Asides

Asides are brief thoughts, links to interesting content, and quick updates that don't warrant a full blog post. Think of them as my digital margin notes or the blogging equivalent of tweets.

25 years ago today, Ridley Scott’s epic “Gladiator” hit UK cinemas. ![/image/IMG_0841.jpg]


Been using Todoist since 2018 and I just experienced a major bug for the first time ever.

I really do love Todoist. It’s remarkably reliable (aside from this one time of course).

I’m always amazed how rock-solid its syncing is too. I’m constantly making changes on multiple offline devices on the train. Whenever they come back online it all syncs up perfectly.


Yesterday I wrote about how we buy things for social status, not because we truly want them. 
Prime example: the Fortnum & Mason hamper. 
People spend Ā£350 for an assortment of picnic foods just so they can have a wicker box with ā€œF&Mā€ burnt into it that they can proudly display in their home.


Every single person I’ve met who ā€œdoesn’t even own a TV, let alone watch itā€ sure spends a lot of time at their partners house watching TV.


I’ve finally done it. I’ve found a Japanese ambient album that I don’t like. Sorry Hiroshi Yoshimura, but “Flora” isn’t for me.

It gets good reviews too. Maybe it’s just me.

Also, the album cover makes me feel sick.


I feel like “opium eater” sounds a lot cooler than “scaghead”.


Is It Time for Old School?”. Michael Wade suggesting bringing back classical music knowledge, memorising poetry, joining community service organisations, reading more books, and more.

There’s a whiff of ā€œold man shouts at cloudā€, but there’s still food for thought in this list. ļæ¼https://michaelwade800695.substack.com/p/is-it-time-for-old-school


“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.” – Frank Zappa


You know it’s a good day when you get to watch ā€œThe Last of Usā€ S01E03.


Rather shocked to see that a large fancy drink from Starbucks is now Ā£6.20‽


I must have spent about 10 hours over the past week on blot.blog. How much have I spent writing? I’ve added a sidebar and implemented a few features.

Some are important and useful. I’ve added search. And there’s now an ā€˜asides’ section for short thoughts (I’ve imported all my old tweets too). But most of my time has been spent fiddling with CSS.

I really need to dedicate more time to writing my blog, not building it.


Netflix has introduced HDR10+.

Also:

“AV1-SDR is already the second most streamed codec at Netflix, behind H.264/AVC.”

In my mind AV1 is still not widely supported or used. I guess not.

I know Netflix has done its best to avoid H.265/HEVC due to its prohibitive licensing costs. And it has financially and technically backed AV1. But I’m surprised there’s that many AV1-friendly devices out there.

One of my hobbies is video transcoding. I use HEVC. But perhaps I should take a look at AV1. I won’t adopt it yet. Encode times I’m sure are still too slow and I have very few devices that support it. But I’m curious how it competes with HEVC on quality.


ā€œLives in my head rent freeā€ = ā€œI rememberā€


This is a test. Seeing as this blog is essentially my own little Twitter, it seems fitting that I’ve imported all of my tweets into it.

3122 tweets imported – dating back to 2008. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum.


I’m trying to implement a new rule: I’m not allowed to save any articles to read-later on a Saturday/Sunday morning.

If I’m not willing to read it on a weekend morning – when I’ve got a hot coffee and bucketloads of time – then I’m never going to read it.


I saw ā€˜turkey teeth’ in person for the first time today. It was quite a shock. They look awful.

Those things will not age well. You shouldn’t get teeth based on a fashion.


ā€œI know I’m talking to myself, but I would like some response from you.ā€ - my girlfriend