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Nelson's Weblog

Nelson's Weblog
Non-alcoholic apéritifs I’ve been doing Dry January this year. One thing I missed was something for apéro hour, a beverage...
2 days ago
5
2 days ago
I’ve been doing Dry January this year. One thing I missed was something for apéro hour, a beverage to mark the start of the evening. Something complex and maybe bitter, not like a drink you’d have with lunch. I found some good options. Ghia sodas are my favorite. Ghia is an NA...
Nelson's Weblog
Legal aid charities for immigrants (2024) The Trump administration has made aggressive threats against immigrants in the US. It’s not clear...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
The Trump administration has made aggressive threats against immigrants in the US. It’s not clear what’s coming, my biggest fear is a violent display of fascism. (Don’t call them camps!) But even if it’s a polite legal process it will be chaotic and disruptive to many...
Nelson's Weblog
AI enhanced search LLMs are good search helpers. Here’s three search tools I use every day. All of these use an AI to...
4 months ago
73
4 months ago
LLMs are good search helpers. Here’s three search tools I use every day. All of these use an AI to synthesize answers but also provide an essential feature: specific web search results for you to verify and further research. I use these for conversational inquiries in addition...
Nelson's Weblog
8BitDo Game Controllers 8BitDo makes good game controllers. A wide variety of styles from retro to mainstream, with some...
5 months ago
73
5 months ago
8BitDo makes good game controllers. A wide variety of styles from retro to mainstream, with some unusual shapes. And wide compatibility with various systems: PC, Macs, Switch, Android. They’re well built, work right, and quite inexpensive. A far cry from the...
Nelson's Weblog
PreSonus Eris speakers PreSonus makes good computer speakers. They’re marketed as “reference monitors” but at $100 for a...
7 months ago
72
7 months ago
PreSonus makes good computer speakers. They’re marketed as “reference monitors” but at $100 for a small set I have my doubts about their referenceness. Fortunately I have a tin ear and they sound just fine for my computer playing YouTube videos, compressed music, games. ...
Nelson's Weblog
Phanpy, a Mastodon client Phanpy is good software for reading Mastodon or other Fediverse posts. Astonishingly it’s an open...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Phanpy is good software for reading Mastodon or other Fediverse posts. Astonishingly it’s an open source passion project from a single developer, Chee Aun. Its quality is extraordinary, better than most commercial social media software. There’s so many good things about Phanpy...
Nelson's Weblog
Kagi is a good search engine Google search is overwhelmed with spam these days. Back in January I switched to Kagi and have been...
8 months ago
81
8 months ago
Google search is overwhelmed with spam these days. Back in January I switched to Kagi and have been happy with it. It’s not free but there’s a limited trial to check it out. I pay $10/mo for unlimited access. Turns out I do about 50 searches a day. I’m unclear on how Kagi works...
Nelson's Weblog
Restic Restic is good backup software. It’s a command line tool for backing up filesystems to various local...
12 months ago
38
12 months ago
Restic is good backup software. It’s a command line tool for backing up filesystems to various local and remote options. It is well documented, easy to set up, secure, and quite fast. It’s a very professional product. I am now backing up all my Linux systems with it. Note it’s a...
Nelson's Weblog
Proxmox Proxmox is good software for a home datacenter. It’s an OS you install on server hardware that lets...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Proxmox is good software for a home datacenter. It’s an OS you install on server hardware that lets you easily run multiple virtual machines and LXC containers. It also manages disk storage and has some more complex support for high availability in a cluster, distributed storage...
Nelson's Weblog
My racism at accents Interesting NPR segment today: A powerful eruption on the sun disrupted radio signals on...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Interesting NPR segment today: A powerful eruption on the sun disrupted radio signals on earth. What’s remarkable is it’s a PhD candidate talking to an NPR host about solar flares, completely in two Southern Black accents. Two women, at that. I am dismayed at my own involuntary...
Nelson's Weblog
Trump's plans for his second presidency The Trump campaign and his braintrust have been very clear and open about their planning for a...
a year ago
37
a year ago
The Trump campaign and his braintrust have been very clear and open about their planning for a second presidency, mostly under the umbrella of Project 2025. There’s been a lot of good journalism about it. Some examples: Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside...
Nelson's Weblog
No more talking to politicians I am no longer talking to politicians. I have been aggressively filtering my email, a constant...
a year ago
35
a year ago
I am no longer talking to politicians. I have been aggressively filtering my email, a constant battle. Now I will no longer accept their calls. Unfortunately my home phone number is ruined. Between scams and politicians I never answer my phone unless I recognize the caller...
Nelson's Weblog
The Sandbaggers I just finished an extraordinary late-70s TV show, The Sandbaggers. It’s British spy TV. While the...
a year ago
13
a year ago
I just finished an extraordinary late-70s TV show, The Sandbaggers. It’s British spy TV. While the show name-checks James Bond frequently the soul of it is more of a Le Carré thing. Intelligence as a series of dismal political battles between underpaid civil servants at the home...
Nelson's Weblog
The Transcantábrico Train We recently took the Transcantábrico, a week long luxury train trip across Northern Spain. It was...
a year ago
33
a year ago
We recently took the Transcantábrico, a week long luxury train trip across Northern Spain. It was great! Like a cruise but on a train. We did something similar in India in 2015 and it’s an interesting way to travel. Some photos here. The Transcantábrico goes across a part of...
Nelson's Weblog
Overhead shower drips Do you have an overhead rain shower? Does it drip cold water on you when you’re not using it? It...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Do you have an overhead rain shower? Does it drip cold water on you when you’re not using it? It may be water trapped in the pipes and a plunger will temporarily fix it. We have a fancy shower with an overhead rain shower and a ordinary wall sprayer both controlled by the...
Nelson's Weblog
Obsidian Obsidian is good software for taking and organizing notes. There are many apps for this task,...
a year ago
67
a year ago
Obsidian is good software for taking and organizing notes. There are many apps for this task, Obsidian is my current favorite. In the past I’ve used a text file, SimpleNote, Standard Notes, Joplin. I never used emacs org-mode nor Evernote. Obsidian works reliably and is simple...
Nelson's Weblog
Cronometer is a good food diary Recently I switched to a new calorie counting app, Cronometer. I’m quite happy with it. It’s a huge...
a year ago
118
a year ago
Recently I switched to a new calorie counting app, Cronometer. I’m quite happy with it. It’s a huge improvement over MyFitnessPal (MFP) or Lose It and is not exploitative like Noom. The key improvement with Cronometer is accuracy, particularly good data sources for nutrition...
Nelson's Weblog
Toto C5 Washlet power usage I got a fancy bidet toilet seat. It works fairly well and having water for washing is great. But I...
a year ago
31
a year ago
I got a fancy bidet toilet seat. It works fairly well and having water for washing is great. But I don’t love some details, see notes below. Mostly I wanted to share how much power the thing uses. About 80 Watt-hours a day, or an average of 3 watts. Note this is without the seat...
Nelson's Weblog
APIs for content sites must be free Social media businesses should not charge* for APIs. If a company like Reddit or Twitter derives...
a year ago
63
a year ago
Social media businesses should not charge* for APIs. If a company like Reddit or Twitter derives most of its value from content that users write for free then it must provide APIs for anyone to download and manipulate that content. While an interactive API that enables...
Nelson's Weblog
GAS I’ve been listening to the same music every night when I go to sleep 10+ years now. Weird...
a year ago
50
a year ago
I’ve been listening to the same music every night when I go to sleep 10+ years now. Weird endorsement; I’ve listened to it with more attention plenty of times too. But it’s particularly good for going to sleep; calm, interesting, and comfortably familiar. That music is GAS,...
Nelson's Weblog
Passkey authenticators for consumers (May 2023) After yesterday’s post about passkeys I got enough answers to learn how to use passkeys myself as a...
a year ago
64
a year ago
After yesterday’s post about passkeys I got enough answers to learn how to use passkeys myself as a consumer. Here’s what I learned. If you want to try it yourself, passkeys.io is a nice demo server. Passkeys work a lot like passwords do today. You create a different passkey for...
Nelson's Weblog
What are passkeys? That’s the post. What are passkeys? I don’t have answers, just questions. I believe passkeys are...
a year ago
46
a year ago
That’s the post. What are passkeys? I don’t have answers, just questions. I believe passkeys are a great idea but the tech world is doing a terrible job explaining them. Someone really needs to explain how passkeys work in Internet products. Existing descriptions aren’t sinking...
Nelson's Weblog
Noom is exploitative I tried out Noom, the weight loss and cognitive behavioral therapy program. The app is more like CBT...
a year ago
91
a year ago
I tried out Noom, the weight loss and cognitive behavioral therapy program. The app is more like CBT for upselling customers than CBT for weight loss. Now I’m hoping they’ll delete my sensitive medical data and refund the $3 they tricked me out of. (They did, quickly in...
Nelson's Weblog
My work at early Twitter I worked at Twitter part-time starting June 2007. I've never talked much about this in public. I'm...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
I worked at Twitter part-time starting June 2007. I've never talked much about this in public. I'm revisiting it because of the complete disaster Elon Musk has made of Twitter. His sabotage of the company has felt personal to me. It hurts to watch him destroy something I helped...
Nelson's Weblog
Windy.com is good weather I’ve found a mobile app for weather I finally like enough to be happy about paying for. Windy, best...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
I’ve found a mobile app for weather I finally like enough to be happy about paying for. Windy, best known for its website. The mobile app has extra phone features like notifications and home screen widgets. Also its UI is a little more understandable. Windy makes a strong first...
Nelson's Weblog
Linkblog archives I've added an archive calendar to my linkblog, so you can see old posts going all the way back to...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
I've added an archive calendar to my linkblog, so you can see old posts going all the way back to 2003. The UI is a little minimal but usable and it will work for any search indexers, which is what I most care about. Note old posts will have a grey background because I wasn't...
Nelson's Weblog
Starlink in Nov 2022 My Starlink Internet service has gotten pretty bad; every evening I'm well under 50Mbps and some...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
My Starlink Internet service has gotten pretty bad; every evening I'm well under 50Mbps and some hours I only get 2Mbps. (Compare 100Mbps+ last year.) I've given up trying to stream 1080p video at night; that's a pretty dismal result for a new Internet service in 2022. Starlink...
Nelson's Weblog
Austria 2022 Ken and I just got back from a 23 day trip exploring most of Austria. We had a lovely time although...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Ken and I just got back from a 23 day trip exploring most of Austria. We had a lovely time although we did get a little worn out and ready for home after a couple of weeks. Along the way we stayed in Vienna, Graz, the Wörthersee, Zell am See, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Hallstatt,...
Nelson's Weblog
Liftmaster 87504-267 This is gonna sound silly but one of the nicest home improvements we've done recently is install a...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
This is gonna sound silly but one of the nicest home improvements we've done recently is install a new garage door opener, the Liftmaster 87504-267. It works so much better than my old insecure garage door! Internet access is the surprise best feature; I use it all the time....
Nelson's Weblog
Linkblog feed update I've got a new feed for my linkblog. It's at https://www.somebits.com/linkblog/index.atom old feed...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
I've got a new feed for my linkblog. It's at https://www.somebits.com/linkblog/index.atom old feed at Pinboard will still work but isn't as fancy.
Nelson's Weblog
New linkblog website I launched a new website for my linkblog; go check it out! I'm proud of how it looks. My linkblog...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
I launched a new website for my linkblog; go check it out! I'm proud of how it looks. My linkblog is a collection of links I find interesting. I write it for an audience, a few links a day of general interest. I've been doing this for 19 years now and I think it's one of the...
Nelson's Weblog
Relaxation Dynamics of a Lattice Spin System Way back in 1994 I wrote an undergraduate thesis for my math degree at Reed College. It was a fun...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Way back in 1994 I wrote an undergraduate thesis for my math degree at Reed College. It was a fun project, studying a discrete dynamic system that was an extension of the Ising model. Sort of cellular automata meets statistical mechanics. It's the only significant thing I've...
Nelson's Weblog
Class action employment suits Google has agreed to settle a gender discrimination suit brought by employees. Congratulations to...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Google has agreed to settle a gender discrimination suit brought by employees. Congratulations to the plaintiffs, suing your employer is a difficult and stressful thing. But while the $118M headline looks big it works out to only $7600 per employee, less after the lawyers'...
Nelson's Weblog
My surprise brother I learned a few years ago I have a brother. No one knew, my mother gave birth to him in 1959 and...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
I learned a few years ago I have a brother. No one knew, my mother gave birth to him in 1959 and immediately gave him up for adoption. My mother died two decades ago so details are hard to come by. My brother worked for years to find us. I'm glad he succeeded! And I feel sad...
Nelson's Weblog
Seven slaves, a marker I've written before about learning that my ancestors Leonard and Melvina Ward owned a slave. Today I...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
I've written before about learning that my ancestors Leonard and Melvina Ward owned a slave. Today I learned there were more, at least seven. This marker comes courtesy of Find-a-Grave. It's on a small family cemetery near Bagwell, TX. I'm not positive but I think the land is...
Nelson's Weblog
Back to Goodreads I’m back to using Goodreads but I lost my friends list, if you use Goodreads please add me as a...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
I’m back to using Goodreads but I lost my friends list, if you use Goodreads please add me as a friend. After Goodreads lost my account I was furious and of course intended to never use it again. But to their credit, Goodreads did some extra work and managed to get me a copy of...
Nelson's Weblog
Goodreads lost all of my reviews Goodreads lost my entire account last week. Nine years as a user, some 600 books and 250 carefully...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Goodreads lost my entire account last week. Nine years as a user, some 600 books and 250 carefully written reviews all deleted and unrecoverable. Their support has not been helpful. In 35 years of being online I've never encountered a company with such callous disregard for their...