Jon Aquino's Mental Garden

Pinboard vs Notion

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:33:00 -0800

I discovered a great alternative to Pinboard: Notion, the note-taking database. Set it up according to this video, and you have a free alternative to Pinboard with a Chrome extension that is actually good.

Also having an image for each bookmark is nice. I like how it will pull an image from the page or you can screenshot the current page for the image.

AI podcast version of my entire blog

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 3 Nov 2024 10:06:00 -0800

I fed all the posts of this blog into NotebookLM and it created this podcast;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ugg1GAfUWnY-EltVKIx9OC8lrTx4Pls3/view?usp=sharing

Tools used:

blogger.com export to xml format
blog2md tool to convert xml to markdown
NotebookLM for generating the audio

Trying out Cursor editor

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 8 Oct 2024 12:25:00 -0700

I'm trying out an editor called Cursor and am quite liking it as a replacement for VS Code + GitHub Copilot Chat. It is more aggressive in autocompleting than Copilot, which is good.

Another cool thing about Cursor is you can ask it questions about a specific PR (set scope to @PR):

A Raycast extension I contributed to

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 4 Oct 2024 21:58:00 -0700

I contributed a couple of commands to the excellent Raycast app and command launcher (similar to Alfred). The commands are called Transform and Transform Preview and are in the ChatGPT Quick Actions extension (needs a ChatGPT User API key).

Basically you select some text anywhere, do ⌥ Space to bring up Raycast, then select Transform and give it a prompt to act on and replace the selected text, like:

beautify JSON
do the math
count the occurrences of each line

Transform Preview displays the result in a window instead of replacing the selected text.

Things I bought that I wish I knew I could have gotten at Ikea for cheaper

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 4 Oct 2024 21:55:00 -0700

These are things I bought that I wish i knew Ikea sold so I could have bought them more cheaply:

doormats
rugs
saucepan
boot tray
cleaning gloves
microfibre cloths
soap dispensers
flat bedsheets
food containers
garbage cans
measuring cup
tape measure
can opener
salt and pepper shakers

Asking ChatGPT for voting advice

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 23:55:00 -0700

It's elections time in British Columbia, so I asked ChatGPT:

do the bc conservatives or the bc ndp align more with catholic values?

It had a detailed response that ended with:

Conclusion:
• BC Conservatives may align more closely with Catholic teachings on pro-life issues, religious freedom, and traditional family values, though these are not always central to their platform.
• BC NDP aligns more with the Church’s teachings on social justice, care for the poor and vulnerable, and environmental stewardship, which are key aspects of Catholic social teaching.
A Catholic voter in BC may weigh these different elements depending on which aspects of their faith are most important to them in the political context.

So not a straightforward answer, but gives good food for thought.

Arc Browser

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 23:00:00 -0700

I’m really liking the Arc browser. One cool thing it does is: if you hover over any link and press Shift, it displays a small popup with an AI summary of the web page behind the link.

Another cool thing I learned is you can ask Arc to summarize the current page by pressing Cmd-F, typing "summarize page", the click the Ask button. You can probably ask it other questions about the page as well.

Another cool thing about Microsoft edge for GitHub users

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 15:54:00 -0700

Another cool thing about Microsoft Edge (in addition to my post before) is you can select some code on GitHub then choose Ask Copilot, and it will explain whatever you selected on the right:

What i like about the Microsoft Edge browser

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:12:00 -0700

I'm really liking the Microsoft Edge browser on Mac:

The Read Aloud feature is really good. The voice quality is as good as Speechify
I like the vertical tabs. The only thing I don't like is the vertical tabs snap shut after you click X on one of them, so it's tedious if you want to close a bunch of them.
I like the Split Screen feature. You can right-click a link and choose Open Link In Right Split Screen

Workaround for AI hallucination: Make them sound less sure

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 14:38:00 -0800

At work I asked our Confluence (wiki) AI, "What does BADF stand for?" It answered

BAMDF stands for Bidder Advertiser Metadata Framework

But I couldn't find “Bidder Advertiser” anywhere in our wiki.

It turns out this was completely wrong. My coworkers told me it actually stands for "Binary Augmented MDF".

To work around the hallucination problem, maybe AIs should prefix everything they say with “I think that...” or “It seems to me that…” instead of sounding 100% certain all the time.

Myers-Briggs code: ISTJ

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:34:00 -0800

Apparently, my Myers-Briggs code is ISTJ. 9 years ago, I thought I was an INFJ.

My Holland Code

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 20:53:00 -0800

My Holland code is still CIA, as it was in 2020. In 2004, it was different: IAR.

C = Conventional. I like to work with data and numbers, am detail-oriented, and am good at following instructions.

I = Investigative. I like to learn, figure out how things work, and solve problems.

A = Artistic. I have a bit of an artistic bent, using intuition and imagination. I'm a visual person.

Favourite Things

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 3 Dec 2023 22:02:00 -0800

Here is a list of some of my favourite things.

Chocolate chip mint ice cream
Trying new technological devices and apps
Audiobooks, like Jane Austen novels
Podcasts, like Called to Communion or The Journey Home
Wrestling with my son
Assisting at Mass
Eating out with my wife
Harrison Hot Springs
Fettuccini Alfredo
Computer programming, especially UI projects or small backend projects
Reading tech news
Producing quick data visualizations
Comparison shopping, researching products, reading reviews
Conversion stories
Tools and books for self-improvement
Being a great dad
Personal finance
Lord of the Rings, Narnia, other imaginative fiction
Watching tech documentaries
Visiting the beach with my family
ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot
Computer programming tools
Smart home devices
Lex Fridman podcast - interviews remarkable people

One Mouse

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 16:51:00 -0700

One mouse, two mice.

One house, two hice.

One louse, two lice.

One blouse, two blice.

One nouse, two nice.

One rouse, two rice.

One twouse, two twice.

One ouse, two ice.

"Grug Brained Developer" in a Yoda voice

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 17:49:00 -0700

A couple of days ago, The Grug Brained Developer was posted to Hacker News. It is a collection of programming wisdom written in a caveman style, like:

Instead grug try to limit damage of big brain developer early in project by giving them thing like UML diagram (not hurt code, probably throw away anyway) or by demanding working demo tomorrow

When I shared the link at work, one of my co-workers said, in her head, she was reading it in a Yoda voice.

Well it turns out I actually do have a speech synthesizer app with a Yoda voice! It's a pricey app called Proloquo4Text and it has a voice called Little Creature which sounds like Yoda.

For your enjoyment, here is the app reading “The Eternal Enemy: Complexity” from The Grug Brained Developer, in a Yoda voice.

Wordblender

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 13 May 2021 00:10:00 -0700

Maybe I'm the only one in the world who needs this tool, but I made a webpage called Wordblender. You paste in a bunch of text and it will chunk it up into chunks of 3 consecutive words. It then shuffles the chunks and outputs it.

Use this if you have a long piece of text and you don't want to understand the overall meaning, but you do want to scan it for small runs of local meaning that might be interesting to you.

Like I said, pretty unique use case. Leave a comment if you find this useful for some reason.

http://jonathanaquino.com/wordblender.php

Love static typing

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 5 Mar 2021 09:48:00 -0800

I'm currently working in an all-TypeScript codebase, and have also recently been working in Go, and I must say I'm really loving static typing, especially compared to huge JavaScript and Python codebases. Why? Simply because it adds some checks to make sure that the connections between pieces of my code are still sound when I move code around. It doesn't check that everything is correct, but checking connections is an essential sanity check.

Don't follow Marie Kondo's advice to give your books away - you'll regret it

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 14:40:00 -0800

A couple of years ago, I read Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and one of its recommendations was to part with a bunch of books you don't use. I dutifully followed it and gave 1 bookshelf of books to Value Village (keeping 1 bookshelf of books for myself).

How I regret that decision.

Years of accumulated books, books I wanted to read someday, books I want to read today – gone, just like that. I warn my fellow bookophiles to not follow Marie Kondo's advice. Do not part with your books. Or if you must part with some, part with the ones you hate. Keep the ones you haven't read yet but plan to read someday, or the ones you plan to re-read someday.

Some books I regret throwing out:

My undergraduate physics textbook (Halliday and Resnick). In fact, all of my university textbooks. Engineering Physics was my major and I just threw out everything I'd learned. Fortunately bookfinder.com lists an old edition of Halliday and Resnick for $20 so I will at least recoup that.
A great undergraduate biology textbook – I think it was by Mader.
Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena. Never got around to reading much of it, but I'd like to sometime.

What to say during 1:1s

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 23:42:00 -0800

My old manager challenged me to do 1:1s with all 22 engineers in my business unit (RollWorks), and out of that came the following three topics that I would enjoy sharing in any 1:1, whether with someone above me or someone below me.

Anything fun done recently or any hobbies. For them and for you. This helps to connect on a personal level, which is always good.
Main worries or priorities (or what is currently being worked on). For them and for you. It's good to know someone's top concerns or what they are working on.
Anything learned recently or new tools. For them and for you. It's fun to share something you learned recently.

I'm going to try this with 1:1s with my manager.

Annoying basic things that golang lacks

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 11:06:00 -0800

Go lacks some basic features that I am going to document here:

abs() for integers
min() and max() for integers
sets

Lego City piece count vs price

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 09:28:00 -0800

It is interesting to look at a chart of Lego piece counts vs. price. The higher the set is, the better the value. Here is a spreadsheet of Lego City piece counts vs. price for November 18, 2020:

Why IntelliJ is better than VSCode

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 5 Jun 2020 22:49:00 -0700

I've been trying to use VSCode as my main text editor for several months, for Python/Java/JavaScript. But there are important things that VSCode can't do that a dedicated IDE can do with ease. For example, I just got this Java exception when running my code in VSCode:

But will VSCode let me click the line to jump to the code? No it won't unfortunately. IntelliJ will. In fact, IntelliJ will even let me set a breakpoint in the code so I can stop and look around.

And I was really hoping that VSCode could serve my editor needs for any language.

Favourite authors and influences

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 7 Mar 2020 00:28:00 -0800

The following authors and people have had a big influence on my life.

Kent Beck
Dave Thomas
Marshall Rosenberg
Stephen Covey
Richard Bolles
Edward Feser
St. Joseph
Fr. Jacques Philippe
John Gottman
Gordon Neufeld
Jane Austen
St. Francis de Sales
Josef Pieper

Contexts vs Witch

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 19:55:00 -0800

I'm evaluating a couple of Mac task-switcher tools: Witch by ManyTricks and Contexts. I think I'm going to go with Contexts for the following reasons:

Advantages of Witch:

Can switch to a specific tab in Chrome and some other apps

Advantages of Contexts:

Faster than Witch. Sometimes Witch takes a few seconds to open for some reason.
Reliably binds to Command+Tab. When Witch is bound to Command+Tab, sometimes the old switcher opens on Command+Tab, for example, when the Google login screen is being shown. Contexts doesn't have this problem.

My Holland Code

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 16:20:00 -0800

My Holland Code is CIA/CIR. This code is one way of summing up your interests.

My main ones are Conventional and Investigative. Conventional folks are people who like working with data and math and who are detail-oriented. Investigative people love to learn, analyze, and evaluate things. Yes I am detail-oriented and yes I like researching stuff (especially when shopping 🙂).

My secondary ones are Artistic and Realistic. Artistic people like to use their creativity and have artistic abilities. Realistic people like to work with machines and tools. I have a bit of both although they aren't my primary strengths. I am a visual person and I like to show data visually. I also like to use my tools to do minor household repairs.