Jun 28, 2020

#093

Work

I learned something this week: show demos more often! I gave a short demo after standup of a feature which I didn’t think was that interesting, but all the non-technical members of the team were very impressed. I guess it’s hard to get a sense of what’s going on from short verbal updates when the topic isn’t in your discipline.

Books

I’ve continued reading Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance. It’s a strange book. Strange but good. It feels like typical fantasy much of the time, but science and magic have been blurred so much that one moment a magician will be talking about smoke demons sent to spy on them, the next they’ll be talking about growing people in vats. It’s a nice change to the usual sword-and-sorcery or epic fantasy I read.

I also ordered a bunch more books, mostly fiction, some RPG rulebooks. They should be arriving in the next few weeks.

Miscellaneous

This month I’ve been recording things I throw away which are neither recyclable nor compostable. I’ve learned that a lot of plastic films and other thin soft plastic packaging is not recyclable, which is a shame because it’s so often used for things like fresh fruit and vegetables! I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if I can get less of it.

I made some hot sauce out of finger chillies, red onions, garlic, and dried apricots that I’d had fermenting for 11 days. It turned out pretty well! The sweetness of the apricots nicely complements the spiciness of the sauce. Definitely a recipe to remember.

And finally, I’ve added some new papers to my Interesting Research memo.