Seeing some very interesting visitor pattens over the last two days. There seems to be two or three visitors from the US opening what seems to be every single page on this site. It’d be interesting to know who it is… or what it is. Maybe I should ask around.
Spiders are out in force this week. Third day in a row where I had to kill a white-tail that got inside. 🕷️
I’m the first to admit that my spelling is pretty atrocious, so I’m heavily reliant on spellcheckers. But there has been more than one occasion where I’ve chosen what I though was a correction, only to find out later that I ended up choosing a completely different word than I wanted. So when I can, I always try to check the definition of the word after selecting it.
This technique tends to breakdown on iPadOS, for the reasons laid out in this dramatisation of lunch this afternoon:
L: …it was only when I received it with no further cutlary that I…
iPadOS: Woah, hold on! That word "cutlary" you have there. It's definitely not the one you want.
L: Oh, what should it be then?
iPadOS: It should be "cutlery."
L: Should it? Can you look up the definition of "cutlery?"
iPadOS: Oh, um. Ahhh. No results.
L: So is it "cutlery?" Is that the word I want?
iPadOS: Oh yeah. That's definitely how you spell "cutlery."
L: No, I mean, is this the word I should be using here?
iPadOS: Don't know. But that's absolutely the way to spell it.
L: (sigh) DuckDuckGo, what's the definition of "cutlery?"
🦆: Cutlery includes hand implements for eating food, such as knifes and forks…
L: Great, thanks. (fix typo)
Went to the cafe today and ordered my lunch. It came out with 2 forks and a knife. It was only when I went back for dessert, and received it with no further cutlery, that I realised that must be what the second fork is for. The cafe staff know me too well. 😀
The number of times I work from home has reduced quite considerably, so I’m not making coffee a home as often as I used to. The beans themselves confirm this: the coffee I’m drinking right now tastes rather stale. 😣
Upgraded my Obsidian plan which gives me 10 vaults to sync. I’m currently using 2: one for my personal notes and one for TIL Computer. I’m contemplating moving my journal to a 3rd. Just need to find uses for the other 7.
Had an interesting dream last night where I was at an open garden while King Charles III was in attendance. Some people I was with were eager to meet Him but I felt otherwise, and I went outside the pavilion and waited in the trees beside the door. The King’s entourage started exiting the building and a secret service/protocol officer that I just noticed I was standing next to said to me, “when the King looks at you, you do what I say.” Yeah, even in my dreams there are people telling me what to do. 😄
Woke with Come, ye Sons of Art playing in my ears.
It might be time for the City of Melbourne to close off Collins St. to cars between Spenser and King. Tram Stop 1 is so busy in the afternoon. So many people are transferring to trains. It’d be easier if they can use what is currently the road. That leaves the busses but they can use the tram line.
I’ve was really excited about LLM-powered auto-complete when I first started using it, but now I’m starting to find it a little annoying, particularly if completions are offered unbidden. It feels like the IDE equivalent of someone attempting to finish your sentences and often getting it wrong.
🛠️ CyberChef
A nice website for doing the sort of things one tends to do when writing software. Quite a large suite of tools: JWT decode, Protobuf decode, X.509 cert decode, UNIX epoch conversion, etc. Runs completely within the browser. In fact you can download the HTML+JS and open it locally.
Open any book about creativity and the author would say something like “ideas do not beget action; action beget ideas.” I’ve never really internalised this until quite recently, when I found myself getting many more ideas for a project only after working on it. I just needed to start work.
If you’ve designed a REST API that requires users to distinguish between a null value and a missing value for any particular JSON field, then you’ve designed your REST API badly.
A very nice exploration of webpage design using a monospace font. The first thought I had when I saw this was that this would work great for online man pages, which never look as good online as they do in the terminal.
Via: Robb Knight
Find it I did. Went by St. Ali Coffee on my way to work today on the advice of a friend. Tried their expresso. Not much of an expresso drinker but I did like it: a very interesting taste. I may try their cappuccino next time.
Devlog: Blogging Tools — All About Images
Some recent changes to Blogging Tools around images and image processing.
The same market had a showcase of vintage cars maintained by enthusiast. I know a few people who would love to see this stuff. Not me, however. I wouldn’t know a Mustang from a Maserati.
Passed by some old-school “marketing” on my way home from the cafe this morning.
Bocce at Albert Park. Stunning day for it. Quite cold in the shade, but the Sun’s got that bite to it again, announcing that Spring is on its way.
From the archives:
If there was ever an instance of technologists overengineering a solution without considering how it would be used to solve the problem, the Semantic Web is a great example.
Was reminded of this when I saw Dave Winer mention RDF. It was meant to be the future of the web — the original Web 3, before those peddling blockchain rubbish commandeered the name. I’m really glad that it went nowhere. Building for the web would’ve been bloody awful otherwise.
Might be my imagination, but I think Google has tweaked Maps to show street names more often than they were. If so, nice work, Google. Appreciate it.