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Interesting blog post about analytics. I think surveillance is too strong a word for simple referrer logging, but I do agree that most personal blogs don’t need this:

The other reason you might put analytics on your site is to know when someone links to your writing. Again, if the linker doesn’t intend to tell you, then you’re surveilling. You do not need to know every time your writing is mentioned.

Manton Reece

30 Aug 2025 at 15:05

Weeknotes: Aug. 23-29, 2025

 
gritty chef's knife beside dark sharpening stone on wet kitchen towel
I got this sharpening stone last year and finally used it 🙌

Win of the week: sharpened my big chef’s knife — took an hour and a half with the 400 grit to get the chips out, and another 45 minutes to put an edge on it with the 1000 grit — now I want to carry this knife around on a pillow so I never have to do this again lol

Looking forward to: long weekend!

Stuff I did:

  • 2 hours consulting + some business admin
  • 0.25 hours writing
  • 3 hours draft readthrough
  • contractor came to replace the dryer duct per our home inspection’s recommendation — the inspector apparently screwed up and labeled the wrong duct, and ours was fine — so they just cleaned it instead
  • had maintenance done on our heat pump, he said a two-year maintenance schedule is fine for the first ten years or so
  • had the garage door replaced — yet another pricey, essentially invisible house upgrade *sigh* — I feel like we got mildly scammed on the install but what you gonna do 😑 in better news, my husband put out mouse traps after the install and didn’t catch anything! mice must have moved out after the spring (when I watched one run under the old door right in front of me, which precipitated this upgrade 🐭)
  • got a tour of my friend’s house and mocked up some paint color options for him
  • baked sourdough banana nut muffins
  • moved the trailcam back over by the bird bath, but from an angle — nothing yet!
  • loaded mp3s of all the music I’ve bought this year onto my phone (because I haven’t gotten around to setting up a home network 😅)
  • I haven’t been using my Supernote tablet much, but their updated digest feature looks neat (video), so I installed the “partner app” on my phone that lets me upload pdfs directly to the tablet 👏
  • couldn’t find a flash drive so I’ve ordered one in preparation for doing a linux install on my old laptop (getting down to the wire)
  • walked once with my friend, but bailed on walking during the extreme heat warning — the shades are earning their keep, the house barely got above 80, once we finally get enough attic insulation who knows how cool it’ll stay 😀 (another invisible home upgrade on the docket…)

black and white art print framed in a black frame with scuffs
got a precut mat so I could use this old frame I had for the art print that came with The Last Battle at the End of the World — frame’s a little roughed up but I don’t mind it with this print

Dinners:

  • fake chicken burgers (Impossible) + curly fries + lemonade
  • caprese salad + nonalcoholic pina colada (at a new restaurant with a huge patio downtown)
  • seven layer dip + tortilla chips + guacamole + Coke
  • tater tot nachos
  • tuna melts + potato chips + Coke
  • pan-toasted gnocchi with homemade pesto and heirloom tomatoes
  • Seattle dog with Field Roast veggie sausage + white peach

Reading:

  • Read 12 Rules for Strife by Jeff Sparrow and Sam Wallman and Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland
  • Received Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher and Astronaut II by Scott Listfield
  • Started reading Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
  • Continued reading Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, The Place of Tides by James Rebanks (oops three weeks flew by and I’m only halfway done! getting back on the waitlist), and Cute, Quaint, Hungry & Romantic by Daniel Harris (this is my read-one-physical-book-I-own this month, think I can make it!)
  • Read from Manic Depressive Pixie Dream Girl by Katya Zinn
  • excruciatingly went through the publish date of all the SFF I’ve read in the past five years (because I exported my Goodreads reading data from the wrong spot 🫠) and created a list of the “best” SFF books published in the first half of this decade

Words I looked up / concepts I learned:

Choice phrase:

“Our lives are a series of choices — about what we do, and don’t do. Over time we decide what to let go of, what must die, and what we will fight to keep alive. Sometimes these are big, deliberate decisions, other times change happens in a thousand thoughtless little moments.”

— James Rebanks, The Place of Tides 

Pretty stuff I saw:

New music I listened to:

cool music video (via Benji)

Bought $20 of music — still going strong without a streaming subscription! I’ve spent an average of $16 a month on music this year (though that’s weighted by buying some back catalog and a $30 CD preorder in January) — probably didn’t need to buy 3-5 of the ~50 individual tracks in retrospect, but at a buck a pop that’s probably less money than I waste on aspirational produce a week 🍅🍆🍄‍🟫🤦‍♀️

Website changes:

Plugin update broke the site but disabling and reactivating fixed it 🤷‍♀️

Nature notes:

  • heard coyotes yipping at 1am one night
  • squirrel has been visiting the fig tree hopefully every day, sorry buddy the rest won’t ripen till November 🐿️
freshly dug small hole beneath a flattish garden rock
someone’s moved in under this garden rock… mice?
Tracy Durnell

30 Aug 2025 at 04:44
#

Quoting myself from two years ago:

Two ecosystem services provided by humans: gratitude and awareness.

jabel

30 Aug 2025 at 02:08
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