Someone broke through the chain link fence last week, in broad daylight, while I was home, and didn't notice at the time.
I started thinking about what I could do about it, and it turns out the EA Unifi cameras have a new webhook feature. So now my cameras send a webhook to Home Assistant when someone crosses a virtual line, and it will trigger the siren. Since this is a line crossing event, not generic person detection, I can leave it armed 24/7, since nobody should be in that area at all.
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-08T19:03:43-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/08/13/line-crossing",
"category": [
"homeautomation",
"security",
"homeassistant",
"unifi"
],
"syndication": [
"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3kzauayohu227",
"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3kzaubavjt22z"
],
"content": {
"text": "Someone broke through the chain link fence last week, in broad daylight, while I was home, and didn't notice at the time. \n\nI started thinking about what I could do about it, and it turns out the EA Unifi cameras have a new webhook feature. So now my cameras send a webhook to Home Assistant when someone crosses a virtual line, and it will trigger the siren. Since this is a line crossing event, not generic person detection, I can leave it armed 24/7, since nobody should be in that area at all.",
"html": "Someone broke through the chain link fence last week, in broad daylight, while I was home, and didn't notice at the time. <br /><br />I started thinking about what I could do about it, and it turns out the EA Unifi cameras have a new webhook feature. So now my cameras send a webhook to Home Assistant when someone crosses a virtual line, and it will trigger the siren. Since this is a line crossing event, not generic person detection, I can leave it armed 24/7, since nobody should be in that area at all."
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41876157",
"_source": "16"
}
why am I always either drowning in lens wipes or can never find one??
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-08T10:06:25-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/08/9/",
"syndication": [
"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3kz7wa5vjtx26"
],
"content": {
"text": "why am I always either drowning in lens wipes or can never find one??"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41872112",
"_source": "16"
}
Are you waiting for something during eternal Caturday?
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-07T21:09:51-0400",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2024/08/07/210951/",
"category": [
"Caturday"
],
"video": [
"https://res.cloudinary.com/schmarty/video/upload/vc_h264/mmmgre/99/3e/4d/24/7db70d253f711fc0ccf9d8980587d2629510f6eba93b2a6abec67709.mov"
],
"content": {
"text": "Are you waiting for something during eternal Caturday?",
"html": "<p>Are you waiting for something during eternal Caturday?</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Marty McGuire",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/",
"photo": "https://martymcgui.re/images/logo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "video",
"_id": "41866433",
"_source": "175"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-07T18:16:51-07:00",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/21-fuck-email",
"name": "fuck email",
"content": {
"text": "Today something fucked up with my mail server and I\u2019m sick of dealing with it, so I migrated my mail to Purely Mail, which is great, and there\u2019s still a bunch of shit broken on my site as a result of things fucking up but whatever, at least now I can receive mail again and I don\u2019t have to spend frantic hours to receive email when I\u2019m already in the middle of a fucking crisis\n\nit\u2019s like $10/year and works great, and I\u2019ll probably also drop mailgun for my outgoing because it handles that just fine too",
"html": "<p>Today something fucked up with my mail server and I\u2019m sick of dealing with it, so I migrated my mail to <a href=\"https://purelymail.com/\">Purely Mail</a>, which is great, and there\u2019s still a bunch of shit broken on my site as a result of things fucking up but whatever, at least now I can receive mail again and I don\u2019t have to spend frantic hours to receive email when I\u2019m already in the middle of a fucking crisis</p><p>it\u2019s like $10/year and works great, and I\u2019ll probably also drop mailgun for my outgoing because it handles that just fine too</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "fluffy",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/",
"photo": "https://beesbuzz.biz/static/headshot.jpg"
},
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "41866239",
"_source": "2778"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-06T19:32:43-07:00",
"url": "https://nadreck.me/2024/08/homeowner-again/",
"category": [
"life",
"vermont"
],
"name": "Home(Owner) Again",
"content": {
"text": "I wasn\u2019t really mentioning this publicly, but now that the papers are all signed, I\u2019m happy to announce we just bought a house! It\u2019s a very, very, very fine house in a quiet neighborhood in Rutland, Vermont. Which means, yep, I\u2019ll be a Vermont resident again. It feels like a nice culmination to spending the last year exploring the country (almost exactly a year \u2013 we left August 17th, and here it is, August 6th). We\u2019re still planning to travel when we can, but it\u2019ll be nice to have a home base again. Looking forward to it!",
"html": "<p>I wasn\u2019t really mentioning this publicly, but now that the papers are all signed, I\u2019m happy to announce we just bought a house! It\u2019s a very, very, very fine house in a quiet neighborhood in Rutland, Vermont. Which means, yep, I\u2019ll be a Vermont resident again. It feels like a nice culmination to spending the last year exploring the country (almost exactly a year \u2013 we left August 17th, and here it is, August 6th). We\u2019re still planning to travel when we can, but it\u2019ll be nice to have a home base again. Looking forward to it!</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Nadreck",
"url": "http://nadreck.me",
"photo": null
},
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "41856932",
"_source": "2935"
}
This screenshot from my Vanguard portfolio is why I am not worried about the current "crash"
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-06T17:03:20-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/06/10/crash",
"category": [
"stock",
"market"
],
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/e2baec17a9fa1e0476181c5ad88fbfd6919d48cc4a903ff2f5a917e7c7a0f8f0.png"
],
"content": {
"text": "This screenshot from my Vanguard portfolio is why I am not worried about the current \"crash\""
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"post-type": "photo",
"_id": "41856223",
"_source": "16"
}
I am upset but not surprised that Nassau County passed a public mask ban. Misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine and vague exemptions for health or religious reasons — left up to police to decide, of course. 😡
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-06 12:59-0700",
"url": "https://gregorlove.com/2024/07/i-am-upset-but/",
"syndication": [
"https://fed.brid.gy/"
],
"content": {
"text": "I am upset but not surprised that Nassau County passed a public mask ban. Misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine and vague exemptions for health or religious reasons \u2014 left up to police to decide, of course. \ud83d\ude21",
"html": "<p>I am upset but not surprised that Nassau County passed a public mask ban. Misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine and vague exemptions for health or religious reasons \u2014 left up to police to decide, of course. \ud83d\ude21</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "gRegor Morrill",
"url": "https://gregorlove.com/",
"photo": "https://gregorlove.com/site/assets/files/6268/profile-2021-square.300x0.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41854653",
"_source": "95"
}
Just posted another video of me working through my 100 songs to make them full length! This one involves cats 🐈
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Awoj6C7Lg
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-06T08:32:50-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/06/4/100days",
"category": [
"100daysofmusic"
],
"syndication": [
"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3kz2q33zft22a"
],
"content": {
"text": "Just posted another video of me working through my 100 songs to make them full length! This one involves cats \ud83d\udc08 \n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Awoj6C7Lg",
"html": "Just posted another video of me working through my 100 songs to make them full length! This one involves cats <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/emoji/%F0%9F%90%88\">\ud83d\udc08</a> <br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Awoj6C7Lg\"><span>https://</span>www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Awoj6C7Lg</a>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41852086",
"_source": "16"
}
Picking up the trailer parts!
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-05T13:32:24-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/05/11/",
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/49e7837efe5a77566e88167c3148d83472ec201ed026ccec65a3b079eaea1939.jpg"
],
"syndication": [
"https://www.swarmapp.com/user/59164/checkin/66b136d833ad925830dbe6e2"
],
"content": {
"text": "Picking up the trailer parts!"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"checkin": {
"type": "card",
"name": "CC Coatings",
"latitude": "45.456982",
"longitude": "-122.593579",
"url": "https://foursquare.com/v/5bbec498798943db6926e62a"
},
"post-type": "checkin",
"_id": "41844852",
"_source": "16"
}
finished the Skyline 21k (half marathon) trail race in 3:39:53!
Went out with the goal to have fun and try for sub-4, finished with smiles and a sub 3:40.
Superbly run event as always by @ScenaPerformance.com (@instagram.com/scenaperformance), race director Adam Ray, and all the great volunteers.
So many things went well. Race write-up to follow.
Previously:
* 2023: DNS Skyline 50k because of a bad fever from a blood bacteria infection caught in Wakefield MA (that’s whole other story, never going back there)
* 2022: 50k race PR at Skyline: https://tantek.com/2022/289/t1/hot-skyline50k-ultra-finish
#Skyline #21k #halfMarathon #trailRace #trailRun
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-04 19:09-0700",
"url": "https://tantek.com/2024/217/t1/skyline-half-marathon-trail-race",
"category": [
"Skyline",
"21k",
"halfMarathon",
"trailRace",
"trailRun"
],
"content": {
"text": "finished the Skyline 21k (half marathon) trail race in 3:39:53!\n\nWent out with the goal to have fun and try for sub-4, finished with smiles and a sub 3:40. \n\nSuperbly run event as always by @ScenaPerformance.com (@instagram.com/scenaperformance), race director Adam Ray, and all the great volunteers.\n\nSo many things went well. Race write-up to follow.\n\nPreviously:\n* 2023: DNS Skyline 50k because of a bad fever from a blood bacteria infection caught in Wakefield MA (that\u2019s whole other story, never going back there)\n* 2022: 50k race PR at Skyline: https://tantek.com/2022/289/t1/hot-skyline50k-ultra-finish\n\n#Skyline #21k #halfMarathon #trailRace #trailRun",
"html": "finished the Skyline 21k (half marathon) trail race in 3:39:53!<br /><br />Went out with the goal to have fun and try for sub-4, finished with smiles and a sub 3:40. <br /><br />Superbly run event as always by <a href=\"https://ScenaPerformance.com\">@ScenaPerformance.com</a> (<a href=\"https://instagram.com/scenaperformance\">@instagram.com/scenaperformance</a>), race director Adam Ray, and all the great volunteers.<br /><br />So many things went well. Race write-up to follow.<br /><br />Previously:<br />* 2023: DNS Skyline 50k because of a bad fever from a blood bacteria infection caught in Wakefield MA (that\u2019s whole other story, never going back there)<br />* 2022: 50k race PR at Skyline: <a href=\"https://tantek.com/2022/289/t1/hot-skyline50k-ultra-finish\">https://tantek.com/2022/289/t1/hot-skyline50k-ultra-finish</a><br /><br />#<span class=\"p-category\">Skyline</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">21k</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">halfMarathon</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">trailRace</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">trailRun</span>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
"url": "https://tantek.com/",
"photo": "https://tantek.com/photo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41844629",
"_source": "2460"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-04T14:58:56-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/04/12/",
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/d3dcb19b65dfb65ee51f69c209d35c0bf286d1a01bd1fb6173121dc05687de7e.jpg"
],
"syndication": [
"https://www.swarmapp.com/user/59164/checkin/66aff9a098399224a950f762"
],
"name": "at On The Boat",
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"checkin": {
"type": "card",
"name": "On The Boat",
"latitude": "45.490129",
"longitude": "-122.655333",
"url": "https://foursquare.com/v/4c7d5324b53db1f779c49c11"
},
"post-type": "checkin",
"_id": "41842020",
"_source": "16"
}
📕 Finished reading The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix ISBN: 9780593201244
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-04T17:37:09-0400",
"summary": "\ud83d\udcd5 Finished reading The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix ISBN: 9780593201244",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2024/08/04/173709/",
"category": [
"books"
],
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Marty McGuire",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/",
"photo": "https://martymcgui.re/images/logo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41836295",
"_source": "175"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-03 22:29-0700",
"url": "https://tantek.com/2024/216/t1/socialcg-telcon",
"category": [
"W3C",
"SocialCG",
"20240802",
"2024_215",
"ActivityPub",
"ActivityStreams",
"relAuthor"
],
"content": {
"text": "Good W3C SocialCG telcon yesterday morning.\n\nMinutes: https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG/2024-08-02\n\nAppreciate working with @evan@cosocial.ca @dmitriz@mastodon.mit.edu @TallTed@mastodon.social @snarfed.org Lisa a @AaronNGray@fosstodon.org @bobwyman@mastodon.social @by_caballero@mastodon.social @j12t@j12t.social @steve@social.technoetic.com @thisismissem@hachyderm.io\n\n#W3C #SocialCG #20240802 #2024_215 #ActivityPub #ActivityStreams #relAuthor",
"html": "Good W3C SocialCG telcon yesterday morning.<br /><br />Minutes: <a href=\"https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG/2024-08-02\">https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG/2024-08-02</a><br /><br />Appreciate working with <a href=\"https://cosocial.ca/@evan\">@evan@cosocial.ca</a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.mit.edu/@dmitriz\">@dmitriz@mastodon.mit.edu</a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@TallTed\">@TallTed@mastodon.social</a> <a href=\"https://snarfed.org\">@snarfed.org</a> Lisa a <a href=\"https://fosstodon.org/@AaronNGray\">@AaronNGray@fosstodon.org</a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@bobwyman\">@bobwyman@mastodon.social</a> <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@by_caballero\">@by_caballero@mastodon.social</a> <a href=\"https://j12t.social/@j12t\">@j12t@j12t.social</a> <a href=\"https://social.technoetic.com/@steve\">@steve@social.technoetic.com</a> <a href=\"https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem\">@thisismissem@hachyderm.io</a><br /><br />#<span class=\"p-category\">W3C</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">SocialCG</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">20240802</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">2024_215</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">ActivityPub</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">ActivityStreams</span> #<span class=\"p-category\">relAuthor</span>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
"url": "https://tantek.com/",
"photo": "https://tantek.com/photo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41831028",
"_source": "2460"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-04T00:09:30-07:00",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/2897-Progress",
"name": "Progress",
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "fluffy",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/",
"photo": "https://beesbuzz.biz/static/headshot.jpg"
},
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "41830949",
"_source": "2778"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-03T15:49:17-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/03/18/",
"category": [
"https://anomalily.world/",
"https://foursquare.com/user/207291"
],
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/1c20a32dea5daa3ac9c6259ceb73a29fa9fa24e974bdf9f2d7f76303319f0e0a.jpg"
],
"syndication": [
"https://www.swarmapp.com/user/59164/checkin/66aeb3edeceaf966598e67a6"
],
"name": "at Rock.Paper.Scissor",
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"checkin": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Rock.Paper.Scissor",
"latitude": "45.550948",
"longitude": "-122.675643",
"url": "https://foursquare.com/v/62882b6d5954da7263c82fa8"
},
"post-type": "checkin",
"_id": "41828977",
"_source": "16"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-03T14:20:23-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/03/16/",
"category": [
"https://anomalily.world/",
"https://foursquare.com/user/207291"
],
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/7af7f594126b317a886be7553d40580f0d60ced4179d2405cfe975dbbaaf30c4.jpg"
],
"syndication": [
"https://www.swarmapp.com/user/59164/checkin/66ae9f174d4ef9347a9e9af9"
],
"name": "at Oblation Papers & Press",
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"checkin": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Oblation Papers & Press",
"latitude": "45.526861",
"longitude": "-122.683248",
"url": "https://foursquare.com/v/4506ecc1f964a52018391fe3"
},
"post-type": "checkin",
"_id": "41828445",
"_source": "16"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-08-03T11:59:40-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/08/03/11/",
"category": [
"https://anomalily.world/"
],
"photo": [
"https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/c09bf2f6069620e7db32d0eb766ef4b9a4719ea5b5082f7ddf1798ffd70b4118.jpg"
],
"syndication": [
"https://www.swarmapp.com/user/59164/checkin/66ae7e1c02cb1a2369885ecb"
],
"name": "at Paper Epiphanies",
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"checkin": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Paper Epiphanies",
"latitude": "45.503481",
"longitude": "-122.640287",
"url": "https://foursquare.com/v/60c545b4e02e0b410e0461ae"
},
"post-type": "checkin",
"_id": "41827721",
"_source": "16"
}
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-07-31 23:22-0700",
"url": "https://tantek.com/2024/213/b1/choosing-tools",
"syndication": [
"https://news.indieweb.org/en/tantek.com/2024/213/b1/choosing-tools"
],
"name": "Choosing Tools",
"content": {
"text": "One of the biggest challenges with tools for making things, even just for the web, is there are so many to choose from. Nearly every tool has a learning curve to overcome before being able to use it efficiently. With proficiency, comes the ability to pursue more efficient use of tools, and find limitations, papercuts, or outright bugs in the tools. If it\u2019s an open source tool or you know its creator you can file or submit a bug report or feature request accordingly, which might result in an improved tool, eventually, or not. You have to decide whether any such tool is good enough, with tolerable faults, or if they\u2019re bad enough to consider switching tools, or so bad that you are compelled to make your own.\n\n\nThis post is my entry for the \n \n 2024 July IndieWeb Carnival theme of tools, \nhosted by James G., \nand also syndicated to IndieNews.\n\nCriteria\n\nI have many criteria for how I choose the tools I use, but nearly all of them come down to maximizing trust, efficiency, and focus, while minimizing frustration, overhead, and distraction. Some of these are baseline criteria for whether I will use a tool or not, and some are comparative criteria which help me decide which tool I choose from several options.\n\nTrustworthy tools should be:\nPredictable \u2014 it should be clear what the tool will do\nDependable \u2014 the tool should \u201cjust work\u201d as close to 100% of the time as possible\nActing as you direct it \u2014 the tool should do exactly what you direct it to do, and not what other parties, such as its creator or service provider, direct it to do\nForgiving \u2014 if you make a mistake, you should be able to undo or otherwise correct your mistake\nRobust enough to keep working even when not used for a while\nEfficient tools should:\nBe quick and easy to start using\nBe responsive, with as low a latency as possible, ideally zero perceptible latency\nReduce the work necessary to complete a task, or complete multiple tasks with same amount of work otherwise\nReduce the time necessary to complete a task, or complete multiple tasks in the same amount of time otherwise\nBe quick and easy to shut down, or otherwise put away\nUse little or no energy when not in use\nFocused and focusing tools should\nProvide clear features for accomplishing your goals\nEncourage or reinforce focusing on your tasks and goals\nNever interrupt you when you are using the tool to accomplish a task\nBad tools can have many sources of frustration, and nearly all of these involve inversions of the desirable qualities noted above. Frustrating tools are less predictable, work only some of the time, randomly do things because some other party directed them to (like auto-upgrade), ask you to confirm before doing actions because they have no capability to undo, or stop working for no particular reason.\n\n\nInefficient tools take too long to be \u201cready\u201d to use, are unresponsive of otherwise have a delay when you provide input before they respond, cause you more work to complete a task, or make you take more time than simpler older tools would, require waiting for them to shut down, or use energy even when you are not doing anything with them.\n\nUnfocused tools have many (nearly) useless features that have nothing to do with your goals, encourage or distract you with actions irrelevant to your tasks or goals, or interrupt you when you are working on a task.\n\nBaseline Writing Tools\n\nExamples of tools that satisfy all the above:\n\nPencil (with eraser) and paper\nA typewriter (ideally with a whiteout band) and paper\n\nThat\u2019s it, those are the baseline. When considering an alternative tool for similar tasks, such as writing, see if it measures up to those.\n\nTools I Like Using\n\nFor myself, I prefer to use: \n\n\nBBEdit \nfor writing, which requires near zero maintenance for years of reliable use, for both prose (and markup) for my posts, and code for my personal website\n\nMediaWiki based wikis for collaborative text authoring like on:\nindieweb.org\nwiki.mozilla.org\nwww.w3.org/wiki/\nand of course Wikipedia\n\n\nTools I Tolerate Using\n\nI do also use the iOS and MacOS \u201cNotes\u201d app notes to sometimes write parts of posts, and sync text notes across devices, both of which have unfortunately become just frustrating enough to be barely tolerable to use.\n \niOS Notes (as of iOS 17.5) are buggy when you scroll them and try to add to or edit the middle of notes. MacOS Notes have a very annoying feature where it tries to autocomplete names of people in your contacts when you type even just the first letter of their name or an @-sign, when you rarely if ever want that. MacOS Notes also forces anything that starts with a # (hash or pound) sign into a weird auto-linked hashtag that is nearly useless and breaks text selection.\n\n\nThere are no options or preferences to turn off or disable these annoying supposedly \u201chelpful\u201d automatic features.\n\n\nThere\u2019s definitely an opportunity for a simple, reliable, easy to sync across devices, plain text notes application to replace iOS and MacOS notes, that doesn\u2019t require signing up to some third-party service that will inevitably shut down or sell your information to advertisers or companies training their LLMs or leak your information due to poor security practices.\n\n\nSimilarly I also frequently use Gmail and Google Docs in my day-to-day work, and I\u2019ve grown relatively used to their lagginess, limitations, and weird user interface quirks. I use them as necessary for work and collaboration and otherwise do my best to minimize time spent in them.\n\nBetter Tools\n\nI have focused primarily on writing tools, however I have made many distinct choices for personal web development tools as well, from writing mostly directly in HTML and CSS, to bits in PHP and JavaScript, rather than frameworks that demand regular updates that I cannot trust to not break my code. I myself try to build tools that aspire to the criteria listed above.\n\n\nAt a high level, new tools should provide at least one of three things:\n\nHigher efficiency and/or quality: tools should help you do what you already could do, but faster, better, cheaper, and more precisely\nDemocratization: tools should help more people do what only a few could do before\nNovelty: tools should help you do new things that were either impossible before or not even imagined\n\nMostly I prefer to focus on the first of those, as there are plenty of \u201cobvious\u201d improvements to be made beyond existing tools, and such improvements have much more predictable effects. While democratization of tools is nearly always a good thing, I can think of a small handful of examples that demonstrate that sometimes it is not. That\u2019s worth a separate post.\n\nLastly, tools that help accomplish novel tasks that were previously impossible or not even imagined perhaps have the greatest risks and uncertainty, and thus I am ok with postponing exploring them for now. \n\n\nI wrote a few general thoughts on what tools and innovations to pursue and considerations thereof in my prior post: \nResponsible Inventing.",
"html": "<p>\nOne of the biggest challenges with tools for making things, even just for the web, is there are so many to choose from. Nearly every tool has a learning curve to overcome before being able to use it efficiently. With proficiency, comes the ability to pursue more efficient use of tools, and find limitations, papercuts, or outright bugs in the tools. If it\u2019s an open source tool or you know its creator you can file or submit a bug report or feature request accordingly, which might result in an improved tool, eventually, or not. You have to decide whether any such tool is good enough, with tolerable faults, or if they\u2019re bad enough to consider switching tools, or so bad that you are compelled to make your own.\n</p>\n<p>\nThis post is my entry for the \n<a href=\"https://jamesg.blog/2024/07/01/indieweb-carnival-tools/\"> \n 2024 July IndieWeb Carnival theme of tools</a>, \nhosted by <a href=\"https://jamesg.blog/\" class=\"h-card\">James <abbr>G.</abbr></a>, \nand also <a class=\"u-syndication\" href=\"https://news.indieweb.org/en/tantek.com/2024/213/b1/choosing-tools\">syndicated to IndieNews</a>.\n</p>\n<h2>Criteria</h2>\n<p>\nI have many criteria for how I choose the tools I use, but nearly all of them come down to maximizing trust, efficiency, and focus, while minimizing frustration, overhead, and distraction. Some of these are baseline criteria for whether I will use a tool or not, and some are comparative criteria which help me decide which tool I choose from several options.\n</p>\n<p>Trustworthy tools should be:</p>\n<ul><li>Predictable \u2014 it should be clear what the tool will do</li>\n<li>Dependable \u2014 the tool should \u201cjust work\u201d as close to 100% of the time as possible</li>\n<li>Acting as you direct it \u2014 the tool should do exactly what you direct it to do, and not what other parties, such as its creator or service provider, direct it to do</li>\n<li>Forgiving \u2014 if you make a mistake, you should be able to undo or otherwise correct your mistake</li>\n<li>Robust enough to keep working even when not used for a while</li>\n</ul><p>Efficient tools should:</p>\n<ul><li>Be quick and easy to start using</li>\n<li>Be responsive, with as low a latency as possible, ideally zero perceptible latency</li>\n<li>Reduce the work necessary to complete a task, or complete multiple tasks with same amount of work otherwise</li>\n<li>Reduce the time necessary to complete a task, or complete multiple tasks in the same amount of time otherwise</li>\n<li>Be quick and easy to shut down, or otherwise put away</li>\n<li>Use little or no energy when not in use</li>\n</ul><p>Focused and focusing tools should</p>\n<ul><li>Provide clear features for accomplishing your goals</li>\n<li>Encourage or reinforce focusing on your tasks and goals</li>\n<li>Never interrupt you when you are using the tool to accomplish a task</li>\n</ul><p>Bad tools can have many sources of frustration, and nearly all of these involve inversions of the desirable qualities noted above. Frustrating tools are less predictable, work only some of the time, randomly do things because some other party directed them to (like auto-upgrade), ask you to confirm before doing actions because they have no capability to undo, or stop working for no particular reason.\n</p>\n<p>\nInefficient tools take too long to be \u201cready\u201d to use, are unresponsive of otherwise have a delay when you provide input before they respond, cause you more work to complete a task, or make you take more time than simpler older tools would, require waiting for them to shut down, or use energy even when you are not doing anything with them.\n</p>\n<p>Unfocused tools have many (nearly) useless features that have nothing to do with your goals, encourage or distract you with actions irrelevant to your tasks or goals, or interrupt you when you are working on a task.\n</p>\n<h2>Baseline Writing Tools</h2>\n<p>\nExamples of tools that satisfy all the above:\n</p>\n<ul><li>Pencil (with eraser) and paper</li>\n<li>A typewriter (ideally with a whiteout band) and paper</li>\n</ul><p>\nThat\u2019s it, those are the baseline. When considering an alternative tool for similar tasks, such as writing, see if it measures up to those.\n</p>\n<h2>Tools I Like Using</h2>\n<p>\nFor myself, I prefer to use: \n</p>\n<ul><li>\n<a href=\"http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.html\">BBEdit</a> \nfor writing, which requires near zero maintenance for years of reliable use, for both prose (and markup) for my posts, and code for my personal website</li>\n<li>\n<a href=\"https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki\">MediaWiki</a> based wikis for collaborative text authoring like on:\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://indieweb.org/\">indieweb.org</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://wiki.mozilla.org/\">wiki.mozilla.org</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.w3.org/wiki/\">www.w3.org/wiki/</a></li>\n<li>and of course <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/\">Wikipedia</a>\n</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul><h2>Tools I Tolerate Using</h2>\n<p>\nI do also use the iOS and MacOS \u201cNotes\u201d app notes to sometimes write parts of posts, and sync text notes across devices, both of which have unfortunately become just frustrating enough to be barely tolerable to use.\n</p> \n<p>iOS Notes (as of iOS 17.5) are buggy when you scroll them and try to add to or edit the middle of notes. MacOS Notes have a very annoying feature where it tries to autocomplete names of people in your contacts when you type even just the first letter of their name or an @-sign, when you rarely if ever want that. MacOS Notes also forces anything that starts with a # (hash or pound) sign into a weird auto-linked hashtag that is nearly useless and breaks text selection.\n</p>\n<p>\nThere are no options or preferences to turn off or disable these annoying supposedly \u201chelpful\u201d automatic features.\n</p>\n<p>\nThere\u2019s definitely an opportunity for a simple, reliable, easy to sync across devices, plain text notes application to replace iOS and MacOS notes, that doesn\u2019t require signing up to some third-party service that will inevitably shut down or sell your information to advertisers or companies training their LLMs or leak your information due to poor security practices.\n</p>\n<p>\nSimilarly I also frequently use Gmail and Google Docs in my day-to-day work, and I\u2019ve grown relatively used to their lagginess, limitations, and weird user interface quirks. I use them as necessary for work and collaboration and otherwise do my best to minimize time spent in them.\n</p>\n<h2>Better Tools</h2>\n<p>\nI have focused primarily on writing tools, however I have made many distinct choices for personal web development tools as well, from writing mostly directly in HTML and CSS, to bits in PHP and JavaScript, rather than frameworks that demand regular updates that I cannot trust to not break my code. I myself try to build tools that aspire to the criteria listed above.\n</p>\n<p>\nAt a high level, new tools should provide at least one of three things:\n</p>\n<ol><li>Higher efficiency and/or quality: tools should help you do what you already could do, but faster, better, cheaper, and more precisely</li>\n<li>Democratization: tools should help more people do what only a few could do before</li>\n<li>Novelty: tools should help you do new things that were either impossible before or not even imagined</li>\n</ol><p>\nMostly I prefer to focus on the first of those, as there are plenty of \u201cobvious\u201d improvements to be made beyond existing tools, and such improvements have much more predictable effects. While democratization of tools is nearly always a good thing, I can think of a small handful of examples that demonstrate that sometimes it is not. That\u2019s worth a separate post.\n</p>\n<p>Lastly, tools that help accomplish novel tasks that were previously impossible or not even imagined perhaps have the greatest risks and uncertainty, and thus I am ok with postponing exploring them for now. \n</p>\n<p>\nI wrote a few general thoughts on what tools and innovations to pursue and considerations thereof in my prior post: \n<a href=\"https://tantek.com/2024/180/b1/responsible-inventing\">Responsible Inventing</a>.\n</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
"url": "https://tantek.com/",
"photo": "https://tantek.com/photo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "41806015",
"_source": "2460"
}
Oh! Dang! Many thanks to Kristof for pointing out a glaring oversight in my recent updates to make the IndieWeb Webring 🕸️💍 more deterministic:
https://kiko.io/notes/2024/The-fun-of-randomness-in-a-Webring/
I forgot to give the “random site” feature its own link!
It’s back! You can now visit 🕸️💍.ws/random to go to a random active site on the ring.
It’s also linked on the landing page of the webring.
For best results, add it to your bookmarks! 🔖🕸️💍🎲
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-07-31T10:33:41-0400",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2024/07/31/103341/",
"syndication": [
"https://fed.brid.gy/",
"https://news.indieweb.org/en"
],
"content": {
"text": "Oh! Dang! Many thanks to Kristof for pointing out a glaring oversight in my recent updates to make the IndieWeb Webring \ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d more deterministic:\nhttps://kiko.io/notes/2024/The-fun-of-randomness-in-a-Webring/\nI forgot to give the \u201crandom site\u201d feature its own link!\nIt\u2019s back! You can now visit \ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d.ws/random to go to a random active site on the ring.\nIt\u2019s also linked on the landing page of the webring.\nFor best results, add it to your bookmarks! \ud83d\udd16\ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d\ud83c\udfb2",
"html": "<p>Oh! Dang! Many thanks to <a href=\"https://kiko.io/\">Kristof</a> for pointing out a glaring oversight in my <a href=\"https://martymcgui.re/2024/06/23/ordering-an-indieweb-webring/\">recent updates to make the IndieWeb Webring \ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d more deterministic</a>:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://kiko.io/notes/2024/The-fun-of-randomness-in-a-Webring/\">https://kiko.io/notes/2024/The-fun-of-randomness-in-a-Webring/</a></p>\n<p>I forgot to give the \u201crandom site\u201d feature its own link!</p>\n<p>It\u2019s back! You can now visit <a href=\"https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/random\">\ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d.ws/random</a> to go to a random active site on the ring.</p>\n<p>It\u2019s also linked on the landing page of the webring.</p>\n<p>For best results, add it to your bookmarks! \ud83d\udd16\ud83d\udd78\ufe0f\ud83d\udc8d\ud83c\udfb2</p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Marty McGuire",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/",
"photo": "https://martymcgui.re/images/logo.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41799878",
"_source": "175"
}
I've been finishing my 100 short 30-60-second songs by uploading them to an AI tool and having it extend them. So far I'm done with 60/100 songs! I also started making videos to document the process, and the first video is up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDTntYMmM
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2024-07-29T18:14:54-07:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2024/07/29/12/100days",
"category": [
"ai",
"music",
"100daysofmusic"
],
"syndication": [
"https://bsky.app/profile/aaronpk.com/post/3kyhmtzwnpi2w",
"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aaronparecki_using-ai-to-turn-my-100-short-sketches-into-activity-7223858723775995905-f7Zh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop"
],
"content": {
"text": "I've been finishing my 100 short 30-60-second songs by uploading them to an AI tool and having it extend them. So far I'm done with 60/100 songs! I also started making videos to document the process, and the first video is up! \n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDTntYMmM",
"html": "I've been finishing my 100 short 30-60-second songs by uploading them to an AI tool and having it extend them. So far I'm done with 60/100 songs! I also started making videos to document the process, and the first video is up! <br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDTntYMmM\"><span>https://</span>www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDTntYMmM</a>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
},
"post-type": "note",
"_id": "41781974",
"_source": "16"
}
