I remember vacations, travel and holidays being such a normal part of life years ago. My parents were lower class but it was just more accessible. I don't get how I make more than my parents ever did but the idea of a vacation feels so impossible.

Some moody nature shots from the Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor. #photography #nature #annarbor

From Scotland to Michigan - a new blog post. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/from-sc...

I remember when "have you seen the news?" was something you could say because something groundbreaking and of importance wasnt happening daily. Now it would be an endless "oh the school shooting? Oh, then what trump said about palestine? Oh, then the bombing? Oh, then the..."

Is it morally wrong for you, the user, to use ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude Code, etc? Read my rambling on AI, nuclear power, community AI and for some reason plastic bags. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/ethics-... #AI #LLM #LLMs #ethicalAI #Claude #ChatGPT #Grok #Gemini

Got honked at for putting my hazards on and slowing down for a squirrel, person behind passed and narrowly missed the poor wee thing 🐿️ I'll always slow down for wildlife when safe to do so, I don't care if it costs you 20 seconds.

I converted my colleagues to the Church of ISO 8601. No more MM/DD/YYYY heresy. From this day forward, we walk in the light of YYYY-MM-DD. May your folders be sorted and your data be unambiguous.

I've been enjoying the mark of the fool. After rereading DCC and getting through 1% lifestyle, and a few other series, I hadn't realized I'd missed not one but two (jormungar worms, no wait) MotF releases. Great to jump back into it. #litrpg #dcc #markofthefool

I wrote a blog post on Dungeon Crawler Carl. Shoutout to @xenoduck.bsky.social and @bestjakeyoung.bsky.social and @escapedexplorer.bsky.social who I quote. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/dungeon... #DungeonCrawlerCarl #LitRPG #booklovers

The whole Claude deleting its own codebase is funny and all but I deleted my undergraduate thesis 2 weeks before it was due. Claude is just imitating humanity, being a fool of a took.

I love my puppy 🐶 💓

The best camera to use is the one you have on you! Peak Design makes a great camera slide strap that gets you in the habit of bringing your cameras along with you. Just wish Canon built lens like Nikon for being banged around.

Brutey booties. #dog #doglife

Stumbled across your blog. What a gem! Read Why We Sleep and switched from reading books at bedtime on digital devices (blue light) to listening to audiobooks w/a timer. It has improved my sleeping! No wonder kids love bedtime stories read to them. Anyways THANKS for your blog posts. Love them.

New blog post: www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/fourtee... #rothfuss #fantasy #reading #author #authors #patrickrothfuss #kingkillerchronicles

London, England. Throwback to when I had to rush to the US embassy to get my visa sorted. #photography #photo #london #england #uk #architecture

Interested in starting a career in Data Science? I wrote this blog on how to build your portfolio - an absolute must for getting your foot in the door. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/no-idea... #datascience #blog #ds

If I wrote a book and wanted people to read it I'd probably just go around loudly complaining about my book being on the "banned books" list. I mean, if I wrote a book it probably WOULD end up on banned books lists but still.

"Street photography is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by careful framing and timing." #photography #photo #streetphotography

Virginia Woolf, more than a hundred years ago:

Did you know Scotland has a giant stone pineapple?🍍 Built in 1761, the Dunmore Pineapple was a 18th-century flex. Pineapples were so rare and expensive that they were seen as the ultimate luxury item. The Earl of Dunmore turned his love for the fruit into this building. #photography #architecture

Hobbyist photographers: how do you handle the cost of new gear? Especially. when phone cameras are fairly good? I have a Canon 60d and a Samsung s24 ultra. I love my 60d for control but I can't help but feel paralyzed knowing my phone camera is so convenient to carry.

Last night's sunset and moon.... #photography #nature #ArtInNature #moon

Can't stop laughing at my cat acting like a ghost in a cartoon.

@autumnwolff.bsky.social thank you for saying audiobooks are reading, I agree and wrote a whole blog post about it! www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/in-defe...

Evolutionary Computation's Identity Crisis in the Age of GenAI. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/evoluti... #GenAI #ai #evolutionarycomputation #evolutionaryalgorithms #EAs #EC #optimization #research

I think of him all the time. Life goes on, but his doesn’t. Miss you, buddy.

I've been consistently hitting my health goals for a couple of months now. Strength training, swimming, playing more table tennis and walking the dog more. It's a nice time of year to do it, the increasing temperature makes going out feel rewarding. To the point I actually want to exercise. Weird.

I've had so many conversations with people turning their nose up at audiobooks, claiming that print is the only way to "really" read a book. Here is why they're wrong. www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/in-defe...

reminder: Captio shut down years ago but 'email your thought to yourself' never stopped being the fastest capture method. SimpleMemo is what i wanted to exist when Captio went offline — 0.3s launch, encrypted on-device, offline queue. no sync drama, no folders, no account drama.

the project re-entry point is underrated. every week wasted getting back into context is worth a lot more than most 'productivity hacks'. going to read this — pairing local LLM with well-structured notes feels like one of the best leverage plays right now.

Whether in Stirling, Scotland, or Michigan, USA, golden hour is always one of my favorite times of day.

"Ultimately literature is nothing but carpentry. Both are very hard work. Writing something is almost as hard as making a table. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.” Gabriel García Márquez, who died on this day in 2014

Had an awesome time meeting @naika in Detroit. #naika #welcometoeclesia #eclesia #detroit

After the tornado scare a few days ago, it was nice to see a double rainbow in Ann Arbor last night.

Today's blog post: Why learn to code in the age of AI?🤔 www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/why-lea...

Good morning. We are open. 📖☕️

With Claude Opus 4.7 released with a 7.5x cost, I'm reminded that Local #LLMs are not retro tech cosplay, they're tool ownership in an era of subscription gravity and frogs in boiling water.

I love paying $360 to find out my cat's flavor preferences #cats #catlover #cat #bruh

100%

Your Professional Second Brain for Local LLM Work (7 min read) www.kenreid.co.uk/blog/second-... #llm #ai #genai #generativeai #secondbrain #notes #notetaking #strategy

Keeping chickens has given me strong opinions about molt cycles and yolk color. 🤔 Chicken (and cat) tax. #BackyardChickens #Homestead #ChickenKeeper #RuralLife #HobbyLife

My lovely, sweet cat has PICA, making throw pillows, elastic bands and blankets contraband. #CatLife #PetCare #PICA #AnimalBehavior #LifeWithPets

Coming from free university education into US academia debt culture gave me permanent class whiplash. #StudentDebt #ClassPolitics #HigherEducation #USCulture #MigrationStory

I was shocked by the size of squirrels in the USA. Love them. #squirrel #squirrels #usa #michigan #lansing #photography

The Skyrim soundtrack has an unparalleled ability to teleport me to the past through a major nostalgia hit. media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2l... #skyrim #videogames #nostalgia #gaming #games #elderscrolls

LitRPG is junk food for my brain and I say that with affection. Sometimes I want to read philosophy or classics but sometimes I want stats and dungeon loot. #LitRPG #reading #literature #book #books

Still struggle with how America deals with tipping. It's treated as a moral system and an optional employee evaluation system instead of a payroll workaround. #America #USA #tipping #economics #payyourworkers #imnotmrpink

New post is live: The Science of Paying Off Debt. Sharing tips for paying off debt, and providing a free tool to help calculate your strategy. #DebtPayoff #PersonalFinance #DataScience #FinancialLiteracy #Budget #Budgeting #Debt #creditcards #capitalism #survival #frugal #code #python #opensource

I once had a very unlikely thing happen that gave me anamazing opportunity in life 🧵 My email address is related to my website, [email protected]. I used to use my website primarily as a gallery for my photography, and I had just moved to a town near Glasgow, Scotland.