this IS my blog

published weekdays

  • on entropy

    There is an inbuilt and inherent temporary-ness to everything, which means that everything, eventually turns back into it’s sub-atomic components of atoms and energy.

    You and I, our homes, our cars, our cell phones, our refrigerators, beds, toothbrushs, shoe laces, those television shows we stream over the internet, the film we watched last weekend and especially these words and the device or paper upon which you are reading them. 

    Temporary. Nothing is permanent. 

    This idea, that entropy rules the universe may be daunting to think about at first, but then after you have been thinking about it for a time one is bound to realize how entirely and creatively freeing such a concept can be.

    The impermanence of the universe means that any effort that we make to instill order into that same universe by creating, buying, building, growing, cooking, writing, or generally making anything is ultimately done only on this fragile and finite timeline.

    Perfectionism becomes a truly pointless exercise because even perfect things will decay and degrade into atoms and energy eventually. 

    And it is the impermance of everything that makes it special.

    So one may as well take the risk of making something, anything no matter how imperfect and fleeting because everything is at some level already just that.


  • nerd-vantage

    I posted an article a while back called raw code in which I detailed the notion that having skills in technology (though the lesson is transferable to virtually every refined skill, trade, or art) means that one can get a leg up on others without that skill for simple things.

    In my example, I talked about how I have solved many little problems or puzzles by writing a bit of code to support the effort. I hinted at this, but one of the biggest and most cost-savings of those has been in the realm of meal planning.

    It’s no secret that groceries are expensive.

    And eating isn’t exactly an optional activity.

    We’re all kinda stuck between a quac and hot spice.

    At least a dozen years ago I wrote the first version of a little piece of personal software we called MealPlannit. It’s simultaneously stupidly simple but also fairly complex. In essense it is a database of all our recipes, everything from elaborate and complex meals to favorite freezer meals whose sole cooking instruction is remove from box and heat.

    The end result of this after a dozen years and a hundred code tweaks is that we have a database of about four hundred recipes that can be added with the click of a button to a rolling weekly plan and from which we can generate a shopping list. That’s all it does.

    As simple as that sounds, we have used it faithfully for over a decade to plan meals and grocery shop. And all that simplified planning means that our nerd-vantage in the grocery store has probably saved us a few dollars each week in food wastage and impulse shopping. In fact, by my wife’s estimates we probably save about twenty bucks a week in both planning our weekly meals but in the savings that come from knowing what our core, regular recurring favorite meals are and buying ingredients when they are on sale. And that number is probably a low-ball estimate.

    But if you add up twenty bucks per week over even just ten years that means this little bit of code I put together in my spare time has personally saved us about ten thousand dollars—which is a pretty nice vacation and a pretty nice advantage from just being a nerd.


  • audio drama two

    If you thought my audio recording efforts have been derailed because I haven’t posted as much lately about it then you are only half right.

    Unlike the quiet and contemplative act of just writing words on a keyboard, it turns out that creating multimedia is a much more active task.

    First, you need to come up with the idea, make some notes, probably even write a few short bits of scripted material—particularly if you are someone like me whose verbal patter pace is far outpaced by his typing speed.

    Second, you need to find a quiet time and place to record. I have tried my basement, but I end up fighting off everything from shy guy syndrome with my family in the house and background noise from the random things like the furnace and the dishwasher. I tried going outside but you tune out the noise of the city traffic right up until you realize that cars, birds, and wind do not a good recording studio companion make.

    Third, you need to edit that audio. Some folks who do this probably are at the point where they get super-clean takes and can just upload and go. Rather, I find myself recording and then needing to go back to trim out everything from gaps to flubs to throat clearing. The term clean take hasn’t yet entered into my short list of vocabulary I use on the regular.

    Finally, you need to post and share it. I have found and fine-tuned a couple options for this, but it still requires things like cover art, episode descriptions or summaries, and processing time. And at the end of it, you still need to promote it all, crossing your fingers that the first time you listen to it yourself you don’t find some minor (or forbid! major) error that requires you to pull it down, re-edit or replace the file.

    Podcasting is darn near a full time job.


  • snippets of thoughts

    Writing every day and posting to a blog every day is like beta testing any product.

    Words are a means to convey ideas, and you don’t know how useful that idea is until you expose it to the pressures of the user, which in the case of any piece of content like a blog post and the chunk of writing it contains, is your audience.

    Anyone who aspires to write anything could benefit from taking the time and effort to beta test their words and ideas in the real world and rather than saving up everything to compile and publish in one big paper-bound volume with fingers crossed that those ideas have value, spitting them out into the universe to see what has value and what sinks to the deeps forever.

    Just a thought.


  • unsocial media

    In theory, social media is an amazing idea. Tens of thousands of interconnected people sharing, creating, reacting, conversing and communicating in one space.

    In reality, the costs to run this technology has led to every single social media platform of scale ever created with any broad success turning into a hungry beast that needs to be fueled by advertising and any number of other algrorithmic pressures that erode at the effectiveness of the social aspect.

    I have advocated professionally and personally for many years for people (and businesses) to keep a toe in each of the two pools: one each in social media platforms and private content platforms. That is to say, the wisest among us know that relying exclusively on social platforms means your content is only as valuable as someone else’s company bottom line. And alternatively, leaning one hundred percent into a private platform like a blog or other website orphans your connectiveness to the wider internet community to the hours per day you are willing or able to promote it and help people find you.

    Both have their advantages and disadvantages. So be smart and dabble in both. Have strategies for using both. Don’t rely exclusively on either alone.

    Personally, I have leaned more heavily into building content on my own platform and then working to promote it on social media. It does make me a tad unsocial, but also the risks of losing control, access, or moral standing of that content for participation on one of the big social networks is lessened. And at the end of the day, I have retained full control over the vast amounts of content I have created through the years while still having it read and used by many.