One last thing: If you clicked on a man page link and ended up here, it’s probably because macOS doesn't include that man page. This can be true even when another man page refers to it. I find this very frustrating, but there’s little I can do about. You’d run into the same problem if you were using the man command on your Mac.| leancrew.com
I got some good replies on Mastodon after Saturday’s post. Longtime friend of the blog Nathan Grigg said he’s always assumed that GPS-measured lengths would be long because no matter how straight your path, the GPS error would make it zigzagged. Then wherami and thvedt pointed out that the official rules of these events say that the race’s distance is supposed to be measured along the shortest path. If the road is curving left, it should be measured along the left edge; if the road is c...| And now it’s all this
I did the Fall Color 5k Run and Walk at the Morton Arboretum this morning. I say “did” to downplay the fact that I don’t run races like this, I walk them. I got terrible shin splints 20+ years ago and haven’t run more than a few hundred meters at a time since then. But I do try to walk at a decent clip. My goal is to do these races in under 45 minutes, and I managed that this morning. Here’s a screenshot of my watch as I crossed the finish line.| And now it’s all this
I’m still experimenting with ChatGPT and Claude as proofreaders for my blog posts. Because I’ve been writing more posts lately, I’ve been learning the good and the bad more rapidly than I would have expected when I started this. Time for a preliminary assessment.| And now it’s all this
I was looking at the NFC standings yesterday, particularly the NFC North, the Chicago Bears’ division. The hated Packers are at the top of the division with a 4-1-1 record and a winning percentage of .750.| And now it’s all this
A footnote in last night’s post mentioned that the Amazon links therein had been cleaned of cruft. Today, I’ll show the simple automated way I do that.| And now it’s all this
I was talking to a friend about pencils a few weeks ago. I noticed she had a Blackwing 602 and asked her about it. She told me she never got along with mechanical pencils. The leads break too easily and the erasers don’t last—once they’re worn and need to be adjusted outward, they tend to slide back into their crimped metal holders when you press on them.| And now it’s all this
Scientific American published a clock puzzle a couple of weeks ago that I finally got around to looking at today. It wasn’t hard, but I’m less interested in the solution than in a very small discrepancy I found. Finding discrepancies was a big part of my job, so it was nice to see that I still can.| And now it’s all this
A small set of Python scripts and AppleScripts that help me add links to my posts with little effort.| leancrew.com
Adam Wuerl gets mixed results from ChatGPT on a reliability engineering problem.| leancrew.com
How parabolic mirrors focus signals without vector algebra.| leancrew.com
One last thing: If you clicked on a man page link and ended up here, it’s probably because macOS doesn't include that man page. This can be true even when another man page refers to it. I find this very frustrating, but there’s little I can do about. You’d run into the same problem if you were using the man command on your Mac.| leancrew.com
Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu) Server at leancrew.com Port 443| leancrew.com
Grinnell's bank is overdone in some places, but has some nice details and a surprisingly tasteful addition.| leancrew.com
I was talking with David Sparks and Stephen Hackett recently, and the conversation came around to fixing typos and other errors in our writing. I think the typos and poorly constructed sentences here at ANIAT have been reduced since I started having my Mac read my posts aloud to me.| And now it’s all this
My older son and I have been playing a daily basketball trivia game. Here’s the question from yesterday with my answers handwritten on the sheet.| And now it’s all this
After building my iPhone screenshot framing system, I decided to tackle the problem of Mac screenshots. I’ve been using CleanShot X for a while, but the small annoyances that come with using it have been weighing on me, and it seemed like a good time to return to a system built especially for my needs.| And now it’s all this
If you think I’ve written too much about Mathematica recently, don’t worry. This post discusses something in Mathematica that annoys me, but it isn’t really about Mathematica. It’s about how I eliminated that annoyance with Keyboard Maestro and how I should have done so long ago.| And now it’s all this
How a Wall Street Journal chart that looks decent on the web page looks awful in Apple News.| leancrew.com
Adapting a bookmarklet from Alex Chan to create Markdown reference links in BBEdit.| leancrew.com
A short followup to John D. Cook’s post on randomly distributing points within a triangle.| leancrew.com
I asked ChatGPT to plan a route for a driving vacation. How do you think it did?| leancrew.com
The first Louis Sullivan bank on my trip around the Midwest.| leancrew.com
My system worked exactly as I hoped it would.| leancrew.com
Another way of solving the differential equations of beam bending without much math.| leancrew.com
One way of solving the differential equation of beam bending without much math.| leancrew.com
A well known text from 1940 derives the catenary equation in a way I’ve never seen before| leancrew.com
Claude tries to outdo ChatGPT on the beam bending problem. It doesn't.| leancrew.com
ChatGPT has gotten better at solving a simple structural analysis problem, but don’t ask it to explain itself.| leancrew.com
Would ChatGPT help you cheat on structural analysis homework?| leancrew.com
A Shortcut inspired by John Gruber’s interview on Cortex| leancrew.com
The toggle for turning off battery optimization is in a stupid place.| leancrew.com
A mistaken answer about the Venusian day on Richard Osman’s House of Games.| leancrew.com
Ways to compare instance activities that I didn't mention in yesterday's post.| leancrew.com
The table of math symbol frequencies in a new book took me down an unexpected path.| leancrew.com
A little followup on a recent Engineer Guy video.| leancrew.com
New versions of my SQL scripts that are (I think) more secure.| leancrew.com
I finally use an LLM in an area where it's pretty good.| leancrew.com
A notebook of commands to build and render a stylized bolt image using the parametric equations for a helix.| leancrew.com
A more detailed explanation of an old Martin Gardner puzzle.| leancrew.com
The recent episode had some surprising resonances with me.| leancrew.com
Some things I learned from Allison Sheridan's interview of Jason Snell.| leancrew.com
An update to my weight tracking shortcut and backfilling my weight history into the Health app.| leancrew.com
A brief numerical and graphical check on a 3Blue1Brown video.| leancrew.com
A little scripting to get around the limitations of a health-tracking app.| leancrew.com
Some number of years ago, I actually did what I should have. Today I reaped the benefit.| leancrew.com
A couple of Typinator abbreviations I use to set up Matplotlib code.| leancrew.com
A couple of solutions to a recent puzzle in Scientific American.| leancrew.com
A variation on the Shortcut that helps reset my shopping lists.| leancrew.com
My civil engineering education helps me solve a brain teaser.| leancrew.com
Taking a long time to change the ID3 tags on a few MP3 files.| leancrew.com
Simple distance estimates from latitude and longitude.| leancrew.com
A Shortcut to be run from my Apple Watch that takes dictation and puts it, along with a time and location stamp, into Tot.| leancrew.com
Wolfram has sort of filled in some missing county-level data, but you may still not find it.| leancrew.com
In which I try to replicate some geometric images from a recent post by John D. Cook.| leancrew.com
A shell script (which we’ve seen before) and an AppleScript to help with viewing.| leancrew.com
There's a lot of missing county-level data for no good reason.| leancrew.com