Jag Talon – Software, photos, travel, and other interests.

Week 11: Socials, Crafts, Nature

September 29th, 2022

Socials

This week, I joined weirder.earth (it’s kinda like Twitter) and bookwyrm.social (it’s kinda like Goodreads). Unlike other social networks that are controlled by surveillance capitalists, these websites are usually run by an individual or a small group of people. I can’t speak for all websites on the fediverse, but these are typically ad-free and anti-corporate.

Previously, I’ve been using micro.blog, but I found it difficult to find like-minded people. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I think it’s partly because it lacks hashtags. When I post something related to permacomputing, for example, I can add a #permacomputing hashtag to my post and people interested in the topic will find it and talk to me about it. Micro.blog uses emojis for categorization instead of hastags, but the topics are too broad for me. Don’t get me wrong I like Micro.blog! It just wasn’t what I was looking for.

Crafts

The weather this weekend was wonderful so I walked over to the cemetery to see the West Craft Fest. I only bought a sticker, but I enjoyed looking at all the beautiful handmade wares and taking pictures of people.

Nature

I saw a cardinal and a goldfinch in my neighborhood! Thanks to Merlin Bird ID and Seek, I’m starting to learn about the things that live around me.

I also got a pair of binoculars on Ebay. I’m hoping I could use it to watch some birds this weekend.

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Week 10: Clay, Tablet, Veggies

September 22nd, 2022

Luminary

Andrea and I went to a clay studio to do a workshop on candle luminaries. It was my first time doing anything with clay, but this workshop got me into the flow state right away. Two hours just zipped by from my perspective. We were pretty happy about the results, too. I made a little castle, and Andrea carved out petal-shaped holes. We’ll see the final version in about 2 weeks.

Couch Computer

My dad was telling me how he managed to upgrade my grandma’s old tablet using LineageOS, and he asked me if I had any use for it. I’ve been wanting a couch computer for a while to browse the web and watch videos on, so I said absolutely! It feels good to get more use out of a tablet from 2014.

Veggies

I’m trying to add more veggies in my life. I’m not getting any younger! We’ve been shopping for more produce and we also subscribed to a local produce box delivery.

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Week 9: Meetup and Birds

September 16th, 2022

↗ Lo-fi version

DuckDuckGo Meetup

This week we had our annual DuckDuckGo meetup! We spent time in the Pocono Mountains for four days and it was super fun. I got to see a lot of new faces, and caught up with coworkers that I haven’t seen since the Before Times.

Birdwatching

One of my favorite activities that I did was birdwatching. We used the Merlin Bird ID app to identify some of the birds around us. I’m definitely looking forward to using this app in the city!

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Week 8: Energy, Maps, and Grandma

September 8th, 2022

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Using Renewable Energy at Home

I recently switched our power and gas supplier to The Energy Co-op because I wanted our apartment to start using renewable energy. Although we’re not literally using power that comes straight out of wind turbines and solar panels (The Energy Co-op works by buying and retiring RECs for their subscribers), I feel good about redirecting our monthly bill to fund renewable energy facilities. It’s a little more expensive, but I think it’s still worth it for me.

Increasing Contributions to OpenStreetMaps

I often use OsmAnd or Organic Maps when I travel because they both offer offline maps for times when I don’t have any cell service or WiFi. I found them really helpful when I was in Iceland, for example! I prefer to use these over Google Maps’ offline functionality because neither of them track my whereabouts.

OsmAnd collects anonymous usage data, and Organic Maps doesn’t collect anything at all.

But I don’t use these apps outside of traveling because I find that OpenStreetMaps (their data source) is missing a lot of information on businesses and house numbers.

I want to improve these maps for myself, so I’ve been sporadically contributing to OpenStreetMaps over the last two years. But this week I managed to significantly increase my contributions because I found the Go Map!! app for the iPhone. It really made it easy for me to make edits on the spot.

Celebrating Grandma’s Birthday

This week my family celebrated my grandma’s 83rd birthday! We all met up in Maryland (I also drove from PA to MD using OsmAnd successfully) and we had a lot of fun. We also ate a ton of Filipino food. 🤤

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Week 7: Kindle, Couch, Baths

September 1st, 2022

↗ Lo-fi version

Kindle

I found a Kindle being given away on a street corner for free! I looked up the model number online, and it looks like it’s from 2011. We were doubtful about its condition, but it surprisingly works well! The battery life is excellent, you can still log in to it, and the speakers work, too. It even had all seven Harry Potter books included in it!

Couch

A friend of mine recommended that I check out ReStore when shopping for furniture, and we ended up finding a comfortable and affordable couch on there!

Reading

I’ve been jumping between a couple of books recently, diving in head first into labor and capitalism books. Aside from CAPS LOCK and How to Do Nothing, I’ve also been reading Overtime and How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century as well. Oh, and also One Punch Man. 🥚

Finn

We (mostly Andrea) also gave Finn a bath. He hated it.

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Week 6: Meetups, Filipino Food, Hypercard

August 24th, 2022
↗ Lo-fi version

Permacomputing

I went to a permacomputing meetup at Iffy Books. I expected to talk about how we can change our behavior and lifestyle (keep using our current devices, don’t throw out old ones, use leaner software, etc.), but I was pleasantly surprised that we ended up talking about larger, sometimes systemic issues like:
- How do we incentivize people to keep their devices longer?
- How do we get people excited about permacomputing?
- Can we have a culture of sharing devices with each other? (similar to this time-sharing wiki entry)
- How do we change policy around this?
Filipino Food

Andrea and I made sinigang na hipon or shrimp soup from the I Am a Filipino book (with pineapples!) and also mais kon-yelo from the Filipinx book.

Plan 9 and Electronics

I got back into learning about Plan 9 and electronics. I finished watching Tea Note #2 this week and with the electronics stuff I learned how to make a simple light sensor.

Hypercard

I recently made a work presentation in Hypercard as well. I think this is going to be my go-to presentation tool! I love how something from the mid-90s can still be used today.

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Week 5: Books, Movies, Friends

August 18th, 2022

↗ Lo-fi version

I learned about an anti-capitalist, anti-big tech, environmentalist, hacking-oriented bookstore called Iffy Books, and I got super excited so I got a bunch of books from them. I’m hoping to go to their permacomputing workshop in a couple days as well.

Speaking of books, we got around to unpacking and arranging our bookshelves in the living room as well. Feels good to be done with unpacking!

Andrea and I also had tapas at Amada then we saw The Thing (1982 version) in theaters, and we loved it. We thought the special effects held up super well. It reminded us of Alien.

I also got to hang out and co-work with my friends Lauren and Juliana. I should really take advantage of working outside the apartment more often while it’s summer over here.

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Week 4: Eating a lot

August 10th, 2022

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I celebrated my birthday this week! I first celebrated with my family in New Jersey. I ordered some Japanese and Thai food for us to share at home. My dad also made smoked pork belly which was absolutely delicious.

I then took the train back home to Philly and then I went to a steakhouse with Andrea. I’ve been eating a lot this week.

Other than that, it’s been a pretty slow week. We started watching Ozark again and continued to do some unpacking around the apartment. I’ve been reading How to Do Nothing as well. The title is a bit misleading because it’s really not a how-to book. So far it’s been about how capitalism appropriates our time (it definitely has some overlap with CAPS LOCK), trees with weird shapes, the design of physical space, smart birds, and the gig economy glorifying overwork. I love it.

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Week 3: Visiting Family, Plan 9 Bootcamp

August 4th, 2022

↗ Lo-fi version

I visited my family this week in New Jersey. It’s my grandpa’s birthday so we had a little reunion over here. My siblings are on summer vacation as well, so it’s really nice to see everyone in one place.

Me, my sister, my grandpa, and grandma.

My parent’s house is surrounded by trees so I’ve been taking advantage of all the greenery outside. I wish I had this in Philly. I love looking away from my laptop and seeing a bunch of birds flying around. (And the occasional spider.)

Work setup on a bench outside.

I honestly don’t remember how I stumbled into this, but by some stroke of luck I ran into SDF’s Plan 9 bootcamp this week as well, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. It’s surprising how much fun I’m having playing around with a weird operating system. I think it’s partly because it’s fun exploring a completely new system, and I think it’s partly because I’m learning with a bunch of other people at the same time. It also ties in with my interest in permacomputing because Plan 9 is much simpler compared to other operating systems so I want to see what you can do with it.

Cluttered Plan 9 desktop.

I’m struggling with the three-button mouse usage, slow browsers, and weird shell, but I’m starting to get the hang of it I think! Right now I’m watching Tea Note #2 and also writing a YNAB-like budgeting app in rc (hugely based on the excellent Plan 9 desktop guide). We’ll see how it goes.

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Week 2: We Moved!

July 27th, 2022

↗ Lo-fi version

We moved to a new spot in West Philly! The new place is slightly bigger indoors, but I love that we now have a porch to hang out in and a backyard to do some gardening. I’m excited, but also super tired. Moving isn’t pleasant to begin with and we ended up moving during a heat wave! We’re also not done yet. We have a lot of unpacking to do over the next few weeks. Look at all this mess!

Our new place.

I signed up for an account on smol.pub a few days ago. You’ll notice that I have a link at the very top of this post that says “Lo-fi version.” That’s my smol.pub blog! I signed up because I’m fascinated with small, lightweight websites, and I wanted to dip my toes into the text-based world of Gemini. I’m hoping to crosspost all my future blog posts on there. It has a 100MB limit for images, so I’m making sure they’re all super lo-res.

I love the idea of having a tiny version of my website. It’s really fast, and it reminds me of text.npr.org and lite.cnn.com.

I haven’t been reading or playing games recently because of all the moving chaos, but we have been watching Ozark and The Boys when we have dinner so that’s been our entertainment recently. I did stop by the bookstore the other day to pick up the book How to Do Nothing. I look forward to reading this soon.

How to Do Nothing book by Jenny

A recipe that I enjoyed recently is called Adzuki Bean Coconut Curry. We had some adzuki beans that we wanted to get rid of and we found this recipe online. It was really good!

Adzuki Bean Coconut Curry in a bowl of rice.

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