Wednesday, August 27th, 2025

If you write a /now page weekly...isn't it just a weeknotes? Yes. Weeknotes are a new term to me, probably because I am disengaged from corporate patterns (I need a tech bro bingo card). But the concept of link dumps/weeknotes/now pages aren't new. It's journaling on a schedule following a particular form. And honestly it is a good way to give some love to those lost tabs and dedicate some time to reading and purging.

Now

• I finished a my first class of the semester today! I'm migrating away from slides and trying to move towards self-hosting. I'm softly working with markdown and using a github repo, but working towards self-hosting to resuse scheduling based on classes and not dates.
  1. Funnily enough while trying to figure out how to do footnotes in leaflet, I discovered https://syllabus.zone/. Thanks Brendan! (maybe we can add footnotes...or similar to the new docs feature but make it tiny)
• This semester I've got 4 classes on the docket, with linked syllabi:
  1. Code Toolkit: Javascript
     1. Sepcifically worked on this one all week. The class was inherited from my dear friend Duncan who moved away :(, but it is a new department to me.
  2. Introduction to Computational Media
     1. This is an inherited class since it is foundational to all of the grad students in the department.
  3. Networked Media
     1. ask me next week when class actually starts
  4. Web Programming
     1. ask me...in two weeks...
• Signed up for Kagi to use as my search engine. I already am a huge fan of Orion as my browser for the Apple ecosystem, since I read so much on my phone.
  1. I've also been thinking about completely disengaging from Apple, but there is a lot to be said of the ease of the entire network. Airdrop is such a wonderful thing...
• Rolling my own cigarettes has been my fidget of this week, which has been a long time coming because the deli changes how much they feel like charging me on a weekly basis.
• Stopped wearing my headphones while walking around. This isn't new as of this week, but I had some nice interactions:
  1. While grocery shopping in the coffee aisle, I overheard a kid ask his mother if he could do the bulk lever and she said no, so I offered to let him use the beavalanche (bean-avalanche, obv) machine on my behalf. He was very shy, but I think he was a little disappointed by the lack of tactility. I bet he will get really into keyboards.
  2. Strolling down the sidewalk, I slipped a lighter into my bag, and a guy walking by asked if he could have a cigarette. I hesitated, since I didn't want to embarass myself, and said no. "Why do you have a lighter if you don't have any cigarettes?" was his response. Caught.
• Attended Wordhack ft. Nick Montfort, Helen Shewolf Tseng, and Olivia McKayla Ross
  1. The open projector had really nice presentations:
     1. Scroll Cinema
     2. Queenie presented a poetic piece on closing web tabs that you might have developed an attachment to, which was really sweet.
• Being picky about a mastodon server. I have a few that I feel like I might want to join, but I also don't even know if I need a new social media platform. I did discover how to make Instagram have a linear feed (Tap Instagram dropdown, change it to following). There's also no ads (shhhhh). Maybe there will be a community out there for me someday. Or maybe somebody will get me a post.lurk invite ;)
  1. https://sunny.garden/
  2. https://kolektiva.social/
• Dusting as an act of care. Writing weeknotes are dusting off those slept on tabs, too.

Media

• Finished Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. I listened to the audiobook (which was a mistake), but I also checked out the ebook. The interview was really hard to follow, as the voice actor didn't differentiate between the two speakers and just blandly read the text. But, after sitting down to read it:
  1. Definitely struck a chord as the semester ramps up. Not only as teaching as my sole source of income, but also a way to engage with the world, and especially younger people, around me in a collaborative way.
• Started The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience by Ann Lauterbach.
• Played Joe Gran's Gameboy Dog of Wisdom game
  1. Originally because I had found his sister's blog, and found out that the Dog of Wisdom is based off her dog Heidi???
     1. I also loved her cohost memoriam
• Played a ton of Merge Maestro on the train. Linking the steam page but it is also mobile, which is the version I have been playing.

Research

• Earlier this summer I gave a talk on topology, or how geographical formations get names. This kind of has extended into broader naming of stuff.
  1. It made me wonder though: would I really name my computer? What is the distinction between my computer, my phone, my arm? How does this differ from my plush shark, Gordon? People name their biceps, but that feels strange to me. I typically keep my technology until it breaks before getting a new one. My phone is at the end of its life, but Apple refuses to make another mini and I couldn't imagine getting a bigger one. But it is utilitarian. I also find myself to be a utilitarian gift-giver too. Hm.
• Discovered LibraryStack because I was looking for an e-flux journal rss feed. That doesn't exist, but librarystack is very cool.
• I’ve been really bad about eating this week.
  1. hence the title. I usually am pretty on top of food, but the semester kicking off means I haven’t had a break and grocery shopping has been a pretty low priority, unfortunately. I don’t really have the opportunity or the space for something a little more self-sustainable, but one can dream. I dug through this guy’s blog trying to figure out where he went instead.