Monday 2024-01-29
- Took a bit of a deep dive today figuring out if and how we could implement our homegrown SciPy-heavy data ecosystem on Azure and Power BI. Ignoring the daunting (but predictable) costs, was quite impressed by MS Fabric. Read the following two blog posts for a good introduction, cast as a comparison between Fabric and the “old” Azure Synapse.
- Because I wanted to store and sometimes highlight bunches of web pages on above-mentioned topic, decided to use the OneNote webclipper to push to work’s cloud
- article extraction works quite well, and you can highlight, but there’s no nice way to attach a note / comment to that highlight
- omnivore sometimes struggles with extracting the article from a busy webpage, but attaching comments to highlights is a first class feature
Tuesday 2024-01-30
- Started with trying to write up Fabric notes in word doc, but did not get far. I do miss Dropbox Paper for things like this. Still, I should be able to get somewhere with just a DOCX and all of the screenshots I’ve been making.
- Defining high-level sprint goals worked much more nicely than I expected!
- Managed to get some sqlite3 data imported via Fabric Notebook into OneLake. Great feeling that it just works!
Wednesday 2024-01-31
- Started run at about 7:30 in Land en Zeezicht after dropping off GOU#3
- Coffee with ex-colleague J at Deluxe Coffeeworks in Dorp Street Stellenboch. Grateful for the catch-up, and also the exceptional coffee.
- llava 1.6 (VLM) release post: https://llava-vl.github.io/blog/2024-01-30-llava-1-6/
- Through reactflow, discovered ELK and elkjs for the layout of graphs! Play around with it here: https://rtsys.informatik.uni-kiel.de/elklive/
- Renewed vehicle license via https://online.natis.gov.za/ and not via City of Cape Town eServices as we usually do, because heard from colleague Z that natis delivers via courier and not via the South African Postal Service, which does not really function anymore thanks to the current government, and either takes months to deliver the licence or sometimes just loses track of it.
Thursday 2024-02-01
- Breakfast with almost lifetime friend CFS
- Did some work before he arrived, but got SUPER frustrated with DSTV because I was checking in on all my TODOs as I transferred them to the new month file and thus discovered that they had still not changed my subscription (this is after months of them confirming the change and not following through), and so after 10 years of their most expensive subscription I have now terminated our relationship.
- Did you know: DSTV can be found in the dictionary under “galaxy-level grudge purchase”?
I have been trying to downgrade @DStv premium to compact plus since April 2023. Numerous times website confirmed my downgrade, but then returns to premium and bills me. In January, consultant confirmed my downgrade in January. Guess what? website says Premium! Cancelling @DStv
— @cpbotha@emacs.ch (@cvoxel) February 1, 2024
Friday 2024-02-02
- Unexpectedly enjoyable little run at 7:27 in Land en Zeezicht (Beaumont school district), just after dropping off GOU#3, and just before the dailry heatwave hit. On Reservoir Road, close to the end of my route, I looked up at the beautiful clouds and experienced a feeling of what I can only describe as inside-is-outside connected bliss.
- Made 40 seconds recording of my talking head in English, translated it to Spanish using HeyGen. I used the resultant video for a short GenAI update at work. Really funny but also a bit scary to see my mouth (in my face) talking Spanish in such convincing fashion.
Saturday 2024-02-03
- New licence, requested on Wednesday, delivered into my hands!
- Against all the odds, and also in an utterly surprising (to me) move, four of us (3 NL, 1 ZA) have Lowlands 2024 tickets. I was not planning to go this year, but friend MG got me back in the programme with a few well-placed Signal messages, casually mentioning that Skrillex was on the line-up (noooooo), and as if that was not enough, Fred Again and Soulwax too (unable…to….resist). The crew will not be as complete as last year, which was why I was planning to sit on the bench this year, but life is short and I miss my friends.
- I say against all the odds, because all 60000+ tickets were sold out in 20 minutes. We were in the digital queue together with 130000 other customers (each customer can buy up to 8 tickets!), but we eventually got the message that all tickets had been sold out, indeed after about 20 minutes. We did what many folks apparently do not: We just kept on trying! Looks like the odd ticket, probably from a failed payment, made its way back to the queue, and we managed to buy 1+2+1 by just not giving up.
- Now I am equal parts ecstatic and daunted.
Sunday 2024-02-04
- 13km run in the heat. Was planning for shorter, but run was much more fun than I expected, just super hot man.
- Through an email from familysearch.org, saw that someone had uploaded scans of the “Doop register NG Kerk Worcester” all the way outta 1881, through which I could confirm some of my earlier findings (after a long search) re my great-grandfather Pieter Barend Francois, born in 1881, namely that his dad was Daniël Stephanus Botha born born 1848. Thanks familysearch and thanks Church!
- You might remember that myheritage was an important part of how I learned that I’m actually an Appel straight outta Dutchieland (my home away from home) and not a real Botha. See WHV #237.
- However, I don’t want to renew my myheritage.com sub in February. In spite of their 20% discount offer, it’s really quite expensive if it’s just hosting my data. It was definitely worth it when I was still actively trying to track down various ancestors.
- Now I have to start looking for alternative tools to maintain our family tree. I know about gramps, but tonight I discovered ancestris, which works natively with GEDCOM (not just import and export).
- Absolutely sublime dinner outside with my whole family. Infinitely grateful.