Cool
One cool tune, one cool thing, one cool quote. Every week.
Music selections are also in this convenient Spotify Playlist.
2021
Week 52
SuperHuman by Black Gummy, Colleen D’agnostino
White Collar seasons 1 to 5. I never really got into this when it first aired, but I’ve become deeply invested over the Christmas holidays.
“You all have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you. I want you to know that it’s okay if you only save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you.”
Week 51
Marlboro by Prince of Falls, Foreign Heat
Tarocash Not only is their product on-point and quality, their staff are friendly and next level helpful. Getting a jacket I ordered online in the wrong size swapped was a breeze. I don’t often endorse companies or products, but this is one of the few times I will.
Week 50
California by Mylene Farmer
Horizon Zero Dawn: Frozen Wilds I am still very into this.
Week 49
La neige au Sahara by Anggun
Medication Being advised to think of medication as being akin to using prescription glasses for your vision was a life changing moment.
Week 48
A Moment Apart by ODESZA
Self Care Accepting and embracing all that you are, and supporting that in the kindest way possible.
Week 47
Soft Rock by CXLOE
Will autobigraphy by Will Smith. Not what I expected, particularly seeing how his ADHD manifests and his approaches to handling it.
Week 46
Excess by Robots with Rayguns
Horizon Zero Dawn: Frozen Wilds The story continues, it ties in with the existing story. I am very into this.
Week 45
Timebomb by Angels vs Airwaves
Non-pessimization philiosophy of optimization The Refterm YouTube lecture series clarified and extended my stances on code approach and optimisations in the best way.
Week 44
Alizee by Moi Lolita
Foundation Series 1. Finally really hitting it’s stride.
Week 43
Plasma by Aim To Head
The WoW Diary: A Journal of Computer Game Development Incredibly detailed and insightful accounting of how all the facets of a game I poured hundreds of hours into came into existence.
Week 42
bloodline by Ariana Grande
Dune movie. Gorgeous, detailed, intimate and yet epic. One of the rare times a movie lives up to it’s trailer. Watched it twice on opening day.
Week 41
Atmosphere by DJ Licious
React Reducers are a delightfully elegant (and just as importantly, testable) solution to state and transitions between them.
Week 40
Desert Rose by Sting, Cheb Mami
Foundation Series 1. Beautiful and intricate and detailed and inspiring, but also a depressingly realistic portrait of our possible futures.
Week 39
Hello by Martin Solveig, Dragonette
Star Trek Discovery Season 3. Again. Grudge and Booker and their ship.
Week 38
1993 by Manila Killa
Coding at the speed of thought. I created a library of standardised configs and utils for all my projects. My ability to switch between and to re-use code between them has increased dramatically.
Week 37
Walk by Kwabs
React useRef and using it for local variables. It didn’t occur to me to use it this way and now I can’t imagine using React without it.
Week 36
World of Promises by Mind.in.a.box
Horizon Zero Dawn technology Between Tech and Art talk on their procedural landscapes and artist tools to manipulate them in real time.
Week 35
Lost Maps by Marnie
Secret Brands A William Gibson’esque piece of distinctly Japanese culture.
Week 34
Paradise by Bazzi
Luca Pixar finally nail it again with a sweet and enchanting story of differences and acceptance.
Week 33
Afrika Shox by Leftfield, Afrika Bombaataa
Lisp I finally did a deep dive into the Lisp language. It’s both elegant and very clever with a simple scheme empowering an astonishing flexibility to build upon. The origins and thought processes behind it are just as interesting as the language itself.
“Do the next right thing” ― Elsa / Frozen II
Week 32
Low Blow by CXLOE
Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 Indepth documentary on the creation of the Disney musical, revealing a chaotic story process as they try to figure out an ending that actually makes sense.
Week 31
Night in White Satin by The Moody Blues
Disney Animation Website the revamped design and site is both beautiful and functional, not an easy trick to pull off.
Week 30
Fallen Stars by IVOXYGEN
Dune Movie Trailer Stunning. Epic. I am all in for this ride.
Week 29
Giver by K.Flay
Tomorrowland movie. Optimisim and hope in the face of adversity. This will always be cool.
Week 28
Can’t Drive by L R D U, Mammals
Wonder Boy documentary on Olivier Rousteing, the creative director of fashion house Balmain, searching for meaning in his adoptive origins.
Week 27
I Like Drinking by Indiana
macOS Monterey Beta Surprisingly stable, really fun. My ADHD appreciates the uncluttered visual design, however my muscle memory is struggling with the extra steps to reveal features before use. This trade off works for me, but I’m not typical...
“Keep a notebook. Keep a lot of them. Never stop doing your own work. Employers come and go, studios fold and companies go bankrupt — you have to stay true to your own observations, remaining witness to your own life. Nothing is more important than this.”
Week 26
Not Girlfriend Material by Indiana
Windows 11 Design The UI and UX overhaul is beautiful and thoughtful and surprisingly compelling.
“Sovereignty for creators and agency for consumers” ― Windows 11 core goals
Week 25
Archetype by She
Puddles Disney Spark Shorts. The delight and wonder of the moment, sharply contrasted against the displacement and disconnected of social media
Week 24
Drift Away by i_o, Lights
Twilight Midnight Sun Yes really. Until the last chapter, where Edwards lies and betrayal undermines everything that follows.
Week 23
Horizons Glow by Keep Shelly in Athens
WWDC It turns out making dev conferences remote makes them significantly better.
“Hobbies are our chance to create without the baggage of external requirements or external validation.”
Week 22
Have it all (Andex Remix) by Elephante, Nevve, Anden
Serotonin sleep connection People need serotonin to transition from REM sleep to deep sleep. If you don’t have enough the most efficient and expedient way for your brain to generate it is to create intense nightmares. This explains a lot.
“Be proud, it’s noble to create” ― Jeff Vogel on being a game developer
Week 21
Taste of You by Dove Cameron
Realisation that web design is a blend of imagination and engineering. Literally Imagineering.
Week 20
Pretty by Marcus Mumford, Tom Howe
Ted Lasso again. Because I watched the entire season again.
Week 19
Don’t Turn Off The Lights by Enrique Englesias
Mythic Quest Season 2
Week 18
Fall to Earth by Gramsci
Biological Clock Resets Discovering these are as simple as starting your morning with a walk in the sunlight.
Week 17
Decks Dark by Radiohead
Ted Lasso My new go-to happy place, which ironically replaces The Good Place.
Week 16
Communication by Ace Marino
Semantic Satiation The psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener.
Week 15
Stonefist by HEALTH
macOS high quality audio Enabling the AAC codec in macOS to get the same high quality audio you already have on iOS devices. Why isn’t this on by default?
Week 14
Awake by Tycho
Nier Automata game, again.
Week 13
Lay all your love on me by Putin’s Bird (slowed and reverb version of the original Abba song)
CSS Zen Garden Still. Remember when the web had personality? And web design wasn’t just make it flatter/blander?
Week 12
Civilization by Justice
Drive to Survive Season 3, irregardless of the authenticity of the drama, it captures the fun and intensity of the sport both on and off the track.
Week 11
Late Night by Odeza
Mac OS 9.22 elegant and simple and a delight to use. Spatial interface with a single window for each folder that remembers it’s positions, icons, colours. You can use muscle memory and visual sense to navigate the entire machine. Mind blowing.
Week 10
World in My Eyes by Depeche Mode (Cicada Mix from Ready Player One)
Tron Legacy a perfect poem of a movie; kids and their fathers, life vs perfection, growth and change.
Week 9
Wanderers by Cristian Sandquist
Miss Americana Taylor Swift documentary, unexpectedly honest and delightful story of recovering and owning your own power.
Week 8
The Son of Flynn by Daft Punk
Amiga Exec Lists and Queues Amiga system software has an elegant implementation of double linked lists that is memory efficient, thoughtfully designed. The documentation on the AmigaOS wiki site shows a surprisingly simple for loop that traverses a list, the elegance of which blew my mind.
Week 7
Hallelujah California by Luna Shadows
Resident Alien Season 1, quirky and somehow relatable. Alan Tudyk continues to be a delight.
“If the magic kingdom is fantasy made real, Epcot is reality made fantastic” ― Walt Disney
Week 6
To Me by Bulent Aris
Nier Automata game, a wildly inventive blend of gameplay mechanics.
Week 5
Snowpack 3.0 Modern web development bundler, but so fast and simple it’s a game changer.
“Character is easier kept than recovered”
Week 4
Only Want You by Rita Ora
Death Stranding game. Immersive and absorbing, yet unapologetically idiosyncratic.
“No is a full sentence.” ― Elizabeth Olsen
Week 3
Sunsets by Powderfinger
Lupin Season 1, charismatic heist fun.
Week 2
New Cydonia by Starcadian feat HAYLEY
Star Trek Discovery Season 3, it’s finally found itself and become great.
“We will not starve from lack of wonders, but lack of wonder.” ― G.K. Chesterton
Week 1
Don’t Stand So Close To Me by Dave Aude Remix / Sting
Looking back to look forward. Pulling together a cohesive strategy for life from reviewing last year.
2020