Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu) Server at leancrew.com Port 443| leancrew.com
As I said back in June, one of my goals for my library search system (recently updated) was to be able to check on whether I already owned a book while in a used bookstore. I got to use it for that very purpose a couple of days ago, and it worked just as I hoped.| And now it’s all this
Last year, I complained about Apple’s way of calculating and presenting trends in the Health app. Today I’m going to complain about how it handles trends in the Fitness app. I like to spread my complaints around.| And now it’s all this
Something Kieran Healy wrote several years ago has stuck with me: If you want to measure change, you can’t change the measure. Kieran attributes that pithy bit of advice to Tom Smith of the General Social Survey, but my Google and Kagi searches always lead to Kieran. Regardless, it’s good to keep in mind.| And now it’s all this
After a couple of months of using my library search web page, I decided it needed a small upgrade, which I added today. It’s a new button that resets the search form.| And now it’s all this
I don’t want to give you the impression that I get all my blogging ideas from Jason Snell, but here’s the second one this week. It was inspired by his post this morning about using the new folder automation feature in macOS 26. After bookmarking the article so I can refer to it after upgrading to 26, I started thinking about how he and Dan Moren went about extracting the name of a file’s enclosing folder from its full path name.| And now it’s all this
Nobody comes here for Apple news, so I assume you’ve already heard that Apple has started activating the blood oxygen sensor on all Apple Watches with the sensor. Until today, watches sold in the United States after January 2024 had their sensors deactivated because of the Masimo patent. As mentioned in the linked press release, new versions of watchOS (11.6.1) and iOS (18.6.1) will work together to let you take readings on your watch and then calculate and display the blood oxygen level on...| And now it’s all this
Earlier this year, I published a post about a Shortcut I made to help me c̸h̸e̸a̸t̸ play the NY Times Connections game on my iPhone. It’s called “Play Connections,” and it takes a screenshot, crops it to just the game grid, and saves it to Photos. I then use the highlighter tool in Photos to color in related clues before playing the game for real on the web page.| And now it’s all this
I was mentioned in the Snell Talk segment of yesterday’s episode of Upgrade. Jason was asked if he had a paddleboard, and he talked about how he’d like to have a kayak to go paddling in the bay near his home. The downside of owning a kayak is that you have to store and transport it, both of which can be a pain in the ass unless you have a foldup kayak. Like the Oru Inlet I have, which collapses down to the size of a large suitcase and fits neatly in the trunk of my RAV4.| And now it’s all this
As a companion piece to the post on the moment-area method, today we’ll go through another way to solve the differential equations of beam bending without doing any serious math. This is called the conjugate beam method, and it was developed by Harold Westergaard in this 1921 paper.| And now it’s all this
I started a new notebook last week and thought it worth writing another update on how I’m using it.| And now it’s all this
This morning, I checked the iPhone Health app to see how long I’ve been sleeping recently. I wanted to look at the past month but mistakenly tapped the 6M button instead of the M. This is what I saw:| And now it’s all this
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
In which I solve an elementary structural analysis problem assigned to me by John Siracusa.| 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
Smart quotes are slightly different in different Mac apps published by Apple.| leancrew.com
Despite my concern a few weeks ago, I think I'm staying with Fosstodon.| 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
