A space for mostly short form stuff and responses to things I see elsewhere.
Decision, decisions: is a touchbar on an M2 MacBook Pro worth €100? That’s the price difference from an M2 MBA, and the MBP has a slightly smaller screen and weighs 160 gm more. I’ve never seen anyone rave about a touchbar. So, what’s the deal? All thoughts welcome.
Finished reading: Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy by Gary Paul Nabhan
Finished reading: Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Currently reading: Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy by Gary Paul Nabhan, ISBN: 9780140239720
Finishing touches done for this week's Eat This Newsletter, with the Catherine Effect, from @BienassisLoic, not the pizza effect, from @NPR, groundnuts in The Gambia, and the horrible Hamlet Fire, from @BryantSimon. Sign up at https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas
I've never really been an outliner sort of person, although I know I should try harder. So I'm taking a look at [bike](https://bikeguide.hogbaysoftware.com/) and really liking it. Much more intuitive than things I've used before, so it may stick. Need to check that Save As script.
Currently reading: Night Soldiers by Alan Furst, ISBN: 9780375760006
New issue of Eat This Newsletter out now, with raw material provided by @kitchenbee @historicuk @minimaxir and a minor kerfuffle in the august pages of @PNASNews.
Read it at https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas/archive/eat-this-newsletter-185-heat/ and feel free to subscribe, for free.
Biggest mistake I ever made was starting a "free trial" of @RealVNC because now my original Home VNC Viewer no longer works and I cannot find a way to revert.
Not surprised that only 25% of people found this useful https://help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003474552#on-the-device-you-want-to-control-from-0-4
Latest issue of Eat This Newsletter is about to drop, racing through the backlog so normal service can be restored ASAP. There's hops, heritage grains and climate change, plus agricultural policy in South Africa and the US.
https://buttondown.email/jeremycherfas/archive/eat-this-newsletter-184-catching-up-with-reality/
Consider subscribing.
Slightly puzzled by Epilogue for MB for those of us who do not have a paid account. Does it feed my timeline, eventually? If it does, I might consider PESOS rather than indiebookclub and POSSE. Also, two way traffic, to open someone’s link in MB would encourage conversation.
Finished reading: Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane, ISBN: 9780393358094
Currently reading: Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, ISBN: 9780143037071
"You begin the book a sober reader, calmly appreciating the complexity of historical causation, and you finish it a raving wheat monomaniac."
Glad to know I am not alone. Fine review of @nelsonhist's book in the NYRB
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/07/21/wielding-wheat-oceans-of-grain-nelson/
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Stupid 170 1/1/2
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Stupid 169 1/0/2
Abracadabra!
Here, have a webmention in recognition of this bold leap.
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Stupid 168 1/1/2
Whoa! New artwork, parts of which look just like the leaves on my cannas. @cdevroe
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Stupid 167 1/2/2
Quite hard.
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Stupid 166 1/0/2
So many vowels
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Stupid 165 1/0/2
No coalmines around here.
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Stupid 164 1/0/2
Indeed it is!
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Stupid 162 1/0/2
Another easy one
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Stupid 161 1/0/2
Nice an' easy
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Stupid 160 1/0/2
Not too hard
Very disappointed that Lets Liberate Diversity @eclld does not offer any kind of feed from its website. I would much rather follow a feed than any other way.
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Stupid 159 2/1/2
Pure luck
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Stupid 158 2/1/2
Twice is coincidence ...
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Stupid 157 2/2/2
Another bad guess.
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Stupid 156 2/2/2
Bah! Rubbish performance today.
Now for the third time, after checking out the dev branch, upgrading to PHP 8.1 and running composer.phar update, let us see whether we can post a new status update here.
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Stupid 155 1/1/2
OK, this is weird, but I find it hard to believe that yesterday's word and today's came up purely randomly.
Jeremy Cherfaspublished this
@jeremycherfas In a way, I find it hard to believe that they could have come up like that otherwise than randomly. Remember how the iPod Shuffle had to be made “less random” because it kept doing things that didn’t look random (playing successive tracks from the same album etc). OTOH, nothing produced by a computer is truly random, since the system is unavoidably deterministic. Today’s answer would have been my first attempt yesterday, till the third letter came up pink. Today, I got it in one, with no backspaces.
, Jun 04 2022 on micro.blog
@artkavanagh I agree, in my head. But my heart says no. The whole business of people not understanding random, so they have not enough sequences in numbers and so on, is fascinating. But I think @cdevroe should weigh in. He did say he was making tweaks ...
, Jun 04 2022 on micro.blog
I try to make my site look good on mobile, but that isn’t my primary concern. Not too difficult with so many good responsive basic packages available.
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Stupid 154 2/1/2
Nearly missed this one.
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Stupid 147 2/2/2
Tricky one, and also, entirely remote.
It truly is like magic being able to use my desktop computer from far away, and will be even better when I can work out how to summon Alfred. I use option-space on the Mac and cannot for the life of me work out how to send that from my iPad. Do you know?
Jeremy Cherfaspublished this
@jeremycherfas what are you using to connect? Screens? edovia.com/en/screen...
, May 26 2022 on micro.blog
@jeremycherfas it should be - bring up the virtual keyboard, double tap the Option key and hit space. Is that not an option for you?
Use Command and Space keys and type Alfred into the Spotlight search box?
, May 26 2022 on micro.blog
@jeremycherfas I switched to Screens finding it more usable/reliable but they are probably much of a muchness these days.
, May 27 2022 on micro.blog
@jeremycherfas How are you connecting to your computer?
, May 27 2022 on micro.blog
@Alligator With RealVNC viewer from my ipad and with outboard mouse and keyboard
, May 27 2022 on micro.blog
Also on: @EatPodcast
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Stupid 146 1/0/2
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Stupid 145 1/0/2
Very appropriate.
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Stupid 144 1/0/2
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Stupid 143 2/0/2
But I think it needs a hyphen.
Is it really possible that in 2022 one cannot search iCloud drive for a filename that contains, rather than starts with, a target? And that one cannot save a search? This is awful. Someone, enlighten me, please.
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Stupid 141 1/0/2
A lucky 5:1 shot on the final letter, not including parts of speech.
Jeremy Cherfaspublished this
@jeremycherfas 5:1? I counted 3, but I got it on the first guess too.
, May 21 2022 on micro.blog
@artkavanagh One is probably obsolete, though it does appear in Moby Dick.
, May 21 2022 on micro.blog
@jeremycherfas Yet another enormous gap in my reading that I really ought to fill. I wonder if I’ll spot the word.
, May 22 2022 on micro.blog
@artkavanagh Consider the nature of the beast.
I don’t know why I am being so coy here, given that the puzzle is long gone.
Sparm.
, May 22 2022 on micro.blog
@jeremycherfas I guessed it might be that. Still ought to read the book, though.
, May 22 2022 on micro.blog
@artkavanagh The Squeeze is listening to a version read by Phoebe Judge and says it is extremely good.
, May 22 2022 on micro.blog
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Stupid 140 2/2/2
Bah! Parts of speech.
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Stupid 139 2/1/2
My linguistic prejudices and blinkered attitude let me down.
Ag Economists: would anyone be willing to either talk to me or point me to something that would help me to get a better understanding of this chart from USDA?
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=103880
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Stupid 138 2/1/2
Very difficult one; pure guesswork that failed.
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Stupid 137 1/0/2
Skipped yesterday because it revealed a flaw in my logic, now corrected.
@ECLLD Very happy to see my dreams come true. I don't understand why my reader failed to pick up the feed automatically, but I have now added it and will look forward to seeing updates as they happen.
Jeremy Cherfas, Jun 08 2022 on stream.jeremycherfas.net