jamesg

I have been building a search engine for my blog. The search engine is designed to make it easy to find content on my blog. I started with a simple program that indexed content so I could keep track of my posts. I built a web interface to query the index so anyone could find search results. Then I started to add more features to make the search engine more intuitive and better at discovering content. This has been such a fun project to work on because I have had to spend a lot of time planning technical solutions and then I have implemented them, two tasks I enjoy.

Timehop is a smartphone application that generates throwbacks for the photos you have taken on your phone. Each day, you could see photos you had taken on a given day in previous years. I recall installing Timehop but at the time I didn't have too many photos that I could share with the application. With that said, the core idea has stayed in my mind: a system through which you receive reminders of what you were doing on this day in the past.

I have been thinking a lot about accessibility in coffee and so I have been chatting with people about how they share their coffee knowledge. I recently spoke with Jordan Harvey, a barista support representative and trainer for Grumpy Mule. Jordan is also a volunteer for the Speciality Coffee Association (SCA) and a committee member at the Kore Directive, a coffee community of feministic diversity allies.

For all of those that subscribe to my website in a feed or social reader, you may have been wondering why a few pages that do not look like my regular blog posts showed up. The answer to that is that I am now working on a new project: a MediaWiki for sharing breakfast and coffee recommendations to which you can post from your own website.

About a week ago, I posted a question on Instagram: what is your favourite coffee and food pairing? I asked this question as a result of a discussion I was having with a friend and my ongoing thoughts on coffee as a culinary experience. Three respondents indicated they liked something sweet and/or a pastry with their coffee. One person said that their favourite coffee and food pairing was an espresso affogato, a surprising response because I did not consider that espresso affogatos are in fact already a pairing of coffee and food.

Photo taken bygav_smart.

When I first started brewing coffee at home, I had a fear that if coffee was not as fresh as possible, I would be missing out on its full potential. I stored my coffee bags, when opened, in a plastic tub, and would often think about whether my storage setup was adequate. Indeed, freshness and proper storage are essential components of making the most out of your coffee, but I always found storing coffee at home confusing. Do I need a vacuum sealed container? Will my coffee be okay in a cupboard? Should I only open bags of coffee when I have finished one that is already open?

Many speciality roasters visit the farms or co-operatives from which they buy coffee. This allows the roaster to get to know the crop from the people who are growing and processing it. These visits give roasters insights into a crop that cannot be found without having direct contact with a farmer or co-operative. Direct trade has become popular for this reason: a direct connection between the farmer and roaster lets the roaster learn more about their product.

I stumbled upon Coffee People last year and I decided to buy an edition I believe coffee is an excellent conduit for creativity and I was curious about what Coffee People was doing. I was greeted with visual art, poetry, articles, and many other creative pieces which all got me thinking that coffee is more than just a drink.

A few weeks ago, a member of my family said that I should take a note of the countries from which I have tried coffee. I thought this was a good idea at the time because I have tried coffee from so many countries and I did not want to lose track. The idea came to mind again yesterday when I thought just how easy it will be for me to forget where I have bought coffee from as I try more coffees. I must have tried at least five coffees this month alone.

I am not an expert on coffee freezing. This is my experience and an invitation for anyone to share their thoughts on freezing coffee, too. I hope what I share encourages more experimentation with freezing coffee beans.

Please note this project has not been tested, and is likely not going to be tested, on a real coffee pot. My implementation relies on an entirely fictional digital coffee pot. No advice is given on how to implement this protocol with a real coffee pot.

I recently gave a talk for Codementor on Decentralized Website Communication with Webmention. A recording for the talk is available on archive.org, in case you are curious! In the 45 minute discussion, I walked through what Webmention is, how it works, and did a live demo of how to get started using Webmentions on your site.

During lockdown, I had my heart set on the days I could go back to Edinburgh and do coffee crawls. Before lockdown, I was not interested in speciality coffee to the degree I am today, and so after lockdown eased I was able to go on my first coffee crawls. I have been visiting various shops around Edinburgh and realise that I am liable to lose track of the shops I have visited because there are so many I want to go to.

The Milkman is a well-known Edinburgh speciality coffee shop, presently serving coffee from Origin Coffee Roasters and filter and retail coffee from other roasteries based in Scotland and around the world. The Milkman recently opened a second cafe at 52 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh.

I was informed that SpaceX was about to launch their latest rocket earlier today, their second attempt. When I saw the message, I went onto the livestream, curious to see the rocket take off.

Wait... The clouds are amazing. I'll take a picture, I said to a friend in a discussion about pianos. Previously immersed in the discussion, my mind was occupied with experiencing the world outside. The clouds. I proclaimed. In my head, I tried to articulate how the clouds appeared. Lattice-esque. A blanket that had been loosely stitched.

I have tuned in to two IANA Root KSK signing ceremonies this year. The last one was held last Wednesday. The Root KSK ceremony is where representatives come together to sign the new keys for the root DNS servers. These are the servers at the heart of the DNS protocol. The root servers let you find TLD-level servers. Cloudflare has a great blog post on what the root servers are and how the ceremony works. The ceremonies are often quite long but if I know one is on I will tune in.

How to Make Coffee, written by Lani Kingston, was one of the first books I read about speciality coffee. The book gave me a good understanding of various aspects of coffee and covered some basic coffee science in a way that was approachable to me as a beginner.

I am working on a new programming language called VisionScript. VisionScript gives you the power to build computer vision applications in a few lines of code, or through a drag and drop interface. Count objects in an image in three lines of code. Remove all the faces in an image with four lines of code. Read a QR code in three lines of code. Classify an image in three lines of code. VisionScript is designed to be as concise as possible.

The beginning of a new week is upon us. The City is bustling. I am sitting in a wooden seat, not the most comfortable, but certainly charming. The cushion on which I am issiting is worn. These chairs have been well used. Who sat here before me? Who shall sit here after? I gaze at the traffic passing by, and look out as people walk on the street. The weather is warm, many people are in t-shirts.

Sara has started a blogging carnival, an open challenge to blog about a topic chosen by a participant. Sara chose the topic of cooking, and suggested many lenses through which the topic could be considered. The carnival rotates every month: next month, I shall be choosing a topic about which we can write. We have an open page on the IndieWeb wiki in which you can list your interest in selecting a topic for a future month. Below, my entry into the carnival.

A key requirement for my social reader is for it to be usable on mobile. To accomplish this goal, I have added some progressive web application features to my reader, enabling its use as an app I can save to my home screen. I have also spent a lot of time thinking about how the social reader should look on mobile.

I don't recommend many products, but I do recommend Firefox for web browsing. It is fast, reliable, and its code helps us fight against a monopoly in browser engines, an expensive-to-develop piece of technology that powers a web browser.

Join me for the fourth episode of my podcast wherein I talk about, among other things, children’s television, static websites, grammar, and all things coffee. Unlike in the last episode, I am not drinking a cup of tea during recording, although in hindsight perhaps I should have prepared a cup (or even a cup of coffee, given I recorded this episode in the morning).

I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

I started to think about how one should dispose of coffee packaging after it has been used. Should you recycle your coffee packaging? Should you compost it? Should you compost the packaging by taking it to a supermarket, who then takes it to a professional facility? There is no one answer: the world of coffee packaging is complicated, and disposal instructions vary by packaging.

Continuing my interest in Japanese fiction books, I stumbled upon The Guest Cat written by Takashi Hiraide. I have two cats at home and I have not yet read any books or longer materials about cats. I started to think about the relationships between humans and cats, leaving me to think that The Guest Cat would be an excellent book to read next. The quoted reviews certainly set a high bar for this book, a New York Times Bestseller.

At Homebrew Website Club this week, we discussed book indexes (with the Chicago Manual of Style nearby as a reference, of course!). This got me thinking about what a web index may look like for a blog: a page formatted like a book index where you can see articles that mention unique concepts on your blog. Book indexes are useful tools for navigating information. Given a concept, the index tells you where to find out more. I was curious about what this may look like for a blog.

I spent last Sunday morning in Chicago, after a series of flight delays that caused me to miss a connecting flight to my final destination. I enjoyed exploring the city. Gazing in awe at the tall buildings, the subway system across the city, the underground roads, the landmarks. I had only one morning, so I spent most of my time on foot walking around.