July 2024 recap

Series

Sherlock

FINISHED

Absolutely lovely. I love the universe, I love the characters, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s and Martin Freeman’s representation of those characters are phenomenal. I guess if I had to give a point of criticism, it’s that visualization of Sherlock’s deduction throughout the series isn’t consistent. It’s a very minor gripe in an otherwise stellar series. But it did bother me.

Movies

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Released over a year ago and I remember not really being into the hype of wanting to see it in the cinema. I stick with that decision, it’s a good movie, it’s entertaining, it gave me some laughs. The plot just is okay, not surprising, not particularly gripping and somewhat predictable. To be fair, I’m a bit done with the amiable, witty “I don’t really know what I’m doing” protagonists.

Howl’s Moving Castle

The first, Studio Ghibli film I’ve seen, shocking I know. Nearly all of them have been on my to-watch list for ages now and I’m extremely glad I finally got round to watching this one. The ending is somewhat of a letdown, personally, but the overall story and animation quality are excellent!

Books

Last Argument of Kings

READING

Reserved as my book-before-bed. About halfway through, but since I only read it just before bed, and I’ve been exhausted for the most part of the month, I haven’t made a lot of progress yet.

Waarom niemand kwantum begrijpt

FINISHED

Started reading last month and finished it this month. I’m fascinated by science and really like it when things are explained well. This book takes you through the history of quantum physics from its conception to the current state of affairs where we’re trying to figure out quantum computing on a usable scale. Would recommend to any science nerds (only available in Dutch, sorry)

From Hell

READING

Alan Moore’s tale of Jack the Ripper has been on my list for a while. And I’m extremely glad I picked it up. Whenever I have some free time, I like to read a chapter, and just love admiring the artwork. The drawings are made up of harsh lines, which add to the eerie picture more is painting of Jack’s story. I’m excited to read where the story will be taking me.

Project Hail Mary

LISTENING

I picked this up as an audiobook. I’ve heard great things about it, and found myself with ample time to listen to things but no time to read things. So I decided to get an audiobook and get some more books read/listened that have been on my to-read shelf for a while now. So far, it’s a great listen. Hard science-fiction, I like it.

Games

Neofeud

FINISHED

The game of the month of July of the Adventure Gaming Club. A lot to unpack here. I kind of liked it? The premise of the story is good, great in fact. There’s a narrative, a well thought out narrative and I liked the ideas that were put forward. But it was all just a stream of consciousness from a single guy in his bedroom, so to speak.

The voice acting was… bad. I’m sorry, there’s no other word for it. I would have much preferred if this game didn’t have any narration. I listened to every dialogue for a third of the game, and just started reading and skipping voice after that. Dialogue sequences can sometimes last 5-10 minutes easily if you leave the characters talking and don’t skip the voice acting. Which I would be okay with, if it weren’t that bad.

Puzzles, not many and not that hard. The game clearly indicates what you have to do and how you have to achieve it. Multiple times it won’t even let you leave an area, until you do the thing you’re supposed to do. Which is a good thing for what the game wants to be, in my opinion at least.

The Room

FINISHED

Wanted to play some more games that didn’t take up a lot of time, that I could pick up and set down again. The Room neatly fell into that category. I’m sure I’ve played the original on Android where it first released. But didn’t play any of the others. Great concept, great execution. I guess the only slightly frustrating thing is that it’s not always obvious which hidden switch needs to be found in order to progress the puzzle. Didn’t have any issues with that in the first game, but definitely got stumped in the second one.

The Room Two

FINISHED

See above.

The Room Three

PLAYING

Not gotten very far yet. But enjoying my time with it.

Interesting links

Text to color

provide it with a description of the colour you want, and voilà, there’s your hex code!

Old Maps Online

I have literally lost hours browsing through this site. It just gets better the deeper you go! At first you’re just amazed at the borders shifting from one place to the next. Both in Europe and other continents, the sources for this site are very exhaustive. But then! Oh then you find out you can switch between regions, rulers, people and battles on the map. I’ve learned so much about historical figures that are local to my area, such an amazing resource to have in your back pocket!

Podcasts

Red Valley

Popping my cherry for fictional podcasts. The added sound effects really make these stand in their own right as a media format. I always wondered why these were a thing and how to differ from audiobooks. Now I know. The story is well thought out and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. The only thing with this one, is the amount of trailers played before and after an episode sometimes taking up to 2-3 minutes.

Sherlock & Co

More Sherlock, yay! Can’t recommend this one enough. It’s a play on the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but retold in a modern setting. Not only does it feature John Watson as a podcaster, it really nails the personalities and brings a more modern Mrs. Hudson. John’s humour and ranting and fumbling through his intro’s are especially hilarious.

Programming Throwdown

This podcast got recommended to me by a good friend of mine. Each episode has a central topic, but the hosts only talk about it halfway through the episode. Before the actual episode, the hosts first talk about some random happenings they find mention-worthy. After that they have 2 fixed sections: Book of the show and Tool of the show. The book of the show isn’t necessarily anything programming related, but might just be a (graphic) novel one of them is reading. The tool of the show (for the few episodes I’ve listened to) has been always been a game. One that stood out to me, and hadn’t heard of before is Turing Complete.

Transmission Season 2

A podcast by the Tropical Institution of Tropical Diseases, based in Antwerp. This season talks about the supply chain that is necessary for a well-functioning health care system. One topic that is somewhat a central point throughout the season, is the death of mothers during childbirth. It’s an especially interesting listen to get a better insight into the necessary infrastructure.

Private life

I got the keys to my new house, so I could start working on painting the rooms. Of course, first they drywalls needed to be sanded. I was lucky enough to loan a professional sanding machine with vacuum cleaner. This really helped to not make a mess of it and go through it more quickly than doing it by hand (which I really had no interest in doing).

Hence why I’ve had more time to listen to content, than time for reading or gaming. Next steps is some more plastering to cover up some dents in the drywalls, lightly sanding those touch-ups. Afterwards I can get everything sealed off for actually painting the rooms. Hopefully I’ll be able to get this all done in August and move my stuff in the new house.