Revfad Blog

Author: David Faden

  • Muwekma Ohlone Garden at Monta Loma Elementary

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    David Faden
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    When I first heard about the Castro Mound in the Monta Loma neighborhood and its subsequent destruction, I was further saddened to learn that there’s no marker acknowledging it. Now there is a memorial though, in the form of a garden, the new Living Classroom Muwekma Ohlone Garden at Monta Loma Elementary. I was happy…

  • Get rid of Reels

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    David Faden
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    I suppose the real answer is to be more disciplined about using Facebook at all, but I’m disgusted with myself for wasting time on Reals when I do get drawn in. Is there a nicer and less fragile way to identify the block and get rid of it? Not sure if any of the CSS…

  • Short reviews: “A Mind at Play”, “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”, and “The Man Who Solved the Market”

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    David Faden
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    I recently read three books that are tangentially related: I’d feel comfortable recommending checking out all three; in terms of enjoyment, for me “A Mind at Play” comes first. Perhaps in terms of practical advice, the book by and about Munger should come first, the others also provide examples of how to live and how…

  • Burr medic tastes starchy

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    David Faden
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    A little over a week ago, inspired by an interesting talk on weeds at the Garden Club of Los Altos, I kept some of the burr medic (Medicago polymorpha) I pulled from a school garden and brought it home to cook. Unlike small melilot (Melilotus indicus), which I also tried recently, burr medic grows low…

  • Short review: Building Machine Learning Powered Applications

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    David Faden
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    I enjoyed Emmanuel Ameisen’s book Building Machine Learning Powered Applications. (Companion Github repo.) I believe I’ve encountered most of the ideas in it before through work, etc., but it was still helpful to see them laid out altogether. (It makes me thankful again to coworkers who shared helpful ideas previously.) I also appreciated the interviews…

  • Interview: Jordan Gilliland

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    David Faden
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    Jordan Gilliland, now a director at Coupang, and I worked together at Google across a team or two, finally together on Google Now (predecessor of Discover), where we collaborated on something that almost launched. I’ve got fond memories of those times with him, which included my first time in a Tesla and many trips to…

  • Small melilot flowers taste like snap peas

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    David Faden
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    Helping with weeding a Living Classroom garden today, we pulled up a lot of what Seek tells me is small melilot: I nabbed a few of the plants we pulled to give eating it a try: One source said the flowers are edible so I decided to start with them: I tried a few of…

  • Putting an Ohlone site on the map

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    David Faden
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    Reading the Wikipedia entry for Adobe Creek yesterday, I was surprised to see mention of an Ohlone site not too far away from us off of El Monte Road in Los Altos Hills: Evidence of a smaller settlement within Los Altos was uncovered in 1971, when an Ohlone burial ground with skeletons—one with ceremonial beads—was…

  • Putting Foothill College’s “Native Hill” on the map

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    David Faden
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    I walked to Foothill College earlier today seeking the “Native Hill” described on this California Native Plant Society page (Archive). (I actually first heard about there being a native plant garden at Foothill College via a reference in this presentation from a Girl Scout describing her planned work at the Los Altos Woodland Library garden.)…

  • Weeding at the school

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    David Faden
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    I got to do some weeding at the school’s Living Classroom garden Saturday morning, only getting rained on a little. I’d noticed some of the weeds going to seed and so hoped to avoid some of the spread. I think I pulled out around 12 species of plants, working over around 2.5 hours. In the…