Latest Posts
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Ballpark Food
A guide for myself to make it easier to find food. Places with unique food in the park.
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Data Backup
According to the 3-2-1 backup strategy, I need 3 copies of my data, on two different media, with at least one copy off-site. One way is a local NAS, local bluray, and remote cloud backup.
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Best 10 Dollars Spent
This was one of best $10 I’ve ever spent. I recently fixed a air leak in my old aluminum windows. There supposed to be some hairy weather stripping to help seal it shut, but over time it has worn down to be a flat mat. Every time there’s gust a window I would feel a chill if I sat by the window. I looked up solutions on how to fix drafty windows and learned that I could replace the pile weather stripping. $10 and a bunch of elbow grease later, no more drafty window.
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Practical Blacksmithing Volume 1
There are a lot of specific tools for blacksmithing, but it makes sense since you don’t want to waste time with a tool that is not ideal. The benefit is that you can make all the different tools to exercise your blacksmithing skills.
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One Good Turn
One Good Turn by Witold Rybczynski goes over the history of the screwdriver and screw. Learned a bunch. Previously called a turnscrew. Found this book while looking into precision lead screws. It covers a little bit on that.
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Dairy
There are a lot of different kinds of dairy. You can make creme fraiche from buttermilk and cream. Learning about different types of dariy since ice cream making is very dependent on the percentage of fat.
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Gardening Yields
Expect 0.5 lb / square foot as a general guideline.
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When We Walk By
I read When We Walk By since it was recommended to me by people working with the homeless in San Francisco. It is not every day we have the APEC in San Francisco, so something else must be done about the homeless problem.
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Running Gear
I used to think running was inexpensive, but I find myself with a lot of stuff when I go out the door. Shoes only last about 400 miles until they get uncomfortable to run in. If you are doing 40 mile weeks, they only last 10 weeks. Maybe 2 months if you run a lot. When you run far, you sweat a lot. Sweat in the eyes hurt, so a head helps a lot. You want your legs to and groin to be cool, but supported, so running shorts with liners are good. You might run at night during events like ultra marathons, so reflective vest and a headlamp are a must. Sometimes the shorts have some refective parts. If you run more than 90 minutes, you probably need to fuel while you’re running. Some people use gels, but they get sticky. I prefer gummies. Metrics are important for tracking progress and adjusting training. Heart rate monitor is very useful as well as GPS watch. You don’t want to get cancer, so you need to put on sunblock. You want to use less sunblock, so long sleeve shirt. Mineral sunblock, since chemicals are bad. Technical shirt since cotton sticks to the body. You also want to protect your eyes from UV and avoid glare for safety. Also to protect your eyes from guano. If you run distance your nipples can get rubbed raw, so body glide is useful. Your feet also get sweaty, so wool socks are better for wicking moisture and odor. The running socks also have compression and padding. For some trail races, you need to bring your own water bottle. Also move agains disposable cups for enviornmental concerns.
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Tree Roots
Recent storms have brought down a lot of trees. Arboriculture Research Information Note 130/95 Tree Root Systems fixes some of the misconceptions I had about tree roots before I spent a summer removing tree roots left over from cutting down a 36”+ diameter tree. Some people thing the tree roots is a mirror of the tree above and the roots only spread as far as the canopy. That is incorrect. Roots are mainly within the first 60 cm underground since they need air to breath. Roots already spread radially farther than the tree is tall. If you have clay soil, putting a fruit tree in a raised bed will help if you have problems with drainage.
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The Essential Cookie Companion
The King Arthur company also has a book on cookies, The Essential Cookie Companion. It has a lot of recipes simply described, but I wish there were more photos.It feels like an old book even though it was published in 2021.
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Friday Baguette
I want to make the Tartine baguette bread on Friday. To do that I need to start reviving the starter Wednesday night.
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Banh Mi
My best result baking so far was following Aimee’s Cooking’s video on Banh Mi. It was everything as promised. I ditched the 10 year old dry yeast I was using a bought new instant yeast, which I am sure helped. The flour was also new high-gluten flour. I also used the bread improver mentioned in the video. Definitely would make this again. They also keep fairly well.
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The King Arthur Baking School
The King Arthur Baking School book made me feel like I was in school since there were progressions and goals with each chapter. It informs as well as give you the recipes to build upon.
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Souffle
I made the soufflé from Jacques Pépin’s Complete Techniques, inspired by seeing him cook it with Ming Tsai. While it seemed effortless on screen, I did need to use an electric mixer. My soufflé rose beautifully, but unfortunately, two sides were stuck because I didn’t drag my finger deep enough around the ramekin’s rim. Remember, when fingering the ramekin, go all the way down! I was surprised by how quickly they deflated, but learned that’s normal.
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The Art Of Kumiko
The book goes over many different square based patterns. Doesn’t pretend to be something it is not. I was looking for kumiko to protect my pond fish from cats over gopher wire.
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Going Infinite
Going Infinite is Michael Lewis’s book with an inside look at the FTX implosion. Lots of juicy tidbits, but I was most struck about how they screwed Constance Wang on equity. There is even an article on a gender pay gap. https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/ftx-alameda-caroline-ellison-stark-gender-pay-gap.html The book is worth a read. Book also talks about their corporate therapist.
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Steaming Bread
What is the best way to steam bread.
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Ml In 2024
I asked ChatGPT for alternatives to tensorflow. It responded with
- PyTorch
- Keras
- MXNet
- Caffe
- Chainer
- Theano
- DL4J (Deeplearning4j)
- CNTK (Micrsoft Cognitive Toolkit)
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Kitchenaid Mixer
I had to replace the WPW10112253 worm gear a second time. I had the proper punch this time, so I did not damage the paint on the mixer. It’s still damaged from the first time. There are other videos, but this video is the same model as mine. I don’t mind the gear breaking since it means the metal is not breaking.
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Krenov Saw Horse
Did an OpenSCAD model of a Krenov saw horse with a sword tip miter made out of 2x4 construction to get a feel for the size that I can modify parametrically.
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Poolish
Poolish, the bread pokemon. I tried Claire’s Classic Baguettes recipe on NYTimes and Richard Bertinet’s French Baguettes recipe on Gozney.
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Pond Plants
According to https://www.cal-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Dont-Plant-a-Pest-Aquatics.pdf there are some plants that I should not plant in waterways. I liked seeting water lettuce and water lilies in Taiwan. I see anacharis a lot in aquairums.
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Sourdough
I made my first sourdough last night. Wasn’t planned.
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Pizza
I made some pizza with some sourdough stater. I wasn’t planning to make pizza again until I got an ooni since I burned the bottoms on the previous attempts. The head from the grill comes from the bottom, so it cooks on the bottom before the top. I need flames to dance across the top of the oven. I made the attempt. First attemp was pretty good. I used parchment paper, which instantly burned to a crisp. The bottom was mostly burned, but there where some good areas. Second pizza went in the trash. Third pizza was okay since I lowered the tempature a lot. I need to get an infrared thermometer, because I can’t go by the dome temperature. I think the stone was much more than 650.
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Die With Zero
The rules from Die With Zero by Bill Perkins:
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The Elements Of Pizza
If you write a pizza cookbook, you get a expensed trip to Italy. Now I know why people like writing pizza cookbooks. I like that The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish has dough recipes for different time scales, whether you want to prepare 72 hours ahead or make pizza the same day, there is a dough recipe for you. Haven’t made anything yet from this book, but combined with The Pizza Bible, I think I am covered for most styles of pizza.
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Lavender Harvest
Harvest in early blooms, early Spring in the early morning.
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Base64 Images
You can embed an image in the webpage and save a single html file with images included. To do this you need to base64 embed the images.
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State Of Ice Cream
Making less ice cream as the weather gets colder, but it has become routine. No more buying ice cream from the supermarket. The best so far is strawberry sherbet with left over cranberry sauce. I like sherbet more than the custard based ice creams since I tend do more fruit flavors. I want to try more mix-ins and flavors.
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State Of Bbq
The state of barbecue and grilling after less than a year of using a kamado. I like tritip the most so far. Leftovers in a sandwich is great. Great just picking out cold pieces from refrigerator. Also tritip can be cooked in an hour instead of 12 hours for brisket. Tritip is also often on sale. Affordable and delicious.
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Bread
Been thinking about what type of bread I would eat in a sandwich to see if I should make any. Sandwiches help me get rid of the extra meat from BBQ. Only learned recently that Ciabatta was invented in 1982. The world is still evolving.
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Horizon
Horizon has got to be one of my favorite games. The world is massive and there is a sense of scale. I previously only heard it was about hunting and it got good reviews. I finished playing both Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon 2: Forbidden West. When Sony announced their social sharing features, I was disinterested, but I actually took an in game photo since I liked the view so much. Gliding through air as the sun rose on a post apocalyptic San Francisco. Game play was good. I never felt frustrated and the world felt as alive as any other open world game I played.
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Evolutions In Bread
This is the third book by Ken Forkish. He responded complaints about how wasteful his levain maintenance is. In one of his videos he justified it by saying it was spent fuel, but he was able to revise the recipe to be less wasteful after writing his book on pizza. This book includes pan loaves in addition to the Dutch oven round loaves. He even has a recipe on the Japanese milk bread.
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Flour Water Salt Yeast
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish goes over how to make bread, which is just 4 ingredients. Describes how to make bread from easy (straight) to hard (levain).
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Webcrawl
How do you build a web crawler?
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Growing Food
Yield
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Not A Single Sharp Pruner In The Shed
There’s no point in having 10 pruning shears if none of them are sharp. Garden Answers has a video on how to clean and sharpen pruners.
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Ice Cream Dream
I wonder how much ice cream I have to make to offset the supply cost.
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Moen Shower Cartridge
My shower started leaking. I suspected it was the shower cartridge. I was able to read Moen Dialcet on the fixture, so that narrowed down the brand.
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Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream
Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream goes over the science of making ice cream. This knowledge lets you adjust the recipes to suit your tastes and ingredients on hand.
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The Perfect Scoop
This book goes over many different frozen desserts. I modified a recipe to made a lychee oat milk sherbet. This book uses normal ingredients that people would have used to make ice cream before they had unpronounceable ingredients.
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Strawberry Tree
In the future, I may need to live off the land. We have food and medicine around us, but that knowledge has been lost. One example is the strawberry tree. The fruit just drops on the ground most of the time. The San Francisco Street Tree Map.
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Salt And Straw Ice Cream Cookbook
Never been to Salt & Straw, but they have a cookbook. When you buy the cookbook you should also buy xanthan gum. I had light corn syrup left over from gummy making fun activity. The book is approachable enough for people who want to try things that are not the standard flavors.`
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Rpi Swap
I had trouble pip installing matplotlib due to running out of memory on a 1 gigabyte RAM raspberry pi. The solution was to increase the swap.
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Marvel Encyclopedia, New Edition
I read the Marvel Encyclopedia, New Edition in the Axis360 app. The app was slow on startup and crashed once. This book would be okay for a child, but with internet and wikis I find it lacking. Hard to put all of that information in print and hyperlink everything. I never knew there were so many Marvel characters. I also don’t think the Marvel Encyclopedia is exhaustive. Maybe okay as a coffee table book.
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The Culture Map
Erin Meyer writes about how cultural differences leads to difficulties working across cultures. Good book, must read if you work with people who are not from your same country. She analyzes countries across 8 scales.
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Cedar Fence Picket Planter
A cedar fence picket is about $3 for a 6 feet long by 5-1/2 inch wide by 19/32 inch thick piece of wood. #10 x 1” Wood screws are about $8 for a pack of 100. It takes about 14 screws to put the planter together, so about about a little more than $4 a planter with an internal volume of 5.5 x 5 x 19 = 552.5 cubic inches or 0.3 cubic feet. Cow manure is about $3 for a cubic foot, so it about $5 for a 0.3 cubic feet growing container.
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Fixed Income Investments
There are fixed income investments like CDs, treasury bonds, and municipal bonds that are taxed differently. Treasuries are state tax exempt and municipal bonds are exempt from both state and federal tax. CDs are FDIC insured while municipal bonds have more risk.
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Outdoor Finish
I was looking on how to finish an exterior door. I figure an exterior door has much in common with a wooden ship. Understanding Wood Finishing has exterior finishes. Use a glossy marine spar varnish. Apply 8 coats. Top coats needs to be sanded and reapplied every year due to UV damage. It looks like people like Epifanes. It has tung oil, which is what old Chinese boats used.
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Bending EMT
Electrical metallic tube (EMT) conduit is useful for a lot of things since it is cheap and strong. You can make a trellis with it.
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Which Angle Grinder
My 4-1/2 inch Dewalt angle grinder broke, so I needed to get a new one. Old one was corded, but I found the cord gets in the way, so this time around I’ll try a cordless one. Between the Dewalt batteries and Makita batteries I have, I’ve decided to see if Makita is any better.
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Espoma Fertilzer
I planted a fruit tree. The new leaves were yellow, so I tried to research what was wrong. Either it is a nutrient deficiency or pest/disease. I narrowed assumed it was iron deficiency in sandy soil. After adding iron and waiting few month, the new leaves are green.
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The Pizza Bible
I wanted to make Margherita pizza, so I bought The Pizza Bible since the author was a multi-time award-winning pizziaolo with restaurants in San Francisco. I keep thinking of a pizzzialo as a pizza gigolo.
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Quantum Supremacy
I read Quantum Supremacy by Michio Kaku. I took the online MOOC from Umesh Vazirani about quantum computing where I learned about the Shor’s algorithm for factoring an integer, which can break some cryptographic algorithms that rely on the difficulty of factoring large numbers to exchange keys.
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Bees, Cow Chips, Garbage
On one of my YouTube binges, I wound on a YouTube video, “Why beekeepers usually don’t plant flowers next to the hive”. The creator explains why bees don’t usually forage near their hive, by using cow chips as an example. He takes a bucket and picks up cow chips as the moves away from the hive. The bucket gets heavier and he winds up having to take a full bucket of cow chips back to his truck. He compares this walking some distance from the truck before picking up cow chips and he bucket only gets full as he is close to the truck.
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A New Beginning
A new year, a new beginning.