[ Inspired by the strangely-hilarious meme-essay The Grug Brained Developer ] grug brained writer write million million words and sell about two. grug scratch head to figure why two words become shiny rocks and not other words. grug squeeze and squeeze all learnings into tiny ess … | Continue reading
A Mercator map is a total lie.1 But it can still save people from the rocks. And sometimes it’s better than a globe — because it folds and fits in your pocket. | Continue reading
Computers are a tool that you can use or be used by. I have written about my tool-taming tactics before, including blocking distracting websites in my hosts file. My “checking” function is the natural evolution of that tactic. It implements the core functionality of popular anti- … | Continue reading
Because it contains details of my medical history, this is a members-only post. If you have a seasonal rash and the cost of membership is a financial hardship, please contact me so I can send you the article for free ♥ ~2,560 words | Continue reading
While shopping for a new Linux laptop, I attempted to use Google-style advanced search operators on eBay, without luck. All references to such things seem to have been removed from their docs. But it turns out it’s still possible. Here’s the syntax I've sleuthed | Continue reading
I do a lot of Ghost theme development, and have to swap which theme is running on my local install all the time. The Ghost admin interface takes a lot of clicking to get to the page where you can change themes. And I don’t like clicking. Neither | Continue reading
I found a used Pinebook Pro on Craigslist for $100 CAD, invented some flimsy excuse[1], and bought it. Then I went much farther down the rabbit hole than I expected, trying to get it functional.[2] Here are my first impressions of the journey to get (semi-) functional Linux | Continue reading
I propose a new standard for the blogosphere, along the lines of Derek Sivers’s “Now” page: the Things I don’t know how to do list. Criteria: Maintain a more or less up-to-date list of things that you don’t know how to do, | Continue reading
I have tried several methods of learning Spanish that didn’t work: Spanish in 30 days (book & CD combo) Duolingo Memorizing vocabulary with Anki Listening to Language Transfer Complete Spanish Listening to Spanish music & watching Spanish films “Spanish days” with fellow learners … | Continue reading
This is yet another small companion piece to my Ghost on Fly tutorials. In my last tutorial in the series, I showed how to back up your Ghost blog hosted on Fly.io over SFTP. SFTP does the job, but transferring all those images and files every time is a waste of bandwidth — and p … | Continue reading
I’ve been using computers for a long time, and for most of that time, I’ve considered myself a power user — the kind of person who bothers to use keyboard shortcuts in the first place, runs Linux, and knows a bit about programming and the command | Continue reading
The default course is: as soon as you’re doing a job well, you get encouraged to switch to a different job. This new job will likely be similar to what you’ve just been doing, but slightly larger, more complex, higher status, more flashy, and higher pay. | Continue reading
Yesterday evening I was laying by the fire and reading a book. It was my first evening off in a while; I had shut down my computer before heading for dinner, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. At one point, after finishing the section I was reading, I remembered about | Continue reading
Sometimes, you just want to link to a specific segment of a YouTube video. Deep-linking to a specific start time in a YouTube video is fairly common — but sometimes specifying an end-time is as (or more!) important. After much fruitless Googling, I’ve found a way to do | Continue reading
Everything is connected. It’s a truism because it’s true. To move a physical thing, everything touching it must move also … and then the neighbours of the neighbours must make way … and the neighbours of the neighbours of the neighbours. It goes on. (Thus, reductive | Continue reading
It’s unlikely, but it’s possible. That’s the beautiful thing about writing on the internet.I have no idea who you are. You might be the Queen of Denmark. You might be the farmer who grew my porridge. Or, you might be you — the very person reading this | Continue reading
We all have data that we need to store, and then find. Regardless of type, data tends to build up. Eventually, we need some system for organizing it into sensible categories.It turns out, this problem is harder than it seems.In this article, I'm going to be talking about | Continue reading
Not long ago, I wrote a post on how to deploy a Ghost 5 blog on Fly.io without paying a dime. Shortly after, Ghost removed support for SQLite in production, in favour of MySQL. However, hosting Ghost + MySQL 8 on Fly turned out to be a bit gnarly. MySQL | Continue reading
I like books. Last year, I set myself the challenge of reading a hundred of them. This article is about what I learned. | Continue reading
Elon Musk is planning to colonize Mars. If he succeeds, it could be one of the most important changes in human history. And, based on the surprising success of his previous ventures — including Zip2, PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity — it might be foolish to dismiss Musk’s plan … | Continue reading
Here at the autodidacts we have a sophisticated workflow for turning our project ideas into reality. It’s so arcane it deserves its own branch of historiography, but we settled for an infographic: This infographic started as a three-man drawing game (aka “napkin diagram”) over … | Continue reading
I once got a blogpost on frontpage of HackerNews. Therefore, I am kind of a leading expert on how to get blogposts on frontpage of HackerNews. In this post I will humbly share my secret recipe for winning the internet. Write blogpost. Blogpost must be very awesome. Only best blog … | Continue reading
Brad, a top footballer, sits in the bleachers watching the game. He cannot believe his eyes. He has come to watch his friend Edgar play, and Edgar is the worst football player he has ever seen. He stands around, chewing gum. When he runs at all, he runs like a | Continue reading
For years, I’ve had a folder on my computer titled Notes for Next Time. When I think of ways I could do a better job of something the next time around, I try to write them down so I'll remember when it's time for action later on. These can | Continue reading
In the grand scheme of things, I am one lucky cove. So are you. The fact that you are reading this article means you have internet, an expensive and mind-bogglingly complex piece of electronic equipment, eyesight (or a screen reader), a fairly high degree of literacy — and, most … | Continue reading
Running used to be excruciating. I would get halfway down the lane by my house… and then have to stop, wheezing and gasping, with burning lungs and aching legs. Now, I enjoy it, and often run 10 to 25 kilometres for fun, and because it's good for the health. (I’ | Continue reading
When I upgraded from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 LTS, I finally took the plunge and switched from the i3 window manager on X11 to Sway, an almost drop-in Wayland replacement. Here's my experience of the transition. Here be Dragons Tiling window managers are not for the faint of | Continue reading
In which the author enumerates the disorders of order of operations that collude to make this stupidly-simple viral math problem such a doozy. | Continue reading
In which the author enumerates the disorders of order of operations that collude to make this stupidly-simple viral math problem such a doozy. | Continue reading
Our look inside the world of intensive (and exclusive) neurofeedback training: photos, tech specs, and an interview with Biocybernaut founder James Hardt. | Continue reading
Our look inside the world of intensive (and exclusive) neurofeedback training: photos, tech specs, and an interview with Biocybernaut founder James Hardt. | Continue reading