alifeee's weeknotes

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Weeknotes 13

Another week! You know what that means. It's time to play with the format!

I'm also back to using my phone, so I don't have a lovely automatic table of contents generator. Time to find a weird online web tool... done!

What did I do...

...on Monday

I made a lipu tenpo Patreon print+post announcement

I'm printing magazines for lipu tenpo using the Patreon to collect funds and addresses. It evidently works great as there are about 25 people signed up already. Last time I printed the zine (just over a year ago), I maxxed out at about 15 people. AND they had to 'resubscribe' every issue, as opposed to the Patreon where they can just remain subscribed.

Anyway, the post wasn't that interesting, just a thanks and an update that I'd send a print order off on the 1st April, which I have as a reminder.

I went to the hackspace AGM

Sheffield Hackspace had their Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Monday. It was a full room of people at the start, which dwindled over the evening as discussion was held on many topics, from serials, wikis, and FAQs, to themed nights, inclusivity, diversity, and a new laser cutter extraction fan.

Having only really been to an AGM for a dying university Lego Society before, it was interesting to attend one for a space with a lot of people and interest behind it.

At least some conclusions were made. As a result, I might kick-start organising an event at the hackspace in Meetup, whether that be just a more advertised open evening, a more involved event like an evening oriented around [analog synthesisers/wearable tech/woodworking] (delete as appropriate), or a "things wot I did this week"-style 5-minute talk evening.

...on Tuesday

I prepped my font talk

I spent most, if not all, of Tuesday prepping my font talk. I had already listed the content in the format of nested bullet points over the previous week and a half, so it was a day of finding images, and laying out content on the slides.

Thinking about it, you can actually see everything I did and when I did it by viewing the git commits filtered by Tuesday.

As well as content, there was also stuff like generating CSS for a couple hundred fonts.

...on Wednesday

I went on a litterpick in the rain

Perhaps the most self-explanatory title this week. While doing it I found a tiny plastic baby.

I went back to Red Brick Market

Red Brick Market is cool. I didn't buy anything this time, but I was with someone who bought an old pack of Lexicon (BGG), which is a pack of cards, but the cards are letters of the alphabet.

I made up games using a Lexicon deck

I went out in the evening with the aforementioned, and with two others. Since we had a pack of Lexicon, we decided to play it. It didn't come with a card or slip explaining the rules, so in the spirit of adventure (and because half the people there were game designers), we chose to make up our own games using the cards.

We came up with:

Game 1 - "Lexicon Slam"

Inspired by my playing of Scrabble Slam.

Place four cards face-up in front of you (e.g., "DFLP"), and each draw a hand of four cards. You draft one of your cards (e.g., "O" from "QOPF"), and place it on top of your pile (e.g., creating "DFOP"). Hand your remaining cards to your left, and repeat until you form a word (e.g., "DROP"), at which point you score the number of cards you have remaining in hand.

Game 2 - "Go Spell"

Inspired by Go Fish.

Each draw 7 cards. Take turns either:

The aim is to empty your hand of cards.

Game 3 - "Chain"

Inspired by "the other two taking ages to finish their game of Go Spell".

Again, the aim is to empty your hand of cards.

Game 4 - "Irish Snap"

This was not inspired by Irish Snap, but was literally just Irish Snap, so I've nicknamed it as such.

Notes on games

I could make notes forever. In brief, I enjoyed game 4 the most, I wish I could have tried game 3 more, and game 1 and 2 were very "20th century" (I'm not sure what that means.)

...on Thursday

I practised my font talk

I haven't done much public speaking. I know that when I do I feel nervous and jittery. So, running through the talk I'm going to give a few times helps as I no longer have to come up with what to say on the spot. And, more generally, if you practise something, you'll get better at it, even if practising is talking in front of nobody or on through a phone call.

Throughout the day I ran through the talk I think four times. I thought about making small edits but I ended up not doing so.

I gave my font talk!

I went to Front End Sheffield, flipped a coin against the other speaker to see who went first, and drew heads, so they told us all about Strudel.cc, a very cool browser-based music-with-code generator. We had a 5 minute serenade with some live-coding afterwards.

Then, I talked about fonts! It was fun. I hope I convinced at least one person to investigate font creation.

A couple of people told me they had come to the evening because they'd seen fonts were involved, which was exciting! That included a local professional font creator, which was initially intimidating but soon developed just into an understanding that they enjoyed fonts and I enjoyed fonts!

Font talk complete.

I made a puzzle website

Someone was showing me a very cool puzzle they had designed, and I thought it would make a neat website, so I made a prototype. I haven't uploaded it anywhere yet as I appreciate the design and thought that has gone into it and don't want to share it without the creator's well-wishes.

...on Friday

I made the puzzle more interactive

I used Alpine to make the aforementioned puzzle site neat and interactive.

I went to an AlgoRave

I went to a live-coding music event by Pattern Club in Sheffield. It involved people using Tidal and Strudel to make and edit live music, as well as Hydra to do similar with live visuals.

It also by chance was run by the other speaker from FES mentioned above!

...on Saturday

I bought a bike lock

Mine had broken the night before.

I fixed my bike lock

I really should have done these steps in the other order.

Now I have to return the lock I bought.

Also, I lied, I didn't fix it. I took it to the hackspace and asked someone about it, and they fixed it. Thanks :)

I made the puzzle website a bit better

I got some design ideas from the designer, and did some other neat things. I'd like to share it soon. I also wrote some scripts to make puzzles, given a solution. I'd like to write a script to generate solutions (new puzzles), and also another to solve an unsolved puzzle (the hardest one to make. Perhaps involving recursion. Scary).

...on Sunday

Usually, Sundays haven't happened yet. And then also, I forget what I was doing last Sunday. So things on Sundays enter a void that is often uncaptured by weeknotes.

For example, I have no idea if I wrote about going to a farmers market last Sunday or not.

My desire to write blog posts is ever increasing

I passed the Humber Bridge on the train a couple of times today. It reminds me of the half-written blog post I have about it.

And THAT reminds me about the blog posts I'd like to write about soon, including but not limited to:

Goodbye

I hope you enjoyed the new format. It will be different next week.

Love with your heart, and use your brain for everything else.

mi lon e lon mi la lawa mi li jo ala pona

alifeee

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