I recently tried to connect to my Sensi Touch Smart thermostat to WiFi, and I ran into a lot of issues getting it to work. Sensi s support pages were helpful for general guidance, but they could benefit from more detail and explanation. Hopefully this post will help save somebody else some headaches. Below are some Continue reading "How to Connect Sensi Touch Smart Thermostat to Wifi" The post How…
If you ve never experienced the relatively recent phenomenon of escape rooms, you should really change that. They re a lot of fun. Recently my family attempted to escape from a difficult one unsuccessfully, and it got me thinking about all the things we should have done differently. Since it has been ages since I ve posted anything, Continue reading "How to Escape From an Escape Room" The post How…
Today I m going to share a little project I ve been working on called Hacker Wisdom. It s a web application built using Java, Apache Maven, Spring Boot, Thymeleaf, and the Hacker News API. I visit the Hacker News website fairly regularly. It has a lot of great information and interesting discussions. One section I particularly enjoy Continue reading "Hacker Wisdom" The post Hacker Wisdom appeared…
Anybody else miss flash games? Playing those games is one of my earliest and fondest memories on the internet. I remember making the trip to my elementary school s computer lab where we were allowed to visit coolmath4kids.com (which looks a lot different decades later) because the games were supposed to be educational. Despite the best Continue reading "Minimum Viable Dice Wars" The post Minimum…
Welcome to my latest tutorial, where you ll learn how to build a magic eight ball with JavaScript. I usually write tutorials for an audience of people who know at least a little bit of front-end programming. I ve put more focus on the concepts and thought processes used in building the abstractions than on the technical Continue reading "How To Build A Magic Eight Ball With JavaScript" The post…
It s the beginning of a new year, so I figure it would be a good time for a reflective post. I could write about the pandemic or the political tension that seems to be ubiquitous these days, but I d rather talk about something more fun and uplifting. I also needed a catchy title using alliteration Continue reading "Mitchum s Media Mentions 2020" The post Mitchum s Media Mentions 2020 appeared…
If you log into Facebook very often you’ve probably been bombarded with relentless calls to action. Those kind souls in Silicon Valley seem to really care about democracy (or something else), and have been encouraging voting for weeks on end. It’s probably good to remind people to register to vote. We all live busy lives Continue reading "Suffering From Suffrage" The post Suffering From Suffrage…
Over a year ago I built a minesweeper clone using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. To my delight and surprise, the project and associated tutorial became pretty popular and made it to the front page of Hacker News and Reddit. Of course, along with the success came the haters. I received some criticism on various choices Continue reading "It s Time to Revisit Minesweeper" The post It s Time to Revisit…
We may be running out of toilet paper during this pandemic, but there is no shortage of news. Each day new reports come out, and we feel like we have to be the first to soak up everything. And we have so many questions. What s going on? Should we wear masks? When will normal life Continue reading "Maybe You Should Stop Reading The News" The post Maybe You Should Stop Reading The News appeared…
I recently ran into a problem that compelled me to store some configuration data in a JSON object. The data wasn t likely to change very often, but I didn t want to hard code it in the application code. Unfortunately, there was not a good external data store immediately available to me for this kind of Continue reading "How to Store JSON in an Environment Variable" The post How to Store JSON in an…