Home on Carlos Urreta's Weblog

urreta.com, finally

Sun, 08 Nov 2026 21:14:18 -0600

I am now the proud owner of urreta.com.

It was first registered in 2004, and I’ve wanted it since around 2006. For the past 22 years, it’s been in the hands of domain squatters. Every so often I’d visit to check the asking price, then grumble and curse.

Ten years ago: $10,000. Five years ago: $4,000. Last year: $1,000.

Yesterday: $500.

At that price, it was one of those “treat yo’ self” moments. I’d prefer never to engage with squatters, but I made an exception.

Crane Fly

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:26:31 -0500

A close-up of a crane fly reveals its finely patterned compound eye, antenna, and bristled mouthparts against a coral background.

Record Needle

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:24:22 -0500

A close-up of a record needle reveals its pointed tip, fine scratches, and tiny particles clinging to the surrounding surface.

Flower Pollen

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:21:59 -0500

Pale pollen grains cover purple flower structures against a softly blurred violet background.

House Centipede Eye

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:20:23 -0500

A close-up of a house centipede’s compound eye reveals a dense pattern of facets, surrounded by fine hairs and warm pink and gold tones.

Tree Lichen

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:18:46 -0500

A close-up of tree lichen reveals dark-centered discs with pale rims beside patches of bright yellow lichen.

Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:54:27 -0500

A six-spotted tiger beetle (Cicindela sexguttata), photographed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is shown in a 161-frame focus stack.

Supervised SSH Into a Friend's Mac

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working with a friend to harden the personal infrastructure around the productivity stuff we’re both building, mostly handling more ideas and routing them to the right places, with LLMs and agents stepping in where it makes sense. My side is pretty robust and stable at this point. His is coming along, and I often want to be the one typing on his computer: go in, make a bunch of changes, and hand the machine back.

A Little pass Trick

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every morning I process my inbox containing voice notes I left myself, messages from people I need to respond to, links and notes that need to get routed to the right places. Agents help with the retrieval and routing, and a lot of that touches secrets stored in pass: API tokens, bot credentials, that kind of thing.

The problem is that the first pass call in a session prompts for my GPG passphrase. If an agent hits that mid-run, it just hangs waiting for input I’m not watching for.

Adding a Replay Buffer to Handy

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:00:00 -0600

I’ve been using Handy for a while now. It’s a desktop speech-to-text app where you hold a key, talk, and it transcribes and pastes what you said. Simple and useful. But I kept running into a situation where I’d have a conversation, riff on something good, and then think I wish I had written that down.

So I forked it and added a replay buffer. Here’s my fork on GitHub: github.com/curreta/Handy/tree/feature/ring-buffer

You Must Have a Nice Camera

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:59:00 -0600

I used to be more out there showing people my photography and would occasionally get an quick response of, “Oh, you must have a nice camera.”

It used to sting, but now I see it in good faith. I know people without photography experience don’t have much grasp of what’s at play. No problemo. I fight blurting out, “OK, take my camera and make something half as good,” and instead give a cheery, “Yeah, I do. I have some pretty good lenses too!”

Fixing Poshmark's Annoying Hover Menus

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:48:07 -0600

I was watching my sister browse Poshmark when she accidentally hovered over one of the navigation menus. The entire screen was immediately covered by a massive dropdown. Classic bad UX—hover menus that are too eager and too large.

Debugging the Browser Camera API

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:49:47 -0600

I’ve been adding a feature to Garbs.net that lets you take photos directly from the browser using the ImageCapture API.

It was working great on my Pixel 9a, but when my sister tested on her Galaxy S21, all our closeup test shots were coming out blurry. The issue? Her phone has an extra ultrawide lens with a fixed focus, and my code wasn’t picking the correct camera.

After some digging, I discovered that Camera 0 (the “Main” camera) was being returned as index 3 or 4 on her device. The camera enumeration order isn’t consistent across phones.

All I Can Do Is Try

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:38:41 -0500

I’m closing on my first house in a few days, and I’ve been familiarizing myself with that midwestern temple, Menards. Cue shining light imagery followed by a celestial “aaaaahhhhh.”

As I was leaving the pipe fitting section, another guy was finishing up in the same aisle. He grabbed his selection, started walking away, and with a subtle shake of his head muttered under his breath, “All I can do is try.”

Claude Code Mantras

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 09:01:34 -0500

I let myself have the mental model that Claude Code is running alongside different projects. Sometimes I’m in a full sprint and need to rely on Claude’s full pace. That’s the case for the inventory and listing software my sister and I are building. It’s in a programming language I’m deeply familiar with, and the whole application context is loaded in my head. Other times, as in the case of Pomoria Energy, it’s a side project that needs to grow much more intentionally. The architecture and diligence are more important.

TIL: HTML Error Responses Can Crash Wails JavaScript Bindings

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Problem: I was working on a Wails desktop application and had the Go backend upload a photo to my own API (another service). When the photo failed to upload I didn’t catch that my own upload endpoint was returning an HTML error response instead of JSON. This caused the Javascript VM to show “NeedDebuggerBreak trap” and promises never resolved.

Solution: I didn’t fully debug whether the issue was because the HTML was too large or special characters in the response were causing an issue. The solution was to have the API return a proper JSON response.

Ring-Billed Gull With Fresh Catch

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 15:19:03 -0500

Painted Turtles Basking Together

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 15:15:50 -0500

Cormorant In Flight

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 14:49:59 -0500

Eastern Bluebird On Weathered Stump

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:21:21 -0500

Mallard Duck in Water

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:18:19 -0500

Cardinal Amongst Branches

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:15:32 -0500

Northern Cardinal Early Spring

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:12:57 -0500

Curious Mink

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:10:57 -0500

Raccoon Resting on Tree Branch

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:06:30 -0500

Hawk Resting on a Branch

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 12:47:38 -0500

Hawk Portrait With Intense Gaze

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 12:46:20 -0500

Gray catbird Perched On Branch

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:38:51 -0500

Northern Cardinal On A Branch

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:30:45 -0500

Cedar Waxwing On Bare Branch

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:28:06 -0500

Cormorant Perched On Branch

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:13:16 -0500

Bald Eagle In Flight

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:10:41 -0500

Common Egret On A Branch

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:08:01 -0500

Soaring Gull Over Golden Grass

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:05:38 -0500

Autumn Squirrel With A Nut

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 16:04:07 -0500

Heron In Flight

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:24:51 -0500

Great Egret In Flight at Dawn

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 09:01:57 -0500

Juvenile Green Heron Portrait

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 08:56:45 -0500

Great Egret In Flight

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:53:07 -0500

Barred Owl Among Leaves

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:40:25 -0500

Juvenile Wood Duck Among Duckweed

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:22:03 -0500

Green Heron Among The Reeds

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 09:23:01 -0500

Spider With Captured Insect

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 09:20:13 -0500

Fruit Fly on Green Leaf (Zonosemata Vittigeraon)

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 20:40:25 -0500

Dahlia and Pollinating Bee

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 18:50:51 -0500

Jumping Spider on Dried Stem

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 18:30:27 -0500

Curled Millipede On Branch

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 16:08:12 -0500

Japanese Beetles On A Leaf

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 16:06:51 -0500

Red Aphids On Green Stem

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:32:50 -0500

Green Coneheaded Planthopper

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:18:54 -0500

Dragonfly's Iridescent Wings

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:15:17 -0500

Ant on a Green Leaf

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:55:17 -0500

Bee on Bright Orange Flower

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:45:11 -0500

Bumblebee Portrait

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:25:48 -0500

Cicada Wing Detail

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:07:27 -0500

Bumblebee on Pink Zinnia

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:52:33 -0500

Barred Owl Allopreening

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:32:18 -0500

Blue Swallow Perched On Branch

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:43:47 -0500

Female Cardinal on a Branch

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:40:47 -0500

Ducks Amongst the Reeds

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:35:14 -0500

Duck Feet on Wet Rock

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 19:40:51 -0500

Local and Private Voice-to-Insight System with AI

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve built a system that uses AI to help manage my thoughts and emotions. It’s not perfect, but it works for me. Here’s how I use it every day.

“…giving me a starting point for further reflection”

Process Overview

It’s pretty straightforward:

I talk to my watch, just like leaving a voice message.
My home server picks up the new audio file.
It turns my words into text.
The text goes through an AI that “thinks” about what I said.
Both the original text and the AI’s thoughts end up in my note-taking app.
My watch receives the AI’s response within a few seconds.

All of this happens automatically, locally, without me doing anything beyond the initial voice memo.

About

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the About page of my Hugo site. Here you can learn more about the blog and its author.