"I'll just check my critical thinking and nuke it in the microwave" has to be my favorite quote from this Business Insider video on Trader Joe's white-labeled food
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"text": "\"I'll just check my critical thinking and nuke it in the microwave\" has to be my favorite quote from this Business Insider video on Trader Joe's white-labeled food"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
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📗 Want to read Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk ISBN: 9781250375100
#books#fantasy#noir
{
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"published": "2026-01-12T15:30:22-0500",
"summary": "\ud83d\udcd7 Want to read Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk ISBN: 9781250375100",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2026/01/12/153022/",
"category": [
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"fantasy",
"noir"
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"author": {
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"type": "entry",
"published": "2026-01-11T21:42:40-0500",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2026/01/11/machine-knitting-a-chattie/",
"category": [
"machine-knitting",
"knitalong",
"hats"
],
"name": "Machine knitting: a (c)hattie",
"content": {
"text": "In 2025 the folks at machineknit.community\u00a0did a 12 Months of Hats knitalong. I only joined at the end of the year, and am still getting my practice in with a lot of basics, so I was a bit too intimidated to jump into any of these in the actual year of 2025.\nBased on an interesting hat design request from a friend, for my first knitting project of 2026 I chose Kurt Payne's \"Chattie\" design, which was the November 2025 knitalong.\nUnlike my first hats, which were basically rectangles sewn up and gathered at the top, the Chattie is knit sideways in 10 sections, using short rows on one side to form the rounded crown. This results in a neat sort of spiral look to the crown. Also unlike my first hats, the brim of the Chattie is added after-the-fact.\nThe Chattie is a very flexible design. However, before I get into any complexities like color work, I made this \"quick\" one out of plain white fuzzy cotton+polymer blend just to get practice with the techniques.\nThe good:\nKurt's instructions were great. He starts with gauge swatches before walking you through taking measurements and using a chart to convert measurements to stitches and rows. Instructions were also included for different brim variants. I chose a single band of 1x1 rib for this test.\n The end result came out about the size I expected! At least, it sits snug on my head and just covers my ears when the brim is folded up.\n I like the look and the feel of the 1x1 ribbed brim and the overall shape, I think.\n I seamed the hat together on the machine and I think that went pretty well. There's a feeling of \"certitude\" I get when all the stitches to be joined can be counted and hung up on needles that I don't get when hand-seaming. I might be interested in getting a linker carriage for my machine to make this even faster.\n I made some mistakes (see below) but decided to power through and\u00a0finish. This was a test hat, so I didn't need a pristine result, just a finished object that tells me what I might want to change for a future design.\nThe oops:\nMy math worked out so the body sections had an odd number of rows, which was pretty chaotic when it came time to bring held needles back into work. I think in the future I will either make sure that I round that row count up or down to the next even number for all sections, or perhaps alternate round-ups and round-downs to end up with the same number of rows.\n I dropped two stitches in the body of the hat. That's really not bad. I\u00a0think\u00a0this happened because of weight management, or possibly pulling multiple needles out of work in a single row because I got distracted with said weight management.\n I decided to work the brim by re-hanging the hat body sideways on the machine, and I just couldn't seem to get the weights consistent. I had a lot of trouble with needles not knitting, or getting caught on the gate pegs and causing\u00a0later\u00a0rows to knit incompletely. This was a stressful, time-consuming mess. Surprisingly, the end result only had a couple of awful stretched out stitches, which I fixed up and pulled to the \"inside\" of the brim.\n Unfortunately, to fit correctly, the \"inside\" of the brim gets flipped up to become the outside, so you can definitely see my mistakes and my seaming, haha.\n I think I misremembered how to do a stretchy finish on 1x1 rib, or just plain pulled it too-tight as I went, resulting in the brim edge being too tight. This is just enough to be noticeable and annoying, but not quite fatal for the hat as a wearable object.\nFor the future:\nI'm interested in doing color work on a design, but a great deal of the visible parts of the hat have short rows such that the number of stitches per row is constantly changing. Simple patterns in cool contrasting colors should tolerate that fine, but doing nice all-over patterning like I want may end up being tricky!\n I'd like to skip sewing up 1x1 rib edges for a bit. I think for a future hat I will start the ribbing on the machine, the graft the live stitches onto the hat body directly, which should leave me with a nice stretchy edge without testing my still-poor hand finishing skills.\nThat's it for now. Thanks for reading!",
"html": "<img src=\"https://media.martymcgui.re/9e/0e/32/f6/309ca54e21f3c673c2913b01bd19066c65019158f899c7139abf7c3f.\" alt=\"\" /><img src=\"https://media.martymcgui.re/d5/ab/cf/54/6f85f63afea3be05a6e18b1a825b6d205fef302bfcf1c820a5b77892.\" alt=\"\" /><img src=\"https://media.martymcgui.re/ce/59/7d/7d/99db69e98dc248d0ff77232e8f238cde3e518dcd04840c03846b1532.\" alt=\"\" /><p>In 2025 the folks at <a href=\"https://www.machineknit.community/\">machineknit.community</a>\u00a0did a 12 Months of Hats knitalong. I only joined at the end of the year, and am still getting my practice in with a lot of basics, so I was a bit too intimidated to jump into any of these in the actual year of 2025.</p>\n<p>Based on an interesting hat design request from a friend, for my first knitting project of 2026 I chose <a href=\"https://www.ravelry.com/designers/kurt-payne\">Kurt Payne</a>'s \"Chattie\" design, which was the November 2025 knitalong.</p>\n<p>Unlike my first hats, which were basically rectangles sewn up and gathered at the top, the Chattie is knit sideways in 10 sections, using short rows on one side to form the rounded crown. This results in a neat sort of spiral look to the crown. Also unlike my first hats, the brim of the Chattie is added after-the-fact.</p>\n<p>The Chattie is a very flexible design. However, before I get into any complexities like color work, I made this \"quick\" one out of plain white fuzzy cotton+polymer blend just to get practice with the techniques.</p>\n<p>The good:</p>\n<ul><li>Kurt's instructions were great. He starts with gauge swatches before walking you through taking measurements and using a chart to convert measurements to stitches and rows. Instructions were also included for different brim variants. I chose a single band of 1x1 rib for this test.</li>\n <li>The end result came out about the size I expected! At least, it sits snug on my head and just covers my ears when the brim is folded up.</li>\n <li>I like the look and the feel of the 1x1 ribbed brim and the overall shape, I think.</li>\n <li>I seamed the hat together on the machine and I think that went pretty well. There's a feeling of \"certitude\" I get when all the stitches to be joined can be counted and hung up on needles that I don't get when hand-seaming. I might be interested in getting a linker carriage for my machine to make this even faster.</li>\n <li>I made some mistakes (see below) but decided to power through and\u00a0<i>finish</i>. This was a test hat, so I didn't need a pristine result, just a finished object that tells me what I might want to change for a future design.</li>\n</ul><p>The oops:</p>\n<ul><li>My math worked out so the body sections had an odd number of rows, which was pretty chaotic when it came time to bring held needles back into work. I think in the future I will either make sure that I round that row count up or down to the next even number for all sections, or perhaps alternate round-ups and round-downs to end up with the same number of rows.</li>\n <li>I dropped two stitches in the body of the hat. That's really not bad. I\u00a0<i>think</i>\u00a0this happened because of weight management, or possibly pulling multiple needles out of work in a single row because I got distracted with said weight management.</li>\n <li>I decided to work the brim by re-hanging the hat body sideways on the machine, and I just couldn't seem to get the weights consistent. I had a lot of trouble with needles not knitting, or getting caught on the gate pegs and causing\u00a0<i>later</i>\u00a0rows to knit incompletely. This was a stressful, time-consuming mess. Surprisingly, the end result only had a couple of awful stretched out stitches, which I fixed up and pulled to the \"inside\" of the brim.</li>\n <li>Unfortunately, to fit correctly, the \"inside\" of the brim gets flipped up to become the outside, so you can definitely see my mistakes and my seaming, haha.</li>\n <li>I think I misremembered how to do a stretchy finish on 1x1 rib, or just plain pulled it too-tight as I went, resulting in the brim edge being too tight. This is just enough to be noticeable and annoying, but not quite fatal for the hat as a wearable object.</li>\n</ul><p>For the future:</p>\n<ul><li>I'm interested in doing color work on a design, but a great deal of the visible parts of the hat have short rows such that the number of stitches per row is constantly changing. Simple patterns in cool contrasting colors should tolerate that fine, but doing nice all-over patterning like I want may end up being tricky!</li>\n <li>I'd like to skip sewing up 1x1 rib edges for a bit. I think for a future hat I will start the ribbing on the machine, the graft the live stitches onto the hat body directly, which should leave me with a nice stretchy edge without testing my still-poor hand finishing skills.</li>\n</ul><p>That's it for now. Thanks for reading!</p>"
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{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2026-01-11T19:52:33-08:00",
"url": "https://nadreck.me/2026/01/apple-and-back-to-basics/",
"category": [
"technical",
"apple"
],
"name": "Apple and Back to Basics",
"content": {
"text": "I have never heard as many people avoiding upgrading to the new macOS, this late into the release cycle (we\u2019re up to 26.2), as I have with this release. Between the new UI being an accessibility nightmare and just actively weird, plus it all seeming to be buggier than normal, it just feels like a bit of a mess. I\u2019m not saying there weren\u2019t some good improvements as well, but let\u2019s just say it wasn\u2019t their best.\n\n\n\nWhat I\u2019d like to see from the next release (macOS 27, since they\u2019ve moved to a year-based versioning) is a \u201cback to basics\u201d bug-fix-focused release. Get your house in order, address technical debt, make everything as smooth and reliable as possible, get things into a good state for future development. Address all of the hate on the new UI, and follow your own UX guidelines. Fix the sorts of UI bugs that make the OS feel regressed and sloppy (for example, when dragging and dropping files from one window to another, it\u2019s no longer clear if you\u2019re copying into that window, or into folder inside that window). That absolutely needs to be the priority, though it\u2019s not like I\u2019m in a position to dictate as such.\n\n\n\nWorth noting, the idea isn\u2019t a far-fetched one \u2013 they\u2019ve done it before with Snow Leopard, and even marketed it as a \u201cNo new features\u201d release. It\u2019s time to do that again.",
"html": "<p>I have never heard as many people avoiding upgrading to the new macOS, this late into the release cycle (we\u2019re up to 26.2), as I have with this release. Between the new UI being an accessibility nightmare and just <a href=\"https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2025/icons-in-menus/\">actively</a> <a href=\"https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/\">weird</a>, plus it all seeming to be buggier than normal, it just feels like a bit of a mess. I\u2019m not saying there weren\u2019t some good improvements as well, but let\u2019s just say it wasn\u2019t their best.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I\u2019d like to see from the next release (macOS 27, since they\u2019ve moved to a year-based versioning) is a \u201cback to basics\u201d bug-fix-focused release. Get your house in order, address technical debt, make everything as smooth and reliable as possible, get things into a good state for future development. Address all of the hate on the new UI, and follow your <em>own UX guidelines</em>. Fix the sorts of UI bugs that make the OS feel regressed and sloppy (for example, when dragging and dropping files from one window to another, it\u2019s no longer clear if you\u2019re copying into that window, or into folder inside that window). That absolutely needs to be the priority, though it\u2019s not like I\u2019m in a position to dictate as such.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worth noting, the idea isn\u2019t a far-fetched one \u2013 they\u2019ve done it before with <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard\">Snow Leopard</a>, and even marketed it as a \u201cNo new features\u201d release. It\u2019s time to do that again.</p>"
},
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"type": "card",
"name": "Nadreck",
"url": "http://nadreck.me",
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Me looking at my todo list on a Sunday night after having done at least a couple things today, yet somehow it looks more like a list of what I did *not* do today.
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"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3mc73jd3vwf2j"
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"content": {
"text": "Me looking at my todo list on a Sunday night after having done at least a couple things today, yet somehow it looks more like a list of what I did *not* do today."
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
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While this #indieweb version of a year in review was fun to make and look back on, since all the data is public, there’s an opportunity here for a service (perhaps another XTool) or open source project to create such a summary for any Wikipedia editor.
Beyond a nicer presentation than plain text lists and numbers, such a summary could include visuals like a graphs of some of these stats over time, like Wikipedia pages created or edits of various kinds each year.
Until then, I encourage everyone editing Wikipedia to make their own “Edited” (I made that up, feel free to pick a better term) year in review and post it on your personal site! Feel free to re-use any of the design or separation of numbers that I chose, or make up your own.
This is post 7 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #yearInReview #Wikipedia #WikipediaEdited #Wikimedia #WikimediaCommons #XTools
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2026-01-07 23:57-0800",
"url": "https://tantek.com/2026/007/t3/wikipedia-edited-year-in-review",
"category": [
"indieweb",
"100PostsOfIndieWeb",
"100Posts",
"yearInReview",
"Wikipedia",
"WikipediaEdited",
"Wikimedia",
"WikimediaCommons",
"XTools"
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"content": {
"text": "Wikipedia \u201cEdited\u201d 2025 year in review, summarizing from Wikimedia XTools queries, and Wikipedia itself, curated manually for my personal site:\n\n* 7 articles created (new personal best), with several firsts for me. In creation order:\n\u00a0 * \"Take California\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_California) \u2014 first music related\n\u00a0 * \"West Coast Health Alliance\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Health_Alliance) \u2014 first health related\n\u00a0 * \"Northeast Public Health Collaborative\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Public_Health_Collaborative)\n\u00a0 * \"RaptureTok\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaptureTok) \u2014 first hashtag article\n\u00a0 * \"Governors Public Health Alliance\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Public_Health_Alliance)\n\u00a0 * \"Stephanie D'Agostini\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_D%27Agostini) \u2014 first comedian\n\u00a0 * \"Mic Drop Comedy\" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mic_Drop_Comedy) \u2014 first comedy club\n\n* 2 Category: articles created \u2014 first ever for me. In creation order:\n\u00a0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Hawaii\n\u00a0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Maryland\n\n* 28 redirects created: https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/Tantek/all/onlyredirects\n\nand\n\n* 1 image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2025-12-11-stefdag.jpg?photo\n\nIn total:\n\n* 272 edits (not counting User: page edits) across Wikipedia and Wikimedia commons\n\u00a0 * 229 main Wikipedia articles edits\n\u00a0 * 39 Talk: page edits\n\u00a0 * 2 Category: page edits (above-mentioned articles created)\n\u00a0 * 2 Wikipedia Commons edits\n\u00a0 \n* 329 edits and contributions counting User: page edits: https://xtools.wmcloud.org/globalcontribs/Tantek/all///2025-12-31T01:36:35Z?limit=330\n\nThis is my first time posting a Wikipedia \u201cEdited\u201d year in review, despite having edited Wikipedia for 20+ years (https://tantek.com/2025/300/t20/wikipedia-editing-anniversary).\n\nWhile this #indieweb version of a year in review was fun to make and look back on, since all the data is public, there\u2019s an opportunity here for a service (perhaps another XTool) or open source project to create such a summary for any Wikipedia editor.\n\nBeyond a nicer presentation than plain text lists and numbers, such a summary could include visuals like a graphs of some of these stats over time, like Wikipedia pages created or edits of various kinds each year.\n\nUntil then, I encourage everyone editing Wikipedia to make their own \u201cEdited\u201d (I made that up, feel free to pick a better term) year in review and post it on your personal site! Feel free to re-use any of the design or separation of numbers that I chose, or make up your own.\n\n\nThis is post 7 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #yearInReview #Wikipedia #WikipediaEdited #Wikimedia #WikimediaCommons #XTools \n\n\u2190 https://tantek.com/2026/006/t1/2025-people-projects-insights-creations\n\u2192 \ud83d\udd2e",
"html": "Wikipedia \u201cEdited\u201d 2025 year in review, summarizing from Wikimedia XTools queries, and Wikipedia itself, curated manually for my personal site:<br /><br />* 7 articles created (new personal best), with several firsts for me. In creation order:<br />\u00a0 * \"Take California\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_California\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_California</a>) \u2014 first music related<br />\u00a0 * \"West Coast Health Alliance\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Health_Alliance\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Health_Alliance</a>) \u2014 first health related<br />\u00a0 * \"Northeast Public Health Collaborative\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Public_Health_Collaborative\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Public_Health_Collaborative</a>)<br />\u00a0 * \"RaptureTok\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaptureTok\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaptureTok</a>) \u2014 first hashtag article<br />\u00a0 * \"Governors Public Health Alliance\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Public_Health_Alliance\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Public_Health_Alliance</a>)<br />\u00a0 * \"Stephanie D'Agostini\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_D%27Agostini\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_D%27Agostini</a>) \u2014 first comedian<br />\u00a0 * \"Mic Drop Comedy\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mic_Drop_Comedy\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mic_Drop_Comedy</a>) \u2014 first comedy club<br /><br />* 2 Category: articles created \u2014 first ever for me. In creation order:<br />\u00a0 * <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Hawaii\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Hawaii</a><br />\u00a0 * <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Maryland\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2025_establishments_in_Maryland</a><br /><br />* 28 redirects created: <a href=\"https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/Tantek/all/onlyredirects\">https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/Tantek/all/onlyredirects</a><br /><br />and<br /><br />* 1 image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: <a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2025-12-11-stefdag.jpg?photo\">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2025-12-11-stefdag.jpg?photo</a><br /><br />In total:<br /><br />* 272 edits (not counting User: page edits) across Wikipedia and Wikimedia commons<br />\u00a0 * 229 main Wikipedia articles edits<br />\u00a0 * 39 Talk: page edits<br />\u00a0 * 2 Category: page edits (above-mentioned articles created)<br />\u00a0 * 2 Wikipedia Commons edits<br />\u00a0 <br />* 329 edits and contributions counting User: page edits: <a href=\"https://xtools.wmcloud.org/globalcontribs/Tantek/all///2025-12-31T01:36:35Z?limit=330\">https://xtools.wmcloud.org/globalcontribs/Tantek/all///2025-12-31T01:36:35Z?limit=330</a><br /><br />This is my first time posting a Wikipedia \u201cEdited\u201d year in review, despite having edited Wikipedia for 20+ years (<a href=\"https://tantek.com/2025/300/t20/wikipedia-editing-anniversary\">https://tantek.com/2025/300/t20/wikipedia-editing-anniversary</a>).<br /><br />While this #<span class=\"p-category\">indieweb</span> version of a year in review was fun to make and look back on, since all the data is public, there\u2019s an opportunity here for a service (perhaps another XTool) or open source project to create such a summary for any Wikipedia editor.<br /><br />Beyond a nicer presentation than plain text lists and numbers, such a summary could include visuals like a graphs of some of these stats over time, like Wikipedia pages created or edits of various kinds each year.<br /><br />Until then, I encourage everyone editing Wikipedia to make their own \u201cEdited\u201d (I made that up, feel free to pick a better term) year in review and post it on your personal site! Feel free to re-use any of the design or separation of numbers that I chose, or make up your own.<br /><br /><br />This is post 7 of #<span class=\"p-category\">100PostsOfIndieWeb</span>. #<span class=\"p-category\">100Posts</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">yearInReview</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">Wikipedia</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">WikipediaEdited</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">Wikimedia</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">WikimediaCommons</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">XTools</span> <br /><br />\u2190 <a href=\"https://tantek.com/2026/006/t1/2025-people-projects-insights-creations\">https://tantek.com/2026/006/t1/2025-people-projects-insights-creations</a><br />\u2192 \ud83d\udd2e"
},
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"type": "card",
"name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
"url": "https://tantek.com/",
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"_id": "46996802",
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