Category: Weeknotes

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The new apartment is coming together. I look forward to a time when boxes are no longer a major part of our day-to-day lives. Between those we unpack and the near-daily arrivals bearing needed household items, I’ve become adept at breaking them down and getting them out of the apartment. Come to think of it, the super is probably looking forward this being over as well.

I usually relegate the AI references to the links section, but I thought this piece in The Times was worthy of note: The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived via FlowingData.

“It might fail a company’s quality test, but it would meet every deadline. That is what makes A.I. coding such a shock to the system.”

Indeed, quantity over quality. This is the world we are living in today. Perhaps it has always been that way, but these large language models can turn stuff out at a volume that was previously unimaginable. I do hope we can, collectively, figure out how to use these things so that they are a net positive.

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Photo of a massive pile of dirty snow stored (and blocking) a street near a park. There is a street sign for "Court St." in the photo.
Snow removal elsewhere is snow acquisition in Red Hook. Photo credit: Angela Lin

This week, we moved house or apartment, as the case may be. It’s been a little hectic to say the least. For instance, I think I’ve spent the better part of three working days packing, and almost immediately unpacking the kitchen. It’s also exercising muscles I’ve been neglecting at the gym making, which is making me feel creaky.

The move out was uneventful thanks to an amazing NYC moving crew. They whisked everything away in short order despite having to move the truck twice to let others pass due to the lingering snow. Dismantling the bed frame required some consultation and discussion. Even if we had the instructions, they were probably in Italian.

Moving in was even faster. There was a space in front of the building and a service elevator to get everything upstairs. Shortly after the movers departed, cupcakes in hand, leaving us among many boxes, we went to the local for a couple pints. That was the goal I was working towards for a couple days. Since the new place is only a 5 minute walk from the old, it’s the same local I’ve known for the last 16 years. Some things change, others remain the same.

While we’ll be settling in for a bit, the new place is already starting to feel like home. We’re getting used to different noises and idiosyncrasies like which cabinets don’t close quite the same way as the others. I even managed to find dig out the various electronics and cables needed to set up for the Friday night Jamulus session.

Finally, what move wouldn’t be complete without at least one trip to Ikea? On ours, we encountered the absolutely massive snow pile in Red Hook pictured here. The streets around the ball fields are closed and filled with 15 foot high piles of grey snow.

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Once again, very late on posting this one. There’s been a lot occupying my normal, weekend writing time lately. I plan to get back on schedule (and maybe talk a bit about what’s been occupying all that time) this weekend.

Stay tuned…

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Photo of a snow yeti in a blue and yellow shed decorated with holiday lights in front of a Brooklyn brownstone. The yeti is holding a sign with text: "We're all in this together ♥".

This week ended with what looks to have been an execution of an American citizen by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis. In Heather Cox Richardson’s comments about The Killing of Alex Pretti, she says that 16 people have the power to put a stop to this nonsense immediately. All of us should be putting pressure on our elected officials in Washington now—especially if those officials are Republicans.

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