Chris Peoples

enclose.horse

Another daily puzzle game that has captured my attention.

Hallucinate - Massively Multiplayer Online Rave

Rod Prazeres' Astrophotography in Project Hail Mary

The term “astrophotography” is new to me, but Rod’s work is gorgeous. I had read Rod’s story about how his art got into Project Hail Mary before seeing the film, so it was nice background to look out for when the end credits rolled.

asciinema

A cool way to share/embed your terminal sessions.

FoxiMax

Wordle meets hang man.

Dentata

I was particularly taken by this piece from Heydon Pickering’s generative art gallery.

1500 Games of Wordle

Another 500 games of Wordle played since 1000. During that time my longest streak ended, and apparently I’ve gotten worse because my average score has gone down. Let’s take a peak at the numbers. Record: 1496 of 1500 (99.7%) Average Guess: 3.79 Only One Guess Needed: #319, May 22, 2022 Win Streaks: 95: January 13 - April 18, 2022 176: April 20 - October 14, 2022 190: October 16, 2022 -…

What's in a Name? Challenge 2026

I had a fun time taking on the What’s in a Name? 2025 Challenge, so let’s run it back! The challenge is once again being hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook and runs from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. The rules are simple: Read a book in any format (hard copy, ebook, audio) with a title that fits into each category.

2025 Perpetual Page Turner Survey

I found this fun end of year reading survey from Perpetual Page Turner and thought I’d fill it out. Here we go! Reading Stats Number of Books You Read 40 Number of Re-Reads 0 Genre You Read The Most From Science Fiction Best in Books Best Book You Read In 2025?

Broken Heart

An interesting bug fixing tale.

Create Your Own Web Development Conspiracy

Vercel is slowly being the placed by a time traveler stuck in Internet Explorer 6.

2025 Year in Review

2025 was a year like any other. I’m terrible at writing these retrospectives, hence why it’s already February and I’m just now publishing it. Which is worse, posting a year in review in two a month after the year starts, or sending out the yearly wrapped/recap/some-other-fancy-name two months before the year even ends?

1000 Poker Hands

Reilly Chase played 1,000 hands of online poker, used PokerTracker4 to analyze those hands, then built this pretty neat site to review the results.

The Nicest Thing

Hacker News users share stories about the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for them.

What's in a Name? Challenge 2025

I enjoy a good book challenge but some of them are just too daunting (I’m looking at you, r/fantasy). Fortunately this year I found the What’s in a Name Challenge, where each book title must contain the prompt. The challenge is hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook and runs from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025.

Bourdain's Lost Lists

A partial archive of Anthony Bourdain’s lists published to the now-defunct li.st website.

The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction

A gorgeously constructed article about the history of science fiction in India.

Infinite Craft

My first true introduction to the crafting video game mechanic. Hours of fun.

I Started a Link Blog

I don’t tweet anymore, I’ve yet to join Threads or Bluesky, and I never really got into Mastodon. You would think that might lead to more blogging, but I don’t often find myself with something significant or coherent enough to share in a blog post. I do, however, want a place to share things that I find fun and interesting on the internet, with perhaps a short note or highlight…

Localghost

What a lovely site by Sophie which harkens back to the internet of old.

How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

Ibrahim Diallo on leadership: By definition, leading is knowing the way forward. But in reality, in a room full of experts, pretending to know everything makes you look like an idiot. Instead, “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out” becomes a superpower. It gives your experts permission to share uncertainty.

Just One Line

The next time you hear “it’s just one line” pause for a moment. Just one line for who? You the developer to write? Future you (or your teammates) to debug and maintain? Or the end-user to download, parse, and execute?

Game of Crowns Solved in 10 Seconds

I shocked myself by solving a Game of Crowns puzzle in only ten seconds! #GameOfCrowns 👑 228 ⏳ 00:10 🟥 0 ✨ 0 AutoX - ✅ Clicks - 14 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The Ephemerality of the Web

This week, two services that I’ve used for years announced that they will enter the web’s graveyard: Pocket and Glitch. The news about Pocket hit me hard. I purchased Pocket when it was known as Read It Later, way back in March 2011 (and I was probably a free user well before that).

Comparing NBA Distance Data Over 10 Years

When Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick says that today’s game features much more movement than eras past, is it just conjecture or can it be quantified by data?

After 694 Days, the Streak Is Over

The end my nearly two year Wordle streak.

2024 Year in Review

Jonathan Snook opened his 2024 recap post musing, Sometimes I wonder if doing these recap posts at this point are masturbatory. It’s a great opening and the statement is not without truth. His recaps are a bit more introspective than mine, where I just compile my consumption habits for the previous year, and who else is really interested in that besides me?

Over 1000 Games of Wordle

Every morning since January 13, 2022, I’ve faithfully done the same thing: played the daily Wordle. I never expected that I would continue that habit for over 1000 days, but here we are. It’s become a daily ritual because it combines two of my favorite things: word games and puzzles. Since I also love numbers and statistics, I started tracking my results years ago, and I thought…

2023 r/Fantasy Book Bingo Challenge

Every year, the r/Fantasy subreddit issues a challenge: complete a bingo card filled with various science fiction and fantasy topics on it. As you can see, the topics are varied, but that’s the point. The core of this challenge is encouraging readers to step out of their comfort zones, discover amazing new reads, and motivate everyone to keep up on their reading throughout the year.

2023 Year in Review

It’s been far too long since I’ve done a personal year in review. Let’s take a look back at what I read, listened to, and watched in 2023. Reading I read forty-three books in 2023! That’s a total of 13,759 pages, with an average book length of 320 pages. The shortest book was 21 pages (Clap Back, by Nalo Hopkinson), while the longest book was 608 pages (Death’s End,…

New Year, New Look 👀

Hello, 2023! I thought I’d ring in the new year by trying out a darker theme for the blog. I’m liking it so far. I may eventually add support for the CSS media feature prefers-color-scheme so people can choose between light and dark mode.

Quick and Easy Diffs Using Visual Studio Code

Jim Nielsen asked the following question on Twitter: “I’ve used the online diff checker a few times, but does anybody know of or use a simple utility for Mac that will do this? Example. Copy/paste text to doc 1. Copy paste text to doc 2. Then say “diff these two” without having to check into git etc.

A Fun Way to Solve a Rubik's Cube

Giovanni Contardi shared this great video on how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. It is far and away the easiest beginner’s method I have ever seen. Most beginner methods still require you to memorize tons of algorithms, but with Giovanni’s method you only need to remember two! Despite it’s simplicity, there are still lot of steps to remember and it’s easy to forget the order…

The Importance of Game 4

Originally published at Medium on April 29, 2013. I still find it extremely relevant so I’m reposting it here. I’m going to make this short and sweet. Over the next several weeks, you’ll hear several smart people talk about how critical Game 5 is of a 7-game series. After all, in a series that’s tied 2-2, the team who wins Game 5 takes commanding control of the series.

What I Read For Women's History Month 2021

I don’t read enough books written by women. Since I started keeping track of what I read, only 33% of the 180 different authors I’ve read are women. That’s a problem. I’ll be making a more concerted effort to read books by women from now on, starting with Women’s History Month, where I read books exclusively by women.

What I Read For Black History Month 2021

Continuing the tradition I started last year, I celebrated Black History Month by reading black authors. Here are those books I read along with some of my favorite passages from them. Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel…

2020 Year in Review

2020 was quite a year, wasn’t it? Last year’s roller coaster both thrilled and nauseated me, and at different times made me happy, sad, depressed, confused, excited, fulfilled, overjoyed, and despaired. Is that enough adjectives? Those will have to do, because 2020 brought on so many different emotions that my vocabulary is not large enough to describe it.

Hosting Trivia Night Using Kahoot and Zoom

One way that I’ve been able to stay connected with family during the quarantine is by hosting a semi-regular trivia night. It’s been a lot of fun so I thought I’d share my setup. Kahoot To facilitate the trivia part of trivia night, I use Kahoot. Kahoot is a platform for hosting games with questions.

What I've Been Reading During the Pandemic

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes, and the pandemic hasn’t stopped my appetite for books. I have, however, steered clear of anything dystopian or post-apocalyptic, because who wants to read about that at a time like this! Instead, I’ve taken in the rare historical fiction novel along with the usual sci-fi and mystery/thriller books.

Continuous Deployment Via FTP For Hugo Using GitHub Actions

After I migrated my website to Hugo, I needed a way to deploy the site to my host without manually FTPing files every time I make change. Netlify has support for static site hosting and continuous deployment, but I wasn’t looking to switch hosts. Previously I used AppVeyor to deploy, but this time I decided to use GitHub Actions to automate building and deploying the site whenever I push…

Migrating to Hugo

I started using a static site generator for my personal site back in 2018. I was looking for a more lightweight platform than Wordpress, and SSG’s were a great alternative. Especially since they fit great into CI/CD workflows. I selected Wyam because it’s written in C# and used Razor for it’s templating syntax, which made my transition easier since I’m already familiar with…

Black History Month

I decided to celebrate this Black History Month by reading only black authors. I even managed to mix in some non-fiction, a rarity for me. I thought it’d be fun to share my reading list along with my highlighted passages. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor Binti by Nnedi Okorafor The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates We Should All Be…

#RIPMamba

Kobe Bean Bryant. August 23, 1978 - January 26, 2020. My mind has been all over the place since Kobe’s tragic death. I’ve been thinking about mortality, fatherhood, legacy, basketball, grief, depression, happiness, forgiveness, appreciation, family, friendship…as I said, all over the place. As I’ve been reading and listening to people speak about Kobe’s career, I…

2019 Music Year in Review

Music was a bit of a mixed bag for me in 2019. I listened to less music than usual because my commute was reduced drastically, so I had less time to check out new music and rediscover old favorites. However, music brought me one of proudest moments of the year when my daughter randomly said to me, “I need to listen to more Rapsody.

2019 Reading Year in Review

2019 was quite a year of reading for me. I easily completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge by reading 34 books, which beat my previous record of 33 books in 2018. The Books All the books I read in 2019, in order of date read: Nomad, Matthew Mather Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Batman: Nightwalker, Marie Lu Sanctuary, Matthew Mather The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead Way Station,…

A Few of My Favorite Things of the 2010s

As the decade draws to a close, I thought I’d make a list of some of my favorite books, albums, and movies released or published in the 2010s. For when the dog bites. And the bee stings. In no particular order: Books Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates The Sellout, Paul Beatty The Storied Life of A.

Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge

From xkcd.com: Challenge accepted, Randall! I use Trakt to keep track and rate all of the movies I watch. Fortunately, Trakt provides an API so that I can programmatically retrieve all of my ratings. The OMDb API includes Rotten Tomatoes ratings, so I was able write a small C# console application to compare my ratings of 8 or greater to Rotten Tomatoes.

Summer Reading 2019

Barack Obama shared his summer reading list (see below), and he’s inspired me to share mine. Here are the books I’ve read so far this summer: Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor The Last Firewall, William Hertling Zeus is Undead: This One Has Zombies, Michael G. Munz Superman: Dawnbreaker, Matt de la Pena The Sellout, Paul Beatty The Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde…

2018 Reading Challenge

Once again I completed Goodreads Reading Challenge. My goal for 2018 was 15 books, and I read 33! A total of 11,211 pages. I’ve done the challenge for the last five years and have completed my goal each year. I think it’s time I raise the bar for 2019! Books I read in 2018 American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, Craig Ferguson Origin, Dan Brown The Book…

Welcome

Writing doesn’t come easy for me, but in process of redoing my site, it seems that I’ve committed to blogging. I don’t know what I’ll write about, but I probably won’t stick to one topic. Let’s see how this goes!