Making pound cake in a bread machine does not result in the softest, most perfectly baked cake. Next time I will use the oven like I normally would. It was a fun experiment, though.

If Sen. Josh Hawley follows through with his objection to the electoral college results, he deserves expulsion from the Senate.

I am making poundcake in my new bread machine today just to see if it will work. 👨‍🍳

I’m back to late-night debugging: a nasty bug has gotten worse, not better, since I started compiling my app on the iOS 14 SDK. It’s not the best idea to wait until late at night to think really hard about a mind-bending problem, but that’s the only time I have to myself.

I’ve gotten to the point with my cooking that I always think that I have no idea what I am doing, but end up rejecting most recipes I find, and my dinners come out really good anyway.

My pinboard.in subscription is lapsing in two weeks. I think I will let it expire. I have been a member for five years, and in that time have used Pinboard, and bookmarks in general, less and less. I wish I had joined it back when it offered lifetime subscriptions.

🎬 Wonder Woman: 1984 was all kinds of just OK. I mostly enjoyed the set pieces but through the whole thing didn’t fit together that well. I would love a better-written, more cohesive adventure, if there is another sequel. Maybe team up Gal Godot and Linda Carter.

I got a chance to play a few hours of Ori and the Will of the Wisps over the past couple days, and think it is absolutely amazing. While it definitely rehashes some of the same scenarios and story beats from the first game, the gameplay is actually significantly more complex and rewarding. I think I’m benefiting from my experience with the first game, which I played through twice, but I have found the sequel to be a little more forgiving in its difficulty.

In general, it is wonderful to have some fun video games to retreat to in this very stressful pandemic time. I do recognize that I need to turn away from gaming a little bit more than I have been, and move back to more productive activities in my “free time.” Games like Ori make that just a little bit harder.

I have been busy with family most of the time the past few days, mostly doing Christmas-y things. I barely celebrate Christmas any more, mostly because my wife and kids are Jewish and I have a complicated relationship with Christmas. (Couldn’t we just celebrate Saturnalia or something instead?) This year, I found some Christmas music I actually like (the “Jazz Christmas” playlist on Apple Music, plus “Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas” and Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Music.”), and plan to bake cookies and host a family dinner this evening. It’s all very nice and a lot easier than the Christmas-related travel to see family that we always did before the pandemic.

“His Dark Materials” is another “limited” series that has been reviewed for its third and final season. It is based on a three-book series, so three seasons of TV adaption makes perfect sense. I hope that more book-to-one-season-of-television adaptations are made going forward, because it offers more time to tell the story than a 2-hour movie, but not too much time, like an open-ended TV series adaptation would.

While it is not my favorite show on TV right now, it is up there. I think the cast is fantastic and the cinematography and visual effects look great. The Amber Spyglass, book three of the series, is my least favorite, and I have no idea how parts of it could be visualized the the screen, but I don’t have any doubts that “His Dark Materials” will do a really good job with it.

How can there be no emoji for “idiot?" 🤯

Per Russ Burlingame on ComicBook.com:

“Ted Lasso is a three-season show. After the third season, I will desperately try to get Mr. Sudeikis to do a…” Lawrence started, and then he stopped to rephrase. “The only way I think a fourth season of Ted Lasso exists would be if TL went and coached a soccer team that played about a block from Jason’s house in real life, you know what I mean? He’s got young kids.”

I’m OK with this. I loved Season 1 of “Ted Lasso” but I think the premise will completely wear out its welcome by episode 30. Limited series are good.

Last night I started playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps on the Switch. I only had about 15 minutes, so I barely got into gameplay, but I was floored by how beautiful the game is. The beginning is like watching an animated movie.

I like Reeder 5, but I have been dissatisfied with feed syncing over iCloud for the past few days. The feed lists and unread posts have not been keeping in sync between my iPhone and iPad. I can’t be the only one experiencing this. Hopefully the developer will sort it out.

From Adi Robertson in The Verge:

The Enola Holmes case hinged on Sherlock Holmes’ complicated copyright status. Most Holmes stories sit in the public domain, and stories like Enola Holmes — which reimagines Holmes (played by Henry Cavill) having a younger sister — can freely repurpose their elements. But 10 of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are still protected by copyright, and the Doyle estate argued that they depict a meaningfully different version of the character. (He’s more caring, less overtly contemptuous of women and friendship, and generally less of a jerk.)

I don’t believe Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate should have any rights over Sherlock Holmes at all. Conan Doyle died in 1930. It’s completely outrageous.

I am taking a Robotic Process Automation online course for work today. Maybe, after I complete it, I will create a bot to take the rest of the courses for me.

I took advantage of the Nintendo eShop sales this week to buy a bunch of games, at varying discounts, to play in the new year:

• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
• Horace
• Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

This strategy has worked out pretty well for me the past couple years, though it does mean that some games remain unplayed for months.

I started getting emails that frontline medical workers in my area have already received the COVID-19 vaccine. That is reassuring. Based on how the year has been going, I expected controversy and uproar already.

From Julia Alexander in The Verge:

The show, The Book of Boba Fett, was not included as an announcement during Disney’s big investor day last week. Several other Star Wars projects, including two Mandalorian spinoffs — an Ahsoka Tano show and Rangers of the New Republic — a Lando Calrissian show, and a Star Wars anime, were announced last week.

I can’t help but think that Disney may be planning to give fans too much of a good thing. The whole kerfuffle about Solo flopping, due to exhausted audience interest, which led to the scuttling of the Star Wars side story movie series, is only about two years old. I love The Madalorian, but I don’t think I would want to watch it, or something very much like it, every single week. I’m pretty sure I would get sick of it.

I was right to be concerned about snow removal, because our snow plow guy just quit and passed us off to someone else who hasn’t called me yet. It will be dark out in about half an hour, too.

Eric Lander, who is a genius brimming with charisma, is probably the best Armchair Expert podcast guest ever. Listen if you have any interest in the Human Genome Project, which he helped lead.

🎮 I am happy to see that Hades is getting some “game of the year” nods, from Polygon and from Chiam Gartenberg of The Verge. It is easily my favorite game since Hollow Knight.

I woke up to a decent amount of snowfall, which totally surprised me. I am unsure how we are going to clear it off our driveway and sidewalks, though.

I finally got an Apple TV+ free trial. 😎

The snowstorm started and my kids are excited.