Not what I expected from a post called “Ask the Algorithm”, but cleverly conceived and executed, and definitely funny.

Ask the Algorithm – Math with Bad Drawings

I’m playing with alternatives to Google Analytics, because I pretty much only look at one or two charts.

First try: GoAccess.

It lives on your server and reads the nginx logs directly and produces very nice graphs. There’s a live terminal …

Amusingly, ChatGPT on my phone has updated to GPT-5, but the Mac app hasn’t yet, which means that continuing a conversation between the two devices always means swapping models mid-stream.

Today’s Bracket City includes the amusingly redundant clue “companion for bread, often.”

“Companion” literally means “with bread.”

Com- = “with” panis = “bread”

Reading more #OnThisDay, it seems like the beginning of July 2023 changed how I thought about writing, from something I should do to something I do. I can watch my two-year-old self move from reading about systems of writing to putting them in place …

Two years ago today (July 5, 2023), I wrote in my daily reflection:

I’ll tell myself again that I need to read more and write more. I can do it.

Since then, I’ve published:

• 11 articles totaling 44,506 words
• 14 short ebooks totaling …

Went to see the F1 movie yesterday with Meera.

As an F1 fan, the cameos and references and locations were fun, and imagining how they filmed that movie was fascinating.

As a movie fan, it was a big goofy fun energy-filled summer flick that isn’t, and …

Playing with plotly tonight, I built one of the cooler visualizations of the Bible I’ve ever seen.

This is a treemap based on the word count of every book, separated by testament and then section. The colors also indicate book length, from dark …

I’m going through the HuggingFace MCP course, and in Unit 1 I’ve learned you can build and deploy an MCP server/app to HuggingFace directly, for free. Here’s my tutorial one that does sentiment analysis.

Wild.

Rewatching Office Space tonight, and I’ve caught two call-forwards.

1. When Peter is trying to avoid Lumbergh on Friday, it’s surprisingly similar to Neo’s hiding from Agent Smith at the beginning of The Matrix, which came out 40 days later.
2. Peter asks …

Every once in a while, I “edit” a ChatGPT prompt without changing it just to generate a new response. Sometimes the new one is similar; sometimes not.

I should try more often to run the same prompt a few times and evaluate the responses …

Going through the HuggingFace MCP course to learn a bit more about it—and maybe actually use it for some projects—and I was already briefly stymied by the difference between a “resource” and a “resource template.” The example …

A birthday present from my brother just arrived. They are “catch-alls” branded with Meera’s and my online brands—VerseNotes for me, Savvy Hedgehog Adventures for her.

Yesterday I had a novel and wonderful experience: “US preclearance” at the Dublin airport. I cannot believe I’m describing a TSA/CBP experience as wonderful, but it was great.

The theory is that you go through US immigration and customs in Dublin so …

I can’t believe I just now noticed that the named MEs in The Dresden Files are “bread and butter”:

“Nothing on the autopsy. They didn’t give this one to Butters. Brioche handled it, and he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
Proven Guilty

Once again I have learned that, in Europe, it almost always pays to wait for a human for long-distance train ticket plans.

I just got a cheaper, faster, nonstop reservation for a journey I thought was going to take at least one change and an …

My brain is so attuned to feeds on my phone that sometimes I literally forget that I own libraries of digital books (sadly split between Kindle/Apple because of sales+silos; my kingdom for… Del.icio.us?!?!).

I may need a no-feed cleanse to remember …

Just published this weekend’s project, an automatic Bible reading plan generator for VerseNotes.

Features

• Select length of plan (e.g., 90 days, 1 year) or daily reading time (15 minutes/day)
• Select what to read (whole Bible, OT, NT, Gospels) …

Meera and I both did this hike today, though not together: she did morning and I did afternoon. The first 2.5 miles were brutal both times (1,250 feet gain, an average 9.5% grade).

I am proud of us.