite Taylor Swift song, I’m defintely a sucker for her earlier stuff. I’m an Offspring fan too, so this cover they performed at the recent Hellfest (never heard of it tbh) is pretty much made for me.

I know James is a big Swift fan, I wonder if he’d also appreciate this?

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

August - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-02T00:00:00.000Z

The sun shines through the silvery sky. I look up and around to see where blue might peek through the blanket that covers the sky. There is one space where I can see shades of blue through the silver. I think about how the sky invites me to look up, and then around: to be curious. What can I see today? I do this in all seasons and skies. On the warmest summer days, my eyes focus on the contrast between the green hills and the blue skies. On the coolest, clearest winter days, where the beauty of the clear sky warms the heart despite the cold, I search to see if I can spot a cloud. What can I see today?

A welcome cool air has been blowing over the last few days; the breeze has characterised my walks, the way it blows on my cheeks with every step and gust. I think about how much of walking is not only about what I see, but about what I feel: the temperature, the feeling of putting one step in front of another, the thoughts I have that make me smile or sing or curious or inquisitive; the feeling of joy from seeing and hearing animals – rabbits sitting still on open planes of grass, the calls of pigeons – and how they remind me I am one small part of the community that lives here.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

My morning was warmed by a message from a friend, a video that shared a fusion of musical styles I didn’t expect to find myself listening to. I thought about how much I love sending messages to people of things they find interesting, and how much I enjoy receiving them, too; tiny gifts that brighten a moment.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Sitting here hours later under the silvery sky of evening, I think back to the morning – the cool breeze under the shade of fully-grown trees, the warm sun, the music – and smile. And I look around to evening, and how the green tees look compared to the white sky above; how the clouds look lighter than light. I look forward to whether I will hear the call of a pigeon this evening – Oh! one just started to call! – and what colour the sunset will be. The amber of yesterday? Or the gold of today?

Miley Cyrus, what's going on? - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-08-01T21:35:29.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? I jumped on YouTube and found six new Miley Cyrus videos sitting there waiting for me. Six of them. Was this the rollout of a new album? Why hadn’t I heard about this already?

It wasn’t. They’re just videos for Something Beautiful, last year’s record, and they’re the last pieces of the pop opera film that went with it. I caught the film when it came out last year in the theatre but never came back to the album.

These were all released 17 hours ago, when were they made? Is she just emptying the vault before a new rollout?

Let’s have a quick surf around the web to see what’s going on.

She’s had a big week, is what’s going on. On the 27th she guest edited Wonderland’s summer issue. Next day she signed to Atlantic. Columbia’s done after Endless Summer Vacation and Something Beautiful. Four days after that, six videos.

Turns out it’s just a clear out. Everything left over gets dumped on YouTube.

The next one will be her tenth. Something Beautiful was an experimental album, will the tenth be similar? Who knows. She’s never really made the same record twice. Good for her, but it’s also why I keep going back to my favourites.

Not the new album I got excited about, then. Here are the six new videos.

Something Beautiful never lived up to Plastic Hearts for me, and I kinda just want more of that, but I doubt it. Either way, I’m here for the next era.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

Open Tabs July 2026 - The Weblog of fLaMEd

2026-08-01T19:36:28.000Z

What’s going on, Internet? If you don’t folllow my Bookmarks through the feed, then here’s the bookmarks from July. Enjoy.

Rant about blogs and the IndieWeb - Dom Corriveau Okay, this one had me in tears. Such a good read.
Your Metablogging is Lame as Hell – Absurd Pirate’s Internet Blog Lol, kinda nodding my head here. Blogging about Bear Blog blogs is becoming a bit of a thing, isn’t it?
don’t let Web nostalgia obscure a positive Web future This has always been something I’m an advocate for. Draw inspiration from the 90s/2000s web, but don’t rely on old and outdated hacks. Take advantage of the capabilities we have today, but don’t go overboard with modern bloat.
Pseudonym as an escape I’ve written about this previously. The pseudonym isn’t hiding; it’s breathing room. Been enjoying not being my IRL name online since 96.
Websites Are Not Going to Die If Google stops linking to websites, it stops being a search engine. Another good reminder to keep the personal website going while corp search eats itself.
The Web Won Because It Got Easier Worth a read for anyone pushing the indie web. Knowing how it all works doesn’t make it easy for the next person.
Netizen Contributing to the internet for the good of it, not for profit. Now I’m wondering what my netizen contributions will be…
The Music Discovery Problem Music discovery takes intentional effort once the algorithm’s gone, and that’s fine. I should write up and document my discovery process.
We need a physical digital music experience Olly’s model already exists in the audiobook world. Libro.fm sends a slice of my audiobook purchases to my local (physical) bookstore.
Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day Great read.
The Overthinkers Guide to rekindle your Blogging Mojo Maybe some inspiration for some of you to start writing again. Sometimes I just cbf writing, lol
List of things I love seeing in personal webspaces A non-exhaustive list of things Folkmoss love seeing in blogs/personal websites.
What should a personal website be? Ratfactor asks about what a website should be. A reflection of yourself, not some idea of what a website is meant to be.
Kevin Boone: Why Idon’t really care if web content is AI-generated Kevin Boone talks about how scepticism should apply to everything online, not just the AI-generated stuff. Trust the source you know, not the medium. It feels like people forget how crap search results have been since 2008 with the rise of “SEO Spam”. Humans have been shit long before AI.
Dirty Little Zine — Free 8-Page Printable Zine Maker Super cool little tool that will help you create simple 8-page zines
What We Lost When We Quit Using Crappy Old Web Forums A fantastic read about forum software all the way from Usenet to Discourse, which is where we ended up at the 32-Bit Cafe, same as every other forum these days. RIP phpBB.
#11: fLaMEd Fury (flamedfury.com) - Wonders of Web Weaving So, I did a podcast. James had me on his podcast to talk about my corner of the web. We got into gaming and TV communities, music, and why the indie web is worth it.

For more, check out the bookmarks archive, and subscribe to the feeds if you want these as they happen.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

My next experiment - Werd I/O

2026-08-01T17:36:11.000Z

On Thursday, I left my role as Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica, where I led IT, Security, and Engineering. In September, I will begin my John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. Which means that, during August, I will move with my family back to the San Francisco Bay Area and be based in the vicinity of the Stanford campus.

What can you expect from me?

In August, my writing will likely be more sporadic. From September, I expect to spend more time documenting my research, opening conversations, and being intentional about pushing forward the ideas I’ve always held space for.

My thesis is that community — and open community protocols and platforms — can help build trust, loyalty, and resilience in news. I laid out some of those ideas in The Community-First Software Era. But I’m going into it with an ethos of intentional serendipity, armed with everything I’ve learned about leadership, technology, journalism, and entrepreneurship. I’ll also be armed with everything I will learn with Stanford as a platform. I can’t predict what I’ll emerge with — but I can commit to taking you along with me.

Where else can you find me?

I’m going to endeavor to stick close to Stanford over the next year. I’ve also decided that I won’t get on a plane for the rest of 2026, partially as a challenge to myself and partially as a reaction to some really bad flights earlier this year.

But I’m making an exception for the News Product Alliance Summit in Chicago from October 21-23. Last year I found it to be the most substantive conference about news product and technology I’d been to. I was lucky enough to present two sessions and loved the experience. So I’m back, with Joe Germuska, to talk about how newsrooms can benefit from open technology and protocols:

Proprietary social media platforms have inserted themselves between newsrooms and the things journalism needs to survive: engagement, trust, and revenue. As AI creates new layers of intermediation and puts newsrooms at further risk, building direct relationships with your own audiences has never been more urgent.

Drawing from our combined experience building technology for newsrooms, we'll make the case for open protocols — shared, interoperable technologies no single company controls — as the foundation for a healthier news ecosystem. We'll explore how building on open infrastructure, rather than proprietary platforms, helps publishers reach more people, deepen engagement, and control their own destinies, without losing out on user experience or adding complexity.

I’m hoping to put on more events in California through Stanford, so watch this space.

Can we chat?

This work can’t be done in a vacuum. I want to learn and build alongside people who are doing great work, led by important values.

If anything I’ve spoken about above — or anything I write in this space — resonates with you, I’d love to chat. In September I’ll resume my Open Office Hours and will be available both to chat online and over a coffee for folks who might be in the Bay Area.

A note about ProPublica

I truly loved my time leading tech at ProPublica. The phrase we used internally was that it was never boring: there was always something happening. It was sometimes exhilarating, sometimes frustrating, but it was always done with a community of really great human beings working together towards the most meaningful mission of my career.

That mission runs deep throughout the newsroom:

To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.

Some newsrooms report. Some observe and have a view from nowhere. ProPublica exists to spur reform, and its impact showcase demonstrates that it succeeds. Every workplace has things to improve or friction to overcome — they’re all works in progress — but it was hugely motivational to be working alongside these incredible people for this incredible reason.

The day after I left, the ProPublica Guild ratified its first contract. It was a long, fraught conversation that had been happening almost the entire time I was at the organization. (My timing is impeccable.) I wasn’t a part of the Guild or manager bargaining, but I couldn’t say anything about it while the negotiation was happening for fear of accidentally interfering with the process.

I’m very glad everyone got there: every worker deserves a good union to support them, and the people who work to publish ProPublica’s journalism – across editorial and business teams – certainly deserve a great deal.

I will be cheerleading for ProPublica forever, and I hope to be friends with the people behind it forever. I’m grateful that I was able to be a part of that community. And if you’re looking for a place to financially support that drives real change, there are much worse places to donate.

Mead Recipe - Smoldering Pear & Star Anise Bochet - Cool As Heck

2026-08-01T14:38:00.000Z

Every month I do some research and get inspired by other brewers and mead makers and try to come up with an interesting mead recipe. Here's my idea for August 2026. This doesn't mean I'll be making it this month, but it's going on the list of things to try, and features some new methods like caramelizing the honey and using Voss Kveik yeast.

This recipe is a bochet. If you haven't tried one, it's mead made with honey that's been cooked until it darkens and smells like toasted marshmallow. The heat changes the chemistry. You get unfermentable sugars and Maillard compounds that give you a natural semi-sweet finish without any chemical stabilization. It's one of the few ways to make a mead that doesn't need sulfites or sorbate to stay sweet.

This batch pairs that caramelized base with dried pear and star anise. The yeast is Voss Kveik, which I keep wanting to try because it ferments hot and fast without producing fusel alcohols. At 86°F it throws off bright orange esters that cut through the richness of the caramel. The dried pear goes in during secondary; fresh pear is mostly water and dilutes the flavor, but dried pear rehydrated in the mead itself gives you a concentrated, honeyed fruit note.

Star anise is the risky one. Two pods, lightly crushed, and you have to taste every three days starting at day seven. It goes from subtle to medicinal fast, and it keeps building in the bottle. I'd rather under-spice and add more next time than overdo it and dump the batch. It can get out of control fast.

The full process is below. Fair warning: caramelizing honey can be the most dangerous thing you'll do in meadmaking. It foams to three or four times its volume and holds heat like napalm. Use a pot at least six quarts, wear long sleeves, and add water drop by drop at first or it seizes into hard candy.

---

Ingredients (1 gallon)

Wildflower honey 3.0 lbs Raw, not buckwheat

Spring water ~0.8 gal Top up to 1 gallon total

Voss Kveik yeast 3 g Lallemand LalBrew Voss

Go-Ferm 3.75 g Rehydration nutrient

Fermaid O 4.0 g total 4 doses, TOSNA schedule

Dried Bosc pears 4 halves Unsulfured

Star anise 2 pods Lightly crushed

Black tea 1 cup Steeped 5 min, cooled

French oak cubes 7 g Medium toast, optional

Process

Caramelize the honey. Cook 3 lbs honey in a 6+ quart pot over medium heat, stirring constantly. It'll foam violently, then subside. Keep going 45–55 minutes until it's deep mahogany and smells like toasted marshmallow and dark caramel. Remove from heat, cool to 180°F, then trickle in 1 cup warm water drop by drop. Add a second cup once it's incorporated.

Build the must. Combine the caramelized honey, 1 cup cooled black tea, and enough spring water to hit 1 gallon. Shake for 2 minutes to aerate. Check OG — you want ~1.112. Temperature should be 85–90°F.

Pitch the yeast. Rehydrate 3 g Voss Kveik with 3.75 g Go-Ferm in 50 mL water at 104°F for 15 minutes. Pitch into the warm must, seal with an airlock, and hold at 85–95°F.

This one is daunting but very interesting and could be a great learning opportunity. I'm excited to try this out, but it might have to wait for next summer.

📝 2026-08-01 15:28: Our new addition to the family, Nelly, has arrived and she's causing havoc already. 🤣 - Kev Quirk

2026-08-01T14:28:00.000Z

Our new addition to the family, Nelly, has arrived and she's causing havoc already. 🤣

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.

📝 2026-08-01 13:46: Signed up for a Vinted account. My options to "secure my account" were adding a... - Kev Quirk

2026-08-01T12:46:00.000Z

Signed up for a Vinted account. My options to "secure my account" were adding a phone number, or to logout.

I fucking hate this side of the internet. Scumbags.

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.

Gadget Review: HIKMICRO D02 Thermal Camera ★★★★★ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-01T11:34:43.000Z

The good folks at Hikmicro have sent me their D02 Infrared Camera to review. It's part of their "Eco" series of thermal imagers - designed to be easy to use around the home and relatively cheap.

Despite the no-fills appearance, it packs in a lot of features which put some more expensive models to shame. It even works with Linux. Shove in a USB-C cable to grab the photos or even use it as a webcam.

All the images you see in this post are unaltered. I haven't optimised them or stripped the metadata; what you see is what you get.

Let's go!

Specs and Pictures

Infrared cameras usually have tiny sensors - the D02 is no different, you get 96x96 pixels of thermal information upscaled to 240x240.

Where the D02 shines is that it also has an optical camera just below the thermal sensor. This allows the camera to combine both the thermal and optical images into one "fusion" image.

Here's an example of the thermal image:

The optical image has a higher resolution - 480x640:

It isn't the highest quality lens in the world, but more than adequate for seeing what's going on.

Once fused, the image looks like this:

With the two images overlayed, you get a reasonably clear photo. The visual shows a good amount of detail and the thermal image shows what's hot.

It mostly works. If you're pointing at something very close to the sensor then you'll end up with a slightly surreal image like this which show the two out of alignment.

Storage is limited to around 2.5GB with no SD card slot. But given that photos are typically less than 150KB, you'll fit tens of thousands on there before worrying about running out of space.

Videos

Videos are a bit bigger, about 12MB per minute in MP4 format. But, again, you'll be able to store a couple of hours of footage on there without worry.

Again, 240x240 upscaled. Good enough for domestic use. No audio. What you see is what you get.

EXIF

There's not much useful EXIF - just the timestamp and camera serial number. That said, all the images and videos are placed in the DCIM folder which should make importing them easier.

Some other cameras provide the "raw" thermal data separately - but that's only really useful if you're doing analysis on the data, rather than trying to spot hot / cold spots.

Features

There are a few other nifty features. You can set a schedule to allow it to take pictures periodically - handy if you use the tripod attachment point to place it in a static location.

You can change the type of thermal image taken - there are various palettes available depending on what you're interested in.

There are various emissivity profiles depending on what you're pointing at:

You can also fiddle with the distance setting depending on how close you are to the subject. There's also an alarm setting to warn you if something is too hot or too cold.

Finally, you can view back the images and videos on the device. Handy if you can't get to a computer and want to show someone what you've spotted.

User Interface

There's a trigger. Press it once to take a photo. Hold it down to start / stop recording. Pretty much idiot proof.

The rest is a bit flimsy. A combined power / select button, a back button, then up & down arrows. The arrows confused me for a while. Press the up one to change the type of photo you're taking, the down one changes the colour scheme.

There's no touch-screen, haptic feedback, speaker, or anything expensive like that.

Linux and Open Source

Works fine as a storage device on Linux, showing up as 0525:a4a5 "Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB File-backed Storage Gadget". True to its word, it shows up as a standard disk.

Most hardware manufacturers from China ignore their Open Source obligations - but not HIKMICRO. There's a rather prominent menu item in the settings screen which lets you scroll through an almost endless parade of software names and their licences. A bonus star for that!

You can also turn on diagnostic logging - that'll slowly fill the disk with log files:

[07-21 14:47:40][pid:477][tid:642][GUI][ERROR][minigui_lcd_dsp_update][line:1393] KEY_OK_MSG minigui_lcd_dsp_update GUI_TM_DATA_CAPTURE...

Probably not overly useful unless you've got a problem.

Webcam

On plugging in the camera via USB-C, the screen gives a choice of "USB Drive" or "USB Cast Screen". Toggling to the screen option transforms the device into 2bdf:017f a "UVC Camera". In theory, you should be able to use it as a standard WebCam and show others what the D02 is seeing. I couldn't get it to work with Chrome or Firefox directly.

Using qv4l2 I was able to open it as an MJPG stream once I set the resolution to 240x320.

For those of a technical bent, here's what v4l2-ctl showed as the available formats:

ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT
    Type: Video Capture

    [0]: 'MJPG' (Motion-JPEG, compressed)
        Size: Discrete 240x320
            Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
        Size: Discrete 320x240
            Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
    [1]: 'YUYV' (YUYV 4:2:2)
        Size: Discrete 640x256
            Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)

Price

Infrared cameras are annoyingly expensive. This one is around £190 - although currently discounted to £170 - which is fairly reasonable.

How much will it save you? Well, it can tell you where your insulation isn't working - or which plugs are about to burst into flames; so a decent investment.

Final Thoughts

I've reviewed a lot of thermal cameras and I think this might be one of my favourites. The fact that it (optionally) captures both the thermal and the optical image makes it great for diagnosing problems because you can easily see what it is you're looking at.

There are enough settings to fiddle around with to keep most tinkerers happy and the image quality is more than good enough for spotting problems in the home. It's well worth buying for your home if you want to check for leaks, insulation gaps, hotspots, and other domestic problems. I'd recommend sharing the cost with your neighbours, or loaning it to a local tool library.

This is lightweight, quick to boot up, has good accuracy, and is (relatively) cheap. Well worth it, in my opinion.

📝 2026-08-01 08:47: Today is the first of August. Where the hell did the first two thirds of... - Kev Quirk

2026-08-01T07:47:00.000Z

Today is the first of August. Where the hell did the first two thirds of 2026 go??? 😵‍💫

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.

July 2026 Summary - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-01T03:36:54.000Z

July has been left behind, Mexico didn’t make it further in the World Cup, but at least Spain won instead of Argentina. It does seem like the U-20 team is doing pretty well in the CONCACAF Championship though! group leaders and ready for quarter finals.

Back to July, I am rather impressed with the amount of gaming that happened this month! It was really quite a diverse bunch of titles, and movies are not too far behind either, way too many superhero films somehow, and of course, The Odyssey, which was a highlight already, that was truly fantastic cinema.

This month my family and friends also visited, which affected a bit of my schedule, it’s also part of why I watched so many movies, and a TV show too, just to spend time with them and such. it was nice to go out.

Oh, of course, I also stayed home alone during the last week! That was a surprise for the weeknotes but thought I may as well say so here. That would explain how I completed one of the many games featured here, so that was fun.

Podcasts

Into The Aether - I am still up to date on the weekly shenanigans and gaming shared on this podcast. It continues to be super chill and entertaining for me as well.
Trash Taste - Same as the above to be honest! Some fun banter, hot takes, and such.
99% Invisible - This is a very good one, I checked a lot of interesting episodes on their backlog. Very informative and genuinely interesting topics.
Avatar: Braving the Elements - Listened to a couple of great episodes going over two of my favorites in the show, The Blind Bandit and Zuko Alone!
Late Night Linux - Honestly, with so many news in the Linux space going in directions I dislike, I wanted to be somewhat informed about it, returning to this one has been alright.
Wolf 359 - I finally listened to more episodes of this, including some of my all-time favorites that I still remembered from my first listen, though everything around it was fuzzy, great stuff.

Videogames

Completed

Transistor - a predecessor to Hades that features a mix of turn-based/action combat and a sort-of murder mystery/conspiracy story in a cyberpunk future. My review is already written I just need to edit it and add some screenshots for it.
Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores (DLC) - This was a DLC for the original game that features more levels and great art!
Monument Valley II (+ The Lost Forest DLC) - The sequel and the DLC. Featuring new characters to control, sometimes all at once, and a more understandable story, if still obscure, with some new mechanics and great level design. The DLC was actually much more complicated especially the last level, I had to look it up a bit.
Monument Valley III (+ The Garden of Life DLC) - This one had a much more understandable story than the others, and a bigger set of levels to complete. Each puzzle helps you restore and bring more characters to your island/lighthouse, and you can eventually play little levels for each character you bring back too. Overall, it’s much easier than both previous games, but the last level is a true challenge, probably the most complicated of the whole trilogy. A weird change, but a welcome one.
Jabberwocky - A short Game Boy game that became my test subject for RetroAchievements. The story was quite funny and there’s one puzzle too, most of it is walking and dialogue though, but enjoyable nonetheless for 20 minutes or so.
Gris - It seems like I was up for some more artistic videogames as I chose this to play and beat in a couple of days. This was a wonderful platformer. Not a difficult one, but more aesthetic, atmospheric and awe-inspiring than most! My review will be coming soon. I beat this one in a couple days while my family was out!

Ongoing

Astro Boy: Omega Factor - Another one I tested for RetroAchievements and worked out alright! Unfortunately have made a lot of progress on it, so I won’t ever get all of them unless I decide to replay it for some reason, but I won’t. Great little beat’em up though.
Donkey Kong (1994) - This was my ultimate choice for RetroAchievements, and it was truly fantastic, I have progressed all the way up to world 4 now, and every level keeps being simply fantastic. This game is impressive for its time and genuinely a joy to go through so far.
Ys I & II Chronicles - I tested this when I setup PSP PlayTime tracking and it kind of stuck for a bit. This is a classic action RPG and it shows, but it doesn’t seem too hard now that I’ve spent some more time on it, I am interested on revisiting it sometime.
Fire Emblem Awakening - Well, I’ve made a bunch more progress on this game since I started it last month, I’m on chapter 19 and I’ve completed plenty of paralogues as well! The story continues to be great and I am loving the mechanics too, which have turned out to be quite interesting. I still restart a lot though.
Lumines
Slice & Dice

Started

The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D - It’s happening! I wrote a bunch about Zelda already, I’m playing along with Syl and having quite a blast with the game itself. I’ve made a lot of progress and got to Jabu Jabu’s Belly, I’m waiting for Syl to catch up with me right now.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith - My sister wanted to try this game so I let her borrow my handheld, she got stuck on the first level’s boss. I decided to start a new game myself and have played up to Count Dooku’s boss fight. I love the combat system and the pixel art so far.
Black Rock Shooter - An action RPG shooter, exclusive for the PSP, with an interesting post-apocalyptic story where robots are destroying humanity, until an anime girl showed up!

Movies

Masters of the Universe - This was better than I expected, very self-aware of what it is, way too many jokes about swords though.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - Epic animation, good nostalgia, excellent action and choreography, fine story if a bit rehashed.
The Odyssey - As cinematographic as it gets, it’s Christopher Nolan after all. I really enjoyed it and I am interested on reading it.
Unstoppable - Two blue-collar workers save the day after a train goes out of control.
Megamind - Among the best animated superhero films. Second watch this year somehow.
Yes Day - A pretty cringe family comedy movie but the mom is Electra so that’s cool.
Superman - Great return to form for the character, fun action and emotional moments, humor was mixed for me.
Supergirl - This didn’t stick the landing as well but I liked the ideas and the spacey vibe it had.

TV Shows

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Live Action Season 2) - In the end this was mostly decent, but it just didn’t hit as well as the original, it skipped over a lot of important things and I wouldn’t really recommend it unless you really don’t care at all about animation for some reason—that would be quite a shame.

Books

Leviathan Falls - Up to chapter 25. Most of my progress was this week though, I really fell off reading most of the month because of all the gaming I did. However, I decided to read a bit more on my commute which helped me get back on track. This is the last book of The Expanse, and it has actually built up a bunch of stuff I didn’t expect, with many plotlines that will culminate somewhere, and I am still unable to see where, which is great.

Manga

Started

Centuria - Up to chapter 38. This is a dark fantasy shonen manga that features an orphan slave boy who is blessed/cursed by a sea goddess with powers beyond human capacity. After a wreckage, he and a baby girl are the only survivors. On a new continent, he wants to protect her and have a simple life in peace. There’s quite a bit of eldritch horror and other humans with similar abilities, a prophecy that he refuses to accept, and other interesting plot devices. I’ve enjoyed it so far though the artstyle is not exactly awesome.

Ongoing

Uncle from Another World - Up to chapter 27. Returned to this after a few months, it has been a pretty fun fantasy isekai and got me laughing quite a bit! Still has that fan-service problem but it’s whatever.
Blue Lock - Up to chapter 354. Many of the later chapters were setting up the Japan vs England match and they have been a little mixed, I may wait until the whole arc is over before I continue reading!
Kingdom - Up to chapter 873. I’ve only read a couple of these since I want to build up until I have a nice chunk to go through on a single session. This continues to be very epic, you should really read it already.
Spy x Family - Up to chapter 137. Fun stories and slice of life I have no complaints, it brings me joy every single time.

Completed

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie - I ended up finishing this rom-com at last, and it was really quite good. I enjoyed the dynamic with a couple that was already together from the start and seeing how things developed with the rest of the cast too. It made me happy quite a bit and was a pretty consistent and fun journey. I think it didn’t have anything particularly special, but I rooted for these characters so, it was nice to see how things went.

Music

Top Albums

FTL: Original Soundtrack by Ben Prunty
Time Once Lost by Rozen
Outer Wilds by Andrew Pharlow
Hades by Darren Korb
Plants vs Zombies by Laura Shigihara

Goals

Finishing thoughts: Blaugust begins!

Now that I share this, I didn’t want to forget mentioning, it’s the beginning of Blaugust!

That means I want to post even more often than normal, which should not be too difficult for me as I’ve done this in the past. My posts may get a bit shorter in average, but I do have a couple drafts ready to share this month that will also be quite long…

Make sure to participate and sign up if you haven’t!, it should be pretty fun if you are up for the challenge.

So, well, that’s pretty much it, what about you dear reader? Did you find any of the stuff shared here interesting for you? Or is there something I missed out on? Feel free to tell me!

This is day 6 of #100DaysToOffload

Reply to this post via email | Reply on Fediverse