Jesse Pelley

Jesse — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 09:06:08 -0400

Jesse — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:40:29 -0500

I didn't realize how easy it was to get a LLM up and running. how exciting!

Jesse — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:05:41 -0500

Christmas trees look their best on Christmas morning, right before sunrise, when it’s quiet.

Jesse — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 07:40:58 -0500

My year with ChatGPT: 10.83K messages 677 chats 23 images generated by its own estimate, this is about 10 kWh for the whole year. The time saved from endless googling, scouring forums and general brainstorming is unmeasurable. Across 677 chats I’ve used it for esoteric scripting troubleshooting (HTA and jscript), random philosophy, tax law and accounting, and even meal prep ideas. I’m struggling to think of what I *haven’t* used it for. “You'll find calm in the hum of well-cooled drives and properly labeled folders.“ lol! I have no idea what that gold coffee token is about, but I want one.

Jesse — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 22:56:00 -0500

I caught him relaxing in the study 🐰

Jesse — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 21:37:52 -0400

revisited Mont Royal, Montreal

Jesse — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 08:33:38 -0400

voice in my head: “I can’t think of any rational reason for jumping in front of a bus.” oh ok

Jesse — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 13:36:27 -0400

📌 putting this here so that I remember. I woke up on my day off with a headache for what seems like no reason. I did everything I thought right: balanced breakfast, coffee, advil, plenty of water. Annoyed. At around noon I took a bath and put my head under. Instant relief. Why? Maybe it's because the blood vessels are mildly dilated. Maybe the water pressure affected it. I doubled down and put ice and cold water in a bowl and dunked my whole head in. It felt fantastic. Maybe I'll do that more often.

Jesse — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 15:46:27 -0500

Ever asked ChatGPT about someone you know, personally? Mike told me the other day that it gave him a nice little summary about me: what I did for work, what my hobbies and interests are. It felt a lot more personal and detailed than I would have imagined. It's not like I'm a public figure with a wikipedia page. It summarized (this website) and my linkedin profile and probably anything else you could get with Google. What made this different... or somewhat unsettling... is how it pulled up all this information in quick, conversational language—which I guess is the whole point of generative ai. If you haven't tried it yourself, give it a shot. It's the new version of "googling" yourself. Hopefully you're not shocked

Jesse — Tue, 07 May 2024 15:02:56 -0400

I posted these to instagram and I can't help but share the autogenerated alt attribute in the img tag: "Photo by Jesse PeIley on May 06, 2024. May be a selfie of 1 person, beard, mountain and snow."

Jesse — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:58:06 -0500

I'm dissatisfied with spreadsheets on phones so I thought I'd start learning how I can use javascript on a webpage to do my most common calculations for me. huzzah

Jesse — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 14:19:05 -0500

I've been learning Spanish for the past month or so using good old duolingo. I thought it would be cool if they had a public api to pull my profile stats and post them here live but it seems it would be harder than I would hope. This URL shows my progress but it requires authentication but it's something. https://www.duolingo.com/api/1/users/show?id=11848513 2025 Update! the Correct URL is : https://www.duolingo.com/2017-06-30/users/11848513 It works! Here is my live streak [duolingo_streak]

Jesse — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 17:06:25 -0400

First code written on the mac mini 😝 tell application "System Events" repeat 1000 times click at {950, 755} end repeat end tell

Jesse — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 09:40:14 -0400

Well worth the hike! 📸

Jesse — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 12:24:29 -0400

I should have had marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers to complete the experience 🍫 Glad we can breath again today!

Jesse — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 07:17:52 -0500

I finally learned how to poach eggs. Yes, it was delicious. No more 🍳😌

Jesse — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:11:34 -0500

It's already 2 months in to 2023 and I can't believe it. I had a quite the career change last year and I'm just settling in now. This year I'm focusing on important things like reconnecting with old friends.

Jesse — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 15:43:07 -0500

Much like how I disliked the bloat of wordpress, I also don’t like how bloated mediawiki is. I think I’ve learned enough of javascript and sql to build something similar for myself. I would start with a blank page, the home page. Additional pages would only be able to be created if it’s linked from another page. This enforces organization and prevents dead links. On a single page, each paragraph would be considered the smallest “unit”. This enables stronger searching with sql queries. Instead of returning a full page with a match, it would be easier to return which segment of the page that matched. Using javascript I would make the page’s content and the html forms be dynamic. It definitely won’t be as advanced as Mediawiki’s VisualEditor but it would be similar. I would make it so that if I double-tapped the space between paragraphs, a new textarea would be inserted in-line, allowing a new segment to be added to the page. Tapping away from this area or hitting the return key twice so as to end a paragraph would save the textarea to the db in a post action. To maintain a fluid/desktop like feel I will not reload the page but use javascript to replace the textarea box with a simple p tag. I would not re-invent the wheel and adopt markdown. So to create a link to a new page I would put a word in square brackets. This would be rendered as a link (to a page that would not yet exist), after saving the segment it would render as a red hyperlink or blue if it already exists. Editing a segment would be the same, just double tapping the segment (paragraph). Javascript would remove the paragraph and replace it with a textarea of the same size and content. It’s another idea and it may never happen. But it sure would be nice to have it for studying this CMLTO refresher course 😋

Jesse — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 09:51:29 -0500

Just discovered robocopy, another robust built-in tool for windows. Wish I had known about it before 😔

Jesse — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 19:13:14 -0400

📝Gratitude journaling

Jesse — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 23:57:48 -0400

I’ve had these guys for so long I’ve forgotten where I got them. Psyduck still works!

Jesse — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:06:46 -0400

Happy Thanksgiving! I made Nan and Mom play Scrabble with us this weekend even though I’m awful at it. We used up all the tiles at the end because we switched to “house rules” … but Nan still won.

Jesse — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 11:53:11 -0400

I have the Bing Wallpaper app installed on my work PC which changes the desktop background daily. The one for today is stunning!

Jesse — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 12:16:37 -0400

🍿 The Woman King (2022) ★★★★ The best movie in theatres I’ve seen this year. It had an engaging story, great acting, and visual effects. To me it seemed like it was promoted as an action film with a serious plot. But there is plenty of drama, character development and actually quite a bit of humour—particularly by Izogie (Lashana Lynch), who takes my pick for best character. I don’t particularly enjoy empty action/war films so I’m happy this turned out to be something with plenty of substance!

Jesse — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 17:30:32 -0400

If you're lucky enough to be working on an excel workbook with 80+ sheets, you may improve your life with the following: The little black arrows in the lower left corner bring up a scroll-able popup window, if you right-click on them 🤯

Jesse — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 13:39:58 -0400

~25 years later I'm still learning new things about Windows. Have you accidentally moved a window so far off screen where you can't click on the title bar and move it back? Right-click on the taskbar, click "Cascade windows". OR Shift-right-click on the window in the taskbar, click "Move", then with the keyboard press the arrow keys until the window comes into the screen!

Jesse — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 09:20:30 -0400

Lac Leamy

Jesse — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:11:48 -0400

Big To do! - OAuth2 for liking and commenting and posting to a "wall" (og facebook style) - personal kb to replace mediawiki

Jesse — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 23:01:08 -0400

Time with family in Nova Scotia

Jesse — Sat, 28 May 2022 08:52:51 -0400

Wow I just used linear algebra for a real world example. Needed pen and paper but I did it! WHY DOES THIS FEEL SUBSTANTIAL

Jesse — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 10:11:29 -0400

I'm excited to learn about IBKR's flex queries and Steam's user API 🤓

Jesse — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 14:14:17 -0400

I’m happy when I make my mom happy. Happy birthday, Mom!

Jesse — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 10:56:52 -0500

2022—guaranteed to be mentally a better year. I mean… the bar has been on the floor for quite a while 🙃

Jesse — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 08:27:44 -0500

I don’t think I’ve seen all my aunts, mom and nan this happy all together in a long time 🥰

Jesse — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 13:06:44 -0500

This coin is 10 years older than Confederation. We had found it in the floorboards of our old house and I’ve kept it with me since. It sort of proves that the house I grew up in is at least as old as the country!

Jesse — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 20:23:51 -0400

sometimes I need to take my phone with me on a run 📸

Jesse — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 01:13:28 -0400

I don’t know what I was doing in 2008 but it was obviously not listening to this album 😩

Jesse — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 11:25:45 -0400

I did it before so I know I can do it again. I changed my diet drastically a few years ago as an experiment (ketogenic diet). I’m doing it again this year from Canada Day to Thanksgiving.

Jesse — Sat, 24 Jul 2021 22:17:59 -0400

wow I just gave Windows 10 Mail a go with compact mode. What a solid app! Fluid interface, minimalistic, responsive. Blows macOS mail out the park!

Jesse — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 11:30:10 -0400

I really wish Apple would let us disable the hard-coded Flashlight and Camera buttons on our lock screens. But then I discover random photos like this.

Jesse — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 00:13:39 -0400

Ontario came out of lockdown and I managed to find a few pics taken right before I got my hair cut. I had got this hat about a month ago but I had no idea that I would soon use it to contain that mess.

Jesse — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 00:03:56 -0400

I think I’m finally able to ditch instagram. I mean… I’ve made like one post there in a year. Hurray #selfhosted !

Jesse — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 18:00:14 -0400

Full moon from last night June 24 📷 iPhone is getting a bit better at capturing it—you can even see the lunar maria!

Jesse — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 17:08:51 -0400

He said he liked it and that’s all that matters 🤠

Jesse — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 22:47:47 -0400

I'm still geeking out that I had to use a modulus for the first time while building my photo grid the other day. Please understand that I'm just learning here 😅 if ($i % 3 == 0) { //with $i representing a numbered photo, if $i divided by 3 is exactly 0 then start a new row of photos! }

Jesse — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 08:54:59 -0400

I'm off work for another 'stay-cation'! My big goals for the next week: - start running again - upper body workouts - fix my music library

Jesse — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 08:26:10 -0400

Pretty cool art from Aaron Kuehn 😁

Jesse — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 07:37:31 -0400

I've been primarily a macbook user for about a decade but in the last year I decided to try a PC again. Mostly because of the software I use at work but also because games. I went with a Razer Blade Stealth. It is very similar to macbook design and even supports eGPU. I miss the old matte macbook screens so I was happy to get that option. About 6 months into using it I was rudely reminded of the driver hell I experienced in the late 90s and early 2000s—when I had windows PCs. Suddenly, without warning, rhyme or reason, my display would go black. It would come back with a force reset or if I shut the lid, wait for sleep mode, then open it. Obviously a driver issue. I uninstalled all recent updates. I reinstalled Razer's bloatware countless times. I couldn't figure out the solution to this intermittent problem so I just settled on ignoring it. Now, a few months ago I decided to uninstall all of Razer's software and instead install all of the laptop's drivers directly from Intel. I haven't had an issue since. Go figure. I still think it's the best Windows laptop for me 🙃

Jesse — Sat, 29 May 2021 10:09:21 -0400

I took this picture from behind Parliament hill thinking it would make a good wallpaper 🤔

Jesse — Wed, 26 May 2021 09:20:05 -0400

Just got my second dose. I’m so grateful 🥲

Jesse — Mon, 24 May 2021 08:47:14 -0400

today's challenge is going back and importing my old posts. I used to store posts as plain text files, so that should be easy enough. I'm going to use php to do my redirects though. Learning redirects in htaccess will be another day.

Jesse — Sun, 23 May 2021 22:16:50 -0400

LOL I just bought myself a coffee with Ko-fi with apple pay and it worked

Jesse — Sun, 23 May 2021 10:57:28 -0400

To do - get webring! 🕸💍 - show pageload stat at footer ✔ - fix how images are displayed ✔ - add conversation.js from micro.blog ✔ ~~- pagination~~ oh god nvm 😵 - add duckduckgo search bar ✔

Jesse — Sat, 22 May 2021 21:02:44 -0400

random photos from 2020

Jesse — Sat, 22 May 2021 11:41:41 -0400

more and more I appreciate my past self taking just a little bit of extra effort in writing comments for my own work, for myself, so that future me understands what the hell I was doing 🤣

Jesse — Sun, 16 May 2021 21:10:42 -0400

Next up, I'm playing with the micro.blog json api !

Jesse — Sun, 16 May 2021 17:59:58 -0400

AirTag! It’s been a long 2 years of rumours for this thing. Here’s hoping I never lose my keys again 👏

Jesse — Sat, 15 May 2021 22:47:54 -0400

Yay made some serious php functions with sql update and delete statements. All ready for input from proper HTML forms (that you won't see). My main goal here has been to build a blog/site from scratch. Wordpress is cool but it's also pretty bloated. I think my next goals are to make a single post page, and to set up RSS so that I can add micro.blog again.

Jesse — Mon, 10 May 2021 21:10:07 -0400

Ottawa River

Jesse — Sun, 09 May 2021 12:26:22 -0400

Adding images is a lot harder than I had thought. I used the Shortcuts app to resize and convert images from my phone and then upload them using POST method. The next trick is linking the image to the post in the database.

Jesse — Sat, 08 May 2021 22:51:12 -0400

I built a sqlite database from scratch here. Using the Shortcuts app on my phone I can write a post and it will query a URL and a php script will add the text the database. Then you should see it here!

Jesse — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 01:07:00 -0500

Hurdman station 📷 iPhone 12 mini