How are you?

Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary

To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2, we’ve gotten members of the HL2 team back to talk about the game’s development, how we almost ran out of money, what it was like when we were hacked, what happened when we were sued by our publisher, the birthplace of Steam, and much more.

Really interesting documentary.

See also: Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary.

Gmail: Designed to be joyfully simple

I really enjoyed this conversation between early Gmail designers Elizabeth Laraki and Kevin Fox.

Fox on the joy of confidence:

[..] You know how to use something — it’s frictionless in how the user interacts with it. The user doesn’t have to think about how to use the tool and instead their reflexes do the work, and the UI gets out of the way. But at the same time it has a visual setting that puts them at ease, and it helps them down the path when they’re doing something novel they haven’t done before, so they hit the right thing without having to work hard to figure it out. That makes for a joyful experience.

When I received my Gmail invite more than twenty(!) years ago it was clear that it wasn’t just a improvement on webmail but a truly groundbreaking product.

It’s remarkable how many of the user interface paradigms pioneered by Gmail have become industry standards today.

Yamauchi No.10 Family Office

This is a high-quality website.

Fitness trackers I have known

• March 2012: Nike+ Fuelband
• December 2013: Nike+ Fuelband SE
• April 2015: Apple Watch
• May 2016: Fitbit Flex
• October 2016: Fitbit Flex 2
• January 2021: Garmin Vivofit 4
• September 2024: Oura Ring

Departure Mono

Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font inspired by the constraints of early command-line and graphical user interfaces, the tiny pixel fonts of the late 90s/early 00s, and sci-fi concepts from film and television.

Via Greg Storey.

Perfect Days (2023)

Perfect Days is such a wonderfully human film! It captures the beauty of routine, the joie de vivre and the satisfaction of a job well done, all set amongst the sights and sounds of one of my favorite cities.

5 out of 5

Side chilli

These chillis are a great accompaniment to tear-and-share meals like slow roasted leg of goat.

Ingredients

• Red chilli, 4 large, sliced fine crosswise
• Salt, 1 tsp
• Sugar, 1 tsp
• Cider vinegar, 3 tbsp
• Rice vinegar, 3 tbsp

Instructions

1. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well.
2. Refrigerate for an hour then serve!

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020)

Picked this up over Christmas which happened to coincide with the story setting. A shorter game with a concise story – I enjoyed it!

Also: I found the web slinging more accurate and better feeling than Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

4 out of 5

First look at Poem/1

I really like the look (and soul!) of Matt Webb’s AI rhyming clock:

It’s a device that tells the time with RHYMING COUPLETS! It’s a MACHINE POET that lives on my frickin BOOKSHELVES composing tirelessly and INFINITELY. Anything apart from the poetry that yells for attention distracts from that.

Launching on Kickstarter next week!

Cottage pie

There’s nothing particularly special about this recipe other than it came out rather well and I’d like to make it again!

Ingredients

• Beef mince, 400g
• Mashed potato¹, enough mash for 3cm layer
• Brown onion, 2 medium, minced
• White mushroom, 300g, diced small
• Carrot, 1 large, diced small
• Frozen peas, 1 cup
• Garlic, 3 cloves, minced
• Tomato purée, 1 tbsp
• Harissa, 1 tbsp
• Vegetable stock, 250ml
• Henderson’s relish, 1 tbsp
• Thyme, leaves from 4 sprigs
• Ground coriander, 1 tsp
• Ground cumin, 1 tsp
• Ground fennel seed, 1 tsp
• Salt + pepper

Instructions

1. Take a good-sized pan, put on a medium-high heat, add a touch of vegetable oil followed by the onion and garlic then cook until they start to turn translucent.
2. Add the carrots and cook for a 5 minutes.
3. Add the mushroom and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Stir in the tomato purée and harissa then cook for a few minutes.
5. Add the ground coriander, ground cumin and ground fennel seed, stir well then cook for a few minutes.
6. Stir in the mince and the thyme, using a spatula to ensure the mince is broken up.
7. Add the frozen peas, vegetable stock and Henderson’s relish. Season with salt and pepper then stir well.
8. Bring to a hearty simmer for ~20 minutes or until most of the liquid has reduced then set aside to cool.
9. Spoon the mixture into a deep oven dish and top with mash then grate some cheddar cheese on top.
10. Put the oven dish in the middle of a pre-heated oven set to 180℃. Cook for 30 minutes or until piping hot in the middle and golden on top.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (2023)

I adore Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (2020) so I was super-excited to play the sequel.

It’s a good game, but not as accomplished as the first. The story feels tenuous and overextended, the mechanics are odd (parry being particularly frustrating) and the web swinging is finicky.

Side missions are uninspired and samey, with stealth playing second fiddle to all-out combat. Gadgets aren’t as fun as those in the first game — I struggle to tell the difference between them all.

I didn’t play at release (I downloaded a post-installation update) but I’ve encountered a fair number of bugs including the crash-and-report kind.

3 out of 5

lima-test

I’ve been looking at Lima as a replacement for Vagrant × VirtualBox since switching to a Mac with Apple Silicon:

My use case is to spin up a disposable virtual machine running a flavour of Linux that is mounted to the directory from which it is run.

I didn’t find a lot of prior art so I’m sharing for people of the future.

My top 5 hot sauces

1. Tabasco Pepper Sauce
2. Crystal Hot Sauce
3. Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
4. Cholula Hot Sauce
5. Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce

Wonderbag

Wonderbag is a draw-string bag that’s overstuffed with repurposed foam chips:

After bringing a pot of food to the boil and placing it in a Wonderbag, the food will continue cooking for up to eight hours without any additional energy source.

I love my Wonderbag. It makes particularly great curry. I associate slow cookers with overcooked ingredients but Wonderbag is different (and unpowered), leaving vegetables with their bite and protein in one piece.

Thx Seamus!

Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the release of Half-Life we reunited the original development team to share their memories of creating Valve’s first game.

I must have spent hundreds of hours playing Half-Life.

I was dismayed to discover that you can no longer play Half-Life on macOS since macOS 10.15 Catalina removed support for 32-bit software :(

Loki S02 (2023)

I found the plot of Loki’s second season confusing and the cinematography a step down compared to the first. I really liked Ke Huy Quan as Ouroboros and the set and prop design was great.

3 out of 5

Emoji Kitchen

This website allows for quick and easy browsing of the comprehensive list of supported emoji mashups as part of Google’s Emoji Kitchen.

Thx jb!

Pulled pork

Ingredients

• Pork shoulder, ~1¾kg, rind removed (reserve for crackling!)
• Brown onion, 2 large, cut into ⅛ pieces
• Red chilli, 1 large, deseeded and cut in half
• Garlic, 1 bulb, crushed
• Vegetable stock, 300ml
• Tomato ketchup, 6 tbsp
• Tomato purée, 2 tbsp
• Cider vinegar, 2 tbsp
• Soy sauce, 2 tbsp
• Henderson’s relish, 1 tbsp
• Smoked paprika, 1 tbsp
• Celery salt, 1 tbsp
• Seasoning mix¹, ½ cup (metric)

Instructions

1. Generously rub the seasoning mix into the pork shoulder ensuring it gets into all the nooks and crannies. Wrap with cling film and refrigerate for four hours (but ideally overnight).
2. Take a heavy casserole pan and add the brown onion, red chilli, garlic and pour in the vegetable stock then place the pork shoulder on top.
3. Take a mixing bowl, add the tomato ketchup, tomato purée, cider vinegar, soy sauce, Henderson’s relish, smoked paprika and celery salt. Whisk until combined then pour over the pork shoulder.
4. Snug a piece of baking paper directly over the pork shoulder. Lay a few sheets of tin foil on top of the casserole pan then push the lid down onto the pan to form a seal.
5. Put the casserole pan in the middle of a cold oven and set to 150℃. Cook until the pork is tender and falling apart; test with a fork at 4 hours.
6. Once done, gently remove the pork shoulder to a large mixing bowl and leave to steam for 10 minutes. Use a pair of forks to roughly shred the pork and remove any bits that aren’t tasty (unrendered fat, connective tissue, etc) then tent with tin foil.
7. Blend the remaining contents of the casserole pan to make a smooth sauce. Ladle ~200ml onto the pulled pork and mix well!
8. I like to prepare the pulled pork in advance. To reheat, transfer the pulled pork to a deep oven dish and cover in tin foil. Put the oven dish in the middle of a pre-heated oven set to 180℃. Cook for 20 minutes, stir then cook uncovered for another 10 minutes or until a bit crispy.

Saag aloo

Ingredients

• New potatoes¹, 500g, steamed, peeled and cut into 1½ inch chunks
• Frozen spinach, 500g
• Leek, 1, halved lengthways, sliced fine
• Garlic, ½ bulb, minced
• Ground cumin, 1 tbsp
• Ground coriander, 1 tbsp
• Ground turmeric, ½ tbsp
• Cumin seeds, 1 tbsp
• Yellow mustard seeds, 1 tbsp
• Black mustard seeds, 1 tbsp
• Tomato purée, 1 tbsp
• Vegetable oil
• Salt + pepper

Instructions

1. Put a good-sized pan on a medium-high heat, add a generous amount of vegetable oil then add the cumin seeds, yellow mustard seeds, black mustard seeds and cook until fragrant.
2. Add the leek and garlic followed by a good pinch of salt and pepper then cook until the leek starts to turn translucent.
3. Add the ground coriander, ground tumeric and ground cumin then cook until fragrant.
4. Stir in the tomato purée and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add the frozen spinach and a good pinch of salt. Put the lid on and cook on a medium heat until the spinach has defrosted (~¼ hour?)
6. Add the potatoes and stir gently until well coated in the spice mixture.
7. Turn the heat to low and cook until well reduced, stiring occasionally.

Sticky ribs

This is a straightforward recipe for same-day ribs. You’ll need a rack that will fit inside a deep oven tray and ideally it’ll be one with legs that leaves ½ inch between the rack and the bottom of the tray.

Ingredients

• Back pork ribs, 2
• Barbecue sauce, ~250g
• Seasoning mix¹, ½ cup (metric)
• Vegetable stock, 1 litre
• Salt + pepper

Instructions

1. Generously rub the seasoning mix into the ribs.
2. Place the ribs on the rack then pour the stock from the corner of the oven tray. Add enough stock to reach the bottom of the rack – you don’t want to submerge the ribs.
3. Snug a piece of baking paper directly over the ribs and cover the oven tray with a few sheets of tin foil. Seal well!
4. Put the oven tray in the middle of a cold oven and set to 150℃. Cook for 2 hours.
5. Once done, take out the oven tray, carefully remove the tin foil and baking paper then remove the rack from the oven tray. Set the ribs aside to cool for ½ hour². Reserve the rib stock³.
6. Preheat the oven to 180℃. Put the rack back in the oven tray and paint the top of the ribs with a generous coating of barbecue sauce then put the oven tray in the middle of the oven.
7. Once the barbecue sauce has caramelised somewhat (5/10 minutes), take the oven tray out the oven and paint another coat of barbecue sauce on the top of the ribs. Rinse and repeat another couple of times until well glazed and super sticky.
8. Once done, take out the oven tray and tent with tin foil. Rest for ¼ hour. Separate the rack into individual ribs by running a sharp knife down the side of each rib bone.