We all have our New Year’s traditions. One of mine is trying out new1 image editors and reevaluating older familiar editors that I've put aside. This year I looked at three editors. Luminar AIPicture Window Pro 8GNU GIMP 2.10.22 Luminar AI Let’s start with Luminar AI. Luminar AI makes the possibly true claim that it’s … Continue reading New Year New Image Editors
Author: John Baker
Professional curmudgeon and relentless skeptic. "Belief" is a bullshit word. You know or you don't know!
Cataract Conjunction Caps Coronavirus Year
Our crappy Coronavirus year wound down with a bright spot: actually, two of them. On the 21st of December 2020, Jupiter and Saturn appeared right beside each other in the early evening southwestern sky. The last time they could be seen this close it was 1226: Notre Dame was still being built and the world … Continue reading Cataract Conjunction Caps Coronavirus Year
Woke Wildfires
For the last two weeks we’ve been inhaling woke, California, Oregon, and Washington, wildfire smoke. Fire season, yeah it’s a season, is an annual “thing” in the Pacific Northwest. Every summer and fall fires break out and ruin air quality for weeks on end. As “nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States … Continue reading Woke Wildfires
Oscars Now as Meaningless as Nobel Peace Prizes
Eons ago, upon learning that Barak Obama, aka the Magic Lightbringer, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing sweet diddly-squat, I rightfully concluded that the Nobel Peace Prize had completed its long embarrassing journey to absolute irrelevance. I opined that frivolous Canadian Idol awards meant more because at least Idol recipients had to … Continue reading Oscars Now as Meaningless as Nobel Peace Prizes
Sinking in Blog Sand
I’ve been refreshing my blog’s look. I created new favicons, blog-banners, and changed my WordPress theme to a simpler and more modern style. I’d really like to harmonize my picture and blog sites, but CSS issues are frustrating me. I have no desire to plunge into the CSS blog sand, but if you care about … Continue reading Sinking in Blog Sand
JOD goes into the Arctic Code Vault
This was a pleasant surprise. A few weeks ago, I noticed this little message on my main GitHub page. Arctic Code Vault Contributor Curious, I hovered on the text and learned that a few of my open-source repositories — JOD in particular — had been archived in GitHub’s Arctic Code Vault. That sounded literally cool! … Continue reading JOD goes into the Arctic Code Vault
The Broken Cellphone Dream
Tell me if you’ve had this dream. For urgent dream-reasons1 you must call someone. You reach for your phone but it isn’t there! You frantically search for it. It isn’t in your pockets, on your desk, beside the couch, or in your car. Where the Hell is it? In desperation, you root through your closets … Continue reading The Broken Cellphone Dream
Neowise Nostalgia
Comet Neowise is fading fast. For the last two weeks, I've been watching Neowise climb higher and higher in the early evening northwestern sky. Neowise was a welcome sight in this shit-storm (2020) year. Gazing at its diffuse tail takes your mind off the Wuhan Coronavirus1 and the global, mostly self-inflicted, economic clusterfuck it caused. … Continue reading Neowise Nostalgia
Tweaking Jupyter export HTML with Templates
In a previous post, I outlined some handy hacks for converting Jupyter notebooks to WordPress.com oriented HTML. This addendum describes the use of Jupyter templates and CSS edits to fine-tune exported HTML. Jupyter exports notebooks in a variety of formats. I regularly export notebooks as Markdown, HTML, and $latex \LaTeX$. When blogging I mainly use … Continue reading Tweaking Jupyter export HTML with Templates
How Do You Check Your Vote?
How do you check your vote? It’s a simple question with a simple disturbing answer. You cannot check your vote! And when I say “you” I mean you. I don’t mean the system, the authorities, electoral officials, foreign auditors, or any third party. I mean you - just you. There isn’t an electoral system on … Continue reading How Do You Check Your Vote?
