2023W07

Watched the Superbowl in town with friends on Monday morning.

Spent a good four hours getting The Last of Us to run on a PS3 emulator and streaming to the living room under NixOS (settled on RPCS3 + Steam after trying multiple other combinations). However, after playing for 10 minutes Peishan felt so sick from the camera controls that she couldn’t continue. Happy at least to have got controllers wired up to NixOS.

2023W06

On the back of the recommendation of S02E02 of the Wing Magma podcast I’ve been going through 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The first standout track is this live version of Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue by Duke Ellington. Hearing the crowd getting more and more worked up until they’re almost rioting, it’s impossible to not feel the same enthusiasm. It’s a great piece of jazz history.

Picked at Clojure some more.

2023W05

Back in Singapore and slowly back to work. I passed the 10% mark on running the (mean) streets of north-east Singapore on CityStrides. Not much of a milestone but it’s been a quiet week.

2023W04

The two of us stayed in Bali after the rest of the family returned to Singapore. We moved from the villa we were all sharing to Canggu and then on to Ubud. We had planned to spend two days in Canggu but decided to leave early after hearing karaoke late into the night. Fun enough but not the town for us.

Ubud is much more relaxing. This is our third time here together and we continue to love the place.

We had originally planned to try working remotely from here to test the digital nomad waters. However, my current work setup doesn’t allow it. Instead we’re picking at little projects in between the touristing and relaxing. I’m using mine as an excuse to learn some Clojure.

2023W03

Spent Friday/Saturday/Sunday in Seminyak, Bali. We’re here with family to spend the CNY together. My father-in-law passed away last March and this is the first CNY without him. Celebrating doesn’t seem appropriate (and there are some customs that restrict how one would anyway) so we decided to take a short break. My UK family did a similar thing for the Christmas following my own dad’s death. It prevents you from having to pretend everything is normal as your grief doesn’t necessarily gel with other’s holiday experience.

2023W02

Went to watch a screening of Class Acts at the National Design Centre. A documentary about the Singapore creative scene in the 90s that covers music, fashion, and art and design. There’s a companion exhibition until the end of January.

2023W01

Peeped at Singapore Art Week. Highlight was double chunky’s contribution to Kunckles and Notch’s Gachapon capsule exhibition.

We’re starting to use notebooks at work as part of our exploration of some data science tools. How to balance their use without sliding into accidental code hell, while also not just cargo culting existing ‘best practices’ needs some thinking. There’s some real potential though. The Stop Writing Dead Programs talk by Jack Rusher and Clerk bubbled up from memory. More thinking (and doing) required.

New music discover of the week - Cheekface

2022W52

I continued to refactor my old cellular automata code. This was originally written in 2013 for funs. I was reminded of it when I came across the Recursive Game of Life earlier this month. JavaScript (and my knowledge of it) has moved on since then and it’s been nice to quietly refine it as a way to relax.

We spent Christmas in Bangkok. Highlights were Wat Arun and Salon du Japonisant. I also bought a couple of very cute prints from Playworks in Terminal 21. I liked Bangkok a lot. I’d only been there for a few hours about 15 years ago so this was my first proper visit. I think I’ll try to run the Bangkok half marathon next year for an excuse to go back.

Tried archery for the first time at Salt & Light in Chai Chee.