Technology on For Your Consideration

Big Blog Update

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:18:28 -0400

I moved my blog from WordPress.com to Bluehost and the open-source version of the WordPress engine back in 2018. I wanted more control, and wasn’t willing to pay the Automattic folks for the right to add more plugins to my blog. Instead, I probably paid even more money to a different corporation because, well, it felt better.

Technology has evolved, and I’ve decided to move backwards and save some money. With three or four hours of work, I migrated my entire blog off WordPress and into Hugo, a lightweight static blogging engine, relies directly on Markdown, and is simple and cheap to manage on a hosting provider like Netlify.

youcubed Data Science Curriculum

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I recently finished helping a small online high school create a new data science course, the foundation for which was Stanford’s youcubed Explorations in Data Science. It’s a snappy curriculum that is thoughtful and modern in its topic selection and a bit ragged at the edges of its resources. Its lesson layout is clear, its tools of choice are accessible and modifiable, and in the spirit of decades of statistics-oriented education, it helps students be wary of practitioners who lie and misrepresent either through thoughtlessness or malice. While I wrote this course to run in a format that relies heavily on self-directed work, wholly different from what youcubed anticipated, the curriculum was an excellent base that created ample opportunity for differentiation. By all accounts, students are loving the results.

SmarterEveryDay Deep Dives on Disc Golf Physics

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What a great video. Destin is always captivating, and I enjoyed the crossover into one of my favorite sports.

My only comment is near the end, where he takes issue with the terms “overstable” and “understable” to describe different disc flights. While it’s the opposite of what one might consider as stability for aerodynamics, it makes perfect sense in the context of the sport: an “overstable” disc is extremely stable in different wind conditions and forgiving of angles.

Claude Built Me a Markdown Reader

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Core to my effort to improve this blog and my writing more generally is a better revision process. I now use tools to catch mechanical errors or to point out when I’ve slipped into passive voice accidentally, but that doesn’t address the flow of prose, the feel of the words washing over the reader. Reading out loud is a superb way to improve, but I’m not always in a position to do that.

Promising Forever

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

While navigating the house of technology you build for yourself, please hold onto banisters and sturdy bits of furniture because the rug may be pulled out from beneath you at any time.

Software companies have a silly habit of doing one or both of the following:

Taking a one-time payment to access their premium version forever.
Giving away a free version of their product forever.

The former exists to both gather capital (I presume) and ensnare people who are anti-subscription and have an outdated or incorrect understanding of software. The latter is solely designed to convert free users to paying customers.

Here’s the thing: these same companies have another silly habit where they conveniently forget their marketing promise and request more money, or hoover some up with advertisements. They’re making a bet that enough users will convert to a subscription (or swallow the ads) compared to the number they alienate by this move, that they come out ahead. When it’s a service with few alternatives and all with similar business models, it’s difficult to hold any of them accountable.

Not every company that has made these promises has proceeded to pull out the proverbial rug. There are at least a couple in each category that have remained steadfast, and those are just as intriguing to consider. Here’s a survey of the software and services I’ve used that have explicitly offered me forever at the cost of free or some fee, and where they are now.

Local LLM Thesaurus

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s always more fun to work on something other than what I should explicitly be doing in the moment, so ideas and small projects naturally arise from procrastination. I was having trouble returning to my NaNoWriMo work after my sisters visited last weekend, and I took fifteen minutes to learn how to locally run an LLM.

My ninety percent use-case for LLMs is word refinement. While writing I will get a word stuck in my head, the wrong word for the exact feeling I’d like to describe. So, I tell some LLM (often Claude) to provide several more synonyms with varying connotations. This doesn’t rely on having up-to-date knowledge or internet access, so a nimble, offline, and local LLM would fit the task perfectly.

Elevator Info for an Elevated Mood

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My several-year-long nerd snipe has comprised inspecting the inspection certificate in every elevator I enter. Who watches the watchers? I do. I focused on Connecticut legislation throughout this, though I expect the broad strokes are similar in many states.

My Favorite Tech Media

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have a work trip to San Diego and all my other blog post ideas need more time, so here’s a quick list of my favorite tech media. I stick with these outlets for their staunch commitment to quality and independence; they’re all owned and run by excellent people with that ineffable and intangible quality of taste.

These lists aren’t in any particular order.

Websites

Podcasts

Summer 2025 Writing Process Update

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Each time I commit to sharing my writing process, I jinx myself to undergo a radical change within a month. Yet, my hubris tells me that this update is different.

Tapestry

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tapestry by Iconfactory has significantly improved my internet experience. Similar in some ways to feeeed, which I wrote about last fall, Tapestry combines my social media accounts and RSS feeds into a single timeline. While feeeed separates itself by a larger number of built-in source connections and its “magazine” approach of curating recent items, Tapestry is focused on a linear display that holds place. You don’t scroll back to find older items you may have missed; instead, your position is held, and you scroll forward in time to see what has happened since you last opened the app. It’s the only sensible way to interact with news and media, and matches what I and many others love about the Mastodon client Ivory.

Coding with Baseball

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last month, I finished going through Nathan Braun’s Coding with Baseball, a book I purchased around four years ago. If you’re at all interested in baseball statistics and want to build a quick foundation for exploring them, I highly recommend the book. It doesn’t hold your hand—it’s not a reference text, and you’ll need documentation for pandas, seaborn, and scikitlearn for the exercises—but it’s an excellent, concise overview that teaches exactly what you need with a straightforward style and relevant examples. It encouraged me to set up the Lahman Baseball Database on my computer and led me down a few rabbit holes, one of which I’ll explain here.

Review: An Update on LLM Satire

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I gave Claude (3.7 Sonnet) the same prompt I provided ChatGPT two years ago: Write a short article in the satirical style of The Onion, titled “Optimistic AI Just Happy to Be Here”.

I also went back to ChatGPT to see how it has improved.

Claude’s attempt.

Department of Education AI Toolkit

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Education¹ released a toolkit for Safe, Ethical, and Equitable, AI Integration last October. I finally made the time to read it and love what I found. As with most things in education, if it’s sensible in that context, it is worth considering in every context.

A Dumb Salesforce and Spreadsheet Thing

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There are two separate issues with the technology I use at work that conspired to confound me earlier this year.

Salesforce objects have two different unique ID constructions.
Common lookup functions in Google Sheets are case-insensitive.

Digital News

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In addition to receiving a physical copy of the Sunday edition of the New Haven Register, my subscription includes access to their “E-Edition,” which amounts to a digital scan of the paper. It’s perfect for reading on my iPad.

Clicking on an article opens it in a dedicated and simplified reader view, avoiding the need to flip through the paper to continue reading. Plus, I can still read the daily comics.

Some More Apps I Like

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I recently wrote about feeeed and decided to highlight a few more niche apps I’ve been enjoying since getting an iPhone last year. These are in no particular order, but I find them all sufficiently useful and well-made to give them my official okey-dokey.

We Are So Back with iA Writer on the iPad

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With iOS and iPadOS 18 out, I decided to give iA Writer another shot on my iPad. I adore it on my MacBook, and it’s been frustrating not having a consistent interface for my personal writing.

Lo and behold, I discover that iA Writer has been properly working with Dropbox since May! Dropbox decided to hop aboard the “modern File Provider API” train, leading to a slightly worse experience than many years ago¹, but a significantly better experience than when using any Dropbox text file would result in errors and conflicted files.

feeeed

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I started using feeeed after reading about it on MacStories. It’s a neat app that, though lacking a certain style and polish, is a wonderful way to create a personal list of suggested content using only sources that you provide. I can take in a fun mix of baseball subreddit posts, articles on several blogs I follow, random photos from my library, and a handful of other options.

I’ve tried the RSS game, but as someone who leans toward completionism with my content, I find it difficult to see the list of unread articles grow, yet I refuse to declare feed bankruptcy. feeeed offers a better way for me to access this content naturally. I can always open a chronological list view if I want to find something in particular, but the default view that serves you a mix of content and then cuts you off is ideal. It’s not for everyone, but I’m glad this app was made.

Managing Multiple Computers

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A pickle I’ve avoided for a couple of years has finally been unjarred.¹ Two years ago, I was issued a company-owned laptop that was precisely the same make and model—down to the color—as my personal computer. I was loathe to use two computers and felt uncomfortable doing my extracurricular tasks on the work device, so I continued exclusively using my personal laptop as I’ve done since I started there.

To comply with various data privacy laws and ensure the company can provide tech support, it was recently made clear to me that work had to be done on the work laptop. I now have to maintain feature parity between two computers, bring them both with me while traveling, and generally be inconvenienced by this change.

My Daily Puzzle Rotation

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I love puzzles. I was lucky enough to coauthor a puzzle book at my job, and I’ve been fascinated by any logical, engaging game I can find. I’m no expert, but I am an enthusiast. Over the last several months, I’ve nailed down a set of puzzles that bookend each day, getting my mind working in the morning and letting me wind down in the evening.

Making MLB Team Scatter Plots

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You may have seen any number of scatter plots on the internet that show data comparisons among players or teams in a given league. These are part of my daily experience on the /r/baseball community, and I finally decided to scratch my statistical presentation itch by making my own. This post isn’t to cover what statistics to compare, just the process I’ve settled on for now to turn a table of comparisons into precisely-designed charts suitable for sharing on the internet.

Plug and Play TV Consoles

Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Until my older sister got a Nintendo DS, the only gaming devices we had were those cheap handheld ones that had a single game on it—Sudoku, a baseball simulator—and the similarly-cheap Plug and Play TV game consoles that typically comprised a joystick, a button or two, and composite video cables. They required batteries. They were slow. I loved them.

ASCIImoji

Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you grew up around the plain-text internet and pre-smartphone texting, you may be aware of the distinction between emoticons and emojis. The latter are separate unicode characters that are increasingly-detailed artistic renderings of various faces and items, like a Ferris wheel: 🎡. The former are clever constructions of non-emoji characters, which provide some intangible level of whimsy and cleverness that never fails to delight.¹

Consider this shrug: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Or someone flipping a table in frustration: (ノ゜Д゜)ノ︵ ┻━┻

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Thu, 09 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I was talking with Erin on our way to a coffee shop, and I had a sudden memory of a movie where a mouse needed to scurry about to find medicine to save a young boy who had quite a dastardly fever. Naturally I thought it was a Stuart Little movie, somewhere along the series, but that didn’t feel quite right.

Luckily, the subreddit /r/TipOfMyTongue had me covered, when someone asked about this exact movie two years ago. It’s called The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and has a runtime of only 42 minutes. I haven’t rewatched it quite yet, but I was delighted to find the answer.

Settling on Firefox

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve bounced between browsers over the years. Chrome or Chromium were my default for many years while I ran Linux, with a few small dalliances with Chrome-powered alternatives like Brave. I tried Safari when I switched to a MacBook and used it for months. I then hopped on the Arc Browser bandwagon, which introduced me to features that I now consider essential. That experience wouldn’t last forever.

Tony Wan at EdSurge, on AI Writing by Students

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A short article that mirrors my thinking rather well. In particular:

Each little metacognitive act of constructing a sentence, though, reflects valuable thinking. Knowing how to use conjunctions, for instance — the ifs, buts and therefores — is an important exercise in logical reasoning. How much should we outsource that to AI? Too much, and the writing experience may feel like a fill-in-the-blank exercise like MadLibs.

Playball for Terminal

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I came across the javascript terminal app Playball. It’s fun and slick, and I’m enjoying using it. It gives you a way to view MLB Gameday data from the terminal, and it’s beautifully done.

When you first run the app after installing it via npm, you are greeted with the day’s schedule, and the box scores of any games.

Keyboard navigation hints are shown at the bottom of the window at all times, so you can easily look at scores from previous days, or check out the schedule in the future. You can jump back to the current day at any point. Navigating any screen can be done with either the arrow keys or vim keybindings.

Student Monitoring, Safety, and Privacy

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In my weekly perusal of education newsletters, I came across a Time magazine article about new attempts to bring AI and machine learning to monitoring student behavior on school devices. While the article focuses on student mental health—suicide prevention in particular—I looked into the companies mentioned therein and discovered that the scope of monitoring efforts is broad and deep. It is a fascinating and discomforting topic, with each company working on a different aspect of student safety with rhetoric to match.

Vision Pro Part 2: Inside Looking Out

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve completed my Apple Vision Pro demo in what felt like record time—seventeen minutes, when everything I’ve heard referenced half an hour—and I can firmly place myself in the camp of people who simultaneously very interested in a Meta Quest 3 right now, and excited about the next several versions of Vision Pro.

Vision Pro Part 1: Outside Looking In

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, Apple launched Vision Pro. I’ve read and listened to commentary, and watched many reviews and demos since its release. I have a good sense of what it can and can’t do, but that’s hugely different than experiencing it. Here is my current understanding of Vision Pro and what I find most important and interesting without having used it. This Wednesday I’ll be going to an Apple store to demo Vision Pro, and I will follow up with what I’ve learned.

The Appeal of Pageless Documents

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today I discovered that Google Docs has supported pageless documents for over a year and a half. I learned this at precisely the right time, and now I’m rethinking how I handle many of my digital documents.

(Another) iPad Writing Setup

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I switched back to Ulysses and refined the Writing homescreen on my iPad. I have no idea how long this particular setup will last considering the short time spent since I previously discussed this, but it feels stable, all my writing can live in a single app, and I can drop the dance I’d tried with iCloud to make iA Writer work across all my devices.

Tracking Tasks at Work

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I had a moment of panic followed by clarity and motivation when I realized my tenuous approach to managing tasks at work was no longer tenable. I needed to make a change.

Switching to iPhone

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

With the iPhone 15 series switching to USB-C, my last tangible reason for holding onto Android phones has been erased. In part thanks to the huge trade-in promotions offered in exchange for cell carrier lock-in, I’ve given up my Pixel 6 Pro and switched to an iPhone 15 Pro.

Netflix and Value

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Erin and I decided to cancel Netflix the other week after subscribing for about eight years. I’d been infrequently toying with the idea for a few years, but while recording a recent episode of Comical Start Grant asked me something that solidified my reasoning.

Playdate by Panic

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sixteen months after placing my order, I was delighted to see my Playdate arrive this past week. While I haven’t spent much time with it, everyone I’ve shown it to has been absolutely charmed by it’s fun design. Who doesn’t like spinning a crank as part of a game?

It’s a novelty that likely won’t see be used as often as I wish I had the time for, but I am happy to have a small diversion available with a growing set of games. The design is fun and fresh, with a whimsy that perfectly fits my aesthetic. It makes you smile when you see it, and I can see having fun with it on trips when I want to do something other than read. It’s not for everyone—it’s expensive for what it is on paper—but I recommend checking it out if you have the means.

Spreadsheets and Queries

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When I first learned about the QUERY function in Google Sheets, I was brought back to the surprisingly large amount of discourse I’ve read regarding spreadsheets and databases, the best of which is contained in Matt Parker’s book Humble Pi. In short, the backbone of spreadsheet software is not designed to let it perform like a database. But because spreadsheets are more explicable, visual, and interactive, businesses and researchers and all other sorts of folk force them into that bucket.

Going Back to iA Writer

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve finally decided to go back to using iA Writer on my iPad. This has several knock-on effects, with the most notable being that my drafts will all be synced via iCloud.

I say “drafts” because my plan is still to use Dropbox as long-term storage. I now have a monthly reminder to copy completed blog posts over to the proper spot in Dropbox¹ and will only use iCloud for in-progress work.

You Should Try iA Presenter

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

iA Writer has previously been established as my writing app of choice. There is something about both the visual design and snappy interface the team at iA created that is just right for me. When I learned they were making a presentation editor the same week I needed to create some slides, I had to give it a try.

Apple Vision Pro First Thoughts

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had a strong interest in consumer technology for years at this point, though it mostly falls into a category of entertainment via YouTube videos and podcasts. I’m not critic, and tend not to spend much time writing about the latest and greatest in the spaces I follow. But Apple’s new Vision Pro headset is difficult to ignore.

MuseScore and the Democratization of Document Creation

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I find music scores to be absolutely beautiful documents. In middle school I was engrossed by creating my own music and, more importantly, writing it down. There’s video evidence of me being jazzed about receiving a “Lyricist’s Notebook” for Christmas around that time. I also recall purchasing a journal of staff paper for ambitious ideas I had. Yet turning musical ideas into something that can be shared, let alone something that would look good, felt out of reach. When the itch to create music struck me again last week I remembered a new-to-me program, MuseScore, that changed everything.

A Thesaurus for More Than Words

Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve slowly formed my thoughts on the language model tools that have stormed into the foreground of technology over the last few months. My initial utter skepticism, largely founded on people’s misunderstanding of how these tools are designed, has morphed into an appreciation of their specific utility as a thesaurus for any kind of text available on the internet.

Mastodon

Mon, 08 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I listen to several Relay FM podcasts, which keeps me engaged in a sphere of technology personalities. They kept me up-to-date on the exodus from Twitter that this region of internet culture experienced, and their settlement into Mastodon.

I’ve never been a big Twitter user. Comical Start has/had an account where I tried to remember to post each week’s episode, but that’s mainly for the practice. Nobody cared that I did that, and I slowly turned that account into more of a personal account that followed the internet folks that I enjoy. I never tweeted at them because it was a show account, so I simply read things when I thought of it and that was that.

Dynamic Content and Curriculum

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Textbooks have been the premier mechanism for presenting curriculum for centuries. While the printed word is powerful and, for many people, superior to digital versions, the physicality of textbooks requires that their content remains static. Errors are inevitable, as are changes in relevant topics or pedagogy. New editions are the only tool to fight against the decay of a textbook’s utility.¹ In an educational landscape dominated by digital tools, it’s tempting to have content updated rapidly and frequently. This approach requires a deft hand.

Spring 2023 Writing Setup

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I wrote about my setup for various writing projects. It’s changed a bit since then, and is still not particularly robust. Consider this a report on the state of the world.

Multi-Effects Guitar Pedal

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Years ago when I got my first electric guitar, a used Squier Stratocaster in white, my guitar-playing uncle was nice enough to pass along a multi-effects pedal.¹ For hobbyist playing on my own, it was a fun toy that gave me new sounds and allowed me to attempt imitating the sounds in songs I was trying to play.

This memory popped back into my head the other week as I was tooling around with my much-improved Fender Telecaster I bought last year. Despite my excitement about having a guitar with a simple, clean sound, I found myself wishing again for more ways to have fun with playing. While flows like plugging into an interface and using Garageband are viable options, that requires more connections and isn’t any less expensive than where I ended up. After doing some research, I found that reputable multi-effects pedals were way less expensive than I originally imagined.

Managing eBooks

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After broadly explaining the virtues of digital organization, let’s discuss the practical example of eBooks. I’ve moved from allowing a single platform (e.g. Amazon Kindle) to dictate how I organize my eBooks to making sure I own and manage the system myself. You should too.

Review: ChatGPT's Satirical Ability

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I asked ChatGPT to write its own Onion-style article with the same title as what I published yesterday.

My request along with ChatGPT’s response.

Make your own judgement on how it did, and continue on if you’d like to read my thoughts.¹

Optimistic AI Just Happy To Be Here

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—In an effort to eschew the tendency for modern AI tools such as ChatGPT to appear neutral while still housing the fundamental biases of their creators within their core, San Jose-based startup Half Full, Inc. announced on Monday the launch of an AI whose goal is optimism, plain and simple.

On Digital Organization

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We create and accumulate huge quantities information these days. I don’t think that makes us fundamentally different than our ancestors in terms of organization. What separates us is that it’s now possible to have our data completely disorganized in a way that is invisible to others. This requires an increase in awareness and intentionality to reap the inherent benefits of organization.¹

Desktop Podcast Editing is Back

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Every few months, I would go check out the Ardour website to see whether support for Apple silicon had gone past a rough beta. Just a few days ago I went there and, sure enough, the official macOS version now runs natively on Apple silicon and it’s wonderful.

While Ferrite has been my main way to edit for a couple years now, and likely will continue to be, it’s nice to know I have other options available depending on my mood and inclination. The main annoyance with Ferrite is needing to move the files between my Mac and my iPad. Having everything stay on the Mac is overall simpler.

You Need a GIF Tool

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps the greatest boon to digital communication, other than the hyperlink, is the GIF. They provide succinct ways to show everyone what you are working on, and allows people unfamiliar with technology to repeat a process exactly as shown to them. No need to create a series of images with missing information between them. You need a tool to make GIFs, because you never know when creating one on the fly will be extraordinarily useful.

A basic GIF made with Kap.

Updated Podcast Workflow

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve settled into a clear podcast routine over the last six months. Near the end of 2021, I started recording on macOS. I continue to use Ferrite for editing, so I’ve fallen into an entirely Apple-based podcasting ecosystem. My process is slick, and additions like Universal Control give me even more flexibility. While there’s room for improvement, particularly through automation, I’m happy with the current setup.

A Project Doomed to Fail

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve dabbled with various programming projects over the years. Building a tool to add MP3 chapters to podcast episodes, creating a website using Python, Advent of Code, and creating video games. The list goes on. Nearly all of them were left incomplete.¹

So, as I toy with the idea of yet another programming project, I’m faced with the reality that it is unlikely to succeed.

Mario Kart 8 Booster Pass

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I adore Mario Kart. I first played Double Dash at a friend’s house in elementary school. Soon after, my older sister was gifted a Nintendo DS and I would ask to borrow it as often as I could to play Mario Kart on it.¹ Once I moved to San Diego, I gifted myself a Nintendo Switch and have put hundreds of hours into Mario Kart 8. The first set of Booster Pass courses came out a couple of weeks ago, and I really want to talk about them.

Antenna TV

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The NFL playoffs are long over, but I still wanted to quickly document my experience using an antenna to watch a fair chunk of it in my San Francisco apartment. I bought an $11 “HD” antenna from Amazon after consulting with my dad. It’s good to see that it’s affordable, and made it an easy purchase. I scanned for channels a few times to find the ideal location for the antenna in my apartment¹ and started experiencing my childhood again.

macOS Podcasting

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Being back in Minnesota for a month really lit a fire beneath me to find a better solution to recording podcasts when away from home. In the past, I’ve either recorded episodes ahead of time, or brought an additional laptop running Linux to do the recording. I wanted to avoid that this time, and so I learned how to use new tools on macOS.

A majority of my podcast listening is taken up by technology-focused shows, and they have a tendency to discuss how they record as part of the show. As such, I was familiar with a few. The standout was always Audio Hijack by Rogue Amoeba. This tool allows you to record any number of devices from any number of inputs to any number of tracks. For my setup, that means a single program lets me record my microphone to a single track, my cohosts on Skype to a separate track (for a rough backup), and a third track that combines the first two as a way to synchronize our voices.

Google Stadia Review

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Because I subscribe to YouTube Premium, I was offered a three month trial of Google Stadia, which is Google’s game-streaming platform. I decided to take up the offer and, with some stale Google Store credit I had lying around from an old phone trade-in, I also got a Stadia controller. These services are very intriguing to me and, whether this particular one stays afloat, I can picture myself making use of them in the future.

Price of Performance

Mon, 08 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Apple recently launched new MacBook Pros, complete with their new M1 Pro and Max chips, which are incredibly power-efficient while still maintaining a high level of performance in professional applications. However, the Apple ecosystem of software and hardware remains essentially locked down. They continue to be hostile to user repairs and upgrades, and they certainly are no friend to the open source community. Although I’m not currently in the market for a new computer, it’s impossible to ignore how excellent these computers are, and how Apple’s offerings are going to be uniquely positioned when I am considering my next purchase. As I go through that thought process, I’m realizing how certain philosophies in the computing world are in a strange position. The tradeoffs for remaining with, or switching to, a Linux platform are becoming increasingly skewed against.

Chasing Down Order

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My projects and obligations outside work have grown over the past six months. Alongside my usual podcasts and writing, I started volunteering for a tutoring organization, and am looking to take on a contract role for some extra money. With everything building up, I need to reevaluate the tools I use to keep track of everything so I’m not letting anything slip by. The beauty of them being personal projects is I can use whatever system I want.

Fall 2021 Writing Setup

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last year, I wrote about my writing setup. It involved a few different apps, and while I had a comprehensive process laid out, I just didn’t get myself to follow it consistently. I stopped using Ulysses, and went back to writing on whatever text editor happened to be available, or typing a quick post directly into my blog CMS. It was rather chaotic, so I’m looking to compromise this year.

Creative Powerhouse Device

Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With my Season of Creativity in full-swing, and some potential projects for next year circulating in my brain, I’m thinking more carefully about how I set up my devices. For example, I’ve been working on creating a “work phone” for myself, which I eventually managed by activating separate users on my Android phone. I like this separation of devices, so I’m considering how to setup a creative projects device. Thanks to an older MacBook holding its value surprisingly well, I have enough trade-in value for the newest 11" iPad Pro to take on this new role in my life.

Organization At Work

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Follow me through a brief journey of how I kept track of projects at work over the last year or so. It’s been a doozy.

An Overdue Fresh Start

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I bought my current desktop computer over three years ago during senior year of college. It is a business-class Lenovo desktop that cost me under $400. I slowly added memory and storage as needed. It started out as an inexpensive way to get consistent performance, give me a place to play games, and was a general workhorse I could rely on.

Video Theater

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My friend Brandon wrote a short play, Cameo, for performance over Zoom. It was part of an event put on by Invisible Disco Productions, and was the final of four plays put on, each about ten minutes long.

Virtual Classrooms

Mon, 31 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Every student that was previously instructed in-person by my company has been on Zoom for over a year. While we’re making plans to transition our learning centers back to in-person come this Fall, we have also spun off a permanently-virtual version of these courses. Instead of letting this year be a fluke when considering curriculum and instruction, there has been significant time devoted to improving the experience of student learning in this online face-to-face environment. Here are some reflections on what I’ve learned over that time, both in teaching last year and helping adapt our curriculum.

Vector Tweening

Mon, 05 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was messing around with animation this past week. It’s always been an interesting process to me, and I’ve messed with a few hand-drawn animation apps on the iPad in the past. However, any small skill in drawing left me a long time ago. I also had a particular goal that amounted to animating with a vector image I had built using Inkscape.

Lo and behold, I discovered the concept of vector tweening. It’s essentially an interpolative animation process that takes advantage of the mathematical niceties of vector images. Instead of needing to draw every individual frame, you can “skip” frames. You tell your animation software that at frame 6 your vector assets should look this way, and at frame 12 they should look that way. A little voodoo occurs (which I assume could be tweaked depending on the software), and you get all the frames between 6 and 12 automatically generated.

Organization in Organizations

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Tips for Getting eBooks

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Outdated Tutorials

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Take My Face

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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.

New Writing Workflow

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Advent of Code 2020

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A coworker told me about Advent of Code last week. It’s an independently run site that provides an advent calendar of programming puzzles. Similar to sites like Project Euler, they are of varying difficulty and not designed to be completed in any particular language.

So far, the puzzles have been clever and fun. There is a central plot for the entire month of needing to get a currency of star coins to pay for your post-Christmas vacation. I take it not as tone-deafness to the pandemic, but more of wishful thinking for a better 2021. They’re cute premises.

Ferrite: Editing Podcasts on iPad

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve started using the wonderful app Ferrite on my iPad to edit podcasts. While I still love Ardour, and it is a powerful program for bigger edits, Ferrite is very clean and meant for podcasts, as opposed to being a tool designed for music production that podcasters try to use.

Text Adventures Part 4: The Document

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A text adventure would not be useful to me if it was not written down. Particularly when the goal is to have an unfeeling, strict parser doling out commands only when successfully prompted, it’s important to have a reference that is clear, contains maps and explanatory information, space for notes, and everything the “computer” needs to say throughout the game.

With the exception of Recurring Nightmare, I write every text adventure using LaTeX. Over time I’ve built up commands and formatting to make this process simpler. For Recurring Nightmare, I tried my hand at InDesign since I had received a license from work. That license no longer exists, and it’s easier for me to edit a .tex document than an InDesign document, so LaTeX continues to be the way forward.

In this post I’ll talk about some of the decisions I made for formatting my document, how I make maps, and other bits of trivia that come to mind.

NASA Wallpaper Changer

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I like switching up my wallpaper every once in a while. Each device I use has a different wallpaper, and I normally just get it in my head that it’s time for a change.

I decided to go a little further than before when I discovered the NASA APOD Gnome Extension. This downloads NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, and sets it as your wallpaper. It’s a neat utility. There are several others which allow you to use different sources, or which pull from Wikimedia commons, and I’ll likely play around with those. What I like about this APOD extension is that it also gives the description that accompanies the picture.

New Coding Project: mrmp3

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve created a new project called mrmp3 that encodes MP3 chapters. The repository is here: https://github.com/rich1126/mrmp3.

The Gold Standard for Math Typesetting on the Internet

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Through a wonderful little game called TeXnique, I became aware of the online typesetting system KaTeX. Unlike MathJax, which is immensely finicky, slow, and has limited support for proper LaTeX, the KaTeX system supports scaling of rendered images, automatically detects the text color of my site and adapts as necessary, and has a fuller implementation of LaTeX commands.

Update: Animal Crossing Takes Hold

Mon, 25 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is a quick update, as I’ll be traveling over the weekend and don’t have much time to write a longer post.

In short, Animal Crossing has captured my mind. It’s a cleverly simple game that lets you focus on whatever grabs your attention. While my initial weeding endeavors have fizzled out, I’m very much invested in trying to obtain every fish and bug I can over time. Fashion and interior decoration don’t excite me overly much (I probably only have about 7 things in my house), but I’m playing the game to get to the point where I can have free reign over the island.

Animal Crossing: Weed Yourself to Victory

Mon, 18 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was finally convinced to start playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’d been hesitant to give it a try for a few reasons. First, Nintendo games are expensive. Second, I wasn’t sure I’d actually enjoy it. And third, if I did enjoy it, I wasn’t sure I’d want to sink time into it.

Having played it for a few hours today and successfully paid off my initial expenses to Tom Nook, I totally get the appeal. No, it will never be thrilling. But it’s a simple “life simulator” that you can enjoy to whatever detail you prefer. For me, I’m not necessarily interested in the things I can get. I’m currently motivated by the Nook Miles achievements. I’ll be a big bug-catcher and fish-fisher. The first thing I did was clear my island of weeds, and I intend to do so tomorrow. I found out quickly that if I just suspend my own judgement and allow myself to appreciate the straightforward charm of the game, it’s a relaxing way to pass the time.

Personal Organization Sucks

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Work has been getting crazier in the past week or two. We are now planning on being online for a while, and the curriculum work that has resulted is growing rapidly. There are many courses to rewrite as we experiment, on the fly, to figure out what tools we want to use (or avoid). I’ve been put in charge of these experiments, and it’s a much larger logistical task than I’ve ever had to deal with. It pales in comparison to what others have done, but it’s quite a doozy on my end.

iPadOS Cursor Support

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

iPadOS 13.4 was released a couple weeks ago, and with it came full support for cursor devices. You can now connect a mouse or trackpad and have a small circular cursor that acts like a mouse for your iPad. Certainly many people won’t find this useful, but it was really the missing piece that allows my iPad to go from a device mainly useful for handwritten notes and media consumption to a full-fledged computing device. I can fairly comfortably navigate 90% of what I do on a daily basis. While I still prefer my regular computers for podcasting, and also prefer the larger screen real-estate, the iPad now allows me to perform my regular work functions.

PDF Tools for Teaching

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As we’ve been transitioning our in-person learning centers to be fully online, the question has come up about how to use slides and work with students. While Zoom offers screen-sharing and annotation, the annotation on an actual slide persists on the screen: if you scroll to a new slide, the annotation remains. There’s no way to annotate a document using Zoom. Even worse, the “whiteboard” feature in Zoom, though cool in many ways, really loses out by having no way to paste formatted text, or even images, onto it. That takes away significant functionality.

Zoom

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My company is using Zoom, as are many universities and public school systems, to teach online. I’m hoping at some point, when the fires are put out, I can provide some of my own suggestions for using Zoom that have come up during my time dealing with the transition. For now, another short post.

The biggest thing for us is being able to still run interesting activities that are engaging. Just because this new medium assumes lecture-style classes on the surface, there’s a lot that can still be done with a bit of creativity.

On Fire

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I lost track of getting a blog post written, but it has been a hectic week. This is my first true things are on fire situation at work with the Coronavirus. Since I work in education, and we have in-person academies where students take classes, it has been a massive effort by a lot of people to figure out what to do. We are switching to online classes through Zoom, and I have been declared the resident Zoom trainer and expert. I enjoy learning new technology, but doing so this quickly under this pressure has been quite a lot. It’s still not all over, but I figured I would write a post before the week was officially over to at least stay within my “updates weekly” tagline.

Caffeine (For my Computer)

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is a little note about a wonderful extension for Gnome (a popular desktop environment for Linux). Out of the box, Gnome is a bit light on features and settings. Enabling Tweaks and Extensions allows for a lot of customization.

A recent discovery is the extension Caffeine. There’s very little to it. All it does is put a little coffee cup indicator in your top menu bar. When activated, you get some steam coming out of the cup, and your computer screen will never go to sleep. When it’s deactivated, it does nothing.

Playing with Android Development

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In my next adventure of programming projects, I decided to install Android Studio and play around with app development. To start, I have no particular thing in mind, I’m just getting my head wrapped around the structural complexity of an app. It’s a far more involved software situation than anything I’ve dealt with. I’m following this tutorial put together by Google Codelabs. It definitely assumes some familiarity with programming, but I’ve found it fairly easy to follow with simple explanations. Overall it’s been a fun task to play around with. The biggest shift is accepting the number of extremely high-level commands and classes that exist, compared to the (relatively) low-level projects I’ve done before. A lot is done for you in terms of graphical design right away, and the tools seem very nice to work with. It’s a fun shift in mindset that I look forward to exploring more.

Kindle vs. Nook

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

During this year’s Black Friday, I switched teams in the (not very large) e-reader wars. Ever since I was a sophomore in high school, I’ve used some sort of Nook from Barnes and Noble. Growing up, I always loved Barnes and Noble. Sure it’s a chain, but it’s still a bookstore and I enjoyed supporting it. This extended to the Nook. It always felt like they had better features for a slightly cheaper price than the Kindles that were available. They received backlights on the base model well before the Kindle did, and they still have physical buttons.

Despite all that, the Kindle has finally eclipsed the Nook in certain key features that are useful for me: water resistance, integration with libraries, file transfer, and services.

For reference, I specifically have the Kindle Paperwhite 2018, and previously had the Nook Glowlight 3.

Public Document Archives

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

One of the coolest resources available to everyone in the US is public archive and research services. While I was always tangentially aware of their existence (the Library of Congress being one of the main entities associated in my mind) it was never something that was clearly within reach, nor of any use. Most of research I did in high school found third-party research that were quick online searches away. In college I took a British History class, and then I was informed of the services that the university paid for which I could access. This allowed me to find old editions of British newspapers, which were very cool to go through.

Narrative-Driven Puzzle Games

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve never used a Plug ’n Play game before, you’re missing out. They were the one piece of simple video game fun I had growing up. Beyond that, it was various Flash-based games in a browser (and since that’s my only association with Flash, I’m quite bummed it’s being killed.) And although some of my friends had consoles, and I would play occasionally, it was never something that really grabbed my attention.

How I Podcast - Hardware

Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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.

How I Podcast: Editing

Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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.

How I Podcast: Software

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Some New Code

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Project Euler

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my year of focus, I’ve been trying to spend more consistent chunks of time working on programming. In particular, right now I’m focusing on doubling down on my Python knowledge, and exploring some other aspects of computer science that interest me. After checking out a few books and tutorials, I’ve made my way back to a website that I found a number of years ago, which is the most intriguing to me: Project Euler.

No Keyboard for Old Men

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As I come to the realization that a significant part of both my work and personal hobbies involve sitting at a computer, I have become increasingly wary of the stories I hear about things such as repetitive stress injuries (RSI), and what will likely be the impending damage to my eyes. In an effort to avoid, or at least delay, the former issue I have tentatively purchased an ergonomic keyboard. Specifically, the Surface Ergonomic Keyboard from Microsoft. I say tentatively because it’s not cheap. I may return it, but so far I’ve put a few thousand keystrokes on it and it’s feeling pretty good. This review is meant to get as in-depth as a keyboard review can be when written by someone who has never written a keyboard review. I’ll briefly explain my rough, but sufficient, testing procedure and what I found out. Then I’ll get into some details and comparisons I noted to other keyboards I’ve used.

New Wordpress Editor

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Wordpress (both the .org and .com versions) is rolling out a new native editor. It is a “block” system, and I am entirely unsure how I feel about it. I figured I would give them the benefit of the doubt and try to write a somewhat complete post using the Wordpress.org back-end, with this new block system, and see how it goes.

Why Linux? Part 1: Free As In...

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

During sophomore year of college, I embarked on a project to put a Linux operating system on my laptop. I had been interested ever since using a computer in one of the engineering labs which ran Ubuntu, one of the most mainstream, user-friendly distributions out there. I was intrigued both by the visual design, and the ease with which complex programs could be run. There was also the intrigue of feeling like a cool hacker, using a terminal and typing commands to get around a file system. I was hooked, and since then I’ve had a Linux distribution running on every computer I’ve owned over the past three years. I want to spend a good chunk of time explaining my growing passion for Linux, and why I think more people should seriously consider it as an option for the computers in their lives. This first post will focus on two of the oft-repeated phrases in the Linux community, and its main inspiration: Linux is free.

New Blog

Sat, 17 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I switched over from using Wordpress.com to hosting my blog on Bluehost and using the official Wordpress blogging environment. The main difference here is when you are using Wordpress.com, there is some gray area about who really has control over the content. You are ultimately at the whims of their hosting structure, and also you must pay through the nose to access the various features of the actual Wordpress blogging platform it claims to deal with.

Notes On Future Mathematics Posts

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Updated November 23, 2022

I’m going back through my posts and recategorizing them, and noticed this one. My plan for having a secondary spot for math posts didn’t take off after I moved my blog to WordPress properly, and discovered the excellent $\KaTeX$ plugin for rendering math.

Original Post

I recently remembered my company, AoPS supports blog creation for their users. In particular, it has the full functionality I’m used to on their message board. In particular, they have native $\LaTeX$ support, in addition to support for the Asymptote vector graphics language. This makes writing math significantly easier on my end, and significantly easier to interact with on the reader’s end.

Dull Edge

Mon, 06 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The cutting edge of technology is particularly awesome these days. Cars are doing more on their own, phones are surpassing some current computers in their performance, and VR is coming into its own finally. I listen to a lot of tech podcasts, and love messing around with technology, but due to my status as a recent college graduate, I am definitely not maintaining a collection of cutting-edge devices. And that’s okay. First, let’s talk about cars. I recently purchased a post-lease 2015 Honda Civic, LX trim (in other words, the only model more basic comes with a manual instead of a CVT.) The disparity between that car and other higher-end cars from the same year is rather shocking. Sitting in it, I feel super cool. It’s a big upgrade from the 1998 EX-L Honda Accord I had been driving. There’s a “cockpit” feeling to it, good Bluetooth connectivity, and a back-up camera. It’s relatively zippy for a cheap car, and the gas mileage gained by the CVT cannot be beat. Then, I read a Golf R Review by Casey Liss. He is one of three car enthusiasts on the Accidental Tech Podcast. Not surprisingly, the only one I can identify with is John Siracusa, who to my knowledge has mostly driven manual Civics and Accords for his entire life. Casey though, he complained about the lack of assisted driving and automatic parking. The car needs to be fast, it needs a sunroof, and of course Carplay! This was absolutely baffling to me. I just cannot get my head wrapped around why some of these things are important. These three men have attempted to address it on their podcast, but it still does not click with me. Cars can be purchased only so often to be at all reasonable, and so one cannot even stay on the cutting edge. The other issue is that he recently began working from home exclusively, yet sounded very hesitant to become a one-car family. Oh well, to each their own. Now, obviously cars are a very special case of not staying on the cutting edge. I’ve only owned my own car for a few months, and it’ll be a number of years before I can even begin to think about getting another. But phones: now that’s another matter. I’ve had my Galaxy S7 for two years now. Previously, I had a Galaxy S4 for two years, and then some random LG (I think) phone for 4 years throughout high school. In my mind, until I can afford the “every year” phone upgrade, two years is a reasonable time in these days of mostly non-replaceable phone batteries. So, with my S7 really slowing down and the battery life starting to tank, it was time to figure out what to do. Was the newest Galaxy S9 worth the incredible price tag? Did I want to save some money and get a Pixel XL or a new LG phone, each containing last year’s processors, despite them being the newest in the lineup? I ended up choosing a Galaxy S8+. Due to the release of the S9, I got a very good deal on it, and the processing difference (and battery life) between the S7 and S8+ is much larger than the S8+ to a comparable newest generation phone. Once again, I opted to stay on the duller edge of technology. And I am happy with that decision. I tried the S9 in stores, and it truly did not impress me anymore than the S8 does. The S8 was the revolutionary phone (just like the iPhone X, and whatever comes out next will not be quite as lauded). This is what is interesting about technology. So many people are excited to get the newest and best thing. The hype is always there, but the price-to-performance normally isn’t. I spent all of last year in school working on a 4-year old Ideapad and a 5-year old refurbished Thinkpad. They performed admirably for me, because like most people, I’m not doing much heavy-lifting. Being on the dull edge, and looking out at what is available and what others have, can be fun. I don’t think there is anything wrong with living life on some sort of delay with technology. Perhaps as I grow older and make a bit more money, that will change. But for now, I am happy with scouring the internet for good deals, and getting what I actually need for the best price.

The Right Tool

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As I have progressed through college I have found it necessary to look for and invest in the right tools for the tasks I have at hand. I think it is important to be aware of how I work, and test out ways to improve my efficiency.