Weekly Notes 2024.08

2024-02-25 2 min read
  • This week I ran across trippy, an interesting little networking tool that combines the functionality of traceroute and ping. I don’t have a current use, but am filing it away for when I need it.
  • Much of my in-office time this week was focused on troubleshooting new products. I experimented some with using SSH from a Java app, which I’d not done previously. Once I figured out the basic requirements, it was pretty seamless!
  • This weekend once again included ripping some new-to-me Jazz & Swing CDs to my Plex server, along with some albums of hymns from CPH. I continue to enjoy using Plexamp, combined with my own library, to stream music, instead of one of the major streaming services.

Read

Listened To

  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 575: Walk a Little Faster
  • Ask Noah Show: 377
  • Clockwise: 542: You Should Not Toss Leprechauns
  • Connected: 490: Ivy League Ferret
  • DTNS/Good Day Internet: Are We in A Dot-Com Bust? - Editor’s Desk
  • Focused: 197: Feel Good Productivity
  • Getting Things Done: 247: David Allen talks with Keven Kelly
  • It’s A Thing: 305: This Thing Literally Slaps
  • Late Night Linux: 269
  • Linux Matters: An Exodus of Bitcoin
  • Mac Power Users: 732: Catching up with Mike Vardy
  • The Omni Show: Omni Group’s 2024 Roadmap
  • The Rebound: 483: Dial the 9 and the 1
  • Upgrade: 500: Core Face/Peripheral Face
  • We’re Not Wrong: About the Border and Trump’s NY Business Trial Penalty

Watched

  • Wonka (2023)

Weekly Notes 2024.07

2024-02-18 3 min read
  • A large portion of this week in the office was spent working through some interesting networking configuration to allow test devices at remote sites to securely access a cloud database… thankfully people much smarter than I were able to assist!
  • Precision Planting’s 20|20 Display was featured this week in a story on the Qt website, which included an interview with my coworker Dave. It’s a nice view into some of the products we work on, along with some of the technical decisions we’ve made over the years.
  • While working on a project in the office, I was reminded that, sometimes, slightly over-engineering is not a bad thing. I had forgotten that I built a safe-guard into a product’s software so that it wouldn’t install updates that didn’t explicitly include support for its hardware revision. While it was an annoyance this time, it also has saved many headaches in the past.
  • This weekend was spent ripping some new (to me) Jazz CDs to my Plex server. I’m really enjoying some of the new albums, and am currently listening to The Best of Miles Davis: The Capitol/Blue Note Years while writing this post.

Read

Listened To

  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 574: Weird Forking Scenario
  • Clockwise: 541: Peripherereral Free
  • Connected: 489: The Birds Chirp in the Black Void
  • Darknet Dairies: 142: Axact
  • DTNS/Good Day Internet: Where Do You Draw the Line? - Editor’s Desk
  • DTNS/Good Day Internet: 4708 Extended: Don’t Pass on Passkeys
  • Getting Things Done: 246: Slice of GTD Life with Rene Lie
  • Issues, Etc.: 443: Dechurching in America, Part 2 - Michael Graham
  • Issues, Etc.: 472: The Presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Sacrament - Dr. Jordan Cooper
  • It’s A Thing: 303: Tom fought in the Rumi Wars
  • It’s A Thing: 304: Men Are Welcome Until They Die
  • Late Night Linux: 268
  • Mac Power Users: 731: “Tears Rolled Down My Light Seal”
  • The Rebound: 482: Two Out of Three Hosts Say Yes
  • The Talk Show With John Gruber: 95: ‘I’m a Real-World Man’, with Adam Lisagor
  • Upgrade: 499: We Have All the Cushions
  • We’re Not Wrong: About Libertarian RFK Jr. and the Monoculture

Watched

Weekly Notes 2024.06

2024-02-11 2 min read
  • Early this week I set up an old Lenovo ThinkCentre to run a headless install of Ubuntu, and started playing around with some projects I’ve heard of from others, but never used myself. First up: Pi-hole, a network-wide ad blocking option. It took a little while to get everything configured the way I wanted, and I’m still working through some odd behavior, but overall I like it. Most of my browsers already have some form of ad-blocking enabled, but this works even with devices I don’t have as many options on (phone, iPad, etc).
  • I’m still sticking with OmniFocus, and actually started using one of their slightly more advanced features, Mail Drop. I’ve used similar functionality on Todoist to auto-forward certain types of emails as tasks to my inbox, and I’m happy to now have the same workflow set up with OmniFocus.
  • I spent some time digging into Tailscale’s permissions management options, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to configure. I wanted to start limiting certain connections on my tailnet, instead of leaving settings wide-open, and within minutes I was able to set up a few simple rules that put things in a much better (and arguably more secure) state.
  • A few weeks ago I heard about LocalSend, an app that gives you an AirDrop-like experience between virtually any two machines, on the Linux Matters podcast, but didn’t have a reason to use it at the time. Fast-forward to this weekend, and I needed to transfer some large files between two machines on the same network, but didn’t have another mechanism set up. In almost no time at all, I was able to download the app on both machines, and send the files… it was one of the most “it just works” experiences I’ve had in a while. I highly recommend checking it out.

Read

Listened To

  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 573: Look at It Harder
  • Clockwise: 540: I Did Something Bad
  • Connected: 488: hot guy, incredible actor, hot dude
  • Cortex: 152: Apple Vision Pro: The Future is Here
  • Issues, Etc.: 363: Women’s Ordination, Empathy and Feminism - Dr. Joseph Rigney
  • Issues, Etc.: 393: Baptism and the Giving of the Holy Spirit - Pr. Mark Surburg
  • Late Night Linux: 266
  • Late Night Linux: 267
  • Linux Matters: Magazines Reloaded
  • Mac Power Users: 730: “Treat it as an Intern,” with Jeff Richardson
  • The Rebound: 481: You’re Doing A Great Job (Abridged)
  • Upgrade: 498: Leap the Uncanny Valley
  • We’re Not Wrong: About the Tucker/Putin Interview and the Arizona GOP

Weekly Notes 2024.05

2024-02-04 2 min read
  • News articles are continuing to be published regarding Precision Planting’s 2024 announcements. This post from AgriNews had a good overview, and (in my opinion) nicely combined comments from yours truly with those of Justin McMenamy, Vice President - Disruptive Products.
  • Friday was the release of Apple Vision Pro, so I’ve been watching and reading reviews of it all week. I’ve linked some of my favorites below in the Read and Watched sections. I’m not yet convinced to drop $3500 on it, but I’m also still considering it…
  • I’m still actively using OmniFocus 4, and did my first (abbreviated) weekly review with it today. While I still wish there was some more natural language processing built in, similar to Todoist, the overall experience is growing on me.
  • A project at work has me dusting off my Python skills (meager though they are), and also relearning how documents in MongoDB work. It also gave me an excuse to play with Python packages in Nix, which I’m still finding extremely useful for software development.

Read

Listened To

  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 572: Cryptofarts and Copyright Infringement
  • Clockwise: 539: You Folks Need Some Help
  • Connected: 487: Mr. Fake John Voorhees Goes to Europe
  • Focused: 196: Focus & The Reading Life, with Maryanne Wolf
  • Getting Things Done: 242: Slice of GTD Life with Richards and Spurgeon
  • Issues, Etc.: 293: Countering Technological Liturgies - Joshua Pauling
  • Issues, Etc.: 311: Responding to Roman Catholic Proof Texts: Protestants Deny the Real Presence - Dr. Steven Parks
  • Issues, Etc.: 332: Evangelical Cliches - Bryan Wolfmueller
  • It’s a Thing: 301: Little Treats Mission Creep
  • It’s a Thing: 302: Spray Candy Is My Roman Empire
  • Mac Power Users: 729: Don’t Hear What We Aren’t Saying
  • The Rebound: 480: You Like Developers? Name Three
  • The Talk Show With John Gruber: 394: ‘An Impossible Balcony’, With Matthew Panzarino
  • Upgrade: 497: The Poison Pill
  • We’re Not Wrong: About the Border and Gen Z’s Gender Split

Watched

Weekly Notes 2024.04

2024-01-28 2 min read
  • Overall, this week was relatively uneventful (outside of some stuff at work). I didn’t focus much on personal projects, except for…
  • Only a few weeks after claiming that I was sticking with Todoist for the foreseeable future for as my task manager, I once again got curious about OmniFocus, and ended up switching my entire task list over mid-week. Todoist has been implementing more team-based features recently, which I don’t need. And something about OmniFocus keeps drawing my attention… We’ll see how long it lasts.
  • On Saturday, I spent a substantial amount of time becoming familiar with the Nix package manager, which I am interested in using for reproducible builds of a project at work. The basic premise was easy to learn, though it took most of the day to get a fully functional solution.
  • Sunday so far has consisted of Divine Service in the morning, some cooking over lunch (which included prep for the week ahead), and some small amount of time focusing on a work project.

Read

Listened To

  • Accidental Tech Podcast: 571: Adding Some Carrot
  • Clockwise: 538: If I Lose It, I’ll Die
  • Connected: 486: Elden Widge
  • Getting Things Done: 242: Slice of GTD Life with Richards and Spurgeon
  • Late Night Linux: 265
  • Linux Matters: Fetch Is Going to Happen
  • Mac Power Users: 728: All About AppleCare
  • The Omni Show: How Kaitlin Salzke uses OmniFocus - Part 2
  • The Rebound: 479: $3500 Worth of FOMO
  • The Talk Show With John Gruber: 393: ‘An Asterisk on the Bento Box’, With Marco Arment
  • Upgrade: 496: 40th Anniversary of the Mac Draft
  • We’re Not Wrong: About the New Hampshire Primary (Live from Manchester)

Watched

  • Reacher (2022), S2, E05-08
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