About ten years ago I sat down in front of a camera and recorded eleven videos showing how I play mandolin for contra dances. I've now done something similar with piano, this time with thirteen videos.

This is not a high quality effort: I didn't write any scripts or even plan what I was going to say. Think of it as if we spent half an hour together, with me showing you how I play. Also keep in mind that I'm self taught, and my particular style that isn't for everyone. And my keyboard is wearing out, which means some of the keys make a clacking sound. And the first video cuts off part of my head, and the first eight videos have tape over the leftmost part of the camera. Ok, with caveats out of the way, the videos:

Last week the US president announced that:

... if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately "Open for Business," we will conclude our lovely "stay" in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet "touched." This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime's 47 year "Reign of Terror."

Yesterday morning he posted that:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell...

These are threats to target civilian infrastructure as a coercive measure, which would be a war crime: if Iran doesn't allow tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the US will cause massive damage to power plants, bridges, and possibly water systems. The US has historically accepted that this is off limits: destroying a bridge to stop it from being used to transport weapons is allowed, but not as retribution or to cause the civilian population to experience "Hell". The Pentagon's own Law of War Manual recognizes this distinction: when NATO destroyed power infrastructure in Kosovo, it was key that the civilian impact was secondary to the military advantage and not the primary purpose. [1][2]

To be clear, what Iran has been doing to precipitate this, by attacking civilian tankers for the economic impacts, is itself a war crime. But that does not change our obligations: the US has worked for decades to build acceptance for the principle that adherence to the Law of War is unconditional. It doesn't matter what our enemies do, we will respect the Law of War "in all circumstances". We've prosecuted our own service members, and enemy combatants, under this principle.

I'm a huge fan of whipped cream. It's rich, smooth, and fluffy, which makes it a great contrast to a wide range of textures common in baked goods. And it's usually better without adding sugar.

Desserts are usually too sweet. I want them to have enough sugar that they feel like a dessert, but it's common to have way more than that. Some of this is functional: in most cakes the sugar performs a specific role in the structure, where if you cut the sugar the texture will be much worse. This means that the cake layers will often be sweeter than I want for the average mouthful, and adding a layer of unsweetened whipped cream brings this down into the range that is ideal. It's good in helping hit a target level of sweetness without compromising texture.

Baking has traditionally made extensive use of egg whites, especially the way they can be beaten into a foam and then set with heat. While I eat eggs, I have a lot of people in my life who avoid them for ethical reasons, and this often limits what I can bake for them. I was very excited to learn, though, that you can now buy extremely realistic vegan egg whites!

EVERY engineered yeast to convert sugar into ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites and the one responsible for most of its culinary function. This kind of fermentation was pioneered for insulin and microbial rennet in the 1980s, but many companies are now applying it to producing all kinds of vitamins, proteins, dyes, and enzymes.

I've played a lot of dance weekends over the years [1] and if I could change one thing it would be no more challenging sessions. I see it happen every time: it's a great crowd of people, with a wide range of experience levels, and Saturday afternoon is going well. Then it's time for the challenging / advanced / experienced session. What happens? The dances are too hard for the crowd and it's not fun.

The callers had already been selecting dances that worked well for the group, which meant material that was interesting but not a struggle. Push the difficulty up from there, and what gives? You can take longer teaching, perhaps four minutes instead of two, which lets you explain material that's a bit harder, but only a bit and at the cost of a lot more talking. You can call no-walkthroughs, medleys, or even hash, but at most dance weekends you can get away with that at a regular session (and if you can't it won't work at a challenging session either). Or you can call material that's too hard for the crowd, and it falls apart in places.

To go well, challenging sessions can't just be a matter of picking harder dances, they require a group of dancers who are up to the challenge. This can work as a one-off event or even a whole weekend, where you communicate clearly what people should expect and people can self-select. It can work at a festival where you have multiple tracks and people can easily choose something else. But none of this applies to most dance weekends, since they only have one hall.

Open source components are getting compromised a lot more often. I did some counting, with a combination of searching, memory, and AI assistance, and we had two in 2026-Q1 (trivy, axios), after four in 2025 (shai-hulud, glassworm, nx, tj-actions), and very few historically [1]: