weeknote #25.03

Sunday, 29. June, 2025, Gozo, MT

Traveled over the night: the flight was 5:45 from Zagreb, but I first had to get there, and few hours before, and after landing there's more travel to get to the destination, so most sleep was done while on the road, in the air, on the sea. This fragmented dozing really makes your head in, no, it's not good, not good at all. Must refuse these kind of travel times, it's not worth it, as you lose much more time, and time is money, right?
Another gig was cancelled, this time not from my side, but it suits me just as well. As I wrote before, I overbooked myself, so this allows me to breathe more and focus on the project at hand (which is also breadwinning by the way) instead of panicly preparing the live improvisation.
I submitted the application, but I'm affraid to talk about this too much to not jinx it before I'm not really in and the next year and a half is officially on. But to stay vague with external details, internaly it feels like a big milestone and it really makes my heart beat slightly faster. It should now take just a few weeks to sort this all out. Then I'll celebrate, as this might define at least next two years, and maybe the rest of my life. It's about stability (in this increasingly unstable world) through second most enjoyable activity of mine.
Been using new X1 for about two three weeks - it's a ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 which means it can fold 360 and function as big tablet with a touch screen. I'm happy with number of its features, but some things just don't work well under Linux (for now), the most annoying ones being: a) sleep mode is unreliable, b) CPU throttles back to very low frequencies when under bigger stress, c) internal sound card has either buggy driver or hardware sucks. On the other hand, it feelsfast, has a bright screen, with bluetooth mouse working flawlessly, battery life is great, and PipeWire seems to really do its job most of the time. I used it through the premiere two weeks ago, using SuperCollider and I couldn't say it ever glitched. The most exciting work with it would.. uh, WILL BE to develop touchscreen-based just-in-time composition machine.
Wrote a blogpost - well, these weeknotes are also blog posts, but it's been ages since I focused (or rambled without a structure) about some specific thing and posted it on my blog. I wrote some response to some other writings on some other blogs. I blame the fresh existence of RSS here. Also discovered there's a RSS 'parrot' to fediverse - aka, follow my rss feed on fedi by following this parrot. I hope to write more. There indeed are things I could write more about.
Finally went for a swim - this morning took a 6am bus to Ramla Bay (classic "beautiful" sandy beach) to enter the calm waves when the bay was just starting to be discovered by timid morning sunrays. Well, 'timid' is an absolute understatement, the sun is fierce very quickly. The water temperature is quite warm, refreshing only to a degree. I'd love it to be slightly colder, to re-energise the bloodstreams etc. Perhaps I do it tomorrow too. And maybe the next day.

links for the week

Margaret Atwood’s 7 Tips For Writing Speculative Fiction - "Margaret Atwood defines speculative fiction as literature that deals with possibilities in a society which have not yet been enacted but are latent. Any technology or fantastical element in speculative fiction ought to have roots in what our current species can already do, or is on the road to being able to do." + "read the greats: R.U.R. by Karel Capek (1921), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932), War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells (1897), Time Traveler by H.G. Wells (1895), We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)..."
Creative Commons released some half-assed proposition how to express interest how CC-licenced work is used by A.I. and creators are understandably very upset
Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student - an oldie-goldie that really explains some interesting views on being musician. I hope klangmag continues at some point. Some amazing content there.
Darian Donovan Thomas's Artist Statment which is powerful: "creating works that have two goals: either these pieces create a space for escape, and uninhibited exploration of how the individual audience member has been handling their existence, or the piece creates a political space - a classroom of sorts."
🎶 Arooj Aftab: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert - mesmerizing simplicity with depth from this Pakistani-American grammy-winning singer, composer and music producer, and her team (which includes above-mentioned Darian Donavan Thomas on violin) based in New York City
🎶 Better Now by Neon Cult - simple but well done synthwave
🎶 Sideways ft. Zion I by Bassnectar & Louis Futon - "mainstream" bass, but with a lot of feeling, despite being in-your-face

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