Cat box cat.

Portland, Oregon. 3rd February, 2026.

Buxton, Oregon. 24th November, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

Clatskanie, Oregon. 24th November, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

A little over a week ago we visited Oregon Contemporary to experience A Larger Reality, an exhibition about the life and work of Ursula K. Le Guin.

A framed structure about the size of the room that served as Le Guin’s writing room, when not serving as a nursery, was surprisingly small. On the desk were her typewriters that were open to use. I enjoyed this level of immersiveness.

The electric typewriter was programmed to print selections of Le Guin’s work for visitors to print and take with them.

It was a lovely exhibition and I’m glad we were able to visit it. I have read some of Le Guin’s works, and have others on my reading list for this year and beyond. I would highly recommend her work to anyone.

It’s been another good year of reading books. A few interesting notes:

• Thankful to the Multnomah County Library system for borrowing about half of them, including the nice physical copy of How to See.
• A couple were public domain books from the wonderful Standard Ebooks project. I will be returning to pick from there again for sure.
• I listened to my first ever audiobook, The Silmarillion. It was a great book for that format as it was written like a mythology and that might have lost my interest if I were to read it. Also, there were lots of interesting names that I would’ve surely pronounced badly.
• A good balance of fiction/non-fiction and genres therein really kept my interest going, just like I had mused about a year ago.

The full list is on the books page.

Recent moons.

Last sunrise of 2025. Portland, Oregon.

Portland, Oregon. 26th December, 2025.

Oregon. 3rd October, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

Portland, Oregon. 16th October, 2025.

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A
🎞️ Kodak Kodacolor 200

From a time when cars were designed like they were about to take off.

Portland, Oregon. 16th October, 2025.

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A
🎞️ Kodak Kodacolor 200

Oregon. 3rd October, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

Portland, Oregon. September, 2025.

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2a
🎞️ Kodak C-41 B&W (Expired)

…this little waterfall with a bunch of Fall-en leaves…

…a farmer who said hi, and also, “what a lovely Oregon day!” as I was standing in cold rain and the sky was gray and the temperature was 43°F, but I genuinely agreed with her, because it was true…

…this horse chilling in a field some distance away, and this other one right by the road…

…these birds flying in a nice pattern…

…this viewpoint, where the view was just some trees in a fog so thick my camera app said, and this is no joke, “clean your lens”…

…these mossy trees, and my favorite trestle bridge, although, to be honest, I only really know one…

…yes, it was a good day. Love you Oregon ❤️

Fall birds. Portland, Oregon. 11th November, 2025.

Council Crest. Portland, Oregon. 11th October, 2025.

Last weekend I found myself there again. This time I constrained myself to “black and white photos with the iPhone using Obscura, mostly with the new 4x lens”. I find contraints to be helpful for creativity.

Obscura has become my go-to app for a manual UI for iPhone photography. Like any sophiticated interface with a purpose, it takes some getting used to, but that’s worth it. I thought I would make edits in post-processing, but in the end I didn’t touch the files at all, except one crop.

I’m pretty happy with how this experience turned out, and look forward to similar explorations with Obscura in the future.

Caleb at the Japanese Garden. Portland, Oregon. 16th May, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Three trees at the Portland Japanese Garden. 16th May, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Had been wanting to have these ever since I finished reading Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz, which was a really nice book.

The weather widget should show the temperature at all times. It should show the temperature when it is raining. If you live in a place where it rains a lot you don’t see the temperature when it is raining, which can sometimes be several days in a row, and that is just silly.

Shrimping.

Salmon Street Springs. Portland, Oregon. 19th September, 2025.

Rowers by the Sellwood Bridge. Portland, Oregon. 20th September, 2025.

This time we parked in a different spot and took a different route through the various trails. Once again it was a pleasant hike of just under five miles.

Astrup Fearnley Museum. Oslo, Norway. 29th June, 2025.

The Royal Palace. Oslo, Norway. 29th June, 2025.

Some photos from a walk by the river this morning.

Oslo, Norway. 27th June, 2025.

Kaupanger Stave Church is one of the 28 stave churches (out of an estimated nearly 2000 that existed in the past) preserved in Norway. You can read more about those here.

Most of the graves were newer but there were a few that were pretty old, including one of a person born in the 1600’s.

As we were driving away I got this quick snapshot from a higher vantage point on the road that shows the church in the context of the village around it.

We were there for about an hour during our brief time in the Sogndal area. Even though we couldn’t go inside, it was nice to see a place like this up close.

I saw a bird on nearly every statue taller than 12 feet or so in Oslo.

They depict human forms, human relationships, and the eternal human condition.

The most prominent feature is the massive Monolith.

The metalwork on the gates around the monolith platform complements the sculptures.

These sculptures evoked a unique feeling of human connectedness in me. It seems unlikely that I will ever see them again but I’m very glad I did.

As always this ride presents views and perspectives that are not accessible in everyday use of these bridges.

Activity Stats

Distance: 20.64 miles
Elevation Gain: 836 ft
Time: 4h 47m (Including various stops, food, beverages, etc.)

The views were stupid gorgeous when riding a bike around the Esefjord during our time in Balestrand. 6th July, 2025.

I enjoyed it and have been playing it almost daily. I’m not great at it, but as someone that likes to see or hear about historical trivia, it is kinda fun. The tricky ones are the ones where a numeral is repeated. I call it a win if I get close enough 😄

Along those lines, I also like this Wikipedia app driven widget that I’ve had on my phone for a long time.

View of Bergen harbor from Mt. Fløyen. The panoramic view from there can be seen anytime via a webcam.

Bergen, Norway. 2nd July, 2025.

The Monolith at Vigeland Park. Oslo, Norway. 27th June, 2025.

Didn’t make it to Portland pride parade here today but found myself in the middle of the Oslo pride parade a few weeks ago. It was joyous! 🏳️‍🌈

Oslo, Norway. 28th June, 2025.

Oslo City Hall from the promenade. Celebrating 75 years since its opening, the building, with its brick construction, looks architecturally distinct from older as well as newer buildings.

Oslo, Norway. 27th June, 2025.

Oslo, Norway. 27th June, 2025.

Vigeland Park. Oslo, Norway. 27th June, 2025.

A few days ago I got back from a two week trip to Norway. It was a wonderful trip with Jenni and her family. I’ve been recovering from jet lag, and still decompressing, with questions like, “Why’s the sky dark?!”

Hope to share photos and blog posts in the coming days/weeks.

Already, in just over 10 hours of test observations, the observatory has discovered 2,104 never-before-seen-asteroids, including seven near-Earth asteroids, none of which pose any danger.

I can’t wait to see the world of knowledge, and understanding of the universe, it will open up during its mission.

“It will be capable of really detecting things that actually change very rapidly,” says Sandrine Thomas, deputy director of Rubin Observatory and the observatory’s telescope and site project scientist. “That, in itself, will be unique to the world. No other telescope would be able to do that.”

And, what photography enthusiast wouldn’t get excited over a giant camera?!

It’s equipped with a specially-designed large telescope, as well as a car-sized digital camera that’s the biggest such camera in the world.

😲

via NPR.

A few weeks ago, one evening, I came across a recipe video for a bread on YouTube. I watch videos of recipes on there all the time. I even make some of those. Later that same night I was thinking of it when I realized I had all the ingredients for it and that I could prep the mix for storing overnight and baking in the morning. I did exactly that.

The loaf I made lasted about a week and in that week I noticed I liked its taste and felt healthy. In my meals, I was substituting slices of that loaf for things like store bought bread, and rice. When that week ended I made another loaf. And then more…

Now I’ve made it four times and I still like it. I’ve raved about it to friends and family and have passed the recipe on to them. And now I thought I’d share with you as well, so here you go. If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Went on a walk at Mt. Tabor Park after a long time. Had been missing it. It was a lovely day for it.

Morning walk in Central Eastside. Portland, Oregon. 7th June, 2025.

Yard flowers this morning. Portland, Oregon. 7th June, 2025.

All photos taken at the same distance from the lens.

/via atp.fm/642

Noticed the shiny tile at the cafe.

Overhead. Portland, Oregon. 18th May, 2025.

It is now hosted on Github Pages where the feature set easily accommodates my needs at this time. I was trying to recall the journey of this blog, and from memory it seems to have gone this route over the last 20-ish years: Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Wordpress, and lastly Micro.blog.

#PopeNumber

Morning Garden. 1st May, 2025.

Lloyd Center, Portland, Oregon. 9th May, 2025.

• It’s frustrating, like all of a sudden finding yourself in a community of people that don’t speak your language.
• Sustaining a feeling of hunger, or quenching it with water, sometimes comes with a weird feeling of gratitude for the comfortable life you’ve built for yourself.
• At the end of the week that burger you like at your local establishment, that you’ve had many times, tastes infinitely better.

📚 indicates that I have a physical copy that is lendable, if you want.
🎧 indicates that I listened to an audiobook version.

2026 (6)

2025 (21)

2024 (17)

2023 (5)

2022 (6)

2021 (8)

2020 (10)

2019 (9)

2018 (4)

2017 (2)

2016 (3)

2015 (8)

2014 (1)

2013 (2)

2012 (3)

2011 (2)

2010 (6)

2009 (14)

2008 (4)

Previous

International Business Machines Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said the tech giant has used artificial intelligence, and specifically AI agents, to replace the work of a couple hundred human resources workers. As a result, it has hired more programmers and salespeople, he said.

Replacing HR with AI seems like a positive development to make it totally clear that HR is there to protect employer, not employees.

Bee butt and the bee’s knees 😄

Hi, I’m Satyajit (Sam) Grover (he/him). I reside in Portland, Oregon and am interested in software, photography, and other creative pursuits. I’m originally from India. This is my personal website and blog.

For more on my photography and apps, check out my studio website at Sam Grover Studio.

Online Presence

Active

Bluesky • Flickr • Github • Glass • Mastodon • Reddit

Semi Active

LinkedIn • Instagram

Inactive

Exposure • Facebook • Medium • Tumblr • Twitter

Sunrise over the hill in Kona, Hawaii. 22nd March, 2025.

When I wrote up Piterator.swift on Pi Day earlier this month, I was actually trying to do something with the values it returns but I didn’t get around to that fun part due to lack of time.

A few days after that I imagined a clock face where the seconds hand moves in jumps of the values returned by the iterator at the rate of once per second. So as the values start coming in like 3, 1, 4, etc, the second hand jumps by those many seconds.

I started to write the code for a Mac app but Quartz 2D drawing is not something I have ever really done, so it was tricky wrapping my mind around the coordinate system and laying out individual marks on the canvas.

Fast forward to yesterday when I decided to try out vibe coding for this project. As I got going though, it became more of an AI assisted coding because I started to edit it myself after a couple of initial rounds of code generation. Old habits die hard!

For this purpose I used the recently released Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro via LLM, essentially as described in this post.

I was very impressed by the code generation. The first prompt I gave was for a static drawing, and it was thus:

llm -m gemini-2.5-pro-exp-03-25 "Write a SwiftUI View that draws a clock face on a Canvas. It should draw each of the 60 tick marks, with 0 and every multiple of 5 being a slightly thicker tick mark. It should also draw the time using an hour hand, a minute hand and a second hand. The second hand should be red. The time should be 10th hour, 10th minute, 30th second."

The result was exactly as I expected. It even improvised and put that little circle in the center which was a nice touch.

Then I gave it this second prompt which also included the Piterator.swift code:

files-to-prompt . -e swift -c | \
      llm -m gemini-2.5-pro-exp-03-25 -s \
      'Update the ClockView to make it animatable using TimelineView. Then hook it up to Piterator so that every second, the second hand moves forward by as many seconds as the number returned by the Piterator.'

This generated code that had a couple of small bugs that raised compiler errors. After I resolved that I had it working exactly as I envisioned it, and the whole thing took about an hour 🤯

All the code is on Github

The app will still be available in the App Store and continue to work. If I decide to remove it completely, I will give at least one month’s notice.

I thank you all for your support over the five year lifespan of this app.

If you’re wondering why I’ve decided to do this, please read on, although you might also want to read about the history of Mimi Uploader that I wrote 18 months ago.

So anyway, here are some reasons that went into the decision, although no single one was dominant:

• Mimi Uploader’s role as a utility has diminished over time as alternatives have become possible and accessible.
• The app makes almost no money. When I introduced subscriptions for supporting development, there was support for some time, but it plateaued, and then reduced.
• Micro.blog has been introducing new features for managing and displaying photos and providing alt text. To be clear, I’m in support of that as these go to all users and make the service better for everyone, but they diminish the utility of Mimi, and also increase the burden of maintenance.
• Some of the most ardent users and supporters have left the Micro.blog community in recent months.
• I want to focus on newer projects and want to be clear to all users that this app is no longer a priority. If you subscribed to support development, then please feel free to cancel that subscription.

Thanks for a great five-year run 😊

Use it in your swift code and make fun stuff using the value of Pi up to 100 trillion digits!

Happy Pi Day!

John at Level Beer. 28th February, 2025.

On Friday, I met up with some friends for happy hour. I got there early and was waiting when this guy noticed that I had a camera on me and asked for a photo. He was in a group that seemed to have come by after playing soccer.

Over the last few evenings, I built my first mallet. As I was making it, I made a big mistake, but I went on making it. I made other smaller mistakes but in the end I have a mallet, that, while not perfect, is a nice addition to my tools. I will only build better mallets in the future.

I’ve been attempting to do more of hand tool woodworking, which involves joinery that takes some effort with chisels to get right. I’ve been using them with a cheap rubber mallet. That has worked fine but I wanted to make my own with hardwood.

I have some scraps lying around, and I found a nice piece of 1" thick walnut (Western, I think) in there. The wood had mostly the characteristic dark brown of walnut, but it all had some lighter sap wood. I decided to make the handle from the sap wood, so that I would have some contrast between handle and head.

I cut the pieces to dimensions that made sense but here is where I made the big mistake. I cut the pieces of the head in a way that the edge grain ended up on the top and bottom of the head, rather than on the striking faces.

But the cuts were made and I was committed. I knew I would make mistakes going into this so this didn’t stop me from proceeding.

I lined up the pieces to shape the space for the handle in the head and glued up the pieces to form the head. This is where I made the second mistake. I had seen videos where the person would use a nail gun to hold the pieces in places, but I didn’t have one, so I got some small finishing nails, and hammered them by hand. This led to misalignment of the pieces. As a result, once the head was all glued up, it had to be trimmed to form proper faces.

I also chamfered and/or sanded every sharp edge using the band saw and the belt sander. In the end I had a nicely shaped head. The handle was a tight fit but I glued it up and hammered it into place.

The next day I sanded, and cleaned up all surfaces and applied two coats of Watco Danish Oil (Natural). After letting it cure for a day or so, it is now ready. I’m looking forward to chisel work with it in the near future.

Puzzling. 1st December, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Cinestill Double-X (ISO 200)

Snow day in the neighborhood.

Portland, Oregon. 14th February, 2025.

My valentine, my wife of nearly eleven months, is such an inspiration to me in so many ways. She inspires me to be a better husband and man, and to take better care of myself.

I want to especially call out her incredible determination over the last couple of years to running regularly. She took it upon herself to start running again after a long pause. I recall how hard it was for her to train up to running her first 5K, and then her first quarter marathon. Later that same year, with an amazing effort, she ran her first half marathon, followed one year later by her second one.

These days a 5K is just a regular run, which blows my mind. Through all the seasons, and injuries, she is going stronger than ever.

❤️

Its frame would be made of 2x4 lumber held together with pocket screws (a first for me, so I went and bought a jig!). The top would have two layers of 3/4" plywood. It didn’t need to be fancy, so I decided to use more of the same birch plywood I’d used for the storage shelves.

Installing the frame was a little bit tricky but I managed to do it by myself by stacking some boxes for support, and attached it to the bare studs with lag screws.

Then it was time to make the front legs. The floor in the basement is not only not level but also has lumpy concrete in some spots. So each leg had to be constructed by trial and error for the place it would stand.

Now I was ready to build the surface which had a base, and a top. The base went on pretty quickly. I screwed down from the top to attach it to the frame. The top was made of the same plywood but I finished it with two coats of polyurethane using a spray. Spray was a bad idea, but more on that later. I installed the top by screwing up from underneath the base.

After a week I started to build the other half. It was the same process but due to issues with the studs, I had to cut a couple of dados.

The rest of it went smoothly, and I lined it up as best as I could with the first half.

Next I fastened 2x2 boards all along the edges, and mounted a strip of the same plywood along the back, and with that, it was completed.

So far I don’t feel the need for all the legs I had in the sketch, but I can add more if needed.

Lessons were (hopefully) learned. Mainly to not use spray poly to finish a large flat surface, and also not to do it in the house, even if it was in the rough basement. I finished the second one in the shed.

Good morning. 6th January, 2025.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Cinestill Double-X (ISO 200)

Laurelhurst Park, Portland, Oregon. 9th November, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Cinestill Double-X (ISO 200)

Laurelhurst Park, Portland, Oregon. 9th November, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Cinestill Double-X (ISO 200)

Trees and nearby structures were catching my eye on a little afternoon walk in downtown. Portland, Oregon. 25th January, 2025.

Morning walk on Foster Road to get a bagel sandwich. Portland, Oregon. 18th January, 2025.

Friends.

Mt. Tabor Park. Portland, Oregon. 12th January, 2025.

• Add photos to collections from the list of recent uploads. Tap and hold a single photo, or use the “…” menu on en entry that has a batch of photos to add them all.
• Delete a photo from a collection. When browsing a collection, tap and hold on a photo to see the option to delete.
• Create a collection. Just tap “+” on the collections list.

I’m finding this way of managing my collections to be great. Hope you like it too!

You can get Mimi Uploader for free from the App Store.

As discussed in a previous post, the Photo Collections feature is only available to Supporter. You can become a Supporter using the sliding scale in the app.

Maybe I can get it down to 40% this year.

I’m listening to several at 1.5x speed now. I was very averse to that a few years ago.

The basement had become a mess of stuff, about 70% of which was worth keeping. So we started by re-organizing what we wanted to keep and the rest we discarded/donated/gave-away.

On the 23rd I drew up the plan, and we went and bought the first set of materials from a neighborhood building material store, which has amazing people. Then came the holiday, so I didn’t start to build until the 26th.

The first set took a while to make as I was new to it and wanted to make sure I got the measurements right as we had already got the plywood cut at the store. On the 27th I put the first shelf together.

The design allows for expanding on either side, so right away I built an extension. This time it went really fast, even with a drive to the store to get more materials.

This second set had only two shelves that were half as deep so we didn’t block the window, and also Jenni could place her paddle board bag vertically to easily pick up or drop off. I noticed that the there was a sag on this shelf, so later I added a strip of wood for additional support.

On the 28th I built yet another extension. This time I didn’t have enough plywood for three levels, so for the time being it only has two, but hey, those box fans fit nicely in there.

Yesterday I completed another extension and that should be good for our current needs. From one end to another these shelves are 15 feet (~ 4.5m)

I will observe how it performs, and have ideas to add more structural support if needed.

I’m really happy with how these turned out, and with our efforts, the entire space looks and feels so much better already.

P.S. As I was building this I also organized my basement shop that I hadn’t used in a long time, including installing these wall-mounted shelves to hold lumber.

P.P.S The end posts are also 2x4s, but they look like 4x4s in the photo, likely due to distortion from the use of an ultra-wide lens.

On average I’m reading smaller books than before, but I’m reading a whole lot more of them, as seen in these charts.

Yes, these stats are silly, but perhaps you can think of other silly stats I could be tracking and charting? Let me know!

Oh, and if you’re wondering which books, well, head on over to the books page.

Here’s to more reading in 2025 😊

The initial release of this feature provides the ability to see the list of your collections, as well as each individual collection. More features are coming soon. Hope you like it!

You can get Mimi Uploader from the App Store.

Happy New Year!

And here’s how it was before:

Walk at Powell Butte Nature Park. Portland, Oregon. 24th December 2024.

Merry Christmas!

For more details and to join the beta please follow the instructions in the previous post.

Please try it and let me know what you think 😊

(Link to the video embedded above).

A couple months ago I made the app free for a promotional period until the end of the year (previously it has always been $5). I was hoping to get a better idea of the interest in the community once I remove the barrier to entry. Initially there were a lot of downloads, and sessions. Now, some months later, according to analytics that Apple provides, there is almost no change in usage.

Based on this experiment, I’m making the following changes:

• Mimi Uploader will be permanently free starting 2025.
• All major new features will be behind the Supporter subscription. You can become a Supporter by using the sliding scale in the app.
• I’m working on adding initial support for Micro.blog’s new Photo Collections feature (sneak peek). This will be the first major new feature of the free era. At the end of the day Mimi’s features are powered by Micro.blog’s API so I’m grateful to Manton for providing support from the get go.
• I’m also starting the TestFlight beta testers group with a clean slate. If you would like to join the new group, please provide me your email address via email at sam @ samgrover dot studio. The first beta with initial photo collections support should be coming within the next week.
• I’m also considering renaming the app as I expand the scope of features. Yes, there’s another feature coming that has nothing to do with uploads.

This way I can keep making an app I enjoy and find very useful, and anyone else really into it can also benefit from the new features. Everyone else can continue to use the app to its full initial promise as a fast batch uploader.

Portland, Oregon. 14th December, 2024.

Afternoon walk at Leach Botanical Garden. Portland, Oregon. 1st December, 2024.

• Gift Card from Blue Moon Camera

• Gift Card from Etsy

• Gift Card from Goulet Pens

• Gift Card from Bookshop.org

• Gift Card from Powells Books

• Wishlist on Amazon.

Thank you!

Last updated: December, 2025.

Afternoon walk at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. Portland, Oregon. 30th November, 2024.

Momo and Fall colors in the yard. Portland, Oregon. 8th November, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomography Color (ISO 400)

Scenes of Fall at Laurelhurst Park. Portland, Oregon. 9th November, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomography Color (ISO 400)

Scenes of Fall at Mt. Tabor Park. Portland, Oregon. 6th November, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomography Color (ISO 400)

Mom and Momo in the yard. 30th September, 2024

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomochrome Color 92 (ISO 400)

Dad and mom in the yard. 8th September, 2024

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomochrome Color 92 (ISO 400)

Momo in the yard. 30th September, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Lomochrome Color 92 (ISO 400)

Portland, Oregon. 30th October, 2024.

Filled out the ballot at home on Sunday and dropped it into a ballot box at the neighborhood library today.

I urge you to vote, and if you have the privilege, do it early.

Hoping for the best for our city, our county, our state, and our country 🇺🇸

Neighborhood vibes. 24th October, 2024.

Portland, Oregon. 25th October, 2024.

This sale will last until the end of 2024. I hope you will consider downloading and trying it out.

If you like it, here are some ways in which you can support:

• Use the tip jar in the app and treat me to a beverage 😋
• Become a Supporter at the sliding scale options available in the app 😎
• Leave a good rating and review on the App Store 🥰

Please note that as a Supporter you also get access to the generative alt text features in the app.

As always, thank you for your consideration 🙏

Get it on the App Store!

Cannon Beach, Oregon. 12th October, 2024.

Portland, Oregon. 4th October, 2024.

You can find this setting in the context menu for each row (shown with ‘…’ on the row) in Recent Uploads. This streamlines the upload workflow significantly. You can see it in action in a previous post. It is still recommended that you review the generated text.

Thanks to folks who discussed and encouraged this feature!

And as always, thank you for your support! 😊

Get it from the App Store!

P.S. Please note that this feature, like all the generative features, are for “Supporter” subscribers only due to the costs associated with generation.

Morning light on a dead tree. Portland, Oregon. 4th October, 2024.

Nursery. Portland, Oregon. 31st August, 2024.

Post-storm sunset. Portland, Oregon. 25th September, 2024.

Spotted on a neighborhood walk. 12th September, 2024.

Twenty-five years in the US today.

I still have some of the items I brought with me, including this travel wallet with this photo of my late grandfather.

I continue to travel with these.

Flora at home. 11th July, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

Fifteen months after starting a project and realizing it was too much for me, I finally hired someone to do it. Our backyard access is a lot better now!

Sunrise at Pittock Mansion. 10th July, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

This was something I’d considered but dismissed as I was working on the earlier versions of this feature. However a recent discussion has changed my mind.

Sometimes the stars align and eager feedback from 90% of users (i.e. 4 people) comes at just the right time when I have availability, and also the architecture of the app supports adding it quickly, so I built it!

A new beta with this feature is out now. Please try it and let me know what you think 😊

(Link to the video embedded above).

Portland, Oregon. 4th July, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Fujifilm Acros 100 (Expired)

An abstract reflection and some produce of home garden. August, 2024.

Halide Process Zero + some Apple Photos adjustment.

For the first couple of days I misunderstood what the PZ image was and how to get it. I even tooted a comparison of a RAW image processed by me along with an “Apple Processed” image, both captured in Halide. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused, as per the discussions in the official subreddit.

I thought that the PZ adjustments were in the RAW file but they are actually only in the HEIC / JPG file, that is “developed”, and essentially redeveloped every time one makes adjustments in the app’s Image Lab interface.

Once I had this clarity I tried it in various scenarios, and finally appreciated the result instead of just the theory and examples presented in the announcement.

So far my favorite PZ images have been a couple of black and white photos I shared in this post a few days ago.

I also shared the one above on Glass and had a small conversation with Tom that started to crystallize my thoughts on it:

It’s a nice option to have in the toolkit but of limited use for someone like me. If I was a phone-only photographer I might be more excited. Also, I like the lack of computational photography but I have no nostalgia for older digital cameras.

Grain, in film, was a limitation that became an aesthetic, and in the digital age, an emulation. It appears that digital noise is going down the same road for some photographers and is part of their nostalgia for older digital cameras. The interest in that aesthetic is also a rejection of computational photography (with its artificial look) as the sole creative path forward for photographers on the iPhone.

While a photographer’s admonishment of computational photography is usually commentary, Halide’s admonishment comes in the form of Process Zero. It is a breath of fresh air in the current environment of computational photography. It embraces constraints, which is a powerful force for creativity.

Evening at home. 18th August, 2024.

Halide Process Zero (and Image Lab) + Desaturated. No other adjustments.

Mt. Tabor Park, Portland, Oregon. 8th July, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Fujifilm Acros 100 (Expired)

Another great bridge pedal ride today! We look forward to it every year.

The new flow unifies the uploads screen and the recent uploads screen into the main app screen. This provides immediate access to your uploads right after uploading for so you can move on to exporting or adding alt text right away!

I’m loving this new design very much and I hope you like it too.

This has probably been the longest beta cycle for any release as I ironed out the design and updated other parts of the app to match. So, thank you for your patience.

And as always, thank you for your support! 😊

Get it from the App Store!

Stumbled upon this lovely mural of Vivian Maier while riding in a car a few days ago.

📍 Chicago, Illinois. 7th August, 2024.

Portland, Oregon. 30th June, 2024.

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A + Leica Summicron 50mm f/2
🎞️ Lomography Color 800 (Expired)

Portland, Oregon. 23rd July, 2024.

⬆️

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A + Leica Summicron 50mm f/2
🎞️ Lomography Color 800 (Expired)

and

📷 iPhone 15 Pro

⬇️

Mt Tabor Park, Portland, Oregon. 7th July, 2024.

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A + Leica Summicron 50mm f/2
🎞️ Lomography Color 800 (Expired)

Astoria-Megler bridge at early morning, and just past sunset. Astoria, Oregon. June, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Portland, Oregon. 13th July, 2024.

Met up with my friend Tim for dinner last night, and then we took some photos by the Columbia.

📷 iPhone

This was taken at about the same time and location as another photo I shared last week, but I only saw it recently when I received film scans.

I like this composition a lot more. The shadows balance the mural wall, there are fewer rooftops in the frame and they are below the railing, the colors better reflect the feeling of that morning on the rooftop.

The square format and the film properties work together pretty well in this case.

Astoria, Oregon. 19th June, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Replica of Chief Comcomly’s burial canoe. Astoria, Oregon. 18th June, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Mt. Tabor Park. Portland, Oregon. 7th July, 2024.

I like that SwiftUI and I are at the point that I can build a small app with a UI on macOS for things that I would previously write a script.

(Link to the video embedded above).

Astoria, Oregon. 19th June, 2024.

Astoria, Oregon. 19th June, 2024.

Looking south from the base of the Astoria Column. 18th June, 2024.

USS Montgomery (LCS-8). Portland, Oregon. June, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

and

iPhone 15 Pro

Update (30th July):

📷 Voigtländer Bessa R2A
🎞️ Lomography Color 800 (Expired)

I like to tell people that everything an LLM says is actually a hallucination. Some of the hallucinations just happen to be true because of the statistics of language and the way we use language.

This is such an astute observation by Melanie Mitchell.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are a statistical model. So are models for the weather, or for star formation. But most laypersons, like myself are not enthralled by them because they are domain specific models requiring expertise to use.

The main reason large language models appeal to laypersons, such as myself is that they are a language model, and we’ve been utilizing languages all our lives. The way language influences thought, and thereby social interactions, makes these models so much more about people and society.

That’s incredibly more relevant, and deserves every bit more scrutiny, than a weather model telling me that I might see some clouds today if I even bother to look up.

Portland, Oregon. 25th May, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

Astoria, Oregon. 18th June, 2024.

Portland, Oregon. 9th June, 2024.

Salem, Oregon. 19th May, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

Hi.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160

Officemate. 7th June, 2024.

Golden hour bar. Decibel Sound & Drink, Milwaukie, Oregon. 6th June, 2024.

Favorite kind of morning. Breakfast sando and cappuccino after catching the rising Sun.

This beta introduces a modernized and faster upload flow which takes you from uploads to recent uploads with zero taps!

The new flow unifies the uploads screen and the recent uploads screen into the main app screen. This provides immediate access to your uploads right after uploading so you can move on to exporting or adding alt text right away!

This represents a major change in the way Mimi has been used since it launched many years ago, so I’m very interested in your feedback.

(Link to the video embedded above).

A new streamlined upload flow is coming to Mimi and is nearly ready for beta. I hope y’all like it as much as I do 😊

(Link to the video embedded above).

Playing with Kino (Lektar) with the usual reluctant model.

Portland, Oregon. 26th May, 2024.

Here’s what’s new:

• Alt text generation feature has been updated to the latest model.
• Audio files are filtered out of the list of recent uploads.
• Bug fixes and other small improvements.

Get it from the App Store!

Leach Botanical Garden. Portland, Oregon. 25th May, 2024.

I had some coffee and as the sun rose in a mostly cloudy sky, I decided I was gonna go and try to take that photo. I drove to the location, walked around to see the perspectives, and finally took the photo, and a couple more for good measure.

I took them on film so it remains to be seen how they turn out, but I’m glad I went.

Portland, Oregon. 25th May, 2024.

Portland, Oregon. 19th May, 2024.

Mt. Tabor Park, Portland, Oregon. 6th May, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

Portland, Oregon. 19th May, 2024.

Coos Bay, Oregon. 28th April, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

If you’re not in the beta, you can opt-in.

I look forward to your feedback. Thank you!

1. Nobel Prize
2. Presidential Medal of Freedom

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Fujifilm Acros 100 (Expired)

Mr. Momo. 21st April, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

Shore Acres State Park, Oregon. 27th April, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Fujifilm Acros 100 (Expired)

Portland, Oregon. 20th April, 2024.

📷 Hasselblad 500C/M
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160 (Expired)

This year, on 28th March, I finished my fifth book.

I say this from a place of gratitude that I’m intentionally putting time into activities I enjoy.

I noticed this bird from my kitchen window, took out my iPhone, zoomed in to 8x (digital) and took a few photos, and a few more when it flew over to another point. These two were picked from those, and even though they were monochromatic to begin, I converted to B&W as it was distracting.

I started wanting to make some beats using the Elektron but I ended up just having fun with drones using the Moogs.

I am new to beats, and those seem very hard in comparison. Good procrastination 😂

We were joined by two good friends who served as witnesses. The view from the courthouse was really nice.

It was a lovely day so we had an opportunity to get some pictures at the cherry blossoms by the river.

Following that we got some drinks and snacks and that was that. It was all we had hoped for.

19th March, 2024 ❤️

Activity Stats

Distance: 3.77 miles
Elevation Gain: 105 ft
Time: 1h 02m

P.S. The route was a loop from Naito Parkway, to Steel bridge, to Tilikum bridge, and back to Naito. It was supposed to be 4 miles but the turn after Tilikum was changed for some reason to Bond Ave. instead of Moody Ave. I was puzzled and wanted to ask the volunteer there but they were on a phone call, and I didn’t want to stop.

Important Update:

I’ll take it!

P.S. It’s a fun show.

As is often with NASA’s robotic missions to Mars in recent times, it did that, and exceeded all expectations. It became a companion to the rover and performed about 70 flights over the nearly three years that it flew on Mars. Then last month it encountered an accident that left one of its propeller damaged. That ended the mission.

I’ve been fascinated by this little flying helicopter and have often looked at the photos it was sending back. So much so that I have now compiled a video of all the photos taken by the navigation camera on Ingenuity. This downward pointing camera photographs the ground below it, and so the helicopter is always seen by its shadow, scuttling about the Martian landscape for a cumulative 17 km (10.5 miles) over its mission timeline.

No doubt, Ingenuity has shown that a flying robot is a very useful tool in exploring Mars, like wheeled rovers showed over the last few decades. Perhaps enough that future missions will bring more along.

For more information and a lot more interesting media, like the locations of all these flights, check out its official website.

Direct link to video file

Ran into my friend Tim…

Update: Ok, so I double checked and it seems like I was wrong. But I was convinced that I was right. Ugh. Sorry about that folks.

Hope you like it!

Get Mimi from the App Store!

This feature is being offered exclusively to Supporters. I’m grateful to those of you that have signed up to Become a Supporter via the Settings screen in the last release. Thank you!

Also new in this release:

• View your uploads for the last few years with some nice charts and groupings! Find the icon at the top of the Recent Uploads screen.
• Export text adds an extra new line between images.
• A new screen to check and manage your Supporter status.
• Bug fixes and other small improvements.

Get it from the App Store!

Caveat: This might take a while to generate, and may be too tiny if you have a lot of images!

• UI updates for alt text generation feature.
• View your uploads for the year with some nice charts! Find the icon at the top of the Recent Uploads screen.

If you’re not in the beta, you can opt-in.

I look forward to your feedback. Thank you!

P.S. Coming soon to a beta near you!

By becoming a Supporter, you are providing for the development and maintenance of the app on an ongoing basis.

In the future, this will also provide access to features that have ongoing costs. You may have heard that the newest beta of the app has a feature for generating image description for alt text. This is powered by a third-party API and will be the first of such features.

You can sign up to support on the Settings screen by selecting the option labeled, “Become a Supporter”. There are three levels of payment. Pick the level that works for you. Whatever level you pick, you get the same access. And for all levels, you have my gratitude.

Get Mimi Uploader from the App Store!

This guy.

Guess who was wrong.

This guy.

It’s me. I’m the problem it’s me.

(But it’s also App Store Connect)

The hike is a loop and has a quick ascent going clockwise, then some ups and downs with the last mile or so pretty much flat. It was a very enjoyable hike that had wonderful views, and provided a nice workout with the variations.

Activity Stats and Map

Distance: 4.4 miles
Elevation Gain: 753 ft
Time (including breaks): 2h 24m

It is tricky to make a subscription service or otherwise charge specifically for the AI image description feature even though it has ongoing cost. That’s because in many scenarios you don’t get the service you pay for, and it is out of my control. For example:

• This API is in preview. It may be turned off and never become a regular API.
• OpenAI currently rate limits the API use. Once several people are using this regularly, it is entirely possible to reach that limit.
• OpenAI’s service may be down.

So a subscription, if offered, is about supporting the app, which in turn supports this feature, and more in the future, in a best-effort way. It cannot be a guarantee of service.

How do you feel about that?

Thank you for trying this out in the beta, which you can join at this link.

The way it works is that you tap the “Generate” button in the alt text editor. This sends a link to your previously uploaded photo to the service, which responds with the description. At the current time this feature only generates a description in English. Would you like to see an additional feature to translate the description into a different language? If so, please let me know the name of the language(s).

The API used for this feature is a paid service from a third-party. Each tap on “Generate” incurs a cost. If you would like to support this feature, in beta and afterwards, please give a donation directly, or drop a tip using the Settings page in the app. Many thanks to those of you who have already done so. All donations and tips are greatly appreciated.

As I prepare to launch this, I want to add that ever since I added the alt text feature, it’s sometimes been a barrier to me posting batches of photos because I wasn’t always ready to write all the descriptions. It felt like a chore sometimes. This feature greatly removes that friction. I see it as a positive step in my blogging (which often has batches of photos), as well as a more accessible web.

And now for an example illustrating this feature

Some weeks ago I shared the following photo:

The alt text I wrote at the time was:

Colorful morning sunrise in the background and silhouetted porch in the foreground. In between there is a silhouette of a Joshua Tree.

Using this feature, the alt text generated was:

A picturesque sunset with vibrant shades of pink, orange, and blue over a desert landscape with silhouettes of Joshua trees. Foreground includes the silhouette of a barbecue grill and patio with hanging light bulbs under a corrugated metal awning.

I’m very impressed by this description. It is spot on for everything except confusing a photo of a sunrise for a sunset, which is something many people do as well.

Additionally, every alt text in this post full of photos was generated using this feature.

I hope you find this feature useful in your blogging as well. I look forward to your feedback.

I used ICQ for a few years back in the day. I have not used it in over twenty years but my ICQ number is permanently residing in my head.

• Support for RAW files and improved support for all formats.
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Get it from the App Store!

If you’re not in the beta, you can opt-in.

I look forward to your feedback. Thank you!

A couple weekends ago we went hiking at Latourell Falls. It’s a lovely hike that has immediate view of the lower falls from the trailhead. There’s a short hike to the base of the lower falls. There’s also a separate loop hike that goes up and around those falls and comes across the higher falls. That’s the one we did.

Along the way we saw a number of mushrooms, some huge Devil’s Clubs (identified by the phone), and a whole lot of moss and trees. It’s a popular hike. There were people all along the way.

On a side note, I’m really enjoying the new iOS 17 feature that lets you choose the point of focus after taking the photo. I used that in the photo above.

Activity Stats and Map

Distance: 2.54 miles
Elevation Gain: 587 ft
Time (including breaks): 1h 34m

The Past

This is all from memory, so let me apologize in advance for any errors/omissions.

The concept of Mimi Uploader as an app came about gradually. First I started using Micro.blog regularly. I like putting together sets of photos, so I often have posts with those. Soon thereafter I realized it was a pain to manage uploading a series of photos for a post. Thankfully Micro.blog provided an API. So I wrote a python script that would do that from the command line on my Mac, and that greatly eased the friction.

Some time later I noticed that very often I was taking the step of moving photos from my phone to my Mac (or over iCloud), exporting them, and then using the script to do the upload. Often even for single photos. This increased over time as I used my big camera less often and most of my photos came from the iPhone.

Now, I’m always looking for app ideas to try and improve my skills as a professional iOS developer. It was with that in mind that I started the side project that later came to be Mimi Uploader.

I didn’t want to make the app free as I was wary of supporting too many users and feature requests for a side project. This was just before subscriptions on iOS became a focus of Apple and a source of much consternation amongst the community. And I wasn’t ready to wade into that for this side project so I set it up as a one-time purchase for $4.99. Mimi has remained at that price since it started in early 2020.

As time passed, people in the community started to notice and recommend it, and even Micro.blog encouraged, supported, and promoted it, for which they all have my gratitude.

Since Mimi Uploader was a side project that helped me learn and acquire new skills on iOS I was glad to put in the time to maintain it when I had any to spare. And yes, the evolution of software platforms means that there is a constant need for that labor. At some point I thought that perhaps people want to support ongoing maintenance, so I added a tip jar in the app. And some people tipped some times, for which they have my gratitude as well.

Every enhancement has been implemented because I wanted it, or because someone in the community asked for it.

And now four years have passed in total.

The Present

Mimi Uploader remains a passion project that is at the mercy of my spare time and spare motivation. So I continue with maintenance and small enhancements every now and then.

I should also mention that in the intervening four years that march of software platform evolution has led to a plethora of ways to accomplish what Mimi does, further diminishing its utility.

The Future

I have no idea. What do you think?

Edited to add: This is not a call for feature requests. There’s already an extensive list of that.

Was hoping for new sensors this year but regardless I will be upgrading from Series 6.

That first itinerary was long: New Delhi -> Bangkok -> Osaka -> Los Angeles -> Seattle.

Engineers at the company work an average of roughly 45 hours/week; it is not a sweat shop like stereotypical gaming companies, but it is not a 9-5 job either.

While many are fighting for progressive work environments in tech, regressive ones are not only out there, but are also proud of it.

Edited to add: Nice article about the challenges, learnings, and other technical details in the landing of Chandrayaan-3.

Listener beware: It’s a bit rough round the edges 😆

Just before the 10 minute mark I came across some fun computer-voicey sounds so I settled in to relish those with minor variations until the end.

Recorded directly with iPhone camera and mic so the sound is not the best it can be. Someday I expect to do a better job at recording the actual sound.

• Recent Uploads entries will scroll to first image that doesn’t have alt text. So as you add alt text to a large batch of images, you won’t have to scroll to the farthest one each time. Check it out in this video (also embedded below).
• For accounts that have a tweets archive, do not show it as an upload destination.
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Get it from the App Store!

Last week I went to Cupertino for Apple’s Special Event at Apple Park.

The Main Event

The announcements at the event and the hot takes around it have gone around the internet, and the world, perhaps a dozen times by now. This is not a post about that, but about my personal experience.

I arrived about an hour before the keynote. After going through the security check, I made my way to Caffé Macs where the event was set up. There was food and beverages. I picked up some coffee, some overnight oats with blueberry compote, and a savory pastry. Once I was done with that I found spot amongst some Apple engineers just in time for the keynote to start.

After the keynote was lunchtime. I walked round for a bit looking at all the food options before settling on the grilled chicken with salad. I took this over to the inner meadow where there were a number of tables set up.

I sat down randomly and started to eat and chat with others. Turned out I was sitting right next to an industrial designer on the Vision Pro, so the conversation was mostly about that.

Then it was time for the Platforms State of the Union. At first I went to the outside area by the main stage and sat on the fabric lounge chairs, but that was bothering my back so I came back inside to sit on a sturdier chair.

As I watched the video, I also noticed the space, how it was full of sunlight, large indoor trees, and expansive and seamlessly transitioning from inside to outside. And every bit of it was curved. This was certainly a unique space.

Once that video was done, it was time for other social events. I had previously signed up for walking tours of the inner meadow and of the ring building, but that system seemed to have not worked too well for Apple as they were now just organizing all that on a first come first served basis. I got in line for the inner meadow tour.

The tour lasted about thirty minutes. Our first stop was by some fruit trees where a docent talked about all the fruit they grow and how it is all set up.

The second stop was by a shallow pond. In the center of the pond was a round plate that goes up and down. This creates a gentle wave that is imperceptible unless one is looking closely, but makes a definite wave crashing sound as it reached the edge of the pond. that was pretty cool.

The third and final stop was by the rainbow arches where a different docent talked about how it came to be as originally a temporary sculpture that was later made permanent. Then we made our way back on the same path.

Right after that I got in line for the building tour. This was very popular and there was a lot of management going on to get people into small batches and move them along as tour guides returned from their previous tour and started a new one. At this point it definitely felt like I was in line for a theme park ride.

The ring tour took us upstairs to the third level from one side of Caffé Macs. Then to the inner side of the building, across the terrace overlooking the main event area and back down.

At one point a docent talked about the structure of the building. Some interesting facts:

• Outer circumference is one mile. Inner circumference is 0.75 mile.
• There’s a four feet quake zone all around the outside, so the whole building is capable of moving significantly in case of an earthquake.
• The two massive doors are the largest ever of their kind. And apparently super quiet when opening/closing.
• A lot of the dirt from digging up the foundation is piled up and forms the landscaping.
• The land is 80% greenery and 20% building. Previously it was the opposite.
• The roof hosts the largest solar installation on a building.
• The building temperature is maintained at a comfortable level by passive mechanisms most of the time.

From there we walked over to an area by the campus transit center. There we descended to a lower level where a gallery space had been set up showing photos and videos from behind the scenes of a project called Mirage. There were even some samples of the cast glass made for the project.

Next up was the Apple Design Awards event. While it is definitely a crowning achievement for the winners, it is always fun and inspiring to see all the apps that make it to the finals, and this year was no exception. There was a lot of excitement and joy in the design awards.

Following the awards ceremony, was the final event of the day. It was billed as “Special Evening Activity” in the days leading up to WWDC, but it was announced earlier that it would be a visit to the Steve Jobs Theater for something related to the Vision Pro hardware. It was unclear if people would get a chance to try it out so there was suddenly a surge of people towards that direction because of course no one wanted to miss that opportunity if it presented itself. The crowd was met by a line of Apple employees that stopped the flow, while whatever final preparations were made so that we could be led there in small batches. Apparently inside the cafe were preparations for beverages and dinner, but I’m not sure if anyone made it to that.

Thankfully I was near the front of the crowd, so my wait was only about thirty minutes. I walked over to the theater, which was hidden from view until the very last bend in the path.

Inside the building was a display of all the new mac hardware but also a line to go downstairs. I made my way down there and into a hands-off area where a number of Vision Pro were on display to see, but not to handle.

A few minutes later as I emerged from the theater building, I saw this lovely sunset view of the grass and the main building.

From there I made my way out as that was it for the day.

The Evening Before the Main Event

The main event was on Monday, but an early check-in gathering was organized for the evening before at Apple’s old headquarters at Infinite Loop. I arrived there at about 6pm. There were hundreds of Apple retail employees at various stations for facilitating check-ins and to greet people as they arrived and left. On check-in I received a badge and also a tote bag filled with goodies.

The gathering was in a courtyard-like large open area surrounded by campus buildings. There were beverages, and seating. I got a beverage and mulled about the crowd. I met a couple of people I knew from online, and a few other people that I’d not met before. I was there for less than an hour and left shortly before the event ended, to make my way to Miniboss Arcade in downtown San Jose for the RevenueCat party.

The Morning After the Main Event

On Tuesday morning I went to an event at the Apple Developer Center, across the street from Apple Park. We were led into their Big Sur theater that seats two hundred people. There we got a live presentation about the space and how it is relevant to developers. That was followed by second presentation about developing for visionOS using RealityKit, ARKit, Reality Composer Pro, and the new simulator. It looks like Apple has put a lot of thought into making this new platform approachable by developers who currently build apps for all their existing platforms, but perhaps have no experience with developing for headsets using 3D frameworks.

After the presentation we were led to a space that had beverages and food for socializing and meeting people from relevant teams at Apple. This developer center event was unexpected and I was pleasantly surprised at the thought that went into it. It was a nice culmination of my time in person at WWDC.

My heartiest gratitude to the people of Apple for their hospitality ❤️

Sunset over Apple Park, as seen from the Steve Jobs Theater. 5th June, 2023.

My heartiest gratitude to the people of Apple for their hospitality ❤️

Soon thereafter I started working on a plan to fix it. The simplest thing would be to replace the board but many other boards are also not in good shape, so a fresh set would be best, especially since I may be getting some painting work done and a fresh coat on this could be added to that. Once I decided to go with that I felt like I had to address the fact that the treads are held up by two stringers, and there really ought to be three. This was starting to feel like yak shaving but I hadn’t taken on a project like this in a while and it was appealing to spend the time to do it right.

So my plan was to remove the treads, measure out a new stringer to go in the middle, cut it out of a 2x12, attach it and then put a whole bunch of fresh boards, probably also adding risers. After talking to friends and looking at some videos it seemed like reasonable idea.

Yesterday I got to it. First I removed the treads. I noticed that the bottom of one stringer had a crack and was about to come apart. I drove a couple of screws to reattach it. This was the first new issue I noticed. I also noticed that each stringer was resting differently, the concrete seems to go around one, but under the other. That was the second new issue.

After removing the treads I measured out the stringers and this is what those measurements were like. As you can see, there is not much consistency between the two, including the fact that the first step from the ground was not only wildly higher than the others, it is also well over the building code. These were the third and fourth new issues.

Nevertheless I figured out measurements and marked it on the board but that didn’t look right. I did it again. Something was still off. I looked at the stringers closely and noticed a fifth new issue.

For whatever reason the builder had removed extra material from each corner of each stringer so the angles weren’t square. That was the last straw. At that point I decided that there were too many issues with leaving the existing structure intact and that the more reasonable thing would be to just rebuild the steps from scratch.

I put the treads back while moving the cracked board to the bottom tread so it was out of the way where it would cause any harm. I also cleaned it up a bit and applied wood glue for good measure. All of this is a temporary measure until these can be rebuilt either by me, or by someone I hire. Will report back after that!

Well, I kept making improvements to it to the point that now it looks like an interface to my workouts that I prefer over the standard one from Apple (like supporting light and dark modes 🙄).

What do you think? Would you be interested in using it? Should I start a beta so you can share how you really feel?

P.S. Many of the map tiles are blurred because one of the features of the app is to enable blurring them out if they contain any user-defined private locations, e.g. for sharing such a video, or a screenshot.

A few times I got the feeling of being farther from the city than we actually were, like when the trail drops down to the base of a waterfall.

We even spotted some trilliums!

You can get right next to the water, so this one might be worth revisiting on those hot summer days.

Activity Stats and Map

Distance: 3.38 miles
Elevation Gain: 450 ft
Time (including breaks): 1h 56m

[See full screen](https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/lacamas-park-2023-04-28-hiking_906898)

I also used it to aid in creating a new shell script.

It was disgusting/wonderful how straightforward all that was.

Here’s what’s new:

• Fix for alt text editor issue that caused editing text to go under the keyboard. Very annoying!
• Redesigned Help screen. Won’t glare at you in dark mode anymore!
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Get it from the App Store!

Rosalie has been driving a Checker since 1964. Her dad owned the 1964 model but at some point traded it in for the 1978 model. She inherited it from him and still drives it to this day.

I was walking by with my camera, noticed the car and took a few photos. She noticed me doing so and came out to talk to me about it. It was great to hear her story and to get a glimpse into her love for the car and their story together.

Film: Kentmere PAN 400
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

It was as if the AI had cast 21st century Americans to put on different costumes and play the various cultures of the world. Which, of course, it had.

🔗 AI and the American Smile. How AI misrepresents culture through a facial expression. | by jenka | Mar, 2023 | Medium

Love articles like this that show how much bias lies within these generative algorithms. Biases that run so deep that they are not even talked about in social conversations.

Always enjoy seeing this mural at Assembly Brewing. Also love their food, beer and service. Great spot in our neighborhood 👍

When I share an activity on a blog post I like to show the map but I don’t like the idea of just sharing an image of the map. I would like to get the actual data out so that it can be overlaid on an interactive map using various mapping tools.

I found an app on the App Store that can export the data, among many other features, but I wasn’t keen on paying a subscription for this one small occasional use case. As an app developer, I know that access to this data is controlled by the Health related privacy settings on the iPhone and is accessible using the HealthKit framework. So I decided make a small app to get this data out while also gaining familiarity with that part of the iOS SDK. A few weeks ago I got started on it. I worked on it in small chunks of time, as I usually do with such side projects. The UI came together pretty quickly as a SwiftUI app. It is nothing special but looks presentable and gets the job done.

It took just a little bit longer to get the data out from HealthKit. Converting it to GPX files was straightforward. Once I had created a file I could use the share sheet to get it into other apps or to simply save it. From there it can be imported into tools that put it on a map.

For example, here’s a GPX file of a walk at Mount Tabor Park. It can be utilized to create an embedded map as shown below.

See full screen

Or even into Google Maps. In fact once imported there, you can view the track with elevation by selecting the option for Google Earth and enabling the 3D view. I love this option as it adds another dimension (literally 😂) to the activity.

Both these presentation styles are far more interesting to me than just a low resolution image out of the Fitness app.

Film: Kentmere PAN 400
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

These include my Ecobee Thermostat and Remote Sensor and my IQAir AirVisual Pro. Both of these have means of getting the data off of them using an API. This blog post by Den Delimarsky really helped with the IQAir API. Ecobee API was straightforward. And after some coding and testing, I had a couple of scripts running that could pull metrics from them and send them to influxdb. So now I have a few more data points for existing metrics, and have added air quality to it.

In the previous blog post , I wrote:

I’m going to take a break from any further optimizing/tweaking for now.

Well, that didn’t happen! But maybe now 🤔

P.S. The screenshot above illustrates a few other things:

• How I got the scripts going in starts and stops as I figured out the issues in having them always running.
• A macOS update that I started before heading out for a few hours, which led to a large gap because I still have all of this on my desktop Mac.
• The dots show how some data was reduced in granularity overnight because of device settings that put it to sleep. So I changed those settings the next day.

#iosdev

Well, that day arrived a few weeks ago and here’s what it looks like today:

To get started exploring this I purchased an AcuRite bundle of three sensor towers and one display. I set up the towers around my home and put the display in my home office. It was neat to see the display showing the measurements at any given time. Soon I wanted to go to the next level and record and see the data over time.

These sensors broadcast the data over 433 MHz and there are consumer level antennas and software available to read this data. I bought a NooElec bundle which gave me all the hardware I needed to receive this data on my computer. Setting it up was straightforward. I used rtl_433 and was able to start seeing the wireless data immediately in the terminal on my Mac.

The next step was storing all this data. That’s where influxdb came in. And the glue to get it from rtl_433 to influxdb involved MQTT and telegraf.

There was a lot of trial and error but I finally got it all set up and was able to get the data into influxdb. I even made a dashboard in there to visualize it. The options on that dashboard were limited so I got grafana set up and built a dashboard in that which can be seen at the top of this post as seen on my desktop browser. It also looks great on mobile devices.

Except for rtl_433, the rest of the tools all run on docker on my desktop Mac. At some point I may migrate that off to a Raspberry Pi but for now it’s all working and I’m going to take a break from any further optimizing/tweaking for now.

Update (6th March, 2023): Follow up post about expanding on this effort.

What has been dismissed, ignored, or overlooked until the last few years by both Portland Audubon and the larger Audubon community is the fact that John James Audubon enslaved and sold Black people, opposed the abolition of slavery, and dug up and stole the human remains of Native Americans from their graves.

🔗 Portland Audubon Commits to Dropping the Name Audubon - Portland Audubon

But this complaint only starts to address the problems with AmazonSmile, and the reasons I’m not sorry to see it go.

🔗 The End of AmazonSmile Is an Opportunity for Nonprofits to Revisit Their Values

I took a couple of photos of these guys and visualized them morphing into one another so I asked Jenni and she made this animation 😍

After reading it, I couldn’t help but clarify a few things about the origin story 😬

Quoting from the article,

For a town that has been less than welcoming to Walmart, it may be a bit of head-scratcher how they wound up with a regional technology office here. The answer, like so many other regional offices in town, is through acquisition.

Acquisition, yes, but not the one of Small Society as the article alludes.

In April 2011, Walmart Labs acquired Set Direction which had been building the Walmart iOS app, and more. At the time Set Direction had one employee WFH in Portland. Next month I joined the team.

A short while later we hired a third person and rented a conference room at Collective Agency’s first location in NW Portland. When our team expanded to five people over a couple more months, we moved into the first proper Walmart Labs office at One Main Place in November 2011. During that time we built and released the first few versions of the native iOS SDK based Walmart app.

Quoting again from the article,

After being acquired in 2012, Small Society took on the moniker of Walmart Labs, serving as a regional technology office for the retail giant and continued to be a presence — albeit a much quieter presence — within the local startup community, even taking up residence in coworking spaces around town.

Walmart Labs existed in Portland for the better part of a year before the Small Society acquisition in January 2012. And while Walmart Labs worked out of a coworking space for a few months, Small Society (as part of Walmart Labs) never did. After the acquisition they continued to operate from their existing office.

For eight months Walmart Labs was split across two offices until we all moved into the space above the erstwhile Rock Bottom Brewery (2nd and Morrison) in September 2012.

Edited to clarify: During recent years Walmart Labs did move into a coworking space but that was long after all the original people had moved on.

macOS app that always remembers what I was doing last time I used it even though I don’t give a damn: Contacts.

Outside! And the sun came out too! My first time at this. It was wonderful. Will definitely do again 👍

I noticed the paragraph above in this article about the debt limit.

A few things came to mind:

1. WTF?!
2. It’s amazing the systems and institutions we rely on have such weird foundational stuff as could be dreamed up as a story.
3. How come Hollywood hasn’t made a heist move about this already?!

Film: Ilford HP5 Plus 400
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

Upload images using Mimi.

#ThickTrunkTuesday

#mosstodon

Film: Kodak Ultramax (ISO 400)
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

To give myself a learning goal, I asked the following question:

What movies are generally regarded as the best that have multiple directors?

After some finagling the dataset (of multiple large CSV files) I arrived at the following list of twenty, in descending order of average rating:

1. The Matrix (1999) • 8.7
   Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski

2. City of God (2002) • 8.6
   Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund

3. The Intouchables (2011) • 8.5
   Olivier Nakache, Éric Toledano

4. Avengers: Endgame (2019) • 8.4
   Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

5. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) • 8.4
   Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

6. No Country for Old Men (2007) • 8.2
   Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) • 8.2
   Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

8. Gone with the Wind (1939) • 8.2
   Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood

9. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) • 8.1
   Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

10. The Big Lebowski (1998) • 8.1
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

11. Fargo (1996) • 8.1
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

12. The Wizard of Oz (1939) • 8.1
    Victor Fleming, King Vidor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog, Mervyn LeRoy, George Cukor

13. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) • 8.0
    Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan

14. Sin City (2005) • 8.0
    Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez

15. Captain America: Civil War (2016) • 7.8
    Joe Russo, Anthony Russo

16. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) • 7.8
    Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

17. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) • 7.8
    Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

18. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) • 7.7
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

19. True Grit (2010) • 7.6
    Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

20. The Butterfly Effect (2004) • 7.6
    Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber

Some thoughts on these results:

• Most of the films here are from the last twenty-five years. Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz are the two remarkable exceptions, surprisingly from the same year, 1939, and with the same main director, Victor Fleming.
• Gone with the Wind has a runtime of 238 minutes, which is far above any other film here, and that makes it additionally remarkable that it is on this list.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once was a surprise to see here, given its newness. I wonder if its rating will go up or down with time.
• I have seen seventeen of these films. The others are now on my to-watch list 😄

Notes on the data filtering and sorting process to get to the final list:

• Only movies. This eliminated shorts, TV, etc.
• Not animated. Apparently it is common for animated movies to have more than one director, so they were sort of skewing the results away from what I really intended to discover, even though I didn’t realize it at the time I asked myself that leading question.
• High rating (> 7.5) and high number of votes (> 250000). I tweaked these to narrow down a short list. If I only maximized one or the other, the results didn’t seem representative of the question.
• Year of release used as a tie breaker. I figured a more recent film with a high rating had a larger impact on the zeitgeist and so deserved to be higher on the list.

The script can be found here.

P.S. The dataset obviously has biases and those impact the results.

We arrived at the site a couple hours before sunset so the Sun was about halfway down which meant that as we walked around the campus, and the light changed color, we could see it all on play out the Taj. This was especially delightful. The primary stone in the construction is Makrana marble, which is famous for being strong and translucent.

The center of the main gate’s arch is perfectly aligned with the center of the main arch of the Taj Mahal, and both are perfectly aligned due North. Our guide, Tarun, made us aware of this and challenged us to check using the phone’s compass, which I did!

We walked the charbagh garden pathways, and made our way as Tarun took some photos of us all the while sharing the story of the Taj.

The work to cut stones and inlay them is very intricate and labor intensive and there’s a large industry that continues to do this work, the knowledge of which has been passed down for generations since the time of the Taj’s construction.

Inside the mausoleum, photography is prohibited, and the outer rooms are cordoned off. The replica of the graves of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan lie in the center, and one can walk around that in a designated path. The actual graves are in the basement underneath but that is inaccessible to the public. This is the original design.

A man with a small flashlight demonstrated how the stones in the inlaid flowers glow when light is applied on them. It is really a wonderful effect, and one that I don’t recall seeing on previous trips. This same man asked for our names by turn and said it out loud as he looked upwards, to sound an echo.

After walking around the inside, we made our way to the outside on the provided path. As we did so, the light of the setting sun made lovely patterns as it made its way in through the carved and perforated marble walls.

Even a Tuesday afternoon brought a lot of visitors.

As we made our way back to the exit by the main gate, the Sun set completely and so the Taj appeared a cool white, which was very different from the vibrant yellow and orange it had been in the hours before. I’m pretty sure that previously I had only visited in mid-day so hadn’t seen this effect. Experiencing these changing colors on the Taj was my favorite thing about this visit, which was my third or fourth.

Maybe someday I’ll even see the famous full-moon-lit shade of Taj.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

I got this gorgeous 12" x 12" print by Alice Christine Walker at Blue Sky.

There was an exhibition there of some amazing huge prints.

I saw prints of the Gravestones project by my friend Isaac at Blue Sky. I had seen these online but prints are always so much better.

I also went over to Blackfish Gallery where I saw these cyanotypes by my friend Kim. She is the featured artist this month.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

You can now write alt text for any image in Recent Uploads. Tap on an image. Write the text. Hit Save. This is attached to the export snippet at the time of export.

• Support for both export options, Markdown and HTML.
• It can be filtered in the Recent Uploads with the filter button on the top right.
• Not familiar with Alt Text? The editor includes a short summary with links to more information.
• As part of this Recent Uploads has been redesigned to show every image in proper aspect ratio and with an indicator to show whether it has alt text attached.

Also in this release:

• Fix for issue with image orientation being messed up when uploading in rare cases.
• Small UI improvements related to the alt text feature.

Grateful to @maique, @pratik, @pcora, and others for help with testing and fixing issues in this release 🙏

Get it from the App Store!

From left to right:

• Malted Milkshake New York Cheesecake
• Mt. Adams Cake
• Triple Chocolate Cake

I’m not a big fan of cheesecakes but I took a chance on one this year. Although it was great, I’ll continue to choose regular cakes for this tradition.

Mt. Adams cake remains my favorite. It is described thusly,

Fluffy hazelnut-coconut cake, praline Viennese buttercream, wild huckleberry compote, and huckleberry Italian buttercream.

The cakes were sourced from Papa Haydn, which is about as old as me.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Activity Stats

Distance: 20 miles
Elevation Gain: 155 ft
Time (including breaks): 2h 23m

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

You can now write alt text for any image in Recent Uploads. Tap on an image. Write the text. Hit Save. This is attached to the export snippet at the time of export.

Notes about this feature:

• Supported for both export options, Markdown and HTML.
• It can be filtered in the Recent Uploads with the filter button on the top right.
• Not familiar with Alt Text? The editor includes a short summary with links to more information.
• As part of this Recent Uploads has been redesigned to show every image in proper aspect ratio and with an indicator to show whether it has alt text attached.

Want to try it out before launch? Join the beta!

This has been a big one 😅

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

• You can now change the size of images you upload to any size you like. You can also change the JPG compression quality. These features can be found in the redesigned Image preferences screen in Settings -> Image.
• Export preferences have a new option to wrap exported images in links to themselves. Find it in Settings -> Export.

You can find these in the new version that is out today.

I hope you like and use these features as much as I do. Let me know what you think 😊

P.S. Note that this release does not contain the support for Alt Text that I talked about a few weeks ago. I’m still working on that and should have that ready in the coming weeks.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Tweet with video of this in action

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

As you can see, this also necessitated a redesign on the Recent Uploads screen to make it a lot more dynamic.

Film: Kodak Ultramax (ISO 400)
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Close crop of bee.

Upload images using Mimi.

Articles and photo galleries shared by news outlets:

• Bike Portland
• The Oregonian

Activity Stats

Distance: 13.5 miles (including riding home from the end point)
Elevation Gain: 383 ft
Time (including breaks): 1h 44m

The route started at Peninsula Park and ended at Colonel Summers Park, and went over the sweet new Blumenauer Bridge that is being opened today.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

I downloaded some images of the Carina Nebula dataset and was enthralled by these intermediate black and white images. I love how crisp they are.

I haven’t looked into the process too much to be able to infer which wavelengths these are depicting, but that is irrelevant to just admiring them as lovely images 😍.

Upload images using Mimi.

In the days since these images were released there have been a number of articles and posts that provide context for these images. Here are a few of those:

• Take a tour through the James Webb Space Telescope images: Highlights interesting features and provides a nice summary for them.
• Webb Compare: How much better is the James Webb Space Telescope compared to Hubble?

And this is only the start! I can’t wait to see all the images and discoveries the JWST will bring to humanity.

References

• Official gallery of these first images with link to full resolution versions
• Official site of all Webb images: The images will continue to show up here as the mission continues, and each image page provides great context.
• Official page of the raw data releases

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

The weather forecast had said that there may be thunderstorms with lightning the morning we were thinking of hiking up, but fortunately that warning moved to later in the day, so we got going a little before 10am.

There was a short trail that started right outside the campground and took us to the foot of the rock in a few minutes. This was a mostly flat, or a very gentle climb. There were five of us humans, and one very happy dog.

As we got closer the features of the rock became more discernible. The trail led us to the central part of the rock, to the start of the switchbacks that went up. Other trails lead there as well. Shortly before that was a picnic table, which seemed ideal for a pre/post hike snack.

These initial switchbacks are a mix of loose rocks and gravel, or just rock. It was the trickiest part of the hike and lasted maybe a quarter mile, with a moderate to steep slope.

Once we were above that part, the view expanded and we had two options on the trail. We could’ve gone right followed by a right-loop, or we could’ve gone left, and done a left-loop. That day we went right.

There was still more elevation to be gained for about a quarter mile before we reached the top of the rock. At this point we started the loop which went for a while along the edge. This afforded lovely views, starting with the campground area, followed by more expansive views of the lake, with rocky islands spotting it all over.

After about twenty minutes of hiking and stopping to admire views, we came to the farthest point on the loop and the trail turned away from the edge. The return path was through grassy fields. To start, on our right there was a short slope to a lower elevation of a large field. In the distance we could see to the end of the rock plateau, then a gap and another large rock or hill beyond that.

A short while of hiking on the plateau, with some gentle ups and down slopes, got us back to the start of the loop. Not much to see except a dramatic sky above and grassy fields on either side with a small variety of wildflowers.

We made our way back to the fork in the middle of the rock, descended the switchbacks, and soon found ourselves on the last stretch of the trail.

At this point the sky was very dramatic. It seemed like the thunderstorm was about to start, and we were glad to not be the highest objects in the vicinity anymore.

Activity Stats

Distance: 4.09 miles
Elevation Gain: 835 ft
Time (including breaks): 2h 41m

There’s a little solar powered helicopter on Mars. It’s named Ingenuity and it has a little camera on its belly that looks downwards. This video has every image taken by that camera from the first one on April 3, 2021 (Sol 43) until today. Ingenuity is 19 inches (0.49m) tall and weighs 4 lbs (1.8kg).

Note: This video has no audio.

Data Source

Ingenuity Website

Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Sam Grover

Direct link to video file

Upload images using Mimi.

Note: This video has no audio.

Data Source

Camera Details

Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
NASA/JPL-Caltech/CAB
NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP

Direct link to video file

Upload images using Mimi.

Mimi is primarily a batch uploader and that is my favorite way of using it. I like to make blog posts that have a set of photos, and making that process smoother was the motivation to create Mimi in the first place. As such, each batch of photos shows up in Recent Uploads as a set.

The other uploads to a Micro.blog account are only accessible as individual images and are shown inline with the sets of Mimi uploads in the same reverse chronological list. A badge is used to indicate one type or another. There are other minor UI differences between the two types in the list, e.g. Mimi uploads shows a count of images. On the top right is a filter button that lets you filter for one type or another, if you choose to do so. The screenshots below show the new interface.

Exporting still works the same way with a right swipe. Sets of uploads made from Mimi can still be deleted with a left swipe. As always this only deletes the batch from Mimi and doesn’t affect the uploaded images. Other uploads don’t offer the deletion because they are representing the images on Micro.blog and not an uploaded set.

I hope you like this update as much as I liked making it.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Last week I went camping for three nights and I didn’t think of Wordle a single time. The morning after I returned I went into the living room and sat on the sofa and my brain said, “Wordle”.

It’s crazy how much of a pattern recognizer and responder the brain is, and how it makes these long lasting habits. Break a pattern briefly, lose a habit briefly.

Oh, and there was a time I used to get bothered by breaking a streak, but I’m glad that’s behind me.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

After a few days with an ErgoDox EZ I borrowed from a friend, I’m realizing that I:

• like the split and the tenting.
• also like the added flexibility of an additional layer or two.
• currently don’t want to change from the standard layout of keys that I’m used to.
• continue to like mechanical keys, and am open to non-clicky ones.
• could give or take ortholinear layout.

What keyboards are available that would fit these attributes? I’m open to assembling if needed.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

We’ve been wanting a place to put our pans for a while It’s tedious to manage them in a drawer or cabinet, if you can even fit them in there. Often some would just stay on the stove and need to be moved out of the way when cooking. Whenever I would see pans hanging, in person or in a photo, it seemed like the best solution. We had space on only one wall in the kitchen, so that decision was easy.

Pans can be heavy and our walls are lathe and plaster, so mounting just about anywhere was out of the question. And so the construction method was narrowed down to boards mounted to studs, with hardware to hang the pans.

We went to the amazing local woodworking store where they have finished dimensional lumber and narrowed down our choice based primarily on cost. We wanted a dark color, and I already had dark walnut stain from the mail and keys organizer I made a while back.

Back home, I cut the boards to length. We wanted a tight fit and the two ends, door frame and wall, weren’t super plumb so there were a lot of measurements and dry fitting before we had a set of boards that were just right. It was time to apply the stain and let it rest.

After that it was a straightforward process of screwing in the boards to the studs while using a couple of small blocks to space them evenly.

Once that was done, we installed a couple of IKEA rails that we had and the rack was ready to use. In the days that followed we sourced some nice hooks and Jenni put up a couple of planters and some homegrown produce.

It’s been over a year and this has totally been worth it. I highly recommend utilizing vertical space in the kitchen where you can.

P.S. This blog post should’ve been written about a year ago. Anyway, it’s been written now.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

As I was taking these photos I was thinking how I prefer the 2x for compositions when it comes to zoom. 3x is handy but I have so many years of composing in ~50mm (2x on iPhone). Alas, iPhone 13 Pro can only do 2x with a crop on 1x image. Here I thought the tradeoff was worth it.

Upload images using Mimi.

Mimi is primarily a batch uploader and that is my favorite way of using it. I like to make blog posts that have a set of photos, and making that process smoother was the motivation to create Mimi in the first place. As such, each batch of photos shows up in Recent Uploads as a set.

The other uploads to a Micro.blog account are only accessible as individual images. So the UI challenge before me was how to show these other types of recent uploads. At first I started to make a new screen that listed all the uploads on an account but that wasn’t working, primary reason being that it was boring af. After mulling it over I came up with an interface that feels better as a part of Mimi, and that’s illustrated in the video below:

All uploads on the account show up inline with the sets of Mimi uploads in the same reverse chronological list that is in the current version. There are subtle UI differences between the two types in the list, e.g. the background color for each kind of post is different. On the top right is a filter button that lets you filter for one type or another, if you choose to do so.

Exporting still works the same way with a right swipe. Sets of uploads made from Mimi can still be deleted with a left swipe. As always this only deletes the batch from Mimi and doesn’t affect the uploaded images. Other uploads don’t offer the deletion because they are representing the images on Micro.blog and not an uploaded set. This may cause confusion but I currently don’t have a design to avoid that. Got ideas?

I should have a beta out by this weekend so you can try this feature out if you like. To get on the beta, sign up for it with TestFlight.

Upload images using Mimi.

https://glass.photo/shelovesgrain/3GW8p1BvToC2FeQ75kKmWv

https://glass.photo/timtrautmann/5tcQxP1KmOVCHXkgvuPtBT

https://glass.photo/pratik/5rz6hfbCNU0Dmn3pGoNtgz

https://glass.photo/janee-smith/42GgFT8TVMFlRbJldCQnOI

As someone who enjoys photography it’s really nice to have a place to just view photos from photographers whose work you like.

Upload images using Mimi.

We got some very rare snow today. Apparently haven’t seen snow like this since they started keeping records. A little over two years ago we had set a record for March.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

As part of this project, I also started using a “real” video editor. I’ve edited videos in the past using iMovie, but this was quite different, as expected, and it was fun to pick up a lot of the beginner level skills in the process.

The editor I used was DaVinci Resolve, mostly because it has a version available for free and it is a very capable app for video editing on the Mac.

I watched a YouTube video to learn how to get going and to get familiar with the interface. Then I would search when I wanted to figure out how to do something specific as I went along e.g. extracting a frame to use as a thumbnail.

Update: 18th May, 2022.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to putting a frame on the window.

The other window on the shed has angled ends on the top piece, so I measured and mirrored them on the top piece of this one. I cut it on the table saw as shown in the photo below.

And here’s a photo of the window with the frame.

Maybe next month I’ll get around to painting it…

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

And… as a GIF!

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

It is the smallest prime.

It is written as 10 in binary.

What do you think of this potential change? Would love to hear from people who use it and those who may use it in the future.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Update: Read about this fog from NASA Earth Observatory.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Mumbai, India.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Seagulls Sea Link

Mumbai, India.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

And the views did not disappoint! Here are a few along with my best guess for the place.

Sedona.

Grand Canyon, east of Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim.

Marble Canyon, with Navajo Mountain in the distance.

Vermillion Cliffs.

Bryce Canyon.

Great Salt Lake.

Great Salt Lake.

Great Salt Lake.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

It’s remarkable how I can just attach this nearly 70 year old lens to my Leica M10, a modern digital camera made just a few years ago. I’ve read how Leica M maintains compatibility with the oldest products but today I got to try out. It just works!

Focusing was a bit tricky to start but I got the hang of it after a few photos.

Then I had to start “seeing” with this long focal length. That took a minute. I’m used to a 35mm or 50mm lens and this is very different.

Got some okay photos. I had no expectation to start composing anything worthwhile with this in an hour.

Can’t go wrong with a store window selfie though 😄

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Upload images using Mimi.

Film: Ilford HP5 Plus 400
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

Upload images using Mimi.

Film: Ilford HP5 Plus 400
Camera: Voigtländer Bessa R2a

Upload images using Mimi.

Still doesn’t feel like it is worth the switch from Spotify, so I will be cancelling. Also, as a result I have still no need for Apple One.

Upload images using Mimi.