Quartz sync: Jan 5, 2025, 5:27 PM

content/Articles I like.md

@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Opened [[2023-12-07]] but I should have done it way sooner. Related to [[Poetry
 ### Simply well-written
 - [Brian Balkus obo Palladium: The Mineral Crisis is here](https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/08/08/the-mineral-conflict-is-here/)
 - [Pundit's Fallacy - the best definition](https://www.jargondatabase.com/Category/Other/Logical-Fallacies-Jargon/Pundit's-Fallacy)
+- https://www.plasticlist.org/report - 6 month long and $500k research investigation into the presence of plastic chemicals in everyday food. Turns out to be a rabbit hole and way more than you wanted to know about the current state of scientific research into safe dosages of plastic chemicals.
 
 ### Regarding career
 - [How to communicate when trust is low (without digging yourself into a deeper hole)](https://charity.wtf/2023/08/17/how-to-communicate-when-trust-is-low-without-digging-yourself-into-a-deeper-hole)

content/Attractions in San Francisco.md

@@ -1,43 +1,92 @@
 # Attractions in San Francisco
 #publish
 _Part of a series on [[Attractions per city]]._
-## Food
-### Iconic / best food places
-- Kitchen story / sweet maple (iconic)
-- [[4505 Burgers & BBQ]] (9/10 burger from [[The best burger in the bay area]])
-    - [[True Food Kitchen]] is the only 10/10 but it's in Palo Alto not SF.
-- Dumpling home: Literally some of the best dumplings I've had in my life. Several of my friends from China say it's better than the upscale places in Shanghai. Get anything here except the boiled dumplings because that's a tough dish to be remarkable at.
-- The Public Izakaya: Pricier but great. They have a cabinet filled with free Japanese snacks you can munch on with friends while you wait for your food. Chirashi bowl is amazing.
-- State Bird Provisions if you like good food but also spending money and having a hard time getting a reservation
-- Tacos El Patron has the best _traditional_ tacos in SF that I've ever had.
-- Lolo's in Mission has the best tacos I've had period, although they are contemporary/funky. Best mid-scale Mexican food I've ever had. Get the tuna tacons; they are tuna tacos with entire pieces of fish in them
-
-### Desserts
-- Arsicault (either location): Literally the best chocolate croissant I've ever had, and the internet agrees.
-- U dessert story has amazing bingsu
-- Naya
-- Pineapple buns place
-- Tartine's. Super high quality pastries.
-- Sul and Beans in Cupertino has great bingsu too
 
-### Other food
-- Chucks takeaway in Mission. $16 sandwiches where they make everything in house: the bread, hot sauce, pickled vegetables, ... Also they have Korean peanut butter custard buns. [[2022-11-05]]
-- Golden Boy Pizza in North Beach is an institution. Idk if it's my thing but everyone likes it. It gets a hella long line though so arrive early
-- Technically not SF, but [Seapot Daly City](https://goo.gl/maps/uoC2yKyLQbEjh2dX9) is a fantastic hotpot place if you have access to a car.
-- Also tec
+I've lived in San Francisco since [[2022-08-11]]. While I haven't trawled the whole city (I've lived only in Soma, Hayes Valley, and the East Cut), I have plenty of opinions about places to visit!
+
+> [!info] View this article on Google Maps!
+> Click [here](http://here.com) to view everything in this list, in a Saved Places list!
+> 
+> ~~Totally not a plug for the feature I work on!~~
+> 
+> TODO: I haven't set this up yet oops.
+
+**Table of Contents**
+- Restaurants
+- Bars
+- Sights
+- Misc
+- Special occasions
+- Specifically NOT on this list
+
+## Restaurants
+**Meals**
+- [[4505 Burgers & BBQ]]
+    - 9/10 burger on [[The best burger in the bay area|my burger tier list]] (second highest on the list!)
+- Dumpling Home
+    - Some of the best dumplings I've ever had. Two friends who grew up in Shanghai say it's better than the upscale restaurants there.
+    - Get anything here except the boiled dumplings -- they're not bad, but that's a tough dish to be remarkable at.
+- The Public Izakaya
+    - They have a cabinet filled with free Japanese snacks you can munch on with friends while you wait for your food.
+    - Get the chirashi bowl.
+- State Bird Provisions
+    - Currently my favorite fancy restaurant in SF.
+        - (Last update: [[2024-12-12]])
+    - Pricey. ~$80pp
+    - You need a [reservation](https://statebirdsf.com/reservations/), which typically fill up a little less than a month in advance.
+    - Rotating menu that changes every month.
+    - Don't get the "state bird" dish, it's overrated.
+    - Get whichever type of "toast" they have; it's always good.
+- Tacos El Patron
+    - Best _traditional_ tacos in SF.
+- Lolo's
+    - Best _contemporary_ tacos in SF. Best mid-scale Mexican food I've ever had.
+    - Get the tuna tacons; they are tuna tacos with entire pieces of fish in them
+- Chucks takeaway in Mission.
+    - $16 sandwiches where they make everything in house: the bread, hot sauce, pickled vegetables.
+    - They have Korean peanut butter custard buns which are novel. [[2022-11-05]]
+- RT Rotisserie
+    - Fast casual joint that specializes in chicken bowls. The rice is cooked with chicken fat and the fried chicken is cooked with just the right amount of sugar. I wouldn't make a trip out just for this, but if you're in the area absolutely get this.
+
 
-### Boba
+**Dessert/snacks**
+- Arsicault -- either location
+    - Literally the best chocolate croissant I've ever had, and the internet agrees.
+- U Dessert Story
+    - Get the bingsu.
+        - (Bingsu is a Korean shaved milk dessert. Imagine a snow cone but fluffier)
+- Naya
+    - Not as good as U Dessert Story but still nice.
+    - Get the "toast" type desserts.
+- [Pineapple King Bakery](https://maps.app.goo.gl/9ogddNBVah27wBY9A)
+    - A San Francisco institution. Everybody loves this place.
+    - They specialize in pineapple buns (sweet buns that do not have pineapple in them)
+    - Order in advance!
+- Tartine's.
+    - Super high quality pastries.
+- Mochi donuts in Japantown
+    - Mochi donuts are simply superior to American donuts imo.
+- Matcha Cafe Maiko
+
+**Boba**
 - 0& in Hayes Valley
 - Little Sweet
 - See [[Best boba orders]] for my SF ratings
+- LITTLE HEAVEN
+- Purple Kow
+    - Big portions of popcorn chicken here.
 
 ## Sights
+- Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley, plus the surrounding neighborhood. Great to meander around. Lots of bars to visit at night.
 - Palace of Fine Arts
+    - Better than Golden Gate
+- Golden Gate Bridge
 - Twin Peaks (bring a jacket)
 - Hayes Valley
 - Golden Gate Park. JFK Drive is a 100% foot traffic area now as of 2022's Proposition J, so you can walk through it and take in a bunch of the nice sights and art. Note: Do NOT bring a car here as parking is abysmal (because of Prop J). Just Uber or take public transit.
 - Ghiradhelli Square
 - Wave Organ is kind of neat
+- Japantown area is nice
 
 ## Bars
 - Polk St bars
@@ -49,9 +98,35 @@ _Part of a series on [[Attractions per city]]._
 - Emporium is a neat arcade bar but it's not my thing
 
 ## Misc
-- [Sofar sounds SF](https://www.sofarsounds.com/cities/san-francisco) has pop-up music shows
+
 - 68 Castro St has pretty Christmas lights during holiday time: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1DunFZmi3iaUJ4Rn8
+- [[Google maps maps]] has the map of Christmas lights houses, which you can see if you're visiting around Christmas time.
 - Chateau Tivoli bed and breakfast is a really cool looking hotel I noticed in [[2023-04-16]]. I have no reason to go since I live here but could be a fun experience for visitors
-- https://bucketlisters.com/explore/city/SF
-- Also the farmers market in Embarcadero for BIG NEWTON. It's sold in the back at a stand called Downtown Bakery & Creamery. See [[2023-04-29]] for a pic.
 - Things Lucky Handicraft in Haight-Ashbury is a super vibey crafts supply store that is the only operating commercial store on Page St. They've been there for over a decade. Calm vibe. Nice to wander around and see/feel all the textures.
+- https://sfpopos.com contains a list of all of San Francisco's Privately Owned Public Open Spaces. Super hit or miss.
+
+
+
+## Special occasions
+Things you can't do all the time. But if you're in town at the right time, you should.
+**Weekly**
+- Also the farmers market in Embarcadero for BIG NEWTON. It's sold in the back at a stand called Downtown Bakery & Creamery. See [[2023-04-29]] for a pic.
+
+**Ultra rare**
+- Mt Tam pancake day! Only 3 times a year. I went [[2024-06-16]].
+
+**Resources you can use**
+- [[Event finder trifecta]] to find stuff happening in the city.
+
+## Specifically NOT on my list
+These are places that are widely liked (so you might like them), but I don't personally recommend them. They aren't on the Google Maps list.
+
+- Golden Boy Pizza in North Beach is an institution. Idk if it's my thing but everyone likes it. It gets a hella long line though so arrive early.
+- Daeho in Japantown.
+- Ocean Beach. It's a beach, except foggy and cold most of the year. Not worth visiting unless you're going for a social event IMO
+- Kitchen Story and Sweet Maple.
+
+
+- The Tenderloin neighborhood.
+    - I recommend avoiding the Tenderloin. This neighborhood has tragically become the epicenter for a lot of SF's failed housing policy and is not showing signs of improvement anytime soon. The dirtiness and lack of scenery make it fairly unpleasant to walk through during the day, and it can get dangerous at night. A friend of mine was mugged here.
+    - Caveat: some restaurants in the TL are excellent (e.g. Brenda's French Soul Food).

content/Best boba orders.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ The reason I use non-relational ratings instead of relational ratings (like I do
 - 7.25
 
 [[Happy Lemon]]
-- 9.5
+- 8
 - 6
 
 [[Gong Cha]]
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ The reason I use non-relational ratings instead of relational ratings (like I do
 - 5
 
 [[Zero&]]
-- 9
+- 8.5
 - 7.5
 - 8
 - 5.25
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ The reason I use non-relational ratings instead of relational ratings (like I do
 - 3.5
 
 [[Little Heaven]]
-- 9.25
+- 9.5
 
 [[Three Polar Bears]]
 - 8.5

content/Black coffee.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# Black coffee
+#publish 
+Opened [[2024-11-11]]. Related to [[Musings on everything else]]. Actually unrelated to [[Coffee]].
+
+## Background
+When you _really_ like coffee, you start drinking it black -- because you appreciate the coffee more, not the additives.
+
+I feel like that's a universal behavior of most hobbies. Here, I'll document the interesting "black coffees" of various hobbies I've encountered.
+
+
+## Blends
+**Drumming**: [Arrakis (Noisia remix)](https://youtu.be/x7mADamRuRI)
+- Black coffee for drummers
+- Basically just layers of drums instead of a traditional melody-harmony
+
+**Photography**: (Some incredibly fancy camera. Just an example)
+- Means nothing to the average person
+- Means everything to an experienced photographer
+
+**Digital art**: Custom brushes, like [[My Procreate brushes]]
+- At least to me, "black coffee" brushes are ultra simple brushes that can be used for everything from lineart to shading and blending
+- I prefer PC-based blending algorithms (PCs offer a higher draw rate and therefore smoother blends) but Procreate offers something similar with the super simple dry brush in this pack. That's kind of like black coffee to me -- having the right blending algorithm means a lot
+
+

content/Blameless postmortems.md

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+# Blameless postmortems
+#publish 
+Opened [[2025-01-01]]. From [[Musings on tech]].
+
+I've worked on 3 separate Google SRE teams since joining in 2020. One thing I see the SRE org execute on really well is blameless postmortems. In other words, a [[Technical postmortems|postmortem]] where there's no finger-pointing at individuals, and instead a focused effort to improve the lapse in process that caused something to break.
+
+Google's popular SRE book has an excellent [section](https://sre.google/workbook/postmortem-culture#model-and-enforce-blameless-behavior) explaining how to write blameless postmortems. But it skimps a bit explaining _why_ you should want to write them in the first place, so I'm here to babble about that topic.
+
+## Why you should virtually always prefer a blameless postmortem
+
+### The obvious reasons
+It's polite, and healthier for group morale. Higher morale leads to all sorts of positive emergent culture patterns:
+1) People feel comfortable communicating bad news to leadership early, without fear of retaliation.
+2) Developer velocity improves, because engineers feel more protected taking (healthy) risks.
+3) Everyone's happier.
+
+And besides, it's nice to not point fingers. Nobody enjoys a meeting where one person gets chastised on front of everyone for their mistake -- not the audience, nor the presenter, nor the chastisee.
+
+### Less obvious reasons you should want blameless postmortems
+Acting blamelessly lets you review your _processes_ with much more effective scrutiny than if you'd attributed an outage to a human. 
+
+The larger insight I'm ramping up to is that _blameless postmortems rarely work in the long term anyways_ -- blaming humans for outages typically ends up being a band-aid fix that only lasts until someone forgets. Lurking below most human errors is typically a complicated process-based problem.
+
+Blaming a human ensures:
+
+- That person won't repeat their mistake.
+
+... and that's about it. If you're lucky enough that everyone on your team reads your postmortem, and it strikes the fear of _((deity))_ in their hearts, nobody else will repeat that mistake either. For a while. Until they forget, or you hire someone new, or an opaque technical change happens, etc. ...
+
+Whereas blaming a process (and then improving the process) ensures:
+
+- That category of mistake won't happen again, at least not in that same way.
+
+Improving a process typically costs more effort in the short term than blaming a human. Even the exercise of determining what may be improved can require input from technical stakeholders whose time is valuable. Improvements also cost SWE-time to implement, so you may find yourself making tough tradeoffs between moving fast and breaking things, versus prioritizing a process improvement in order to prevent breaking things. Choosing what to prioritize is difficult, and best decided via either well-sharpened intuition (for teams in scrappy situations) or an organic checks-and-balances culture between developers and DevOps engineers who can suggest how to manage their own time. (This culture is also easier to cultivate when issues are blameless, and stakeholders can voice their honest opinions.)
+
+Anyways, even if your team doesn't have the bandwidth to deliver large improvements, it's still a useful exercise to brainstorm how you might do it -- blamelessly.
+
+Don't trick yourself into believing that blaming the person who triggered an outage will prevent that outage from happening again. Best case scenario: it doesn't, only for a little while.
+
+## The bottom line
+Blame processes, not people.
+
+## Appendix
+### On laziness causing outages
+Outages are bad and lazy actions often cause outages. Therefore, it can be tempting to assume that the root cause of certain outages is pure laziness, especially if it seems like laziness:
+
+> For example: Person X forgot to run unit tests, even though the launch documentation clearly told them to.
+
+Even in cases where human carelessness seems to be the issue: dig deeper. Don't give into the thought pattern that you're seeing the real issue. If people can forget once, they can forget again, especially as your team scales larger or its workload increases. (Separately: one-off mistakes are a very biased metric to measure someone's performance by. It's possible Person X's project is riskier than others', for example).
+
+It's better to brainstorm deeply about what can be improved. Anything from updating an internal wiki page, to making tests automatic, to rewriting something more serious. You don't need to necessarily do these things. But surveying your options is good and helps keep the team aware that they can influence the processes they use. This is actually especially true if Person X happens to be lazy -- you should configure processes that don't allow laziness to cause outages.
+
+One last note on laziness. I like the quote:
+
+> "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."
+
+### On postmortem culture being "professional" and war room comms being "unprofessional"
+Redacting names from a postmortem is typically good, since it's [not process-relevant](https://sre.google/workbook/postmortem-culture#counterproductive-finger-pointing) who broke something.
+
+Redacting names in a war room is... doable, but probably unproductive. Remember: what you really want is to nurture a culture where people feel comfortable chirping up that their code _might_ be the culprit of an outage. Typically when people are confident their code is broken, they'll speak up -- but your job as an incident commander and postmortem steward is to make folks feel comfortable speaking up before they're confident. This lets you get experienced eyes on a pull request, and mitigate outages quicker.

content/Burning Man prep guide.md

@@ -14,7 +14,8 @@ I don't want to be one of those people who writes yet another Burning Man surviv
 
 Just lmk! Writing stuff is fun and if I can help >=1 person I'll do it.
 
-
+### Notes to self
+- Boots: I wore Palladium Baggy boots, size 11.5 USA.
 
 
 ### (Ignore) Notes to myself from before I attended

content/Cafe Reveille.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# Cafe Reveille
+#publish 
+_Part of a series on [[The best burger in the bay area]]._
+
+Visited [[2024-11-03]] for brunch with Christie.
+
+![[PXL_20241103_175730484.MP.jpg]]
+_A bit generic looking_
+
+The good:
+- It's not drenched in oil nor too heavy
+- The ketchup (not part of the burger rating is good and seemingly house made)
+
+The ehs:
+- Generic everything
+- Cheddar cheese
+- Vaguely chilly vegetables
+- Patties cooked all the way through with no pink
+
+5/10, 0/10 for unusualness. It's like a generic backyard BBQ burger with the full amount of fix-ins.
+
+Meta comment: [[My food rating system]] decrees that I don't rate something as average and pick whether it's a little above or below. This felt perfectly average but on principle I'm rating it down -- it wasn't super remarkable.
+
+Also worth noting: This place is a cafe and not really known for their burgers. They have a delicious looking poppy seed bun used for their breakfast sandwiches; idk why they didn't reuse it on their burgers.

content/California car names.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+aliases: California license plates
+---
+# California car names
+#publish 
+Opened [[2024-11-14]]. From [[Musings on everything else]].
+
+There's a common pattern in California license plates. Their first character is typically 1 number (usually 7, 8, 9), followed by 3 letters, followed by 3 numbers. For example: 9ABC123.
+
+Not all plates are like this. But I notice cars like this _so_ often that I've made a game out of it: the 3 letters sandwiched in the middle of the plate is the car's name!
+
+For example, meet Fenix:
+![[PXL_20240924_155145570.MP.jpg]]
+_"Vroom" says Fenix._
+
+Deanna:
+![[Pasted image 20250105134156.png]]
+
+Hero:
+![[Pasted image 20241227134710.png]]
+
+Jay Peg:
+![[Pasted image 20241227134729.png]]
+
+Rubolf (sometimes making a name is hard):
+![[PXL_20241219_010647518.MP.jpg]]
+
+And my favorite plate yet. Carlos!
+![[Pasted image 20250105134530.png]]
+_His friends call him "Car"_

content/Coffee.md

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+# Coffee
+#publish 
+#needswork
+Opened [[2024-12-30]].
+
+Unrelated to [[Black coffee]] (but I'll link it here for funsies).
+
+https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/s/STDrdhtuan is a nice, no-BS explainer about why your coffee is bitter.
+
+TODO: Fill in this page with the how/what/why I like my coffee.

content/Contact staff.md

@@ -24,12 +24,16 @@ Dates are when I actually got them working
 - Half Steve
     - [[2024-07-18]] Can consistently do 70-80% of the time!
     - [[2024-07-19]] 90-100% of the time!
+- fishtail
+- Angel roll
+    - [[2024-07-18]] started learning.
+    - [[2024-11-07]] really got it
+
 
 Working on
+- spinny circle thing
+- angel roll interruptions
 - Continuous Steve
-- Angel roll
-    - [[2024-07-18]] started learning.
-- Fishtail
 - Tosses / throws in the air
 - Jesus (do this after fishtails so I can have a transition trick)
 - matrix
@@ -127,3 +131,5 @@ Maybes
 
 ### Appendix
 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-SiWvCS25a/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
+
+To learn later? Puppyhammer. https://www.reddit.com/r/flowarts/s/Xlp1tOcDPd