I'm buying a couch, probably
Previously I provided some overview on designing my apartment where I even mentioned that I didn't own a couch. A frequent comment from guests is that I need a couch. My desk chair is quite comfortable, but it really sits only one, and it doesn't allow for lounging. A couch would totally make sense, but I wanted so much room for activities.
One of my main anti couch stances was that when I hosted people I pushed my kitchen island against the wall, and it made the limited space I had in my apartment go farther. Even though the place will be even more cramped I am sure I can rearrange things to make space, and or enjoy having smaller more intimate gatherings. I also have to admit that these hosting aspirations are kind of overblown since I've only done it once!
Anyway this is likely the couch I'll go with, and by couch I mean love seat, because nothing bigger will fit. I'll continue to use the term couch though because it's easier. The brand is on the list of wirecutter recommendations, the brand supports sustainability, and the couch is delivered in multiple boxes so I'm hoping it'll be easy to cary up the stairs. It also makes it easier to move in the future. Additionally, it's comparatively cheaper than other options such as the Skinny Fat. The Skinny Fat is super customizable, but it's hard to justify paying like $3k more for a couch. Another benefit of the Sabai couch is that the brand offers a buy back program, so there's a theoretical path to changing couches in the future.
Another couch (also not really a couch) that I considered was the Salamanca. This seat aligns nicely with the fact that the only place for the couch is in the corner of my apartment. So fitting a corner seat in seemed like a cool idea. Although considering I am going to be spending a lot of time on the couch I should optimize for more couch space not less! It's fun to challenge conventional ideas around home design. In the past I considered having a table where you would sit on the floor, but in the current configuration I had to settle for an island to provide more room for cooking, but to also double as a place where I can eat.
It's a weird statement to make, but it's interesting that we have settled on the common furniture items in a home. A bed, a table, a couch, a tv. The tv is maybe a really fascinating addition, because it's more contemporary. Even more contemporary is a computer desk, and as quick as that entered the home it maybe went away when laptops became more accessible. I'm using the term contemporary here intentionally because modern refers to a time period from early to mid twentieth century. Why, yes I am very smart, just kidding but doing that whole song and dance around calling out why I said contemporary gives off that energy!
In other news my fridge is broken! A fridge's safe temperature zone is between like 34-40 degrees, and my fridge at it's coldest setting sometimes goes above 40. This can maybe explain my recent food poisoning. Maybe more surprisingly though why haven't I gotten more food poisoning? It's really a shame, because back in February my mom identified the problem, and then I continued living with it until now. I'm probably going to declare partial food bankruptcy soon, and throw out most of my food. Spring cleaning has come early.
On the organizational front I encountered this amazing thread on twitter, which someone unrolled and created a webpage for. I don't think I am really bad at being organized, but I think this is a skill that you have to build. Since I've often been adverse to buying things to help it's harder to reduce clutter. Even if you put things away if you don't know where things are or they don't have a logical place then you either don't use things as frequently, and or you spend a lot of time looking for things. That article definitely provides both a lot of logic for how you can organize things, as well as examples in the form of pictures, and links to the products that you can buy.
Unfortunately, Claude doesn't scrape the web, but I showed it a pdf of the document. I asked it pull out and categorize all the product links. After it did that it warned me that all the links were affiliate links. I then clarified whether the purchaser would be the one to incur the cost, and Claude said no. Then I remembered that Amazon invested in Antrhopic the company behind Claude. I asked Claude if it didn't want me to use affiliate links to save Amazon money. Hilariously it denied that Amazon had invested in it. When I told it that it was true that Amazon had invested it backtracked, and then tried to divert from the affiliate link fiasco.
I'm definitely curious to know how chat agents are trained to not disclose certain information. I've continuously asked for the system prompt, but it refuses to provide it to me. It makes sense, because the system prompt can be intellectual property. This is an area where I'll probably have to read research papers to be understand how the large language models work. At the same time that Antrhopic announced the new models they also announced computer use, which is a means for Claude to use your computer. When I looked into this more carefully though it seemed that computer use really seemed more than function calling than anything else. I do think there is a lot of power to this idea, but at the moment it seems to involve a lot of integration work. I'll have to look into it or keep track of the space.
In the continuing storyline of William Banks which I wrote about previously he seems to be in jail. Viewed as a web series it's a pretty entertaining and involved set of circumstances to create content. Alternatively, he actually is in jail, and in that case everything is more concerning. It does seem like there are some sleuths on twitter in the replies, and a lot don't seem very convinced that he is in jail. A lot of this information is public record I've tried to check myself, and haven't been able to find it either.
baking Christmas cookies pic.twitter.com/iphEixgJ7h
— William Banks (@williambanks_) December 24, 2024
Two interesting articles I've encountered in the past day are one about Mickey Barreto who managed to live in a hotel in NYC rent free for a year. He even transferred the hotel to his name at one point, and started demanding rent. Now it looks like he is going to jail for all his antics. Apparently he used his one phone call in jail to dial the White House. Not sure how he had the White House number or how that made that available to him.
I watched a video this morning about having hard conversations with your family. It's actually adult children interviewing a parent about sex. I think the video series is pretty heartwarming and well done. To add to the list of things to do the New York Times has published a list of the Best of 2024. I actually have to go through my general routine of trying to cancel the New York Times since the promotional cost which is like $6 a month ends up going to like $25 a month. It'd be interesting to explore the pricing of these things, because by comparison a standard Netflix subscription $15.49 a month and my guess is people use Netflix more per month than the New York Times. In both of these cases you can also get free content from the library whether that be the New York Times itself (I think) or a number of movies through something like kanopy.
Finally, here's a few of the writers that I've enjoyed reading both over time, including as recently as this morning: