Hello there, did your week go stupidly fast, to the point that everything going on around you was moving at high speed and your brain just could not keep up? Well that has been the case in my world. So at the moment I am posting Actifit and Strava2Hive posts most of the time and keeping a tab open, or so to speak to write one bigger journal of how my Hive investing has been going, fitness activities and wellbeing, plus not to forget my electronic music passions, more on that in a bit.

First of all, what are the figures looking like?

I've been powering up a lot and decided to convert my HBD savings, that had gained some interest over the past few months to Hive and then I powered that up. I also accumulated a combination of liquid Hive through delegations and other activities, plus my HP has been climbing based on 100%HP posts.

The charts show great growth over the past 7 days and the past 30, looking sweet too.

Goal is 10k by this time 2024? or could I hit that before then? Not sure, I've quite a way to go.

Loopy Pro, one of my main iOS apps has recently reached 1.1 and I decided to upgrade and purchase one more 12 month subscription for it. I will do a video soon anyway and will try out some of the new features live on camera to see how they work.

The two screenshots below show the release notes for the update.

I have been thinking about learning Swift, the programming language for all Apple machines for a long time, so decided to have a little go on their "playgrounds" earlier this week, where you learn about the grid system in iOS/Swift which is a fundamental building block for mobile apps.

Is this part of a cunning career path pivot? Maybe... watch this space!

I miss being a contractor in some ways, the main thing being the exposure to different tech and having the freedom to do so. I am not convinced I am getting that anymore at work, so taking it upon myself to learn in my spare time, see where it leads.

New gear

I'm edging away from the big software companies and their products. I've spent a lot over the years, going back as far as my first copy of Cubase in the 90's, my C64 in the 80's, at some point I've experimented with making music with each computer I've owned but I am growing tired of the DAW.

Do I want to go down the Eurorack route? Hmmm, no and yes. I said "no" first and that is because I fear I could spend yet more money on creating something that will take a very long time to reach what I want it to be.

The path I wish to take instead is something a little different and I've embarked on the early stages of this journey, as in the past couple of weeks, I've blown my musical toys budget on one inexpensive synth and one that is pricey but have been eyeing up for awhile, I decided, oh "f**k it" buy the bloody thing. I am glad I did.

Roland are a great brand, we've two of their products in this house. Our electric piano is one of theirs and this little guy, the Aira S-1 that I purchased last week for £180, the piano cost £600 back in 2006.

This week my Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field that I ordered arrived and I've been having a lot of fun with it. I shall buy some audio cables and MIDI leads soon, to connect them together and up to the Minifuse 4 audio interface. I'll then be able to record them all in unison much more easily. I've found that all a bit confusing, I'm learning though.

Open source software and hardware for music making

Yesterday I discovered a new use for my Raspberry Pi computers that have been sat around doing very little since we moved house a year ago. I can use them to build a Norns device!

What is that? Well, one of these:

https://monome.org/docs/norns/shield/

I am going to follow this up and build one. I like the idea of having a tiny computer for sending MIDI (with SuperCollider) to external synths, to go DAWless, to build a modular system that isn't entirely Eurorack or anything like it at all.

I also discovered - Lines which is an open source community where you can obtain open source scripts for your Norns setup.

So many cool things to try out, I am eager to get stuck in!

Cycling

Hello everyone taking part in the #mybike community out there as I've been using mine a lot this past week.

Have a great weekend everyone, it's hot out there, stay cool, hydrated and don't forget your sunscreen!