jamesg

It is Friday evening. From the window, I can see a pale lavender colour in the sky. Ever since hearing the song Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift, I have both had the song at the top of my head on many days and become more attuned to the lavender colours in the sky. An intriguing combination!

As I was preparing for bed, I started thinking about the moments that spark joy in every day life. These are the unexpected but beautiful things that happen in one's environment. One recent moment that brought me joy was when I was out walking and I heard birds chirping through my AirPods in a particular location in my neighbourhood. I have come to learn that lots of birds tend to be there and chirp. I took my AirPods out to listen to them. Their song was wonderful.

Of late, I have been writing about little moments of joy on a relatively frequent cadence. Little moments of joy are the small things -- referred to as the

When I am writing an introduction to a technical guide, I usually follow a format like this:

Note: I wrote this blog post before Christmas 2020 and never got around to publishing it at the time.

In technical writing and communication, every word matters; context, examples, literary devices all come together to help you convey a concept to a reader.

@boffosocko.com mentioned a 2021 New Years' Eve commitment page on the IndieWeb wiki in the community chat a few days ago. The goal of the page is to commit to doing something on your website and then to do it before the end of 2021. I found out about this challenge a few weeks ago but did not have any ideas on what I could commit to. Then, the very sameboffosocko.com mentioned an idea that I could add to my site: person tags.

I am continuing my foray into learning more about Linux and Unix. Over the last few days, I have learned about some shortcuts on the terminal that have made me think:

A few years ago, I started watching clips of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a

I recently came across plainlanguage.gov, a website maintained by a working group of US federal govenrment employees. The site is maintained by people across agencies with a specific purpose: help government officials and departments use plain language in communications. I have enjoyed clicking through the website, finding guidance. The working group has prepared a list of plain language guidelines that acts as a de facto style guide.

I have set myself a little challenge. I want to learn how to use all of the major coffee brewers by the end of 2020. I have a list in my mind of those I want to learn. I started the year learning the Kalita Wave, then I moved onto the V60. My next choice to try out was the Chemex, the world-famous coffee maker designed by Dr. Peter Schlumbaum, a German inventor who moved to the U.S. due to their favourable patent laws. The Chemex is known for its iconic and clever design, so much so that the device is stored in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

A few months ago, I stopped actively working on my blog where I spoke about programming and technology. I felt it was time for a break and I did not want to push myself into writing when I was not comfortable doing so; the best writing is that which comes from the heart, produced by passion.

IndieWeb Search has been intentionally designed to be open. The source code for the project is open. From the early days, there was a basic API that let you retrieve content and featured snippets from search results. I often chat about the search engine and how it is designed. The project is well documented. Another way in which the search engine is open is that all search result pages come with feeds. I hope to see more search engines do this too.

Note: This post discusses loneliness. I'm okay. Let me say that again. I'm okay. I feel more connected than I have in a long time. With that said, if it weren't for my friends being open about their experiences with loneliness -- and the encouragement I received to talk about my feelings -- I may not have written this essay. I hope my experience below is helpful to someone and conveys one key point: if you experience or have experienced loneliness, you are not the only one. Let my post below be a testament to that. I have also written about my experiences with anxiety.

This weekend, I have been taking notes on all of my espresso shots so that I can record exactly which recipes do and do not work. So far, I have experimented with at least 10 recipes and only two of them worked out. I have determined that a 16 gram dose pulled at a 7 grind setting on my Encore with a 15 second preinfusion yields a

Afficionados of lexicons, linguistics, and all things literary, here I am with another edition of Fun with Words. This is the first post of which I can recall in which the first sentence was architected to use a power-of-three featuring three words that begin with

A few weeks ago, I decidied that I would brew a cup of coffee in the local park using my Aeropress. I prepared my equipment, boiled some water, and set out of the house to a local park bench where I could sit and brew. If you are ever looking for a new way to brew coffee, try brewing outside, while only taking what you need to make a brew.

I have been curious about coffee subscription boxes for a while. My point of hesitation for buying a subscription box has been that I like to pick beans myself, usually ones that stand out to me in some way. For instance, I recently bought a coffee from Full Court Press that went through extended fermentation.

I saw a post on Instagram yesterday by Starbucks advertising their Pumpkin Spiced Latte and a pumpkin spiced cold foam drink. Autumn must be imminent, despite my wish for the summer to go on longer. The foam drink caught my eye. At Starbucks, you can order some

Over the last few weeks, I have been brewing using almost exactly the same recipe when I choose to use my Aeropress (which has been my go-to brewer recently). There are times when I really want to explore brewing variables but at the moment I just want to make some good cups of coffee. I have arrived at a recipe which I can use to make good cups of coffee consistently and that's what matters to me the most right now.

At the weekend, I finally got around to taking the Blue Bottle Coffee course about coffee on SkillShare. The course covers the science behind coffee, the equipment needed to brew a cup of coffee, and tasting, among other topics. I was most looking forward to the lecture on tasting and I was not let down.

Note: I wrote this blog post before Christmas and never got around to publishing it at the time.

I recently saw a post by Wendelien Van Bunnik, a World Aeropress Champion, on Instagram. In the post, Wendelien shares her history of drinking poor-quality coffee before discovering speciality. She ends the post with an interesting question that I wanted to write about:

I have purchased a Kalita Wave on which I shall practice my pour-over skills. Going from immersion brewing with the Aeropress to pour-over brewing is a big step but I am excited to learn more about how to brew a cup of coffee. I have been reading about the Wave and other pour-over methods to understand the main characteristics between each brewer.

I've never tried Tapas Excelsior before. I'll give them a shot. Do you have any recommendations?

Before I even ordered my Kalita Wave, I did some research on potential recipes to use. I did the same thing when I got my Aeropress. I wanted to know how I should go about using the device so that I was prepared to make my first brew. After reading through a few recipes, I found one on Drop Coffee which was simple and easy for me to understand. I did not want to over-complicate my brewing so I choose this simple recipe.

There are so many questions left unanswered in the speciality coffee industry. Many of these questions relate to the science behind coffee—why does coffee react in a certain way in certain circumstances—and not everyone has the know-how or the equipment to answer said questions.

My coffee scale recently arrived and I decided that I'd brew my first coffee with a scale today. This is the biggest change to my brewing process since I bought a grinder almost a month ago. I've never measured the weight of my coffee. I've always eyeballed my measurements.

The Aeropress is the device that first got me into the world of specialty coffee. Before I knew that there were different grind sizes and origins (and to think that was only a few months ago) I wanted a device that was as simple as possible. I was interested in coffee after having an experience drinking, of all coffees, a Greggs Cappuccino. It was my first coffee this year and it felt special. I was drinking coffee again and it tasted delicious.