Shui Sh-ui

The Dinner Table Is Broken. Rice Is the Fix.

How the fan/cai framework solved a problem I didn't know how to name.

My household just grew from five to six, with a seventh and eighth showing up on a semi-regular basis. This isn't unusual anymore. Rents are high, wages are stagnant, and families are figuring out that sharing a roof makes more sense than it did ten years ago. Multi-generational households, roommate families, extended relatives folding back in -- the Western nuclear household is quietly expanding again, and nobody updated the dinner playbook.

I've been cooking for this growing table for a while now, and I was already doing things differently than the standard Western approach. I wasn't roasting a big piece of meat and slicing it onto plates. I was treating protein as one ingredient among many -- building dishes the way a stir-fry works, where the meat is a component rather than the star, where the flavor comes from the whole construction rather than the cut. My instinct was always tow

Python Basics: Building an Overtime Pay Calculator

The Problem

Here's the assignment we're working with:

Write a Python program that calculates weekly pay. The program should multiply hours worked by hourly pay rate to get the weekly pay. Include overtime pay at 1.5 times the regular rate for any hours worked over 40. Use a float conversion for the hourly pay rate.

(Note: I'm paraphrasing how the original question might have been worded, but the core concepts are the same.)

Getting Selenium Running on Windows (setup notes)

Setup notes for getting Selenium working with Python on Windows. Validate with a small smoke test and use the backups if something fails.

main setup

This is the “happy path” I use now for Selenium in Python on Windows. Do it in a fresh project folder.

Pasta-Schuta

History & Origins

Pastasciutta, in its original form, was a rustic, portable meal for field workers. You would literally bring a towel with some cooked pasta into the field, then throw in cheese, pepper, and cured meat, shake it all up in that towel, and eat it. It was simple, practical nourishment that required no sauce or elaborate preparation.

This stands in stark contrast to modern pasta preparations that often focus on creating emulsified sauces, using pasta water, and achieving specific textures through various techniques. The original pastasciutta embraced simplicity and practicality over perfection and presentation.

The Pasta-Schuta Philosophy

Customizing my Terminal

I didn't know anything about shell scripts before I started working on this. I originally downloaded hyper.js and followed the setup guide for spaceship prompt without knowing why I use doing most of what I was doing.

Long story short I later revisted my setup hoping to customize it more and I went down the rabbit hole. I installed antigen, pure prompt, clean prompt; then I went back and switched back to spaceship prompt, and switched from antigen to antibody.

This is what I've settled on now, using zsh, oh-my-zsh, antibody, [spac

	#!/usr/bin/env python3
	"""
	PackWeasel: Python Application CLU for Keeping Work Easily Assembled & Swiftly Exported Later

	Usage:
	packweasel.py package [options]
	packweasel.py install [--global]
	packweasel.py --help[=TOPIC]
	packweasel.py --version

	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 'Joe' == TRUE

	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 'J' == TRUE # without brackets it checks within items
	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have ['J'] == FALSE # with brackets to check for an item

	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 1 'J' == FALSE

	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 2 'J' == TRUE # these are
	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 2 of 'J' == TRUE # equivalent
	'Joe', 'June', 'Harvey' have 2 ('J') == TRUE # expressions

	"""
	(PYCX) PYthon to Cython to eXec, a unix command line util
	Usage:
	pycx FILES... [-o DIR --verbose --delete --run]
	pycx --help

	Options:
	FILES one or more python files to compile
	-o --output=DIR output directory
	-v --verbose show output while exec compiles