The Pinewood Derby was this past Saturday, where the most noteworthy event was my son rapidly coming down with whatever bug my daughter had in the previous days and having to go home before the race started (thankfully my wife came for the first time this year…but then had to leave with him).
There was also malfunctioning equipment which delayed the start for an hour and a half and led to degraded scoring (using place rather than times). Having emceed the far simpler soap box derby last year it was leaving me thinking about the tendency to be reliant on technology that we don't fully understand without clear contingencies (again the soap box was much simpler but I both understood/wrote the software that I used for tracking and had several backup plans ready). This is likely particularly relevant in cases where the technologies are past any form of warranty period.
The two cars did reasonably well getting third and fifth out of the pack (with only nine racers but unsurprisingly including the most competitive from last year) and progress to the next stage. I also picked up a trick around rubbing the axles with graphite for next year (rather than just spraying), and also noticed the basic guidance to check on how perpendicular the axle slots are to the body which I've neglected to do (in years past since I didn't want to mess with them and then just fell in to not checking). From my perspective the big drawback of the pinewood derby is that you can infer pretty early on how things are going to play out but can't seek to iterate.
The general guidance for advancing is to leave the cars alone, but if we attend the next stage I'll likely look at tuning the wheels a bit since that was something I didn't get nearly enough time to do due to the first round of sickness.
Looking at many of the cars that were racing I'm also left thinking many people probably allocate far more time to create their cars (and parents that both do more and are set up to do more) rather than consistently seeming to have to squeeze the time in after dinner on the week before the race. Generally, as a parent of multiple school-aged children I need to adapt to the notion that mid-winter is a time where any activity needs plenty of padding to account for sickness. I bought extra kits this year and next year will probably shoot to start on the holiday break.
A habit I picked up many years ago which I continue to do very
regularly is to read source code. It probably started as part of trying
to learn some languages and design approaches - now I use it to
reinforce and pick up ideas, and get a sense for how projects are
constructed (and which ones appeal to my sensibilities). On my personal
laptop I'll have several projects for which I'm working my way through
their code using some basic grok bash functions which I'll
capture here. As I finish with projects they will be catalogued
here.
When working through my first real Rust project last year the code I was referencing made use of anyhow(1), which seems to be in fairly wide use across the Rust ecosystem. At the time I was largely ambivalent as it seemed more appropriate for me to work through what the standard language provides. That perspective has since evolved which will likely be covered as part of some other work.
Independently of those ideas, anyhow is a clean code base which efficiently delivers what it says on the tin. As I revisit Rust I may not default to pulling anyhow in, but it would be quickly adopted as when relevant hurdles are encountered.
I stumbled upon Astro a little while back but totally forgot about it, and then was reminded with the news that CloudFlare is adopting it for their documentation(2). I may look at pulling that in as some current efforts fall off my plate. I'll likely start with things like customizing the Pandoc templates and some minor scripts (maybe search), but as I accumulate content it certainly seems like I'd be better off having an additional piece to help with presenting the information in a consumable way.
As Astro piqued my interest earlier and I'll be spending some quality time in JavaScript land for other work it seems worth a look (and the natural affinity between JavaScript and Web sites). While I've had good luck with tools like Hugo in the past, it currently doesn't fit as neatly in the direction I'm looking.
I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. For a while now the
charging port has been a bit fickle (I'd guess a cable got yanked
shortly after I got it, but I don't remember). While I optimistically
somewhat ignored that, it now seems to be passing into the "please let
it charge this time" phase where I need to be prepared to repair or
replace it. At this charge I should definitely make a backup (I think I
have adb and enough space to just do that onto my laptop)
and then explore options. The clearest first option would be to see if
wireless charging will work. I got a wireless charger several years ago
when I had a similar issue with a tablet (after I tripped over the
charging cable getting ready for a phone interview while my son was a
newborn), so I'll see if it picks up the charge from that.
A few years ago I switched my plan to Google Fi with unlimited data since a perk from work was reimbursement, but now I don't use that much data and I'd want to reassess both the use of Fi (given concerns around tech giants where Google is not an outlier) and an Android phone. These are activities I'd rather not take on right now, but I may be compelled to do so if my phone fails. This may prompt me to revisit a PinePhone or Purism.
One feature that drew me to the S22 (from an old model) was photo quality. For some reason that seemed worthwhile at the time (I think it overlapped with a period where I tended to take a lot of photos of my children) - but that has somewhat faded and I've also become increasingly leery of the computation behind phone photos. Ultimately I haven't spent time to really get into photography, and I picked up a mirrorless digital camera a few years ago that I should start with if I want to go that route (while it less consistently available I also don't typically feel unexpected needs for a quality camera).
I'll likely also look at replacing the port. I've done that type of project in the past, but I think typically on larger electronics. I could also see if there's a repair shop that would be worth paying.
I fished out a wireless charger (Choetech T513), and while it needed a higher amperage plug to get the battery to actually charge, it seems to be working so I'll get punt on larger changes for the time being.
Mayflower Brewing out of Plymouth, MA has a DDH DIPA named Love and Wrestling (after the children of the pilgrim elder William Brewster). I got a few times at (coincidentally) Brewster Bar in Plymouth but also started picking it up at the Fieldstone grocery store in Marion, MA. While Mayflower has never been one of my favorite breweries, this became a favorite of mine over the past recent months.
Unfortunately I've also tried picking up a four pack from a package store right near my home multiple times…and it's never been as good: feeling quite a bit more unbalanced. I'd need to brush up on my beer tasting vocabulary to attempt to articulate the difference.
For a decent period I had good luck getting four-packs from Fieldstone while avoiding it from the other store (thinking maybe the difference was related to refrigeration or similar), but the most recent pack from Fieldstone also seems to be lacking. This one is a bit different in that it feels a bit thinner and the color seems a bit darker and less hazy than it had been. Now I'd guess that it may either generally be inconsistent or maybe I had just been working through what was (in my opinion) a good batch and maybe it took longer given the different volume of beer purchases between the stores.
In any case I may occasionally try some to see if the profile that I liked is hidden away somewhere, but for now it's slid out of a preferred position and I've lost my excuse to buy beer when I get groceries.