Corey Snipes

One this year's projects has been moving the (eight) websites I shepherd for various projects and community organizations from Wordpress to static HTML. I tried a bunch and settled on Hugo and Publii.  I used Hugo for several simple sites. It's good for some things but it's really only suitable for coders and the image handling is a headache.  It's a fine choice for sites that are mostly text, with one or more technical site managers.  It's a good one…

Every time I set up a new laptop for myself or an employee, I go through a brief "Windows or Linux?" tradeoff analysis. It's never an easy choice. All of our development work is platform-independent, using broadly available open-source tools like java, node, postgresql, QGIS. Everything that's deployed to a server is Linux (usually Ubunutu). On the other hand, the US business world runs almost exclusively on Microsoft. For compatibility sake, Windows is my daily driver so that I can…

I really appreciate Market Wagon for being a simple, great (non-enshittified) platform that connects midwest urbanites like me to local family farms. This week we ordered naturally raised ground beef and pork shoulder, local honey, microgreens, fresh salsa, apple cider donuts, and more. Everything will be delivered to our porch on Thursday. The prices are reasonable for locally-grown and produced foods. There is a reasonable flat-rate delivery fee added to the order, and we always tip the driver. Market Wagon…

There's a common pattern underpinning technology hype cycles, that is basically a bunch of large companies saying "New Shiny Thing will reduce our costs and improve customer experience!" People get very excited about some new and compelling technology then everybody scrambles to figure out how to align it with their business. At the moment, it's "AI" or more specifically a small subset of Artificial Intelligence called Large Language Models (LLMs) which do a very good job of sounding like people…

My father was not a computer guy, but he was pretty good with machines. When he was in his early 70s, he spent some time learning how to use my mom's Mac so that he could write his memoirs. My mother helped a lot with editing. He printed and put them in a simple report binder, which I found very old-fashioned at the time. At some point the files from that computer were lost, but I managed to keep the…

I really enjoyed the dark, meditative Icelandic mystery/thriller series "Katla". It's really well crafted, beautiful, and kept me guessing throughout. It's based in (and uses footage from) the real town of Vík, Iceland. 8 episodes on Netflix. At some point I stumbled over a Netflix suggested list of "European TV Shows" all of which looked great, but no amount of scrolling Netflix menus has brought that list back to me. Regardless, that list is what brought the show to my…

48 years ago this evening (November 10, 1975), a November storm claimed the ore hauler Edmund Fitzgerald and all 29 of her crew on Lake Superior. The weather was terrible, even for strong ships and experienced sailors. Sustained wind at 58 knots, gusts to 70, and sustained waves of 18-25 feet. The story of that ship, and those who tried to help, is very moving. Most of the people who have heard the story came to it through Gordon Lightfoot.

This is one of my father's memoirs. He learned to use my mother's computer so he could write and print them for us. These are entries from his Navy diary during his second Pacific tour in WWII. For the full story and links to all memoirs, see this page. TOUR 2, ABOARD U.S.S. COWPENS APR. 20, 1945 - SQUADRON BOARDED U.S.S. GARDINERS BAY, A SEAPLANE TENDER, TO COMMENCE ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL TOUR OF DUTY, I HOPE. DEPARTED SAN DIEGO. APR. 21…