frozen octopus

I went to the rehearsal studio last night to play some drums to get ready for an important show on Saturday. Playing drums alone is fun but sometimes there is a point where you have no idea what to play.

So I decided to use the time to get better at a kick drum technique I don't use often. There are two basic ways to hit a kick drum.

1. Press Only

Version one is press the kick pedal down for every hit with your toe. Every hit is strong. You end up bouncing the leg a lot. It uses more energy.

2. Press / Slide

The other is where you press down towards the front of the pedal (most far from the actual drum) with the toe. Then you kind of slide forward and place your whole foot on the pedal. It uses less energy after you master the motion. You can also get up to incredible speeds if you need it for your genre.

Which technique to go with?

Both.

I spent the time slowly trying to force myself to use method two last night for while. I got the motion down a little more solid and it started to feel pretty good. It definitely uses less energy and I think it is a little easier to keep the kick drum notes a little more even sounding.

I am still faster with just pushing but probably not for long.

Have the two ways down well and using them where appropriate. I can see myself using the Push/Slide one for long stretches of the same pattern to preserve energy and then with to the other for intense bursts. The Push only method sounds really cool so use that when it is needed.

I see it like a guitar player. You can strum up and down (ex: push/slide) which is more efficient. You can also just do downstrokes (ex: push only) which sounds really cool.

Get good at both and use when the time is right.

If you are following the Album feed from this website, you might have noticed a little chaos lately. I have been running all the old albums through Claude Cowork having it find and update any missing genres and record labels. It is doing it in batches and it is actually getting things in order. That's the good news.

The "bad" news is the updated albums are showing up in the RSS feed which is a little annoying. Sorry about that. It should be back to normal soon I promise. I think it is about 65-75% finished with the process. After that we'll be caught up and there will only be a couple albums in the feed daily like normal.

How's your blog going? Send me a link if you have one.

There are two computers on my desk. Computer #01, MacBook Pro, has Tahoe 26 running on it with Claude Cowork that I have been using for four months. Computer #02, Macbook Neo, has the Golden Gate 27 beta running on it so it has the new Siri AI.

Both are fun but they are drastically different. I have a system that I have been slowly building in Cowork living in a folder with markdown files. I need to slowly move this system over to Siri AI. Not knocking Cowork but Siri AI works locally so it is s.｡oO much faster doing a lot of things. There is also a ton of things Siri AI can't do yet.

A "house move" like this is a perfect time to do an audit of what I actually need any more. So I am going through the skills I have set up and my contexts to see what I actually need to get done. What needs automation? What can be an Apple Shortcut? What should I actually be doing that I was having Cowork do?

Just have a deep think and have fun building a plan. Try to get it all feeling like I am holding the rudder of the boat careening down the river as opposed to feeling like the boat.

An example of one area I am struggling with that I want to get sorted in System 2.0 are things like Weekly Reviews. I want to wake up on Friday, start my day, get asked the questions to answer to assess where things are, and have it process where I am at. I need it to happen so that it doesn't feel like a task though. Same with monthly, quarterly and yearly. How to answer the life audit questions that need to be answered on schedule but have it be kinda fun and magical?

The fun of moving.

Lately I updated the Mac Neo I got to the macOS Golden Gate 27.0 beta. It comes with the new Siri app and Siri AI. After installing the beta I got busy with work and life so I didn’t have a chance to try it out.

A couple days ago I gave it a serious look at. I’ve been using Claude Cowork since April so it is interesting to compare the two.

My first impressions is that the new Siri AI’s speed is astonishing next to Claude. It doesn’t need to ping some server so it’s answers are surprisingly fast. So fast that it makes me wonder if it actually did what I asked.

It interacts with apps like Calendar and Reminders so well. If I ask Claude Cowork to give me a daily briefing (what is coming up today and what are my to-dos), it takes a minute or two to process. Siri AI gathers all the things in seconds.

Another is I do a daily GTD review. Siri AI is walking me through the review and putting things where it needs to go. I just did a mindsweep of the upcoming day and it put everything that isn’t already in Reminders or on the Calendar in the right spot.

Not a Minus but a Detour

I have an elaborate set of Claude Cowork manuals and rules that I have been building over months. Skills for all the things I do for work, band, and whatever. They are all in a folder in .md file format. Siri AI can read them but can’t edit or update those files right now.

What it can do though is update, append and edit notes in the Notes app. I imported all the .md files and Siri AI can follow them. It’s also letting me know what it can’t do that Claude Cowork can do. It is suggesting work arounds using the Apple apps which is turning out to be really fun for me.

I love building and playing with Shortcuts. It can run shortcuts. This is powerful. A shortcut runs really fast. They can be scheduled.

Random Thoughts

I notice that there is a “I can’t believe it works” time period with Siri AI. A decade of Siri being stiff and kinda working has built up. This vibe is slowly fading away and I am actually getting excited to use Siri again.

No complaints about the Notes app. We use it for band stuff and I use it occasionally with my partner. Now I have to use it all the time for this robot. My image of the Notes app is it’s the equivalent of a yellow legal pad of paper level app. That is not the case now if it is the source of truth for my robot assistant.

It is a minor drag I can’t get at some of my most used apps with it right now. It is in beta so that will probably change in a month or two. If I could have it use Drafts and 2do, it would be wonderful. It can’t so we just have to find another way to get things done. I can send Drafts to Notes with a button click. 2do syncs with Reminders so we can deal with that as well.

Watching the heartbreaking news about the Kumamoto area after the earthquake the last few days. It has my mind back on our emergency supplies and kit for earthquakes. It is not a bad thing to make sure it is all set up considering the amount of quakes in Japan. Watching the people in Kumamoto deal with things has me thinking about two main areas.

The first is our emergency bag/kit. I would say it is pretty good but could be reorganized and leveled up. We definitely need to get a lot more water and food, I think. The recommendation is enough for a week, which we do not have currently. Also, we need to put some more clothes in it as well.

That could easily be solved with a simple solar panel and battery set up.

The second area is power. Watching the reports talk about struggles people are having, I kept thinking, "That could easily be solved with a simple solar panel and battery set up."

It has pushed me to the "going to just buy" level. I love solar panels anyways, so even if we never need it in an emergency, I will still play with it because it is fun/useful.

It could power the a/c in this room and heater, which are both like space heaters/coolers. They both use a lot of power, so I can justify the purchase just for those two units.

Then, if the power should go out, we'd have enough power to keep the fridge cool at least. We have a plug-in IH cooktop we could power for cooking and water boiling. We have a bunch of portable phone batteries with USC-C connectors to charge. LED Christmas lights for nighttime don't use lots of power.

After a quick bit of research, I am thinking about getting an Anker Solix S2000 and a 400W solar panel. The panel could change after some more digging around.