Chris Martin

  • 2023 W25

    § I will be starting my new job next week. There is no denying I will miss these past few weeks of vacation but, at the same time, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

    On a related note, I am not planning to post daily articles until I get settled into my new routine. I will, of course, continue publishing weeknotes each Sunday.

    § I saw Ari Aster’s new movie Beau Is Afraid.

    Wow, now that is a movie!

    Is it the best film I’ve ever seen? No, but it’s inventive and strange, deeply discomforting and hilarious.

    I wasn’t blown away by Ari Aster’s two previous films, Hereditary and Midsommar. They felt like well-executed examples of generic horror movie tropes.

    Beau Is Afraid is an entirely new idea. It is Ari, like the titular Beau, leaving his comfort zone.

    § More movies —

    After finding Synecdoche, New York way too depressing, I watched Wes Anderson’s two animated films: Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, looking for a change of tone.

    Previously, my primary association with animation was movies and television directed at children. Without consciously intending to, I consequently viewed it as a less serious medium.

    I failed to appreciate that animation gives artists an enormous amount of control and the freedom to create exactly what they imagine, unbounded by the typical constraints of reality. When you give this technology to a filmmaker as precise and detail oriented as Wes Anderson, the results are spectacular.

    § My san marzano tomato plant, which I am growing for the first time this year, has a distinctly different growth pattern than any other tomato variety I’ve seen before. It is super dense and bushy with very few suckers. Comparatively, my cherry tomatoes are almost lanky and sparse.

    Spider mites have been an absolute garden menace this year. I’m not sure what prompted their sudden invasion.

    § Old honeysuckle blossoms are great for cyanotype printing.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Caldo verde
      • A new favorite. It’s very similar to kapusniak, another beloved rustic potato soup, but lighter and simpler overall.
      • I made a few alterations: I used a mix of both leek and onion and added some lemon juice at the end. I also couldn’t find the special Portuguese sausage the recipe called for so I substituted it with chorizo. I’ll be on the lookout for proper linguiça moving forward.
    • Cajun gumbo
      • I definitely burned the roux. I realized it early on but, for whatever reason, decided to just keep going. Big mistake. I ended up letting it simmer on the stove all afternoon—like five hours—and that helped reduce the bitterness. It still had a distinctly burned flavor, though. I’ll try making this again another time. If I hadn’t burned it at the beginning I think it would have been amazing.

  • 2023 W24

    § I harvested our first sugar snap peas and strawberries of the season. There isn’t much, this early in the season, but eating something you’ve grown yourself is always a great feeling.

    § While sawing down tree branches a few weeks ago I set aside a couple of the larger branches, intending to use them to make a cat tree.

    I finally got started building it this week!

    I chose one of the branches, stripped off all of its bark, and wrapped the base in a thick green jute. The cats have already taken some interest in it.

    Unfortunately, the whole thing is attached to a 16” round base plate that is, I’ve come to find out, nowhere near sturdy enough. It looks like I’ll need to learn how to pour concrete to make it new base for it all.

    § I saw two movies, Blackberry and Tetris, which feels like two different takes on the same general premise: ”Follow a scrappy upstart technology company as they risk everything to bring their vision to life.”

    There was something endearingly quirky about Tetris that I found really fun. Instead of using chapters, the film was broken out into “levels” with funky pixel art animations preceding each one. In comparison, Blackberry was conventional—a modest retelling of an interesting story rather than an interesting retelling of a modest story.

    § …Speaking of blackberries

    The blackberry bush I planted last year is doing amazingly well. I never expected it to come back this spring with such a vengeance. It is already at least eight feet tall and is covered in dozens of tiny white blossoms.

    It is doing so well, in fact, that I decided to buy another raspberry bush after loosing two of them to a mysterious disease last summer. Fingers crossed it fairs better this year.

    § I would love to play an alternative “roguelike” version of The Depths in Tears of the Kingdom.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Gluten free pierogis
      • Amazing. One of the easiest gluten free doughs to work with.
    • Sauteed morel mushrooms
      • Ever since unexpectedly getting way into mushrooms this spring, I have been looking forward to trying morels for the first time. Well, I was so excited when I finally found a bag of freshly picked morels at my usual grocery store. After finally getting the opportunity to try them it was, overall, a rather upsetting experience. Take a look at the third paragraph under the “cleaning morels” heading above if you are curious to know why—gross!

  • 2023 W23

    § I can see fruit beginning to develop on our blackberry, strawberry, and snap pea plants. I can’t wait for the rest of the garden to fill out—I planted two more tomato seedlings and six different types of peppers.

    We also picked an almost burdensome amount of lettuce. Just as I was starting to ready myself for a week of enormous salads, Caroline had the ingenious idea of using them in our long-neglected juicer. That quickly lightened our load.

    § Speaking of my inability to stick to reading one thing at a time, I started reading The New House by David Leo Rice after seeing James Reeves’ passionate recommendation.

    Frustratingly, I can’t find a digital copy of the book anywhere so not only am I jumping around too much, in this case I don’t even get to use the reMarkable tablet to help.

    § I tried to savor the new season of I Think You Should Leave and still finished it in less than a week. My favorite sketch was The Driving Crooner.

    Overall, I feel like this season was maybe slightly worse than the previous two. I still highly recommend watching it, though.

    § I thought this might be the first year that I would skip the iOS beta. I made it two days before installing iOS 17 on my phone. Playing around with the updated autocorrection engine has been interesting but, overall, there is really not much to see.

    § Since its introduction at WWDC last year, I haven’t seen much mention of Apple‘s RoomPlan API. Try it out if you want a taste of the technology behind the upcoming Vision Pro headset. You can watch your iPhone construct an accurately scaled 3D model of a room—in real time—with each architectural element and furniture item segmented and tagged. It is shockingly impressive.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    We had a lot of quail eggs we needed to use so Caroline and I made a big batch of lemon curd with the yolks and angel food cake with the egg whites. The lemon curd had a bit of a grainy texture. I am not sure if that is due to the recipe or a just a consequence of not having a proper double boiler. Regardless, it tasted great, especially as a part of lemon curd ricotta pancakes.

  • 2023 W22

    § School is out. Classes are now completely finished for the year.

    I just have a few meetings and some loose ends to tie up this week. After that, I have set aside a couple of weeks to enjoy the summer before my new job starts up.

    § Now that Succession has concluded, I can easily say that this final season was their best. I can’t recall that being the case with any of my other favorite shows.

    Fingers crossed for a Better Call Saul-style spin-off series starring Greg or Connor.

    § I have been sawing down some stray tree branches in the backyard to give the plants access to a bit more sunlight.

    Using all of the extra pliable branches I have been attempting to construct a small wattle fence. The process couldn’t be more straightforward but it is still a lot of work.

    § The video game developer Hideo Kojima is rumored to be working with Apple on a game for their upcoming XR headset.

    Although I don’t think of myself as a particularly avid video game player, this is actually the news that has made me the most excited about the headset so far.

    A few years ago I purchased a PlayStation 4 just to play Kojima’s previous game: Death Stranding—it isn’t impossible something similar will end up happening again here.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Jaeyook Kimchi Bokum
      • While not technically related, there is a sense in which this feel like a better version of Phat Bai Horapha which I linked to a little while back.
      • I’ve seen alternative recipes for this where cabbage and carrots are included. I am definitely going to try adding those next time.

  • 2023 W21

    § This was our last full week of school. There are only two more days of classes next week and then that’s it.

    This might be a good time to mention that I will be starting a new job at the end of June. It is a new position at my city’s science museum that touches on a little bit of everything: some programming work, new interactive exhibit design, even some curriculum development and teaching. I am excited!

    § I have spent this entire fourth quarter of the school year teaching my third and fourth grade students using the Circuit Playground microcontrollers.

    I started simple: light up the onboard LEDs. Then I added a new tiny building bock each lesson: buttons, switches, RGB color codes, how each of the built-in sensors work…

    Throughout the quarter, I had three big projects.

    First: Take the knowledge you have of all of the Circuit Playground’s sensors and devise a method to detect when someone picks up the circuit board.

    The students came up with so many creative solutions. Some used the accelerometer, others used the photoresistor, a few even used the capacitive touch pads that surround the board. Most students realized that using a combination of multiple sensors works best.

    Everyone had lots of fun testing each other’s projects. I got to take on the role of “the mastermind Circuit Playground thief”. It was great.

    The second big project was to recreate the classic arcade game Cyclone, step by step. The students loved creating their own gameplay variants.

    Finally, all of this is culminated in a big end of the year project that I am especially excited about.

    Each student thought of a research question—Is the lunch room louder on Mondays or Fridays? Which group gets more exercise at recess—those playing soccer or football?—then they used the Circuit Playground boards to collect relevant data. After collecting their data, they analyzed it to see whether or not their hypothesis was correct.

    Overall, I have immensely enjoyed teaching with these boards.

    § One week later, I still really like the reMarkable tablet. You can really only do two things—read and draw—so it is hard to get distracted while using it. I have been reading much more than I typically would.

    It is actually easier to get new articles and books on the device than I anticipated. For the most part this is great, but it doesn’t do much to encourage me to stick with reading one thing at a time. Consequently, I have been jumping around a lot, reading a bit of everything.

    § I got beta access to Google’s new generative AI search features. The UI feels a bit busy and confusing, particularly on mobile, but the overall functionality is actually better than I expected.

    Unfortunately, it only works in Chrome and the Google iOS app right now. I can’t wait for it to come to Safari.

    § I am getting dangerously close to becoming a mushroom forager. I’ve got the books.

    § Links

  • 2023 W20

    § My birthday was on Tuesday!

    § I finally caved and bought myself a reMarkable 2 tablet. Some initial thoughts after a few days of use:

    I have previously used the iPad with an Apple Pencil which is still undeniably the best touchscreen experience available today. It is also unmistakably digital. I spent a lot of upfront time fruitlessly configuring it to limit outside distractions. It became an attractive nuisance more than a tool.

    The reMarkable, on the other hand, feels like “magic paper.”

    Most of the time, it is just like writing in a notebook. But then you remember you can undo a mistake or duplicate and move a shape—it is paper+. It is by no means perfect—there are still things like accidental input that immediately break the illusion—but it is good. Most importantly, it isn’t fiddly. There are no apps to install, no settings to tweak. You can read, write, and sketch. That is it.

    Unless there are particularly meaningful iPadOS updates come WWDC, I plan to sell my iPad Pro.

    § Six years after Breath of the Wild, its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, was finally released last week.

    The first game was easily my favorite Nintendo Switch game so I have been nervously anticipating this follow-up for quite a while.

    Honestly, I would be happy even if Tears of the Kingdom were simply an updated version of BOTW with an expanded map. Tears is so much more than that, though. The new construction mechanic, alone, opens up so many new opportunities for play and experimentation.

    The new map is enormous, too. It takes all of the familiar locations from the previous game and expands them both underground with a giant network of caves and through the air with a series of sky islands—“skylands.”

    Here is the bottom line: BOTW is a game that is worth purchasing a Switch for. I can say the same thing about Tears, without hesitation.

    § I didn’t realize scallions were just the greens from normal onion plants that you pull from the ground early. Well, the Spanish onion bulbs that I planted a few weeks ago are now providing me with an effectively unlimited supply of them.

    § I’ve caught a cold. But at least, with Zelda and the reMarkable, there have been much worse times to be stuck at home for a little bit.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • I made baked ziti for the first time in quite a while. It is good fresh out of the oven but it is the king of leftovers. It might be twice as good the next day.
    • In some sickness induced delirium I started really craving buttery dinner rolls. I found a gluten free recipe that was quick to make and turned out amazingly well.

  • 2023 W19

    § Now that we’ve finally had some nice weather, I have been able to measure that, on sunny days, the greenhouse is consistently 15-20 °F warmer than the average outdoor temperature.

    The next step is to work on insulation since, right now, all of that extra warmth dissipates almost immediately once the sun sets.

    § I’ve started reading—or, more accurately, listening to—Corey Doctrow’s new book Red Team Blues. Aside from a vague self-righteousness from the protagonist that rubs me the wrong way, I have found the book unbelievably fun so far.

    In the past, dry audiobook recordings have made it hard for me to absorb content as fully as I would if I were reading. Wil Wheaton’s energetic and unorthodox performance here was just what I needed. I can’t wait to finish it.

    § I finally got access to the ChatGPT Code Interpreter plugin which gives ChatGPT the ability to execute the code it writes. It is all extremely impressive.

    In one of my first tests, ChatGPT initially wrote buggy code that resulted in a runtime error and it was able to detect the error, fix the bug, and re-execute the program all without any intervention on my part.

    § We had ten more yards of compost delivered on Monday, after going through five less than a month ago.

    There is something meditative about filling a wheelbarrow by the shovelful while you watch the pile steadily shrink. It is a great way to get a little bit of exercise and a lot of sunlight. Caroline and I spent our afternoons doing just that, dispersing more than half of it throughout the garden beds before the weekend.

    § Speaking of the weekend… Caroline and I visited Fallingwater on Saturday! The guided tour was certainly worth it but the best part was freely wandering the grounds afterwards. There is a reason the house was built in that location; it is gorgeous.

    § Oh, and I got engaged!

    § Links

  • 2023 W18

    § Rabbit rabbit. Happy May.

    § I drove a pickup truck for the first time.

    I needed to rent one from the local big box store to bring home 4x8' polycarbonate panels for the greenhouse’s roof. The surprisingly good visibility made the drive a much less anxiety inducing expirence compared to similarly sized cargo vans I have driven in the past. The downside was that I kept forgetting how long the vehicle really is—this is where a backup camera would have helped tremendously.

    I managed to install the new roof right before the start of an endlessly rainy week. This was good for testing the roof, I suppose, but bad for getting any other garden work accomplished.

    § Caroline and I are planning a weekend trip to Confluence, Pennsylvania for my birthday later this month. The plan is to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house and the Ohiopyle State Park. Exciting!

    § Caroline brought home a bunch of porcelain tiles she made. We are trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate them into the greenhouse.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    I finally got the opportunity to use a bunch of the—extremely prolific—chives from the garden in a mushroom risotto this week. Would it have been better to make this recipe when I was growing my own mushrooms? Absolutely. Why didn’t I? Who knows!

  • 2023 W17

    § Caroline and I went to the local nature reserve for the first time in a few weeks—it is suddenly all so green! We placed a few wild grape vine branches in the creek to soften. The hope is that they will still be there next time we visit and they will be flexible enough to use for basket weaving.

    § We spent Saturday at the Geauga County Maple Festival. On the way home, we got some milk from a small dairy farm and eggs from a farmer down the street who has found himself in Ohio by way of San Francisco.

    § I saw a wild turkey in a neighbor’s front yard. I didn’t know we had those here.

    § Barbarian is one of the most creative horror movies I have seen recently. Sure, the villain is a bit hokey but the filmmaking, storytelling, and atmosphere more than makes up for it.

    I would love to see a House of Leaves movie by the same director.

    § Caroline made a giant, 36x12 inch, stained glass window for the greenhouse. I finished the last big wall and made a door.

    The whole thing is nearly complete. The last big task is to finish filling in the wall surrounding the new window. Other than that, I would like to replace the roof with a better sheet of polycarbonate and add more gravel to the floor.

    § Links

    § Recipes

  • 2023 W16

    § It was snowing on Tuesday and then 80 °F on Thursday. That just doesn’t feel like something that should even be possible.

    § We got three new female coturnix quails. They were mailed to us at about one month old, nearly their fully grown size. I was initially nervous about the idea of getting live birds shipped to me like this but I guess it’s pretty common, according to my local post office. They were all totally fine upon arrival and quickly adjusted to their new home.

    § I’ve discovered that my neighborhood has two bubble tea shops that recently opened within three miles of each other on the same street. I am certainly not complaining, but I would not have pegged my largely Eastern European retiree suburb as such a hot boba market.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    The Chicago restaurant I miss most has got to be The Bad Apple. I finally broke down over the weekend and tried to recreate their Even Cowgirls Get The Blues burger. I used Kenji’s burger technique and then added blue cheese, arugula, caramelized onions, and hot pepper bacon jam.

    It would certainly be better for my health if this meal didn’t turn out well but nope—there is no denying how good this was. I’m going to have to make it again ASAP.

  • 2023 W15

    § This week was a nice sneak preview of summer. Every day was in the mid-to-high-70s and sunny. Most days Caroline and I would be outside from the time we got home from work until sunset. We got a lot of yard work done—weeding, edging, expanding the garden beds. We went through five yards of compost in two days.

    § The seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago have all sprouted—first the tomatoes and tomatillos, then peas and basil. Finally, a few days later, all of the peppers popped up.

    I also started some summer squash and groundcherry seeds. I am especially excited about the later after eating them for the first time last summer.

    § Until now, you have only known Winter Blog. Summer Blog will have much more gardening. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

    § Succession episode three!

    I don’t think there is anything I can say that wouldn’t be a massive spoiler but… wow—watch it.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • We made pizza in the Ooni more times than I care to admit.
    • Earlier this week, I purchased a small kaffir lime plant which prompted me to make Kenji López-Alt’s beef with basil recipe again. Adding the lime leaves made a bigger difference than I would have expected!

  • 2023 W14

    § Happy Easter

    This was my first week back at work after a blissfully long spring break. It was honestly nice to see my students again—do I wish I had another week off, though? Absolutely.

    § I harvested and ate the oyster mushrooms I planted last week—they grew so much faster than I expected them to!

    § For the second time in just over a year, our washing machine suddenly decided to stop working. Home appliance shopping is always a pleasure.

    § Throughout the process of building my greenhouse, I keep going back to the daydream of owning some giant tract of land where I can build and experiment without concern for permits and zoning and neighbors. The freedom and space to create was one of the biggest motivators for me as I was moving back here from Chicago; it feels good to finally take advantage of that and I look forward to doing more.

    I still want to visit Ryan Trecartin’s rural amusement park.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Spring orecchiette pasta with burrata
      • Really good but quite difficult to make well with brittle gluten free pasta. I’ll certainly try again another time with a different brand of pasta.
    • Moroccan chicken bowl
    • Mushroom pesto pasta
      • This is how I ended up using most of the aforementioned mushrooms. It was good, but perhaps it was not the best way to showcase them—the pesto was pretty overpowering.

  • 2023 W13

    § I got a bunch of seeds planted and set up under grow lights in the basement.

    Here is what I am starting with: cherry tomatoes, Cherokee purple tomatoes, purple & green tomatillos, shishito peppers, jalapeño peppers, Thai chili peppers, snap peas, and Thai basil.

    I am also starting some herbs and salad greens directly in the cold frame outside.

    Finally, I am trying to grow oyster mushrooms for the first time. Stay tuned for how that turns out.

    § Despite deconstructing and moving the entire greenhouse to another location in my yard, I was able to finish the framing, the roof, and a couple of the walls. It has been really exciting watching this project finally come together. All that is left is to finish the walls and the doorway.

    § I have been rewatching Succession in preparation for season 4 and I found I am enjoying it much more this time around. Maybe give it another try if you are in the same boat.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Baked feta pasta
      • I am excited to make this recipe again in the summer once my garden begins overwhelming me with cherry tomatoes
    • Miso glazed salmon
      • Not a fan of this recipe. It could have easily been something I did wrong, though.

  • 2023 W12

    § Spring break update: one week down, one to go.

    After almost a year of slow, puttering progress, I have finally made significant headway on my greenhouse project. The foundation in place, the primary window bay is complete, and the framing for two of the walls is finished. By the end of next week, my goal is to finish the remaining framing and the roof.

    § The team behind Rewind.ai (remember “lifestreams?”) has announced a new product called ChatGPT For Me. It is almost exactly what I would like to see Siri evolve into. Here is the issue: this announcement has made it clear to me that I wouldn’t trust any third-party company with such a privacy sensitive feature. Needless to say, I didn’t sign up for their waitlist. Nonetheless, I hope Apple is watching them closely and will eventually either Sherlock or acquire them.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Fish tacos
      • Extremely good. Honestly, much better than the fried fish I made last week.
    • Chicken adobo
      • I didn’t anticipate how sticky the sauce would be which made everything a big chore to clean afterwards. It was really delicious, though.
    • Chicken tikka masala
      • This turned out to be much heavier and more filling than my other tikka masala recipe. They almost don’t share any ingredients in common, though, so I don’t know how fair it is to try to compare them.
    • Roasted potatoes
      • I had been meaning to make this for a while. It was quite good — was it worth all of the extra effort, though? Probably not.
    • Lemon garlic pasta
      • I had this alongside a very similar oyster mushroom dish. The mushrooms were great, the pasta was fine.

  • 2023 W11

    § Spring break! With a full two weeks off, I should put together a list of things I would like to work on during this time. Let’s see…

    • General spring cleaning
    • Get seeds started in peat pots
    • Make some progress on the greenhouse build

    Hmm… that is not too bad, actually. I will check back in on how it went in a couple of weeks.

    Speaking of spring break, after a super mild Winter, we finally got some snow this week… ugh.

    § To help wrap my mind around the possibilities enabled by GPT-4’s multimodality, I got a copy of the graphic novel Unflattening by Nick Sousanis. I have not had a chance to read much of it yet but what I have read so far has been interesting. I hope to have more time to dive into it next week. Watch this space.

    § A guilty pleasure of mine has alway been watching “wilderness survival” television shows. Alone is the best example of this genre that I have seen in a long time.

    The general premise is this: ten participants are dropped off alone (get it?) somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. They are only allowed to bring a few basic items — a tarp, fire starter, hand saw, etc. Whoever is able to stay out for the longest amount of time wins $500,000.

    What makes the show good is that isn’t overly dramatized. It is more like a personal diary of each participant’s day-to-day experience as they build a shelter, forage for food, and explore the environment around them.

    § My Google Home pronounced the opera Gianni Schicchi like it was “Jonny Squishy.”

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Rosemary beer battered fish & chips
      • Delicious but quite a bit of work. It reminded me how infrequently I cook fish, though. I hope to incorporate some more fishy dishes into my usual repertoire now.

  • 2023 W10

    § Week ten! This upcoming week will be the last one before a nice, two week long, spring break.

    I narrowly avoided catching Norovirus despite seeing a catastrophic number of cases at my school. Now we just need to see if I can make it all the way through this next week unscathed.

    § I started teaching my fifth grade classes with the Circuit Playgrounds. It is easy to forget how exciting some of the “basic” elements are when they are new to you. For now, at least, most of my students are endlessly fascinated by lighting up the RGB LEDs into animated sequences.

    I have also been having a lot of fun working on a hand-drawn activity booklet for the Playgrounds. It is certainly still an early draft but feel free to check it out!

    § GPT-4 might be announced next week? The linked article alleges the defining new feature will be multimodality — the ability to generate images and videos in addition to text. Very exciting, if true.

    My prediction is that GPT-4 will launch as a “ChatGPT Pro” exclusive feature. It would explain why the pro plan is so much more expensive than “gpt-3.5-turbo” API access despite them both currently interfacing with the same underlying model.

    § Kagi announced some updates relevant to what I wrote about them last week:

    • They are raising their prices beginning March 15th. The new unlimited plan will be $25/month, up from $10.
    • Their generative AI features will launch next week as well, with the ability to summarize a list of search results, summarize a single page, or “chat” about a page. These summarization features might just be a frontend for the OpenAI API, though.

    I am still excited to try the new features but I am very unlikely to renew my subscription at the new prices.

    § I finished The Last of Us Part II. The game does have an ending after all. I tried replaying it but quickly stalled out. I guess that is the downside to such a story-heavy game.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Pav Bhaji
      • I will admit I was nervous about this one—boiling and mashing isn’t typically my preferred way to prepare vegetables. This turned out great, though, and will definitely become a regular part of my rotation

  • 2023 W9

    § I have been testing out the Kagi search engine this week, using it exclusively instead of Google. A few thoughts:

    • It is expensive at $10/month. It will have to become either significantly better or significantly differentiated from Google for me to continue paying for much longer.
    • Despite what I said above, the results are surprisingly good. On par or slightly better that equivalent Google results. I was expecting it to fall down on local results but no, those were totally fine too.
    • I did not realize how frequently I use search engines until I started paying attention. Around 50 searches, give or take a handful, on a typical day.
    • Kagi has fewer built-in widgets than Google and the ones it does have are less polished. One of the few times I went to Google was to convert milliliters to fluid ounces. It is great to be able to do these simple conversions in an interactive widget instead of a janky, ad-covered webpage.

    The most exciting aspect of Kagi, to me, is that it is being actively developed, in the open, and taking direct feedback from its customers. And they are trying new things! Of particular interest to me are their upcoming AI webpage summarizer and AI search features. It will be interesting to see where Kagi is this time next year.

    § Speaking of search engines, I finally got access to Bing Chat.

    • It is really nice to have a decent mobile interface for AI chat.
    • It is slow, much slower than ChatGPT, but if that is the price to pay for its real-time web retrieval capabilities then it is worth it. In practice, built-in web search with citations is a more important feature than I anticipated. It goes a long way to give me confidence that answers aren’t hallucinated.
    • The automatic response suggestion bubbles are occasionally convenient but also oddly unsettling. It is almost as if I am just a conduit for the AI to talk to itself.
    • I was close to saying that Bing Chat is, more or less, a better version ChatGPT but that isn’t quite right. There are certain tasks, like editing and revising an email, where Bing Chat responded with generic email drafting tips while ChatGPT accomplished the actual task at hand.
    • Remember that “milliliters to fluid ounces” conversion I tried on Kagi? Well, later on I realized that Bing Chat might be a better interface for these types of queries than any conventional search engine, and indeed, it totally worked and was the most convenient method overall.

    § The Last of Us Part II is a long video game. There have been three or four different occasions where I thought I was certain the game was about to end only to realize it had just barely begun. It would have been a short, but totally satisfying, game if it had ended after reaching the TV station in Seattle, there has been at least ten hours of gameplay sense then. I mentioned last week that I was enjoying Part II more than Part I, that definitely has not changed. I will be sad when I finally finish it, whenever that ends up happening.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    We have finally reached a week where I didn’t cook any new recipes. I tried to keep things pretty simple: I put together a couple of simple pasta dishes, got some takeout, and cooked that tikka masala dish again.

  • 2023 W8

    § I started playing The Last of Us Part II and have been enjoying it much more than part I. One of my critiques of part I was that the story ultimately comes down to a variation of “help the hero protagonist save the world”. The story in part II, though, is much more real, nuanced, and heart wrenching.

    Throughout my playthrough of the first game I would always find myself wishing for an “open world” Last of Us game. Part II is, unfortunately, not that but we do get a small glimpse of what that type of game might look like during an extended mission where our character is tasked with exploring downtown Seattle; it was definitely my favorite part of the game (at least, so far).

    § There are now less than 100 days left until the end of the school year. It is too early to say whether it will feel like a breezy home stretch or a never ending slog.

    § I finally finished building a cold frame for the garden. I ended up repurposing a window that I had set aside for my (long overdue) greenhouse project. Now I need to decide what to grow in it. Maybe cabbage? Lettuce?

    It also occurred to me that I should be able to easily repurpose the frame in the summer to use as a small solar dehydrator or a wind-proof cyanotype exposure box. Exciting!

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Gluten free paczki
      • These were admittedly more dense than normal paczki but still surprisingly passable
    • Vegetarian Tikka Masala
      • I used around half a cup of both coconut milk and heavy cream. This was really good. I’ll certainly make it again soon.
    • Lemony chicken with Brussels sprouts
      • I added potatoes which I think was a good choice. I have still not successfully gotten crispy chicken skin with any of these oven recipes. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Everything was still pretty tasty, though.

  • 2023 W7

    § Here we are, mid-February, with temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s all week, where every year I find myself momentarily convinced we are finished with Winter. This has, at least so far, been a strikingly mild winter, though; I am pretty sure I have only needed to shovel my driveway once. We will see how long this lasts.

    § I started watching Narcos on Netflix. Overall, I think it has been a worthwhile watch. At first, I was thrown off by the format of show, with Scoot McNairy narrating various scenes. Now, though, especially as more and more of each episode is Spanish-language, I kind of appreciate having a narrator there that can recap important things I may have missed.

    § I have been thinking about joining a CSA (community supported agriculture) this spring. I’ve always liked the idea of them but I have never gotten around to actually signing up for one. I think, especially now that I’ve been cooking more frequently, it might be a good time to try it out. It would mean I will have to be more mindful when planning my garden this year, though. In previous years I always found myself getting overwhelmed with certain items — tomatoes, squash, peppers — sometime around mid-summer. My hope is that the CSA would provide variety, not more of the same.

    On a related note, I visited a local meat and dairy group share this week. The prices there for some items, most notably eggs, were actually lower than comparable items at my normal grocery store. Plus, it always feels good to support a (very) small local business.

    § I overheard one of my fifth graders say: “Sometimes block coding is hard because it is easy… Like, it’s simple but difficult.” Yup, I couldn’t agree more. I still need to find a good on-ramp to text-based programming for my more advanced students.

    I did let a few students experiment with the Circuit Playground board this week. They seemed to have fun. The biggest challenge I have found, so far, is that uploading code onto the device is a bit of a pain. Regardless, I am excited to start developing some projects that incorporate them.

    § Links

    § Recipes

  • 2023 W6

    § I got a couple of new smart home devices this week, mostly because of some leftover Amazon credit. First, the Eve Room. Temperature and humidity monitoring is cool but what I was really interested in was the indoor air quality sensor. I completely anticipated being freaked out by how bad my air quality is. Especially since, throughout the winter, we keep our windows closed most of the time. To my complete surprise, however, our air quality is pretty good! Sure, there is a noticeable spike in VOCs when I am cooking dinner but it quickly settles back down to a reasonable level. While this whole experience has all been a bit anti-climactic, it’s all good news, I suppose.

    I also got an Eve Motion sensor and set it up to automatically turn on the lights whenever I enter my back door entryway. This was more convenient then I was expecting and now I am trying to scope out other locations in my house where a motion sensor would be a useful addition.

    § Thanks to remembering there is an easy mode, I finally finished the Last of Us video game. I thought it was good but not amazing. There were a few stand out scenes, though, my favorite probably being Ellie hunting a deer in a snow covered forest.

    § I started messing around with the Adafruit Circuit Playground — it is a fun little microcontroller! It has a bunch of good stuff built-in: buttons, sensors, RGB LEDs, a speaker and microphone, etc; most importantly, though, it has pins so you can hook up your own standard input and output components.

    You are supposed to be able to be able to program it using the Arduino IDE, however I have not been able to get that to work yet. The main coding interface is a browser-based MakeCode environment with its own cute little simulated Circuit Playground device. I, as usual, quickly got frustrated with the limitations inherent to block coding before I realized that you can freely switch between vanilla JavaScript and blocks in MakeCode — that has been a really nice feature, in practice.

    I think I’m going to try integrating these into some of my classes soon. I feel like they have the potential to be a great stepping stone before starting with Arduinos.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Gluten free empanadas
      • I tried making these with my leftover carnitas. Honestly, my expectations weren’t high to begin with. Flaky, light gluten free baking is really difficult. With that said, this really didn’t work out well. They were mostly just dry and crumbly. It was worth a try though!
    • Japanese cheesecake
      • This was a disaster, aesthetically speaking; it instantly fell apart as soon as I took it out of the oven. It tasted great, though! Plus, it used up a ton of quail eggs that have been piling up throughout the past couple of weeks.

  • 2023 W5

    § This week I came down with one of the minor illnesses that plagues all elementary schools. My typical strategy is to power through it with zinc, DayQuil, and Fisherman’s Friend cough drops. This time, though, I faced an additional challenge: parent-teacher conferences. Thirty-eight parent teacher-conferences.

    All things considered, it went better than I expected. I have a better understanding of my students as individuals than I had during my first round of conferences which meant much less stress and preparation on my part.

    § The third episode of Last of Us was great; it was easily my favorite so far. I loved the flashbacks. Nick Offerman as the prepper “survivalist” who thrives after the apocalypse was perfect. I only wish we could spend more time with these characters as it could feel a bit rushed, at times. I am so glad the show runners are taking risks and telling stories that are outside of the video game’s original plot. This has totally renewed my excitement in this show.

    The episode was also strangely reminiscent of the movie I Think We’re Alone Now, which I really enjoyed and still think about from time to time.

    § There is this thing I have started doing recently where, if I am driving and I see anything even remotely interesting, I will take a detour to investigate it. This method has found me some incredible parks and my favorite ice cream shop. Well, as I was heading down MLK Drive on Saturday I saw a greenhouse I had never noticed before. I decided to stop by and check it out. It turns out it was Rockefeller Park Greenhouse — a beautiful, free, city-owned greenhouse. I am going to need to visit it again soon when I have more time to explore.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Beef bulgogi
      • So, so good. I made as a part of a bibimbap and it was easily the best part.
    • Garlic bok choy
      • I am pretty sure this was my first time ever cooking bok choy. This came out fine. Not sure I would make it again, though.
    • Butternut squash curry
      • Delicious. I always add red curry paste too, which I think is essential. Think of the squash as tofu, but better.
    • Pork carnitas
      • I also added the juice from one orange which I’ve seen mentioned in other recipes. I don’t think it really made a difference but it doesn’t matter because it was all still amazing.

  • 2023 W4

    § This was our first truly snowy week of the season. Not cleaning out the garage last fall truly came back to bite me when I couldn’t find an ice scraper as I was rushing off to work in the morning. I resorted to using a broom.

    § We recently passed the halfway point for this school year. I would say that this first year of teaching has been… not as bad as I expected? It is tricky to assess accurately though. Conversations with other teachers led me to set extremely low expectations for this year so it would almost be difficult to not exceed them. I am sure it helps that, at the ages I teach (K-5), the low points have been surprisingly self-contained — i.e. even if Monday is a really difficult day, Tuesday is a fresh start.

    It will be really interesting to look back at this year in the future and see how this current assessment holds up. Maybe it really has been a relatively smooth year. Maybe I have been flying by the seat of my pants this whole time and not allowing myself to realize it. Time will tell.

    § I just realized that apparently I haven’t had a functioning voicemail since switching phone carriers three-ish months ago. It is really a testament to how unimportant phone calls have become over time that it has taken me this long to notice. At the same time, it has revealed a fatal flaw in my practice of never answering calls from unknown numbers under the assumption that anyone attempting to contact me about anything important will always leave a voicemail. Oops.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Pasta with fennel, sausage, and arugula
      • One of my favorite super fast weeknight meals. I typically add kalamata olives and ricotta cheese. Definitely don’t skip the lemon juice.
    • Mushroom risotto
      • I made this on Friday for the first time in at least a year. It was really good! I forgot to add peas and parsley though, which I remembered after the fact are worthwhile additions. I might try adding a little more white wine next time too.

  • 2023 W3

    § I have tried, a couple of times, to play the Last of Us video game but I always bounce off of the video game-y aspects. It’s frustrating, not just because the game sequences can be difficult. If that was the case I wouldn’t feed bad putting the game down. The reason I find it frustrating is because I am actually interested to see how the story resolves and I find the game can be a barrier to that, at times.

    Well, the first episode of the new Last of Us television show was just released last Sunday. I thought it was… pretty good? It is odd because, in a way, I almost think I would like it more if I had never played the game. But maybe that is for the best. I would prefer the series stand on its own rather than rely on any prior knowledge of the game. Overall, I am excited to see more episodes! This is going to be an interesting test to see how integral the interactive aspects of gameplay are to effective storytelling.

    § Following up on the citrus talk last week I tried an oroblanco which is a cross between a pomelo and a grapefruit. The one I bought had a giant pith so, although the fruit itself was the size of a large grapefruit, the actual edible portion was equivalent to an orange.

    In terms of taste I thought it was almost identical to grapefruit. I would rank them all:
    pomelo > grapefruit > orange > oroblanco

    I also tried candying the peel which was pretty good although quite bitter. I wish I had thought to try it when I had the pomelo last week too.

    § Caroline and I took advantage of the long weekend and the warm-ish weather by spending a lot of time exploring the nearby parks, including the only national park in Ohio. I have also been bringing around my long neglected Fujifilm X100f camera. I always seem to forget how drastically better the images are from that camera compared to my phone.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Roasted butternut squash & brussels sprouts with honey-herb dressing
      • I’m a huge fan of roasted brussels sprouts and this was probably my favorite recipe for them yet. There was also the super interesting step of adding baking soda to the vegetables which was entirely new to me: “The baking soda acts as a catalyst and accelerates both caramelization and the Maillard reaction, while also softening the pectin in the squash for a softer, creamier interior.”
    • Dal Makhani
      • Another one of my favorite Indian recipes. This naan recipe was a pretty good addition — even after substituting for gluten free flour.

  • 2023 W2

    § No work next Monday for Martin Luther King Day and then a “work from home” faculty work day on Tuesday. Great. On Wednesday, students will rotate classes for their third quarter which means I’ll be teaching a group of kids I haven’t seen in eight-ish weeks. I expect it will be a nice change of pace.

    § I started watching Three Pines which honestly hasn’t hooked me yet and mostly had the effect of making me want to re-watch Twin Peaks.

    I also saw The Devil’s Hour. I thought it was pretty good and I was super happy to see that it’s a limited series. It turns out, stories are often better when they have a pre-planned beginning, middle, and end. Perhaps the accelerated rate that streaming services are canceling show renewals will encourage this trend to continue.

    Finally, I saw Pearl, Ti West’s prequel to X. I thought it had a fantastic atmosphere. The music was great, the set design had a fascinating quality of period authenticity while at the same time being unsettlingly plastic, even the colors were interesting in a way I can’t exactly place.

    § I swear, at some point in the past ten years autumn disappeared. The Midwest seemingly now transitions from 85 °F to 35 °F overnight. The season must have been more distinct before; whenever asked I would always list it as my favorite! Anyway, there were a few days in the 50s this week which was nice. Although, on balance, we also had like four inches of snow on Friday.

    I’ve noticed that the days getting longer is giving me an unexpected optimism. I am already starting to think about which vegetables I would like to try growing in the spring.

    § Links

    • Analog chess
      • “This is a version of chess where the pieces are not constrained to an 8x8 grid, and instead can move to any position on the board.”
      • See also: Really Bad Chess
    • Giffusion — Create GIFs using Stable Diffusion
      • I tried it out on Google Collab. It was a bunch of fun but the results weren’t especially impressive. I am still super excited for a true generative model for animation.
    • GLM-130B is an open source large language model. However, you should proceed with caution.
    • Q&A against documentation with GPT3 + OpenAI embeddings
      • A method of prompt engineering to easily “fine tune” GPT3 on your own data

    § Recipes

    • Gamja-tang — Korean pork and potato stew
      • Hmm… this recipe was good but 1) it tastes surprisingly similar to Kapusniak while 2) requiring a significantly more involved process to cook. I will probably make it again sometime though!
    • Chana masala
      • One of my favorites. Plus this used a bunch of frozen tomatoes from the garden, freeing up space in the freezer.
    • Not a recipe but I ate a pomelo — the largest citrus fruit — for the first time. I am tempted to say that I think it might be better than grapefruit. Much less bitter and possibly slightly sweater.

  • 2023 W1

    § Back to teaching after two weeks of winter vacation. Although, as always, I wish the vacation was longer, it feels nice to start getting back into my normal routines after the crazy holiday season. Worst case scenario: ten weeks until spring break, twenty-one until summer.

    § I have been listening to the album Distance by the band Erasers a lot after discovering it on James Reeves' list of favorite albums of 2022. Overall, the list is full of great minimal electronic artists that are all new to me. It is going to make the perfect soundtrack for some gray winter days ahead.

    § Longmont Potion Castle 20 was released on Friday. The tracks I have had the opportunity to listen to so far are amazing, as usual.

    § Three of the quails escaped into the garage which made for a real Yakety Sax evening as Caroline and I ran around trying to catch them in makeshift nets.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    Getting back into my work schedule this week meant much less cooking at home. I did at least get the opportunity to make one new-to-me recipe — arroz con pollo.

    Recipe discovery is difficult. I would love to find a personal cooking blog that is not full of SEO spam.

    • Cajun sausage and rice skillet
      • An old classic. I had to use some kielbasa that was left over from Kapusniak last week. Easy and quick to make and goes great with cornbread.
    • Arroz con pollo
      • This was good but not quite as good as my favorite Spanish rice recipe. I will definitely incorporate some elements from that recipe if I make this one again. A big positive is that I now have a huge quantity of very versatile leftovers.

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