Markdown is an excellent choice for documentation
Every few months, it seems a new post decrying the use of markdown for documentation (or other things) rises to the top of Hacker News. There are often good reasons for preferring a more structured option, like reStructuredText, LaTeX, or Asciidoc. Especially in projects where more formal text is required, or where…
Guide to Effective Reading
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Reminder of Complexity
An impressive poster summarizing biochemical pathways reminds us how complex life is, and how interconnected the world is.
Tips for immersive video calls
I spent way too long figuring out the how to make video calls feel natural. Here’s the best advice I came up with.
How I got my Japanese permanent residency
In 2018 I applied for and received Permanent Residency in Japan. The process I used is relatively new and unknown so I wanted to document it in case it might come in handy for someone else.
Feeling unproductive? Maybe you should stop overthinking
In order to get something done, maybe we need to think less.
I launched a paid community in one month
How I launched a paid community in one month and my plans to grow with generated content for SEO & side project marketing.
I Regret Quitting Astrophysics
In 2013 I decided to quit my career in astrophysics, move back “home” and become a data scientist. The blog post I wrote about my decision was probably my best read publication as a professional astronomer and it was moving to read all the reactions from people who were struggling with similar decisions. I meant every…
Finding Time to Invest in Yourself
This is a transcript of the bonus material at the end of the giant How to Get Rich episode. A common question we get: “How do I find the time to start investing in myself? I have a job.” In one of the tweets from the cutting room floor, you wrote: “You will need to rent your time to get started. More
My Second Phone Is in the Cloud
You know what I want? I want my own private server, to run my own private software, and I want everyone else to have one as well. Let me explain:
Pinephone first steps
After anki trashed my history, uploaded the trashed history to the sync server, and then repeatedly re-synced the trashed history every time I tried to restore from backup, I wrote my own spaced repetition app. It reads input from a markdown file, asks questions in the terminal and stores state in a json file. I wrote…
Trading Time for Money
Paying someone else to do your work isn't such a great deal, and you should probably learn to do it yourself.
Building my own HomeKit Thermostat
Built a custom HomeKit enabled thermostat, because I was fed up with the walled gardens of Nest
Steps to Improve Your Writing
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway Introduction Looking back, I always struggled with writing. I felt pain every time I try to…
Why it's great to write blog posts
I’ve been blogging for close to four years now. I started blogging because I wanted to pick up a new skill (writing) and challenge myself to do something new. Because I blog about what is both my work and hobby - software development and more specifically, cloud/platform engineering - it’s relatively simple to come up…
Lessons from Running a Sale That Earned 3 Month's Profit in a Week
Tips on running successful Black Friday sales for creators and Indie Hackers
Ennui: How to Overcome Chronic Boredom
Ennui (pronounced on-wee ) is chronic boredom that involves weariness, apathy, dissatisfaction, and lack of fulfillment. Some people experience a general sense of ennui in life, whereas others experience it in a specific domain, like their hobbies or work. For example, someone might experience ennui when it comes to a…
What is GPT-3? written in layman's terms
Daily, snackable writings to spur changes in thinking. Building a blueprint for a better brain by tinkering with the code.
To listen well, get curious
When I’ve listened the most effectively to people, it’s because I was intensely curious—I was trying to build a detailed, precise understanding of what was going on in their head.
Taking back Mondays and Tuesdays (2019)
The creative studio of NYC-based designer and creative director, Able Parris