blog

What I'm thinking about

Welcome to my blog! This is mostly a link blog, where I share links to articles and websites that I would otherwise share with my IRL friends. From time to time, I also write my own posts and longer-form entries. You can also subscribe to this blog in an RSS feed reader.

Here are the topics I tend to cover. → Click on a tag to see all the posts about that topic.



Blog question challenge

originally shared here on

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

Iā€™m drawn to blogging because it makes me happy on several levels. I love sharing what Iā€™ve learned. I love entertaining people and spreading joy. I love having a collection of the topics I was interested in at various points in my life. I love being able to practice honing my writing skills. And I love having a place on the internet that is completely my own.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

I built my own Ruby on Rails app to handle it. I chose it because I wanted to get better at writing Rails apps.

Iā€™ve had a personal website since 1998. Itā€™s had many iterations and name changes and designs. I miss building websites for fun. So Iā€™m doing it again because hey, itā€™s still fun as hell to do cool things with these computers of ours.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Oh yeah. At first, it was all handwritten HTML, but Iā€™ve tried a few different content management systems like Movable Type, LiveJournal, and Wordpress.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard thatā€™s part of your blog?

My longer form pieces are often written in TextMate. Iā€™ll launch a locally-running version of my site and test out formatting and whatnot before I copy and paste it into my production site.

My monthly observation posts are mostly a collection of my daily journalistic entries. Around the first day of the month, Iā€™ll slowly re-read what I wrote about the previous month and edit the interesting nuggets down into something coherent.

For my link posts, I use a custom iPhone Shortcut. When I navigate to a URL in Safari that I wanna share here, my shortcut will grab whatever is in the <title>, then grab the URL sans any UTM or tracking params, then drop whatever I may have highlighted into a Markdown quote in a text field. I then type up my thoughts and hit publish.

This approach works great for me because there is almost zero friction to post. It only sucks when I accidentally close out of the text field, or when I write something substantially long1. I also have to remember to navigate to the article to add tags. I should probably add that into the Shortcut process at some point.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Iā€™m the most inspired to write whenever my thoughts begin to run away. Writing forces me to grab hold of a single thread of my swirling inner dialogue and crystalize it.

When I got laid off last year, I decided to force myself to journal every single night. I didnā€™t lay any other parameters: I didnā€™t give myself any word counts or topics or agendas. Simply write.

Now that I have a journaling habit, I find that I write my thoughts down often throughout the day. Iā€™m inspired to write whenever I make myself laugh, or whenever I feel a light bulb go off in my head, or whenever I need a break from my negative self talk.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

Short link posts are almost always published immediately. Longer posts will simmer for a day or two before I eventually force myself to publish. I am pretty diligent about editing things a day or two after that, as well. For this post, Iā€™m gonna publish it as soon as Iā€™m done here.

Whatā€™s your favorite post on your blog?

I donā€™t have a favorite. Every single post Iā€™ve made on here makes me cringe when I read it back, even if itā€™s only 24 hours later.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

I plan to keep writing. I should probably upgrade the Rails engine here soon.

I also have this idea of building a ā€œgardenā€ here. I came across the idea of a personal site being more like a garden, and I am really vibing with that sentiment. The first step for me is to build this cool 8-bit landscape entirely in vanilla CSS, HTML, and JS. From there, Iā€™d like to have some self-composed, optimistic lo-fi playing in the background. As one sits in the scene, various phrases and quotes will fade in and out of view.2

I mentioned my journaling habit above, and I think another goal of mine for the year is to keep up the monthly observation posts. Writing down my thoughts is helpful, and getting a bit of distance from those thoughts gives me a fresh perspective of them.

Passing the torch

Despite seeing my own site show up in my feed on other peopleā€™s sites, I still feel like nobody ever reads this blog. So Iā€™ll admit I felt incredibly dorky writing this post because it reminds me of how these sorts of things used to be hella prevalent back on the web when I was growing up.

But also: isnā€™t the point of doing these things to have fun and learn how other people approach a hobby that youā€™re interested in? These ā€œchallengesā€ serve as a collective bonding moment, an opportunity to collectively reflect on why we like this loose-knit community of goofy misfits who know what an RSS feed is.

So hereā€™s how Iā€™ll pass the torch: if youā€™ve seen these kinds of posts pop up in your own feeds these past couple weeks, copy this and do it yourself and shoot me a note when youā€™re done. I guarantee youā€™ll get at least one other person here who will be interested in your stories! šŸ™‹ā€ā™‚ļø


  1. When this happens, Iā€™ll write the contents out using the Apple Notes app. Iā€™ll then copy that text, re-run the Shortcut, and paste the edited text into the text field. 

  2. Iā€™m sure next to nobody will want to look at this thing, but I feel empowered and motivated to build something. And until I can acquire my 3D printer and more carpentry tools, Iā€™ll have to settle for making my virtual space more serene and inspirational. Again, if only for myself. 


Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs then runs away.


šŸ”— a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on

Listen.

This blog doesnā€™t always have to share deep, thoughtful posts.

Sometimes, it pays to take a minute1 and appreciate that we live on the timeline where this moment was captured, uploaded to the internet, and then viewed 54,000,000 times. Humanity isnā€™t always bleak.

Also, I wish more people were this honest about what they were delivering. Because this video is 100% what you see on the tin.


  1. Or more accurately, a mere 24 seconds! 


Seven things I know after 25 years of development


šŸ”— a linked post to zverok.space » — originally shared here on

This post deeply resonates with me.

Never give up seeking truth, however uncomfortable it is. Search for knowledge. Adjust your worldview. Ask. Rewrite outdated code. Drop faulty hypotheses and unreliable foundations.

Software author is, first of all, a writer. They are a person who stands upright and says: ā€œthatā€™s what I know for now, and thatā€™s my best attempt to explain it.ā€ Having this stance, preferring it to everything else, and hiding behind terms, concepts, and authority are invaluable qualities for long-term project success.

Or, basically, for any long-term human activity success.

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Working fast and slow


šŸ”— a linked post to seangoedecke.com » — originally shared here on

When Iā€™m in the zone, problems seem more straightforward. Even complex tasks feel pretty doable. Once I notice that, I try to pack my time with high-priority work only. Iā€™ll put off responding to all but really important messages (Slackā€™s ā€œremind me laterā€ is a great feature). I also try as hard as I can to avoid multi-tasking, so I can keep my entire attention on getting a single task right at a time. If I feel like continuing to work through the evening, I let myself do that, knowing Iā€™ll give myself the time back the next day or the one after that.

When Iā€™m not in the zone, every task seems complex and rife with booby-traps. I feel like I have to proceed defensively and avoid taking risks. On days like these, I try and knock out easy wins and donā€™t worry so much about prioritization. I do a lot of general talking and bouncing between multiple projects. I donā€™t feel so bad about stopping work earlier than usual, knowing that at some point Iā€™ll make it up with a period of hard focus

Iā€™ve been reading Sean Goedeckeā€™s blog for a few weeks now, and it is exceptionally helpful to hear these words at this point in my career.

This post spoke to me because Iā€™m working on a project at work where itā€™s been hard to achieve flow for consistent periods of time.

Iā€™m sharing this to remind myself that itā€™s okay to have rough days, and the important thing is to be honest with yourself and show up every day, even (especially?) if you donā€™t want to.

My latest self-improvement experiment is determining what environmental factors will induce flow. I canā€™t seem to find the right album, the right physical space, the right combination of stimulants and exercise, the right amount of ā€œsmall winsā€, whatever it might be to help trigger the excitement that comes when I get into flow.

The most consistently successful approach has been to completely accept my current situation and problem solve as best I can in that exact moment. In other words, I ask myself: how can I win this moment?

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I disagree


šŸ”— a linked post to jamie.ideasasylum.com » — originally shared here on

With you. With my wife. With my kids. With my parents. With my boss. With everyone I work with. With every other Rails developer. With everyone on BlueSky. With everyone.

At least, on some things.

And thatā€™s ok.

I should print this entire article out and hand it to everybody I know. Required reading for anyone who is trying to understand how to articulate the meaning of empathy.

One thing Iā€™ll add: I recently listened to a podcast where they talked about the significance of music played in a church. Basically, at any point prior to the last ~150 years, if you wanted to hear music, you either had to make it yourself or physically go somewhere to experience it.

There was no permanence about music other than maybe sheet music and your memory of it.

Any time prior to 2010, I loved hearing Ignition (Remix). I heard it again the other day and had a visceral reaction against it. I turned it off and moved on.

Itā€™s okay that I used to like the song, and itā€™s okay that I do not want to listen to it now.

And itā€™s okay that if I do hear it, I can choose to remember the good times happening all around me with that song as a background track instead of the artist.

This part was also fantastic:

When I type rails c it sure doesnā€™t feel as if Iā€™ve just given a big thumbs-up to whatever shit-take DHH has just published on his blog. Iā€™m not over here running bundle install fascism.

The thing is, I donā€™t care about literally anything DHH has to say that isnā€™t 100% about Rails. I donā€™t care what sort of moment heā€™s having or which extreme view heā€™s decided to cosy up to today. I donā€™t care about his social commentary. I donā€™t follow his blog or subscribe to his feeds. Iā€™m only aware of any of his views when those outraged by it decide to push it into my life. Itā€™s those people who are giving him more power, and elevating his status, outside of the one narrow place where he might deserve it.

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Withered Technology


šŸ”— a linked post to lmnt.me » — originally shared here on

Though Nintendo employs more-modern technologies now, they are still criticized for not having the most-modern technologies that their rivals are all-too-happy to include, often at the cost of compatibility, affordability, and energy efficiency.

This is not a condemnation of using cutting-edge technology. But if given the choice, I prefer ā€œlateral thinking with withered technology.ā€ I think thatā€™s a great philosophy to consider when making anything.

ā€œLateral thinking with withered technologyā€ is how I approach building websites. Use battle-tested, slow moving frameworks that donā€™t depend on a cornucopia of vulnerable third party plugins. :cough cough wordpress react cough sneeze:

HTML and CSS are going nowhere, and vanilla JS can do virtually anything you need these days. Render your stuff server side and keep the client side lightweight.

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Why men shouldnā€™t control artificial intelligence


šŸ”— a linked post to newstatesman.com » — originally shared here on

We assume that technology must have begun with a weapon (and that the first inventor must have been a man). But as the science-fiction writer Ursula Le Guin pointed out, ā€œthe spearā€ was probably not the original technology. Archaeologists and anthropologists now increasingly believe that sharpened sticks were invented by women to gather foods, and were adapted for hunting only later. If the first tools werenā€™t hunting tools it isnā€™t clear that technology must always seek to crush, dominate and exploit. Female science-fiction authors have often been criticised for not writing ā€œhardā€ science fiction precisely because they have defined technology in this more neutral sense. As Le Guin put it: ā€œTechnology is just the active human interface with the material world.ā€ There is nothing inherently violent about it. Unless we want it to be. But the patriarchal imagination doesnā€™t seem to think it will be up to us to decide this.

There are many justifiable concerns around artificial intelligence, but to say itā€™s all gloom and doom is a severe failure of imagination.

I also loved this closing paragraph:

We talk as if the machines were the active participants in history, and humanity the passive ones. We dance around the machines as if they were deities. Forgetting that we have created them with our own hands. Fed them with data from our own minds. It is a narrative that leaves us both powerless and without responsibility. Owned by our own creations.

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Can you complete the Oregon Trail if you wait at a river for 14272 years: A study


šŸ”— a linked post to moral.net.au » — originally shared here on

Two years ago, Twitch streamer albrot discovered a bug in the code for crossing rivers. One of the options is to "wait to see if conditions improve"; waiting a day will consume food but not recalculate any health conditions, granting your party immortality.

From this conceit the Oregon Trail Time Machine was born; a multiday livestream of the game as the party waits for conditions to improve at the final Snake River crossing until the year 10000, to see if the withered travellers can make it to the ruins of ancient Oregon. The first attempt ended in tragedy; no matter what albrot tried, the party would succumb to disease and die almost immediately.

Filed under ā€œreasons I love the Internet.ā€

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