I'm Alex Kearney, I'm Science at the University of Alberta. I focus on Artificial Intelligence and Epistemology.





closing tabs is self-care


Everyone is talking about finding gray hairs from the stress of 2020.

I just found a white beard hair, so maybe I’ll age into a wizard instead.


Behold the loaf


  • took a mini holiday
  • added unit-testing to my indieblog
  • small typesetting and UX changes
  • made it possible to post multiple photos quickly
  • generated PGP and SSH keys
  • made my first batch of eggnog


Check what your key id is:

gpg --list-keys

The output will display: rsaXXXX/your_key_id_here

The key fingerprint will also be listed below.


Check a key fingerprint:

gpg --with-fingerprint <public_key.asc>


Let's say that you have a secret key on a card device (e.g., a yubikey) and you don't want it on the device anymore.

gpg --delete-secret-keys <key-id>

You can verify the key has been removed by running

gpg --card-status

which will display all the info about the card. Under general info sec# should now be listed instead of sec> this means that the secret key is now stored offline and not on the device.


If you're using MacOS, add this to your bash configuration, typically ~/.bash_profile.

 # Restart the GPG agent
 gpg-connect-agent KILLAGENT /bye
 gpg-connect-agent /bye 
 gpg-connect-agent updatestartuptty /bye > /dev/null

 # SSH authentication managed by GPG
 if [ -S $(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket) ]; then
   export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket)
 else
   echo "$(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket) doesn't exist. Is gpg-agent running ?"
 fi 


I took some cuttings before the frost and they just rooted. I feel like a plant magician.


I unit-tested a personal project and now I feel like I deserve a gold star or a cookie


It’s nog time!

Egg Nog:

  • 12 eggs
  • 450 g of sugar
  • 12 oz tequila
  • 15 oz sherry
  • 36 oz whole milk
  • 24 oz heavy cream
  • spices!

e.g., nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ground ginger, allspice.

  1. Beat egg yolks and slowly add sugar. Set aside.
  2. Combine the milk, cream, and spices in a pot over the stovetop. Bring to a boil.
  3. Slowly pour the boiling milk into the egg mixture. This is called tempering and makes the nog food-safe. You're slowly cooking the eggs by integrating the hot milk. Go slow, you don't want the mixture to get clumpy.
  4. Stir in the alcohol
  5. Bottle the nog and store in the fridge.


IndieWebCamp East

At: IndieWebCamp East

From 2020-11-14 10:45:00 To 2020-11-15 18:00:00


Tried making some sourdough pizza. Not the best in the world, but pretty okay for a first try.