Author: Grey

Between this and DON’T TELL THE BOYS I’ve apparently stumbled across subgenre of all-caps… whatever these two are grouped as. They go together, I just can’t think of a name for the group. ↩
Fun fact: every time this plays, I briefly get “come with me… and you’ll be… in a world of pure imagination” stuck in my head. ↩
Top pick this month! ↩
If you’ve seen it, you know what song this is. If you haven’t, don’t click! It’ll be much more fun that way. ↩
This is why RLNDT is back on the list, a bit further down – reminded me of it. ↩
This whole album is very good, but I’ve found that I have to be in the mood for Mogwai. ↩
This little Imogen Heap section brought to you by this video. ↩
This is a really excellent cover because it’s completely different from the original. ↩
Shawn James is just a whole mood sometimes, y’know? ↩

Technology

Serving ‘files’ in Vapor

In my experience, dynamically generating a file, serving it immediately, and not persisting it on the server is a pretty common use case. In general, this is one of two things – either a PDF download, or a CSV. While my Vapor tinkering hasn’t yet given me an opportunity to generate PDFs on the server, I have had an occasion to create a CSV, and wrote up a little helper for doing so.

import Vapor

struct TextFileResponse {
    enum ResponseType {
        case inline, attachment(filename: String)
    }
    
    var body: String
    var type: ResponseType
    var contentType: String
}

extension TextFileResponse: ResponseEncodable {
    public func encodeResponse(for request: Request) -> EventLoopFuture<Response> {
        var headers = HTTPHeaders()
        headers.add(name: .contentType, value: contentType)
        switch type {
        case .inline:
            headers.add(name: .contentDisposition, value: "inline")
        case .attachment(let filename):
            headers.add(name: .contentDisposition, value: "attachment; filename=\"\(filename)\"")
        }
        return request.eventLoop.makeSucceededFuture(.init(status: .ok, headers: headers, body: .init(string: body)))
    }
}

That’ll work for any file you can assemble as text; CSV just struck me as being the most useful example. Use ResponseType.inline for a file you want displayed in a browser tab, and .attachment if it’s for downloading.

And if you’re doing a lot of CSVs, give yourself a nice little helper:

extension TextFileResponse {
    static func csv(body: String, name: String) -> TextFileResponse {
        .init(body: body, type: .attachment(filename: name), contentType: "text/csv")
    }
}

Tags swift, vapor

Technology

“All organizational systems fall on a spectrum from Calendar to To-Do List”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-03-20
No Comments on “All organizational systems fall on a spectrum from Calendar to To-Do List”

Something I said to a coworker recently. Largely inspired by listening to Cortex, and I felt like giving it a slightly more visual treatment.

Tags sketchnote

Technology

Default Values in Vapor Fluent

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-03-13
No Comments on Default Values in Vapor Fluent

My recent tinkering has been with Vapor, and while I mostly like their Fluent ORM, it has some rough edges and semi-undocumented behavior. At some point, I’ll feel confident enough in what I’ve learned through trial and error (combined with reading the source code – open source!) to actually make some contributions to the documentation, but for now, I’m going to throw some of the things I struggled with up here.

If you’re using a migration to add a column, and specifically want it to be non-null, you’ll need a default value. My first approach was to do a three-step migration, adding the column as nullable, then filling the default value on all rows, and then setting the column to be non-null, but that didn’t feel right. Eventually, though, I figured out how to express a DEFAULT constraint in Fluent:

let defaultValueConstraint = SQLColumnConstraintAlgorithm.default(/* your default value here */)

Then, in your actual schema builder call:

.field("column_name", /* your type */, .sql(defaultValueConstraint), .required)

Note that SQLColumnConstraintAlgorithm isn’t available from the Fluent module, you’ll need to import SQLKit first.

And here, a full worked example:

import Vapor
import Fluent
import SQLKit

struct DemoMigration: Migration {
    func prepare(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
        let defaultValueConstraint = SQLColumnConstraintAlgorithm.default(false)
        return database.schema(DemoModel.schema)
            .field(DemoModel.FieldKeys.hasBeenTouched, .bool, .sql(defaultValueConstraint), .required)
            .update()
    }
    
    func revert(on database: Database) -> EventLoopFuture<Void> {
        database.schema(DemoModel.schema)
            .deleteField(DemoModel.FieldKeys.hasBeenTouched)
            .update()
    }
}

(For context, I’m in the habit of having a static var schema: String { "demo_model" } and a struct FieldKeys { static var hasBeenTouched: FieldKey { "has_been_touched" } } within each of my Fluent models – it keeps everything nice and organized, and avoids having stringly-typed issues all over the place.)

Tags fluent, ORM, SQL, swift, vapor

Review

“The Last Thing He Wanted”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-03-06
No Comments on “The Last Thing He Wanted”

Joan Didion

This book took a while to really capture my attention, in terms of time. In terms of how far into the book it took, I suspect it was about the usual amount of time it takes a book to grab me. The distinction being, usually I read books like I’ve got a grudge, like I’m trying to see how fast I can cram all these words into my brain. Not so, with this one — I’d read a chapter or two, and put it down. Sometimes for a couple minutes, so I could sit and process a bit, and then pick it up and continue; other times, it’d be a day or two before I tried again.

All in all, this isn’t the kind of book I tend to go for. It feels much more Literary than my default — which is largely the writing style, but something about the paper and the typesetting makes it feel like the kind of book I’d read for English class in high school, filling it with notes and highlights and a ridiculous amount of sticky notes.

By the end, it feels… semi-coherent. Which, by then, you’ve grown used to, because at the beginning it’s entirely incoherent. The writing style is “first draft of a book by somebody who got a doctorate on a specific week of history and has no grasp of the concept of expert blind spot.”

At the end, though, I liked the book. Apparently it’s been developed into a Netflix film, the cover tells me; I may watch it, because I can’t imagine the film adaptation at all feeling like the book.

In writing this, I can also tell just how much Didion’s writing style has influenced mine, at least at the moment. Consider this a cheap knock-off of a demo. And then go read the real thing, instead.

Tags cold war, fiction, Joan Didion

Playlist

Playlist of the Month: February 2021

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-03-01
No Comments on Playlist of the Month: February 2021

I’ve had a very eventful month, which combined with this being the shortest month, has made the whole thing feel like a whirlwind.

Cologne – Haux on Something to Remember – EP

Angel – H. Kenneth on Angel – Single

Somewhere (feat. Octavian) – The Blaze on Somewhere (feat. Octavian) – Single

Slowly – ODIE on Slowly – Single

How It Was – Yoste on A Few Brief Moments – EP

Call Him – Noah Cunane on Call Him – Single

The Dark – SYML on The Dark – Single

Come On – Will Young on Echoes

We’ll Be Alright – Yoste on A Few Brief Moments – EP

DON’T TELL THE BOYS – Petey on Checkin’ Up on Buds – EP

Spaces – Jaymes Young on Spaces – Single

FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE – Zack Villere on FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE

Almost Heaven – Isak Danielson on Almost Heaven – Single

Get My Fix – Adam Oh on Get My Fix – Single

Apple Juice – Dan D’Lion & Feder on Apple Juice – Single

Anticipation – Steve Benjamins on Anticipation – Single

New Air – Richard Walters on New Air – Single

Young & Sad – Tom Boy on Young & Sad – Single

Guillotine – Mansionair & NoMBe on Guillotine – Single

Nuke the Moon – Epic Mountain on Nuke the Moon – Single

Falling Fire – Forester on A Range of Light

TRUE – SYML on TRUE – Single

One Last, Last Time – Armen Paul on One Last, Last Time – Single

Crash Into Me – Petey on Crash Into Me – Single

Lost – bülow on Lost – Single

The Light – Richard Walters on The Light – Single

Cold Mine – Fil Bo Riva on Cold Mine – Single

Parachute (Piano Sessions) – Seafret on Parachute (Piano Sessions) – Single

2021 – Lauv on 2021 – Single

Killer Queen – Fil Bo Riva on If You’re Right, It’s Alright – EP

Moon River – Au/Ra on Moon River – Single

A Rapture Coming – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light

How True Is Your Love (Acoustic) – Hannah Grace, Joshua Keogh & Amber Run on How True Is Your Love (Acoustic) – Single

SHE – Winona Oak on SHE – EP

miss u tonight (feat. Edwin Raphael) – it’s matt on miss u tonight (feat. Edwin Raphael) – Single

SIMPLE LIFE – Jake Miller on SIMPLE LIFE – Single

Night Drives – Devan on Night Drives – EP

THE END – Alesso & Charlotte Lawrence on THE END – Single

None Too Deep – Atlas in Motion & Sofia Caterina on None Too Deep – Single

dramatic – Cat & Calmell on dramatic – Single

I Took a Pill in Ibiza – Mike Posner on At Night, Alone.

Winter Rain – Winona Oak on Winter Rain – Single

Lo Vas A Olvidar – Billie Eilish & ROSALÍA on Lo Vas A Olvidar – Single

Cold Sets In – World’s First Cinema on Cold Sets In – Single

Drowning – Armen Paul on Drowning – Single

Time to Sink – Edwin Raphael on Time to Sink – Single

Arcade – Duncan Laurence on Arcade – Single¹

pink party – Isaac Dunbar on pink party – Single

In the End (feat. Fleurie) [Mellen Gi Remix] – Tommee Profitt on In the End – Single

Stronger (feat. Kesha) – Sam Feldt on Stronger (feat. Kesha) – Single

Throw Me a Line – HAEVN on Throw Me a Line – Single

5AM – Amber Run on 5AM (Deluxe) WEB

Kill V. Maim – Grimes on Art Angels

Blinding Lights – The Weeknd on Blinding Lights – Single

Barrio – Mahmood on Barrio – Single

Face My Fears – Isak Danielson on Face My Fears – Single

Unconfident – Spencer William on Unconfident – Single

You Don’t Feel Like Home – Jack in Water on You Don’t Feel Like Home – Single

I’m Worried About You – Addict., REWiND & Achex on I’m Worried About You – Single²

STAY CLOSE – SYML on STAY CLOSE – Single

Red Run Cold – World’s First Cinema on Red Run Cold – Single³

Inuyasha – Mahmood on Inuyasha – Single

Breakout – Sloane & Josh Jacobson on Breakout – Single

twentyfive – Yoste on twentyfive – Single

Broken – Star Seed & Meggie York on Broken – Single

I Took a Pill in Ibiza (Seeb Remix) – Mike Posner on At Night, Alone.

Technologic – Daft Punk on Human After All⁴

Derezzed – Daft Punk on Tron: Legacy (Amazon MP3 Exclusive Version)

Alejandro – Lady Gaga on The Fame Monster (Deluxe Edition)

Dandelion – Galantis & JVKE on Dandelion – Single

Mold – Jónsi on Mold – Single

Amends – Odette on Herald

Daisy – Ashnikko on DEMIDEVIL⁵

Boy on the Moon – GROUNDSTROEM on Boy on the Moon – EP

ilomilo (Live From the Film – Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry) – Billie Eilish on ilomilo (Live From the Film – Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry) – Single⁶

cheers – blackbear & Wiz Khalifa on cheers – Single

Loves You Like I Couldn’t Do – Duncan Laurence on Small Town Boy⁷

High Beams (feat. slowthai) – Flume & HWLS on Hi This Is Flume (Mixtape)

Genuinely shocked to realize this is first appearing in this list; feels like it’s been around for longer than that. I absolutely love this song, for the record. Also, its wikipedia page is great – there’s a whole section of music theory nerdery. ↩
Angel has been in my lists since July of 2019, and I’m Worried About You feels like a strong contender to take its place. ↩
This is one of those songs that feels a little different every time I listen to it. The other day I listened to it with headphones in and the volume up high for the first time, and there was a whole other bass line that I hadn’t noticed before. I love stuff like that. ↩
28 years. Dang. ↩
Between Amends and Daisy we’re thoroughly over-quota on upsetting album art. ↩
I haven’t watched the documentary yet, but it’s on my list. ↩
In the past few months, Apple got rid of their “search Apple Music” tool and replaced it with “search All The Apple Stores.” Which is, usually, annoying, because the search isn’t paginated and only returns so many results, so occasionally finding a song is very difficult because the song doesn’t make it into the results ahead of a bunch of TV shows or whatever. This time, I had to keep trying different search terms, because I kept getting bodice-rippers from the iBook Store. ↩

Review

“The Counterfeit Viscount”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-02-27
No Comments on “The Counterfeit Viscount”

Ginn Hale

I don’t think I read the word ‘viscount’ a single time in this book without thinking of Enola Holmes, but that was a fun movie, and this was a fun book, so it all worked out okay.

Like the last book of Hale’s that I read, there’s a great deal of fun worldbuilding going on in a short read. Another alternate history thing, in an entirely different direction, and once again it provides a fun backdrop for a simple enough story.

Admittedly, the mystery itself is a bit convoluted, but it feels like a backdrop for the romance angle, so it can get away with it.

It’s a short read, so I think this short review will suffice. It’s a fun little story, with a silly little romantic plot, and sometimes that’s what you need. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, give it a read.

Tags fantasy, Ginn Hale

Review

“Floodtide”

Heather Rose Jones

The introduction to this book was familiar enough that I did a quick search and found out I’ve read another book in this universe.¹ I may go back and reread that one now, in fact, because I think that “Floodtide” did a better job of introducing the system of magic in a way that makes sense to my brain.

It’s also, largely, a much more human-scale story. The protagonist isn’t changing the world, she’s just trying to get through life, finding a little bit of happiness along the way. Sure, she has friends changing the world, living a grand, romantic life, and she’s determined to help them do that as best she can, but she’s still… a regular person. Sometimes, it’s nice to read things like that — it’s what got me watching Agents of SHIELD back when it first aired, after all.²

It reminds me, a little, of the idea of a space opera. There’s all sorts of large-scale things happening in the backdrop, but the actual core of the story is about the characters and how they’re doing, why they make the choices they do, that sort of thing.

I’m not certain how well I’m selling this book, but I did quite like it. Give it a go.

That was more than three years ago, now? Somehow, in my head, none of my ongoing projects have actually been ongoing that long, and yet, here I am, several years into writing little book reviews. ↩
And, y’know, once Agents started being about saving the whole world instead of just, y’know, regular people trying to exist in a world with superheroes, I gave up on it. ↩

Tags fantasy, fiction, Heather Rose Jones, lgbtq

Review

“The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-02-13
No Comments on “The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter”

Theodora Goss

This book reminded me of the 2017 remake of The Mummy. Which, I must admit, sounds like an insult, but hear me out: this book is what that movie wanted to be.

The premise is fairly simple: what happened to Dr. Jekyll’s family? (And, further, what happened to any of the background characters in any of the popular novels of the time?)

And from that question, Goss made a marvelously interesting story. She’s establishing a shared universe for a lot of these stories, pulling together the literary zeitgeist of the whole period into a single interlinked whole, in a delightful way.

Beyond that, the actual writing style is very well done. There’s a main protagonist, and the story is mostly told from her viewpoint, but there are interjections from the other characters, and you learn fairly quickly on that, though she’s the protagonist, she’s not actually the one wring — just giving the occasional editorial comment. It reads like the, oh, third draft of a book, where you can still see all the margin notes thrown in by the various people reading through and remarking on their own perspective of the events in the book.

Very early on, this disorganized style is used for what I think is the most interesting piece of foreshadowing I’ve read in quite a while — one of the more impatient characters leads in with “no, no, you should start in medias res, like this” and suddenly we’ve skipped forward several chapters, to a very exciting scene, for something like half a paragraph, before we’re pulled back to where we were with “now hold on, they won’t know what’s going on if we jump right to there!” It is, frankly, delightful.

I very much enjoyed this book — as evidenced by my reading it in a single sitting — and highly recommend it. Give it a go, and, if you need me, I’ll be adding the sequels to my wish list.

Tags fantasy, fiction, Sherlock Holmes, Theodora Goss

Review

“The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-02-06
No Comments on “The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper”

AJ Fitzwater

I very nearly gave up on this book halfway through, the point of putting it down and not picking it back up again until a couple months had passed. I’m glad I gave it that second chance, though, because once I was over that hump, I quite enjoyed it.

That midpoint was where the amount of ‘fantasy’ in this fantasy novel jumped up by a lot. Because, yes, it’s a book about a capybara pirate, so of course the whole thing is a fantasy novel.¹ But where it nearly lost me was in changing from “here’s a bunch of tropes that I’m using to make some characters I like” to setting up a whole new mythology unlike any I’ve seen before. And if I’d given up, that would’ve been a shame, because this new mythos is downright beautiful. I can’t honestly say that I follow every part of what’s going on, but I also can’t really say that I mind, because, again: beautiful.

I’m trying very hard not to spoil anything, because it all ties together so well. Suffice it to say that if you aren’t invested by the end of the story where Agnes makes her first appearance, you have my permission to give up on the remainder of the book.

Hopefully that won’t happen, though. Give it a try.

You could also make it science fiction, assuming that there’s been an uplift and possibly some sort of apocalypse in the interim, but that’s pushing so close to the “sufficiently advanced technology” line that it may as well be a fantasy novel at that point. ↩

Tags AJ Fitzwater, fantasy, pirates

Playlist

Playlist of the Month: January 2021

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-02-01
No Comments on Playlist of the Month: January 2021

Hey, so, it’s been a wild month. That’s all I’ve got.

Cologne – Haux on Something to Remember – EP¹

Angel – H. Kenneth on Angel – Single

Somewhere (feat. Octavian) – The Blaze on Somewhere (feat. Octavian) – Single

Slowly – ODIE on Slowly – Single

How It Was – Yoste on A Few Brief Moments – EP

Call Him – Noah Cunane on Call Him – Single

The Dark – SYML on The Dark – Single

Come On – Will Young on Echoes

epiphany – Taylor Swift on folklore (deluxe version)

We’ll Be Alright – Yoste on A Few Brief Moments – EP

DON’T TELL THE BOYS – Petey on Checkin’ Up on Buds – EP

Spaces – Jaymes Young on Spaces – Single

Remède – Visceral on Remède – Single

FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE – Zack Villere on FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE²

Almost Heaven – Isak Danielson on Almost Heaven – Single

Demasiadas Mujeres – C. Tangana on Demasiadas Mujeres – Single

Get My Fix – Adam Oh on Get My Fix – Single

Apple Juice – Dan D’Lion & Feder on Apple Juice – Single

Save Tonight – Eagle-Eye Cherry on Desireless

Where the Poison Is – FINNEAS on Where the Poison Is – Single

Anticipation – Steve Benjamins on Anticipation – Single

New Air – Richard Walters on New Air – Single

Young & Sad – Tom Boy on Young & Sad – Single

The Middle of July – Imaginary Future on The Middle of July – Single

Guillotine – Mansionair & NoMBe on Guillotine – Single³

With You – Harrison Storm on Be Slow – EP

evermore (feat. Bon Iver) – Taylor Swift on evermore

We All Fall In Love Sometimes – Coldplay on Revamp: The Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin

1+1 2+2 – Teflon Sega on 1+1 2+2 – Single

Nuke the Moon – Epic Mountain on Nuke the Moon – Single⁴

Under the Bleachers – TEME on Under the Bleachers – Single

Roller Coaster – Mako on Fable

Falling Fire – Forester on A Range of Light⁵

TRUE – SYML on TRUE – Single

I Know I’ll Find It – APRE on Always In My Head

One Last, Last Time – Armen Paul on One Last, Last Time – Single

A Better Time – Andrey Azizov & Tailor on Before It’s All Over – EP

Crash Into Me – Petey on Crash Into Me – Single

Lost – bülow on Lost – Single

The Light – Richard Walters on The Light – Single

How Could You Disappear? – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light

Pays imaginaire – Polo & Pan on Caravelle⁶

Cold Mine – Fil Bo Riva on Cold Mine – Single

Hear It in Your Voice – Quinn Lewis on Everyone but Me

Parachute (Piano Sessions) – Seafret on Parachute (Piano Sessions) – Single

2021 – Lauv on 2021 – Single

Isometric (feat. TruePilot) – Atlas in Motion on Isometric (feat. TruePilot) – Single

Loverboy – Mattis on Loverboy – Single

Silhouette – Aquilo on Silhouettes

Killer Queen – Fil Bo Riva on If You’re Right, It’s Alright – EP

Lose You Now – Lindsey Stirling & Mako on Lose You Now – Single

Moon River – Au/Ra on Moon River – Single

TORN UP! – Adam Oh on SEVERANCE

For Good, Forever – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light

Animals – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light

Stranger – Blanks on Stranger – Single

Above All Else, Be Kind – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light

END OF THE RIDE – Grey on DARK – EP

Teenage Kicks – Kodaline on One Day at a Time (Deluxe)

A Rapture Coming – AJIMAL on As It Grows Dark / Light⁷

What I Thought You Knew – Teflon Sega on What I Thought You Knew – Single

How True Is Your Love (Acoustic) – Hannah Grace, Joshua Keogh & Amber Run on How True Is Your Love (Acoustic) – Single

Exes – Loote on Exes – Single

SHE – Winona Oak on SHE – EP⁸

miss u tonight (feat. Edwin Raphael) – it’s matt on miss u tonight (feat. Edwin Raphael) – Single

SIMPLE LIFE – Jake Miller on SIMPLE LIFE – Single

Night Drives – Devan on Night Drives – EP⁹

THE END – Alesso & Charlotte Lawrence on THE END – Single

None Too Deep – Atlas in Motion & Sofia Caterina on None Too Deep – Single

dramatic – Cat & Calmell on dramatic – Single¹⁰

I Took a Pill in Ibiza – Mike Posner on At Night, Alone.

I love Music’s “Show in Playlist” feature, because combined with my monthly playlist system, it means I can see that Cologne has been in my monthly playlist, uninterrupted, since December 2018. Impressive. ↩
I’m still not a fan of this type of intro, but this one has grown on me a bit. ↩
“Antoinette/Sweet Marie” is such a great line. ↩
I found out that the soundtracks to the wonderful Kurzgesagt videos are available for streaming, and boy is that a delight. ↩
Good for singing along to, if I do say so myself. ↩
“Debussy, but make it dance!” – my friend who sent this to me. Her taste in music is impeccable. ↩
You’re gonna want to crank the volume for this one. ↩
This has the same “might be about her stealing your man, might be wishing she’d steal you” energy as Jolene. ↩
This song really captures the feeling of driving at night, in the best of ways. ↩
Caught myself dancing along to this as I was doing this write-up. ↩

Review

“What If?”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-01-30
1 Comment on “What If?”

Randall Munroe

A magnitude 15 earthquake would involve the release of almost 10³² joules of energy, which is roughly the gravitational binding energy of the Earth. To put it another way, the Death Star caused a magnitude 15 earthquake on Alderaan.

This is a fun book to recommend, because unlike most books, there’s a demo available online. Go read that, and if you like it, the book contains more. It also has a very literal subtitle: “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions.”

Munroe has had a fascinating career to date, and I remain an avid fan of his webcomic. It was definitely a formative influence on the nerdier side of my sense of humor,¹ and continues to make me laugh an average of slightly more than three times a week.²

This is a fairly good book for reading in small chunks – each ‘chapter’ is only a few pages long, and there’s no need to read them in any specific order.

All in all, it’s a fun read, and I definitely recommend it.

And, in writing that, I’m having fun imagining his reaction to reading that. ↩
Three new comics a week, and the average is above that because sometimes I wind up hitting the ‘random’ button a few times and laughing again. ↩

Tags nonfiction, popular science, Randall Munroe

Review

“You Suck at Cooking”

(Unknown Author)¹

Seafood is a marketing term that was invented to convince people that ocean creatures are edible, rather than the stuff nightmares are made of.

This is, I think, the best cookbook I’ve ever read. Which, admittedly, doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but I’ve read a frankly alarming number of cookbooks.² So trust me when I say that this one is well worth the read. And, indeed, is worth actually reading straight through — though, aside from the introductory chapter, you can use it in the more conventional cookbook manner, and flip through the section you’re interested in at any moment.

Because, here’s the thing: not only is it funny — and of course it was going to be funny, it’s by You Suck at Cooking — it’s also smart. Smart, and clever, and… honest. It’s a masterwork of Being A Millennial, is what it is.

It is also, genuinely, an excellent introduction to cooking. I grew up cooking, so the kitchen holds no fear for me.³ In that regard, I’m not the target demographic of this book. The core audience here are the people who didn’t grow up being taught to cook, the people who might want to figure it out but are facing down a pile of unknown unknowns.⁴

So, if you’re looking for something lighthearted and fun, or if you don’t know anything about cooking and want a good starting point that’ll remind you you can do this, or you’re looking for some interesting new recipes to try — because there are some of those in there, too! — then I highly recommend this book. Check it out.

I mean, there’s probably enough information about the guy online now that you could figure out who he is, but hey. Don’t be creepy. ↩
Listen, my family has a cookbook-buying problem, and at a certain point we needed to downsize the collection. But we couldn’t just give them away, we had to read them first, and maybe copy down our favorite recipes… ↩
Well, unless you own a mandolin, in which case, I fear the mandolin, as should you. ↩
To take a bit of a tangent, it reminds me of the general reaction to Antoni on the first season of Netflix’s Queer Eye. “Some professional chef, all he taught them was to make guacamole? He’s just there to be eye candy.”
Well, no, Internet Strawman. What, is he gonna take somebody from “only thing in their fridge is a bottle of ketchup” to making a five-course meal in a week? No. He’s going to start with something basic to take away the “oh god I don’t know what I’m doing,” and (I assume) give them some tips on how to continue learning. ↩

Tags cookbook, cooking, You Suck at Cooking

Review

“What Einstein Told His Cook”

Post author By Grey
Post date 2021-01-16
No Comments on “What Einstein Told His Cook”

Robert L Wolke

In my mind, the term for this genre is “popular science.” Or, possibly, “pop science.” (In this case, that’s also a pun on the subject.) Either way, it feels like a fun piece of beach reading – worth the time to read, which differentiates it from an airplane read,¹ but not so heavy that you feel like you should be taking notes or pausing to take time to process.

For the most part, this book stands up pretty well, and the cover is minimal enough that the whole thing feels quite modern. Admittedly, it loses some of this with the occasional dated pop culture reference, and the final chapter, discussing the latest technologies, noticeably lags as a result of being, dear lord, almost two decades out of date.²

Still, though, it’s not like chemistry changes all that rapidly, and a lot of the explanations of how things work were quite neat. Give it a read.

For my own ‘pop science’ injection: despite their pressurized interiors, the amount of oxygen in the cabin of a plane is lower than what your brain is used to, so as the flight goes on, you get a little oxygen-deprived, leaving your thoughts nice and fuzzy. There’s a reason Clive Cussler books are the ideal airplane books – they’re incredibly formulaic, so there’s less cognitive load. ↩
There’s a very serious discussion of the differences between mechanical and digital cooking thermometers, which is downright comical in the age of RFID-tagged disposable cups. ↩

Tags cooking, nonfiction, popular science, Robert L Wolke

Review

“Becoming Steve Jobs”

Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli

Moving backwards, there were three things about this book that really captured my attention.

Lastly, the discussion of what Steve Jobs was like when he wasn’t being… what everyone thinks of when they think of Steve Jobs. The authors reiterate, many times, that the image of Jobs as alternating between ‘a genius’ and ‘an asshole’ was formed when he was very young, skyrocketing to fame at the helm of Apple. Later in life, he’d softened, become better able to have constructive discussions with people instead of just tearing into them – but, to the detriment of his public image, he’d also gotten very good at keeping out of the public eye when he wasn’t being Steve Jobs On Stage. Nobody was really afforded the chance to publicize that newer version of Steve Jobs.

Secondly, I’d never realized how integral to Pixar he was. At most, I knew he’d been involved in the company, led it for a while at some point; I hadn’t realized that he was the owner, one of the original people who built the company out of an immense talent pool bought wholesale from LucasArts. My mental timeline of Steve Jobs, betraying my tech industry bias, went Apple-NeXT-Apple. Pixar was an immense thing to miss out on, and realizing how much he’d shaped both Pixar and, eventually, Disney has me even more respecting the impact Jobs has had on our society.

And firstly, I found myself, over and over, contemplating the scale of technological change that happened within the lifetime of the company he and Wozniak founded. I think about these comparisons a lot, so here’s some of my favorites:

A single AirPod has more onboard processing power than any given Apollo launch.
Every Apple Watch, even the glacially slow Series 0, has had more processing power than a Cray-2.¹
You can fit the entirety of the original version of MS-DOS in the L1 cache of a single core of a modern i9.²
I’d have to do a lot more math than I feel like doing to confirm this, but it’s not unreasonable to say that the iPad Pro I’m writing this on probably packs more computing power than every Apple II ever sold, combined.

And, even more than all those “ooh, it can do lots of math even faster” comparisons, the thing that kept striking me – reading this, as I was, on an iPad Pro – was just the staggering technological capacity of everything I do with this device. It’s a multitouch touch screen, with a battery of onboard radios, enough storage space for every book ever written; it’s got a lovely keyboard and stylus, both of which attach using only magnets. This device is a miracle of modern technology, and I’ve gotten very used to it. Reading about the Altair 8800, with its toggle switches and LEDs, gave me just enough decontextualization to look at this magical slab of glass and think, wow. Wow.

After reading this book, I think that sort of moment is something Steve Jobs would’ve loved to see.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book, and I highly recommend it. It was nice to see a more balanced look into Jobs’ life, a more human side of the man who so indelibly shaped the modern world. Give it a read.

Surprisingly difficult to validate this comparison to my own satisfaction – the Cray-2 was in the era of “here’s how many FLOPS this baby can do,” but these days it’s just “what’s the GeekBench score?” and there’s no direct comparison between the two. ↩
I couldn’t find the actual size-on-disk of the original MS-DOS release, but based on the limitations of the file system, I can reasonably assume it’d fit. ↩

Tags Apple, biography, Brent Schlender, NeXT, nonfiction, pixar, Rick Tetzeli, Steve Jobs