It's been another week in quarantine, but we've settled down to it. I've been out twice to the shops to get food for us and for others. Every other interaction has been online including work and Russian School on Skype, Teams and Zoom.

1. Quote of the week

It’s almost a cliché at this point, but the observation that the way to strengthen an arch is to put weight on it - because it binds the stones together, and only with tension does it hold weight - is a great metaphor.

— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way

The more we suffer, the more we grow. When we move through a period of hard work we come out the other end stronger.

2. What I've been enjoying

I've been watching some videos by The 8-Bit Guy and enjoying the nostalgia of 1980s computing. He restores old computers, particularly the Commodore 64, and builds electronics from scratch. If I had more time, I would get a soldering iron and start fiddling. His brother The Geek Pub, builds arcade machines and also has a video channel. One of my favourite videos this week was The Geek Pub building a Commodore 64 emulator in an old Commodore 64 case from a Raspberry PI and 3d printed accessories.

3. What I'm reading

I have not read much else this week other than Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way which I finished. I'm continuing to read Hogfather.

4. What I'm doing in my free time

I released another draft of my Russian handwriting book this week. To complete the draft I need to write two more chapters. They are both outlined and I expect to do most of the heavy lifting this weekend. Once it is complete, I will revise it and revise it again. Many of the illustrations need reworking.

5. What I'm learning more about

I'm about to embark on another AWS course using acloud.guru, but that is for next week. I've started to look at GO. This week I've been reminding myself of the mathematical construction of the numbers from the natural numbers through to the quaternions, using sets, functions and relations. Below is a graphic of some fundamental definitions of key numbers.