Weeknotes 189

This week I realised that Voodoo People by The Prodigy samples Very Ape by Nirvana 🤯

iPhone 16 Pro SSD Upgrade: From 128GB to 1TB – This video was really interesting to me. The part where they get out the CNC and start removing the old chip is wild. Worth a watch.

My old computer was serviced by the local Apple Store and seems to be fixed and with 100% healthy battery to boot. Credit to them, the service was good throughout. Another thing ticked off my list.

Every time I look at my pension retirement seems further away. Clearly I’m not anywhere close to retiring (I don’t actually like the idea of “retirement” because what would I do all day) but the time for thinking about retirement is not a year before retiring, so here we are.

Given that a lot of people are unable to do much about funding their retirement it’s good that I am a) able to; and b) doing so. Still, it can be overwhelming both in the amount you supposedly need to live comfortably, and in the intricacies of “investing”. When it comes to finances, unless you are a gazillionaire, financial advisors don’t really want to know you, so you’re left with Doing Your Own Research ™. Which is terrifying, but also empowering (That empowerment part will entirely rely on what has happened in 20+ years from now – stay tuned).

This is all a long winded way of saying that I’ve been researching pensions and ISAs and what to put where. And importantly, how. I do feel that I’ve gained a better understanding of the whole area.

Making Software Fun – There should be a lot more of this craft in computer programming.

Apple Notes is actually quite good. I have avoided it for years. At the beginning because it wasn’t very good. And then it got better, but still not good. It’s still not that good. The formatting feels random. Sometimes you can’t unindent list items for no good reason.

It’s good because it’s there. It’s on my phone, and it’s on my laptop. And the sync works. I still reach for other tools when I need more structure (Notion at the moment, unfortunately) but for making sure I get the information down. It’s always there.

Mechanical keyboard sounds without the keyboard – Klack.

Satisfying sound with every keystroke

I stopped working on the first Game Boy I was fixing up because the last thing I had in mind for it was to try and fix the case colour. The front of the case is a bit yellowed and doesn’t match the back which is a lighter shade closer to that of the original grey. This can be achieved with a process many have experimented with called Retrobrighting. There are a few methods, but the most popular works by submerging your yellowed case plastics into a bath of 11.99% Hydrogen Peroxide and shining UV lights on it for an indeterminate amount of time.

The first Game Boy wasn’t that yellow though, so it didn’t seem like the correct candidate to experiment on. So, with the threat of chemical burns and potential eye damage (and making it onto a list for weird online purchases) I decided to give it a whirl with a much worse example of yellowing.

I got these two in a bundle on Vinted for the relatively bargain price of £55.59.

Before

I only tried the process on the (can you guess?) left one. The right was in fairly good condition generally and only needed cleaning inside and out.

After

These both have new glass screen lenses but everything else is original. Pretty happy with how they came out.

Next I’ll be returning to the original now I have a bit of experience of how the process works and what to expect to try and brighten it up a bit whilst I wait for my latest AliExpress order to arrive…

A Decade of TILs – Josh’s TIL blog has inspired me (not enough to copy him, yet) but to post these weeknotes regularly. A lot of what he says rings true as to why I’ve managed to keep up myself.