Recent content on chaosplay
This book showed me an alternate perspective I had never even considered. As an immigrant who grew up in a house where being poor and losing it all was a constant fear, I am 100% focused on saving for retirement. Probably save way too much. And that always seemed like the right thing to do. This book challenges that and reminds us that any money we saved and never used is essentially wasted. We…
Zayn is five!! He had a great birthday party yesterday. He is so social and so excited about celebrating his birthday at daycare with his school friends. Ayden is also growing up so fast. He is such a deep thinker. Yesterday he asked me if when I was a kid, I ever thought about how maazing life would be when I grow up. I said yes then asked why. He said that what he was thinking. He said life…
Heartbreaking to watch. The Joker has been my favorite villain for a long time, and what got me here is that they finally showed the human side of him, how someone who started out good gets ground down and turned into something evil. It makes you sit with that question the whole way through. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is amazing; he carries the entire thing. Saw it in the theater with a…
My #1. I grew up reading about these scientists in my textbooks, just names on a page with equations attached to them. Seeing them walk around as actual people, in the same rooms, alive at the same time and all connected to each other, was something else. That’s the thing that got me: not only Oppenheimer, but the whole crowd of them gathered at one moment in history. Nolan does the science…
The first movie I ever saw in a theater. I was 17, and when I walked out I genuinely felt like I was in the Matrix, looking at the street, the people, all of it, half-wondering whether any of it was real. It messed with my head in the best way and shifted how I looked at a lot of things. I was studying computer science at the time, and this is the movie that made programming feel like more than a…
Watched it in the theater with friends, which was the perfect way to see it. As a wannabe startup founder and a programmer, I connected with the Zuckerberg character right away. Honestly, I felt like I was him. It pulled me straight back to all the hack projects I built in college, the all-nighters with friends, the rush of making something out of nothing. And that “Creep” cover, the…
A couple goes house hunting, gets stuck in an endless maze of identical houses, and is handed a baby to raise as the price of ever getting out. I watched it a few years ago, in the middle of what felt like a midlife crisis, and I didn’t really watch it as a horror movie. I watched it and saw my own life. That’s the trap it nails: first you fight it, trying to escape backward to the…
Lessons from launching a portrait photography side hustle: what worked, what didn't, and what I learned.
Balancing a photography side hustle and a programming career through the lens of minimalism.
Thinking about what you'd do in retirement can reveal what you truly want to do right now.
Family vacation at Lake Tahoe
How LLMs helped an older developer keep up with new tech and extend his career.
Wax figures and oddities in Grand Prairie, TX
I keep telling my kids that I cannot wait to watch my favorite movies and shows with them when they are older. Game of Thrones The Matrix Scarface Last of Us Black Mirror Fight Club Arcane Fallout
Raising Mentally Strong Kids (affiliate link) is one of the better parenting books I have read recently. Highly recommended, 5/5. A lot of parenting books have the same concepts, but it is good to re-read the same ideas with different perspectives from various authors. It helps reinforce those ideas. The main ideas are: Focus on yourself first. Fix your issues, get good sleep, handle stress, do…
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The first episode of Mo was so annoying that it took several months to finish it. But eventually the show gets interesting. Mo is so annoying that it is very hard to love him initially. There were moments when he got into trouble for his immaturity and, instead of feeling bad for him, I felt relieved. I hate shows in which there are no consequences for stupid actions. Here, at least, he had to…
I saw this movie on Netflix. It started off strong but turns into a disappointment at the end. The movie is about a street food cook who is invited to join a team of top chefs. SPOILERS WARNING: The girl wanted to be the best, and she even ended up opening her own restaurant. But in the end, she just wanted to go back to being a street food cook. I felt disappointed because the message seemed to…
Just finished listening to The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi. The book is in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher and a youth. It discusses Adlerian philosophy. The book seems to be written from a Japanese perspective. It talks about “shut-ins”, NEET, and other terms for young people who prefer to isolate themselves. I had never heard of these terms; after some…
Lyrics: (Verse 1) Last callers, last chancers 9 to 5ers, truckers, dancers Couple Chuck’s, Ern’s, and Chandler’s With a whole lotta prayers unanswered Whiskey by noon, and beer before that Southbound train on a hellbound track Might just put two middle fingers up and throw one back for all the People who ain’t ever felt at home Just spinnin’ on a rock and gettin’ stoned (Chorus) Yeah this one’s…
This weekend, I saw Sonic 3 with my son. I have never gotten into Sonic movies, so this was the first Sonic movie I saw. It was a really enjoyable movie, and Ayden really loved it as well. From a parent’s perspective, I liked that it used some common phrases such as “make good choices,” which should help reinforce these messages.
How generative AI is changing photography and what it means for photographers.
Ski Mountaineering Shop jcborro on HN opened a ski mountaineering shop after 20 years in software development. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952057 Realtor Some developer pivoted to real estate. For example, poulsbohemian on HN, switched to selling real estate after 20 years in software development. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952181 Product Management Product management seems…
Company retreat in the Colorado mountains
Beach days, zoo adventures, and craft beer in San Diego
A day at the historic Fort Worth Stockyards
“The things you own end up owning you.” - Chuck Palahniuk. I was a minimalist. It was a very easy and stress-free life. I did own many things, but only after careful planning, and I was quick to sell things that didn’t meet my expectations or once I stopped using them. I also used to live well below my means. I felt free because loss of job or any other financial crisis would not…
Parenting feels impossible until you fix your expectations.
Ayden: I don’t want to lose my Pokémon cards Amer: ok Ayden: Pokémon cards are very important Amer: how so? Ayden: they have all the information about Pokémon. They are not like credit cards. They are better than credit cards.
Ayden: After we die if plants are eating our body how will we go to heaven Amer: Our soul goes Ayden: And we get a new body Amer: Sure Ayden: Can we get different skin Amer: Sure what color you want Ayden: Pink
Could you be a highly sensitive person? A highly sensitive person is someone who can get overwhelmed by various stimuli such as noise, smells, or clutter that would not bother most people. I have two kids, and sometimes they are both crying and screaming at the same time. Their screams cause my neck, shoulders, and arms to get stiff, and I feel tingling or pins all over my arms. This sounds like a…
Ayden deciding his career: “There are so many cool job, I want to be fireman, goalie, dad, police officer, monster truck driver.”
Here are simple steps to backup your VPS. Backup MySQL database Create a directory to store the backup files. Then run mysqldump command to backup your database. mysqldump -u your_mysql_user -pyour_mysql_password your_database_name > /path/to/dump_ $( date + \% Y \% m \% d \% H \% M \% S ) .sql Or you run it as superuser and backup all databases at once. sudo mysqldump --all-databases >…
I had been using GitHub and Netlify for this site but lack of some features such as access to server logs finally got too much. So I decided to move this blog to my VPS. One thing I really love about using Github is CI/CD and Github Actions. But I wanted something even simpler with less dependencies. So I decided to use a simple bash script to build and deploy the site.
It’s both intriguing and somewhat disheartening to observe how trading concepts often mirror human behavior. Here’s how: Follow the Trend In the investment world, the saying “past performance does not guarantee future results” is well-known. Despite this warning, many successful trend followers have found that stocks moving up generally continue to do so, and vice versa.…
I love swimming but it is hard to swim for more than 30 mins, not because I get tired but because it gets boring. I had been looking for headphones for swimming but almost all of them are essentially mp3 players. That is because Bluetooth doesn’t pass through water very well. You need to pre-load songs or mp3s. Which would be fine if you only care for music. But I am mostly listening to news…
This error in our Rails application drove me crazy. The error was like this: undefined method xxxxxx' for #<Hash:0x000000001234> The problem was that I was calling a method like this: a_method(var: var) And the method definition was like def a_method(var: var) which resulted in something called variable shadowing and caused clash between variable passed in the method and local variable being…
In my view, horizontal spaces should be minimalist and vertical spaces can be maximalist . This way you will have a lot of horizontal space to sit at, write on. And walls covered in art to entertain you and also reducing echoes and creating a quieter space.
To me fake plastic plants mean that one is too lazy to take care of real plants but they want to pretend to be someone who they are not. Nothing wrong with not wanting to take care of real plants. But why not decorate your place in a way that reflects who you are.
In our backyard lay a series of deck drains that perennially harbored standing water. Despite my best efforts, tracing the end of these drains proved to be an elusive task, seemingly due to the fact that it was compacted and buried beneath layers of earth. I even ventured to employ a drain snake to address the issue, but the screws securing the drain covers were victims of rust, rendering them…
Getting this error while following this tutorial in Godot v4.0.1. In my case, I had added Node2D . The fix was to right-click on the problem node under Scene and click Make Scene Root . And then delete Node2D . Here is what diff looked like: diff --git a/2d-game-tutorial/Mob.tscn b/2d-game-tutorial/Mob.tscn index 9eb1630..e720d7f 100644 --- a/2d-game-tutorial/Mob.tscn +++…
Dada - Dolphin DoDo - Shark Kaka - Orca Meow - Cat Moo - Cow Kaykey - sticker
Interesting post and discussion at Hacker News about advancing as an Individual Contributor. Still debating which way to go. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34662394
I am a big fan of cheap VPSs. I start many personal projects, bring up a VPS, play around and then wipe it. Never have to worry about accidentally running up a bill in 100s or 1000s of dollars. I run this blog on a $4 server. So this was interesting to read how far can a cheap VPS go.
Ayden was a curious and adventurous five-year-old boy who loved nothing more than riding in his favorite monster truck, Blue Thunder. He spent hours each day practicing and perfecting his skills, always dreaming of one day becoming a professional Monster Jam driver. One day, as Ayden was practicing his jumps in the backyard, he suddenly found himself soaring higher and higher into the air. Before…
Ayden: Baba, American flag is better than Texas flag. Me: How come? Ayden: Because it has more stars!
I think a lot of people would love to live their life as if they are on a permanent vacation. Before I was married, I didn’t make a lot of money but felt like every day was a vacation. For me, vacation means: Eating out/not cooking Not cleaning Spending time outside Not working Ready to travel Eating out is cheaper than cooking, if you are not picky. I ate mostly fast food. Of course, it is…
Follow up to my last post, the people I admire the most are usually startup founders or business people. And then creators of open source software. This weekend, I also met my engineer turned entrepreneur friend and saw Jobs movie. It seems I know what I should do. I want a business that gives a lot of freedom, especially freedom to be with my kids. If I can involve kids in the business, it would…
“What should you do with your life?” This is the question I almost ask myself daily. I am still not sure what my long-term goals should be. I have gone back and forth between pursuing my hobbies as a career, focusing on corporate career, and starting businesses. Recently, I learned a simple question that can provide you insights into your deeper aspirations. The question is: Who are…
Driving to Ayden’s first Monster Jam show, as the AT&T Stadium came into view, he was getting excited. His heart was probably beating faster, and he could probably feel it. He said the cutest thing ever, “Baba, my heart is growing bigger.”