Weeknote for 5/18/2025

Posted on July 9, 2025 by Andy

Learning

šŸ¤”

I began exploring active learning exercises for learning complex material. My exploration was inspired by finding that working with ONIX feeds taught me a lot more about ONIX than reading the specification. The idea of this approach is to give myself tasks that require searching through the material and reasoning about it for a specific purpose. The purpose gives the information context and significance, which makes the information more memorable. I came up with a bunch of exercises and gave them to some chatbots to see what else they could suggest, and Iā€™d say they organized and supplemented my list pretty well. Here are my conversations with ChatGPT (Learning Specification Tasks), Claude (Structured Strategies for Mastering Specifications), and Gemini (Learning Specification: Task Ideas). I also had ChatGPT list some other specifications to try this approach with (Well-known Specifications Examples).

Nature

šŸ™‚

The goslings were out in full force. It made walks in the park a little treacherous. The goose parents get extra hissy.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

Posted in Learning, Nature, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 5/11/2025

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Andy

Productivity

šŸ™‚

I started using the notes column in my schedule tracker to comment on events as they happen. Before I was only using it occasionally to identify my activities more specifically, but I realized I could make better use of it, such as for mini-retrospectives, recording details for the blog, and basic journaling. It does make my notes overall more scattered because now the tracker is an extra place to look for them, but I already had plans to integrate the tracker with the rest of my system, so the notes issue just gives me extra motivation to get going on it.

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

Watchfulness by Brian Hedges introduced me to the Puritan discipline of vigilance against sin. It’s a basic necessity of the Christian life but not one that always gets much scrutiny. Hedges draws a lot from John Owen, John Bunyan, and Robert Murray Mā€™Cheyne. There were lots of quotes from Pilgrimā€™s Progress and The Holy War. Whatever flaws the Puritans had, I feel they do have contributions to offer on a serious spiritual life, and the book is a good starting point for study and practice. Even though most of the book is about guarding against sin, the concept of watchfulness is broader, and I was gratified to see it also covered a bit of the other kind Iā€™d been ponderingā€”expectancy, which I see as the follow-up to prayer, watching for how God might act.

Nature

šŸ˜Œ

I tested my last water sample for this round of winter chloride observations. I happened to give the report some extra description of conditions at the testing site, which felt like a nice send-off for the season. In comparison to last yearā€™s readings at the same location, the chloride level peaked a month later and 20% higher (449 PPM vs 376) and took longer to fall. As for next season, I haven’t decided if Iā€™ll volunteer again or move on to something else.

Music

šŸ™‚

I began exploring recordings from the Scripture Hymnal project (Spotify playlist). I ran across the printed hymnal at the ECPA conference on a table of books that had received some kind of recognition. It’s published by Rabbit Room Press, a publisher and artist community I keep half an eye on. The idea of the project is to put direct quotations from Scripture to music to help congregations learn the Bible. The effect is sometimes a bit awkward, but once I got used to it, the songs grew on me. Some favorites are ā€œLet Us Fix Our Eyes,ā€ ā€œThe Lord Rebuilds Jerusalem,ā€ and ā€œThose Who Look to Him Are Radiant.ā€ As far as the hymnal itself goes, they’re aiming to publish an SATB edition later in the year, and I’ll probably pick it up then.

Posted in Music, Nature, Productivity, Spirituality, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 5/4/2025

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Andy

Work

šŸ¤“

I accompanied my boss to the ECPA Leadership Summit in Nashville. I was mainly there to meet with people from the new file distribution service we’ve signed up with, but the experience reminded me how easily I absorb the atmosphere of a gathering like a conference. Done well, it’s a great way to not only confer on shared issues (AI was a big one), but also to inject some life into the industry. It was good to connect with new acquaintances and old, and the conference added a layer to my motivation to collaborate at work.

People

šŸ™‚

Before the conference started, I visited my sister Abbie and sister-in-law Colleen. Free time to see them was my condition for taking the trip. They introduced me to Chuy’s with its interesting art-covered walls (hereā€™s Claudeā€™s translation of one painting by our table), and then we walked around the Opry Mills mall. The highlights there were the fish tank outside Aquarium Restaurant and wandering around Bass Pro Shops. Iā€™d been curious about that place ever since dimly remembering their logo, maybe on one of their catalogs, and wondering what it was from.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

Posted in Nature, People, Weeknotes, Work | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 4/27/2025

Posted on June 18, 2025 by Andy

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

A period of accumulating insights continued. These mainly crystallize during my morning devotions. The most significant was that life is a mix of experience that has waves and seasonsā€”pain and joy, work and rest. Rather than hindering myself by rejecting the parts I donā€™t like, I need to expect and accept these cycles and to lean into them, learning to practice both the work and the rest, to benefit from both joy and pain. I can’t say I actually did any of that, but my spiritual agenda was being shaped.

Nature

šŸ™‚

White and pink trees have made up my spring. Each year I notice something different about the seasons, and this year spring has been about the white trees lining the roads with many pink ones interspersed. I’ve also noticed all the empty dandelion stalks, which are less nice and remind me of scraggly whiskers. But I did see some geese eating the fluffy seedheads one day, so now I know dandelions serve a purpose (and I’m told people eat the greens).

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

Posted in Nature, Spirituality, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 4/20/2025

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Andy

Website

šŸ§

I came to some decisions about next steps for my website. Given that my weeknotes were a month behind and writing them was often challenging even on a normal week when I wasnā€™t catching up, I spent a couple of weeks thinking through my goals and potential solutions. My takeaways: First, in terms of tactics, Iā€™m returning to writing my drafts by hand and following a loose set of templates that I’ll develop further over time. Second, in terms of strategy, Iā€™ll work on sticking to a daily writing session, and Iā€™ll experiment with the weeknote format and schedule. Ideally, I’d like to focus on writing longer topical posts and then shorter weeknotes that mainly just link to them.

Modeling

šŸ˜Ž

Sitting in on a video call of Abby Colbertā€™s Sensemaker Club sparked some inspiration. The topic was the role of information architecture in AI (video recording), which gave me a glimpse into the work that’s been happening around knowledge graphs. I tucked this away for when I jump back into my modeling project. Also the meeting felt so much like a BISG call that I began to wonder where information architecture might intersect with the book industryā€”probably somewhere in metadata (and, of course, ecommerce and other websites).

Programming

šŸ˜

I thwarted the hackers who were messing with my Notion databases. I use an outside service to automate an action in my Notion setup. The service would often shut down my automation script because hackers were accessing the scriptā€™s URL with incorrect data and causing errors. So I flexed my meager cybersecurity muscles for an evening and found a way to add a “passwordā€ to the trigger URL so their attacks wouldnā€™t get far enough to cause a shutdown.

AI

šŸ˜Ž

I used Claude to play an old text adventure game. The game is from a Christopher Lampton book I grew up on, How to Create Adventure Games. Out of curiosity, I gave Claude someone’s Java version to see what it could do, and it understood the program surprisingly well! It’s a computationally expensive way to run a program, though, and I could only progress a few turns each session before running out of free responses.

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

For Good Friday I watched the service at St. Thomas’s. Again it was strangely captivatingā€”the several minutes of prostration, the long Gospel reading sung in plainchant, the sermon on Jesusā€™ joy in the crucifixion, the variety in the peopleā€™s veneration of the cross. Overall my Friday fasts during Lent were a helpful exercise, and I might pick up another regular fasting day after a break for the Easter season, which Wesley Hillā€™s Easter tells me is a time for feasting.

Nature

šŸ˜Ž

I captured two special animal appearances in one day: a hawk in flight and a raccoon in the parking lot.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

Posted in AI, Modeling, Nature, Programming, Video games, Website, Weeknotes | 2 Comments

Weeknote for 4/13/2025

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Andy

Productivity

šŸ¤“

I began simplifying my notes format into a chronological arrangement grouped under date headings. Up to that point my work journaling had taken the form of topical outlines with the aim of making my notes on each subtopic easier to find, but for longer, more complicated tasks, it turned out maintaining that organization got tedious and confusing. Iā€™d been planning to design an easier format for a while, so that week when I started a set of miscellaneous thoughts pages for some of my projects, I decided to just jump into this chronological approach and figure it out as I went. Writing miscellaneous notes in a chronological format takes me back to my early days of journaling on paper, so thereā€™s a bit of nostalgia in this change.

I began a more focused effort to start key events in my daily schedule on time. The events are my morning routine, starting work, getting home, dinner, and sleep. I find that these particular moments mark key boundaries of activity that both keep my life flowing smoothly and give me enough time to do the things I care about. Targeting these also limits the amount I have to think about my schedule, because I have so much trouble stopping an activity once Iā€™ve gained momentum that just those few goals are challenging enough.

Modeling

šŸ˜Ž

Abby Covertā€™s Stuck? Diagrams Help kicked off a new phase of my modeling project. I ran out of my typical programming and project management books for work-related listening during my lunchtime walks, so I turned to my modeling books, since that topic ends up being relevant to work sometimes. I started with this short one on diagramming Iā€™d randomly picked up in a Kindle sale, and I was struck by the authorā€™s painstaking care for both her topic and her readers. Throughout the book Covert guides her readers through the emotional ups and downs of a diagramming project and through the very human benefits of the whole endeavor: stability, transparency, understanding, clarity, and kindnessā€”the ā€œSTUCKā€ of diagramming. I’m looking forward to thinking through her set of diagram recipes, and I enjoyed contributing author Jenny Beneventoā€™s survey of the history of diagramming, but the key benefit at the time was that the book got my mental gears turning again on modeling.

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

My main themes that week were rest and “brass tacksā€ spirituality. I’d been feeling extra tired lately, and Sunday’s sermon happened to be about the Sabbath, so I took the opportunity to think through what a restful Sabbath would look like for me and to start taking rest more seriously in general. ā€œBrass tacksā€ was my recurring reminder to find the point in any spiritual activity and get to it. This is mainly a warning to myself that there are plenty of wrappers around true spirituality that make poor substitutes on their own, such as the loveless good deeds of 1 Corinthians 13 or the faith without works of James 2.

Speaking of brass tacks, my activity for that Fridayā€™s Lenten fast was choosing a food charity to receive my meal money. I was looking for someplace local I could potentially form personal connections with. I had an intriguing time raising my awareness through the research, and I was glad to see there were several strong candidates in the area.

Posted in Modeling, Productivity, Sleep, Spirituality, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 4/6/2025

Posted on May 10, 2025 by Andy

Productivity

šŸ˜¬

The week leading up to April 6 was a truly busy one. I finished my election research and dropped off my ballot, handled another bureaucratic snag with my medication, did my taxes, and worked 52 hours while my boss was on vacation. I can’t say I got through it all gracefully, and it’s not how I’d want to spend every week, but once again my routines pulled me through.

Current events

šŸ¤“

As usual, the election turned my attention to interesting local issues. I learned more about how our county is organized, read the dirt on local politics, and got distracted by nearby news I would normally ignore, like a best-selling author who wrote a suburban mystery novel inspired by his neighborhood walks during the pandemic. Almost all my chosen candidates ended up winning, so I guess I was in tune with the Zeitgeist around here.

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

In Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools Tyler Staton gave me food for thought on lifeā€™s trials. I can’t say it revolutionized my prayer life like I somehow hoped it would, but it did leave me with two key ideas: (1) Worship during hardship takes the form of defiant adoration, and (2) faithfulness to God in tragedy is a choice to accept and live in mystery. These ideas let me acknowledge difficulty without having to reconcile everything.

For my Friday fast, I read through the Stations of the Cross from St. Raphael Episcopal Church. As usual with liturgies, I couldn’t make total sense of the flow of thought, but my main takeaways were the need to go through suffering, the draw of joy on the other side, and even somehow joy in the pain itself. Similar to the Stations, an idea I tucked away for later was to read the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary (video).

Nature

šŸ˜Ž

After dinner with my friend Tim on Saturday, we took a spontaneous walk in the woods. It had some atmosphere. We thought we heard coyotes.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)

Posted in Elections, Nature, People, Productivity, Spirituality, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 3/30/2025

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Andy

Productivity

šŸ™‚

At work I experimented with moving most of my admin tasks to the early afternoon. Iā€™ve noticed that whatever I work on first tends to eat up most of my time and crowd out anything that comes later, so for my daily routine that week, after some everyday tasks in the morning I launched into my main project for the day until lunch. My brain tends to reset at that point, which naturally segments my day, so in the afternoon I started with my miscellaneous tasks and then switched back to the main project if I had time left. This new routine worked very well and gave my main project more time while still keeping other tasks moving.

Spirituality

šŸ™‚

In my devotional times I added a regular review of what God has been teaching me lately. This is a question that gets asked in some Christian circles, and I thought it’d be a good one to ask myself. I found it lets me build on recent themes in my reflections and keeps me on the lookout for more things to learn. It also reminded me what an intriguing time Iā€™ve been having with this morning devotional practice and its spinoffs. That week the main theme was that spiritual health depends on persistent seeking.

šŸ˜£

Struggling through my Friday fast reminded me that sleep is important. I stuck with my evening fast time instead of trying for lunch because I knew my work would suffer that day without fuel and especially caffeine, and it was a good idea because I had to push myself through the whole day anyway. But it led to another insight during my fast time devo: I need a ladder of spiritual engagement that will support me both when Iā€™m strong and aligned and when Iā€™m weak and wayward. In my rough sketch of my ladder, the lower, weaker end is occupied by sleep and food, nature and journaling are around the middle, and at the upper end is service.

Posted in Productivity, Spirituality, Weeknotes | 2 Comments

Weeknote for 3/23/2025

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Andy

Productivity

šŸ¤”

From Jon Gertnerā€™s The Idea Factory I learned how Bell Labs invented the whole modern telephone industry. They came up with everything from telephone poles and transistors to cell phones and satellite communication. Like some of the other innovative organizations I’ve read about, it seems Bell Labsā€™ success is hard to replicate, but you could start with their basic formula: Have a new industry to develop, get a bunch of really smart people, put them all in a big building where they’re forced to interact, point them in a research direction, and let their minds and their feet roam freely. Alas, the heyday of Bell Labs ended with the breakup of Ma Bell, but Gertner notes that after idea factories, the next phase in this degree of innovation may be idea geographiesā€”the newer business model of startups funded by venture capital in closely networked areas like Silicon Valley and Bostonā€™s Route 128. I’d say there’s merit to this idea, though Ed Zitron would have some words about the results.

In my quest to apply computer algorithms to human task management I expanded my investigation of CPU scheduling into real-time systems. The difference between real-time systems and others is that they have stricter deadlines for their tasks, sometimes with millisecond response times, as in flight control systems. So how can their techniques help me hit my deadlines? One factor is that their tasks are assigned priorities based on their type, so maybe I could start by prioritizing tasks by their broad categories, such as their project or origin. For more I’ll be studying the Linux real-time scheduler.

Spirituality

šŸ™‚

To reawaken my spiritual side whenever I catch it asleep, I started a practice of music meditation. I’ve learned that music is the key to getting myself in a better frame of mind, so to reset myself mid-day I put my worship playlist on shuffle and spent a few minutes listening. The key for these music meditation sessions is that I can’t be listening in the background while I focus on other thingsā€”I have to be paying attention to the music and contemplating it. I quickly found that this practice works very well for me, and I tried to do it every day after lunch when I remembered.

I had an especially fruitful music meditation session for my Friday fast. My reflections were kind of random but mostly revolved around the centrality of our friendship with God. That idea reminded me of Immanuel prayer, so I did some exploring to dig further into what that perspective on prayer means to me, and I ran across a good interview with my Immanuel trainer, Margaret Webb, that captures some of that meaning as she traces the journey that led her to this ministry.

Music

šŸ˜¬

Saturday I participated in a recording session for my worship team leader, Larry. The set consisted of a couple of existing worship songs plus one of Larryā€™s compositions. I like playing with the team, but I was sort of dreading the session because I’d never done that kind of live recording and I’m not a polished enough performer to want my improvisations preserved for posterity. But I played it safe and curbed the creativity, and it turned out okay. It was at least an interesting experience and even slightly fun.

Posted in Music, Productivity, Spirituality, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Weeknote for 3/16/2025

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Andy

Website

šŸ¤”

I’m in catch-up mode, so these next few entries may be extra short. I’ve also taken the opportunity of this unintentional pause to think through some changes in how I write these weeknotes. I’ll have more to say about that in the weeknote for 4/20/2025.

People

šŸ™‚

I actually did something for my birthday this yearā€”dinner with my friends Tim and Jeremy. It wasn’t anything big, but it had been a while since we’d all gotten together, so it felt fittingly special. And thanks to last yearā€™s gift card from my parents that I hadnā€™t used yet (oops), it was almost free.

Nature

šŸ™„

I returned to the lake of the ice-borne sofa, hoping the furniture was back in its home in the woods. It almost made it, but I spotted it lounging in the water by the shore. I splorched my way through the mud for a closer view.

šŸ˜Ž

After years of hearing these birds without seeing them, I spotted some flocks of sandhills cranes circling over another of my walking spots. I was not expecting them to be so mesmerizing. Hereā€™s a flocking animation coded by the chatbot Claude that you can play around with. If the animation doesnā€™t open automatically, click the box in Claudeā€™s first reply called ā€œSandhill Crane Flocking Simulation.ā€ The sliders change the flight patterns dramatically.

Spirituality

šŸ¤”

I did my Lenten Friday fast in the morning that week. It felt less helpful overall than the evening fast, since I had less devotional time, and then for the rest of the morning I was preoccupied with work. But I did get a lot out of the dayā€™s Bible reading (Mark 3-5), and my lunchtime walk before I ate took more effort, which I imagine could be a good meditative exercise in the future, so it was still a beneficial experience.

Posted in Nature, People, Website, Weeknotes | 2 Comments