Status:

Rough start today but I was determined to continue my pottering about the place. After a very slow emergence from my morning fatigue I resumed sorting out the spare room, doing five minutes and then sitting for 15. I’m not pushing through, because that’s bad. I’m keeping active, noticing my limits and trying to stick to that baseline.

It’s surprising how much you can achieve this way and I’m getting close to having the room be a space I can maybe work in. I really want to do some “proper” writing this summer and this will hopefully enable that. At the very least it’ll keep me out of the living room.

Reading:

• Still collapsing after all these years: Einstürzende Neubauten on their fifth decade as a Berlin legend — I remember a goth I was living with in the 90s lending me one of their CDs and it opening something in my brain.
• Oh Vienna! My first Eurovision adventure — I’ve definitely mellowed on Eurovision since living with Fiona, moving from aggressively boycotting any sniff of it to having a mild curiosity over why anyone I respect would subject themselves to this nonsense. In this case it’s Martin Belam.
• How we made Letter to Brezhnev — We rewatched this last year and it stood up pretty well.
• The enshittification of history - Charlie Stross does his futurology thing, starting with a look back at how utterly wrong he was in predicting our current moment four years ago. Still, good on him for having another go.
• How to deal with your kid leaving — Lovely piece of writing. Hindsight is a bitch but I often think the manner in which I left home could have been managed a bit better by all concerned. Good luck to anyone navigating this shit.
• Everything’s probably fake now — This week’s Garbage Day report from the mainstream internet has a pretty big tell: “But the entire internet — well, the four biggest apps we use to navigate the internet — has, quite suddenly, morphed into a horrible new version of television." This. 100% this. If you’re using these platforms as they are intended to be used, ie the algorithmic feeds, then you would be right to be worried. If you’re on the rest of the internet, and have your digital armour up when you visit the corporate hellsites, then you’re probably OK-ish.
• Infrared photography — A write-up of the previously posted thread about converting a Canon DSLR into a full-spectrum (actually, should that be more-spectrum? The spectrum is pretty wide…) camera. I’m filing this as a future project I’d like to try. If anyone has a 600D in their drawers they don’t want, hit me up.

Watching:

• Laura Kampf ‌(19:14)

Listening:

• Origin Story: European Union pt 3 - The Expanse — This was one of those experiences of having something you ignorantly lived through explained with the benefit of hindsight, specifically the establishment of the EU through the 80s and 90s. I think most of it was pretty much there by the time I was an adult, so it seemed like it always had been. My main memory of the Maastricht treaty was that Carter USM cover, which says a lot.