atomicules

Mostly walking the dogs

Our Nurses Are Now The Truest Practitioners Of The Healing Art

"Our nurses are now the truest practitioners of the healing art. If every Scottish, Welsh and English doctor and surgeon dropped suddenly dead, eighty percent of those admitted to our hospitals would recover if the nursing continued."

— Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

Probably some truth to that.

Note: Oh, what a surprise, Labour too with that last note

Note: Fuck the UK/England/Tories: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68848046

Who Use Religions And Politics To Stay Comfortably Superior To All That Pain

"I clenched my teeth and fists to stop them biting and scratching these clever men who want no care for the helpless sick small, who use religions and politics to stay comfortably superior to all that pain: who make religions and politics, excuses to spread misery with fire and sword and how could I stop all this?"

— Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

Tories.

(But also sadly now labour too).

Note: RAINBOWS totally makes Dead Pony's IGNORE THIS album for me. Superb track.

When Many Free Men Are Begging For Work

"Modern industry finds it cheaper to hire hands for days or weeks - when not needed they are free to beg work from other masters. When many free men are begging for work the masters are free to lower wages."

— Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

Written before zero-hour contracts were a thing.

I Feared He Was Trying To Smother Himself

"For a moment I feared he was trying to smother himself, then muffler eruptions showed he was using it to absorb glandular evacuations."

— Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

The only comical and descriptive bit of prose I’m including. The rest is all political.

We Must Spend Some Time Apart To Stop Us Going Stale

"How lovely, God, to waken all alone, and bath and dress alone, and eat alone. When we get married Candle, we must spend some time apart to stop us going stale."

— Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

True.

I am fortunate enough to have seen the film and read the book, pretty close together as well. I never expect films to perfectly resemble books, nor should they, but it is always interesting to see how they compare and contrast. I liked both, although they really are quite different beasts with different focuses. Neither were anywhere near as controversial as some reviews/opinions I read beforehand which can only have been made by people that had neither seen the film nor read the book.

April Audio

I thought last year was really good for music, but this year, a quarter of the year down, is proving insanely good.

I’m up to two hours seven minutes of tracks in my “picks of 2024” list already. Rather than go over all the albums so far I’ll pick some of the tracks:

  • Bullion and Carly Rae Jepson: Rare. Just beautiful. Elevated by Carly’s vocals. I hope she does more like this.
  • New Dad: Nosebleed. I liked the album on first listen, but it’s also a bit of a grower… because I didn’t really notice this track to start with, perhaps because it’s more gentle that the likes of Nightmares, Angel and In My Head, but it’s really beautiful.
  • Real Estate: Water Underground. Jingly jangly happy indy at its best.
  • The Reytons: Let Me Breathe. Prolific and consistently knocking it out of the park . Would be superb to see at a festival.
  • Bill Ryder-Jones. This Can’t Go On. Like Embrace’s Gravity, but with a larger soundscapes and slightly less melancholic. Still leaves you feeling though. Deep breath at the end. Recover.
  • Jalen Ngonda: Illusions. Possibly my favourite song of the year so far. Possibly the best song ever written. Mind blowing.
  • KNEECAP: Sick in the head. Too good. Will be all over everywhere by the end of the year.
  • Waxahatchee: Right Back To It. Indeed. A welcome return.

Not just April, obviously.

LINK: Lorena, the light-footed woman

On a related note, watched this recently on Netflix (twice!) and it kind of blew my mind.

Ive Got No Anterior Cruciate Ligament In My Left Knee

"Most people probably don’t know, but I’ve got no anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee, because I tore it when I was 17 and never had reconstructive surgery."

What?! I was amazed at her before this, now I’m just gobsmacked.

Album of the year: Marika Hackman: Big Sigh

Calling it as my album of the year. Actually meant to write this in February, but I’m just too slow in getting around to it. I know there are good albums yet to come (Nia Archives and Dead Pony are just two), but Big Sigh is superb, plus I wasn’t anticipating it at all - I was expecting and looking forward to New Dad’s and Sprints’, and although both are good, neither gave me the same feeling as Marika Hackman’s; And it’s all based on feelings.

  • The Ground: It’s a bit of an odd opener, as doesn’t sound like her vocals at all, but it does start the journey.
  • No Caffeine: Just beautiful. I love the layering of piano, vocals, strings, bass and then drums and how it builds.
  • Big Sigh: God loves a trier. Indeed. It doesn’t so much build as crashes in with the chorus from a gentle verse.
  • Blood: She does good things with vocals, bass and choruses.
  • Hanging: Something in this actually gives me really strong vibes of Cracks from Freestylers / Belle Humble. It’s very melancholic. Until the end.
  • The Lonely House: The piano intro reminds me of Mia and Sebastian’s theme from La La Land. And this is also an instrumental. But ends up sadder.
  • Vitamins: Feels like it could be the last track, but actually it’s just a trick before hitting…
  • Slime: Is just sublime.
  • Please Don’t Be So Kind: Ethereal.
  • The Yellow Mile: A gentle finish.

No Caffeine, Big Sigh and Slime are the obvious favourites, but there is nothing I don’t like here. I’d say it’s not necessarily that morose either; last year I didn’t want to pick boygenius’ the record because I didn’t want something sad; I was wondering if I should wait for something more positive than Big Sigh, but no, it feels balanced to me.

2024 is proving a fantastic year for music.

Brief notes on reading exFAT on macOS

Had to scan some photos recently (on a much more modern machine than the ye-olde Canon LiDE 35 it replaced, but it turns out much more crappy, anyway…) and the easiest option was to plug a SD card into the scanner and scan away.

When I tried to open the images to crop them all I was bemused to find macOS couldn’t actually read the contents of the SD card. Hey, it’s only 2024.

I did not want to reformat the SD card and rescan so I searched around used MacFUSE with exfat (installed via Pkgsrc).

Then I could do:

mkdir -p ~/mnt/exfat
sudo mount.exfat-fuse /dev/disk2s1 mnt/exfat/

And copy the images off.

These are the ten most recent posts (not counting any note drivel), for older posts see the Archive.