Going down

I’ve been with Veronica for over a decade now and I think I’m starting to know her fairly well. Yet she still manages to surprise me. For instance, a couple of weeks ago she came and asked me about email security: I worry that my email password is too weak. Can you help me change email address and make it secure? It was completely unexpected—but...

There are two conflicting forces in play in setting up your computer environment: It’s worthwhile to pursue small improvements in frequently used tools. It’s not productive to get stuck tweaking your setup endlessly. It’s common to find people get stuck at the extreme ends of the spectrum; some programmers refuse to configure or learn their tools...

It’s time for my 15th yearly review. Nerdy things I enjoyed I read a lot of fantasy books this year! My favorite new series were The Kingkiller Chronicle, Gentlemen Bastards series, and The Stormlight Archive. If you’re curious about Sanderson’s books but a little apprehensive about jumping into a massive series such as The Stormlight Archive...

Although I’m a big Elixir fan, the lack of static typing has always been my biggest annoyance (and why I think Gleam is so cool). I think static typing helps catch bugs earlier and in an automated way, leading to less buggy software and saves time in the long run. To my great joy Elixir is working on a new type system that will hopefully give us...

This is the keyboard layout I’m using for my custom keyboard that I generated, printed, and hand-wired. It’s a minimalistic keyboard of 35 keys and features an integrated trackball on the right-hand side. The keyboard layout started out as a direct copy of the T-34 keyboard layout, with some small modifications from the 34-key keyboard T-34 was...