Software History

I was reading through my social reader earlier today and saw Ruben's latest blog post on his Christmas tree. We are on the same wavelength this year, for I, too have caffeine-related tree decorations. I have Starbucks cup, a teapot, and tea caddy decorations.

Ruben Schade, a technical writer who blogs about the internet, technology, and many other topics, featured a quick post on me on his blog. In only a few hundred words, Ruben was able to summarise accurately exactly what I like to do on this blog. The first sentence in particular stood out to me, which was:

Who's that chick, [lower voice] whose that chick, and the accompanying melody, caught my attention earlier today in a cafe. I was doing some coding on my computer when I heard those lyrics in the background. The song was so enticing that I noted to myself I must write down any lyrics I can comprehend (I am often bad at hearing the words in lyrics in songs the first time I have heard them!). That's the story of why my TODO list, in addition to being interspersed with words for my Fun with Words series, contained

I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

While sipping on a cup of black tea this quiet Sunday afternoon, I recorded the second episode of my podcast. In the episode, I discuss a game I have been working on this week to compare one's voice to Taylor Swift's voice, rambles on my dreams for the web, greetings, and tea. This episode is more technical than I thought. Next time I shall try to come prepared with more non-technical topics!

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I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

(The picture above is from a previous game, not the one in which I lost that I describe in this post.)

It has been a few weeks since I last blogged. I have been busy learning, working, and travelling. Today I have a blog post to share with you, or at least I will by the time I finish hitting keys in sequence to produce this post.

The seasons are changing. I looked out the window yesterday and noticed that several of the trees I can see outside my window no longer have leaves; other trees have yellow leaves. I still have the image in my mind when all of the trees were bountiful with green leaves. It seems like just yesterday. The reality is that the leaves have been changing for a few weeks. I knew autumn was here. But, I found a moment where I contrasted how things were a few weeks ago with how they are now. The seasons are changing.

I am in the process of producing two zines. Each zine features photos centred around a particular theme. I will not spoil too much since I would like to make a full announcement after I have print copies ready to distribute. For now, all you need to know is I am working on two zines and both of them contain photos.

My first attempt at writing an analytics bash script got me excited about bash scripting. My first script displayed the total number of page views my blog receives and the total number of people who have viewed my feed. The program was limited to reading logs for the last two days.

The sun was shining. Palm trees were around; my favourite tree. My taxi arrived. I was headed for the airport.

A curious mix of topics indeed! Join me for my latest podcast episode in which I discuss, among other things, bubbles, programming languages, and use-case driven development. I also talk about Ruben's blog, a source of inspiration that encouraged me to expand the topics about which I write on my blog. In the episode, I also mention the Overnightscape Underground, to which episodes of this podcast are now syndicated. I hope you enjoy the episode!

I made an RSS feed for the OpenAI blog. You can subscribe to the feed in your feed reader using this address:

I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

I have been tasting a lot of fruity coffees lately, including San Jose de Lourdes, a coffee roasted by Neighbourhood Coffee Roasters. As I was drinking this coffee, I was again reminded of blackcurrant juice, like the kind you would get from a diluted juice bottle mixed with water here in the UK.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a vinyl record from Of Monsters and Men. The record is yet to be released but I am eager for it to arrive. I bought the record because the band has turned 10 and I appreciate their music, so much so that I (at least try) to play a number of their songs on my keyboard. Their music captures my attention unlike most other bands I have listened to. There is only one problem: I bought a vinyl record without owning a record player.

I spent the weekend in York after making a somewhat spontaneous decision to visit the city this month. York is an excellent destination for people who enjoy history. There is religious, Roman, royal, political, governmental, and other roots of history to be found in the area. I am astounded at the age of many of the old buildings in the city. It's not every day you can say you saw a cathedral whose construction began over 800 years ago (York Minster).

While I was on a Zoom call two weeks ago, I noticed something that ignited a great sense of excitement. The parlor palm on my desk, which I have had since last year, started to grow leaves. This excited me because after months of few signs of growth, the plant was now changing.

Writing, as I have shared in discussions with many of my friends, helps me think. Through planning and typing words on paper, new ideas come to mind that I had previously not synthesized. Perhaps a scientist could explain why this is the case, or maybe this will remain to be one of the great mysteries behind

There are an infinite amount of lives we can live because every decision we make changes the way we live life. The Midnight Library, written by Matt Haig, explores the life of a woman who can travel between lives, allowing her to see the outcome of different ways of living. Unlike everyone else, the main character in The Midnight Library, Nora, can see what happens if she makes—or does not make—a particular decision, without any ramifications.

My keyboard is illuminated with a stark light. I'm sitting in the same seat I have been for a while. Last I remembered, bright natural light shone through the window. In one moment, I thought to myself:

I subscribed to the selfcare.tech bot on Mastodon a few days ago. The bot has provided messages that have been of particular meaning at a time when, on reflection, I have been a lot harder on myself than I should be. Here are a few Toots(?) posted by the bot recently that particularly resonated with me:

You know the feeling when you are immersed in thought and something suddenly stands out to you? I was walking past a park when I noticed a squirrel close by. The squirrel was scouring through the leaves. I speculate it was in search for food. My mind gravitated from human computer interaction -- the topic about which I was thinking -- to the squirrel. I walked slowly, gazing at the park. I noticed another squirrel. Then another. Then another.

Standart Magazine is a print publication that writes about coffee, from coffee culture to issues facing the industry. The publication is aimed at anyone who loves coffee, not just industry professionals. I have quickly grown to appreciate the depth of content in Standart and have read many issues this year.

The web platform is vast. There are so many tools available for building websites and web applications. One example is that you can run machine learning models in your browser. This enables many novel applications (with the downside that models, which can be large, need to download so they can run in the web page).

Unorthodox Roasters caught my eye as soon as I learned about them. They are a roastery based in Kinross, Scotland. They are unorthodox. The names of their coffees are all Scottish. I looked around their website and I thought I should try one of their coffees. Wee Stoater caught me eye, which I believe is their signature coffee.