Hi everyone! I’m delighted to announce another week of Discovelist! I’m again changing up the format slightly, never stopping the experimenting until I stick with something I like for a while. This issue came in late because I had to work for a friend/client, while some other events popped up, making me unavailable to write. But that’s all right, just pretend this came last Sunday like they always do.

Weekly discoveries

As of this issue, I’m merging the “Fresh finds” and “Weekly highlights” sections into one, because I realized this newsletter isn’t really about news but more so raw discoveries.

Gaming: Crypt of the NecroDancer, mixing dungeons and music

So, this week, I have finally bought Crypt of the NecroDancer, an indie rogue-like rhythm game with randomly generated dungeons where you need to move, slay and progress in rhythm. I’m only an hour into the game, and I know I’ll be spending a lot more exploring everything it has to offer. The game is currently on sale on Steam until April 13, and it’s recently got Hatsune Miku DLC (because of course this is what got me to get the game) which I also highly recommend.

TV/Films: Severance, a realist horror science-fiction series

On Saturday, I’ve started watching Severance, a show following the story of Mark Scott, an employee at a corporation where he has to be severed, AKA having his brain genetically altered so that his work and personal life memories were to be separated. Four episodes in, I can say it is quite good already, very slow-paced so it can be boring for some, but I find that to add realism to an already well constructed universe where this creepy severance issue feels even realer now that it resonates with modern-day brain chips.

Programming: Bun releases on Windows

Last Monday, super fast JavaScript runtime and toolkit Bun finally released on Windows thanks to many developers, most notably dave. It is a very great move to attract more developers into their excellent JS suite of tools, though I wasn’t a fan of the build up to release: delay after delay, release date after release date, always building up hype then letting everyone down, etc., and the fact that it released with only 98% of tests passing, making me wonder if it hasn’t been rushed to satisfy yet another release date. If you’re a Node.js developer, I recommend giving it a try anyway!

Music: bo en, one of those cool “weird” electro artists

This week, I’ve discovered bo en, or formally Calum Bowen, a composer who I did apparently know before as he worked on soundtracks for numerous video games such as Pikuniku or OMORI. I listened to My Time (YouTube) first, and although the English prononciation of Japanese threw me off at first, I stayed for the grandiose, weird and goofy instrumentation (fun fact: the backup vocals are VOCALOID) and the deep lyrics. I also listened to Pale Machine 2 (YouTube) which reminded me a lot of several artists (definitely Kikuo, sometimes Moe Shop, a hint of Shawn Wasabi and Daft Punk). Insane shit, definitely worth checking out if you recognize any of these people or like weird pop/electro in general.

Other discoveries

• Windhawk, a “mod loader” for Windows, enabling customization à la Winaero Tweaker but in a sleeker interface and more community-focused. Haven’t tried yet (I’m on Linux 80% of the time nowadays), but keeping an eye on it.
• Retro, a modern social media focused on sharing memories with friends. One user described it as ”a mix between BeReal and Instagram.”. Not tested yet either, and probably not something I’d use, but they have a good concept that may interest you.
• Design software Figma releases old-school cursors on their software for what they call “April Fun Day”, with Y2K, Aero, Skeumorphic and 8-Bit-inspired cursors. If you have no idea what the aforementioned terms mean, I’d recommend you just check out the link above, it’s cool stuff.

Vocabulary voyage

This week I learned so much words I didn’t even include them all! But here are some of my favorites:

pleat/plait (noun)

1. a braid (intertwined strands) of material (like hair or straw)
2. a fold in cloth made by folding some material on itself, or something that looks like it

goldilocks (noun)

1. someone with golden hair (used as a nickname)
2. often to name a golden plant or flower (adjective)
3. keeping balance between two extremes

Burgundy (noun)

it’s a dark red/purple color (Wikipedia)

stint (noun)

1. a specific period of time or quantity of work
2. = restraint/limitation (verb)
3. to show restraint, or restrict something/put an end to it

Community corner

You guys were plenty to share your very interesting discoveries this week, and it’s once again very varied, which is always so interesting:

Théo (@professordio on Discord) found Architectuul), a repository of buildings, architects and their history:

i was maxed chillaxed searching for ex-yugoslavia brutalist buildings, like on every tuesday, and suddenly, wouldnt’cha know it, i found a damn well designed website, clear and incredibly jam-packed in information. i was so impressed af i wanted to share it to the amazing clembs’ discovelist

Morgan (@morganlabs) shared a little article about a very fascinating and dangerous plant named Jimsonweed, but I swear it is more interesting than it sounds:

Datura Stramonium, also known as Jimsonweed, or other names, is a deliriant drug. It also acts as a poison on the human body. It grows as, what i think, is actually a very pretty flower (picture attached). All parts of the plant contain dangerous shit, which, as i said before, can cause severe poisoning to the body if ingested. It can cause insanely vivid hallucinations and, in some extreme case, permanently modify one’s mental health and stability.

The part people take is the seeds of the plant. Any amount could theoretically cause death. In one case, there was this farmer who had dealt with Datura before. When he saw some, I believe he went to pull it out with gloves on. Somehow, this alone caused an insane high for him.

Another guy took some, and proceeded to watch his wife and daughted being murdered for hours on end, with no way to escape. He described it as “a gif, and it would reset whenever you moved your eyes.” A common experience with the drug is being i one location with your eyes open, and another with your eyes closed. Most of the time, you cannot escape the hallucinations until you come down, which can take several days depending on dosage. I believe both of these guys never fully recovered mentally, especially not the latter.

Jules (julesbernard.com) sent me a mini-documentary on cinema named Collateral & the Death of Neon:

I saw this video which talks about street lights technology and how it affected the looks of movies, and i think it’s a pretty interesting relationship

Wrapping-up

Thanks a lot for reading. I tried to pack this edition with more varied things to share, and organize things more, so let me know if you prefer it this way, or if you don’t!

As always, let me know your thoughts, criticism, and stuff that you found this week through:

• Email
• Mastodon
• the comments section

Clembs, out!