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Bash is Dead

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2024-06-25. Tags: Computing Thoughts, Programming Language Development.

I'm killing off all my bash scripts because I'm fed up with its awkward syntax, questionable syntax, and general confusion. My go to replacements are python's subprocess, and Go's os/exec. Both are well documented, unreliant on hard to remember syntaxes, and integrate with general purpose languages which actually have workable list constructs.

Timelapse from the Eclipse

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2024-04-13. Tags: I Made a Thing, Photography.

I did a timelapse from the eclipse this past monday (2024-04-08).

A timelapse video from my apartment window during the eclipse

The eclipse started at 14:08pm EDT, was at "maximum eclipseyness" at 15:23, and it ended at 16:35, and I tried to get approxmately 5min before and after. I took one photo approximately every five minutes. Unfortunately, my camera decided to run out of battery for the 15:18 exposure, so that one is actually 15:12 with 15:23 overlayed at 50% transparency.

The brightness, or rather darkness shown is somewhat fake. The camera's sensitivity was set at f/4.5, 1/1000s, and ISO100, and wasn't changed for any of the timelapse exposures. Ordinarily one would adjust one of those settings to the appropriate amount of light, just as our eyeballs do. I took a photo at 15:29, calibrated to the brightness that my eyeballs saw (f/4.5, 1/100s, and ISO100, so 10x more light).

View out of my apartment at 15:29 during the eclipse, with 10x more light than shown in the timelapse
Note that if you open up the exif data from the photo, it's wrong. The clock in my camera is off by 29 min.

Embryos Aren't Children

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2024-02-28. Tags: Identity and Politics.

The republicans have really painted themselves into a corner by backing the IVF ruling in Alabama. It's logically inconsistent with their standing premise on abortion: "life begins at conception" (Personally, I believe life begins at birth, but lets accept this as a logical premise and break out some proof by contradiction).

Conception requires a womb, so an embryo which hasn't been implanted into a womb (or naturally fertilized in one or whatever) is not alive. If it is not alive, it cannot be a child, thus ruling that an embryo is a child is logically inconsistent.

First Useful Part

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2024-02-28. Tags: I Made a Thing, bicycle, 3D Print, transportation.

I've had a 3d printer for a while, and printed a few downloaded parts, but I've reached a milestone and printed my first part that I designed myself. It's a quick-release mount for an action camera on my bike.

An action camera attached to a green mount on a bike basket.

I've had the cam for a few months, and used it on a helmet mount. I found the helmet mount to be a bit cumbersome and insecure, also I felt like an idiot with a camera on my head. I thought it would be better and less conspicuous on my bike, so I'd been meaning to work up a bike mount. Anyways, a few close calls and one incident in which someone drove their car full beans through my group ride (nobody was hit, thank the gods), and I finally got around to working something up.

New Helmet Day

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2022-11-10. Tags: transportation, bicycle, Identity and Politics.

This week saw Election Day in the US, however for me, the more impactful event was New Helmet Day on Monday. For those of you who aren't in the know, this isn't quite the joyous occasion which I make it out to be. Helmets are disposable and must be replaced after a crash. They will crush and crack and deform to prevent these occurrences from happening to your head.

Red Helmet placed on the handlebars of a blue bike. On the ground next to the bike's front wheel is a waste basket containing another red helmet.

Alleviated Gender Dysphoria since Bottom Surgery

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2022-07-04. Tags: Transgender, Identity and Politics.

As of Saturday, I'm exactly a month past my vaginoplasty surgery. In this post I'll write a bit about some of the things which I no longer have dysphoria over and which may now cause euphoria.

Fair warning that this post will discuss my genitals both before and after surgery, urine, women's clothing and perhaps other sensitive topics.

Of RideShares, Conversation, and Russian Propaganda

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2022-04-30. Tags: transportation, Identity and Politics.

I recently had the experience of taking a RideShare with a driver who was deeply bought into, what I can only assume was, Russian propaganda. The trip was from UCLA to the LAX airport. It started out fairly normal. The driver asked if I was a student, returning home after term, to which I corrected, I was at the university on business, they were hosting a meeting. He was very friendly, talked about how he liked meeting folks from all walks of life: affluent, working class, professionals, even a few police officers and gangsters. It wasn't until we got to the freeway that he started talking about some odd conspiracy theories.

Bontrager Road Lite Build

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2021-11-04, last modified: 2022-05-08. Tags: bicycle, I Made a Thing, transportation.

Back in April I saw a bike frame on craigslist which really caught my eye. It was a 1994 Bontrager road lite.

A matte-purple bicycle with sparkley clear-coat posed on a fence in front of a river. It has drop-bars with purple tape, moderately aero wheels with tan-wall tires, and a large brass bell affixed to the stem.

I, for one, didn't know until then that Bontrager ever manufactured bike frames. Certainly that they made wheels, tires, etc. but I'd never seen a bontrager frame and it really caught my eye. A few days later I borrowed my brother's subaru and drove out to meet the seller. The frame didn't look like it was in great condition, a chipped and fading paint, rust spots in a few places, and it had a quill stem stuck in it. But it was absolutely beautiful. every weld on it was gorgeous, and the extra gussets at some of the joints were absolutely intriguing.

(Fair warning, this post is download intensive)

What is the Cloud, and why is it "Magical"?

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2021-09-30. Tags: Computing Thoughts.

Well, obviously I know what "the cloud" is. Upload more RAM (or compute or bandwidth or whatever it is you happen to need). You rent computing resources from Amazon or IBM or whomever, and instead of furnishing a brand new box to keep on your premises, you upload your data to it via the internet.

But there seems to be some magic to the cloud which I can't put my finger on. I know, I'm probably a decade late on figuring this out, but the cloud has never seemed that novel or meritorious to me. Today I'd like to take a look and figure out what it is that excites people about the cloud.

LGBT+ Visibility in the Workplace

Written by: Kimberlee Model, posted: 2021-07-03. Tags: Identity and Politics, Transgender.

This past month was Pride Month for those of us in the LGBT+ community. For me, although I am both transgender and bisexual, I usually avoid overt displays of this identity in the workplace. I typically pass as if I were cis gender, so avoiding this in the workplace is easy for me. This year, I decided to take a different approach, because the LTBT+ community, and especially transgender community, have become somewhat of a punching bag for "right-wing frustrations".