Weeknotes 1472

Getting more fortnightly by the week, these.

Weeknotes

• It's been a busy two weeks, again, but things, again, are finally starting to settle down, again.
• One way or another, I'm taking a break in two weeks, so things will have to settle down then.
• Looking back in my calendar, I can remember a lot of the individual events of the last few weeks—getting new glasses, meeting up with friends, Labour Party and Momentum and trade union meetings—but I can't really put a shape or a narrative to them.

• Speaking of Labour, though, CM got a job working for Lloyd, which is very exciting :)
• She also got baptised on Sunday, which was lovely, and afforded me the opportunity to play the piano in church for the first time in nearly two years, after the previous twelve had seen me play almost every week. Good to be back.
• I got myself a new iPad (Air 4) on eBay to replace my old one (Air 2), and the increase in speed is noticeable. I tend to use my laptop to create and my table to consume stuff but this is so nice, especially with the fancy Apple keyboard case and the pencil, that I've been using it to make stuff too.

• I'm experimenting with further refinements to my personal organisation system—which my friends who are sick of my going on about Roam may be grateful for, but possibly less so as I might be going on about Notion too, now! I'm thinking Roam for notes and Notion for plans and future tasks, and this week's tasks in Marvin... more to come.
• oh I guess I bit the bullet and paid for a Dom C Substack subscription. I know he doesn’t need the money but c’mon I’m not made of stone.

Links

• The quotes from the parents in this article about private school kids finding it more difficult to get into Oxbridge are absolutely boggling.
• yo it’s Art
• Good title and the first place I’ve seen to put forward a plausible theory of radicalisation for the bulk of the Mumsnet tendency. It doesn’t really cover the extreme examples but I would put that down to a far more recognisable case of internet derangement.
• Chris Franklin, the One True Good Boy of videogame Youtubers, reflects on 10 years in the game. The feeling he talks about that really, he’s just waiting for things to really happen—that he’s on the “tutorial level” for his video game Youtubing, so to speak—is a very familiar one. You can be doing very cool stuff with cool people, making things you love and that you’re happy with, but part of you just doesn’t quite feel like that’s real, even though you couldn’t put your finger on what real looks like.
• Clearing through my Pocket, very slowly—this, yes, is yet another thing on cancel culture—no, wait, come back—I think it draws out a useful definition of ‘cant’ opposed to ‘hypocrisy’.
• Matt Webb talks here about how certain kinds of people have certain kinds of hobbies, but also how maybe occupations can shape people? I’m reminded of talking to my dad about cryptic crosswords, and his contention that after you’ve done them for a while, you realise they’re not really teaching you anything except how to get better at cryptic crosswords. I remember that doing a cryptic crossword used to be part of the test for working for Bletchley Park—perhaps they’re less an ‘improving’ hobby and more a ‘signalling’ hobby.
• This is very interesting on the use of therapy-speak in general conversation.

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Over and out.