A whole lot of things have been happening in the past month, between Wait Wait-related and personal updates. Instead of spreading it out into multiple blog posts, I decided to kind of do a Lightning…

hello my sweet sea slugs (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡ i don’t have much to say today… just small things ♡ life so far has been gentle in quiet ways… i made some spiced cinnamon apple bread… warm and sweet, the kind…

I went to Guitar Center this week and looked at guitars. This is funny because for years I have snobbishly insisted that I don't like "guitar music." This is still largely true, and not…

I've put out a preprint on ArXiV which renewed the academic spam I receive. The two funniest points are: I also submitted another preprint on the same day which has attracted no spam whatsoever. This…

A life update + art recap for this month is out!

Another disappointing month for progress. I’ve been a bit more attentive to my mental state though and I’ve noticed a few things: With the fixed-goal approach, I ended up being reluctant to get…

Have you felt a sense of an "internal crisis" once you've become "grounded in reality"? Like one moment you're focused on whatever you're doing at that moment - hanging out with friends, watching…

Hello! I’m writing this on a rainy April evening, knowing what May’s going to bring. A lot of my attention this month was taken up by a really big project that I’m not allowed to…

This month’s list combines the least interesting aspects of fan fiction, fantasy football, and Sudoku. Then multiplies the stupidity by a hundred. Which demonstrates that I am human. Give us an…

I have been doing safe-streets, transit, and housing advocacy in San Mateo for about 6 years. Along the way I’ve written a fair amount about it, here and elsewhere . Most of what I’ve actually…

Dear Section J: Thank you for inviting me to join you for Bridges to conclude your MBA journey. As a first-time Section Chair, I honestly was groping. It was a new role for me. How could I help you…

Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers.…

Now update for May 2026

A curated roundup of the latest JavaScript releases, tools, AI updates, and performance benchmarks to keep developers ahead this week.

Things I did Organized the garage and now I can find the tools I need without tripping over things that shouldn’t be there. Created a new project! Check out DisplayDrop , a simple digital signage…

What follows is an email I wrote to a former boss of mine, who happens to be the owner of the business. They have always been a bit crazy, a bit greedy and have always fostered dysfunctional…

I had hoped and expected that the chaos which had marked the start of the year — floors, termites, sickness, fires, ACL surgery — was largely behind us, and that I would be freed to find some sort of…

Reflections after a full year with the Forever✱Notes and cluster of other AI tools to capture and analyze my thinking.

Both your worst enemy and your best ally is you — knowing both exist helps you make better choices.

As April turns to May, I’m sending my seventh clipping from the garden: a collection of what I’ve been writing and reading since December . And before that, if I could quickly break the fourth wall:…

I just got accepted into Y Combinator. It feels like a dream, because their motto is something I’ve been turning over in my head since I was a kid reading Paul Graham’s essays on a CRT monitor. “Make…

It’s apparently been a whole month since the last edition of Monthly Meanderings . Not sure when that happened. This month I’ve been to a LAN party, had an MRI, and have been trying unsuccessfully to…

“I will narrativise until proved otherwise”This week, bab-hash.org is online! It's very cute. Sammy talks about the making of. Aljoscha is getting back on his feet, and has some music to share. And…

Aries May starts with a bang for Aries natives. Your tendency to be a leader could serve you well. At the start of the month, you have the opportunity to make real progress with goals as a period of…

How was the month? A lot of unproductive panicking over the finals. I think I just had the worst period I've ever had. And it wasn't even painful. It wasn't. I just felt like shit. I took an…

When candidates put AI on their resume, the key thing I try to find out is whether they used evals. How did you measure making improvements?

Talking to a colleague today, he suggested I at least throw up a couple sentences on Ye Old Blog explaining that I'm not dead in a ditch , seeing as how I pretty much dropped off the face of the…

I sent my postal vote off today. Anyone who turns up at my door or puts leaflets through my letterbox trying to persuade me to vote for them from now until next Thursday has missed out (apart from…

Weird fact about me: I’m cross-dominant (also known as being mixed-handed). Instead of having a dominant hand I use everything with, my hands are… Awkward. There are some tasks which my…

my best friend came by today and she had a gift~ i now own xia yi xhou's iconic necklace! and i know it might seem a little silly to be so endeared by such a thing, but i adore him, and bestie knows…

By GPT5.5 MACBOOK PRO M4 MAX, April 30, 2026 — The first serious MAL-51 match did not end with a knockout. It ended with both fighters standing in the middle of the ring, breathing hard,…

This week, a client accepted an offer. She's starting in June and said she couldn't have done it without me. 🥹 On the product side, I finally finished the client journey spec and built two new mini…

Welcome back to Dispatch, a personal roundup of videos, records, and anything that I found interesting this month. Think of Dispatch as my hopefully monthly mixtape from the internet with no real…

It dawned on me that I use a lot of notebooks. I'm really not sure if it's more than the average person, but I suspect that it is. It seems like most people aren't putting pen to paper…

«Just because it takes time, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.» unknown While the second edition of «Organizing Creativity» is fairly good, I saw it more [...]

I was thinking about skipping this month's update. My family and I have been ill, and between caring for eachother and working on my PhD, I've not had much time for anything else except rest. Rest…

I feel like I can breathe again for a moment. April is nearly over and it feels like I skipped through all of it. I am familiar with how stress affects my memory. I thought I had attended my friend's…

Today is my last day tutoring the cohort I was assigned in February. I've decided against sharing any potentially sensitive details about the student's, not because they will face any scrutiny as a…

The Illinois Council of Orchestras recently announced the 2026 recipients of its annual awards for excellence in the field of music performance and for support of musical organizations. I am honored…

A mindset I've struggled with since college is that if I'm not being productive then I'm wasting my time. I thought that mindset would go away once I graduated but I feel like it has made a comeback,…

I’m fortunate to talk with lots of quality and testing professionals looking for advice and resources to grow their careers. I’m lucky to have a bunch of resources that I can share. It…

We’ve all been there: the “stuck” phase. It’s that heavy, static feeling where your to-do list looks like a mountain range, your business feels like a ball and chain, and the “creative spark” you…

Three months into a sabbatical, six things became obvious. Most of them are about the damage we do to ourselves while calling it ambition.

Also other games what we have played and that and material on the AYN Thor downgrade. Also the Wii for some reason, oop, (the reason is that it’s the best console ever.) I have a cold that I’m fairly…

I used to ride the Amtrak train from DC to New York City regularly. The train has a “quiet car”—a section where everyone is supposed to be quiet so you can sleep or get some work…

I have an inkling that the entire world may be there tomorrow. I'm wondering if you might. I hate that she certainly will. I hope to keep my face and manners in check throughout the night. I wish the…

I read once about this Appalachian doctor who told a patient to take a certain medicine in the winter and to keep taking it "until snakes crawl" -- in other words, until warm spring weather. Tying…

What, if anything, has the impact of OKRs been for software teams that have adopted the practice? Read blog post