August 2023 month notes
Just some notes from last month…
Coding
I have been hacking on sg-login, a boilerplate full stack JS app that I can use whenever I want to make a multi user system. It has been a long time since I’ve written a register+login system in Node/Express and the last attempts were janky. This time I want some proper security practices and to also use the latest and greatest JS stylings - ESM. It’s now feature complete enough to be rolled out, and it’s first job will be to make a server for lingomio (prev langpad).
Pokémon Scarlet
We bought Pokémon Scarlet. I didn’t have any expectations for this game but I think it brings some neat things to the series which have been undersold or under advertised (i didn’t play Legends: Arceus so maybe these things are not actually new): battles in situ - no generic battle background - it just un-renders some nearby models and everyone stands in place and battles. All wild Pokémon encounters happen this way. This leads to some fun physics guesswork where non aquatic Pokémon have to stand on a big white balloon during water battles. Sometimes poke balls fall to the ground, sometimes they don’t. You can move the camera under the earth if you’re stood on a hill. All the good stuff like that. No random encounters except for Pokémon you can see in the overworld. It looks and feels a bit like the anime. If I was a kid I think I’d love it, but my imagination is not that good any more. And the graphics style on the switch is charmless. The music is much improved from (for me) the low points of Black/White and X/Y - less cutting, aggressive, noisy. Music transitions smoothly from background to battle to riding. Worst gimmick is the school.
Lingo
I am working on my Vietnamese still. I practice Spanish a lot. I saw a lot of friends taking French in Duolingo so I gave it a shot and got sent straight to Section 3 of the French course (flattered), but it still feels like French for babies. French is my only language where comprehension is easier than construction.
Bloggins
It’s football season again! That means it’s that two-blog time of year as I man the Pigskin Chronicle as lead developer slash editor in chief. The hand that rolls the presses rules the world, and I look forward to another year of providing political resistance and general antagonism to my dear friend slash league commissioner, Andy.
Also if this post works then I can blog from my phone via Working Copy for iOS now 🤞
Shout out to my wife for being an excellent genius/detective/wife. 🫶