Week 211

Monday 3 April 2023

• Some work.

  Is there a term of art for the “then every _ minutes until” or “at these times past the hour until” things in the presentation of public transport timetables? They can save paper, but on a web page where the canvas is infinite they only save a bit of bandwidth, and they’re annoying and confusing. Someone had even written a script to expand a copied-and-pasted abbreviated bustimes.org timetable, I think it might have been an Emacs Lisp thing but I can’t find it now. Stupidly, I’m reluctant to throw away all the hard work it took to implement these abbreviations, but at last I’ve stopped the “then hourly until” and others who don’t save much screen space, so that’s something.

• 🎦 Pearl (2022), lovely stuff.

• Infinity Pool (2023) has a plot some have called “silly”, which of course I thought was great, but I grew to resent having to sit through all the rich buggers’ antics. I suppose managing to be boring despite everything is a sort of achievement.

  There’s a bit where Alexander Skarsgård takes a protracted moment to lock a door, and I could relate because earlier I’d used a toilet cubicle with a loose-hanging door latch, had to use my bag to hold it shut, wished I’d had a screwdriver with me but realised it probably needed new holes drilling. Immersive cinema!

• Turns out the Odeon private API does distinguish between broken and occupied seats. The possible seat-availaility statuses are “Available”, “Broken”, “House” and “Sold”. But it’s complicated, you’ve got to use the seat-layout endpoint to work out which seat each seatId refers to, and I’m so tired.

• To London’s wooden Shakespeare’s Globe to take in two candlelit early Edinburgh previews.

  The coach stop arrangements at Stratford City bus station have changed, the information has become more contradictory, and it’s a desolate place to wait at night-time. But it’s character-building, and slightly cheaper than the train.

• To the ancestral home, a bit cold and musty, I never remember to bring thick enough socks or an extra jumper. Nevertheless, nice.