This is a system I only somewhat tongue in cheek refer to as “The Fully General System For Learning To Do Hard Things”. It’s a useful conceptual framework for how to get better at things that you currently find difficult.
I don’t always explicitly follow it, but I often find that when I’ve succeeded my success comes from implicitly following it, and almost every time someone asks me for advice on learning to do things I just describe a specialised version of the system to them.
Buster: Captcha Solver for Humans
Buster is a browser extension which helps you to solve difficult captchas by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges using automatic speech recognition. Challenges are solved by clicking on the extension button at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA widget.
The internet economy in 2019 is dominated by five American tech companies: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. These are also the five most valuable corporations in the world, with a combined market capitalization exceeding four trillion dollars. Between them, these companies control the market for online advertising, mobile and desktop operating systems, office software, document storage, search, cloud computing, and many other areas of the digital economy. They also own and operate a significant portion of the physical infrastructure of the internet, and act as its de facto regulating authority.
Just spotted that Mastodon is now an option on Digital Ocean’s Marketplace of one-click install software.
I’ve become a bit addicted to Pocket-Run Pool — a charming and well-designed single player pool game with a bunch of different playing modes.
Use this handy IFTTT snippet to export your Fitbit daily activity to Day One as valid JSON for munging at a later date.
Personally, I’m much more interested and excited by the materials than I am by the tools. But I think it’s right and proper that other developers are excited by the tools. A good balance of both is probably the healthiest mix.
Insightful read.
Itinerant is an experimental weather forecast app, utilizing the human visual perception system (i.e. recognizing shapes and colors) instead of the symbolic interpretation system (i.e. reading words and numbers).
Looks interesting and available on the App Store — I (of course) use Weather Line.
Fabada asturiana
Using the leftovers from last weekend’s roast pork shoulder I cobbled together a tasty fabada asturiana with what I had in the kitchen. It’s a rich, heavy dish — I had it with a couple of boiled potatoes.
Ingredients
- Leftover pork shoulder, cut into 6 ⨉ 3cm cubes
- Chorizo, cut into 4 ⨉ 3cm pieces
- White beans, 400g tin, drained and rinsed
- Tomatoes, 2, chopped
- Onion, 1 medium, diced
- Red onion, ½ medium, diced
- Garlic, ½ bulb, minced
- Bay leaf, 1
- Pimentón, 1 tsp
- Crushed red pepper, ½ tsp
- Dried mixed herbs, 1 tsp
- Vegetable stock, ½ pint
- White wine, 1 glass
- Olive oil, a glug
- Salt + pepper
Instructions
- Take a heavy lidded casserole pan, heat a glug of olive oil on a low-to-medium heat.
- Add the onion, red onion, garlic and sweat until the onion becomes translucent.
- Add the tomato, crushed red pepper and dried mixed herbs. Cook until the tomatoes turn soft.
- Add the pork, chorizo and the white beans, stir.
- Add the white wine and vegetable stock, stir.
- Add the pimentón and bay leaf, stir!
- Put the lid on and cook on a low heat for ~2 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Take the lid off and reduce for ~30 minutes, or until desired consistency.
Art of the Game: Ukiyo-e Heroes
A Canadian craftsman and an American designer with a father and son generation gap collaborate to revive the ancient Japanese woodcut using pop-culture icons: Mario and Pokémon.
I stumbled upon this documentary on a flight recently — would recommend.
Yesterday, I peeled a bulb of garlic, bashed it up with a handful of rosemary, salt and pepper, loosened with a tablespoon of olive oil and rubbed all over a joint of pork and left to marinade in the fridge overnight.
I’ve just unwrapped it to slow roast and it smells fantastic!
I enjoyed this interview with Pusha T from October 2018.
Biangbiang noodles from Murger Han
Murger Han
62 Eversholt Street, London NW1 1DA
I enjoyed this interview with Don McCullin from January 2016.
The People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day
Variety doesn’t really matter to me. I would be perfectly happy to eat the same Caesar salad or peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich every day.
A History of Tokyo in 8 Dishes
From the fishing village of Edo to the global leader in Michelin stars, eat your way through Tokyo’s past and future.
I wouldn’t read this if you’re hungry.
The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed the way Britain shops
Paul Foley, the former Aldi CEO, who now runs his own retail consultancy, often tells his clients about his attempts to replicate a KitKat in the 1990s. It turns out this is really hard to do without the chocolate making the wafer soggy. Eventually, Aldi gave up. Foley asked his buyer to contact Nestlé’s UK office to announce Aldi’s surrender and request to stock KitKat. Nestlé would not return his call. So Foley ordered the bars from Germany, where they have a slightly different taste. Soon, Nestlé UK starting receiving complaints about the taste of its KitKats, and traced the problem back to Aldi. When they phoned Foley to complain, he “politely refused to cooperate”.
A fascinating long read.