Weeknote #50 (20250831-20250906)

meta

Back to the new normal — which is just like the old normal, pretty much, except no Mx18 in the mix.

did

• Had a very lazy Sunday and Monday — thanks for Labor Day, unions!
• Returned to work Tuesday, and spent most of the week in “catchup” mode
• Wednesday was the first day I didn’t have any interaction with Mx18. I hope they’re having a good time (they spontaneously called us Saturday, sounds like things are going well)
• Played just the tiniest bit of Herdling, seems cute
• Redacted positive thing; watch this space
• Did some additional work on commis, fixing up some ingredient quantity handling issues and de-duplicating “cookware” when parsing — I think this is getting pretty close to an initial release
• Updated the git.genehack.net Forgejo (again…)
• My phone has wanted battery service for about a month, and I finally got around to making an appointment and going in to the Apple Store for a battery replacement (thank you, AppleCare!) Unfortunately, I suspect that something went sideways with the replacement, because the phone I got back from them had a different IMEI than the one I gave them — so I got to restore everything from backups, and have to visit the T-Mobile store to get the eSIM hooked back up (so the phone can be a phone)

exercise & shoulder recovery

• Monday: stretches
• Tuesday: stretches, gym
• Wednesday: stretches, didn’t run because heat
• Thursday: stretches, gym including some bench press! excite
• Friday: stretches
• Saturday: a lazy zero day

read

• “I Am An AI Hater”:

  To speak politely about AI, you put disclaimers before criticism: of course I’m not against it entirely; perhaps in a few years when; maybe for other purposes, but. You are supposed to debate how and when it should be used. You are supposed to take for granted that it must be useful somewhere, to someone, for something, eventually. People who are rich and smart and respected are saying so, and it would be arrogant to disagree with such people.

  But I am a hater, which is a kind of integrity. It means I am willing to disagree with anyone, even if it is rude. “But I only use it to–” “Actually if you just—” “The new models–” “I was making fun–” Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. I am embarrassed for you.

• “This page is under construction”:

  The tools are the same as they’ve ever been: HTML and CSS. It’s still completely possible to write some HTML and CSS, stick it on a server and have a static webpage. It’s so easy nowadays to get bogged down in build tools and frameworks. You can use them if you want, but it’s not a requirement for web development even in 2025.

• “Please destroy this software after publication. kthxbye.” is over ten years old and yet still directly, professionally relevant to me and maybe to you…

  I think this highlights that there are two different possible goals for bioinformatics papers. One goal is the standard scientific goal: to demonstrate a new method or technique, whether it be mathematical or computational. The other goal is different, and in some ways much harder: to provide a functioning tool for use and reuse. These should have different review standards, and that maybe the authors should be given the opportunity to distinguish clearly between the two goals.

• “Merlin’s Wisdom Project”

  Tons of good stuff here, via a link in Julian Simpson’s “Wednesday Wonders 4”.

  I usually say “to win” rather than “to be happy” but for me it’s the same question:

  Frequently ask yourself: do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?

• “A Benediction for Chicago on the Eve of Occupation”

  No matter what happens in the coming weeks, we are Chicago. We rose from the ashes. We never quit.

listened

• There’s some lovely slide guitar in this song from Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties
• Via …somebody who I didn’t record, sorry!, I discovered mashup artist Milkman; various things ended up being workout soundtracks this week

watched

• moved into S3 of Criminal Minds
• Thorns-Racing Louisville match

cooked

• Sunday: grilled tomato-tomatillo-garlic salsa and crunchy ground beef tacos
• Monday: pasta al forno
• Tuesday: sausages
• Wednesday: grilled chicken Caesar salad
• Thursday: seared albacore with chimichurri rojo

photo

Thursday’s dinner was quite nice…

looking forward to

Gonna drive up to Seattle next week for some on-site time at work; I’m planning on taking a roundabout route home, mostly coming back down Washington’s stretch of US 101. I haven’t driven much in that part of the world, and haven’t had a long solo drive in quite some time either — I’m looking forward to both.