Writings

The most useful cooking advice I’ve ever heard: If you can tell there’s just “something missing” in what you’re cooking, simply add an acid. 1 A good squeeze of lemon juice on something bland can bring it to life in surprisingly magical way. It can take a meal from “meh, passable” to “daaang! not bad!” in mere seconds. I’ve tried it with a range of acids: lemon juice, lime juice, apple cider vinegar. ...

In the deep-diving of the esoteric world of technology as I do, I often come across tools which the vast majority of people will never need or make use of. I tend to note those tools and log them away for personal use, as it is not uncommon for weird situations to pop up where I need some ultra-niche tool I’ve stumbled across in the past. Other times, some of those tools I encounter could make a lot of people’s lives much easier and more convenient. ...

Lots of issues in the world today seem to come back to the “race to the bottom”. Creating the lowest prices and most convenience for consumers… Even if that comes at the cost of the lives of children. Taking as much attention as possible… Even if that results in nations destablizing, and teen suicide rates skyrocketing. Getting as deeply as possible ingrained into people’s habits and brain stems, becoming as addictive as the technology and the law allows, extracting every gram of monetization we can, no matter the cost or the side effects… Because “if we don’t do it, someone else will”. ...

This week I wrote a guest post over on at Emmaus Apparel, the faith-based streetwear company run by brother Stephen. It’s an ultra-nerdy article about the intersection between Christian faith and the 2018 movie, Black Panther. “Wait….. huh?” Yeah, I know. 😆 I had a great time writing it! Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did creating it! You can check it out here! And while you’re there, take a look at some of the cool merch Stephen is selling! And if you find something you like, tell him I sent you!

This is a pretty technical post. If most of the words in the title above are gibberish to you, this article likely isn’t for you. You’ll probably like the other things I’ve written more 😄 ) In the spirit of showing my work, here’s a quick fix to an annoying little upgrade bug I encountered when upgrading a server from version Debian 10 to Debian 11. Immediately after upgrading, the WordPress site that I was hosting (Specifically, the nginx server software WordPress was installed on) started giving a 502 Bad Gateway error: ...

Today I watched a video from Derek Muller (great name 😎👍🏽) called The Most Important Algorithm Of All Time. The video discusses a game-changing piece of mathematical and scientific wisdom that, had it been known to the scientific community in 1958, could have prevented the nuclear proliferation of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, and would have likely ended the Cold War 30 years early! 1 It’s a great video! I love and recommend Derek’s content! ...

I recently stumbled upon Johnny Harris’ video from a few years ago titled “What I learned by befriending Iranians on Facebook”. In it, he talks about how, in an effort to better understand the situation in Iran in 2015, he reached out to a couple dozen Iranians online to hear their stories. This act of befriending, talking with, and hearing stories of Iranians — a group that Harris admitted he had viewed through the West’s media lens as militant and hateful to a large extent — ended up humanizing the Iranian people in a way Harris wasn’t expecting. ...

In technology, a protocol is a standard and agreed upon language that allows different systems to communicate with each other. It’s the idea underneath every layer of technology that is allowing you to be reading this right now. The web is based on protocols. It’s a paradigm that focuses on freedom, on accessibility, and on interoperability. Protocols grant the ability for anyone to access, use, and build on top of the work of those who came before them. Especially when it comes to the internet, protocols allow anyone to build their own website, or their own app, or chat/email/social-media server. The protocols of the internet make it so anyone trying to do those things is working on a pretty level playing field. We’re all dealing with the same networks, the same rules, and the same bits and bytes. We all start with the same digital Lego blocks to build what we want to build. ...

It’s something I think many of us realize at a conceptual level, but I wonder how often we make decisions or align our lifestyles accordingly. In reality, it’s wisdom that goes back millennia – “It’s more blessed to give than receive.” Making something, building something, creating something is naturally a better use of our time than consuming. We were arguably Created to create. But thinking of our lives, both digital and physical, how much of our time is spent living this out? ...

“Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. ...