Weeknotes #305

Rowan wanted to go out somewhere on the weekend but I was tuckered out so I offered him a trip to the MOS Burger in Ōizumi-gakuen and he took it. We missed the bus and, since I hate waiting at bus stops, we ran three stops ‘up’ the road to our destination before I decided I’d tempted fate enough. I say ‘we ran’ but it was me running while Rowan sat on my shoulders. I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to do that.

After much gnashing of teeth, I got Jeep’s test suite to run successfully on Windows. I tried for a while to avoid running the Windows virtual machine I have on the Mac but after a dozen or so failed runs of a GitHub Workflow, I finally gave in. I am pleased to report that I now have a pretty generic GitHub Workflow that runs all of the files in a project’s ./test directory across Linux, macOS and Windows.

The Apple TV updated itself to tvOS 2026 so I guess I now have one device in the house running Liquid Glass.

A couple of weeks ago I started showing the kids Futurama. It’s more risqué than I remembered and that was getting a bit awkward so I switched over to Mr Bean. I worried that the low-quality nature of videos would put them off but so far the biggest impediment has been their lack of familiarity with what life was like in the 1990s. In a sketch that revolved around Mr Bean trying to get decent reception on his television, for example, they were extremely confused at the problem confronting Bean. You’re meant to infer that he’s having difficulty watching television because you hear the sound of static as he sits down to watch the TV (which they only show you from behind) but they’ve never heard TV static before and so were completely lost as to what was going on. Once I explained it (by showing them a YouTube video of what static looked and sounded like) they understood it better.

I watched Edge of Tomorrow with John and Rowan. I was a little worried about the level of violence but it’s not an especially gory movie and the fact Tom Cruise’s character ‘resets’ whenever he dies made it seem more acceptable. I feel like you could argue the opposite, though, and claim that I am desensitising my children to the gruesome nature of killing. Feel free to sound off in the comments and don’t forget to like and subscribe.

Speaking of YouTube, Patrick Willems has a video essay about legacy sequels that I wish was shorter. There’s a great section where he compares the fourth movie in the Scream franchise (titled Scream 4) and the fifth movie (titled Scream). Willems’s contention is that Scream 4 is an example of what legacy sequels looked like before Hollywood understood how to make them. I thought this part was fantastic and wish it had been the bulk of the video so that I could recommend you watch a tight 15-minute video instead of a… well, it’s not bloated but it’s 57 minutes and who has that time? I mean, me obviously.

Parov Stelar (Wikipedia) has a new album out that I should link to but as often seems to be the case, its existence prompted me to go back and listen to ‘Catgroove’ (Apple Music) from the Coco, Pt. 2 album. I was trying to remember how I came across this but came up short.