There are some excellent tools for organizing all aspects of an entity, whether it’s a single person, a hobby project, or an entire business. Services like Notion have come into vogue as trendy startups available to the masses, with a promise for greater expansion. I got into the world of Notion last year when I accepted a new role at work, which required greater coordination of people and projects. While my resulting setup was vital to my success, it’s put me in a bummer of a position nearly a year later.
Continue reading “Organization in Organizations”Tips for Getting eBooks
A couple years ago, I made a concerted effort to get back into reading. I’ve started tracking the books I’ve read since college, and have a goal of reading at least 24 books each year, or about 2 per month. While I do enjoy buying books, and I have several shelves of books still to read, I’ve discovered a few other sources for those who don’t want to buy individual books or want potentially more convenient ways of finding new books. Since I do most of my reading on my phone or Kindle, I’ll focus on eBook sources.
Continue reading “Tips for Getting eBooks”Socks and Underwear
Admittedly, this post is ripping off a conversation that happened on a work Slack channel the other week. Here’s the general idea: If you count in a particular way, there are 12 options for how to put on your underwear, and 12 (ordered) options for putting on socks and shoes. Since there are the same number of options, we can create a bijection between the two scenarios. In other words, each choice of underwear arrangement will correspond to exactly one choice for socks and shoes.
The question is what bijection is “natural”, for whatever definition of natural you choose to have in this strange scenario. Let’s explore it a bit.
Continue reading “Socks and Underwear”Outdated Tutorials
I’ve been revisiting A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Django, which goes through the Django library, a Python tool for developing websites. I had tried it a year or two ago, but it just didn’t click. This time around I’ve found greater success precisely because many of the code examples are outdated and will not run without modification. While I may have more to say about using Django some other time, this experience has instead made me consider the efficacy of teaching using poor or broken examples.
Continue reading “Outdated Tutorials”Take My Face
Right around Christmas last year, Erin showed some interest in VR. My guess is it was fueled by talk on Cortex, where CGP Grey has discussed what he considers to be the vital acquisition of an Oculus Quest 2. I was totally on board with getting one, but our Christmas spending had been accounted for. Also, they were out of stock everywhere.
The other week it popped back into my mind, so on a whim I got one from Best Buy to surprise Erin. It’s been a hit. However, it’s worth considering both the present and future of VR, and specifically Oculus, now that we have seen the light.
Continue reading “Take My Face”Good Night, San Diego
While last week I wrote in broad strokes about moving in general, this post is being written in a bare bedroom in San Diego on one of my last nights “living” in this city.
Continue reading “Good Night, San Diego”Moving North
Last weekend I helped my fiancee move into our new apartment in San Francisco. This most recent weekend, I drove down to San Diego to get the majority of my things.1
It’s been a hectic time, but it’s exciting to be moving in together, buying furniture and arranging our lives. I spent the last two years in a pretty minimalist state, with all forms of work and pleasure happening at my desk setup. I now have a living room with a couch, and will render my desk for its intended purposes: work.2
Moving can be quite a hassle, and since this move has been most associated with the acquisition of new items, I’m excited to have a steady place to be for several years before we have to do it again. Hopefully.
- Finishing up this post on Sunday is actually a bit rough. I woke up around 1 AM this morning and just couldn’t get back to sleep, so at 2 AM I hopped in my car and headed back to San Francisco. ↩
- Well, work in the sense that certain hobbies (podcasting and writing) can also be considered activities that require a “work” setup. But also real work that I get paid for. ↩
Wedding Planning Part 1
Last October I asked my then-girlfriend, Erin, to marry me. As the cliche goes, I was lucky enough, and she was crazy enough, that she said “yes”. Soon thereafter the wedding planning began, and it’s been an on-and-off process as other events in our lives ebb and flow.
We are aiming to have our wedding in fall of 2022, so we’re giving ourselves a lot of wiggle room. Even then, it was clear we needed to get organized. There are a lot of moving parts, which only increased when we decided to have the wedding at her parent’s farm. Suddenly there were no preferred vendors, and everything was on us.
This part 1 is to briefly discuss some of the ways we’ve gotten our act together. I’m sure other posts, focusing on other elements, will follow.
Continue reading “Wedding Planning Part 1”