Roger Bikes

Author: Roger

  • New MacBook Air M1

    New MacBook Air M1

    Apple released new MacBooks last fall running on Apple Chips known as the M1. These use arm architecture chips to keep power use low but still run really fast. Its the same type of chips that the iPhone and iPad have been using for 10 years. They replace the Intel style x86 chips that have been in use for well over 10 years in all Apple computers.

    The last time I purchased a new MacBook was in 2012 when the MacBook Pro Retina’s first came out. That machine allowed me to run my business making websites and editing videos for small businesses to get exposure on Youtube. It was powerful and still a laptop. I still have it though its performance has decreased.

    The machine I have been using for a few years now is a hand-me-down 2014 MacBook Pro Retina from my wife. It has been a great machine but suffers from the failed butterfly keyboard in the R and more recently E keys. The R key working 70% of the time has been tolerable for about 8 months now but the E key gets used so much more that it has become untenable.

    So I got a MacBook Air with the M1 chip last night. This machine has been pretty well hyped up not just by Apple and its fanbois but by multiple PC people such as Linus Tech Tips:

    So my expectations are pretty high for this machine. The battery life and performance had a pretty high bar set from the various reviews I have poured over in the last few weeks. Even though I no longer do any video work it appears that I could use this machine for those tasks.

    Last night I pulled it from the box and got to work getting it ready to use for work the next morning. I went with the 8 Core, 16 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Gold model:

    Apple has a Migration Assistant tool that helps copy your old Mac files and software to the new one. However I decided to go with a fresh install and gradually add the preferences and software that I use for work.

    My goto article for setting up a MacBook is this MacOs setup guide by a Google Machine Learning Engineer Sourabh Bajaj. In the past I have tried to do everything he has in the guide. It turns out that this is overkill for what I need and do. So this time I took it easy and did just what I need for work.

    I am going to briefly cover what I took from his guide here. If I don’t mention a section it means I did not use anything from there:

    System Preferences – Pretty much everything here I did on my setup.

    Homebrew – Pretty much everything in this section but here are the apps I install, this week:

    brew install --cask \
    alfred \
    google-chrome \
    firefox \
    visual-studio-code \
    keyboardcleantool \
    dropbox \
    clocker \
    iterm2 \
    1password \
    rectangle \
    zsh \
    qlcolorcode \
    appcleaner \
    qlmarkdown \
    betterzip \
    qlprettypatch \
    cheatsheet \
    qlstephen \
    quicklook-csv \
    quicklook-json \
    suspicious-package \
    webpquicklook \

    iTerm2 – Pretty much everything on the first page then zsh and Oh My Zsh. I use the terminal all day for work and iTerm2 is so much better than the app that comes with MacOS that this should be the app that comes with MacOS. For now I have gone with the Synthwave Everything iTerm2 theme and am enjoying having more color in my terminal.

    Thats pretty much it as I am not a programmer. If you are then you should check out any of the sections that are applicable to you.

    Trackpad

    The new Macs have a new trackpad that has a force click option. Basically there are 2 clicks available. The first click is what allows you to select items or text. The second or Force Click allows you to look up things like dictionary definitions for works.

    Personally I was having issues distinguishing between the two and would often end up Force Clicking when I was just trying to select some text. I have changed Force Click to only occur when I tap with 3 fingers. I am playing with adjusting the strength of the first click. All of this is located in System Preferences > Trackpad. I also have set the Tracking speed to a little bit faster. I will try to remember to keep speeding that up till it is on max.

    First Impressions

    This new Mac is the best one I have ever owned. It is small but capable. I have now spent 13 hours working on it, including 2 one hour Zoom video calls and the battery is only down to 10%. My old machine had 3 hours of battery life down to 5%.

    With my old machine I had to use a plastic wedge to keep the heat of the laptop from melting my legs. I have spent the entire day with this laptop on my lap and have not felt any heat from it at all. There is no fan so I haven’t heard anything other than my typing.

    The brightest I have had the screen has been 50% and that was more than enough. 100% brightness is unbearable indoors. Maybe I need to start working outside to test it?

    The Air does not have a Touch Bar and I am very pleased with that. I don’t know anyone who has a Touch Bar and is happy about it. Considering I have to spend more for the Pro model to get a Touch Bar I am even happier that I don’t have one.

    Overall I am extremely happy with this purchase and look forward to having this machine for years to come.

  • I need to stop joking about vaccines

    The COVID vaccine is out and I will get it as soon as it is offered to me. I believe in science and I trust our scientific institutions more than I believe or trust any other large institutions.

    I also make jokes about vaccines like: “I will get it but I don’t want to be first.” or “I am glad the guinea pigs are getting it first.” Saying things like that may be 100% a joke to you but to anyone listening it may cause doubt about the safety of a vaccine. This hurts us all because if we don’t all get the vaccine then it does not work.

    With up to 40% of frontline workers in LA county refusing Covid-19 inoculation experts warn that understanding and persuasion are needed

    The Guardian – Not all healthworkers are getting the COVID Vaccine

    That doesn’t sound good. One of the quotes in the article is from a critical care nurse in Alaska: “But for this one, why do I have to be a guinea pig?” 😬

    So I am no longer making jokes about any vaccine. I trust that if the CDC tells me to take a certain vaccine then it is good to go. I understand enough about the process of making and approving a vaccine to know that if something is wrong, it is caught well before public administration. I also understand that if I personally have a concern or question about a vaccine then I should turn to someone qualified to give me factual information so that I can then make an informed decision. Getting information from some website or person on social/media does not qualify as informed, that is entertainment only.

    COVID is a serious infectious disease killing way too many people. We have to get vaccinated to stop it. Vaccines are not funny or cool. They are just what we get so that we can have a modern society.

    If you have any doubts or questions please leave a comment or better yet, visit these sites to learn more:

    If you do not trust the CDC or the UN for information then I do not know what to tell you. Good luck building your bunker? 🤷‍♂️

  • Cruisin on Colonial Parkway to Yorktown

    Cruisin on Colonial Parkway to Yorktown

    One of the many cool things about being in Williamsburg Virginia is that there is a lot of US history in a really small area. Yesterday we rode to Jamestown: the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. For better or worse…

    Today we rode the same distance but visited Yorktown: the place where the English surrendered and the we won our war for independence. Kinda crazy to think about what went down in a few fields that I rode through on a beautiful sunny day.

    The US National Park Service created and manages the Colonial Parkway:

    Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile (37 km) scenic parkway linking the three points of Virginia’s Historic Triangle, Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown.

    Wikipedia – Colonial Parkway

    Yesterday we took a right out of the driveway and went to Jamestown. Today we took a left and went to Yorktown on the Colonial Parkway. 2 days, 2 bike rides, just over 35 miles each, and 99% of drivers were cool and the gang.

    Just some scenery on the way to victory town USA.

    It was warmer today which was nice. Still pretty bundled up with layers though. Its January in Virginia: as Bill Grass would say: “Well then Roger, I guess its time to take a spoonful of concrete and harden the fuck up. 😎”

    Its genetic.
  • Sunny ride to Jamestown

    Sunny ride to Jamestown

    The cold continues so my weekday rides remain at zero. Today we rode to Jamestown, VA which is the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Its about a 15 mile ride from Bill’s house and is a great place to ride or run.

    Today Jamestown is part of the Colonial National Historical Park and has a number of museums and visitor centers. The best part of the park though is Jamestown Island. The Island is uninhabited by people, but there is a lot of wildlife, including a lot of bald eagles. There is a road that circles the island in a one way route. So its a drive through a nature preserve.

    The state of Virginia was pretty quick to respond to the COVID pandemic, for a state in the USA. Jamestown decided early on to close the island to cars so that people could walk, run, and cycle without fear of being run over. It was part of the governments attempt to encourage people to get outside and exercise safely. That made the ride even nicer.

    The weather was chilly but with the sun out it was perfect. Tomorrow we ride to Yorktown.

  • Pandemic Banana Split

    Pandemic Banana Split

    2020 was a wild year. New job, global pandemic, house planning, cabin finishing, and cold weather riding. To cope we have stayed on top of exercising and eating well. We have found hobbies in woodworking and sourdough bread making, respectively. Even with all of that the year got pretty intense. We needed something at the end of the day that could give us closure and peace of mind. We got banana splits.

    The keyboard warriors are cracking their knuckles in preparation of telling me that this is not a banana split. The argument is that I have not split the banana in half and then added the correct ingredients. They aren’t wrong, but here is the thing: its goddamn delicious and makes me and my wife happy.

    My technique started off crude, then became too involved, and is now at a state of happy equilibrium. I mash the banana in the bowl with a spoon. Add ice cream. Add pretzels. The pretzels should at least circumscribe the bowl, creating a safety fence of sorts. If a cookie is available toss one in.

    We have consistently had these pretty much every night since the election. I wonder if there is a connection?

    If I were still drinking beer this would not be tenable. The good thing is I am not missing the beer, and very much enjoy making and eating our evening banana splits.

    That was a wild year and there were a lot of coping mechanisms to fall back on. So far the banana split looks like a good option.

  • Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chair

    I am getting into woodworking and already my imagination is out of control. I love this chair but fully understand I am a ways away from making it as well as it is made here. That said I will give it a shot, someday. In the meantime enjoy this lovely video of a really cool chair being made.

  • Weird AI

    The Open AI project announced DALL-E today which is something machine learning that something something creates images from text by something something. I have read the blog post announcing it a number of times and feel that I understand what they are saying. However I still don’t really understand any of what they are saying.

    Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are these concepts that I am aware of. I understand ways in which they are being used, but I have no idea how they work. To some people this is scary and there are scenarios like the Terminator where AI is very scary. In some ways expecting AI to be as bad or worse than humans is logical.

    The problem is that even with the advances that have been made recently we are still a long ways from a machine thinking anything close to a human mind. For example the DALL-E project is very bleeding edge stuff made by the smartest people on the planet. For their efforts they can give the computer text and it will make an image from that. Not quite a humanoid robot shooting at you.

    From what I have gathered over the years of reading about the science of machine learning and AI is that it is going to be a gradual shift. We already have machine learning making our photos way better by auto adjusting ISO, Aperture, and Exposure. Automatic face detection for Portraits is done with Machine Learning.

    These are helpful things but still limited. The phone is not recommending that you change the direction of the camera to capture better light, yet.

    Last year OpenAI developed GMT-3, which can write somewhat coherent text, aka a langauge model. GMT-3 hit the headlines as journalists everywhere realized they might have to get jobs.

    The reality is that Machine Learning is still in very early days and most writers have nothing to worry about, yet. Some humorous examples can be found on AI Weirdness such as new take on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:

    All Hail to Rudolph

All hail to Rudolph
The legend of Christmas
The most famous reindeer of all

All hail to Rudolph
Happy all the year
From everyone we see

Heroes come and heroes go
But Rudolph stays forevermore
Oh boys and girls of every age
Can’t you hear the sleigh bells ringing?

Oh look! There’s Santa and Parson Brown
Defying the laws of time and space
Now prepare yourself and your family my boy
Prepare to get your Christmas fix

Now Rudolph goes smashing through the roof
Just like a power lift with a candy-cane moustache
And the deer’s nose is dead-on, deadly accurate
Pow! Now it’s Rudolph versus Mars

All hail this joyful night
All hail the night folks sing
All hail to Rudolph
The legend of Christmas
The most famous reindeer of all

O Come Rudolph, Come

O Come Rudolph, Come Ye Faithful
Oh come, come holly, clad in white, Oh come ye faithful.
Oh come aloud! Oh come and join our choir,
Oh make a joyful noise till earth and heaven ring.

Caw caw caw oh, caw caw caw oh, Caw holly, Caw plum this Christmas.
Oh, caw caw caw, oh caw oh, caw oh oh oh, oh.

    Fun stuff but writers are safe at their jobs for at least a little longer. What is interesting is how we will be able to use these technologies to create. How could a writer or artist benefit from using these tools?

    Brainstorming sessions might benefit training a model with your competitors websites/products/presentations etc. Things that we should already be doing but now you can literally just throw everything into a folder and let the software come up with new ideas.

    Here is an example of a brainstorming meeting by Jimi Smoot where only the human inputs are in bold:

    START EXPERIMENT:

    The below is a conversation overheard in a product design meeting at a software company. The team has a Leader, two graphics designers, and a product manager. They are brainstorming ideas for a new software product to sell to Sales teams and help the teams close more deals.

    Leader: OK remember we need to come up with something a sales team needs. Any ideas?

    Designer 1: Why don’t we make an application where we record all of the steps a salesperson takes to close a deal.

    Designer 2: Wow that sounds great. Anyone have any other ideas?

    Product Manager: We should make an application that has all of the features you need to close a deal. Like a CRM with checkboxes to tick when you reach certain parts of the sales process.

    Designer 2: Yes, that sounds great, I like your idea a lot. What else do we need?

    Leader: What about a budgeting tool?

    Designer 2: Yes that would be great.

    Designer 1: OK that sounds good, we will put these ideas together and think about it some more. What about you guys? Do you have any more ideas?

    Designer 3: Why don’t we make a checkbox application like the one the Product Manager mentioned. Sales people like checkboxes.

    Designer 2: Yes, that sounds great, I like your idea a lot. What else do we need?

    Leader: What about a budgeting tool?

    Designer 3: Yes that would be great.

    Leader: No I don’t like that one. Any other ideas?

    Designer 2: Why don’t we make a checkbox application that has all of the features you need to close a deal. Like a CRM with checkboxes to tick when you reach certain parts of the sales process.

    Leader: We already talked about that. How about something fresh? Are there any tools that can be used for selling with email?

    Designer 3: I have an idea! What about we build an application that uses Gmail?

    Designer 2: Yes that sounds great, I like your idea a lot. What else do we need?

    Designer 1: We could do that. We need a way to connect to Gmail and work from Gmail. That way all of the sales person’s email is in one place.

    Designer 2: OK we will think about that. What else do we need?

    Product Manager: Let’s take a look at other companies that sell to sales teams. Are there any tools or applications that can be used for selling with email?

    Leader: No one is going to buy a software product to help them sell with email. People will just use Gmail for that. Let’s look for something else.

    Designer 2: Why don’t we make a checkbox application that has all of the features you need to close a deal. Like a CRM with checkboxes to tick when you reach certain parts of the sales process.

    Leader: We already talked about that. Are there any tools that can be used for selling with email?

    Product Manager: Why don’t we make an application where we record all of the steps a salesperson takes to close a deal.

    END:

    Again this stuff is early days but compared to some of the brainstorming sessions I have participated in this one is not bad.

    David Bebbet kicks the tires of GPT-3 in a post from July of 2020: Writing with GPT-3. He shows a brainstorming session starting with 5 ideas from him then the machine gives him this:

    And it came back with 15 more:

    1. Create a list of Tor commands to run to defend against an attack
    2. Create a cheat sheet for screenwriters
    3. Generate advice for a scene
    4. Generate XKCD comics
    5. Create a crib sheet for an arbitrary Python API
    6. Make a list of movies to watch
    7. Make a list of scholarly algorithms/heuristics worth reading
    8. Make a list of generic questions about Pedagogy
    9. Make a list of cognitive exercises
    10. Show patterns generated by awesome people
    11. Generate small cooking tasks
    12. Generate characters for a project
    13. Generate configuration options
    14. Generate flashcards
    15. Organize my computer/files

    And then 15 more:

    1. Explain things to my parents via messenger
    2. Explain things to my children via messenger
    3. Explain mathematical algorithms
    4. Automated interface design
    5. Mechanize a Nagihara Kan Airlines website
    6. Clickbait generator
    7. Music description (Herbie Hancock is playing “Dolphin Dance” live in London on the 18th March 1968)
    8. Tell me not to waste my time looking at x
    9. Interesting facts about Wikipedia
    10. Explain something to someone while my attention is elsewhere
    11. Detect adverts in x
    12. Image caption/caption game
    13. Speculate about the true utility function of x
    14. Auto-generate tests for a program
    15. Explain why my code is currently failing tests.

    And then 15 more:

    1. Generate plots or character/story summaries
    2. Generate legal examples
    3. Generate words for crosswords
    4. Check my grammar
    5. Supply filler text for themed writing (horror, sci-fi etc.)
    6. Explain why an AI can’t read (can it comprehend metaphors?)
    7. Provide entertaining answers to obscure questions
    8. Get writing ideas and generate word combinations
    9. Create background for an NPC I need for a D&D game
    10. Help a sick writer generate plots
    11. Input pre-generated (from books etc.) phrases and use them for literary analysis
    12. Help explain a mathematical proof
    13. Develop a game/story/character I need
    14. Make short stories I can “overlay” on a fictional Universe I’ve created (ala Ready Player One)
    15. Make a short film/audio drama

    From Writing with GPT-3

    David then teaches it “how to evaluate simple expressions and take derivatives”. My eyes got a little glossed over here to be honest. I haven’t seen any of those words since 1995.

    Fortunately he creates a list of Overall Principles:

    1. GPT-3 is continuing your writing, not having a dialog with you.
    2. GPT-3 effectively puts your writing in a made up context.
    3. GPT-3 likes lists and repeated structures.
    4. GPT-3 cannot perform linguistic tricks like unscrambling words
    5. GPT-3 benefits from “showing its work”
    6. GPT-3 has a great breadth of knowledge and writing styles available to it
    7. Sometimes GPT-3 makes no sense

    So it sounds like things are Weird and only going to get more so.

  • COVID Cannonball Run

    COVID Cannonball Run

    The Cannonball Run is an unofficial speed record that requires driving across the USA from NYC to Los Angeles. It was made popular by 2 movies with the name from the 80’s.

    In December of 2020 Kate and I did a COVID Cannonball Run when we drove non-stop from Mancos, CO to Williamsburg, VA. We did it in the dually truck and completed the drive in a bit over 33 hours.

    Initially we had planned to camp out a couple of nights as we drove to VA. The purpose of our trip was to spend the holidays with Kate’s dad as his wife of 50 years had passed in March. As the departure date approached we noted that a large winter storm was coming and it was determined that we should leave the night before our planned departure.

    As we started driving we decided to swap sleeping while the other drove. I got about 7 hours in and got us to Amarillo Texas on my first shift. Kate took us another 7 hours into Arkansas. I then got us a bit past Nashville. Kate drove till Knoxville. I did my last shift to Blacksburg VA and Kate got us the rest of the way.

    We only stopped at gas stations and 1 burger king. Overall it was kinda crazy and I would recommend taking shorter shifts to keep each other more fresh. We will be heading back in a few weeks. Currently we are thinking of staying in a hotel for 1 night but with how the outbreaks are going in the south and mid west right now we might just keep on truckin.

  • Outdoor chair

    I love this youtube channel. She is very good about showing the process and explaining things. I also like her designs. This looks like a fun one and will create some nice outdoor chairs to sit in.

  • Riding wet

    When today started we had no plans to ride bikes. The weather was forecast to be wet and rainy. We prefer not to ride in full rain as it is miserable and dangerous. However the weather ended up being more of a drizzle so we suited up and rolled out.

    Today’s ride was a much shorter loop to a local brewery. We got drizzled on a bit but it wasn’t too bad. The stop at the brewery was nice and included a Beyond Burger and Fries. We like to eat well when we ride. You can have a cliff bar but a burger and fries are so much nicer.