Notes: January 25, 2024

Date: 1/25/2024
Tags: notes

What I’m Reading

  • 400 of my closest friends
  • Dan Luu on search results and SEO
  • The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine by Ted Kaptchuk
  • How insurance companies fill their networks with ‘ghost’ therapists
    • The Seattle Times worked through the list of therapists on insurance websites and only 19 out of 400 had availability for patients. Many therapists were listed twice - once as individuals and once as part of their firm - and many therapists were no longer practicing, contributing to inflated numbers and a more challenging experience to navigate.
  • Inside Git by Julia Evans - great visual overview of git.
  • The Markup Blacklight - neat tool for checking trackers on websites
  • Blake Watson’s Home Cooked Apps - A talk by Blake Watson on building apps and tools for yourself and those around you. Blake is a full-time wheel chair user and had made number of tools to assist himself, family, and caretakers. He describes a number of the tools he’s made as well as a his approach and philosophy towards them in the talk.
  • Mercatus PDX
    • “Mercatus elevates the unique and universal narratives of entrepreneurs of color in Portland and connects the city and region with local talents, businesses, services and products that come from the ethnically diverse entrepreneurs in the city.” from https://mercatuspdx.com/team/.
  • https://nabeelqu.co/puzzles - Good chess players tend to spend most of their time falsifying ideas instead of coming up with ideas.
  • 400 of my Closest Friends - A heartwrenching comic describing an artist reckoning with AI models training and using their works without consent, after decades of delivering art to the world for free on public channels (their website, not even reddit/instagram/facebook/twitter).

What I’m Doing

  • I updated alexledger.net to use TinaCMS for the convenience. It’s generally helping me write more easily, and it’s easier to get new posts going with quick drafts that I can gradually build up into full pieces. I wrote a blog post on the technical aspects a few days ago: post.
  • I posted a guide on portland grocery stores
  • I’m adding lists. Check out my lists page.
  • I’m starting an experimental blog on my work and experience with People’s Food Coop. You can currently find the blog here.