ISSUE 046

Ziggy enjoying the small outdoors

This year, we did not add anything new to the garden. In fact, even the plants are taking a break: most of the green house vegetables failed to bear fruit, besides 2 cucumbers. We've had to resort to giving the dog store-bought ones again.
A handful of cherry tomatoes are hanging on the vines, refusing to ripen. My experiment with growing Brussels sprouts resulted in massive stalks and nothing but leafs. It's a sad state of affairs. At least we have still have some sunflowers.

Today's topics

• Scandinavian adventures
• Junk drawer
• Taking something apart
• Seeing clearly
• Space war
• (De)connect

# Vacation #

To escape the heat for a moment, we visited a few cities in Denmark and Sweden, dropping by my niece in between.
She has an excellent newsletter, by the way. I highly recommend giving it a read.

No respite from the summer rays though but temperatures in the range of 24°C (manageable) and 27°C (dangerously close to miserable). I fear I may become a Fall person after all.

# Made #

It's obvious when you put everything together that I've made over the years, but it didn't really click until fairly recently: the throughline is 'junk' (or 'recycling' if you want to be fancy about it). Cardboard masks, plushies made from discarded clothes, photos using toy cameras, …
The main reason, I think, is the low bar of entry. If it's already broken or obsolete, the faults are just a part of the style (this is where thrift meets retro aesthetics). But it's also easy to come by and it puts you in a creative mode from the very start: "How am I going to make this look anything like that, using tin foil and a piece of string"? If you have a drive to just "make stuff", the materials for it are everywhere.

One thing I hadn't made before, though, is a robot. So for the past 2 years or so, I've been collecting plastic bits & bops, until I finally sat down to build this cursed looking Minion. The base was a kinder egg, the rest came from spray bottles, deodorant caps, a correction tape roller and I don't know what else.
The direct inspiration came from watching Bill Making Stuff and Studson Studio build master pieces out of this stuff, over on YouTube.

# Retro corner #

Very much in theme, after the last newsletter, I fell into another retro repair tech rabbit hole, this time with iPods. Maybe surprisingly, you can find relatively cheap replacement parts and the 5th generation iPod is by far the easiest one to fix up. Mine now has a 12GB micro SD card in it, more than enough for my music library.

Yeah, I know I can do the same thing with my smartphone but where's the fun in that.

# Reading #

Picked up something new from getting old. I now need reading glasses to avoid eye strain from looking at a computer screen all day.

Did you know that when you get reading glasses when farsighted, you'll usually need 2 pairs? Both with different strengths. Yeah, the measurement an optometrist makes, is good for a reading distance of about 15 to 20 inches (40-55cm), which is fine for reading a book but things get blurry when you look any further than that. If you're behind a computer monitor a lot, that is usually up to 70cm away from your face, so you need a second pair that is 0.25 or even 0.50 less strong.

My original prescription is for +1.0 and it made me nauseous for the first couple of days I tried them.
I'm giving the whole experience a 0 starts, I advise against going farsighted with age.

I read John Scalzi's first 2 books in this "Old Man's War" series 20 years ago, so this series has been going for a while now. Humble Bundle had most of them for sale last month (the last book came out last year, it's not in it).

Those first ones are fine as far as a space travel action series goes but they don't quite fulfill their own promises. A lot of things that are set up never resurfaced or get built out, which is a shame. For a series that so explicitly deals with war, colonization and expansion, there's extremely little exploration of those themes with regards to our past or the human condition.

Sci-fi (or 'Speculative Fiction') has always been a way to write about the present and reflect on ourselves but this series seems to absolutely refuse to do so. I haven't caught up on book 5 yet, so maybe it sneaks in as it goes on.

I was trying out e-ink tablets for a while (first a Supernote, then a Boox Note Air5 C), under the impression that it would be great if I could draw, make notes ànd read books all on the same device. But it turned out to be a dead end after all. I ended up reselling one after the other and finally settled on a Kobo Libra Colour, an e-reader which my GF had been very happy with as well.

It has a pen option but with a 7 inch screen, it's at best a helpful way to annotate a book but that's about it.

If you're looking for something to read digital books and documents though, and don't want to be stuck in the Amazon ecosystem (or want a device you can actually turn off) this one is a great choice.

# Digital footprint #

I'm pretty much gone from social media, apart from the occasional Instagram Story repost or twice yearly Game Boy Camera picture.
Oh, I still have some accounts here and there, but they all broadcast the same little pieces I put on my Blog (with an RSS feed, for those like me who refuse to let that die).

Other than that, I moved a bunch of my online tool use open-source alternatives, often self-hosted. Most notably, I tried to get rid of all things Google, replacing much of it with the privacy-first Proton. It worked out well for the most part but where it kinda falls apart is when you need to share things with others. Say, a calendar.
There's not a lot of ways to manage syncing data when on 1 end you have a sturdy box and on the other a leaky sieve (eg. Google).

In the end, I created a throwaway account for the things I can't avoid, such as a shared calendar or shared photo albums from family.
That said, I have hopes for it improving as I go. Proton's development will eventually get better and if it doesn't 3rd party open-source is always growing & evolving.

# Sign-off #

The biggest news so far though, is that I started a new job back in March. I switched from being a front-end developer (building websites and online services) to an accessibility specialist (helping people build tools and services so everybody can use them).

In fact, I got an internationally recognized certification for it as well (thanks to my employer for paying the exam fee). I can now officially call myself a 'Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies' (CPACC for short).

After 40+ applications and sitting through who knows how many interviews and tests for months and months, landing this new job was a bit of a relief. The state of the job market for front-end developers and designers is a bit of a nightmare right now.

There's more I can write about that but I think I'll leave it at that for now.
I hope you're all doing well and you can find a few moments to catch your breath with all of … this going on [gestures wildly in all directions].

Keep a cool head, see you next time.