Let’s All Wear A Mask

[I]n this essay, I want to persuade you not just to wear a mask, but to go beyond the new CDC guidelines and help make mask wearing a social norm. That means always wearing a mask when you go out in public, and becoming a pest and nuisance to the people in your life until they do the same.

Delete your tweets using GitHub Actions

A few years ago I hacked together a bash script that you could use to backup and delete your tweets on a regular basis. For fun, I decided to do something similar using GitHub Actions.

tweet-delete doesn’t create backups, and deletes your tweets on a weekly basis. In addition, since the Twitter API only lets you get a maximum of 200 tweets per request, it won’t work if you have more than 200 tweets1. Many moons ago, I deleted all my tweets and started from scratch and since I don’t post more than 200 tweets in a week it works for me.

To use tweet-delete, clone the tweet-delete repo and edit tweet-delete.sh, replacing the twitter_user variable with your own Twitter user name.

Next, create an app on the Twitter Developer portal and add the following secrets to the GitHub repo using the names:

  • twitter_consumer_api_key
  • twitter_consumer_api_secret_key
  • twitter_access_token
  • twitter_access_token_secret

After committing your changes, a git push to the master branch will kick off the workflow2 and it’ll run automagically every Sunday at 23:453.

  1. I suspect it’ll delete the 200 most recent. ↩
  2. Delete the “Run when pushed to master” event from tweet-delete.ymlto run only on a schedule. ↩
  3. Configurable in the tweet-delete.yml file. ↩

Farfalle pasta with mackerel and tomato

This superquick pasta recipe takes ~10 minutes from start to finish and makes enough for two.

Ingredients

  • Farfalle pasta, 100g
  • Mackerel in olive oil, 1 tin, flaked
  • Fresh basil, small handful, roughly chopped
  • Chopped tomatoes, 227g tin
  • Harissa, a small blob
  • Parmigiano-Reggiano, 1 tbsp, grated
  • Balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp
  • Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp
  • Salt + pepper

Instructions

  1. Bring a salted pan of water to a rolling boil and add the pasta.
  2. Take a bowl, add the tomatoes, mackerel, harissa, basil, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Stir well, cover, then throw in the microwave for 2 minutes.
  3. When the pasta is a bit before al dente, drain, chuck the pasta back in the pan then add the sauce.
  4. Reduce the sauce for ~1 minute on a medium heat then add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, a touch of pepper, stir well and enjoy.

I’ve been playing with GarageBand on iPadOS and I’m surprised at how buggy it is.

Tot

An elegant, simple way to collect & edit text on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad

I really like this.

Panic Podcast

Our pilot run of six shows will cover everything Panic. (Which is a lot.)

This is a great podcast.

The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

Apple needs to recognize they have made profound conceptual mistakes in the iPad user interface, mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced, not polished and refined. I worry that iPadOS 13 suggests the opposite — that Apple is steering the iPad full speed ahead down a blind alley.

I’ve been using iPadOS since launch and found learning multitasking a clunky and dark art indeed.

The simple joy of f***ing up in the kitchen

I had a notion the other day. This happens from time to time — I get something into my head, and I just have to see it through, whether it’s a good idea or not.

I had a notion about making soup dumplings.

/via jk

Fish and prawn stew

Fish prawn stew

Serve with bread, potatoes or rice.

Ingredients

  • Fresh prawns, 500g, shelled
  • Cod loin, 250g, cut into chunks
  • Fresh lime, 2 juicy, juiced
  • Coriander, small handful, chopped fine
  • Parsley, small handful, chopped fine
  • Large onion, diced
  • Cumin, 1 tsp
  • Paprika, 1 tsp
  • Garlic, 4 cloves, minced
  • Bay leaf, 1
  • Spring onion, 3, chopped
  • Mild chilli powder, 1 tsp
  • Gammon stock, 500ml
  • Large tomatoes, 2, diced
  • Chopped tomatoes, 1 tin
  • Salt + pepper

Instructions

  1. Shell your prawns and chop the fish into 1 inch cubes (maybe slightly bigger), stick them in the fridge for later.
  2. Add the onion and garlic to a medium-large pan and fry until starting to get soft.
  3. Add the cumin, paprika and chilli powder, fry until the mixture gets a bit tacky.
  4. Add the chopped tomatoes, gammon stock, lime juice, coriander, parsley, spring onion, bay leaf and salt + pepper and give it a good stir.
  5. Let that simmer for about 15/20 minutes, your nose will tell you when it’s done.
  6. Take out the bay leaf!
  7. Blend until smooth. If at this point it looks a bit thick, add some vegetable stock.
  8. Put the the bay leaf back in and bring back to simmer for another 10 minutes.
  9. Add the fish and prawns.
  10. Simmer until the fish and prawns have cooked.

How are you today?

An unstructured digest of stuff that I've found on the information superhighway.