Henrik Carlsson posted this
note
on
and tagged it with Apple Watch 
I probably get too annoyed and worked up about this problem with the Apple Watch but the fact that the icon for ”Do Not Disturb” doesn’t follow the accent color of the watch face, resulting in this clash of colors is like nails of a chalkboard to me.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
article
on
and tagged it with Adaptations The Stand TV shows 
Earlier this year (or was it late last year, time blurs) me and Linn watched the new tv series version of Stephen King’s The Stand and we really liked it. It wasn’t the greatest, nor most interesting thing ever made for tv but it was a fun watch. After we finished it I read some reviews and saw that a lot of people, both regular viewers and professional critics, seemed to dislike it and I just couldn’t understand why they where so down on it.
Now that I’ve only got a few hours left of the audiobook of the novel I can sort of see where they are coming from, but I still don’t agree. Yes, if you’ve loved the book for decades then the show is going to leave you feeling it lacks so much. That’s kind of always the case. It’s an adaptation, not an exact word for word retelling with sound and moving images. On the other hand if you, like me, know about the book but haven’t gotten around to reading it the show is great ”fun” and might actually push you to read the book
Stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers.
Thus far in my reading of the book there are even some things that I think the tv show does better, primarily Randall Flagg himself. In the novel he is a sort of a demonic entity from the start whereas in the show he comes of as very human to begin with, almost getting you to like him, while still there being something wrong about him. Alexander Skarsgård is perfectly cast for the roll and his puppy-dog eyes makes it all the more effective when he does do scary things. It’s much more scary with a psychotic human then a demon.
Harold Lauder also comes to mind. The character in the book never gets as interested as he has potential to be and I think Owen Teague’s portrait of him really makes him human. I think there’s much more of an interesting internal conflict in him in the show as compared to the novel, and you end up both hating him, pitying him and also understanding him in the show. In the show you can see how it really was perfectly possible for him to drop his grudges and be ”Hawk” instead, remaking himself as a likable person in Boulder, but that he choses not to.
Worth noting also is the casting of James Marsden as Stu. While not ”better” than the book, it’s simply great casting. Marsden is really the perfect actor to play this almost archetypical character, the redneck with a heart of gold.
This Article was mentioned on blog.henrikcarlsson.se
Henrik Carlsson posted this
note
on
and tagged it with Podcasts Reading For the past month or so I’ve listened to almost no podcasts, instead making my way through audiobook after audiobook, finishing four books I’d started in the past1, starting and finishing one2 and starting and soon finishing one3 and I feel great about it. I’m seriously considering deleting all podcast subscriptions, maybe even the apps as well.
If I listen to a lot of podcasts during a day while doing small chores around the house I often end up with a feeling of not accomplishing anything, wasting my time and my brain power. Doing the same chores but listening to books makes me feel like I’ve done something. Maybe I haven’t done the greatest thing in the world, but I’ve done something I enjoy and want to do more of.
@MrHenko I’ve become very devoted to audiobooks. I
still listen to my favorite podcasts, usually after I’ve finished an audiobook as a palate cleanser. I think I’m averaging 2 books a week.
@jean Wow, that’s an impressive amount of listening. I thought I listened a lot. :)
The idea of podcasts as a palate cleanser is a good one. I might try that, but I worry that the thing that’s managed to keep me away from podcasts and in to audiobooks this past month is that the podcast listening has been almost zero and that the more I listen, the bigger the risk is that I slowly creep away from the audiobooks. Podcasts tend to be so much more ”instant gratification”.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
note
on
and tagged it with Reading What do other people use as ”canonical source” for books, movies, and such? By that I mean if you blog about having read a book or watched a movie, what is the site you link to for the book/movie?
Henrik Carlsson posted this
reply
on
Yes, there are many reasons why a comment section might not be available. But with the exception of disabling comments due to harassment, most of them are not good reasons.
Allow me to be somewhat of a contrarian here. One perfectly good and valid reason would be that the author isn’t interested in receiving comments/feedback, and that is totally fine. People are free to express their opinions on their websites online, whether they want others to respond to those opinions or not.
Though to be clear I welcome replies to my posts via webmentions, but I don’t see it as a given that everyone should.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
photo
on
@MrHenko Just the best set-up : )
Henrik Carlsson posted this
photo
on
and tagged it with Altan Deck Huset snapshots The House 
I finished the privacy screen a few days ago. I’m hoping to get the frame of the pergola together this week.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
note
on
”The car ate road and blew miles out of its tailpipe.”
Such a wonderful line from Stephen King’s The Stand. I think this one will replay in my mind whenever I’m on a long drive next.
@MrHenko Having just done Rome to Puglia in 8.5 hours elapsed time, I can relate.
@jeremycherfas Wow, that’s quite a long time in a car. Quite a lot of interesting places along the way I guess?
@MrHenko Many interesting places, but we stopped only three times, and each time on the road: coffee, sandwich and petrol. Easier to just keep going. My partner doesn’t drive, but is a terrific co-pilot.
@jeremycherfas Yes, staying on (or close to) the road is preferable to the more scenic route when you want to get to the destination. I wish I was someone who took the second option every now and then but I tend to always take as small a detour as possible.
Henrik Carlsson posted this
article
on
and tagged it with micro.blog Microblogging River of News I have a feature request for micro.blog. Well, maybe not so much a feature request as an idea, or food for thought and discussion. I think it comes from a similar idea that Dave Winer blogged about a few years ago, like many such ideas seem to do.
The idea of a character limit for what’s being presented in a river of news or a social network timeline is a good one and I think two-hundred and eighty is a reasonable one. Naturally that means that longer posts needs to be truncated. The idea is that instead of truncating it with a link to the original, maybe the truncated version can be folded out when clicked/tapped to present the full post in the context of the river/timeline.
I think I’ve seen people mocking up similar ideas for twitter in the past as well.
I can see how it can become unwieldy for very long posts and/or posts with a lot of media attached to it. Maybe a two stage process where posts gets folded out to up to something like 500 characters and if they are still not visible in full they’ll get truncated with a link. Or maybe it’s a setting per client? Or maybe it’s not such a good idea at all. I’m not sure.
Any thoughts, dear reader?
@MrHenko Thanks for your thoughts! I’d like to update the timeline display so that it’s both simpler and better accommodates some types of longer posts (like photos or block quotes). I’m not sure what that looks like yet but it’s something I’d like to work on soon.
@manton Thank you for reading and replying, and it sounds like a good start to look into photos and quotes. And as I said I’m not sure the fold out solution I wrote about is the best solution, and probably not applicable everywhere.
Also, it has probably been way too long since I last told you what a great job you and the rest of the team at micro.blog are doing. So thank you for that! :)
@MrHenko Thank you!
Henrik Carlsson posted this
note
on
and tagged it with Stephen King The Stand And now I’ve just renewed my Audible subscription and downloaded Stephen King’s The Stand.
©
Replies and comments
odd
8 juli, 2021 01:15@MrHenko You too? I don’t have a Apple Watch longer, but I remember this was (to me) a wrong against humanity.
MrHenko
8 juli, 2021 12:09@odd I’m glad to hear that I’m not alone in my frustration. :)