Recent content on bneil.me
TL;DR: A pinned sidebar panel that shows a date-sorted table of all notes linking to currently viewing. Usually in obsidian I have a graph view of open but ive found this to be better in understanding connections, since i can view the created and modified dates. Just make sure you have dataview installed and then make sure to drag this into the panel area of you choice. Note the markdown needs to…
W is for Weird At first I was thinking to say ‘websites’ for this prompt, but then I thought, lets go with ‘weird websites’. So many of these i discovered on the useless web and drip with that web 1.0 vibe. I miss the culture and days when the web was just weird. So here are a few ive saved over the years https://longdogechallenge.com/…
V is for Vertigo When thinking of a fun word to have with V, I thought it would be fun to admit a weird weakness I have for elevators. For some reason, every time I leave an elevator that has ascended after more then a few floors, I get hit with this vertigo that makes me almost tip over, and leaves my feet feeling gone from earth to moon walking. I don’t know if its an inner ear thing, but…
U is for Ultralisk I don’t talk about starcraft. Its one of my favorite games and I absolutely love playing zerg. I don’t care how much ive lost. But there is something about being the swarm. Being the obviously the most adaptable of the species, I loved playing the race. However, when starcraft 2 kicked off years back, the one thing that really upset me was what they did to my dude.…
T is for Tavern (short fiction) The thing about riding the same twenty miles every Saturday is that you know your route. You know it and you memorize what you see along the way. The faulty sprinkler that kicks off in your far neighbors yard which rockets water when it starts up. The elder beagle tied to an HOA sign who, while no longer pulls, howls as you ride past. The empty corner lot where the…
S is for Smoke Thought a little 4-20 subject would be fun. I was trying to think, back in college and earlier what I used to get up to on this day and honestly, I can’t remember. Joke or not it cracked me up. So what was my favorite thing to watch. Fairies - This film is up there with ‘Wizards’ for its awesome weirdness The GrooveTube - Chevy Chases first film I think Ive watched…
R is for Riddle So I don’t have many original riddles, but when ‘R’ came around I thought id share it. So without much ado: If cyclops from the X-Men, came out one night, after dusk, to the breaking waves of the pacific ocean. Then upon looking out, saw a man, not far.. throw a small creature. This creature flew, then just on the wind caught cyclops catches the word 'mogwai' in…
Q is for Quiet One thing I miss growing up, was visiting my grandparents long gone house. It was in Northern California, pretty far from the interstate and even far far, at least in memory from much light. I remember summers visiting that were so quiet and so peaceful with light pollution being at a minimum. I miss it.
P is for Page While writing online has its function. Its endless virtual space that can be thought of as pages. They aren’t in fact real pages. At least in the physical state, it is in fact a facsimile. Which had me in thought today, while I was reading, twelve months, a rather somber book from Jim Butcher. I kept thinking about pages. About how I waited so long to read this book. That…
O is for Opencode Recently picked up opencode go, which is a low cost subscription to try out some models like kimi k2. Its been a solid plan, as subscriptions go. At least it seems more sane than 200+ a month. In either case, its been fun trying the easy button. Also its been fun trying to create skills from CLI skills. Really, the most interesting thing that ive enjoyed while using the tool is…
N is for Nowhere One of the best places ive ever been was in the middle of nowhere. I have to say, if you’ve never been away from the cities, away from traffic, in a random out of the way place. Just west or east of a places with people, you really can enjoy nowhere. I miss it some days, as im working to hard, or watching television. Or even writing on the computer. I think about just being…
M is for Multitasking Its funny. A few years back, I read that a person couldn’t actually multitask. That it was infact just focusing on one thing and flipping to the next. That it wasnt healthy and that it was essentially feeding the same distraction brain rot that one could get from using social medias infinite scroll. So of course. I still do it. In fact readers I can say I have perfected…
L is for Lazy Every now and then I remember a conversation I had with an friend and old coworker. Where, at the time, I was going on about some framework or programming thing. He had mentioned that not only he didn’t like programming but that he was lazy. In that he found a way for a method to work and yeah, that was good enough. He didn’t pollute his life with over work, and worked…
J is for Justfile My coworker put me on to justfile a bit ago, and after wrestling with Makefiles for a few decades, its a nice upgrade. The justfile syntax is yaml with instructions that are in yaml for more credence towards earning my greatest title of ‘yaml developer’. Not the biggest fan of using more yaml, all jokes aside, toml has been my goto recently, however that aside, its…
I is for interesting This article: https://nikola-breznjak.com/blog/devthink/productivity-paper-pomodoro-kanban-tracking-and-actually-showing-up/ which was a summary of the audio recording here: https://devth.ink/e002_productivity/ Since I split my time daily between written notes and electronic ones. I found the conversation to be self satisfying and interesting. Again, mostly due to the overlap…
H is for Hobby Im back stealing topics from the main site! From them : Is blogging a full-time job for you? Something you do on the side, in addition to your full-time job? Or is it just a hobby,something you do for giggles? My guess is that, regardless of why you do it, you want to do it well. Based on everything I’ve seen, you are living up to that standard. Keep it up!
G is for Ghost I was convinced my parents old house was haunted. It was built in the early 1900s, had faded and peeling wallpaper. Dilapidation and general neglect for the past eighty or so years was abundant. But what made me think it was haunted was the mirrors. My mom told me when we first moved in, when I was four, that the mirrors were placed the way they were because it was easier to see the…
F is for Frames Just some css fun collected from gists and adapted, feel free to grab and share. Resize your images though and don’t use the width property, lol Le Classic Frame Ornate Frame Win 3.1 Frame Photo Viewer >_ C:\PHOTOS\SPRING2026\STEALING_APPLES.JPG
E is for Events I wanted to write a small bit about Events, mainly the ones we choose to celebrate and ones we choose ignore. This is a little personal, so if you want to skip to another article, id go to that now. My old man hates his birthday. Or at least ive never known him to enjoy it. Same with Christmas and same with most holidays. Ive seen him stand it, seen him sit through it but I never…
D is for dream I know I said yesterday I wasn’t going to keep sniping the A to Z blogs word choice. But dang, ‘Dream’ is a great one especially when paired with the question of ‘What do I dream of’? I don’t dream of a collapse of society, I want a refocus. Suburbia collapsing from mc mansions into dome houses. Tool sharing becoming a norm. Wild flowers taking…
C is for creativity I have been stealing the ideas for the daily prompts based off the categories provided with the A to Z challenge main blog. Which hasn’t been creative. Going to stop doing that going forward but its been nice to have a break in thinking up words to write about. So in the spirit of creativity, I picked a random ‘C’ word. I present ‘concession’. When…
B is for Brainstorming Have you got “hopes, dreams, and goals” for your blog? If not, why are you doing this? Im doing this because its a challenge. The warning from this post was that writing for writing sake can cause burnout, but im not sure. Not writing causes burnout as well. Those thoughts and words never find there way to a medium and end up never being made. Thats a pretty sad…
A is for Aspirations What are your blogging aspirations? For me blogging is a way to be creative. I don’t have many aspirations about it except to share tidbits about books ive read or techniques ive learned. Thats it. I was personally inspired by people who learned and wrote in the open and even if this blog only becomes some chum for an LLM, thats fine so long as I reach a few people who…
Challenges A collection of blogging challenges I’ve completed or am working on. In Progress A to Z 2026 Challenge I’m currently doing the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge ! The theme this year is “Aspirations: Blogging hopes, dreams, and goals.” “April is a great time of the year to think about these things.” Follow my A-to-Z journey → Completed 50 Blog…
The A to Z Challenge I signed up for the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge ! The challenge is simple: blog every day in April, with each day corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. The theme this year is “Aspirations: Blogging hopes, dreams, and goals” The Complete A-to-Z Collection Here’s every post I’ll write as part of this challenge. Enjoy the short or long…
Red Rising; Thoughts on the Society I recently finished reading through the full Red Rising series, completing Light Bringer just a few days ago. After sitting with all of these wonderful books, I wanted to dig into some of the bigger topics the series raised for me. I’ll try not to post spoilers, but that’s hard to avoid entirely. So be warned. Is the Society Right? I’m going to…
Agree as well, regardless of if you’re having LLMs help with coding or writing. It’s your word/voice your putting out there. So you better be able to back it up. — in response to On Using AI in Blogging
Day 50, Write about a news event from when you were still in school and how it made you feel. News events in the 90s were a little different than now. You didn’t learn about them until you got home and turned on the news. Which is kinda slow. Probably the one event that impacted me the most, dating me a little, was just the horror of coming home one day and seeing the missile strikes from…
Day 49: Do you have a set of rules or guidelines for your life? Did you write them? Why do you use them? I don’t usually bring up my belief system, but since that’s the point of this prompt, I’ll share. I identify as a Humanist because their rules and tenets make sense to me. Humanism, to me, emphasizes living in the present, recognizing our personal freedom, and understanding…
Day 47, Have you ever had a brush with celebrity? Write about It. I’m pretty sure I met a band member from White Snake while on a smoke break in Denver, around 2013. Not 100% sure, but the way he was talking and kind of probing if I knew anything about the band had me thinking that maybe he was part of the band. Really cool. Otherwise, I did see Jewel perform before she got big at a coffee…
Day 47, Do you consider yourself to be an international person? Why or why not? If so, write about people you know or have known from other countries. No, I hope to be at some point. But at the time of writing this, I haven’t been international. Will update this if that changes, later, though.
Day 46: What is your all-time favorite story to tell from all the jobs you’ve held? The one story that I like to tell was when I was working for Sony Online Entertainment. They were the kewl kids that worked on EverQuest and EverQuest 2. It was a really big deal for me, even though I was only working for the platform and marketing teams. But that disclaimer aside, my favorite story was…
What do you remember being a big deal to adults during your childhood or teenaged years? This is a tough prompt. I think as kids we are so in our own world, that understanding what is a ‘big deal’ can be a little hard to comprehend. I remember, my parents stressing and telling me why, but those dots didn’t always connect and especially decades later to remember them. But, I do…
Day 44, Are you an exerciser? What physical achievement are you most proud of? Ever play any sports? I love riding my bike, and I love running. Basically, if it’s cardio I’m here for it. No crazy physical achievements. Oh, this one time when I was a teen and began running a few miles I found this groove that was oddly perfect. Like something more than a jog but not a full-out run, a…
Day 43, What’s the last trip you took? Was it fun? Why or why not. The last trip I took was a bucket list trip, to the ‘House on the Rock’ in Wisconsin. Not to get too into it, but it’s a trip I’d wanted to take since I’d first heard of this tourist trap of a destination. To answer, was it fun? TL;DR, yes - it was amazing. It was everything I had thought it was…
We are all Earthseed So I finished up Parable of the Talents by the incredibly talented Octavia Butler . Wow. If you haven’t read Parable of the Sower or Talents , TL;DR: go pick it up! I was surprised by just how engrossing the world is. The narrative is told from journal entries of the protagonist, and I loved it. But I’ve always been a sucker for that kind of retelling. Flowers for Algernon was…
Day 42, Write a #FollowFriday with the names of your favorite bloggers or social media follows and why you like them How fun! alright, so my opml file is fairly large so ill just say the folks I really enjoy are: Matthew Mercer (Critical Role) - https://critrole.com - Dude is a natural story teller, and his voice acting makes me happy. really enjoyed the gun barrel person. Also generally feels…
What is your relationship with your phone? Does it make you happy or sad? Do you get a new one frequently or infrequently? I recently installed Niagra Launcher to reduce the clutter I was experiencing with Samsung’s One UI. Honestly, I’d love to root the device and switch to something other than Samsung, but that’s not currently an option. I also disabled notifications for most…
Day 40: What is the most scared you have ever been? Can you write about it? The most scared I’ve ever been was probably the second year I was working at the game company. We got off work late and it had been snowing. Since I was a transplant, the car I was driving was only rear wheel drive. In any case, I left work and the freeways were well plowed, but as I looked off towards the off ramp I…
Day 39, What do you like to read? Books, newsletters, doomscrolling, blogs, paper magazines? I love to read books, YouTube, and blogs. I wish I had a better alternative to YouTube, but it’s still a great place to learn new ideas and technology. Even as much as I hate going onto ex-Twitter, I still find myself coming back just because so much of the startup energy exists there. But, on the…
Day 38, How do you feel about writing? Is it often cathartic, fun, a chore? I really enjoy writing. It’s cathartic and fun, probably the most rewarding experence ive had outside of my own inner monologue. Outside that, its an escape, I still remember when I was in school. I used to write in my notebook for hours, pretending to take notes while just writing stories or poems. Grammer and…
Day 37, Do you have any good or bad stories from your relationship with social media or Internet communities? Ive had plenty of good experiences using the internet. More in the earlier days of twitter. It was fantastic to finally be able to talk with people about new libraries and concepts online. Then digg and eventually reddit, the vibrancy around coding. How it was making people more educated,…
Day 36, What do you remember about your first computer and learning to use it? So the first computer, was a ‘zx spectrum’ that you hooked into a television. It came with a book of basic and a cassette drive. It was amazing, I was however very young, so i couldn’t read the words, and basically copied verbatum the symbols in the book of basic to the keyboard letters. Very hunt and…
Day 35, What is your typical day like from the time you wake up until you go to bed? Days vary depending on personal energy levels in the morning… lol Alarm goes off at 6:30 brush teeth wake up the kids read or just want in circles listening to audio book 7:30 to 8:00 is my dedicated waste time NYT puzzles Review RSS Feeds Just something fun! 8:00 to 8:30 walk the pup 8:30 to 9:00 prep for…
Write a book review of the last book you couldn’t put down. How to Sell a Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix I don’t want to give anything away from this book. Just read it, because its one of these horror stories that is so well written. Its better than horror. Its god damn interesting. I think what I liked most was just the feelings of ‘yeah, this character has every right to…
Day 33, What are five issues that have affected your political life? I personally don’t have bunper stickers. I don’t relate my political beliefs to folks. Well perhaps an exception to family that ask. But, honestly, fuck politics. Its devisive, for perhaps the worst reasons. Or human reasons, I don’t know. So, anyhow, five issue that impact my political life. Chill out. You. If…
Day 32, What is your perfect record album? This kind of seems like the article on day 24 of 50 blog posts but ill get after it. The perfect record album was this mixtape I had from earthday in 1996, specifically “95.7 FM San Diego: Collector’s Edition 1996”. I just felt it was a really good album and had a nice mix of music I had never heard till that point, if your curious the…
Day 31, Is there a particular country other than your own that fascinates you? Why? Canada. I love hiking, reading and biking. Yamaska National Park near Quebec holds a long time ache in my heart as id read about it in a national geographic when I was a kid. Just looked amazing. Also ive watch youtube hikers and bikers from Canada exercising those trails and I always find myself wishing it was me.
Day 30, What is something you are passionate about and why? Im passionate about writing. Throughout my life, its been the one thing I could turn to that has helped me with speaking, programming and learning to be a better human. Its kind of funny, with all the generative AI that has sprung up. Writing is one of the things that has been a loadstone in my life. Ive always enjoyed learning how to…
Day 29, Can you make a list of 20 moments in your current or past life that you would classify as sublime? Not sure about past life, but if i could, here are 20 from this life (ill attempt chronogical): Seeing an alleyway, from the corner of my eye, it looked like the entrance to fairye. kid you not. Using a bottle rocket with my dad. Almost took my eye out. Fixing a computer for the first time.…