Movie Review: Toy Story 4

There are more direct spoilers in this review than some of my past ones. The short version is that I recommend watching this movie. I never explicitly say it anywhere else, so go watch it. It’s worth your time if you’ve seen the previous movies. ...

June 24, 2019 · 4 min · 670 words · Mark Richard

Rearranging

I decided to rearrange my room this past weekend. part of it was for convenience, and part of it was just to switch things up. It also gave me the opportunity to go through my things and reorganize. ...

June 17, 2019 · 2 min · 336 words · Mark Richard

Are You Ready?

Assessments are a tricky business. Writing an exam that successfully tests a person’s knowledge or abilities, without inadvertently giving preference or advantage to certain demographics, is very difficult. The examinations I’ve written so far for my job fall into the category of testing whether a student has mastered a certain curriculum. After a couple of months of class, we give them an exam to check if they learned all that they were supposed to. Everybody is used to such tests, and everybody has experienced them. ...

June 10, 2019 · 4 min · 658 words · Mark Richard

The Movie Experience

I’ve been thinking about the experience of attending a movie in a theater, and how it compares to staying in to watch a film. I often feel conflicted, with my current opinion being adjusted based on the most recent experience I’ve had in a theater. ...

June 3, 2019 · 3 min · 507 words · Mark Richard

I Promise I Like It

For the last two months I’ve been reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve legitimately enjoyed the book whenever I’ve sat down to read it, but there is something about it that doesn’t quite grab my attention. I’ve struggled to sit down for very long stretches and just finish it out, and I can’t put my finger on why. ...

May 27, 2019 · 3 min · 478 words · Mark Richard

Brief Thoughts on Commencement

Due to travel and being home in Minnesota all last week, this post is coming late today. This past weekend, my girlfriend graduated from college. It was an exciting time, and she officially finished up this chapter of her life and began to look forward to the PhD program she begins in the fall. Going to commencement was exciting, having this official moment to mark the occasion. This is what I appreciate about commencement, is its role as the milestone. ...

May 21, 2019 · 2 min · 242 words · Mark Richard

How I Podcast - Hardware

I am not very much of an audiophile, nor do I do podcasting to make any money. As such, all of the hardware I use is hobbyist at best, and completely amateur otherwise. But, I’ll give a quick rundown of what I have. ...

May 13, 2019 · 4 min · 731 words · Mark Richard

How I Podcast: Editing

As promised, I’ve recorded myself editing a podcast (published at 2X speed), which you can find in the middle of this post. Beyond that, this post will just be an overview of my editing workflow. ...

May 6, 2019 · 4 min · 677 words · Mark Richard

How I Podcast: Software

After nobody asked me to, I’ve decided to write a few posts about how I podcast. There might be an additional post where I talk about some other software I use on my computer in general, but we’ll start with podcasting because it really is the heaviest use of my computer. In this post, I’ll focus on the software I use to record. In the next post, I’ll share some of the hardware I use. And finally, I’ll explain how I edit podcasts with the aim of having a screen recording of myself editing either OHAC or Comical Start. ...

April 29, 2019 · 6 min · 1240 words · Mark Richard

Some New Code

After playing around with Project Euler for a while, I determined I wanted to challenge my coding skills even more, but stay firmly planted in the mathematical realm in which I’m familiar. So, I’ve begun writing some code that can be used for certain mathematical objects. In particular, I’ve written a fraction class, a 2D vector class, and a complex number class. You can find the code on GitHub. ...

April 22, 2019 · 2 min · 358 words · Mark Richard