# Recently - July


I skipped the June edition of these retrospective posts, but in the spirit of
[not breaking a habit more than once](https://jamesclear.com/second-mistake),
I'm back with July! I was hoping that COVID was pretty much "over", but with the
[delta variant](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/health/covid-cdc-delta-masks.html)
and my work
[pushing back](https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/vaccines-and-our-return-to-office-plans/)
our return-to-office until mid-October... the pandemic is very much still with
us. This whole situation has been predictably unpredictable.

Aside from a record-breaking
[heat wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave#Washington)
in June, the summer has been quite pleasant. Seattle gets a couple months of
near-perfect (70°F, moderate humidity) weather each year, which makes up for the
grey/gloomy winters.

## What I've Been Reading

-   [**Project Hail Mary**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-mary)
    (4/5 ⭐️): The latest page-turner sci-fi novel by Andy Weir (who wrote
    [The Martian](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)>)).
    (_Warning: Mild spoilers_). Lots of interesting concepts explored:
    interstellar travel, xenobiology, communication with extraterrestrial life,
    civilization-scale megaprojects, and so on. My only criticism of this book
    is that in some parts, it kinda felt like "cliff notes" of a sci-fi novel,
    and asked the reader to fill in some of the blanks so that Weir could focus
    on the parts he was more interested in. The Audible audiobook of this was
    quite good.

-   [**The Color of Magic**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34497.The_Color_of_Magic)
    (2/5 ⭐️): I've been wanting to read some Terry Pratchett for a while, and
    had heard from others that Discworld is a great series. I naively decided to
    start from book 1, which I've since been informed was
    [a mistake](https://www.discworldemporium.com/content/6-discworld-reading-order).
    The premise is cute -- the world is literally "a flat planet balanced on the
    backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle"
    -- but, I really just couldn't get invested in this book at all. I didn't
    connect with the humor, and... it was a slog to finish. I might give one of
    the standalone Discworld books a chance before writing off the series as
    "not for me".

-   [**The Stone Sky**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31817749-the-stone-sky)
    (5/5 ⭐️): This is the final entry in N.K. Jemisin's "Broken Earth" trilogy.
    Each book in this trilogy won a Hugo award, and now I understand why. Each
    entry in this series (somehow, remarkably) surpasses the last in scope,
    ambition, and storytelling excellence. _The Stone Sky_ wrapped up the series
    with a very satisfying end. (You _definitely_ need to read the books in
    order; jumping to this one without the previous two as context would be a
    challenge.)

-   **[A Million Miles in a Thousand Years](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1999475.A_Million_Miles_in_a_Thousand_Years)**
    (4/5 ⭐️): A memoir about a man editing the screenplay for a film about his
    life. _A Million Miles_ walks right up to the line of "preachy self-help",
    but doesn't cross it. The thesis of this book (as I understood is) is that
    meaning can be found by construing one's life as a storyline. If you aren't
    able to tell yourself a compelling narrative of why you do the things you
    do, you need to change your circumstances. This makes sense -- our memories
    are motivated post-hoc artifacts of our experiences; aligning our
    "day-to-day" experiences with a compelling narrative seems like a way of
    intentionally creating a satisfying retrospective sense of purpose.

## Fermentation

Over the last couple months, I've had a renewed interest in fermentation
projects. Last year, like many others, I tried to learn how to make sourdough
bread -- but eventually gave up after
[mixed results](/blog/2020/04/19/Quarantine-Notes-Week-6/#Cooking) and a
half-dozen failed loaves.

More recently, I've been making pickles and water kefir. I made a batch of
really tasty dill watermellon rind pickles a few weeks ago. Never knew that
watermellon rind is edible, but... it is, after sitting in brine for a few days:

![Watermellon Rind Pickles](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/07/31/Recently-July/pickles.jpg)

I've also been making [water kefir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibicos)
continuously for over a month. It's similar to kambucha, but the fermentation
SCOBY feeds off of sugar water instead of tea. If you've made kambucha before,
the process is similar: you do an initial fermentation to culture the liquid,
and then you do a secondary fermentation which adds flavor (e.g. fruits) and
carbonation.

![Water Kefir in Secondary Ferment (Strawberry and Orange flavored)](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/07/31/Recently-July/kefir_ferment.jpg)

The neat thing about water kefir is that the process is cyclic, and you can keep
it going essentially indefinitely. Once the primary ferment is done, you can
immediately start another primary ferment in a separate jar while the secondary
ferment is happening. It's also (in my experience) a more foolproof process than
making kambucha.

All you need to start is some water kefir "grains" (which hold the
bacteria/yeast), which can easily be bought online. Fun project.

![Water Kefir Grains](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2021/07/31/Recently-July/kefir_grains.jpg)

## Assorted Links

-   [700,000 lines of code, 20 years, and one developer: How Dwarf Fortress is built](https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/07/28/700000-lines-of-code-20-years-and-one-developer-how-dwarf-fortress-is-built/)
    -   An interview with the Dwarf Fortress developer about their development
        practices, and how there codebase has changed (or not) during the the
        game's 20-year development.
-   [The Universe Is a Giant Donut That We Live Inside, New Research Suggests](https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqjkn/the-universe-is-a-giant-donut-that-we-live-inside-new-research-suggests)
    -   I have no idea of the veracity of this research, but it tickled my
        interest, as adjacent to Discworld's "the world is a disc on the back of
        a giant tortoise" premise.
-   [Mark [Zuckerberg] in the metaverse](https://www.platformer.news/p/-mark-in-the-metaverse)
    -   An interesting interview with Mark Zuckerberg on his vision for the
        future of Facebook as a "metaverse" company. I
        [wasn't a huge fan](/blog/2020/12/09/Thoughts-on-the-Oculus-Quest-2/) of
        the social VR software included with Ocuclus' Quest 2, but I'm still
        quite curious about what protocols for a distributed VR/AR "metaverse"
        would look like. I've set myself a reminder for 5 years from now to see
        if this is a vision that actually comes to pass. (Anyone remember the
        "[chatbots are the future of social media](https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/12/agents-on-messenger/)"
        meme?)