november 2022

content/post/2022/12/november-2022.md

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+---
+title: November 2022 In Review
+date: 2022-12-03T10:14:00+01:00
+tags:
+  - metapost
+---
+
+November 2022 is no more. It has been a slow month. I made myself some tea just before typing this, and the drawer where we keep it broke, so that's a good start. More things broke this month, such as the dryer (for the second time), a bike tire, a glass, a piece of the parquet (??), and my mood. These gray and windy days remind me of disturbing scenes from [The Excavation of Hob's Barrow](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/pc/the-excavation-of-hobs-barrow/).
+
+Speaking about breaking stuff, I continued the site refactoring streak of last month and migrated another blog to a CSS grid system where the sidebar disappears after the content by changing `grid-template-columns` from `24% 1fr` to `100%` and adding a `grid-row` value of `2`. I had no idea it was possible to swap rows, that's quite neat!
+
+Previous month in review: [October 2022](/post/2022/11/october-2022).
+
+## Books I've read
+
+I started reading Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer's _Grand Europa Hotel_ but it's a big one and can be difficult to digest at times. Progress has been slow---at the end of our days, there's still little energy left to read. It does somehow match closely to [last month's](/post/2022/11/october-2022) _Ik = Cartograaf_ as they're both about the history of Europe, although I like Ilja's writing style and approach a lot more.
+
+## Games I've played
+
+- [Axiom Verge 2](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/axiom-verge-2/)---4/5; the successor to last month's _Axiom Verge_, another one-man stunt from Tom Happ. It feels less spectacular than the first one but it's still highly enjoyable as a metroidvania. I own Limited Run Games' physical release of the 2-in-1 cartridge (8hrs).
+- [Void Bastards](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/void-bastards/)---2/5; I bought that one last year and gave it a couple of hours before giving up. After giving it a second chance, I gave it another couple of hours before giving up. The Switch version feels cumbersome (4hrs).
+- [Yoshi's Crafted World](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/yoshis-crafted-world/)---3/5; an enjoyable if repetitive platformer that's likely to be more fun when played with your kids (7hrs).
+- [The Excavation of Hob's Barrow](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/pc/the-excavation-of-hobs-barrow/)---4/5; this must be the highlight of the month: an exceptionally creepy and well-written indie adventure game with superb voice acting (6hrs). Here's the launch trailer for good measure:
+
+{{< youtube x-1C_9RQJb8 >}}
+
+A lot of short games, it seems. No worries, _Tactics Ogre_ has arrived, that one can easily eat up 40+ hours... To be honest I've been kind of scared to start playing it.
+
+## Selected (blog) posts
+
+- [Guidelines for Brutalist Web Design](https://brutalist-web.design/) by David Bryant Copeland matches closely with the "build websites that last" mantra I came across last month.
+- I know this has been shared a lot already, but [Home Invasion](https://www.hughrundle.net/home-invasion/) by Hugh Rundle expresses my current feelings about Mastodon quite well.
+- Nikita is right: the most important feature of Sublime Text is that [it doesn't change](https://tonsky.me/blog/sublime/). That article is from 2020 and still relevant. It's sad to see so many migrate to Visual Studio Code. 
+- William Woodruff explains how he [modernized his 1980s sound system](https://blog.yossarian.net/2022/11/07/Modernizing-my-1980s-sound-system). I think this is my favorite of the month. 
+- José Naranja is a [notebook maker](https://josenaranja.blogspot.com/). I love everything about that blog, and he sells his notebooks! A pity they're `€250`...
+-  T.R.Schmidt reveals that [Duke Nukem 1 & 2 stole graphics from Turrican](http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/news/duke/). Wow, that's news to me---I can't _unsee_ it.
+-  David Lebovitz bakes a [chocolate pecan slab pie](https://www.davidlebovitz.com/chocolate-pecan-slab-pie-recipe/). Now I wish we had pecans available: the overflow of walnuts don't exactly taste the same.
+-  Ana Rodrigues is very open on her blog [about her pregnancy](https://ohhelloana.blog/mastrescence/) and the birth of her baby---a very emotional post. 
+
+## Other random links
+
+- A lot of people seem to have fun with [86Box](http://86box.net/), an accurate IBM PC retro emulator. I've yet to give it a try. 
+- Did you know you can emulate an old version of macOS in the browser? See https://macos8.app/!
+- https://flamingtempura.github.io/bibtex-tidy/ cleans up and sorts your LaTeX `.bib` files. A lot faster than heavyweight Zotero stuff.
+- If you're having trouble connecting a display to your Apple Silicon Mac, try [BetterDisplay](https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay) which unlocks custom resolutions and brightness settings. 
+- This will brighten up your day: https://grumpy.website/ collects software design mistakes. 
+- [wazero](https://wazero.io/) is a zero-dependency WebAssembly runtime for Go that looks promising. 
+