Work
This week I got my first significant PR merged: a change to how we track which individual transactions are used to generate a payout (money sent to a merchant), so that the public “payout items” API can be made more efficient.
It’s still behind a feature flag, not switched on in production, but it’s definitely nice to get something done mostly independently, and then merged with minimal changes needed in the review. And in implementing this, I learned a bunch about the different sort of things that make up a payout: transactions yes, but also various types of fees and other domain concepts, so I feel I’ve got a much more solid grip on the fundamentals.
Books
This week I read:
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson, the third of the Malazan Book of the Fallen
I think this book is, really, where the main plot of Malazan really kicks off. We meet the Crippled God, and he launches his first major assaults on the world: gathering the physically and morally crippled under his banner, taking advantage of their vices, and allying with the insane Pannion Seer to launch a crusade against civilisation.
And all that is kind of strange because the Crippled God has a significant change of heart at the end of the series. Maybe I just missed some foreshadowing, or the conclusive moment of change, on my first read-through, but it’s hard to see how this hate- and pain-filled alien god who wants to corrupt all life becomes good when freed of his chains. It’ll be interesting to see if I pick up on that change in advance this time.
Miscellaneous
I’ve begun on a sourdough starter. I’ve been saying “I should really get into sourdough” for, well, years. And at last I’ve finally got on with it.
I’m using a fairly simple recipe, from a book called Fresh from Poland, to make a rye sourdough starter:
- Mix 0.5 cups rye flour with 0.5 cups water, cover loosely with a kitchen towel and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.
- Discard half the mixture, mix in another 0.5 cups rye flour and 0.5 cups water, cover again and leave for another 24 hours.
- Repeat step 2 for the next 4 days.
- After that, store in the fridge and feed once a week with 0.5 cups rye flour and 0.5 cups water.
I’m on day 3 now. It’s kind of neat to watch. I was surprised yesterday to see how much it had expanded over the 24 hour wait: the airy sour-smelling mixture must have doubled in size.
It should be ready to bake with on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to see what sort of bread I get out of it. I’ve been baking my own bread (using a simple no-knead recipe) for years now, but it never expands that much, and I always end up with a fairly dense loaf. Hopefully the vigour my starter has been showing will pass on to the bread it makes, and I’ll actually get a loaf tall enough to make a decent sandwich out of.
I’ve never actually had rye sourdough before. But I like sourdough and I like rye bread, so surely the combination of both will be double good.