Weeknotes 2023 W43

It’s the stinking cold on your one week off – Ironic, Alanis Morissette

Yeah that happened. A nine-day weekend somewhat ruined by the common cold. But like that wedding day rain Alan sang about, with every cloud there’s always a silver lining. Mine was the excuse to relax. The kind of guilt-free relaxing that you only dream of.

I’ve spent a lot of that time poking around in my Obsidian vault, making some changes to my note taking process. A lot has clicked this week and through a lot of doing I’ve been able to identify where and how the magic happens in a PKM. Somewhat related, I wrote a rant-post about using collaborative design software. I explain my first-world-problem of platform saturation and why I’ve started using Obsidian as my source of truth and syndicating outward.

What with being poorly I’ve not been able to swim at Pells Pool, the outdoor unheated lido in Lewes. The end of the season is nearly upon us and I’m running out of days to use my remaining seven swims. I don’t think a dip in ~13° pool is the right kind of medicine my body needs right now.

I’ve been chuckling at some of the Google Japan videos. I’m 99.9% sure they’re parody skits but the deadpan delivery and production value would have you thinking otherwise. Gboard CAPS and ‘Flick’ keyboard are both worth your time.

I’ve been on hiatus from structured Japanese immersion this week but as it’s been half term there’s been plenty of anime on show. Boy and I watched the first Gurren Lagann movie which has been on the watch list for a while. Based on the original TV series, it’s an action-packed story about friendship, believing in yourself and kickass mecha battles. I also subjected the rest of the family to On-Gaku: Our Sound, a story about three musically-inept delinquents who form a band. It nods to some of music-related animations of yesteryear; Yellow Submarine, Beavis and Butt-Head. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and I loved it for that.

The Parry family are firmly on #TeamSubs. Partly for language immersion reasons but also because I think you loose a lot through dubbed media. I’ve been thinking a lot about the user experience and accessibility of subtitles. It’s an interesting empathy-building practice and I’m constantly shocked at how bad default subtitles styles are and the lack of customisation. I shared my thoughts on the latest social network.

Looking ahead, next week looks to be pretty busy. I’ll be designing the second research study we have for a US based client, we have the Clearleft quarterly on Thursday, then we wrap up the day with UX Brighton on Friday. I’m also expecting to make a complete recovery Monday morning because that’s how this irony thing works, right?