"Boom and Bust Colorado," Thomas J. Noel and William J. Hansen

Wow this is the first book I have finished in a while. Sorry to all my fans. Anyway, I mostly enjoyed this book. The best parts were definitely about the gold and silver rush at the beginning, since I learned about how almost every place I ever go to in Colorado is somehow rooted in those discoveries.

http://www.nelsbeckman.com/books.jsp

Google Cloud Emails

I have a web site with a list of books that I have read that is generated dynamically from a database. So probably once every 3 months I get some email like this from Google Cloud that makes almost no sense at all to me. This one is especially egregious. I have no idea what they are talking about.

Hello Nels, We’re writing to inform you about an important change that will impact your App Engine app. The older App Engine projects could be using Google Container Registry to store container images created from the deployed source code. Google Container Registry is being discontinued and will be replaced by Artifact Registry. This means if you have content in Google Container Registry, you need to follow the instructions below to allow App Engine to automatically migrate your deployment flows. We’ve provided additional information below to guide you through this change. What you need to know When deploying App Engine, Cloud Build transforms source code into container images which may be stored in Google Container Registry. Artifact Registry is the next-generation service for storing container images, offering improved regionalized storage and security features. Going forward, Artifact Registry will be the container repository used by App Engine. After a successful App Engine application deployment: The App Engine standard environment doesn’t require pulling from the container repository The App Engine flexible environment pulls from the container repository on each instance startup Upcoming changes: Starting March 5, 2025: New deployments will start using Artifact Registry instead of Google Container Registry for storing application images. After March 18, 2025: Google Container Registry will begin shut down, preventing App Engine flexible environment instances from starting. What you need to do If your project already uses Artifact Registry for gcr.io urls, either because you have run the automated migration tooling, or because it was created after May 2024, you can ignore the following instructions for that project. For projects which are not yet migrated you will need to follow these steps to enable App Engine to automatically migrate your deployment flows. App Engine standard environment users: For standard deployments to work correctly with Artifact Registry: The service account associated with deployments (typically this will be the App Engine default service account, project-id@appspot.gserviceaccount.com, or your custom service account) command should have a role that grants the explicit Artifact Registry permission artifactregistry.repositories.uploadArtifacts (for write). You can find this information by viewing the roles of the service account. New deployments will be able to use Artifact Registry, if any of the following roles are present in the service account associated with deployments: Editor role Pre-defined Artifact Registry role with write access (like Artifact Registry Writer). Custom role that grants artifactregistry.repositories.uploadArtifacts permission. It can be verified from the Console or through the gcloud iam roles describe command. If none of these roles are present, grant the Artifact Registry Writer role (roles/artifactregistry.writer) to your deploying service account. Potential Impact: If the preceding steps aren't completed before the Google Container Registry shuts down, you won't be able to deploy new versions of your App Engine standard application. Existing App Engine standard applications will continue to run. App Engine flexible environment users: For flexible deployments to Artifact Registry to work correctly: The service account associated with deployments (typically, this will be the App Engine default service account, project-id@appspot.gserviceaccount.com, or your custom service account) should have a role that grants the explicit Artifact Registry permissions: artifactregistry.repositories.downloadArtifacts (for read) and artifactregistry.repositories.uploadArtifacts (for write). You can find this information by viewing the roles of the service account. New deployments will go to the Artifact Registry if any of the following roles are present in the service account associated with deployments: Editor role Pre-defined Artifact Registry role with read and write access (like Artifact Registry Writer). Custom role that grants artifactregistry.repositories.downloadArtifacts and artifactregistry.repositories.uploadArtifacts permissions. These can be verified from the Console or through the gcloud iam roles describe command. If none of these roles are present, grant the Artifact Registry Repository Administrator role (roles/artifactregistry.repoAdmin) to your deploying service account. You can migrate manually built container images to Artifact Registry only by running the automated migration utility for your project. Potential Impact: If the preceding actions are not completed before the Google Container Registry shutdown, deploying App Engine flexible applications, scaling instances, and restarting instances will fail. We’re here to help If you have any questions or require assistance, please contact Google Cloud Support. Thanks for choosing App Engine.

— The Google Cloud Team

Books in 2024

 In 2024 I read 7 books. Pretty sad!

But I guess that's life as a parent. Anyway, my favorite was Counterweight, by Djuna.

Favorite songs from 2024!

 It was a good year for music! Want proof? Well my list of favorite songs for this year has 10 songs instead of the normal 5. I think this music summarizes the "cool dad" vibe I am trying to put out there, but you can be the judge. As usual, most of the songs were from 2024, but a few were just ones I learned about in 2024 for the first time!

• Northern Attitude (Noah Kahan & Hozier): This song is great. It's about getting older, as is all good media. Don't believe whatever nonsense they have on Genius.com.
• Apple (Charli xcx): I have to be honest, brat didn't really do it for me, I think I have gotten a bit too old, but this song is a good one.
• Deeper Well (Kacey Musgraves): Kacey Musgraves has a pretty good Indie Country thing going.
• Close to You (Gracie Abrams): Did you know Gracie Abrams is JJ Abrams' daughter?!
• Illusion (Dua Lipa)
• Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter): This whole album is good and you should given it a listen. But the backstory to this one (her real-life now ex boyfriend is an Irish actor who causes a big scene every time they go out) is too funny.

Honorary entries that came out before 2024:

• Chaise Longue (Wet Leg): All day long
• The Place That Makes Me Happy (The Moss): I am going camping!
• See Her Out (Francis and the Lights): Heard this on FX's excellent The English Teacher! Watch and Listen.
• She Looks So Perfect (5 Seconds of Summer): The dumb fun I have come to expect from 5 Second of Summer.

You can listen yourself here:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6hZRfDZm7IcrKbs52LoeR6I7gc8TRYAF&si=l0HhDjap_nYZ2tST

5 Songs from 2023

Well Q1 was a doozy, so I have finally gotten around to compiling my 5 favorite songs from 2023! Here are my 5 favorites, only 3 months late:

• "Honey," by Samia - You should listen to the whole album, but this was the gateway song!
• "Sinner," by The Last Dinner Party - From what I understand the dinner party was pretty wild.
• "Modern Girl," by Bleachers - I have already completed burned myself out on this song, but it was my top 1 for several weeks. Real Bruce Springsteen vibes.
• "103," by The Kills - Yes, very awesome.
• "My Kink Is Karma," by Chappell Roan - Dang her album is great and I am sad that her show in Boulder is sold out. Don't be like me folks.

Try listening on YouTube music?!

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6hZRfDZm7IdYZ83atCeU9t-ifJTftaTC

A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons - Ben Folds

 I have basically always loved Ben Folds' music, and he has a ton of it, so it seemed only right to give his book a read. Ben seems like the kind of person who keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, and if your his family or friend you love him but kind of cringe to see him doing the same thing again. Overall it was good. I would have liked to hear more about some of the specific songs and albums. For example, Reinhold Messner which I consider to be one of his best albums, was like a throwaway paragraph in the book!

http://www.nelsbeckman.com/books.jsp

The Cabinet - Un-su Kim

 This one took me forever to finish, I just couldn't get engaged...

www.nelsbeckman.com/books.jsp