Posts in "Notes"

Twenty-five years ago, I bought the Gorillaz debut album. But it took me until the day before yesterday to finally see (and hear) them live for the first time… and I was not disappointed!

Gorillaz closing out Way Out West on August 15, 2026. 🎵

Standing in line for two hours and a concert starting at 01:30 is a bit of a stretch for this old geezer, but fuck yes, it was so worth it!!1! (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

Nina’s first gig in Sweden & first time playing her brand-new song (50 seconds in).

Ninajirachi live at Pustervik, Göteborg, on August 14, 2026. 🎵

Here’s a text with the power to melt an uncle’s heart:

Wanna go see The Weeknd with me next summer?

Yesterday was the day! I took a road trip with my niece to Stockholm for her very first concert.

Sing-along with Abel at Strawberry Arena. 🎵

Saint-Jeannet is a cozy village in France where parts of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief were shot. It’s also where my family spent a week this summer, wandering the narrow streets, enjoying the views, climbing the surrounding mountains, chatting, and relaxing in the shade by the pool.

From a sunbed in the shade, with my legs visible in the foreground and the pool stretching out ahead on a perfect summer day. Two black rectangles partially obscure the image.

JA Westenberg on how we should just be normal about things:

And of course you can’t just disagree with someone’s politics. You have to decide they’re either a fascist or a communist or a groomer or a traitor or a neoliberal shill or a terrorist sympathiser or a brainwashed NPC.

…

Don’t confuse certainty with wisdom. Don’t confuse being a dick with courage. Have beliefs. Have standards. Have ambition. Have taste. Have boundaries. Have causes. Have things you refuse to tolerate.

But don’t give every part of yourself to every fight. Most things need attention, not obsession.

As always, when we’re back home after a trip, Sanna shares lovely, well-composed photos on her blog, and I think to myself:

Hey, maybe I got some good shots too?!

I scroll through my own camera roll from those days: two accidental screenshots from my watch, an accidental self-portrait from putting my phone back into my jeans (where I look a bit like Hagrid), and, well, I guess this shot of a tiny bathroom I found cute turned out okay?

Fisheye view looking straight down into a tiny square bathroom with white ceramic tiles on the floor and walls. A toilet, a sink, and yours truly compete for the available square footage.

A manga I like, Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, has gotten an anime adaptation that’s scheduled for July but had some kind of weird sneak-peek release yesterday.

Sharing a cigarette behind the supermarket, Sasaki says to Tayama: “If you’d rather eat the chips instead, just say so”.

If you’re up for a slow-burning (ha!), charming, sometimes serious slice-of-life romance comedy, you will enjoy this one.

Things I did today:

  • Launched two docks.
  • Put out a swim raft.
  • Photobombed my mother-in-law’s serene nature shot.

A serene lakeside view of a floating dock stretching out from the beach into the water. A middle-aged man in waders completely ruins the peaceful vibe by sprinting through the shallows with a dead-serious expression while throwing double peace signs.

Here’s Jason:

Since Reporters Without Borders started tracking their World Press Freedom Index 25 years ago, the global rating has never been lower than the 2026 score. … The United States ranks 64th out of 180 countries, a pathetic showing for a country that claims to value the First Amendment[.]

I feel privileged to live in Sweden. But just like democracy, freedoms like freedom of the press are not static conditions, they’re acts. We need to exercise them.

A world map shaded from green to dark red. Scandinavia stands out in green, while much of Asia, the Middle East, and parts of South America and Africa are deep red. The United States is orange, noticeably behind most of Western Europe.

Another drop! This time from DJ_Dave: Fail-safe. ヾ(＞ω＜)ゞ

Fail-safe ↳out Friday . #livecoding #algorave #electronicmusic #newmusic

I’m so ridiculously happy that spring is finally here! And at the same time, so sad that I need to shut the blinds and pretend the nice weather isn’t there (even though it is) just to keep my eyeballs from getting blinded and get any work done.

Workstation view facing the window, blinds shut, but the sun still slips through in slivers across the table. MacBook Air and external display show my wallpaper: a sun-dappled garden path from Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty. I’m doing a cameo too—a tiny webcam pop-up of me taking a selfie while throwing a peace sign.

Erica’s book arrived this week. It’s been with me on the balcony, on the couch, in a park—and today, I read the last few pages in the sun, on a bench at the south end of Lake Munksjön. Such a cozy slice-of-life read. 📚

Also, this tidbit from the book’s introduction:

I’ve been drawing and writing all my life, but I didn’t think I had enough to fill a book. I guess all I needed was to keep going.

Love that. Just keep going.

The book rests on a pillow, its cover featuring a simple self-portrait drawing of Erica, at peace with shut eyes. When I snapped the photo, a rainbow happened to line up perfectly with her glasses—it looks like she’s sunbathing.

What if, each time you emptied the trash bin, your computer quietly took a screenshot of what was there? Something you could return to later—a small, accidental record of what you were working on or thinking about.

Here’s mine from today:

A macOS Finder window showing my trash, previewing a handful of files and one folder listed below. The Moon sits quietly in the background as my wallpaper.

typewriterart.pdf, xkcd-script.ttf, crosspoint-reader-on-m5papers3.jpg, Short stories - E.M. Forster.epub, nyckel.asc, Grace Rocky Save Stars - E…Sample.jpg, elk-master/

A peek inside my brain. What’s going on in there, you think?

I know one thing: next time I empty the trash, a file named Screenshot 2026-04-21 at 12.40.04.png will go out with it.

Here’s Jeffrey Zeldman on the courage to stop:

Brevity was always a discipline. Now it’s a statement. When everything around you is excessive by default, choosing fewer words takes courage. It says: I thought about this. I edited. I respected your time more than I needed to show my work.

Made me think of Blaise Pascal’s classic:

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

Important message from Xanthe:

🫵️ YOU should go watch Project Hail Mary in Imax right now. I don’t care what you’re doing. Get on the bus and buy a ticket.

I agree! You should read the book too.

If you’re thinking about applying for a Swedish island, first of all, I’m jealous (as a Swede, I’m not eligible), and second, I highly recommend going for island #1: Tjuvholmen. It’s a charming little island, not far from the cabin where I spent my summers as a kid. I’ll come visit if you win!

Also, I love this bit from the FAQ:

Is the initiative open to everyone?
The competition is open to all international travellers (except billionaires) aged 18 and above.

Billionaires not welcome. 😋

The silhouette of Tjuvholmen Island. I think it looks like a dragon! Beneath the silhouette, there’s a drone shot of Läckö Castle.

Here’s Don Knuth:

Shock! Shock! I learned yesterday that an open problem I’d been working on for several weeks had just been solved by Claude Opus 4.6 […] ! It seems that I’ll have to revise my opinions about “generative AI” one of these days. What a joy it is to learn not only that my conjecture has a nice solution but also to celebrate this dramatic advance in automatic deduction and creative problem solving.

What a joy, indeed. To be 88, like Don, and still have your mind changed. Still curious. Still surprised. Still learning.

I’ve seen the movie more than once, but this is my first time reading Carl Sagan’s Contact. 📚

For a million years humans had grown up with a personal daily knowledge of the vault of heaven. In the last few thousand years they began building and emigrating to the cities. In the last few decades, a major fraction of the human population has abandoned a rustic way of life. As technology developed and the cities were polluted, the nights became starless.

It makes me think of the cabin. How you can just step outside at night, tip your head back, and there they are.

My 1997 pocket edition of the book is sitting on the kitchen table. The cover features a scene from the movie: Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey at the Very Large Array.

I still write my own code, because I enjoy it.

I have never been a normal programmer, and maybe you aren't, either. So, let's just do things the way we want — the way we like.

😌

I enjoyed this conversation between Margaret Atwood and Katie Drummond. Here’s Margaret on large language models:

That is a subject about which I know very little, except that it’s a crap poet and a pretty bad imitator of me.

[…]

It’s like absolutely every other human tool that we have ever come up with, including fire and language. So it has good news, it has bad news. It’s got stupid consequences that nobody was thinking about and they’re all like that. Name one, and that is what you will see.

So true! She’s such a gem, sharp and funny.

We’re having ice cream for dessert this New Year’s Eve. Our very first attempt at a pistachio-flavored batch, so fingers crossed it doesn’t turn out terrible. 😋

I hope you (yes, you) are having a cozy end to the year. See you on the other side.

Light green, creamy ice cream, sprinkled with crunchy pistachio nuts, ready to head straight into the freezer.

After breakfast (banana pancake) I took a short walk and lake Viken decided to show off. 🌫️

The tranquil lake reflects a soft blanket of mist and clouds, creating a dreamlike scene where the tree line fades gently into the gray sky.

Lente has it figured out. More people should embrace enough, whatever that means for them right now. The Game She Wrote on a Boat Kept Her Afloat (via Lee):

As long as I have enough to just chill and do my own thing and not have to wake up in time to show up somewhere, I’m really, really happy.

I don’t know why, but I’ve got such a soft spot for people who code and create on boats. See also Rek and Devine also known as Hundred Rabbits.

Yeah, I know, I know… Find My is a thing. But that feels like cheating! Instead, I just fire up the camera remote on my watch and figure it out from there.

The remote viewfinder on my watch shows mostly ceiling, with just a little bit of the cabinet and the extractor hood.

Of course, it was in the kitchen, on the counter, right where I’d already looked.

vlnn asks:

What are you reading this week? Also what were you reading? What are you planning to read next?

I’m currently juggling four books, which is about two more than my brain can actually handle, but it just kind of happened.

I just finished volume 6 of Hirayasumi by Keigo Shinzo. As for what’s next… I don’t know yet, maybe We Who Are About To… by Joanna Russ.

What are you reading this (or next) week? 📚

My current reads spread out on a table. An Apple Watch shows the cover of Where the Axe is Buried, representing that book since I’m listening to it as an audiobook.

Neat concept, and a fitting choice of book to make the point. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 would’ve been another solid choice.

In connection with this year's Banned Books Week, with the theme "Censorship is so 1984", a special edition of George Orwell's classic 1984 is being released. The book is unreadable, bound on both sides, as a symbol of the growing censorship of books around the globe.

Had a lot of fun making this! Last time I made a zine was twenty… five? years ago, so yeah, I was rusty. And nervous as hell that I’d mess up the page order or end up with pages upside down or something. But it made it all the way to Canada! (Yay for snail mail.)

Sven sent me a zine letter after I sent him some of my zines, and I am in love with it. Look how prettyyyy it is. The pink paper and the red ribbon are so gorgeous. No one has ever made me a personal zine before, so this is very special to me. I shall cherish it foreverrrrrr.

A pink zine bound with red thread. The front cover features blue lines forming a 3D-style wave pattern. The title reads re: happy zine mail! or heat waves 2025.

Working on my website and bringing back some fun 90s features. My favorite? Background music (optional now!). 🥰 I’m building in the open, so if you don’t mind a few bugs or weird-looking pages, take a peek!

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