What I've Been Working On
For the past several months, I've just kept a notes file open with the title "Ideas" that I periodically dump stuff into. I'm a lot better at generating ideas than following through on them. I often quickly become bored or, more commonly, convince myself that my idea wasn't that great to begin with, so it should be abandoned before anyone else wastes their time. But I want to follow through on this: I'm keeping a blog, I'm going to talk about language learning somewhere other than in my various-levels-of-willing friends' gchat windows, and I'm going to write some tutorials for annoying but useful tech junk I've done. Join me on this wild ride if you dare.
To begin, let's start with a list of links that I have categorized in my bookmarks as "Stuff I Talk About All The Time." These are links I dig for because they are often relevant to what I'm thinking about or conversations I'm having, and you can probably tell a lot about me from them.
- What Does It Take to Change a Mind? A Phase Transition - on the gradual buildup of influences that lead to long-term changes of heart
- At Home in Japan - a wonderful interactive teaching tool about Japanese culture aimed at students about to go abroad for the first time, but really good info for anyone traveling or curious about Japan
- Naoki Urasawa and Hisashi Eguchi Talk About Manga in the 70s and 80s, Mostly Otomo - Mostly just because of the section culminating in this quote: “I sleep nine hours a day and look at me now — everyone else is dead!”
- In the Name of Love - "Do what you love" is a scam
- The Heroism of Incremental Care - Atul Gawande talks about a model of medical care that is less about grand solutions and more a careful buildup of helpful changes
- Smashing - a brick smashing game I was really into in high school
- A Poem About Your University's Absolute and Unwavering Appreciation of Its Faculty in Spite of Said Faculty's Crap Salaries - what it says on the tin
- Undead: The Rabies Virus Remains a Medical Mystery - rabies is fascinating
- How I Use Anki's Filtered Decks for Optimal Learning - the documentation on Anki filters is not great, so I end up referencing this post a lot
- Does Jonathan Chair Think Liberals Don't Know How To Google? - "Want to know what conservatives think of immigration? Check out an op-ed from 1920!"
- This Hipster Marriage Announcement From The New York Times is The Most Insufferable Yet - I have read this at least 8 times and it never gets old
- You suck at technical interviews - you do! Do better, maybe?
- How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice? - on deliberate practice vs. hours put in
- University of Texas's War on Grackles - a classic in the UT dev community
- Propane Jane thread on evil/sociopathy - the American family plays itself out in politics at a grander scale