Weekender #9

• Spring Break came and went for me. I spent the last two weeks going into work, but had two days where I was forced to work from home. I enjoyed working from home. I found that I was much more productive and was able to take care of a few things around the house that would usually have to wait until after work was done. I really wish I could do a work week with the option of working one day from home. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to become the norm for my type of work.

• I was saddened to read the news that the Tokyu Hands in Ikebukuro would be closing forever in September 2021 after 37 years. Tokyu Hands Ikebukuro was one of the very first shops Audra took me to during my first trip to Japan back in 2014. In the years that followed, we’ve stayed in the Ikebukuro area and it’s usually our first and last stop of the trip because the store had everything! While we’ll still be able to visit the other Tokyu Hands stores in other areas, but losing this one really hurts.

• A lot of my free time was spent working on a bunch of different themes for my favorite text app, Drafts.

  • For those that may not be familiar with Drafts, it’s an iOS and Mac app that excels in capturing notes and ideas quickly. Just launch the app and start typing. Each time you open Drafts, it presents you with a new blank note (draft) and the keyboard. There is no need to tap an icon to create a new note. Just immediately start typing. All notes are automatically saved to the Drafts inbox where you can decide what to do with them later ¹.

  • The latest version of Drafts that was released this week adds the ability to customize themes and syntaxes. This addition finally gives users the opportunity to download user created themes to customize their writing environment.

  • Fortunately, Greg Pierce, developer of Drafts, made it easy to get started creating themes for the Drafts platform. I was able to get a head start by diving into the Drafts beta with themes and syntaxes earlier this month. It wasn’t too difficult to learn how the they worked. Themes and syntaxes are all written in JSON, so even I could figure it out. After a few days of playing around and reading the docs, I had my first extended Markdown syntax and theme done.

  • With the release of Drafts version 26, I’m looking forward to seeing others share the themes and syntaxes they’ve created. You can see user themes (including some of mine) in the Drafts Themes Directory. Drafts Syntaxes can be found here.

• It’s hard to believe the Sinclair ZX81 computer is 40 years old. Such a classic computer.

  • I first saw the ZX81 in a magazine ad being sold for under $100. It could be purchased as a kit that you could build on your own (soldering iron required!), or fully assembled for a little more money. I believe it was the very first personal computer sold for under $100 at the time (1981).

  • It was able to be sold for under $100, because the entire computer was housed in a 10” x 12” plastic shell with a membrane keyboard. There were no raised mechanical keys. Each “key” had many additional computer functions written on it per key. It didn’t have color graphics, only monochrome, and it plugged directly into your TV using a UHF adapter set to channel 2 or 3, kinda like the ATARI 2600.

  • The ZX81’s successor was the Timex Sinclair 1000, which was a rebranded ZX81 but sold through a joint venture between Timex Corporation and Sinclair Research. It was also my first computer. I really loved it, even though it had massive shortcomings. Notably, it only had 2 KB of onboard memory. To do anything meaningful with it, you had to purchase the horrendously flakey memory expansion module (which gave you a whopping 16 KB) that plugged into the back of the computer, but didn’t really have a strong connection mechanism. If you shook the table that the computer was on, the expansion module would get jostled and it and would immediately erase the program you were working on. The solution was to duct tape the expansion module to the computer.

  • I didn’t actually do any coding back then. Instead, I bought books that had programs you could type into the computer and use. With the membrane keyboard, this took hours! To save any programs, you had to attach a tape recorder to it. It would then transfer the program via an audio signal to the cassette tape. I hoped for the best when doing this, but 6 out of 10 times it didn’t work for me, and the program would be lost forever.

  • While I don’t miss the using the ZX81/Timex Sinclair 1000, it really took me back to being a 12 year old and trying to figure out how to be like Matthew Broderick in the movie War Games. 9 months later, Captain Kirk told me to buy a Commodore VIC 20.

• A reporter ambushed Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli co-founder and legendary director of “Spirited Away”) while he went about his early morning routine of picking up trash outside his house, to get his thoughts on the smash hit movie “Demon Slayer” possibly surpassing “Spirited Away” in box-office sales. I really love Miyazaki’s no bullshit gruffness when responding to the questions. Creators should take what he told the reporter to heart.

• As a fan of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! and Danboard, seeing them come to life dancing in this animated short was wonderful!

• ATARASHII GAKKO! released a third music video, which seems to be the official music video for their single “Freaks”. I loved the Tarantino-ish look and feel of this one. I hope they release some behind the scenes on the making of it.

• Vitals is a free Mac utility that shows a per-process CPU graph covering the last 60 seconds of application usage. This could potentially help show if an app slowing down your Mac. I’m testing it out to see if I can figure out what’s causing the fans on my MacBook Pro to sometimes turn on.

• This week, I chilled out with “Catching Z’s” by Zeds Dead. Listen: Apple Music | Spotify