Microblog

  • Dark patterns are alive and well on Shopify. Three times in the last three months I’ve thought I was making a one-time purchase, but learned a month later I had made a recurring subscription purchase and I had to contact support to cancel.

  • I love this store map at Bruised Apple Books.

  • I made red curry soup with leftover turkey. Nice change in flavor profile from yesterday’s meal.

  • Turkey is spatchcocked and dry brining, cocktail syrup made, green bean casserole assembled, and gravy is on the stove.

  • The only thing you need to buy on Black Friday is Leave Me Alone so you can unsubscribe from all the mailing lists that spam you this week. https://leavemealone.com/

  • Black Friday deals are getting out of hand. Who is going to buy lab tests from Quest on Black Friday?

  • Saw these funny little pedal delivery vehicles today in Manhattan.

  • First snow of the season.

  • I’m on an OFTD kick. Tiki-inspired hot toddy tonight: OFTD, Falernum, lemon juice, honey, and hot water.

  • I came up with a decent drink tonight on the fly: 1.5oz OFTD rum, 1oz sweet apple brandy (17%), 1oz Campari, 3 dashes of Elemakule tiki bitters.

  • My unsubstantiated working theory is that LLMs are too verbose because they weighted SEO’d content too much in the training data, probably because that is what was easily crawled and obtained.

  • So what is the deal with Jeep Wranglers and rubber ducks? Every Wrangler I see has them on the dash and I don’t get it.

  • It finally feels like autumn. Cool weather, walks in the woods, potato leek soup for dinner, and a glass of calvados with a good book before bed.

  • I decided to eschew reading apps entirely and I keep a single page with what I’ve read since 2016. To keep the “rating” simple, I just add a star if it is something I highly recommend. https://cagrimmett.com/reading

  • I was bummed when the veggie share/CSA we’d been with for the past four years ended, but the new one we switched to this year has exceeded our expectations. The fruit has been a delightful bonus. Multiple varieties of plums, peaches, pears, and apples, all juicy and flavorful. All from a farm just across the Hudson!

  • The mud kitchen we built for Charlie didn’t hold his interest much last summer, but has been a big hit this summer.

  • Re: Orbital, I liked the concept of each chapter being one of the 90 minute orbits, but thought it was perhaps the book was 50 pages too long. It was hard to get into some of the longer descriptions of what they see as they orbit. I think I wanted more about their lives and daily tasks instead.

  • So has anyone witnessed trout eating the spotted lanternflies yet?

  • An integral part of getting a CSA (veggie share) is freezing/preserving what you won’t use that week. We’ve been getting lots of celery and carrots, so I chopped them up and froze packs for soup this winter.

  • Taking shelter from the rain