Writings

I’ve always tended to like math more than the average person. I was less a fan of arithmetic — the labour intensive process of adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing our way to an answer to a question that a calculator could figure out instantly. More so, I’ve tended to find myself intrigued by the tools that math gives us to help us understand the world better. Sometimes that involves making use of arithmetic, but often it can simply mean applying ideas from the world of math in order to make better sense of the world, or to help us make better decisions....

A couple years ago, a friend recommended to me the music of Steve Schallert. I actually included one of his songs in my first post on my website. Around that time, I probably listened to his album Songs of Sorrow / Songs of Hope on repeat like 50x in a row. Well, yesterday one of his songs came up after a long season without any of his music, and the last section of the song was especially powerful and moving!...

You already know how to do it. You’ve done it plenty before: that gift, that kind word, that “going out of your way” to improve someone’s day and show them they’re loved. Feels great to be on either the giving or recieving end of, and it makes the world just a little bit better. So, why not purposefully do something to make someone’s day today?

I’m an ever-growing fan of the webcomic medium. I love the diversity of styles. I love the jokes. I love reading the archives of a good webcomic and seeing the creator’s progression and improvement overtime. Maybe most of all, I just love getting a chuckle when a comic comes up on my RSS reader, and getting to share that chuckle by passing it on to a friend. (Dear friends, sorry about all the webcomics I send you....

When we see something novel that we don’t understand, we have a choice: Shake our heads, note that it’s weird, brush it off as something we’ll never understand, and move on with our lives OR, stop for a few minutes, take a look, and try to understand it. Why do those people act that way? Why was this tool designed this way? Where did this weirdly spelled word come from? What’s its etymology?...

I’ve given myself a bit of a challenge these last few years to migrate as much of my digital life as I can towards using open-source software and services. There have been many reasons for this — increased security/privacy, better performance on my aging devices, more control of what my devices are doing, less likelihood that a program critical to my workflow ends up breaking or being discontinued, etc. (I’m still frustrated by Google killing off Inbox and Reader, which were both integral to my daily workflow at the time of their demise 🤦🏻‍♂️....

“The most important step a man can take is not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step.” ~ Brandon Sanderson in Oathbringer

It’s interesting to frame both history and life through the contrasting lenses of solutions and implementation. Farming was a solution to the challenges and dangers built into the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The story of civilization has largely been a story of the implementation of that solution of farming. Electricity was a solution to a wide range of problems. Most notably early on, it was a safe way to light one’s home with much lower risk of fire or explosion....

I regularly find myself making personal deep dives into things that I find especially cool and exciting. Lately, I’ve found myself wanting to share more about those niche topics of my enthusiasm. So, here’s the first in a little series I’m calling “X is Cool!” Enjoy! If you haven’t heard of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), you should set aside half-an-hour with whichever of your devices has the biggest and highest resolution screen, and get ready to be in awe....

How long would the devices you use day-to-day survive without internet access? We live in an internet-saturated world, so that question might feel silly. “My devices are basically always connected to the internet; why would I care how long they could last without it?” But, there are a few reasons that might be worth thinking about it. There are lots of situations where having a device and software that is still useful offline can prove to be really valuable....