Will

I just binged the whole thing today!

I’m watching!

I stand almost all the time while I’m at home. I’d like to get something I can kneel on (I often do this as a bit of a break with my chair) and we have some balancing stools in the office which are quite nice. My favourite chair of all time was the Patrick chair from IKEA: Not sure why, but it just really suited the way I sat and I felt super comfy in it - I wish I could still get hold of one.

I’m exactly the opposite, I love the fact that I have my office at home and can just switch off from work and be ready to enjoy my free time. I have everything set up just as I want it and nice equipment rather than any old crap I might get in an office. I don’t think I’ve ever felt less burnt out and pissed off about work.

That’s OK, there definitely seem to be more things to be mindful of with new builds. I do wonder if a lot of that is down to the fact that “new build” is such a massive all encompassing term that anything bad with any element of any new house gets lumped together with “new build bad” type thinking? As you say, so long as we look into everything properly there shouldn’t be any nasty surprises. First thing we need to do is speak to an advisor and see what is actually possible for us. Affordability shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but given we now have no financial history there I’m not sure what issues that will throw up.

Have to say, of everything we’ve seen so far, it’s only really the new build flats that seem to match how we like to live. We’ll see what we can work out on that front and take things from there. We’ve only really used rightmove.com for the search so far as that was what I used when I was last in the UK - are there any other sites we should be making use of too? I’m looking forward to actually being there and being able to get some of this stuff moving properly.

That bag looks nice! I was pretty lucky as they were doing a pretty decent launch deal and I got a bag, extra battery, and memory card all included. I also got a mini-tripod / Bluetooth controller included which has been pretty good so far. The gorillapod is a great idea! Now that I think about it I actually have one somewhere, I think I bought it when I moved to Japan and used it with my phone to take time lapses sat in Starbucks while I studied - I’ll try and dig it out as it would definitely be easy to bring around with me.

I’m really loving this thing, still haven’t gotten into the details on the settings but absolutely want it to be with me all the time. Going to buy a few bits to enhance the experience: This clip so that I can attach it to the strap of my bag for easy access. And: a hand strap so I feel a bit more secure holding it in odd places. Anything else that you guys would recommend? Not going to look into anything really big until I have a bit more of a clue what I’m doing, just quality of life accessories right now.

Yeah that doesn’t sound fun at all. Not the best way to transition but hopefully it’s just a short term hiccup as things get back on track. I’m not surprised you hate it right now but at least give it a chance - I really do think Scrum has a lot of value when run properly.

It sounds like your team are implementing this in a really weird way. Where are these tasks for the QA team coming from if the devs are unable to work on anything? Are they not testing the stories that the devs complete during the sprint? It sounds to me like whoever’s managing this has absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Nowadays I only have my facebook account active in order to use my Oculus and I do use WhatsApp and messenger with a couple of my contacts. Really think they suck, hopefully this convinces a few more people to move away from their services.

Tend to agree with a lot of what’s being said… I really hadn’t thought about washing at all. I’m not so much worried about drying it in a flat (as we’d definitely go for one that had a balcony), but more just drying stuff generally in the UK. Have gotten used to every day just being able to hang it out and the sun drying it in about 15 seconds. In Japan the bathroom had a washing line in it and the whole room turned into a giant tumble drier - that was pretty cool! That’s a good point, but apart from the volume thing couldn’t the same problem happen in a house too? I guess you are at least a bit more physically separated from them though. We definitely have some asshole neighbours here but it’s never really bothered us all too much. Yeah, this is probably the thing that bothers me the most about it too. The new build flats we’ve looked at have a 999 year lease which puts me somewhat at ease though. The problem now is it seems actually getting a mortgage on something like that is pretty difficult. The mortgage thing will really screw us I think, the places we’d want to be in are all new builds which cover everything we’d want and also have a decent amount of outdoor space. Now we’re kind of thinking about some sort of town house, which seem to overcome some of the issues you get with flats. Even though we’re only at the start of this I already feel stressed about it all.

Yeah outdoor space is important but so long as there is a nearby park/field I think that’s fine. We’d definitely look to get something with a balcony just so there was somewhere to get fresh air easily.

Any thoughts on buying a flat rather than a house? My family seem to think I’m insane for even considering it but we’ve always lived in flats and honestly quite like it. I think it mainly stems from the Grenfell Tower fire and they now have an assumption that at some point we will die because of being in a flat.

I did! So far very happy with it, the family pictures have been vastly improved with it and that was the main point of getting it. I also used it as a webcam for a bit last week and it really made a huge difference to that too. Still need to learn how to use it properly but so far the pre-sets have been working great for me.

Took my new camera to Jewel Changi, a crazy mall we have here. Some of my favourite shots: I still don’t really know what I’m doing, pretty much just shooting what I like and seeing what happens. Feedback most welcome!

Wanted to watch the Daniel Craig Bond films again before I see the new one, but realized the collection wasn’t that much more expensive so I bought them all: Good background movies when you’re doing something else IMO.

Looks like you did a great job on it! Would love to do something similar in the future.

It’s the whole thing, I’m actually impressed they’ve managed to make something that runs so badly. The slowdown in the main game can totally break a run. If you’re into a particularly fiddly or tight section of a level and it hits (it doesn’t seem to be related to anything particularly happening on screen) then, for me at least, it was most likely to mean game over. It could just be the PS5 version I suppose?

Well I have to say I’m quite disappointed from my quick try. I’m playing on PS5 but it runs like crap. Numerous slowdowns during regular gameplay and I’d totally forgotten pop-up was a thing until I was playing Monkey Race, it was honestly like something on the Saturn. Monkey Fight doesn’t seem to play quite right and you can’t punch the camera after you win which was a great little touch in the originals. Monkey Target just seems completely broken. Not their fault but definitely miss the notches of the Gamecube main stick. So yeah, not great so far which is a real shame.

I’d somehow totally forgotten about this until now. Absolutely loved the original game and was pretty damn good at it back in the day. Should be downloaded soon, looking forward to giving it a go.

I feel like I’ve made a fair few big decisions in my time, and I have a very easy way of evaluating them. The way I do it is to imagine myself in the future, say 5 or 10 years down the line, and evaluate what I’d think of the good/bad of each option and try to see where the balance lies - it usually comes down to will you regret not trying the “change” part of the decision you’re making vs. will life actually progress if you stay as you are. For me, this has served me well in every big change I’ve thought about. In your situation I’d weigh it up as if I move and the whole thing fucks up what do you do? Probably move back and within a few months be back to where you were before you left, but with the experience of trying it. If you don’t move, what will you think in 10 years time? For me, at least, I’d probably be incrementally better off than I was before but always wondering what might have been - this might be different for you, but it will give you a pretty good indicator of what you want to do. We really only have so many years to do things like this, if you have the chance, it’s really something special to do. I moved away ten years ago now and I’ve not once regretted it - experiencing new places/people/things as something more than a holiday is honestly life changing. If I were you I would 100% do it.

Bad managers ruin everything. Pretty much everywhere I’ve worked have had Scrum as the base methodology used. I’ve definitely seen it used badly but the last really product related role I had it really worked amazingly well. I think if you actually have the right people on the management/product side Scrum can be one of the best things to keep everyone locked together and working towards the same goals. My current role is about as far away from product as I’ve ever been and I’ve semi-implemented some Scrum stuff into how my team works and it’s worked well even outside of development imo. Disclaimer - I am a manager type and you are free to discard everything I said.

Wow, that’s quite a difference! We wouldn’t be able to have any sort of life but that sort of difference would push us up into the next bracket of property if we maxed out.

Yeah it’s what I always hear, and mostly agree with it. I guess it’s just kicking the pain further down the road and potentially in a bigger manner. We’ve been looking at some online mortgage calculators and seems we can afford the type of place we’d like to live in pretty easily. Did you all find much change when you started speaking to proper advisors? I don’t want to get excited because a website tells me I can live in a great place only to find that the reality is we have to move into a shared studio in the basement.