Weeknote: 18 November 2023 – solar powered
Published stuff
Addressing green bubble fury and recent news about iMessage and Messages, my Stuff column this week is I want iMessage everywhere – even though Apple wants to keep it all for itself.
I also reviewed the new iMac (“the i stands for incremental”), and updated my feature about best upcoming Lego sets.
A quiet week over at TapSmart, but I found time to add QuadCamera to my ‘bring back’ series.
Upcoming stuff
I’m currently immersed in all things retro. Next week there will be pieces from me on the Atari 2600+ – a slightly shrunken replica of the original console that plays original cartridges – and the Quarter Arcades Space Invaders cabinet.
On the latter, I threw together a seven-second video and duly uploaded it to YouTube. Which simultaneously showed why I don’t have a proper YouTube channel and yet why I should probably do more short videos, given that this got 1.5k views in no time at all.
Other stuff
I was in Spain for a week in October. I love it there. The climate in particular aligns with what makes me feel good. Warmth. Sunlight. The ability to go for walks. Naturally, my Icelandic wife reminded me two of those things exist in the UK.
So since we’ve come back, I’ve changed one of my streaks. Instead of a six-weekly exercise goal (which is so ingrained I now hit it unless I’m ill), I have a thrice-weekly outdoor walk target. Really, this means that if it’s not raining in the early morning, I exercise by going for a brisk walk rather than hopping on the elliptical trainer and watching TV.
It’s been great. I live quite near to a large pond bordered by trees, and so it’s a pleasant place to go. But it cements the fact I’m solar-powered. So I’m going to see if I can stick this small change out over the colder winter months.
Elsewhere this week, I had another reminder about technology that goes beyond mere utility. Alas, it was because one of my uncles passed away. But through the normalisation of online funerals, I could still watch the service remotely and be there in spirit.
For all of the new bells and whistles on a new phone or a great new sound system, for me it was this ropey web feed that felt truly magical. We take such things for granted today. We probably shouldn’t and should be more grateful when technology is shown to have a meaningful impact on our lives.
I preordered the 2600+, and I absolutely love it. It’s objectively a stupid device, but the almost mechanical way it functions, with its huge buttons and cables and games you plug in with dip switches and rotary controllers, just makes me feel good. I guess part of it is nostalgia, but another part is also that this is an electronic device that, unlike most modern electronic devices, just feels solid and reliable. There are no firmware upgrades, no noticeable bugs, no restarts because things go wonky, you just turn it on and play a game and then you turn it off again.
One thing I dislike is the Atari loading screen at the beginning. This is probably unavoidable, since this is an emulation device, but the immediacy of the original 2600, where you turn it on and the game just appears on your TV, is something I’m missing in this version of the device.
The other thing I dislike is that there’s no analog out, so using it with a CRT requires an adapter. I wish it had a SCART port in addition to HDMI.
Now back to playing Video Olympics against my nieces.