Utility Knife
I recently subscribed to Robb Knight’s blog and came across a post on utility knives. In a small bit of serendipity, I recently rediscovered my favourite utility knife. Having a little knife for opening up boxes and whatnot always felt like an unnecessary purchase. I usually just flip open a pair of scissors and use a side to slice through the box. It’s mildly unwieldy but sufficient. ...
On Approach
I came across these Guiding Principles for my website and it has me thinking what my principles or tenets or guiding lights might be for my own site. The initial tagline for my site was “tips, tricks, and bookmarks on web development”. I like to think that described the site rather well. Casual but professional, where even the personal posts were more often than not about professional matte...
Eloquent
I have a desire to write better. I’m self aware to the extent that I know—or believe I know—that my writing is simplistic. My sentences are short and direct. There isn’t much flourish. This can be handy when describing a technical topic in a blog post but not very handy when describing a technical topic in what should be a 500 page book. It’s also not very handy when wanting to...
Who Knows You
They say success is all about who you know but I’d argue—especially in our loosely connected world—it’s all about who knows you. One path to success—and I believe there are many—is to put content out there to gain an audience. Some of them are easy to do, some are harder. Here’s a quick list of ideas: Blog posts Magazine articles YouTube vids Twitch streaming CodePen ...
Time Scales
I stumbled across an old screenshot of text, heavily aged by its multi-generational jpeg artifacts—like looking at the stippled grain of film, telling the story from a dog’s perspective, living an entire lifetime and only catching a small span of its owner’s life. From there, I thought of the life of those that far exceed those of human life—like a tree. What must a human’s existence...
Last Year
Sometimes I wonder if doing these recap posts at this point are masturbatory. Fun for me but probably of little interest or at most, an awkward glance by passersby. It’s nice to have a record but if I need to journal, I have one of those. But here we go anyway… As I predicted a year ago, 2024 was a year of progress. Turned 50 The big milestone for 2024 was turning 50. Where I don...
Rituals
I get up, get dressed, and meander into the kitchen rubbing the sleep from my bleary eyes while the morning sun reflects off sides of buildings. I grab the portafilter from the espresso machine, give it a clean wipe, and place it under the grinder. I pull out 18 grams of pre-measured beans and pour it into the machine, turning it on, watching the chocolate-coloured fines shoot out. I spread the gr...
Unexpected Conversations
Sometimes things work out better than expected. I flew into San Diego to visit Addison and put a little bow on that particular quest but if I’m flying from one side of the continent to the other, I might as well spend a few days exploring. Over a decade earlier, I had spoken at a conference in San Diego but I barely remember that trip. I vaguely recall the conference centre and presentin...