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Checkin to ็ดใๅฝๅฑ ้ๅๅบ
Preparing a few brews for a zoom้ฃฒใฟ -
Less Meat
by JamesOne of my recent quests in life is to reduce the amount of meat that I consume. There isn't a single reason why, but rather it feels like a manifestation of slow culmination of thoughts and beliefs.
Whether it be literal less i.e. physically driving less or buying less junk or less in the sense of slow, the idea of less has always had an appeal to me. Better living with less. This thinking is counter to a lot of those I grew up around and was a constant source of conflict.
Why now? Why meat? I can't give can exact reason for why now, other than, why not now? Why meat? The answer to that is more complex.Each burger we consume comes with a at least of costs baked in: the direct cost of a life of the animal and environmental (cutting down forest to make room for cows, shipping animals across an ocean to get processed in a foreign country, just to be shipped back to their origin for sale).
The first is true no matter what. I'm mostly fine with that cost. It's the circle of life. I'm glad it's not me that has to do it. If it were, I'd probably be vegan. The second, the environmental costs, can be controlled, or at least managed by our consumption choices. Do we go for the cheap back of mince from the super center or do we go for the grass-fedย at Whole Foods?
The Power of Defaults
When I was in my teens I was massively overweight. I was well over 100kg and only 172cm. While 172cm hasn't changed, but I'm currently in the low 70's (still too high, but I digress). What made this possible wasn't exercise, but learning about the power of defaults. ย
If you can change your default, you can make substantial changes with significantly less effort. So if your goal is to lose weight, it's less work to reduce consumption rather than burn off excess calories consumed. By changing my default from burger, fries, and a coke to burger and a diet coke or just burger or maybe the chicken sandwich could shave off 600+ calories, which is at least an hours worth of running. And since it's just a default, if I really wanted fries or a coke that day, I could, but I had to make the decision.
Likewise, I've changed my defaults for meat. As beef as it has a higher CO2 footprint per kilogram than pork or chicken, I mostly stopped buying beef and replace it with pork or chicken. Default changed to not beef. The other default I've been working on default: no meat.
Changing DefaultsMy default breakfast has changed from toast with eggs, and maybe some sausage or bacon to toast with peanut butter and a banana. I can still eat an egg if I want, but I usually don't.
Lunch is harder to default for me, but I've been defaulting to less or no meat dishes. I'll have some pasta (either a butter-soy-garlic Japanese style pasta, or a Naprotian (sans bacon as is traditional)), taco rice (with beans instead of meat or just little meat), or onigiri with a Japanese style omelette (tamago-yaki).
Dinner still typically has some kind of meat or fish component, but it's no longer the main. It's used more like a spice. To replace the gap we've been increasing the variety of vegetables that we buy and eat in it's place.
I don't have a particular goal of becoming vegetarian or vegan (though many creatives I respect are e.g. Moby, Casey Neistat etc..), but I may end up there.
For now it's just a journey of exploring life with less meat. A life with less harm. A life with more veg. A life with different defaults. -
by JamesI shipped some nice quality of life improvements around webmentions with Tanzawa. There were a few issues with the design that didn't become apparent until I'd used it for a while, especially with older posts.
Pending webmentions was toggled closed if you had 4 or more webmentions pending moderation. My theory was that drafts and recent posts take priority over moderating, and a long list of webmentions would get in your way.
As each webmention was triggering a full-page reload, any time you a large queue of webmentions (in my case, anytime I check in somewhere), approving them all was slow and required too many clicks (click to open the webmention list, move the mouse, click to approve, wait for a full reload, move the mouse to open the list, repeat). Moreover a N+1 query snuck into the dashboard, so as webmentions increased the page load got slower, making the entire dance more frustrating.
Next I noticed that it was difficult to know which page the webmention was referencing. This usually isn't an issue as they are usually referencing the latest post. But sometimes I'd get one referencing older posts and it was a struggle to find it. Initial designs of webmentions had a permalink link but I removed it to keep things cleaner.
How'd I fix things?
First, I've added a link to the post back to the moderation view, but without an emoji and in my "help-text" font to reduce visual noise.Updated Webmention Design
Second, I fixed the N+1 query on the dashboard (and post detail). The dashboard is now 7 queries regardless (including session checking etc.). I might be able to make it 6, but it's good enough for now.
Third, the webmention moderation queue is opened by default, regardless of the number of webmentions pending moderation.
Lastly, webmentions moderation no longer triggers a full page-reload. Rather it just reloads the list of pending webmentions. And since it's always open, you don't even need to move your mouse to approve the next item in the queue, just click click click. I posted a video on twitter so you can see it in action. -
Response to
by JamesI'd donate to you for a theme decoupling. This is high on my list! :)
I appreciate the sentiment ๐. It's not money that's preventing me, it's time.
I've been thinking about how to handle theming for Tanzawa properly. It's a big task, but not impossible. There's 2 different ways to think of theming: 1) css only changes theme support, 2) complete theme support (i.e. colors and layout). The move from css only changes wouldn't be much less work than allowing full customization.
Roughly here's what I think would be required:- Extract all mentions of tailwind colors from templates/public (e.g. bg-negroni-700 ) and replace them with a common name โ perhaps role based?
- Create a record / setting somewhere ( django-admin?) to track the active theme.
- Create a custom template loader (or other shim) that will prioritize rendering with the selected theme's public themes.
- Set Tanzawa to only include the css of the selected theme.
- Document how to make a custom theme.
Theming isn't my top priority, but it's not low either. If anyone is interested helping before I have a chance to get to it, I'm happy to answer questions / provide direction and so forth. ย -
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Early morning Sonyan spotting -
The Week #62
by James- This week was my last week at BP. I spent it heads down trying to get one last (part) of a project completed and while I didn't get it polished, I was able to get the basics completed. Literally merged about an hour before I finished. It's nice to have a few weeks free and clear without between gigs.
- 15 minutes after I finished, I had an on-boarding call with my employer of record (basically my actual legal employer until Octopus gets an entity in Japan), going over paperwork requirements to get fully signed up. It was nice to chat with them. The call itself was mostly in Japanese, but everyone on the call speaks English, so it was interesting to hear word replacement here and there.
- Covid cases continue their decline and Leo's school was canceled until the end of the month. His school seems to be on the more cautious side of this, as not all schools are canceling in our area. The teachers have a 40-minute zoom activity each day, but Leo has zero interest. It's too much stress (for both of us) just to try and get him to watch or dance with it all, so I think we'll be skipping them.
Assuming the state of emergency isn't extended beyond Sept. 30th and he goes back to school as per usual starting in October, I'm a bit concerned it's going to be a big struggle each morning again. - There's a local farmer's market(?) nearby where local producers can bring their veg for sale. The back wall has the names of photos of the farmers who sell their produce there. I took Leo there with the bike and bought veg that isn't usually in the local co-ops like red bell peppers (not sweet ones, same flavor as the green ones, just red) and butternut squash, as well as some super fresh leaks (negi) that still have moist looking dirt on them. Cutting the negi and it was so fresh it kinda oozed like when you cut some aloe vera to treat a sunburn.ย
Best of all, it's helping me live up to my values better by consuming more food that's made locally in my city, rather than some nameless farm in hokkaido or tochigi or even abroad.
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Technology I Use
by JamesComputer Setup
My main computer is a mid-2014 15" Macbook Pro with a 2.8Ghz Intel i7 CPU, 16GB ram, and 512GB SSD hard drive. It got a fresh battery back in January so it should be good for another few more years.
I do feel the limits of it occasionally, but not often. As it's been a while since I've gotten a new computer, I am getting the urge to replace or augment it. If I replace it outright, it would probably be with another Mac, Thinkpad, or a Frame.work.
If I were to replace it with a desktop, it would probably be a used Mini PC coming off lease from some business. But since I mostly use my personal laptop from the kitchen table (not my home office), I'd need to remote into the desktop most of the time. But I'm not sure I'd do that.Home Server
I have a 2012 MacMini with 16GB of ram acting as a home media server. I got it from my brother and the clips that hold the ram in are broken / missing (I have no idea how). So it's using a broken cd-r (as is how I received it) to create pressure to keep them in place.
This server also runs mac OS and is hooked up to my ScanSnap and a Drobo withย 14TB of storage. Since it redundant, only half is actually usable. As is, it'ss fairly under-utilized with just Plex and iTunes. Maybe spending time on r/SelfHosting could improve that. If I were to get a new Mini computer, it would likely be replacing both my laptop and my home server.
Work SetupI've been working remotely / working from home for all but 2 years of the past decade. I've always kept my work setup separate from my home setup in that period. Currently my work computers are provided by my employer and they're generally the latest MacBookPro that's refreshed every 3 years.- Keyboard: Happy Hacking Lite2 USB with a US layout
- Headphones: Airpods on mobile.ย Sony MDR7506 Professional Large Diaphragm at my desk.
- Mouse: Magic Trackpad and a random Microsoft Optical mouse
- Webcam/Microphone: Built in. (I really should upgrade this)
- Monitor: Dell U2720QM 27 inch 4K
Software- Operating System: macOS Catalina at home, BigSur at work. Ubuntu on my servers.
- Browsers: Firefox
- Terminal: Terminal.app / iTerm2
- Code Editor: PyCharm / emacs
- Music: Plex / YouTube
Phone
iPhone XR (Yellow, 64GB)Watch
Apple Watch (Series 5)Site Technology
This site is powered by Tanzawa, an open source blogging engine I started building about a year ago. Tanzawa is built with Python/Django with a splashes of Javascript (Stimulus) for the maps. Mapping is powered by Leaflet.js. -
Response to
by JamesCurating a set of RSS feeds is like stepping away from the agoras and finding a little cafรฉ, somewhere to sit and watch from a distance, to gather the words of the other patrons. Somewhere familiar where we recognise the regulars. We might never interact beyond a nod of appreciation but, in our own way, we come to know these people or, at least, what they allow us to know.
This is such a good way to think of RSS. Your RSS reader is your neighborhood coffee shop.
There really is something magical about being able to connect with people over time on the web that's separate from the noise machines. -
Response to
by JamesThe more I think and write about tech, the more I'm convinced that the tech doesn't really matter all that much without the correct mindset. If people are not having more interesting and profound interactions online, it is not for lack of tools. It's for lack of good intentions.
For as long as there's been the internet there's been "poor" interactions online. Humans, at least part of the time, find a way to argue some of the time.ย
The correct mindset can help you have better interactions online. But keeping the correct mindset is quite difficult when you're up against an algorithm that optimizes to keep you enraged and anxious.
The tech absolutely matters, but only in so much as it allows unadulterated communications and community. You can't find that on the big social networks without really trying hard, but you can find that on the IndieWeb. -
by Jamesไปๆฅใฏ@beproud_jpใงใฎๆ็ตๆฅใงใใใๆฌๅฝใซ่ฏใไผ็คพใๅๅใๅชใใใฆ่ฏใ๏ผๅนดๅใงใใใ่ฒใ ใใใใจใใใใใพใ๐๐ป๐ปใ ๆฐๅๅคๅใฎๅ้กใๅใ่พผใใใใๆฅๆใใ@OctopusEnergyใซๅ ฅ็คพใใพใใ๐
Today was my last day at BeProud. It is a really great company. My co-workers were really nice, it was a good 4.5 years. Thank you for everything๐๐ป๐ป. I'm joining Octopus Energy next month to help combat climate change. ๐
