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Blood Moon 2025

If Connor hadn’t told me that his science teacher reminded the class about Thursday night’s lunar eclipse, it would have gotten completely under my radar. He was so into it that he asked me to check whether he’d be able to see it from his window during totality around 3am. Once he realized that he might, he set an alarm and asked for my “good” camera so he could take a picture.

It just so happened that I, in my middle-aged-ness, got up to pee that night around 2:45am. I looked out the bathroom window and was just barely able to see the moon if I craned my neck just right. So, I went back in the bedroom, got my phone, put on my glasses, and spent a few minutes trying to get a decent photo of the lunar eclipse with my iPhone 12.

Connor, on the other hand, got up with his 3am alarm, looked out the window, didn’t see the moon, and went back to sleep.

Aaron had no idea about the eclipse, and was initially bewildered by all the people gawking up at the moon when he got out of work. He took a photo with his iPhone 15 that (unsurprisingly) came out better than mine.

Kinda cool that I happened to see it. I wouldn’t have set an alarm, though.

geekspeak Leave a comment

Happy Pi Day 2025

Last month, I attended a virtual Lunch & Learn session about Microsoft Copilot. The presenter explained to us how to get to Copilot on our corporate Microsoft tenant, then tasked each of us with writing a prompt to generate an image that we would then post to the Teams chat.

My first prompt, for whatever reason, involved me requesting a picture of a pie.

I immediately knew that my follow-up prompt had to request that the symbol for Pi be shown on the crust of the pie. The image above is the one I then posted to the Lunch & Learn Teams chat.

I intentionally waited until today to post about this, because Pi.

EPILOGUE: Before that Lunch & Learn session, I was underwhelmed with what I thought AI and Large Language Models could do for me. Since then, though, I’ve asked Copilot questions that are too complex for a simple Google search — mostly centering around DAX code optimization. The dozen or so “chats” I’ve had with Copilot have been enough to land me in the “heavy user” category within the IT department, and to get me an exclusive invite to the new “Copilot Champions” Teams Channel.

Copilot hits the nail on the head sometimes, but it’s often a little off the mark when it comes to the complex situations I need solved. It’s still better than beating my head against the wall or trying to figure out the exact phrasing and buzzwords to include in a Google search.