Posts

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. ...

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 This time around I’ve found greater success precisely because many of the code examples are outdated and will not run without modification.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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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 ...

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. ...

I recently discovered that typing on a mechanical keyboard does an excellent job of maintaining my desire to write. Typically I use a Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard when I’m working at my desktop. I bought one only a few months after moving to San Diego to use at work. Once my hands got used to it, going back to a standard keyboard at home didn’t feel quite right. So, I now have two of these split ergonomic keyboards.1 ...

Over four years ago I wrote a post about my off-the-cuff writing style. It was a flash-bang approach with only minor edits along the way. However, since writing stories for NaNoWriMo last year I’ve been rethinking my broader aims for this blog, and what processes can help me achieve them. Writing a post each week is a fine goal, but if they aren’t each in service of something larger it’s hard for them be anything but a pleasant chore. Subconsciously, that far-away target was establishing a writing routine with the hope it would improve my abilities. I think it has, but it took a concerted effort in editing a short story (and a few other projects before) for me to recognize that growth. It’s time for a change in approach and a new target. ...

One month ago, a good friend of mine released a feature-length movie on YouTube. I had followed along as they released the various trailers, then discovered the half-truths in their lovely making-of documentary.1 I managed to watch it the morning after the film’s premiere, on December 19, and have not gotten it out of my head since. I’ve started and stopped multiple reviews, taken copious notes on a second watch, and am finally releasing what I consider the movie’s canonical review. If you frequent this part of the internet, you may be just the right person to watch Doctor Feelgood and the Asparagus Kid or: The Respect for the Omnipresence of Death. If the title intrigues you, give it a shot. Then come back here (regardless of whether you completed it) and enjoy a shameless, spoiler-filled plug and review for this movie co-written by my friend Timothy.2 ...

On an episode of the podcast No Dumb Questions, Destin and Matt discussed how they compiled a playlist for each year. This allowed them to track changing moods and tastes as the years went by, and also to link songs to specific times in their lives. The benefit of listening to these shows hosted by people with more life experience is that I can actually learn from them sooner than how they learned themselves. I loved the idea of having anchor points in songs on an annual playlist, so I made my own for 2019 and 2020. ...