I pledge allegiance
I pledge allegiance To the Flag Of the United States of America And to the Republic For which is stands One nation Indivisible With liberty And justice FOR ALL 🇺🇸
n8.engineer
Nate's journal.
Latest posts
Maple
"Maple" is a narrative poem first published in 1923 in Robert Frost's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "New Hampshire". The poem is about a woman named Maple who spends her life trying to interpret the meaning behind her name.…
Daddy, where did I come from?
Preface I wrote this for my daughter. I hope we get to talk about all of this together as she grows up — where she came from, where we came from, and how we think the whole universe came to be. But if something were to happen to me before she's old…
How I bought a Frank Lloyd Wright house at 31
I own a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: the Goetsch–Winckler house, an early, pre-war Usonian built in 1940 for two women art professors located near Lansing, Michigan. I bought it in part to enjoy it, sure, but moreso with the intent to share…
Nest Aware confuses birdsong with carbon monoxide alarms
I have an external Google Home security camera, and on several occasions now I've received a notification that it's heard a carbon monoxide alarm. This more advanced functionality is available through a premium Nest Aware plan. The first time it…
On violating international trade law
It was just like any other Thursday afternoon... well, except that I had accidentally violated U.S. foreign trade sanctions and, in so doing, may have inadvertently sponsored terrorism. Whoops ¯ _(ツ)_/¯. I was on my lunch break playing a game of ping…
.md support
I came across a blog last year from another technologist (I'm afraid I can't remember which one), and they had a really neat feature where appending .md to the URL would render the markdown version of the current page. I ventured to do the same. This…
Né Buchar: Why I took my wife's last name
I've been Nate Meyer for two years. Before that, I was Nate Buchar. But there are still some remnants of my former name here and there. I did decide to keep my GitHub username @nathanbuchar so as not to break links to a couple of my popular open…
u1f968.com
U+1F968 is 🥨. I own https://u1f968.com.
The geopolitical consequences of national symbolism: Is it possible 9/11 would have never happened if the bald eagle wasn't chosen as the national symbol of the United States?
I firmly believe that 9/11 would have never happened if the turkey, rather than the bald eagle, was chosen as the national symbol of the United States, as was originally proposed by Benjamin Franklin. Here's a lazy argument to support my claim,…
How the site of the iconic Windows XP wallpaper "Bliss" looks today
The site of the iconic "Bliss" image, photographed in January 1996 by Charles O'Rear. You know it. Everyone knows it. A few years back, my girlfriend and I were on a birthday road trip and we visited a few different places around the Bay…
A repository of all Audubon bird plates on GitHub
I've created a GitHub repository which compiles all 435 full-resolution illustrations of John James Audubon's Birds of America for the purposes of education, research, and free and fair use. Courtesy of the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove,…
Don't buy an adjustable desk, invest in a tall chair instead
Love them or hate them, standing desks are everywhere in tech. And I'd like to argue that one doesn't need an adjustable desk, but rather just a tall chair. I pose the following question to the reader: why must a desk be low to the ground for you to…
How to get a long-lived access token for Dropbox developer apps
In 2021, Dropbox announced they were deprecating long-lived access tokens for developer apps. For whatever reason, the documentation on how to solve this problem is pretty scant, especially from Dropbox's side (and I work there!). I spent the better…
CSS "hyphens: auto"
With hyphens: auto, the browser is free to automatically break words at hyphenation points it thinks are appropriate[1]. p { text-align: justify; hyphens: auto; } Methinks we're going to be seeing a lot more text-align: justify as designers catch on.…
How to automatically upload the daily NYT crossword to Dropbox
This guide will walk you through the steps to automatically upload the daily NYT to your personal Dropbox account so that it can be synced with devices like the Ratta Supernote e-ink tablet. Throughout the course of this tutorial, you will create a…
How to build a lightweight, static microsite powered by Node, Nunjucks, and Contentful
In this guide, I will walk you through using Node and Nunjucks to create a minimal system for generating ultra-lightweight static microsites entirely from data hosted for free on Contentful.com—just like this one! But why? Have you ever come back to…
How we found our house
I've always been interested in architecture. I remember that, as a kid, my dad and I took a few trips driving around New England visiting some of Frank Lloyd Wright's most iconic homes, including Fallingwater. Nowadays I work as a web developer. It's…
I have a pet pigeon
Update: Sophia passed away peacefully on October 16, 2025. We will miss her dearly. I have a pet pigeon. Her name is Sophia, and she's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. Many people raise and breed domestic pigeons for a variety of…
I created a crossword puzzle for my partner's and my anniversary
For our second anniversary, I created a my own crossword puzzle that looked exactly like a NY Times crossword puzzle, but loaded with Easter eggs. I invited her to work on it with me on my e-ink tablet, which wasn't out of the ordinary since I did…
Columbiformes expansion pack for Wingspan
My significant other and I are both bird lovers and huge fans of Wingspan, a delightfully nerdy and birdy boardgame designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and produced by Stonemaier Games. But, like many other Wingspan enthusiasts, we were surprised to…
Do I sound like crap?
Are you afraid you might sound like crap on Zoom but everyone's too polite to mention it? Try doisoundlikecrap.com! A site I developed to help test your microphone.
Electron Settings v4
I'm happy to announce the release of Electron Settings v4 🎉! Electron Settings is a simple and robust settings management library for Electron which allows easy persistence of user preferences and other data between app loads. In this new version,…
The math of Wheeler Dealer
In this post I briefly explore the history of one of my favorite games: Wheeler-Dealer (a Monopoly-style board game), an overview of how the game is played, how I first discovered the game, and then deep dive into how to best strategically optimize…
Hennessy US
Odopod, a digital agency I spent a few years at after college, has been the digital partner for the U.S. website for Hennessy Cognac since 2012. The site went through a major revamp in 2017, focusing on speed, stability, and visual design. As the…
Thunk support for React reducers
A co-worker and I, familiar with redux-thunk, were interested in implementing a redux-like architecture for a project, but unfortunately native react hooks lack thunk support. Basically, we wanted our actions to support returning functions which will…
A place in the alphabet
For the holidays in 2018, Will Shortz, crossword editor at The New York Times, challenged readers to be part of the NYT's special Puzzle Mania! section. Dear Puzzler, This is Will Shortz, crossword editor at The New York Times. During the past two…
Iterate
iterate is a utility function that allows for execution of asynchronous code in the iteratee, waiting for each iteration to finish before moving on. This was inspired by the plugin interface of the Node.js server framework Hapi. Hapi plugins…