Week seven, 2024

Missed a couple of week notes. One week due to feeling poorly (infection in a damaged tooth), and one week due to dramatically underestimating how much work I had to do to host someone for the weekend. But I’m back now!

Still reading A Billion Years Before the End of the World, and Metro 2033. I’ve finally figured out what I’m struggling with: I find Russian spoken dialogue challenging when translated directly, and not idiomatically. It doesn’t feel natural, and I get mentally fatigued working with it. That sounds very dramatic, but all it really means is that I can’t really dig in for extended periods of time. I find my attention wandering. I’m also struggling with the fact that I’ve got about a quarter of A Billion Years left, and the book has very clearly telegraphed the conclusion.

I have spent way too much money on networking in my house. The property is large, we have a detached outbuilding for our office, and wifi and old brick houses don’t get on well. When we moved in I held out for about a month and then caved at the very first sale on Eero devices I saw, and put four points around the property. That worked okay, but I still had issues with some use cases. Specifically the TVs would crap out if there were a lot of devices sharing their AP, and streaming from my gaming PC, and my Plex server wasn’t great. So I put in four gigabit powerline adaptors. Can’t recommend them enough. I’ve been particularly happy with my GeForce Now performance. The graphics look gorgeous, and I haven’t had a lag warning since putting them in.

I’m playing Destiny 2 with family, and got back in to Mighty Doom in those short gaming intervals. Also got Brotato for my phone after having a number of folks recommend it. Haven’t stuck in yet.

Started watching Wayward Pines. It’s old, so most folks would know it already, but if you don’t: think the X-Files meets The Prisoner. Watched the first two episodes, then shelved it so I could watch it with my wife when we finish Angel.

This week’s recipe was this veggie paella. I made it with unsponsored arborio rice, and tossed some capers and marinated artichoke hearts in there. I couldn’t get saffron, so I used turmeric and safflower. The end result tasted amazing, but was noticeably orange-yellow.