Josh Tong

Thanks, I hope to write more about it.

Python was useful for the proof of concept when I wanted to learn whether the idea was feasible. But then I didn’t need Python to build the app.

Instead I used Gemini to help draft a PRD and prompts for Lovable, which then rewrote the scripts its own way.

I like learning, experimenting, and then sharing my work. If organizations are smart, they’ll give their employees plenty of room to do that, without unrealistic expectations or counterproductive mandates.

This year I learned enough Python to write scripts that revise and combine source content into structured content at scale with LLM APIs.

Then I used low-code tools to create an app that makes the scripts easier for colleagues to use.

Happy semiannual Google How to Reset Your Kitchen Appliance Clocks and Squint at PDF Manuals Day.

Meadow and hills with autumn trees under a cloudy sky.

Woodland path covered in leaves and lined with tall trees in fall foliage.

Forest with red and yellow autumn leaves.

Quiet day in the Catskills.

A query for “mental health” returns a table of blog posts. They’re sorted by the score in descending order, beginning with the post that is semantically the closest match.

The semantic search feature is also useful. When creating or applying a taxonomy, you can search crawled content for terms and find potential matches. It also returns a score for each result to help gauge how closely the page matches the term.

How it works: It sends crawled content to an AI embedding model, which creates numerical representations of the content. Then it uses statistics to do “affinity diagramming” on the content.

Screenshot of an interactive cluster diagram. It visualizes a blog’s content in color-coded groups. Another window shows some of the embeddings that led to the clusters.

I’m impressed by Screaming Frog’s new AI cluster analysis feature. Useful for:
—Discovering topics in a corpus when creating a taxonomy
—Identifying related content
—Finding outlier or duplicate content

Doesn't replace traditional methods, but it does make some initial analyses quicker and easier.

A blue, pink, and orange sunrise over an older urban neighborhood with densely built houses and duplexes.

Sunrise in Philadelphia.

A towering grove of dawn-redwood trees.

This is one of my favorite places: a grove of dawn-redwood trees in Morris Arboretum.

Scientists thought the genus went extinct 2–5 million years ago. But a live tree turned up in China in the 1940s, a grad student brought several pounds of seeds to Philly, and now there are 48 dawn-redwoods here.

A note on the door say, “PLEASE. No textbooks! No musty books! No torn or severely damaged books! No one takes them so I have to dispose of them. Thank you for clean, good books!”

This little free library is not messing around.

If German literature isn’t your thing, I can recommend a few dozen novelists and poets who saw the rise of autocracies elsewhere.

Many of the things they described are happening here.

As an undergrad, I wrote my junior-year thesis on Günter Grass’s “The Tin Drum,” a novel about a society’s semi-willing descent into fascism.

Friends in the US, that story is worth reading.

A trail sign that says, “Shades of Death Trail.”

Two hikers smiling in front of a waterfall.

Also hiked the Shades of Death Trail. The name gave us pause, but a park ranger said we’d be fine.

A person standing in a field of boulders.

We visited Boulder Field in the Poconos today. Extraordinary landscape that formed 20,000 years ago. Repeated freezing and thawing carved 16 acres of boulders out of the bedrock near the edge of a glacier.

What an incredible idea, really.
1. Request almost any book.
2. It arrives a few days later.
3. Take it home for free.
4. Just bring it back a few weeks later.

Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’, report alleges Incident in which migrants were shackled with hands tied one of succession of alleged abuses at jails in Florida

Rounding people up, putting them in concentration camps, and treating them like animals:

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This is horrifying, and it's just the beginning unless Americans put a stop to it.

Organize and resist: www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...

Cars racing around a track below crowded stands.

A family member invited me to a NASCAR race. I went and tried to keep an open mind.

It turns out that races are very loud and very long and sometimes very hot. If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, then you might want to suggest a different activity or politely decline. End of PSA.

First day of vacation and I find myself asking Gemini about applying a taxonomy with sentence transformer models and similarity functions.

Ack, enough of this. Time to go read Elizabeth Bishop on a beach towel.

Two festivalgoers under a canopy of illuminated magnolia sculptures.

Coral reef lantern sculptures.

An illuminated dragon sculpture with a serpentine tail that stretches into the distance.

A blue crab sculpture between a pair of jellyfish.

The Chinese Lantern Festival in Philly’s Franklin Square was such a treat last night. Actors and acrobats, food and craft vendors, cultural workshops, and 1,000+ illuminated sculptures in dozens of lantern displays.

Judge Blocks Trump Administration Tactics in L.A. Immigration Raids

“Making indiscriminate arrests based on race and denying detainees access to lawyers” is a description of a white supremacist police state in the US.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/u...

No one is safe from this. Keep organizing against it.

indivisible.org

Book box from the side.

Miniature birds perched on the roof.

Close-up of a gutter that connects to a downspout.

Book box with great curb appeal.

Bay window that reveals miniature birds and bookshelves.

Close-up of a penguin and chick reading a book.

A cockatoo perusing a bookshelf.

This is the best little free library.

–Two stories of books.

–A miniature library of books, with a parrot on a book ladder, a pair of cockatoos, and a penguin reading a book to a baby penguin.

–Several books titled _Book_ and one titled _Universe_.

–Birds on the roof.

–Working gutters.

Today, cross-functional teams work together (or not) to create and improve artifacts and deliverables.

A new challenge: Working together to design the AI systems that create and improve the artifacts and deliverables.

Books from Dalkey Archive Press and Graywolf.

Books published by Archipelago Books.

Books published by Europa Editions.

Books published by New York Review Books.

I love it when bookstores introduce readers to independent publishers like this.

Afternoon caffeine is my weakness. I drink too much and set out to cross the alps on elephants.

Nameplate that says Specific Mechanical Systems, Victoria, BC, CAN.

When a generic mechanical system just won’t do.

Two hikers in front of a park map.

Map of a 5.6 mile hike along Cresheim Creek and the Wissahickon. Duration of 2 hours, 26 minutes, and elevation gain of 420 feet.

I was feeling down about (1) the State of the World and (2) my brother's flight to Philly got canceled without enough time to reschedule.

Michelle suggested a hike. We crossed the bridge to Valley Green Inn, walked along Forbidden Drive, and watched the merriment at Devil's Pool. Felt better.

How Do You Adapt James Baldwin? Very Carefully.

Our neighborhood theater made the NY Times:
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/t...

Congratulations @quintessencephl.bsky.social!

Fans of Morocco’s Wydad AC brought a party like ‘no one has ever seen’ to Lincoln Financial Field In Wednesday's FIFA Club World Cup match between Morocco's biggest club and English giant Manchester City, the game itself was secondary to the experience.

The FIFA Club World Cup is in Philly, and the fans are the best part. A global game in a nation of immigrants.

Fans of Morocco's Wydad AC brought a party like 'no one has ever seen' to Lincoln Financial Field
share.inquirer.com/bUSLBW

Brazil’s Flamengo roars past Chelsea
share.inquirer.com/JA8u3G