Blog
2024 (4)
Monday, September 2, 2024
This site has now been up in its current form for a decade. Wow.
Monday, June 10, 2024
The macOS Calendar app looks pretty atrocious in dark mode, and doesn’t offer a setting to force light mode, instead always following system settings, but there’s a way around that.
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Sometimes life comes at you fast, and it’s probably a good idea to recalibrate.
Saturday, January 6, 2024
What do I want to achieve in 2024?
2023 (22)
Saturday, December 16, 2023
I made myself a super rudimentary on-air light from a gizmo I got in my PyCon US 2019 swag bag, and here’s how you can do it too.
Sunday, December 10, 2023
I’m building myself an issue tracker and would like to try documenting the process a little bit.
Monday, November 27, 2023
Today I learned about shlex.split and it’s really cool.
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Sometimes your mind and body learn to do things without conscious effort so well it’s downright weird.
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
As time goes by and we all get increasingly tired of masking to reduce the spread of COVID-19, we should be mindful of whom we leave behind by reverting to “normalcy”.
Monday, September 18, 2023
I’m a heavy command line user and have over the years found some favorites worth sharing.
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
It’s time for my next role. Is it with your company?
Friday, August 4, 2023
North Bay Python is back in business and I’ve got things to tell you about it.
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
I’ve got a reasonably ergonomic stack for this site at the moment, and I’d like to tell you about it.
Monday, July 24, 2023
I’m going to North Bay Python 2023 and hope to see you there.
Friday, July 7, 2023
I’m going to try using my actual camera for (more) things after mostly letting it languish for four and a half years.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
I rode some gravel and it was life changing.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
I started doing most of my writing in a GUI editor and wanted something “closer” than my command-line utility mdut.
Sunday, May 28, 2023
This blog will henceforth be about more than just tech, reflecting me.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
I tried hosting my own stuff and failed.
Friday, April 21, 2023
I love using class properties as boolean flags, but occasionally forget the @property decorator.
Friday, April 14, 2023
Every time I mount my bicycle on the roof rack on my car, I risk demolishing it on the way back home. I think I have an idea for the solution.
Thursday, March 30, 2023
A bit of nuance about dealing with null and missing values in Python dictionaries.
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
A pretty slow way of removing duplicate elements in a Python list.
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
I wrote some words mostly as an excuse to also post a photo and a video.
Friday, January 6, 2023
Many things influencing us throughout our lives go unnoticed.
Sunday, January 1, 2023
OK, so it’s “no *public* goals”, sorry for the clickbait.
2022 (12)
Friday, December 30, 2022
How’d this year’s theme go?
Thursday, December 29, 2022
It’s all too easy to find oneself solving the wrong problems. Here’s how I try and combat that.
Saturday, December 3, 2022
I started going back down the self-hosting path and learned some things.
Sunday, August 7, 2022
It’s 2022 and self-hosting stuff is cool again.
Friday, June 10, 2022
Automated tests are documentation, and–if done well—even useful and up to date!
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Why interrupting a programmer is even more costly than you think, illustrated by u/nkukard.
Friday, April 1, 2022
It’s true.
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Before even launching the publicly available version of TheMixNeverDies.com, I’m shelving the project.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
I goofed up the CalVer implementation because I had the dumbs, and now I’ve fixed it. Oops.
Saturday, January 8, 2022
I made a tiny tool for generating Markdown URL tags and want to tell you about it.
Monday, January 3, 2022
I was today years old when I learned that “my favorite quote of all time is a misattribution”.
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Shifting away from specific goals to a more meta—and hopefully sustainable—approach: yearly themes.
2021 (16)
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Half a dozen years later, another wrap-up.
Monday, September 27, 2021
There’s a limit to how much we can handle.
Saturday, September 18, 2021
DHH wrote something poignant in 2018 and here it is.
Friday, September 17, 2021
Some language nuance.
Monday, September 13, 2021
An old nugget of wisdom.
Monday, August 30, 2021
Moved back.
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Starminder is relaunching with notable changes.
Monday, August 9, 2021
Some of my projects are languishing and need rethinking.
Sunday, July 18, 2021
Let’s build up small Python script.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Something I absolutely love about Python is just how well it scales from tiny scripts to complex systems. Here’s an example of the former.
Monday, March 1, 2021
I got super excited for a new awesome looking email service, but it’s got a fatal flaw that has me looking elsewhere.
Saturday, February 27, 2021
It didn’t take me all that long to come back around to this, did it?
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
I made an environment variable parsing library for Python, and forgot to tell you all about it!
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Turns out I like this problem so much I had to solve it again.
Friday, January 15, 2021
Django’s “sites” framework is quite cool, but what if you need to make some exceptions?
Sunday, January 3, 2021
I adopted a cat last year, and she’s the best.
2020 (10)
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Early again, some aspirations for 2021.
Monday, December 28, 2020
Python’s dictionaries are awesome, and I just learned about yet another reason that’s the case.
Sunday, December 27, 2020
The longest year in recorded history (so far) is coming to an end. How’d I do?
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Back on the job market again, so here’s my updated “dating profile”.
Friday, October 16, 2020
I made a little Git hook manager and some people even use it!
Thursday, October 15, 2020
I made a URL shortener with a static site generator.
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Painted boards from Venice Beach and Santa Monica on the morning of June 8th, 2020
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
5 Tips for Winning at Code Comments
Thursday, February 13, 2020
You should attend!
Thursday, January 16, 2020
I lost a buttload of weight and got a cool shoutout on my gym's blog, and it's hard not to brag.
2019 (11)
Friday, December 20, 2019
Ahead of the curve this time, a look forward at what I'm hoping to accomplish professionally in 2020.
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
2019 is just about done—let's wrap it up.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
I think I've figured out why I've been having such a hard time starting to migrate my projects to the cloud.
Monday, November 11, 2019
I think everyone should watch these two keynotes, but especially those of us working in tech.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Write more.
Thursday, August 8, 2019
I'm letting some domains expire because I have neither the time nor desire to build what I wanted, so here you go.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Look, I'm just bragging…
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
PyCon 2019 is here and so are we.
Friday, February 15, 2019
It's neither ethical nor smart to ignore about half of all Python users.
Friday, February 8, 2019
About as late as last year, here is my next set of professional goals.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
How did my goals for 2018 go?
2018 (10)
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
I'm looking for my next destination. Could your company be it?
Monday, December 17, 2018
I'm going to PyCon 2019 and hope to see you there.
Monday, November 19, 2018
I attended my favorite regional Python conference for the second time, saw some amazing talks, and wanted to tell you about them.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
I went to PyBay 2018 and enjoyed some talks. Here they are.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
I'm going to PyBay 2018 and hope to see you there.
Monday, May 28, 2018
I went to PyCon (again) and it was amazing (again).
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Years of questionable JavaScript and generally slowing web have taught me to distrust my browser's back button.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Here we are again, with a bit of a twist.
Friday, February 9, 2018
A new Python conference is coming to town.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Time for another look back, this time at 2017.
2017 (10)
Thursday, October 5, 2017
A neat (if questionably legible) trick for modifying a list in place in Python, and a more Pythonic solution for the same problem.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Donate to cancer research and watch me do a grueling workout.
Monday, July 31, 2017
I got tired of forgetting all about my 400+ starred GitHub projects and made a reminder app.
Monday, April 17, 2017
I realized my statusline was still bloated, so I trimmed it even more.
Friday, April 14, 2017
What am I even supposed to call myself these days?
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
A friend and I made SendOtterLove.com and you should use it to send someone otterable otters today.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
I made a Vim planet!
Friday, January 13, 2017
I don't use Airline or anything fancy, but my statusline still tells me everything I need to know.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
This worked well for last year, so lets try it again.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Let's talk about some things I set out to accomplish in 2016.
2016 (6)
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
How to make ssh-agent remember passphrases on macOS Sierra 10.12.2.
Friday, July 29, 2016
I wrote a Vim plugin to help with GitHub's issue and pull request templates.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
I started using Vim full-time a month ago and it's been great. Here are some thoughts on the transition and a few plugins that have made it fantastic.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Instagram has announced a switch to alogorithmic feed ordering instead of the current chronological one, and I think it'll prove a problem for myself and many others.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
I ran into a compilation issue on my small DigitalOcean droplet and solved it with some good ol' swap.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Some things I'd like to do better in 2016.
2015 (10)
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
I'd like to use the Spacegray theme for Vim on OS X, but other things look a bit wonky.
Monday, July 27, 2015
I've been listening to some great podcasts and would like to promote them.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Thoughts on why I write here and who the intended audience is.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
I'd like to use these things but don't have the time to build them. Do you?
Thursday, June 11, 2015
A new face for nkantar.com, and a slightly different approach.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Moving on.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Sometimes you have to take your pride in doing things well and distract it while you do something badly. This was one of those times.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Why interrupting a programmer is even more costly than you think, illustrated by Jason Heeris.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
I tried migrating to a Chromebook and didn't like it.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Quick thoughts on Apple's fancy new MacBook.
2014 (8)
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Brief reflection on a few days without Facebook.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Sorting with pure chance, with some elementary stats.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
I deactivated my Facebook account and thought I should write about it.
Monday, November 24, 2014
I made a silly game.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
We live in a world built on software that's given away for free, and we should support it.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Quick thoughts on the iPhone 6/6+ and Apple Watch.
Friday, August 29, 2014
An irritated dissection of an unappealing recruiter email.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Why I chose a static site generator in a sea of fancy dynamic solutions.