Weeknotes 10

I am not a decimal-stan, so I shan't celebrate anything to do with the number 10.

This week I did some things, I thought some things, and I made some things. Most importantly, I acquired a new plant for my room: a fatsia japonica, or (how I remembered it here) an oil plant. The remainder of this weeknote is simply a footnote to this fact.

I am also toying with the format here. Categorisation brings joy.

What did I do...

1. ...outside
   1. I went to Cut Up Collective
   2. I went to the Lego Cafe
   3. I bought the Lonely Planet guide to the Trans-Siberian Railway
   4. I visited a housing cooperative
2. ...at or relating to the hackspace
   1. I fitted some new bike brakes
   2. I got the code for an LCD train sign display
   3. I submitted a blog post to the website
   4. I started on a path toward monitoring CO2
3. ...on the (big) screen
   1. I ushered at a cinema
   2. I watched most of Avatar: The Last Airbender
   3. I played Factorio
4. ...on the Internet
   1. I made a web component
   2. I got the green light to launch a website
   3. I wrote a blog post!
   4. I submitted a workshop to EMFCamp
5. Closing remarks

...outside

I went to Cut Up Collective

Cut Up Collective (CUC) are "a collective of Sheffield based creatives who really like collaging!". They organise a monthly meetup, as well as other sprinkled events, for people to get together, socialise, and collage. March's meetup was this week. I made a boat out of magazines.

I went to the Lego Cafe

There is a Lego Cafe in Sheffield where you can sit in and build lego over a cafe-meet. There is a £3 per hour cover charge, and you can pick and build as many sets as you can assemble and disassemble in however long you have there.

For a while last year I was subscribed to Brick Borrow, which was a Lego-by-mail service. There is a lot of fun in building lego sets occasionally.

I bought the Lonely Planet guide to the Trans-Siberian Railway

In late 2021 I came up with a plan to ride the Trans-Siberian (or Trans-Mongolian) railway. Sadly, things got in the way of being able to "go to Russia". This week I found a little mental compensation in the Lonely Planet Guide to the Trans-Siberian Railway, which I found at a second-hand book sale. If I've learnt one thing from it so far, it's that visas are expensive.

I visited a housing cooperative

I've been interested in housing cooperatives for a few years and I semi-regularly poke around on https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/. A few weeks ago I went on with the aim of finding a coop to email and meet up with, to chat with them about their experiences. What I found instead was that a coop local to me was advertising rooms, so I applied. This week, I went along to visit and say hi. It was a very cool set of buildings, and I could see there was so much care gone into the houses and the gardens over the many years it has been a cooperative.

I would love to live in such a place, and I will find out if this one is tenable in the next few weeks or months.

...at or relating to the hackspace

I fitted some new bike brakes

Last week I bought some bike brakes. I went to the hackspace to fit them to my bike. A bike-lover there told me they were the wrong kind of brakes. Slightly annoying, but ultimately just a delay.

This week I exchanged the wrong brakes (v-brakes) for the right brakes (cantilever brakes). They were a lot cheaper which was nice.

I went to the hackspace, and - with the help of a bike-lover - used a wrench and an hex key to take off my old brakes and fit the new ones.

Now I can again go down large hills with the knowledge that there will be no careening come the bottom.

I got the code for an LCD train sign display

There are two large train station displays in the space. I have been eyeing them up for a few months, part of the interest from that I had played with a bus station sign a few months ago.

This week, I obtained all the information I could about the signs, as well as some example code that was run on them, which I put into a GitHub repository. I plan to do some coding for them (maybe some games?), but even if I don't, at least someone else can more easily with the GitHub in place.

I submitted a blog post to the website

See below for the blog post. I mirrored it and submitted it to the hackspace website. There hasn't been a blog post on there for four years.

I started on a path toward monitoring CO2

I asked about CO2 monitors, and a member of the space grew enough interest to purchase some. I am yet to play around with them but I would like to soon.

...on the (big) screen

I ushered at a cinema

I volunteered to usher at Film Unit cinema, a local "independent, professional quality cinema located in the depths of the University of Sheffield Students' Union". It was fun to use a tiny tiny device to scan the QR codes of those that bought tickets, and otherwise point wannabe ticket-purchasers to my partner carrying a card reader.

I watched most of Avatar: The Last Airbender

I watched series 1 and 2 of the animated series. It's a fun world. I love Iroh.

I played Factorio

...for perhaps the penultimate time!

I layed a lot of belts and made some of the final ingredients to launch the space rocket, and... we launched one rocket!

We want to finish the game by launching ten (or so) rockets, one per player, and riding them up to victory. I am hopeful that this could happen next week, but it depends on the resources we have and the time we can afford. There's a small chance it rolls over into the week after.

...on the Internet

I made a web component

I like web components. They're neat. They let you add cool little things to your (or a) website with just a script and a component.

My favourites by other people are click-spark by Ryan Mulligan and snow-fall by ZachLeat.

This week I made a web component to switch the typeface of an element every N seconds. I put it on GitHub and also made an example page.

Before, I've made some web components for my blog, but not shared them. For example, the word-count component at the top of each of my blog posts.

As a small addendum, I just added the word-count component to these posts (see the top!). This is why I shouldn't write these on my laptop, I get way too side-tracked (note also the nice new background).

I'd like to make this neat torch demo that I helped make into a reusable web component.

Then, I might write a blog post about web components.

I got the green light to launch a website

https://liputenpo.org/ will soon be moved to point to https://liputenpo.alifeee.co.uk/. I have been waiting for this for a while. This will also mean that I will spend some more time updating the new website, as it is actually being used.

I also got the green light to add a tier to the lipu tenpo Patreon for print+post. Then, I can print+post each edition of the zine to whoever desires it.

I wrote a blog post!

I understate how much writing weeknotes counts as blogging, as I thought myself "not having written a blog post" in several months, because there wasn't one on https://blog.alifeee.co.uk/. However, I think these should count more.

Anyway, I wrote a new blog post about a computer font-making workshop I ran! You can read it here:

https://blog.alifeee.co.uk/font-workshop/

I submitted a workshop to EMFCamp

Hand-in-hand with the above, I submitted a computer font-making workshop to https://www.emfcamp.org/ for the festival this summer. It would be neat to run!

Closing remarks

There aren't any. I just like ending these intentionally and not randomly.

Go forth, and have fun.

Comments

Email me :) -> alifeee.web@outlook.com or message me on any social :) -> https://linktr.ee/alifeee