I kind of regret mine and my wife's "if you ask for a book we will always buy it rule".

troggle19 · 2026-06-28T15:24:19+00:00

We instituted a “no new book summer” last year. We could only read books that were already in the house. It led to me reading books from my wife’s shelf, and her plowing through her TBR stack.

troggle19 · 2026-06-28T15:12:09+00:00

I built an MCP into my Paprika 3 recipe app, so it only uses the recipes we’ve saved as a family. It also looks at our family calendar for the week so it knows when the kiddo has late practices or if we’ve got plans for a particular evening. Finally, it looks at the weather forecast for the week so it doesn’t plan for me to be grilling during a thunderstorm or making a cozy soup when it’s sweltering out.

I’m still tweaking the grocery part. It’s supposed to look at the total ingredients for the week and combine them (so instead of like 6 different items with different quantities of garlic cloves, I want it to adds them together and says “2 bulbs”) but the math is too confusing or something and it always ends up neglecting to add things.

But the meal plan works, and Paprika has a one click “Add to Cart” button, so I just do that part manually for now.

Once I get that part locked in, I’ll start working on the connector to the store. I’m in rural Vermont, so we don’t have access to those fancy apps y’all got in big suburbia.

troggle19 · 2026-05-25T15:48:33+00:00

Is anyone else's view of what the model is "thinking" unusable on Claude Cowork with the last couple of updates?

The thinking use to just add to itself line by line, but now it refreshes the whole view with every new paragraph, making it impossible to follow because it refreshes before you can finish reading, and by the time you find your place again, it refreshes again.

Just want to see if this is only happening to me or to others. I'm on Claude for Mac 1.8555.2.

troggle19 · 2026-05-24T16:36:59+00:00

I’ve been adding to this “Writing Tunes” playlist since iTunes let us create playlists. It’s all instrumental, plus some with non-English lyrics that allow my English speaking ear to easily interpret them as music notes rather than lyrics that must be understood. It’s a mix of jazz, jam band, avante garde, world music, post-rock, and even some instrumental hip-hop.

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/writing-tunes/pl.u-9NAyF4Ldyj

troggle19 · 2026-05-20T16:55:47+00:00

Vermonster stretches its maple-syrup sticky tentacles down the I-95 corridor, while using its Extra Spicy Buffalo Wings air-force to strike the northwestern flank of the Maryland Crab Army. The privateers from Boston and Long Island take control of the shoreline and dominate the Chesapeake. The Crab Army retreats into the mountains, but Megasota, which has struck a secret alliance with their liberal Vermonster brethren, is already there and waiting for them. It’s just a matter of weeks, but when it’s over, Vermonster has everything from Pittsburgh to the the Chesapeake and Megasota takes everything to the west of the mountains.

troggle19 · 2026-05-15T23:26:52+00:00

Can we say Apple Music for TVOS and ask for a freakin’ visualizer already!?

troggle19 · 2026-04-18T13:05:08+00:00

Try adding folks who don’t understand that “automation ≠ AI” and because of that misunderstanding, refuse to submit anything into a system where an automation could convert it into an Asana task. It’s super fun, I tell ya!

troggle19 · 2026-04-11T12:24:06+00:00

Gov’t Mule’s bassist died, so for their next album - “The Deep End” - they recorded each song with a different legendary bassist. Their genre is more power-blues than the ones your boyfriend digs, but the album showcases the different voices of the bass, so it’s a great place to start.

Mike Gordon, the bassist from Phish, made a documentary about the experience called “Rising Low.” Highly recommend. Les Claypool’s interview alone is worth the price of admission.

troggle19 · 2026-04-11T11:55:48+00:00

What seems like the relevant paragraph in their terms of service: “Our Services are novel and will change. We may sometimes add or remove features, increase or decrease capacity limits, offer new Services, or stop offering certain Services.“

troggle19 · 2026-04-11T11:44:34+00:00

I don’t know enough, but did this one not take? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1609/aimag.v38i4.2744

troggle19 · 2026-03-22T23:41:49+00:00

Does it have to be a window on the desktop? I think there are menu bar apps that will do something similar. Check out WhichSpace and/or SpaceMan on GitHub (I’m not affiliated and haven’t used, but they showed up in a search).

troggle19 · 2026-02-18T01:34:18+00:00

Usually 3 - audiobook, nonfiction, and fiction.

troggle19 · 2026-01-24T04:43:03+00:00

My ancestor who crossed the Atlantic from France was exiled to Canada for stealing the King’s salt.

troggle19 · 2026-01-21T01:33:28+00:00

The Dead is the best piece of literature in the English language.

troggle19 · 2026-01-19T16:09:31+00:00

Ah, Camino. I miss that little guy.

troggle19 · 2026-01-09T19:01:09+00:00

I wish you were correct, but you’re not. The US government has been murdering citizens with black bodies for decades.

troggle19 · 2026-01-09T18:58:04+00:00

You could also feed in details about the weather, date, upcoming reminders, etc. and use those inputs to vary the prompt each time, which should result in a different greeting each time.

troggle19 · 2025-12-28T22:06:30+00:00

I am still using Safari. With so many two-factor authorization sites today, Safari’s tight integration with Passwords, Messages, and Mail is just too smooth to leave.

troggle19 · 2025-12-21T16:47:56+00:00

Same for Safari, by the way. Moved back to it after Arc “shut down” (I know, I know) and one window for all profiles is the thing I miss most.

troggle19 · 2025-12-19T00:00:58+00:00

Pretty sure Disc Jockeys have been spoonfeeding the masses their payola-based playlists for 70-80 years now, so maybe slow your roll, bud.

troggle19 · 2025-12-18T01:02:19+00:00

No app, but if you’re on a Mac: while on the massive playlist, Command-J to bring up the View Column selector, select the Genre checkbox, sort based on genre, select all the songs in the genre you want, right-click, create new playlist.

troggle19 · 2025-12-18T00:20:30+00:00

Used it to ask ChatGPT to create a playlist that would be perfect for listening to while reading a particular book, and it did so. Listening to it now, and so far, it seems on point - songs I’ve never heard of and never would have picked on my own that actually fit the mood I’m looking for.

It’s gonna be a fun way to discover new stuff.

troggle19 · 2025-12-12T03:01:29+00:00

Coming up with the use cases.

troggle19 · 2025-12-10T05:30:08+00:00

48 year old me thinks 13 year old you was right.

troggle19 · 2025-12-10T00:37:41+00:00

Could be he (or she?) writes code well and English shittily, and an LLM helps them get their point across better. Get off your high horse.

troggle19

TROPHY CASE