Inspired by some work I did on VideoPress, I created a WordPress plugin that enables file uploads of any size.
If you’ve ever hit the upload size limit in WordPress, you know how annoying that is. Uploads Unleashed removes that ceiling. Once activated, your upload limit jumps to whatever free disk space you have, in the screenshot below that’s 53 GB.
The part I’m most happy with is resumable uploads. If your connection drops or you close your laptop mid-upload, you’ll see a “Pick up where you left off” prompt next time. Click Resume and it picks up right where it stopped.
It works everywhere you’d expect: the Media Library, the block editor, the classic editor, and anything else that uses the standard WordPress media uploader.
There’s not much UI beyond what you see above. Install it, activate it, and never worry about file sizes again.
My neighbor Matt organized a mountain bike rental for me and we went for a quick evening ride to our local trail at Nall Park Singletrack. I can not believe how differently these bikes ride than the ones I’m used to! It was a brief outing, but it made two things clear: I have a lot to learn but it’s also a lot of fun!
First ride with the Action 5. I still have a lot of kinks to work out, including wind noises, random cut outs, settings, etc. But I think this was a good start. Ironically, this was the ride with the most unexpected things happening, including our first flat in two years of riding, and I ended up turning off the camera during arguably the most interesting part.
We rode most of the Indian Creek Trail in Overland Park, stopping for a beer and a snack at half way. It was the first sustained stretch of warm weather for the year and a great first ride for the season. Looking forward to many more!
Last week I used Waymo for the first time. I’d been looking forward to trying it out for a while and was glad to finally experience it for myself while in Phoenix for a wedding.
For anyone who’s experienced Tesla’s Autopilot before, it’s probably a bit less novel. I even found myself thinking that Autopilot does a better job, drives more confidently. On my rides, Waymo went exactly the speed limit, didn’t use highways, frequently inched its way into an intersection with no one around, and was extremely blinker-happy without changing direction.
So the self-driving part wasn’t even what stood out to me. It was something more unexpected:
When your Waymo arrives to pick you up, it feels like your car arrives.
Not someone else’s car, set up to their liking, the radio playing their music. Your car, displaying your initials, the AC set at your preferred temperature, Spotify connected to your account, playing your music. That was what’s novel.
Small talk with drivers has never been my strong suit, so the lack of social pressure is nice. The cars are all (mostly) the same, so you know exactly what to expect. The Jaguars are comfortable, a step up from most UberX or Lyfts, though you can tell differences in cabin wear. I’m curious to see how their second generation of cars will feel.
This isn’t to say I don’t have reservations. I worry about a monopolization of ride-hailing—there are parts of this development that I’m hesitant about. But as a hobby economist, it’s also hard to deny the infinitely better product it provides.
Autonomously self-driving (electric) cars are the future. I can’t wait for them to be so good and so prevalent that most people (myself included) don’t even need to own cars anymore. It’s amazing to see we’re on our way there.
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This week we spent a few hours exploring the Phoenix Art Museum, one of the largest art museums in the Southwest. The collection spans centuries and continents and they had a good mix of exhibitions during our visit.
Mary Corse – Untitled, 1966
Mary Corse had to take quantum physics courses(!) just to get certified to install the Tesla coils that power this piece. They’re hidden in the wall behind it and there are no visible wires, no plugs, just a glowing white rectangle. I almost walked right past it. It looked so unassuming, it had to be pointed out to me.
Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room
I’ve been to two other of her rooms at The Broad in Los Angeles and Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, but this was probably my favorite. The colors slowly shift and it feels like you’re floating in space. With the other ones you can always see yourself in the mirrors, with this one almost not at all, which made it feel like the trippiest of them all.
Art of Asia: Chinese Qing Dynasty Cloisonné
The Art of Asia galleries house a collection of Chinese cloisonné enamelwork from the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). These two pieces stood out to me with their popping colors
Cloisonné enamel on bronze with gilding. Cloisonné enamel on bronze with gilding.
Radical Clay: Japanese Women Ceramicists
This was one of my favorite parts. It’s a special exhibition featuring contemporary Japanese women artists working with clay, and it was astounding. These pieces don’t look like anything you’d expect from ceramics.
What struck me most was the sheer amount of labor in each work. One sculpture is built from hundreds of paper-thin clay layers. Another is covered entirely in hand-applied curls of clay, inside and out. When you get close and see the detail, you start to realize just how much time and dedication has gone into each piece.
It’s hard to see, but it’s filled with tiny little spikes throughout.Covered in these tiny curled clay shavings. The texture is almost coral-like.
The gallery also featured a live ikebana display, the Japanese art of flower arrangement
Every Thanksgiving, I make this simple cranberry sauce from Food Network Kitchen. It’s just three ingredients and the directions fit into one paragraph. The secret? Reserving some whole berries to stir in at the end. People love it!
Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
One 12-ounce bag fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 strip orange or lemon zest
2 tablespoons water
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Empty a 12-ounce bag of fresh or frozen cranberries into a saucepan and transfer 1/2 cup to a small bowl. Add 1 cup sugar, 1 strip orange or lemon zest and 2 tablespoons water to the pan and cook over low heat. Stir occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries are soft. About 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the reserved cranberries. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste and cool to room temperature before serving.
Konstantin Obenland 