atomicules

Mostly walking the dogs

The Dog Had Fallen Through A Hole In The Net Of Events

"The dog had fallen through a hole in the net of events. We leave so many of them, lacerations of negligence, when we put together cause and effect."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

Note: Started Couch to 5k in 2016. Finally managed a sub-20 5k today. Never going that fast again.

September Sounds

But actually the last three months and more. God. Why did I decide to do this in quarters this year?

  • Billy Nomates: Metaphors. The Test is the best. All quite upbeat though. All kind of similar (not a bad thing). Feels very 6music festival.
  • Little Simz: Lotus. I think I like Free best, the rest isn’t bad just doesn’t massively grab me.
  • Clipping: Dead Channel Sky. Maybe younger me would have been more into this. It’s all a bit much (Change the Channel) and then just noise.
  • Ray Vaughn: The Good The Bad The Dollar Menu. Not for me. Flat Shasta is the best.
  • Sault: 10. Any Cleo Sol is good, but it’s no Wildfires, RL best?
  • Pulp: More. I guessed Spike Island would be the standout and I was correct. It is a banger though.
  • YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds. Spotify says “Fans also like Model/Actriz and Aya”. Exactly Spotify. Exactly. (It’s noise, but not as you know it)
  • Nectar Woode: It’s like I never left. An EP, but a solid one. Only Happen, Ama Said and Home Again are just great. Regrets, regrets, regrets over missing her at Glastonbury.
  • Blusher: Racer. The Racer single is an absolute banger so was looking forward to this E.P. Racer is still the best, but Don’t Look At Me Like That is good too.
  • Matt Maltese: Hers. Not as good as Good Morning It’s Now Tomorrow for me.
  • Sofia Kourtesis: Volver. Unidos is my favourite, but Canela Pura and Sisters are good too.
  • Folk Bitch Trio: Now Would Be A Good Time. The opener, God’s A Different Sword is nice. And then The Actor. After that maybe a bit too chill for me.
  • Panic Shack: Panic Shack. The last song, Thelma & Louise is the best
  • Jade Bird: Who Wants to Talk About Love? Oh, Glastonbury regrets. Dreams and Save Your Tears.
  • Clipse: Let God Sort Em Out. Not for me. I think I just prefer women MCs. Although SL is class (see further down).
  • Joey Valence & Brae: HYPERYOUTH. What’s not to enjoy? My favourite is actually SEE U DANCE (with Rebecca Black). It’s a tune.
  • Tyler: DON’T TAP THE GLASS. Ring Ring Ring probably the best, the rest I’m not fussed for.
  • Wolf Alice: The Clearing. See here.
  • Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. The two singles, Fuck Me Eyes (which is funny on the radio as it just gets called “Eyes” and made me think it was a different song I’d not yet heard) and Nettles are the best.
  • Audrey Hobert: Who’s the Clown? The preceding single, Wet Hair, is the standout for me, but I appreciate “Don’t go back to his ass” for the chorus.
  • Jessica Winter: My First Album. I’m still undecided about L.O.V.E. Feels Good (For Tonight) has a big sound, almost Kylie vibes? It nicely builds you up for Aftersun which is very clubby (not that I know what that is anymore). It’s a very mixed album genre-wise: The closing track, To Know Her feels like it could be from a Disney soundtrack whereas Got Something Good is almost punk towards the end and a completely different vibe. Anyway, Feels Good (For Tonight) and Aftersun are my favourites.
  • Billie Marten: Dog Eared. Probably Feeling, the opener, is best - it’s really nice. And then perhaps the closer, Swing. Otherwise, doesn’t grab me.
  • Earl Sweatshirt: Live Laugh Love. Not really for me. Same opinion as Clipse and Ray Vaughn. Appreciate the 24 minute runtime though.
  • Racing Mount Pleasant: Racing Mount Pleasant. I’ve read great things about this. Have listened to it twice, but despite not hating it, I don’t love it.
  • Barry Can’t Swim: Loner. I like it, but it’s very easy to stick it on and have it become background music. Kimpton and Machine Noise For A Quiet Daydream (which is almost Shaman Boss Drum spoken word like) are the ones that stand out to me.
  • thredd: It’s Lovely, Come On In. Party is easily the best (so good, give it a listen) and quite different from anything else on the EP. We Don’t Speak Anymore is pretty good though.
  • Nourished by Time: The Passionate Ones. Fantastic name. Guess I’m just not cool enough to appreciate this though. Tried it though.
  • Sea Lemon: Diving For A Prize. Beautiful. Bit shoe gazey. I like the opener, and the track after that, in fact there is nothing not to like on here, but also there is nothing that really stands out, unfortunately.
  • Sharon van Etten: Sharon van Etten & The Attachment Theory. Afterlife and Trouble (the singles?) are good, but not making my picks of the year list.
  • CMAT: Euro-Country. I liked I Don’t Really Care for You and Stay For Something from a few years back, but nothing really grabs me on this album. Maybe Running/Planning is the nearest.
  • Nova Twins: Parasites and Butterflies. I like the start of Soprano. N.O.V.A is good too. But nothing as good as Antagonist or Taxi for me.
  • Max Cooper: On Being. Listened to this just for some Glastonbury memories since some of this was one of the last things I heard on Sunday night. Very much suits the Tree Stage. It’s not really an album you are ever going to pick standout tracks from though. Mostly very chilled, very ambient - this is the kind of album you could put on to fall asleep to, which would then jolt you awake half way through, before serenading you off to sleep again.
  • SL: Block Tales. I was really looking forward to this based on the single Robbery. Robbery is still the clear standout for me. The rest is ok, but doesn’t grab me the same way as the vocal / bass combination on Robbery. It’s so good.
  • Haim: I quit. I liked it more than I thought I would, but although it’s an enjoyable listen nothing sticks with me afterwards.
  • NewDad: Altar. I think this is better than the first album. The opener, Other Side starts off gentle and then gets heavier - it’s a great intro to the album. Heavyweight has a great chorus. Pretty is catchy, really catchy with beautiful vocals. RooBosh is a bit heavier and intense. There is nothing bad on this album, but the only one I care less about is Sinking Kind of Feeling. Amazingly, despite everything being so good, Entertainer somehow still stands out - just - since Everything I Wanted that follows it is fantastic too. And then it just exits in style: The flow of Mr Cold Embrace, Vertigo (superb!!!!) and Something’s Broken is just beautiful. Wolf Alice should take note.
  • Saint Etienne: International. OMG: Confidence Man cross over! Take me to the Pilot is also really good - takes me back to the Stentorian Dub mix of Pale Movie. The only really low point for me is The Go Between (it’s a bit Take That), but overall I think they’ve managed to go out with a couple of bangers. Farewell Saint Etienne - you have been a big part of my life!
  • TTSSFU: Blown. An EP, but worth mentioning for the Forever single which is a massive tune.
  • Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Perimenopop. It’s alright. I probably prefer the last song, Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until It’s Gone over the singles Relentless Love and Freedom Of The Night. Probably. I would dance to any of this in a field.
  • Ava McCoy: Dragonfly. This is from May, but I only recently realised it existed. I loved (still do) the Dragonfly single and that remains the standout for me.
  • Night Tapes: portals//polarities. I probably like swordsman and pacifico best. It’s all listenable, gentle electronic with ethereal vocals, but it’s also easy for it to become background listening.
  • Geese: Getting Killed. Over-hyped. I do quite like Taxes, but otherwise I just don’t get it. Doesn’t make me feel sad, happy, stressed, anything really.
  • Coach Party: Caramel. Do Yourself A Favour is my favourite. Girls! is cool though. Fake It too. And Medicate Yourself. Probably better than the last album.
  • Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving. I still don’t know if I like anything on here as much as Dive, but Lady Lady is funky, So Easy (To Fall In Love) is rather beautiful and I really like the last track, I’ve Seen It. Need to give it more listens.

There are more September entries I just haven’t had enough time for yet:

  • Sprints: All that is over. (I’m hoping it’s going to be great).
  • Wednesday: Bleeds
  • Joy Crookes: Juniper
  • Frost Children: Sister
  • James K: Friend
  • Korey Radical: Don’t look down

I might come and update this post or this might end up in December’s post.

But how did they make you feel? Ugh… Yeah, that was the whole point of this. It wasn’t meant to just be a list. I used “the best” too many times, that’s for sure.

Then The Void Of The Weekend Opened

"Then the void of the weekend opened and I felt as if I were standing, precariously balanced on the rim of a well."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

I meant to publish this on the weekend, but it wasn’t a void so I forgot and I’m doing it today instead.

I Stretched A Taught Wire That Pierced The Days

"I stretched a taught wire that pierced the days and I slid swiftly along it..."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

The Circle Of An Empty Day Is Brutal

"The circle of an empty day is brutal, and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

I Was Frightened Because She Had Taken My Heart

"At that moment I didn't recognise her. I was frightened because she had taken my heart, which was now beating in her chest."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

Always Had A Low Voice

"But I've always had a low voice, I can't yell, the words fall a short distance away like a handful of pebbles thrown by a child."

— The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

Probably going to have a few from this book - I really liked it. Also interesting, after Butter, that this is a translation too. I actually picked up the italian version whilst in Italy and I’m going to attempt to read it sometime soon and see if I can tell how much of the prose is as beautiful originally - I will probably fail miserably at this.

Back dating this as was too busy being on holiday at the time, but got one decent run in whilst in Siena; Did manage another run a few days before this, but that was after three beers, whereas this was just after one and so I managed to do ok.

Whilst we were there also witnessed a bit of Cross dei Rioni happening.

Some nice hill climbs in Siena.

Not Computerless

Not Computerless

Finally! Took me just over three years to save up for a old Thinkpad X270 (~£85). It seems to be in excellent condition and interestingly, despite being a bit more chunky than my work’s Macbook Pro M1 14”, it feels a lot lighter. And arguably has a better keyboard. Also, it might be a seven year old machine, but for a progression in NetBSD hardware for me that has gone from Pentium III, to Pentium D this thing feels like the future!

My plan was that I’d get a X270 or T470 (but not anything newer) as that way I could put the SSD I’d pulled from my old Optiplex into it and immediately have a working NetBSD machine that I could then upgrade. But after three years that SSD was unlikely to work and things had moved on a fair bit. So I opted for a fresh NetBSD 10.1 install (after a final boot into the Windows OS it came with to update the BIOS). I mostly followed this approach (encrypted swap comes free with NetBSD 10), but with these changes (these notes are more for me than anything):

gpt add -l efi -t efi -s 128m ld0
gpt add -l netbsd -t ffs -s 20g ld0
gpt add -l swap -t swap -s 8g ld0
gpt add -l netcgd -t cgd ld0

On my NetBSD server I have 5Gi /root and 10Gi /usr. Here I want /usr unencrypted (because I just do), so I’ve opted for 20Gi so I have a bit of breathing room. For cgd I have:

/dev/cgd0b  /tmp  mfs     rw,-s=132m    0 0
/dev/cgd0e  /var  ffs     rw            1 2
/dev/cgd0f  /home ffs     rw            1 2

(I set a to unused).

I have 2Gi for /tmp and 10Gi for /var. I kind of wish I’d done a bigger /tmp directory as I’ve already maxed it out with some cargo builds (but hopefully only because it didn’t clean up some previous attempts); Have to be honest that I don’t fully understand the /tmp changes with NetBSD 10. I seem to have both a /tmp and a /var/shm tmpfs - I don’t know if that’s intentional or I’ve just done something wrong. Maybe some day I could change this, but probably not any time soon.

I used to use dwm and st, but since I was setting up from scratch I decided to give leftwm a whirl to go with alacritty which I’ve been using on macOS for the past few years. I do like that dwm is “self-contained”, whereas with leftm you have to worry about status bars, etc. I’ve opted for lemonbar after making a small sed change (sed -rg '/^\s*$/d') in the script for NetBSD. I’m showing battery usage based on this approach (I have two batteries though!) and built this little status script:

#!/bin/sh
# file:~/bin/leftwmstatus
while true; do
        load=$(cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}')
        # Memory Free / Swap Free
        mem=$(cat /proc/meminfo | awk 'FNR==5{printf ("%.1f/", $2/1024/1024)};FNR==10{printf ("%.1f GB", $2/1024/1024)}')
        cal=$(date +"%a %b %d %Y %H:%M")
        batt1=$(envstat -s acpibat0:charge | grep charge | sed 's/.*(\(.*\)%)/\1/')
        batt2=$(envstat -s acpibat1:charge | grep charge | sed 's/.*(\(.*\)%)/\1/')
        charge=$(if envstat | grep -Eq 'connected.*TRUE'; then echo ^; fi)

        printf "S$batt1%%+$batt2%% $charge | $load | $mem | $cal\n"
        sleep 2
done

A few random “issues” I’ve had:

  • Needing to set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR for leftwm
  • I’ve not been able to enable XDM yet because I hit keyboard input conflict issues.
  • An occasional fsck issue on boot I have no clue about because it’s moaning about fsck_home being missing (which doesn’t seem to be a thing).
  • I had TLS/SSL errors doing the initial install with pkg_add. I can’t actually remember how I resolved this. I think I first of all had to set pkg_path to use http to get the Mozilla root certs and then I could switch it to https.
  • Suspend doesn’t work. At home this isn’t a huge problem as I just leave it turned on.
  • I have somewhat got the /etc/powerd/scripts/acadapter script working to lower the frequency when on battery (sometimes it doesn’t trigger, I don’t know why; Not a massive deal).

At the time I set this up the Pkgsrc version of Helix was set as broken, but building it outside of Pkgsrc was easy; I am going to see if I can get Pkgsrc Helix updated now I actually have NetBSD hardware to do that on.

I’ve got it setup enough that I can use it, but still need to tweak a few things:

  1. Finding a good way to type £ (it’s an American keyboard).
  2. Disabling taps on the track pad because I keep clicking accidentally.

I’m very happy to have NetBSD hardware again!

The Gentle Melody Of The Chimes

"The gentle melody of the chimes signalling the start of fourth period drifted in from the nearby primary school. This neighbourhood was steeped in the rhythms of people's lives, which she found soothing."

— Butter by Asako Yuzuki

There are lots of spoken passages I could quote (like the one on the back cover), but these two were my favourite non-spoken bits. Also, interestingly, neither of them about food.

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