Revfad Blog

Author: David Faden

  • Tim Harford’s 10 statistical commandments

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    I bought my mom a copy of Tim Harford’s “The Data Detective” and checked it out myself, meaning to re-read it in parallel with her. She didn’t get to reading it and my re-reading has lagged. It’s now overdue so I’ll miss doing a proper review at this moment; I’ll take this as a sign…

  • Creeping thistles

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    I visited my parents in Iowa last week. One thing I did was help with pulling out thistles that had been spreading throughout a couple garden beds — 89 plants one day, a couple more another day. But what kind of thistle were they? I was hoping non-native since my hope is to nudge things…

  • My second WP plugin

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    I’m starting to read “WordPress Plugin Development Cookbook – Third Edition”. The first example does nothing other than make a do nothing plugin visible in the admin page, but the second example already allowed for some fun. I’m happy with how psychedelic this turned out: I won’t add it here though. References mentioned:

  • Linehan on Mindfulness

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    I like this paragraph from Marsha Linehan‘s “Building a Life Worth Living”: Mindfulness is the practice of directing our attention to only one thing. And that one thing is the moment in which we are alive. The very moment we are in. The beauty of mindfulness is that if we look at the moment, we…

  • Gemini writes Apps Script to create doc review checklist

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    We have a Google Drive folder with documents needing review. It’s a little hard keeping track of our progress so I got some help from Gemini in creating a checklist. It worked out pretty well. I’m also happy to have a starting point for learning more about some features of Apps Script that I haven’t…

  • Calandrinia (Cistanthe grandiflora) aka Rock purslane

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    This morning I heard a kid ask their mom, “What’s that flower?”, pointing to blooms like these near the street. I have looked up the name a couple times myself but didn’t have it mind. I’m writing this now to try to cement it in my memory. Cistanthe grandiflora is native to Chile. It was…

  • Touch grass

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    Here are some of the types of grass (family Poaceae) I’m trying to grow around our yard. Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis) is my current favorite — I just like the way it looks: I’ve had pretty good luck growing it from seed. I’ve contributed a few plants grown from seed to the local school. It…

  • “C++ Brain Teasers”

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    A fun book I finished Sunday: “C++ Brain Teasers” by Anders Schau Knatten. The book site includes a few sample chapters. The acknowledgments point to https://cppquiz.org/. I enjoyed it a lot. Having lessons in bite-sized chunks in a challenge-answer format is a nice way to learn. I also appreciated the expert (but not overly long)…

  • Eating Claytonia perfoliota

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    I’ve heard for a while that Claytonia perfoliata is edible, but only got my hands on enough for a salad this last weekend. A local gardener was planning on clearing some from a bed and offered to let me share in the bounty. Thank you, Diana! Here are a few individual stems + leaves +…

  • Fourleaf manyseed?

    —

    by

    David Faden
    in

    Suddenly, I’m seeing a lot of this weed in our yard: Seek identifies it as Fourleaf Manyseed (Polycarpon tetraphyllum). (Interesting how close the common name is to the botanical one: “Carpon” is a “seed” or “fruit”, from Greek, so “Polycarpon” could be translated “many seed” and “tetraphyllum” just means “four leaves”.) It does look pretty…