I picked up all of the supplies to make peanut brittle but the weather refuses to cooperate. The secret family recipe doesn’t really work right without either very expensive equipment in a commercial kitchen (which I obviously don’t have) or the right weather outside. In other words, it needs to be cold out.
This has been one of the warmer Winters of my life, with temperatures for Christmas forecast up into the 50s. It’s to a point I’m considering reopening my woodworking for a week or two, if only because it’s too nice to keep the garage in indoor parking mode for no good reason.
What I read
The latest in John Scalzi’s December Comfort Watches series, on A Knight’s Tale. Scalzi is the reason I started blogging in the first place, and the impetus behind the naming convention I went with. I’ve been reading Scalzi’s work since he started out and his voice, and his journey, have been an inspiration to me as a fledgling writer.
A Knight’s Tale is a common favorite for me as well, in that it’s a movie that refuses to take itself seriously while taking itself seriously. It puts effort into the action, the movement, the sets and costumes, and yet is happy to throw David Bowie tunes into the middle of a period dancing scene. It’s filled with actors that appear to be enjoying their work, including the Czech extras who mostly have no idea what’s being said but fervently cheer at the saying.
It’s a damn fun movie, as are most of the movies Scalzi has highlit1Per longtime friend Justin Freiberg, one of the perks of gaining a degree in English is that you are officially permitted to make up words. You’ll find I exercise this right at my whim. in his series. Give it a read!
What I watched
Caught up on the latest episode of Slow Horses. The series came out firing from the first episode and continues apace, with characters as fully fledged as the books they emerged from. Gary Oldman fully becomes another character in a history of incredible characters he’s generated throughout his career. While not as jarring as a Drexel or as historically bound as a Churchill, Jackson Lamb is Oldman owning every scene with as much presence as either, or any other of his roles.
Past Oldman, Jack Lowden’s work as River Cartwright shows fantastic capacity to play to the small screen with as much aplomb as he carried in his origins on the stage. For a man constantly being beaten, tied up, shot at, and thrown around as he chases or is chased through the landscape of southern England, he’s still got all the presence of a man under a spotlight, speaking out to an audience beyond the orchestra.
Two full seasons and a third in progress on Apple TV, and hopefully many more to come (the source material, Mick Herron’s Slough House series, has 12 books in it at present).
What I listened to
Caught the last of the final appearance of Charlie Munger, on the Invest Like the Best podcast alongside Stripe’s John Collison. Collison is already an interest of mine, given he and his brother’s work to democratize online payment systems by caring about things that don’t scale individually, but do scale if done on behalf of others. Payment systems are vital infrastructure for the internet and Stripe is a business that’s way out in front in a number of fronts.
Munger recently rereleased his book, Poor Charlie’s Almanack on Stripe Press, thus the interview, and he’s not lost any of his wit even unto his final days on Earth. While he can get a little old-man mumbly at times, he’s got interesting insights to share, much of which are consolidations of his writings and other speeches, and others which are insights Collison pulls out of him on topics of interest.
Projects In Progress
Webapp: Working through a tutorial on Node.js at present, to try and run the backend on this thing. Also mocked up some more wireframes for UI, mostly to help me consider all of the various interactions that will need to be respected in the configuration. The big part I need to get my head around will be related to communicating with third-party APIs, key exchanges, and storage/retrieval from databases. Some of the fun stuff that people fuck up regularly and which I would prefer not to.
Notes:
- 1Per longtime friend Justin Freiberg, one of the perks of gaining a degree in English is that you are officially permitted to make up words. You’ll find I exercise this right at my whim.