The forecast predicted snow, but even with that knowledge I held out hope that it wouldn’t. The shade over the window in the bedroom doesn’t close all the way. It always stops short of totally covering the window with about an inch further to go. It is too short. When I woke up this morning there was a flat grey line of light streaming into the room through the gap left by the too short shade. So, I spent some time shoveling this morning. Probably sooner than I ought to have since it’s still coming down. It’s 80ish de ... ⌘ Read more
The forecast predicted snow, but even with that knowledge I held out hope that it wouldn’t. The shade over the window in the bedroom doesn’t close all the way. It always stops short of totally covering the window with about an inch further to go. It is too short. When I woke up this morning there was a flat grey line of light streaming into the room through the gap left by the too short shade. So, I spent some time shoveling this morning. Probably sooner than I ought to have since it’s still coming down. It’s 80ish de ... ⌘ Read more
I didn’t go to work today. Six month ago I took the day off when I made my kids a dentist appointment. So, this morning I took them to the dentist where we played Mario Kart in the waiting room on the Nintendo the dentist keeps set up there.
After that, I dropped them each at school and picked up my dad and took him to Costco and to the Chinese takeaway place. While he gossiped with the folks at the takeaway I started Sally Rooney’s _Normal People._ I’m late to this book, but enjoying it right away.
After all th ... ⌘ Read more
I don’t write about work here. Not really as a rule, but out of habit.
It is a Saturday, and this morning at around 1 AM the federal government here in the U.S. fired my entire team, and the whole group they worked out of, 18f. This means that the team I was on is now just me. I was the only one not from 18f.
Nothing about this will increase efficiency or help anyone, at all.
If any of you beautiful RSS people are hiring senior level designers or qualitative researchers, please reach out and I can make introd ... ⌘ Read more
My previous post included a video. I made that video with OBS which outputs
.mkv video files.I wanted to do my best to ensure that folks with a variety of devices and browsers would be able to watch the video if they wanted to, so, I converted it into a few different formats.
Here’s the bash script I wrote to do that. It relies on ffmpeg.
h
#!/bin/bash
# Won't work if ffmpeg isn't installed
if ! command -v ffmpeg &> /dev/null; then
echo "ffmpeg ... ⌘ [Read more](https://eli.li/mkv-no-more)I’d never thought about adding playlists to my website, but then I did it and now I wanna add more. While I wait to put together another playlist, here’s the song that I’m listening to right now — Lady Lamb’s“Crane Your Neck.”
We had a few big snows, so the kids spent extra time at home and we’ve done a fair bit of sledding and shoveling. There was a bunch of frozen rain after one of the snow storms, so the snow had a crunch ... ⌘ Read more
I can hear my kids in their room right now. They’re trying to get something that rolled under one of their beds. They’re talking about trying to get it like planning a run in _Neuromancer_ or something.
“Okay, you can do this, just one last run!” ⌘ Read more
In reply to: The politics of accessibility – Brian DeConinck
A devastating perfect blog post.
> The core concept of digital accessibility is that everyone, including people with disabilities, should be able to access information and accomplish tasks via computer independently.
Continuing later,
> This is an intensely political statement, backed by decades of protests and lobbying and litigation. ... ⌘ Read more
Never has a pull request made me actually cry. This one did that. ⌘ Read more
On a note similar to my previous post, I uninstalled Duolingo from my phone this evening. ⌘ Read more
Having one of those days where I am regretting having read that book, Bullshit Jobs. 🫠 ⌘ Read more
I accidentally spilled close to a full bag of frozen peas into the pot while making macaroni and cheese for the kids’ dinner this evening.
It was like 2 to 1 peas in there…and they ate it up. Didn’t seem to mind at all!? ⌘ Read more
I finished reading _Sirens & Muses_ by Antonia Angress.
It left me gutted, but like in a good way. It leaves so much unsaid, which I found pleasant and sorrowful and so yawningly, humongously open that it left me feeling a little claustrophobic.
A few years ago everyone, everyone, everyone I spoke to about books told me again and again and again to read Gabrielle Zevin’s _Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow_. I found it to be totally and completely lacking in joy and any sort of human warmth, and, I think th ... ⌘ Read more
I like writing these posts for my website, but I’ve sat down to write this one like 11 times and it either takes on a tone of totally encompassing dread and dystopian navel gazing or I feel like I’m burying my head in the sand and ignoring reality as it happens around me.
…I finished reading Victor LaValle’s _The Changeling_. It was engaging, and I was interested in where it was going, but I found that where it went wasn’t interesting. The dialogue and prose were lively and contemporary, which is what r ... ⌘ Read more
A while ago I was talking with someone about books. I mentioned that I like to read capital R romance novels, and like 19th century literary realism.
This person excitedly recommended Victor LaValle’s _The Changeling_. Knowing nothing about it, and because I pretty much say“yes” to any book recommendation I get from a real live person that I can find at the library, I’ve been reading it.
My dude. What the fuck!? This is just horror. 🥲😨 ⌘ Read more
Through a series of improbable events on new years eve we ended up watching Darth Maul ignite his duel bladed lightsaber right at the stroke of midnight. Mind blown. Duel of the fates ringing in the new year. ⌘ Read more
As a treat, I figured I could write a year in review kinda thing, too. In no particular order here are some reflections organized into some mostly sensical categories.
### Health
Since recovering from my brain bleed and the subsequent repair procedures, this year I’ve enjoyed getting back into a routine of exercising. I’ve never been one to track numbers, or reps, or distances — I mostly exercise because I enjoy doing it. This year I got back into going for regular short runs, very long walks (sorry aging d ... ⌘ Read more
I’ve been sitting on this post for like 8 months. I’ve written it and rewritten it at least a dozen times. I hsve two or three notes documents worth of research. It has never felt right, though. It still doesn’t. I figured an rss-only debut for it would be fine, and maybe one day I’ll bring it to a normy kinda post.
* * *
At my job I try to make big public digital services accessible. Because of this I think a lot about disability, and how some portion of disability is socially c ... ⌘ Read more
Look. I promise I won’t always post so many rss only things, but I gotta exercise my new thing.
I am an incredibly unhandy person, yet today I accomplished two household projects — I re-hung a door that needed a hinge replaced, and I replaced a broken overhead light in our bathroom. I even navigated Lowe’s. ⌘ Read more
I was bemoaning the lack of color at my desk and a friend sent me this link to a place that makes custom neon signs. I am likely much to indecisive, and faaaar too cheap to actually order one, but I keep having intrusive thoughts about what I’d get if I were to get one.
I think the Yiddish phrase“zol er krenken un gedenken” would be funny. It means“let him suffer and remember” which is very melodramatic, but totally rife with so much meaning. ⌘ Read more
This is a test. I’m experimenting with adding rss only posts to my website.
This post should only show up in rss feed readers, and, hopefully, leave no other trace on any directory pages on my website.
Each rss-only post will also have a html rendered page, but there won’t be any way to navigate to that page without knowing the actual url for that page. ⌘ Read more
After playing a few hours in Fields of Mistria I decided to put it down for a bit. I’m really really enjoying it. The farming is low key, and feels more like grinding for resources so far (positive), the relationship sim stuff is fun and the quests and tasks are really approachable (and there is, my favorite thing in the world, an in-game quest log!). All in all it’s a supremely, deliciously, snackable game. If I had to level critique against it, it’d be that the day/nigh ... ⌘ Read more
I’m thinking about week notes again. I like the idea, but it is a form I struggle to keep with. To stick to. It feels sorta like a one sided conversation. Broadcast. I’d like to make it more of a conversation.
I’ve made two new little games since the start of December. Both are installments in the adventures of the little black square who first showed up in hill. Mountain is sort of a sequel to hill. Rather than zoot down ... ⌘ Read more
A black and white dithered image of a sort of shocked looking cat, mouth open, head held high, lounging on a couch. ⌘ Read more
I’ve been working on the broughlike pretty steadily since my last update. The gameplay loop is pretty much unchanged, but I’ve added a fair bit of polish, and fixed a lot of bugs. I think it is honestly sort of boring to play, but I am excited to have this as the starting point for future projects…can you smell the roguelike!? I can!
The major fixes and improvements that I’ve made since my last update include:
- better way finding ... ⌘ Read more
The Roguelike Celebration happened this weekend. Every year I think about participating, and every year I let it slip me by. In honor of it, though, this weekend I made a Broughlike)…which I’ve creatively named “Eli’s Broughlike.”
It runs in the browser. It should work on most anything with a keyboard, or with a touchscreen — the about page ha ... ⌘ Read more
This afternoon I put the garden to sleep for the fall; in the past we’ve had some fall and winter vegetables going, but this year that didn’t happen, so, I emptied out the rain barrels, cleaned them out, trundled them to a place where they wouldn’t get blown around by any winds, mulched some of the beds, weeded and generally plotzed around like a garden goblin.
I’ve fallen into the habit of making a big thing of rice over the weekend — I always intend to do _something_ with this rice, but instead I use it for s ... ⌘ Read more
A photograph of silhouetted trees in front of the northern lights. A large gravestone is barely visible in one corner of the image. ⌘ Read more
A photograph of silhouetted trees in front of the northern lights. ⌘ Read more
A photograph of silhouetted trees in front of the northern lights. They’re visible as sheets of pinks and reds. ⌘ Read more
A blurry photograph of a child in colorful overalls holding a mini golf club high over their head standing in front of a “life size” brachiosaurus.Dinosaur golf before it shuts for the season. ⌘ Read more
I’ve found myself in possession of a guitar. Actually, the guitar that I had in middle school has come back to me after a decade’s long jaunt with someone else. I don’t _really_ play guitar, but, I figured I should restring it and tune it.
I’m really very bad at tuning, so, rather than get good at that, or use any of the existing tools within reach of the internet to help me with that I made a thing. Tuner is a little web app that does 2 things: using a device’s ... ⌘ Read more
A photograph of a sleepy cat lounging in a sunny patch on a bed covered in a grey blanket. Solar powered. ⌘ Read more
A relatively close up photograph of many yellow and white flowers in a meadow. The sky is blue and the image is processed to have a warmer hue. It is out of focus.I had time to take a walk before running some errands and getting a flu shot and a Covid booster this morning. ⌘ Read more
Two kids in shorts and sweaters standing on a lumpy rock looking out over some Rosa Rugosa at the sea.It is starting to smell like fall! ⌘ Read more
I shared some snippets of JavaScript in a recent blog post and was wicked irked that I didn’t have an easy way to share interactive code on my own thing…so… I made a totally static JavaScript playground for running little experiments and sharing scrappy fiddles!
It is pretty simple — it allows folks to enter and run JavaScript, includes a console so you can easily log thing ... ⌘ Read more
After reading my last post, a friend asked an interesting question that I thought would also be fun to write about!
They noted that in the
reshape function I declared the variable result as a constant. They asked if this was a mistake? Because I was resigning the value iteratively, shouldn’t it be declared using let?What is happening there is that the constant is being declared as an array, so the reference ... ⌘ Read more
In APL the rho,
⍴, called reshape is used to both construct arrays of a given shape (dimensionality), and to reconfigure arrays into new shapes.Sometimes I wish I had reshape in JavaScript…so I wrote it!
Here are two functions that, when combined, a la Captain Planet, can stand in for APL’s reshape in JavaScript.
Ravel is the simpler of the two, it takes an array of any dimension and ret ... ⌘ Read more
I finished reading Robin Sloan’s _Moonbound_ today. It was fun, and light. The blurb likens it to _Narnia_, and, while a bold claim, I think that was a correct assertion, but more about the intended audience than the book’s subject matter. If a sequel is ever written I’d most certainly give it a look. It seems like a great gift book for a kid between like 8 and 15…or you know, perhaps, anyone who likes fun stories that aren’t scared of bein ... ⌘ Read more
As we start to round out the summer I haven’t been reading as much, so I don’t have much to report on that front, but I have been keeping busy!
I made yet another pixel art drawing tool, pixel pixel pixel pixel pixel pixel allows folks to draw chonky pixel art creations on pretty much any sized canvas. This was fun to make. I’ve spent _so_ much time with the HTML5 canvas lately that I’m rea ... ⌘ Read more
Two young children in swim things are next to each other in the surface. They’re jumping over a small, crashing wave. Above them an overcast sky stretches waaaaaay out to sea. There’s some sea weed out on the drying sand, because the tied is going out. Home beach. Last day of vacation for me. ⌘ Read more
I really like the unpredictable depth of field and color handling of single-use cameras. The day before we left for a little vacation to down east Maine I wrote another weird little camera app, lut cam. Lut cam attempts to simulate some of the aspects of a single-use camera by allowing you to apply color profiles to the raw image produced by a devic ... ⌘ Read more
Two young children in sweaters and shorts, each with reddish hair and white skin sit on a large granite rock by the Atlantic Ocean. They’re looking out to sea. It is fairly foggy. Summer vibing, fog horn whooping. ⌘ Read more
A photograph of a rocky coastline leading to the Atlantic Ocean. Beyond a large stretch of water is a point of land. There are some big fluffy clouds above it all.Rocky shore. ⌘ Read more
Two children sit next to each other on a path in the woods. They’re surrounded by dense brush, and conifers. There’s a lot of hanging old man’s beard all around. We took a boat to a teeny tiny island called Bean Island. We walked around the entire edge of the island’s rocky coastline.
There were some gloriously regal looking black backed gulls along the shore, as well as a pair of juvenile bald eagles who were making hilariously squeaky noises. ⌘ Read more
In my last post I said that
> I’ve had a few ideas for other personal experiments I wanna build on those walks, but haven’t actually wanted to do much programming — maybe this fall or winter will be a good time for that?
Welp, it wasn’t even an idea when I wrote that, but I made another implementation of pico cam, this time using swift for iOS. I won’t release it to the App Store because I d ... ⌘ Read more
This summer my oldest kid — 8 years old — asked to learn more about programming. They’ve already got about a full time job’s worth of experience with Minecraft’s red stone, Super Mario Maker 2, Logo, and Scratch so I knew we weren’t starting from nil, but, despite having done a bit of teaching about programming with kids in the past, I hemmed and hawed. After hemming and hawing for a bit, though, I realized that I was hemming and hawing abou ... ⌘ Read more
> “It’s hard for a hungry man to swager”
This line from The Tale of Thorleif Earl’s Poet has gotta be one of the greatest lines from all of Icelandic saga literature. ⌘ Read more
After having dithering-fun making dither it and pico cam I made a little game, currently called“ puzzle dungeon,” which I admit isn’t a very good name at all. Puzzle dungeon is part logo), part dungeon crawling rogue-like ... ⌘ Read more
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Frog search. ⌘ Read more
This weekend we traveled 20 minutes to a sort of secret beach. It was a grey, overcast day, and we timed our trip to line up with low tide so that we could walk waaaaaaay far out into the ocean all the way to some little islands. It was fun, and we saw some neat birds, including an Oyster Catcher. While on this adventure I took a picture. Later at home I thought“it’d be nice to dither this!” I usually reach for [Dit ... ⌘ [Read more](https://eli.li/one-trip-to-the-beach-inspired-me-to-make-two-programs-this-weekend)
Or at least the story of life as I implemented it in swift recently as a little learning project because I haven’t written any swift since walking away from mobile dev a few years ago (no regrets)!
* * *
First there was the universe! Well, first there was some requisite boilerplate, but then there was the universe! A 2 dimensional grid, an array of 10 columns and 10 rows.
t
<span class="hljs-keyword">import</span> Foundation
<span class="hljs-keyword">let</span> rows: <span class="hljs-type">Int</s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://eli.li/the-story-of-life)In the span of two posts here I’ve witnessed two astronomical events! First the total solar eclipse, and then more recently the aurora borealis. Both were amazing, especially the aurora. I’d never seen either before and both were pretty incredible to behold.
I left my old job at the start of the month, and, after a few days off, I’ve started a new one! I’m really excited for this one, though around day two the anxiety and im ... ⌘ Read more
A photograph looking up at the night sky. Sheets of aurora are visible across the sky in bands of green and purple. ⌘ Read more
A male yellow rumped warbler showing off its dashing blue plumage and big old blue rump. ⌘ Read more
Since my last update I’ve read a handful of books. Some standout reads include Tales from Earthsea, The Other Wind and The Left Hand of Darkness, all by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d read them all before, accepted for The Other Wind. I thought I’d read The Other Wind, but hadn’t! Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick was also a fun read. I liked it for the rabbit holes it invited me down; I’ve been thinking a lot ... ⌘ Read more
Photograph of an eclipse during totality. The image is all black, with a black disc obscure the hallow of the sun.Solar eclipse from Kingsfield, Maine. ⌘ Read more
In reply to: Scaling accessibility beyond compliance at VA.gov through community and culture - Ad Hoc
> If“accessibility as compliance” is a staircase where outcomes are restricted to the normative limitations of the law, Accessibility Beyond Compliance is an exponential curve. It isn’t limited to fulfilling legal constraints, and we can use it to explore, understand, and b ... ⌘ Read more
A fuzzy silver and black cat lazily lounges on a yellow couch. Its grinch paw draped over its face. ⌘ Read more
A black and white dog sleeps tightly curled in a small patch of sun dappling down through a window on to a yellow couch. Behind the couch a bunch of drawings made by kids are adhered to the wall. ⌘ Read more
Hot on the heals of recently being interviewed by Manu, I was interviewed by Kristen Foster-Marks from the Developer Success Lab. It was a lot of fun! We had a wide ranging conversation, but often came back around to the importance of“learning ... ⌘ Read more
I just finished reading The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. I loved it. When I finished A Memory Called Empire I assumed it’d be my most favorite book of the year — it has already been unseated!? I mean, if I kept track of favorites. As I finished The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi I immediately wanted more, so looked to see if there is a sequel (alas, no (or not yet, I hope!?)). I’ve got a gigantic l ... ⌘ Read more
As an undergrad and a grad student I was obsessed with Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s writings appeared in my citations pretty much regardless of the class or subject area I was writing on.
I have recently finished reading an engaging and lovely novel by Arkady Martine,“A Memory Called Empire.” Of course, I was excited to pick up the sequel, but, also, I had this feeling, this Woolf’s scent — I’ve always felt that Woolf’s nonfiction was more lucid and p ... ⌘ Read more
The sun struck yellow rain boots of a kid, haphazardly left in the hall by a bright yellow wall. The floor is made of brick.It’s been very damp. It was, however, recently sunny for a bit. Here is the proof of the sun’s continued existence. ⌘ Read more
A majestic, magnificent, teeny tiny White-throated Sparrow perched on an even teeny tinier branch. It is winter. It is grey. It is cold. The bird is royalty. A sovereign among fathered beasts. None know more regent a beast — Gloriana, but a dinosaur-footed, be-feathered friend.Break thrones; build tables. ⌘ Read more
A screen recording of a teeny tiny browser window. The window starts by displaying a grey surface with a subtle white grid on top of it. A computer cursor moves around, occasionally it clicks to open a context menu that lists 3 choices, “circle, square, triangle.” When the cursor selects a shape that shape is inscribed within that grid cell.I’ve had fun playing at implementing a very basic visual programming system over the last few days. I like the direction I’ve s ... ⌘ Read more
The last weeks of 2023 have been very enjoyable. Other than having to deal with a cascade of car issues, there’s been a lot of time to hang out with the partner and kids, wander around outside, and poke at fun personal projects…and I mean, work, too, but…you know.
The other evening I pulled together a fun Markov chain toy. It isn’t anything fancy, but I wanted the ability to feed a madlib style script to the program and have it use that as a template to fill in. The resulting program is beak and ... ⌘ Read more
A photograph showing two children in light winter kit walking down to the ocean. It is very foggy out, making the ocean hard to see. ⌘ Read more
A photograph taken from the center of a pedestrian bridge over a tidal river outlet looking out to sea. It is very foggy so that you can’t see all the way to the ocean which is about a quarter of a mile in the distance. Foggy Christmas adventuring ⌘ Read more
Whereas _mobile-first_ design and development invited folks to think more expansively about the physical reality of the _devices_ people use, **accessibility-first design and development invites folks to think more expansively about the lived experiences, and physical reality of actual people.** ⌘ Read more
Photograph shows a young child in a purple winter coat, a beanie and fuzzy mittens holding a dog’s leash walking in a cemetery. It’s pretty foggy. The child and the dog both face away from the camera so that we see both of their backs. Soggy winter ambling. ⌘ Read more
I was recently interviewed by Manu for his _People and Blogs_ series! It was a great honor to be suggested by Piper for that, and I had a blast responding to all of Manu’s questions.
The December Adventure is in full swing. There are so many fun adventure logs this year. I’ve been mostly focusing on building toys with [Decker](https://beyondloom.com/ ... ⌘ Read more
A tree in a cemetery. It is autumn, and the ground is littered in damp leaves. The tree is covered in red-orange leaves. ⌘ Read more
Political speech is something I shy away from. But, of course, that is political.
Sometimes there are things that you can’t ignore. There are, perhaps, many such things…right now there is one that I’m particularly close to, close enough that I am made to look because I am in some way directly implicated in it.
I am Jewish. I was raised so, and live so today.
Being raised a Jew I was constantly taught to“never forget.”
There seems to have been a forgetting.
A genocide is being perpetrated against Palestinians. I r ... ⌘ Read more
A dithered photograph of the grand lobby at the union station hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. There is a very large, arched ceiling, decorated with a mixture of deco and Nuevo modern ornimentation and filigrees. ⌘ Read more
A photograph of the night sky. 1 star is visible towards the top of the frame. Below the star is a branching bolt of lightening. The lightening shows some trees and a house in silhouette. We’ve had some very dramatic thunderstorms the last few evenings. ⌘ Read more
Today was the last _real_ day of summer for us. Tomorrow the kids go back to school.
A long-haired child in a brightly colored water shirt kicks an oncoming wave, they’re suspended in mid-air, surrounded by water droplets.You know those last few weeks before the dark of autumn — the ones that hold the last bursts of summer? Those days where you try to squeeze in as many chill summer vibes as humanly possible?
I’ve bee ... ⌘ Read more
After the excitement of last summer I was hopeful for a chill one this year. So far, so good.
A jumble of bikes lay on the ground in front of 2 overgrown sheds in various states of disrepair.We visited the island where we used to live and started our family. We saw a few friends, and visited some fa ... ⌘ Read more
Close up image shows some budding, bunched flowers in a large meadow. ⌘ Read more
Anomie, a word for your consideration.
The dictionary of cyborg anthropology defines anomie, in part, with this anecdote:
> In everyday life, the modern vehicle and the daily commute is one of the most isolated moments an urban human can experience. T ... ⌘ Read more
Last year I set out to rekindle my reading habit. That went well. This year’s reading has been enjoyable, but I’m not cozy with the ratio of non-fiction to fiction I’ve read this year…non-fiction (especially of the computing persuasion) far out balances the fiction I’ve read. I think this is mostly because I’ve been mired amidst a fiction book that I’ve found to be a slog…but enjoyable, too. I’d have abandoned it and moved on, elsewise. Onward!
Spring is quickly making way to summer h ... ⌘ Read more
A dithered image shows a young child with long hair standing on the rocky coast, looking out at the sea. First afternoon at the beach this year! ⌘ Read more
A bit of this and that, some kind of mishmosh.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading a lot about array programming systems like J, K, Q, APL, and BQN. I’ve been intending to add a page to the wiki about them, but havent gotten to that yet. Consider this a little promise that I’ll do that sometime soon. I’m interested in array programming less because I think it’s particularl ... ⌘ Read more
Some things of note, links mostly:
First and foremost, I found a suitable pinboard replacement in link hut! Shout outs to my buddy Bruno for the tip.
Here’s a bookmarklet I wrote to make it a bit more ergonomic for how I like to roll,
t
javascript:(<span class="hljs-function"><span class="hljs-keyword">function</span> (<span class="hljs-params"></span>) </span>{
<span class="hljs-keyword">const</span> tags = prompt(<span class="hljs-string">'A space separated list of tags.' ... ⌘ [Read more](https://eli.li/2023/03/31/week-notes)I’ve been experimenting. I’ve been concocting a recipe for vegan kugel, and rediscovering little features and edges of my website I’d forgotten I baked in. Like chocolate chips hidden in an oatmeal raisin cookie.
**One chip most recently re-discovered:** support for per-page custom styles?! All I gotta do is include an optional bit of meta data,
bespoke-css, that points to a style sheet. I may play with this feature more. I do love myself some css. I can tell exactly when in my life I added this feature because th ... ⌘ Read more
In accessibility and the product person I said
> we need to make accessibility a core part of our processes
Here, I want to talk about that in more detail. I want to briefly explore what making accessibility a part of core processes looks like, and how that is different from centering access ... ⌘ Read more
I recently re-read Peter Naur’s“Programming as theory building”. Afterwards I set out to write my own text editor. The paper posits that it’s really hard, if not impossible, to fully communicate about a program and sort of gestures at the futility of documentation…what spun around inside my head as I read was that our primary programming medium — text files — is silly. Like, some folks would totally 100% s ... ⌘ Read more
This post is a slightly modified version of a talk I presented to the product practice at my work. It presents a few ways that product designers and managers can help to move accessibility forward. It is a little bit different than what I normally share, here, but, I thought it may be interesting to some folks.
* * *
[
Dithered image of a large cat with tufted ears sitting inside of and partially on top of a wooden play house. The cat is looking directing at the viewer and appears to be angry, angry at you, the universe, and all things in between. The cat is not happy. Behind the cat is a wall covered in Charlie Harper bird decals. “I am Batman.” ⌘ Read more
It got a wee bit cold here in Maine this weekend. It was thankfully uneventful for us. We hung around inside and watched it get real cold outside. Our home faired pretty well, too. Honestly pleasantly surprised about that!
We picked this weekend to go all in on potty training — pantsless days, treats, rousing bouts of encouragement sung, and a lot of spot cleaning. Fueled by hubris, I thought we had this potty trainin ... ⌘ Read more
Dithered image of a large cat with tufted ears sitting in a laundry basket. The basket has colorful play silks woven into it. The cat has a vacant, empty expression on its face. It’s 11 neurons are all firing, desperately trying to keep up with the pace of life. “I’m on a boat.” ⌘ Read more
A dithered image of a cat sleeping on a window seat. The window is surrounded by fairy lights, and a felt, dinosaur mobile hangs next to the window. It’s snowing outside. The cat appears peaceful, but in reality is an asshole whom I love dearly. Snorlax leaning into the whole vibe of her namesake. ⌘ Read more
At the start of this year I set out to revive my long dead reading habit. After having kids it fell by the wayside. I’ve read 41 books so far this year. Mostly a mix of science fiction and nonfiction computer science books. Here’s the complete list of everything I’ve read. I’ve got mixed feelings about keeping track and sharing cou ... ⌘ Read more
What follows is my attempt to spark a conversation in a few converging, but separate communities I lurk in.
I’ve already had a bunch of amazing conversations around this topic with a lot of people. Those conversations helped to shape what follows. Thanks to everyone who was willing to think this stuff through with me.
Before I get into it I want to say at the top this isn’t meant as an accusation against anyone in these communities, nor the goals of t ... ⌘ Read more
A large orange cat basks in the sunlight next to a red door. ⌘ Read more
Over the past couple years I’ve done the advent of code to varying degrees. I thought I was going to do it again this year but decided to try something different. I’ve been calling what came together a“ December Adventure.”
It isn’t anything fancy; throughout December I aim to write a little bit of code everyday. So far I’ve written a bit of apl, bash, elisp, explored a bunch of flavors of scheme, and star ... ⌘ Read more
Image shows a large wooden troll standing in the woods illuminated by twinkle lights. A parent and kid stand at the feet of the troll. We visited a troll in the woods this evening. ⌘ Read more
In reply to: chreke's blog - Little Languages Are The Future Of Programming
> The idea is that as you start to find patterns in your application, you can encode them in a little language—this language would then allow you to express these patterns in a more compact manner than would be possible by other means of abstraction. Not only could this buck the trend of ever-growing applications, it would ... ⌘ Read more
In reply to: Oatmeal - My programming language odyssey
A while ago someone asked what I liked about the programming languages I like — forth and lisp specifically.
I’ve noodled on it for a bit now, and I think the reason I like forth and scheme and other languages with something like a repl is because when I start a new project I’m dropped right into the entire language and t ... ⌘ Read more