emergency response: PHOTO: NASA I’m a certified member of our Community Emergency Response Team (“CERT”). I’ve worked on the neighborhood GMRS radio emergency communications network. I’m helping develop a mesh network for texting around the ‘hood when internet and phones are down (as they were […]

Standard Notes find: I really like Standard Notes. It’s a cool, simple little notes app. What makes it cool? most notes are stored as plain text — no worries about losing access because of a deprecated proprietary file format it’s open source, although the free version is rather limited the […]

knee pain: I’ve been having worsening knee pain for a few years now. Until the last year or two, it’s been more aversive than painful. If I’ve been sitting for a while, when I go to stand up I have an intense need to support myself. It just feels like something is going to tear or snap if I put […]

sick day: Illustration by Round Icons on Unsplash I woke up this morning with a slight headache. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. As the morning wore on, the headache got a little worse and I became somewhat nauseated. My feet got really, really cold. I felt feverish, but had a […]

tool repair: Fresh off my adventure with a wobbly wheelbarrow, I embarked on a short, simple string trimmer job. HA, with some help from L, has done a whole world of weed whacking particularly while Satan’s Own Mower has been out of commission. We have two weed trimmers: a lightweight […]

wobbly wheelbarrow: Shortly after our old wheelbarrow broke, HA bought a new one. In fact, she bought two, as there is barrowing to be done both up by the house and several hundred feet away down at the studio, and at points between. She got them from two different stores. We moved the twelve […]

Satan's Own Mower: The riding lawnmower I have dubbed Satan’s Own Mower is actually running again. You might remember the time back in January when the mower almost dumped me on the ground because both bolts holding the seat had come loose? Or in mid-August when the deck belt broke which led to… […]

Infrastructure Man: Back in the early days of twoprops.net, I used the then-nascent “AI” programs to design an illustration of for my alter ego Infrastructure Man. I soon changed my mind about the role and viability of large models to simulate creative work. Progress is impossible without […]

whole-house ozonation: HA, her son L, and his partner C went into town for various things (job interview, Zoomba, gym workout) and then to the beach. Luna the Big Dog™ and I went for a walk up the mountain, then I decided it was a good opportunity to run the ozone generator in the whole house […]

mongoose blocking: The battle against the bad mongoose and its friends continues. Mongooses were brought to the island to control rats in the cane fields; they proliferated out of control and now they are the rats. Our egg yield has dropped to near zero and the chickens seem distressed. We have […]

pasture path: We didn’t ask people to RSVP for our party yesterday, so we really didn’t know how many folks might show up. We were worried about parking, as there’s only room for six vehicles or so at our front gate (at least with the lawn being as sodden as it is). We created a parking area […]

parking: We’re having a fete at the compound tomorrow morning. I’m preparing signage to direct people who haven’t been here before. I’m also recovering from a migraine, so my brain isn’t working at even its meagre baseline. I had to ask HA to verify that I had spelled “parking” correctly. I’m […]

pavilion table light: Shortly after I finished building the pavilion, I put up some holiday lights. They were pretty, but didn’t light it up very much and — for mysterious reasons — they have become dimmer over time and now they’re purely an accent. They don’t provide any usable illumination […]

studio kitchenette hot water: Today was the fourth bright-and-sunny day in a row. Last year, I had come to take such days for granted. This year, these are the first four summer days we’ve had, even though it’s now fall and nighttime temperatures are plummeting into the high 50’s. I had an […]

folds: Reaching along the the fitted sheet Little hills and valleys from the Mattress below. Leaving my warmed Spot under many layers to a Fan-cooled expanse, smooth over Lumpy-bumpy and only lightly covered. Then a tucked-under pocket from A parfait of sheets and blankets. Back And forth […]

LLMs: Way, way back in the dim and distant past — circa 2021 — I was watching the emergence of machine learning models capable of some forms of text-to-image generation. I was intrigued. Learning to draw has long been on my Good Intentions list. I have no skill with drawing at all, and I’m […]