I’ve decided to experiment with two new tools for a little while: Aboard for bookmarking and filing interesting things (and I’m always interested in things that Paul Ford gets excited about); and Omnivore as a new read-later platform. Something about a new clean slate in each of those categories is really appealing, so I’ll see how it goes.

Vacation days are great! Today I improved RideShare, my Shiny app that makes shareable ride cards from my Peloton workouts. I had to update to accommodate the new images that the API sends, and I added a clickable history to build cards for any recent ride. I don’t like the styling of these new images quite as much – they’re not as powerful-looking cycling-specific images as the old feed provided – but I’m still really pleased with what I can build with it!

I’ve been using Quarto for just about everything I can for the past year, advocating for it enthusiastically with anybody who will listen, but today was the first time I started experimenting with combining python and R in a single Quarto document.

Look, I’m somewhat on record as not liking jupyter notebooks. I don’t like how the file format requires an interpreter, which I feel hurts readability and portability. So I’m predisposed to really like something that reduces that friction, and, wow — python in Quarto hits it.

And passing data, interactively, between R and python kernels within a single interface of a Quarto document? That’s mind blown meme territory right there. It might motivate me to learn more python in an environment I like to work, and should also be a great gateway to go the other way: The python to R pipeline! I’m envisioning some learning and tutorial work that takes advantage of both approaches, just deeply excited about what it opens up for doing data work and data people.

See more: Nicola Rennie’s post is a great overview, and I also learned from Danielle Navarro’s writeup of using reticulate.

Diablo IV on the Steam Deck is a great time.

Destiny 2 talk: I had a good time in Iron Banner games this weekend. Most of my matches were fun. I didn’t have any long losing streaks like last season, and really liked the build I settled on. Maybe next time I’ll play my other characters, but it’s all for fun now that I completed the gilded title one more time!

Sunrise in Eden, UT.

I haven’t made this dinner of spaghetti and sardines for a good long while, and last night was as good a time as any.

It was just a little chilly on the front porch with this morning’s coffee, but a lovely, quiet calm way to start my work day.

I’m so deeply disheartened at Vice’s shutting down of Waypoint. It has been such a source of insight and joy. If its strong patron-supported model of critique and community can’t survive – and let’s be clear, it’s not that it didn’t make money; it didn’t make enough money for some small group of assholes to care enough to keep it on the books – then… well, fuck capitalism, go home.

The next few weeks of podcasts are going to sad bangers.

It’s New Josh Ritter Album bedtime. Hell yeah.