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Everyone in the house came down with… something. The symptoms aren’t consistent: John and Rowan have had fevers, Emma has had a sore throat, I’ve had a fever and a sore throat. Not great timing with the hospital admission coming up at the beginning of August. Hopefully whatever it is clears up soon.
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John wanted to watch me play Jedi: Fallen Order on the Steam Deck, not understanding that even though I own the game on the PS4, that doesn’t mean I own it on the Deck. Rather than buy it again, I decided to give EA Play (EA’s subscription service) a shot. So far, it’s been all right. Steam warns you that the service isn’t optimised for the Deck and there are a couple of odd moments every time Fallen Order boots up where there’s a window that’s clearly meant to display something but which instead is blank. As rough an edge as that is, the actual in-game loading experience is vastly superior to the PS4 and I don’t yet regret the subscription.
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Eri expressed mild disappointment that she hadn’t been able to concentrate on a cooking show she’d seen on NHK and that was the impetus I needed to finally look into signing up for NHK+ (NHK’s online watch-later service). I’m sure I’ve investigated this before but I don’t remember now what prevented me from completing the sign-up process. This time I got it done and we can now watch certain programs via the website. Unfortunately, while NHK does have app for iOS (and I’m guessing iPadOS), they don’t have an app for the Apple TV so I suspect the degree to which we’re going to use it will be severely limited.
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I wrote up a short guide on how to install Void Linux on a Raspberry Pi 3. I’ve really enjoyed the Void experience since getting it installed. I read somewhere that it began as a BSD guy deciding to make a Linux distribution and it does feel like a great blend of BSD’s quality with Linux’s compatibility.
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As preparation (I guess) for the Rewatchables episode on Casino Royale I watched the movie again and was struck once more by the odd story structure. In some ways there’s really three episodes rather than the three acts we might expect in a conventional blockbuster: (1) the Miami bombing; (2) the poker tournament; and (3) the betrayal of Vesper. While I still feel the movie is too long, this time I found myself enjoying the mere fact it felt so different to what I’m used to these days.
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There’s a classic video essay on the ‘Every Frame a Painting’ YouTube channel about Spielberg’s ‘oner’ (shooting a scene in one take). One of the new channels I’ve started watching, CinemaStix, has a video on Spielberg’s staging and blocking which functions somewhat as a companion piece to that previous essay. Each is less than 10 minutes so you really have no reason not to watch them.
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Speaking of YouTube, have you ever wondered why no Internet creators have been able to reach superstar fame? W. David Marx has a nice essay exploring the issue.
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Spoon is one of those bands I almost feel guilty for not liking more. Sure, like any Millennial of my ilk, I liked ‘The Way we Get By’ but I never really got into their music. Is their latest EP, Memory Dust, the record that’ll do it? If I’m being honest, probably not but I do quite like ‘Silver Girl’ (Apple Music).
