I’ve been writing code again. Essentially tutoring a friend who has to wield some Python as he learns some natural language data analysis techniques. I’ve been remembering I actually know Python (I mostly applied in the context of Jython … long story … it even has a Peter Thiel digression) and learning little bits of NLTK, which once in a recent past life, I had a direct report trying to educate me as he applied it. Anyway, said friend got a 9/9 on his first assignment. He really leaned into it after initial despair and reticence, but I feel a little proud for myself too.
Posts in: Journal
For all the warranted critiques of the New York Times, and laments about the arc of newspapers, I am grateful for the Metro Diaries feature of that paper. I have been reading it, on and off, for 25 years.
I think I have to give my Dad credit, to whom I don’t give a lot of credit, for pointing it out to me in a print edition of the Sunday New York Times about that long ago. Back when the Sunday Times was a big thick paper, and the Metro section (if you bought it within range of the city, at least) seemed bigger than my local city paper (with the ads removed, anyway).
I write a lot in my head, so little of which actually comes out.
Listening to self-aware comedians discuss their personal pasts (a la Maron’s WTF, and also Conan’s podcast) is almost as good as a therapy session.
How the day is going so far
Ordered a BLT. Having not explicitly checked the boxes for “Lettuce” or “Tomato,” when I received my order I was almost incensed: “Hey, I didn’t ask for … oh, wait.” Found a stray turd in the house. Don’t know when it got there. Pretty sure I know who did it. We have a 3 year-old who doesn’t like to poop, so holistically, this is a win… but clearly concerned that this happened in secret without being obvious to me for an unknown amount of time.
The Omni Group is 30 years old.
Jesus.
You know, I kind of think OmniFocus would look better on NeXTSTEP. (I kid, I love their software, but I think on that one front I’ve settled on Things.)
I did have the pleasure of running OmniWeb on a rescued NeXTcube … nearly a decade after the machine was made and a half decade after OmniWeb first came out.
A hard decision made, and just the hope of a new focus (coming around the corner), regardless of the challenges, has innate interests that have been dormant for a few years sprouting signs of life.
I think I’m doing the right thing.
The last Twitter lockout I remember is when the FBI seized the servers running predecessor code right out of Rackspace’s racks in 2004 😉(Indymedia and Cryptome were implicated/affected too).
We’ve not really figured out printing, calendaring or email… what makes anyone think we’ve got the rest of this figured out is beyond me.
The problem with … bullshit jobs
Gave The Problem With Jon Stewart another chance this week. The Taxes episode was a classic redux of a fairly fundamental (and dare I say, potentially very non-partisan) analysis of an unresponsive government and corruption. It also came off like a validation of David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs.