Jim Willis

Category: Technology

  • Setting Default Display

    Struggling to get my Keyboard Maestro macros to open up my apps on my external monitor when it’s plugged in to my laptop. Digging through the forums it seemed like a lot of work to try to do this programmatically. Being lazy, I looked for an alternate solution and found it under System Settings->Display->Arrange.. By…

  • Installing Python on New Mac

    As per this great video (on maintaining local python environments using pyenv), the Python that comes built into the Mac is for the Mac to use, not for programmers to use! Moreover, sudo should be unnecessary when working with installing modules, etc. for python. This magic is achievable by doing the following: Install Homebrew The…

  • Fixing one channel audio in iPad videos

    When making quickie recording videos with my iPad and audio interface, I’m just using the built in iPad camera for the video. It picks up my mic via the usb interface but only records to the left channel (presumably if I added a 2nd mic to my 2 channel interface I’d get left/right but 2…

  • On Mic Preamps

    I recently rewired my home studio and added the capacity to include some outboard gear in the process. Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing some recordings to work out the kinks and get set up to record a new batch of originals that I’ve been working on. As is inevitable once my recording…

  • Guitar Resources page

    I’m building out a page with resources I use for learning/practicing guitar but as I’m building it I’m thinking it would be much better with a database on the backend to store this information rather than just writing a bunch of text. I feel like there’s got to be a way to do this (sql…

  • Nextcloud for bands

    Playing in a band generates all sorts of files that you want to share with your band mates, from live show recordings, videos, promo materials, charts, etc. Some of us were getting tired of shelling out the money to Dropbox to accommodate this sharing. So, this past weekend I spun up a self hosted Nextcloud…

  • Recipe Cruft-Cleaner

    I’m not so much of a recipe-using cook, but sometimes I like to review several recipes when I’m making something to get ideas for spice/ingredients that I might not be thinking of incorporating into my version or to get an idea of different cooking times, etc. The bloat of online recipe sites don’t help with…

  • POSSE WP->Mastodon

    I wish that it were possible to leverage WordPress’ post formats (status, aside, etc.) to trigger crossposting. In the absence of that functionality I’m working with Jan’s excellent WordPress to Mastodon plugin, making a couple of minor mods: Here’s the code I’m using: I’m going to sit with this for a while. I think the…

  • What is Nature?

    I’m not sure there is much wisdom in arbitrarily distinguishing between natural and unnatural.

  • Read: The Inside Story of Microsoft’s Partnership With OpenAI

    This article offers a comprehensive exploration of the collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI, delving into the factors driving this partnership and its implications. Key insights include: I couldn’t put this piece down, in part because it helped me crystalize my understanding of MS’s vision for Copilot. Copilot will be both an enormous shift in how…