Week 172: sardine

âIâm in oilâ
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There was the head (and some body) of a sardine on the Tesco Express self-checkout. Unexpected item, not quite in the bagging area, it was next to the barcode scanner, and it was cool how the sardine had evolved its silver skin to blend in with the brushed stainless steel surface.
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Some of the product names on Amazon are the way they are, like âunisex bicycle doorbellâ, for interesting reasons no doubt.
If theyâre not too big, you can get things delivered to an Amazon Hub Locker â you see them at railway stations and petrol stations and supermarket car parks, places of that nature. Usually thereâs a bit where you try to scan a barcode, or key in a code on a touchscreen keyboard, and after an indeterminate amount of time a door of the locker swings open, hitting you in the head, revealing your parcel.
But this week I had the pleasure of using a better kind of locker, which uses Bluetooth to pair to the app on your phone, which can be done while you stand back a safe distance, and I was really delighted not to be hit in the head.
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Some work. Doing some modern JavaScript stuff. I know what Hooks are in React now, they seem neat. And thereâs optional chaining nowâ˝
The goal is to redo all the maps on bustimes.org using the modern stuff. The end result might be, by some measures, worse and more bloated than before, but also better in other ways. And Iâll feel less stagnant, more dynamic and employable.
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Went to Thetford, where theyâre really quite excited about being the birthplace of Thomas Paine, a historical figure best known these days from various guysâ Twitter profile pictures. Went there mainly to see some live comedy, headlined by Paul Sinha whoâs the famous star of TV quiz The Chase, which is also the name of a value chain pub in outer Thetford, a coincidence that went unnoticed.
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Finally tried Adrian Chilesâs soda bread recipe. And, how can I put this without using the dreaded âmoistâ? It wasnât wet, but I think it wasnât dry enough. Anyway, soda bread is nice sometimes, but when thereâs plenty of yeast about (as there is these days) use it.