The One a Day project I mentioned before was my second attempt at using ChatGPT to do something useful. I can’t talk about the first attempt, please don’t ask, very hush hush.

I’m happy to report it cranked out code not unlike what I would have if left to my own search + copy + paste devices. So, I understand why software professionals are skeptical. In its defense, it actually suggested using flask in the first iteration, but I asked dumb it down a bit. It gave me something simple, and I modified it a bit. In the end, I’d say ChatGPT cut the time in half on this tiny project. It’s on github if you care to judge.

Yesterday, I launched One a Day wherein I will post one photo per day for a year. There is only one rule: The photo needs to have been taken that day–no stockpiling. You may think that you’ve seen this done before, but assure you that this is a totally original idea.

Now, launch makes it sound like I spent more than an hour knocking together a rudimentary, barely usable site. Sure, I could go the easy route and post on one of the many social networks on which I already have an account. But, in the words of Tina Turner: We never, ever do nothing nice and easy. Besides, we all know, the hard part isn’t making a site or uploading an image–its taking a picture day after day after day.

Why bother? Well, I was inspired by two things recently. First was a large collection of black & white images a friend showed me. His father had taken them in the 70s and 80s. While the subject matter was mostly day-to-day life in East Berlin, they were fascinating.

Second was A London Inheritance where, in a similar vein, he has a large collection of London photos from 1946-54 taken by his father. In a recent post he said “…the normal, everyday things that we take for granted, and are the things that will disappear and are worth a photo.”

This struck me because I take a lot for granted and tend to move through portions of my day with sort of tunnel vision. My hope is that this little project will help me broaden my field of vision a bit.

Wish me luck…

I missed the 20th anniversary of this site by a couple days (it was on the 7th). Ten years ago, I marked the occasion by listing the most popular posts.

  1. Homebrew Yaesu FT-857D Soundcard Cable
  2. Bose 901 Equalizer Repair
  3. A Dashing Dashboard with Raspberry Pi
  4. PSK31 with an FT-857D and a Mac
  5. More PSK31
  6. NYC to Montreal and Back (in Four Parts)
  7. Motorcycle Parking at NYC Muni-Meters
  8. Pomodoro Timer
  9. Temperature Logging with Twine and ThingSpeak
  10. DIY Air Variable Capacitor

The only post that appears on both lists is about the motorcycle trip to Montreal. I’m always surprised with the number of people interested in making a soundcard cable or repair a Bose 901 EQ. By the way, PDF schematic diagram for that EQ is not represented on this list, but is probably viewed more than any of these other pages.