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Notes on the Ivory Coast
I spent about ten days in the Ivory Coast, mostly in Abidjan, but also Yamoussoukro, Man, and Grand Bassam. (Note – The Ivory Coast is so French in culture and temperament that it insists on offici…
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 473 posts.
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20 Years of Blogging on my own website
I missed it, but last month I had my 20-year blogging anniversary. Let's recap a bit about how it started and how it went.
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In praise of the hundred page idea
I prefer a lightweight nonfiction book to a detailed tome. I’m a dilettante of many interests, so my attention for any given topic is more likely to sustain 100 pages than 600. The sweet spot is longer than a longread internet article, but that doesn’t demand a months-long commitment: a 2-3 hour text.
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Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)
In addition to the basic materials, a number of safety-related items were needed to conduct this experiment. First, a suitable location for the experiment was required, it being expected that the kitchen was not the appropriate place for blow-torching SPTs. The author's driveway was chosen as a suitable site. Second…
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Comics I Loved in 2023
Reflecting on comics that resonated for me in 2023
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I coded something dumb and I'm proud of it
When Simplicity is Preferrable to Efficiency
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Relationships are coevolutionary loops (2023)
Looking for Alice, part 3
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A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go
I’ve always wanted to visit Market Village, but I never will. And neither will you.
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The Birth of Standard Error (2013)
Earlier today Stephen Johnson, in a mailing list run by the The Unix Heritage Society , described the birth of the standard error concept: the idea that a program's error output is sent on a channel different from that of its normal output. Over the past forty years, all major operating systems and language libraries…
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The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)
Cutting out the news has been one of the best lifestyle decisions I've made in recent years, second only to cutting out social media (though the two are not mutually exclusive). Reducing my intake of what is essentially junk information has significantly reduced anxiety and worry in my day to day life, and has freed…
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Everything will be alright in Iceland
On volcanoes, crises, and what we can learn from Icelanders
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The regenerative urban garden I: No-till gardening
I am an advocate of regenerative farming . But I’m not a farmer myself. The piece of land I steward is 1/3 acre — still sizable for an urban lot, but laughably minuscule compared to what Real Farmers are working with.
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What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
Just intonation (JI) today falls under the umbrella of microtonal music, because it involves playing "between the notes" of the 12-tone scale we're used to. As I type microtonal , my spellchecker decorates it with a sad squiggle, confirming I've drifted (again) into a topic that's not even in its dictionary. But JI is…
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Waffle House's Magic Marker System
I thought for sure that I’d previously written about the secret jelly packet & pickle-based system that chefs at the Waffle House use to “store” all of the orde
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1,600 days of a failed hobby data science project
I dedicated over 1,600 days to a data science project, only to see it fail. In this article, I share a new checklist I developed to help prevent similar setbacks in the future.
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Simple Lasts Longer
🗺️ Too many invaders to keep track of; I really don't want to run another database; Web Storage to the rescue
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I got dysentery so you don’t have to
On turning 30 in a human challenge trial ward.
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If Your World Is Not Enchanted, You're Not Paying Attention
The Convivial Society: Vol. 5, No. 11
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A new blog for 2024
DX engineer at Liveblocks. Articles on developer experience and web engineering.
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Create More, Consume Less (2021)
The problem with too much consumption is that it can leave us feeling utterly empty inside. Ironically, it creates something: One big void. A small dose of creativity is good for us. It can help us become more present, less anxious, and much more fulfilled. And it doesn't take much to live a creativ
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Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)
How much Vitamin D should I take? This is still the looming question, and it’s time to address it. First, though, imagine that someone in a public forum online asked me, “How much metoprolol (a…
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Lessons from a fountain pen addict
(Enjoy the blog? Please consider donating – there’s a PayPal button at the top right of the site!) Over the past several years of spending far too much time and money on stationery, I’ve learned a thing or two — about mistakes I make over and over, about what I like and why, and what […]
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Notes on paper (2023)
Over the past few weeks, I have been scanning my notes and homework from school using the nice professional scanners at my workplace. These notes have been sitting in my closet for several years because I don't want to keep them, but didn't want to throw them out until scanning them, and I've never had access to a…