57 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
57 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: July 2022 In Review
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date: 2022-08-01T16:16:00+02:00
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tags:
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- metapost
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---
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July 2022 is no more. Despite the absence of any teaching activities during the summer, things still move slow. Most colleagues I depend on are away, academic conferences like ITiCSE are planned in the summer and eat up time, and the heat has chipped away what was left of my overall motivation. I can't say it has been a productive month, although somehow, we do have yet another paper ready to submit.
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The [Gitea installation](/post/2022/07/give-up-github/) installed in July is working flawlessly and sees daily usage. I kind of regret not doing this sooner---its connection is even faster and more reliable than GitHub. Other than that, nothing major changed in [my workflow](/post/2022/07/a-workflow-interview).
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This website got a new search engine! The [baked archives page](/archives) used to be powered by [Lunr.js](https://lunrjs.com/), which has been replaced by [Pagefind.app](https://pagefind.app/). I guess this is worth its own blog post, I'll save the details for later.
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Previous month in review: [June 2022](/post/2022/07/june-2022).
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### Books I've read
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I'm contemplating on quitting GoodReads---more on that in a future post.
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- [Indulgence: Around the World in Search of Chocolate](/post/2022/07/around-the-world-in-search-of-chocolate) by Paul Richardson. A fragrant piece with a lingering aftertaste, not unlike genuine dark chocolate.
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- [The Cardinal's Blades](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3904885-the-cardinal-s-blades) by Pierre Pevel. For me, the historical part ("he crossed the so-and-so bridge, now we're in so-and-so street, ...") kept getting in the way of unfolding a great dragon breath inducing fencing party. I don't intend to read the sequels.
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- [Nightchild (Chronicles of the Raven #3)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/362814.Nightchild) by James Barclay. Mediocre high fantasy that I tried liking but eventually gave up on at page 150. I tried getting into the series years ago and faintly remember not finishing book 1. I should have listened to my younger self.
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The two mediocre novels made me realize I should return to the library to hunt down the more engrossing stories. My own library could also do with a cleanup---too many books are just sitting there, never to go back to.
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### Games I've played
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The Turtle beat 'em up streak continued well into July. Apart from that, Kristien discovered a few superb and highly underrated adventure games on the Switch store that we dove into.
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- [Asterix & Obelix: Slap them All](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/asterix-and-obelix-slap-them-all/). Only worth your time if you're really, really hungry for an Asterix game. It's not bad, it's just passable at best.
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- [TNMT: Fall of the Foot Clan](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/gameboy/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-fall-of-the-foot-clan/) and [Back from the Sewers](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/gameboy/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-back-from-the-sewers/), a quick revisit of the first 2 Turtle Game Boy releases. They're both finished in like 30 minutes if played right. I'm planning on replaying the third and final installment later this month.
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- [Dexter Stardust](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/dexter-stardust/), the surprise of the month. We loved this classic point & click adventure. Comes with a lot of nods to the Monkey Island games.
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The most interesting video I watched this month was a history lesson of a venerable Japanese gaming company called M2:
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{{< youtube jc5DlOkOcU4 >}}
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The proverb _going the extra mile_ seems to be getting an entire new dimension here. I have nothing but respect for M2, and their conversions, like the 2021 [Castlevania Advance Collection](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/castlevania-advance-collection/), are always excellent.
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### Selected (blog) posts
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- [Why Aren't You More Serious?](https://rubenerd.com/why-arent-you-more-serious/) by Ruben Schade. This resonates with me so much. We need to put the word _fun_ back into blogging and writing.
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- [Discworld on Page and Screen](https://www.filfre.net/2022/07/discworld-on-page-and-screen-part-1-serious-comedy/) by Jimmy Maher
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- [Measuring Terminal Latency](https://www.lkhrs.com/blog/2022/07/terminal-latency/) by Luke Harris. As a bonus, Sublime Text is still faster than VS Code. _Yesss_.
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- [The Web Is Fucked](https://thewebisfucked.com/) By Kev Quirk
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- [The Fifty Fifty Project](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/162528/fifty-fifty-project) by Brian Bankler. An attempt to get an H-index of 50 when it comes to playing board games. Aspirational.
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Seems to be a dry month as well.
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### Other random links
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- [Adult party brain teasers](http://www.smartestbrain.com/brain-teasers-adults-party-puzzles/). Interesting to convert into programming problems.
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- [BoardGameGeek Solo Gaming Awards](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Solo_Gaming_Awards). Still looking for an excuse to buy that Mage Knight big box.
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- [How to build a low-tech website](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website/) from Low Tech Magazine. Interesting ideas such as dithering on images to heavily reduce their size. It made me take a second look at Brain Baking's media weight.
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- [A domain blocklist](https://github.com/sw-yx/domainblocklist) to use in conjunction with Webmention.io.
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