Highlight of the week: I got a feature request from a High School English teacher who uses Writing Month with their students, which is awesome! Participating in NaNoWriMo alongside my Middle School and High School English classmates was a huge influence on my own development as a writer, so it’s great to be helping that carry on.
things I did
- My mom and I were watching The LEGO Batman Movie and I realized the singer of the song playing during the tuxedo changing scene is Al Jarreau! I did quite the double take as I heard it; the last time I saw the movie was before I discovered him and he has become one of my favorite singers in that time.
- 2/7 authors are officially on board for my upcoming publishing project. Progress is being made on the code, too!
- Got some really cool ideas for my search engine. A little hesitant to start coding that since (1) I’m not done thinking and (2) I have other things I should be coding, but good things are coming.
things I read
You may have noticed… I skipped a week in my weeknotes. Well, then, I’ll just summarize two weeks worth of reading.
Last week, I started Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, and I finished it this week (breezed through it, quicker than Anathem was). I liked a lot about the plot, though there were moments that I didn’t find as interesting and overall I think I liked it less than Anathem. I’m still looking forward to reading more of Neal’s work, though.
Also last week, I read issue 448 of Beneath Ceaseless Sky, which I enjoyed very much.
This week I finished Clarkesworld issue 219, which had what is probably my favorite short story I’ve read so far this year, “The Coffee Machine” by Celia Corral-Vázquez.
things I listened to
Worth a mention: in the Grammy award ceremony last Sunday, Chick Corea won an award for the live performance of “Windows” on Trilogy 3! Not bad for a guy who’s been dead five years. This puts him at a total of 29 Grammy awards, breaking the tie with Quincy Jones for third place.
- Chick Corea - Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
- Chicago - Chicago 17
- Passengers - Original Soundtracks 1 (“Passengers” is the pseudonym used by U2 for this album, which is very different from their usual sound)
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade
- Columbus State University Trombone Ensemble - Full Tilt
links around the small web
- The new issue of Good Internet Magazine is out—read all the new pieces!
- Conversations 2025 - Hollie
- Sidenotes In Web Design · Gwern.net
- C Isn’t A Programming Language Anymore - Faultlore
- The Indie Web Is Not Defined by Its Enemies - Island in the Net
- I turned my website into my Feed Reader
- What is a River of News aggregator?
- StartingAMagazine.psd | the library of alexandra
- Konfetti Explorations
- 2025 Clarkesworld Submission Stats – Neil Clarke
- Totoro
- Piano, vulnerability, and playing guitar | James’ Coffee Blog
- The Discourse is a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack
