My personal web log about technology, music, software, life, and more. Hand-crafted and written since 2002/03.
Positives The branding, marketing, affordable tickets, it being all about the fans and removing some historically arcane traditional baseball norms. In fact I loved the players being outside of the dugout the entire time, interacting with fans, and some of the unique rules that sped up the game, and the looseness of it all. It’s clear that real baseball takes itself way too seriously. Too many…
Note: This post was AI-inspired. Radiohead was ahead of their time in 1997. Their sound didn’t fit the era’s dominant lanes – neither the fading glow of grunge nor the more straightforward currents of alternative rock. Instead, they carved out a strange, original space that explored the boundaries of sound by mixing guitars with electronic and computer-generated textures. It was a kind of digital…
🎧 Album Review: Lord Huron – The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 I have been entranced with “The Night We Met” going back to 2015 but I hadn’t heard much new music from LH until recently. This album feels more mainstream and cohesive. A worthy album to daydream or drift off to. It has a bit of a haunted and ethereal vibe to it which is their MO (IMO) – but there’s also some uplifting, twangy folk tunes…
Blog - The Omni Group ✅ 🧭 Exciting week for me as I am finally getting OmniFocus 4 setup. One of the best and most streamlined Mac, iOS & watchOS apps that I have depended on daily for 10+ years has some updates and modernization. This is an app where the true power lies under-the-hood and let’s you slice and dice your GTD approach like a pro. I have always considered it my “compass” as it keeps…
In the spirit of Mary Schmich & Baz Luhrman’s “Wear Sunscreen,” here are some core tenets/values I embrace these days as a software engineer (this will change or morph for sure over time but these are today’s beliefs). Consider this as advice to my past, less experienced self. I know it’s not quite commencement season, but let’s go with it anyway. “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘24. Wear…
Disclaimer: AI did not write this post. I’ve been using GitHub Copilot (AI for programming) in my IDE/code editors for over a month now and it’s truly transformed the coding experience and general expediency of my work. It is like autocomplete on steroids. The suggestions are usually spot-on but it’s not always perfect. However it’s enough to help me deliver changes faster and with more…
Tips for hitting well in MLB “The Show” I’ve been playing MLB The Show ’18 “Road to the Show” for a good couple of years now (I’m still in Triple-A though) and over that time I’ve learned a lot of good hitting tricks to gain more positive points and have a better overall batting average and stats. As mentioned, this is only from my experience in Double and Triple-A (on Veteran difficulty) so I…
2021 e-reader roundup: Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Paperwhite reviews Good review of the current state of e-readers but the focus is primarily the hardware aspects. There is some mention of software and syncing your books. I still rely on a very old and cheap Kindle reader from around 2011. It is perfect because it is inexpensive so I don’t feel bad tossing it in a bag, dropping it by…
Life is itself cyclical. There’s a beauty, purpose, and mastery layered in the repetition and iteration which instills learning, growth, synergy. The light of difference shines tomorrow lest we deny the sameness of today.
Budgeting is control, power, privilege. You shape your future by budgeting consistently and honestly. That results in freedom to spend without guilt or worry. I enjoy the budgeting process a couple of times per month. Don’t get that confused with the transaction process which is a daily thing. The budgeting process is that of allocating your available funds into categories which typically happens…
I’m a long-time Netflix user, back to the days of DVD deliveries (2006 or around there). I haven’t been a member continually that long - I took a few years break before signing up again for their streaming service. I’ve always loved having access to such a huge backlog of movies and shows without having to make a physical trip to a store. I’m still a fan of the streaming service so I’m not about…
This post is also published on Codementor . With an old Mac I have lying around at home and free web-based services, I’ve setup a simple app that fetches some data from an external service ( YNAB ) in order to run some daily budget calculations that I used to calculate manually for a long time. The output of my app is then sent back to my phone within seconds so I can trigger it from anywhere. I…
A few of the more photographic scenes from my recent Florida trip.
Apple's Airpods Are an Omen : This is interesting but is taking things to the extreme. For one, earbuds will cease to perform any social signaling whatsoever. … Having them in while silent is a sign of inner focus—a request for privacy. That’s why bothering someone with earbuds in is such a social faux-pas: They act as a do-not-disturb sign for the body. I actually think of AirPods as less of a…
I’ve been using a “to do” app (“task management,” “GTD,” whatever the cool kids call it these days) for over a decade now. I currently use OmniFocus but before that I used a custom built webpage that I maintained the codebase by hand. I can tell you there were many “meta” type tasks that related to the to-do app itself. Building a web app from scratch and using it every day I would obviously find…
Of all Black Mirror season 4’s episodes, “USS Callister” is probably my favorite for a few reasons: It’s code/tech-related. Jesse Plemons (“Breaking Bad,” “Friday Night Lights”) is pure gold as a creepy evil character. It’s so vastly different from other Black Mirror episodes (the whole Star Trek riff). It has a feel-good ending with a cool cameo. I’ll admit I’ve never watched much Star Trek, but…
While resting I’ve thought it over, how much I’ve lived and learned. How much was given and how much earned. Despite at times misfortune, pain, down luck or happenstance, we are here now and today is a chance. To change, believe, or let your heart sing. To be better than yesterday and tomorrow-envisioning. And to always thank God and your lucky stars for a day like no other: Another. - Me (2018)
(Update: this post is also on Codementor ) Sometimes it’s hard to have fully-functioning local and production environments, either due to legacy code or poor separation of dependencies. For example: a script that works fine in production, but has never really been tested or ran locally. In this case you may want to use separate code for local and production in order to reduce the need to refactor…
I’ve started using the You Need A Budget service after a colleague referred me to it. It’s a personal financing service that lets you track all of your expenses and external accounts in a single interface for an easy look at your overall budget and financial picture. My Budgeting Background The idea of tracking every expense and forecasting future payments is nothing new to me. I used Mint for…
This is a controversial, uncomfortable, and heart-wrenching show to watch, although well acted and portrayed, and some great music at that! I had a hard time getting through most episodes. The topics (suicide, rape, alcoholism, divorce, peer pressure, and more) are extremely serious especially for high school kids. The general danger depicted with this show is that suicide is an effective way to…