A Tale of Two Pies

Here’s what happened during the week of August 12–18, 2024.

🚙 I drove up to my mother’s house again this week to help her with some issues she was having with her computer. It’s very difficult to troubleshoot over the phone, and it was a good excuse to go and spend some time with her for a couple days. I’m lucky that it’s also very easy for me to work from her place on such occasions.

🏠 Our youngest daughter moved into her new college apartment this week. As usual, she did not want or need much help but we drove up to see the new place anyway. It’s a studio, but very modern and nice, and she’s excited to be out of the dorms and to have the place all to herself. It suits her.

🛜 I took AdGuard, another ad-blocking DNS service, for a test drive this week. Did not like it and quickly switched back to using NextDNS.

⚽️ We watched the Leagues Cup match between Columbus Crew and NYCFC here in Columbus. The pigeons scored in the first 16 seconds, but the Crew tied it up late in the first half. After a scoreless second half, the match was decided on PKs. I hate that, but I’m glad Columbus will advance to the semifinal match against Philadelphia on August 21.

🚲 We got out on our bikes again this week. The area around where we live isn’t great for biking but there are some nice trails within an easy drive. This week’s ride, at 14 miles, was slightly longer than last week’s and took us just over an hour. Nice way to get some exercise and sunshine on a Sunday.

🥧 We picked up some fruit at the local market last weekend, so naturally I made a couple of pies. One peach and one blueberry.

🗣️ I’m not one to jump on AI bandwagons, but I caved into FOMO and paid $50 for a Voicenotes “Believer” subscription after reading posts from ner3y and Maique. Am I a sucker?

🤖 I also came across the Luma Dream Machine, an AI model that transforms still images into short video loops. The free tier is limited to 4 generations per day. I’ve only attempted one so far, based on this photo. I’m not sure I have much use for this, but it’s fun to play around with.

{% caption "Video loop AI-generated by Luma Dream Machine" %}

Reading

🤥 Lying liars who lie: The Elon Musk / Donald Trump interview on X started with an immediate tech disaster

Watching

😸 Despite Argylle poor reviews (33% on the Tomatometer) this spy movie sendup is actually pretty funny. I like movies that put a smile on my face and make me laugh and this one did. A lot.

🌞 Evil Under the Sun is a pretty decent Christie adaptation, although not one of my favorites.

🇨🇾 Find Me Falling is in most respects just another rom-com, but it’s exactly what it needs to be: good not great, comfort food for the soul.

That’s all for this episode. Tune in next week for the next exciting installment.