

I spent some time this week setting up macros in [Roll20](https://roll20.net/) for my D&D character and thought it'd be nice to share what I learnt. It was tough enough for me, a career software engineer, that it must be quite the struggle for a layperson. 

I'll treat this post as a tutorial - if you just want the scripts, you can [get them here](https://github.com/lhansford/roll20-macros/blob/main/player.md). This is also targeted at players, and so the scripts will be hardcoded to work with a single character.

## What are Roll20 macros?

Macros are little scripts to automate actions within Roll20. They can be displayed at the bottom of the game screen like so:

![The macro bar in Roll20](_files/macros.png)

## Some notes on the following macros

- Anywhere you see `CHARACTER_NAME`, replace it with your character's name.
- These macros all assume the character sheet is [the default D&D 5E sheet from Roll20](https://wiki.roll20.net/D%26D_5E_by_Roll20).

## Emote

```
/em *?{CHARACTER_NAME...|sighs.}*
```

Let's start with something basic. `/em` is a [chat command](https://wiki.roll20.net/Text_Chat#Emotes_.28.2Fem.29) and will post the text after it as an "emote". The asterisks surrounding the text will make the output italic. `?{CHARACTER_NAME...|sighs.}`, or `?{<title>|<default_value>}`, is a prompt to ask us for text input. When our macro runs we will see this:

![The input dialog for my emote macro](_files/emote.png)

Submitting will mean we run `/em *Mara tests a macro*` in the chat:

![The output of the emote macro](_files/emote2.png)

## Resistances

```
/w @{CHARACTER_NAME|character_name} &{template:default} {{name=Resistances & Advantages}} {{Resistances=Necrotic damage}} {{Saving throw advantage=Poison, disease}} {{Skill advantage=Religion checks to recall lore about deities of death, burial practices, and the afterlife.}}
```

To level up, let's use [a template](https://wiki.roll20.net/Roll_Templates). Templates are just a way of formatting the output in Roll20. The Roll20 D&D sheet doesn't do a good job at displaying resistances/immunities/etc., so I want a macro that posts these to the chat for quick reference.

`/w` is another chat command which will "whisper" the output for us (whisper meaning only you see it). We then use `&{template:default}` to specify the template we're going to use. Different templates will have different fields. In this case we have a `name` field which displays a title (i.e. `{{name=Resistances & Advantages}}`), and then any number of fields which we can name what we want, e.g. `{{Saving throw advantage="Poison, disease"}}`. The default table essentially outputs a table of two columns and infinite rows:

![The output of the resistances macro](_files/resistances.png)

## Spell slots

```
/w @{CHARACTER_NAME|character_name}&{template:default}{{name=Spell slots}}{{Level 1=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 2=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl2_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl2_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 3=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl3_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl3_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 4=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl4_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl4_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 5=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl5_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl5_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 6=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl6_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl6_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 7=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl7_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl7_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 8=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl8_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl8_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}{{Level 9=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl9_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl9_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}
```

In the previous example we just typed out our values, but ideally we can just reference what's already on our character sheet. This macro will output how many spell slots we have remaining per level. We have a bunch of rows that in our template that look like this:

```
{{Level 1=[[@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_total}[Total slots] - @{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_expended}[Used slots]]]}}
```

Here we're introducing the `[[...]]` syntax which is used to do math. Where also introducing `@{CHARACTER_NAME|attribute}[label]` which can be used to reference values on our character sheet (more attributes can be found [in the docs](https://wiki.roll20.net/D%26D5E_by_Roll20#Advanced_Use)). So for example `@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_total}[Total slots]` will return the number of slots we have at level 1 (e.g. 3) with a label "Total slots". We then subtract `@{CHARACTER_NAME|lvl1_slots_expended}[Used slots]` (e.g. 1) to get our final output (e.g. 2):

![The output of the spell slots macro](_files/spell-slots.png)

## Initiative

```
&{template:simple} {{rname=Initiative}} {{mod=Dex}} {{normal=1}} {{r1=[[d20+@{CHARACTER_NAME|initiative_bonus}[DEX] &{CHARACTER_NAME|tracker}]]}} {{charname=CHARACTER_NAME}}
```

Let's rolls some dice now. This macro will roll us into initiative. First off we use `&{template:simple}`. This is [a template specific to the D&D character sheets](https://wiki.roll20.net/D%26D_5e_by_Roll20_Roll_Templates). The fields are specific to the template and mostly self explanatory, except for `r1`: `[[d20+@{CHARACTER_NAME|initiative_bonus}[DEX] &{CHARACTER_NAME|tracker}]]`. This field contains our actual roll. We take a dice roll `d20` and add it to our initiative bonus (i.e. `@{CHARACTER_NAME|initiative_bonus}`). This is pretty straightforward, but at the end we have something new: `&{CHARACTER_NAME|tracker}`. This will take our initiative roll and set that as the value for our character in the turn tracker - your GM will thank you!

![The output of the initiative macro](_files/initiative.png)

## Skill checks

```
/w @{CHARACTER_NAME|character_name} &{template:default} {{name=Skill check}} {{Acrobatics=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics)}} {{Animal Handling=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|animal_handling_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|animal_handling)}} {{Arcana=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|arcana_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|arcana)}} {{Athletics=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|athletics_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|athletics)}} {{Deception=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|deception_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|deception)}} {{History=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|history_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|history)}} {{Insight=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|insight_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|insight)}} {{Intimidation=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|intimidation_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|intimidation)}} {{Investigation=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|investigation_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|investigation)}} {{Medicine=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|medicine_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|medicine)}} {{Nature=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|nature_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|nature)}} {{Perception=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|perception_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|perception)}} {{Performance=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|performance_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|performance)}} {{Persuasion=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|persuasion_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|persuasion)}} {{Religion=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|religion_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|religion)}} {{Sleight of hand=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|sleight_of_hand_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|sleight_of_hand)}} {{Stealth=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|stealth_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|stealth)}} {{Survival=[@{CHARACTER_NAME|survival_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|survival)}}
```

Our next macro is mostly the same as previous ones, but introduces the concept of buttons and triggering an ability on our character sheet. It will first print a table of all our skills, with the second column being buttons with our skill modifier as the label:

![The output of the skills macro](_files/skills.png)

Our buttons look like `[@{CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics_bonus}](~CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics)`. `[@{CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics_bonus}]` is the label for our button, while `(~CHARACTER_NAME|acrobatics)` is what happens when we click it, i.e. triggering the `acrobatics` ability on our character sheet. You can [check out all of the possible abilities here](https://wiki.roll20.net/D%26D5E_by_Roll20#Advanced_Use).

## Telekinetic shove

```
&{template:dmg}{{savedesc=Telekinetic Shove}}{{desc=As a bonus action, you can try to telekinetically shove one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. When you do so, the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + the ability modifier of the score increased by this feat) or be moved 5 feet toward you or away from you. A creature can willingly fail this save.}}{{save=1}}{{saveattr=STR}}{{savedc=[[8+@{CHARACTER_NAME|pb}[Proficiency]+@{CHARACTER_NAME|wisdom_mod}[Wisdom]]]}}
```

Some abilities might not be built into the character sheet. For example my character has the "Telekinetic shove" ability. The macro for this uses the `dmg` template to display fields relating to the saving throw needed. The DC though is something we need to calculate ourselves:

```
[[8+@{CHARACTER_NAME|pb}[Proficiency]+@{CHARACTER_NAME|wisdom_mod}[Wisdom]]]
```

![The output of the telekinetic shove macro](_files/telekinetic-shove.png)

## Cantrips/Level 1 spells

```
/w @{CHARACTER_NAME|character_name} &{template:default} {{name=Cantrip Select}} {{Cast= [@{CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$0_spellname}](~CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$0_spell) [@{CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$1_spellname}](~CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$1_spell) [@{CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$2_spellname}](~CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$2_spell) [@{CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$3_spellname}](~CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$3_spell) [@{CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$4_spellname}](~CHARACTER_NAME|repeating_spell-cantrip_$4_spell) }}
```

Spellcasting has probably been my biggest painpoint with the Roll20 D&D sheets, so I wanted a macro to speed things up a bit. This is similar to the skill check macro above - it whispers a list of cantrips my character has and buttons I can click to cast them:

![The output of the cantrip macro](_files/cantrips.png)

The new element here is the concept of "repeating sections". Rather than reference every spell individually, I can just refer to the index in the spell book, so `repeating_spell-cantrip_$0_spellname` is the name of my first cantrip, `repeating_spell-cantrip_$1_spellname` is my second cantrip, and so on. This save a bunch of typing, but do note that you'll need to update the macro each time your spells change to match the number you have.

For other spell levels just replace `cantrip` with `1`, `2`, etc.

## Rebuke death

This last macro is an example of using one macro to call another. My character has an ability called Rebuke Death (from Kobold Press' wizard subclass the White Necromancer). It's a bit of a nuanced ability that I can't keep in my head, so I wanted to have a macro that whisper's the description:

```
/w @{CHARACTER_NAME|character_name}&{template:traits}@{CHARACTER_NAME|charname_output}{{name=Rebuke Death}}{{source=Class: White Necromancer}}{{description=Also starting at 2nd level, you can use an action to heal a creature you can touch. The creature regains hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of 1). This feature can restore a creature to no more than half its hit point maximum. Once a creature has regained hit points from this feature, it can’t do so again until it finishes a long rest. [Send to chat](!&#13;#RebukeDeathPublic) }}
```

Most of that is similar to our previous macros. The one new addition is `[Send to chat](!&#13;#RebukeDeathPublic)`. This will add a button to our description that, when clicked, will trigger a second macro named `RebukeDeathPublic`:

![The output of the Rebuke Death macro](_files/rebuke-death.png)

The second macro looks almost the same, just this time it's sent to everyone:

```
&{template:traits} @{CHARACTER_NAME|charname_output} {{name=Rebuke Death}} {{source=Class: White Necromancer}} {{description=Also starting at 2nd level, you can use an action to heal a creature you can touch. The creature regains hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of 1). This feature can restore a creature to no more than half its hit point maximum. Once a creature has regained hit points from this feature, it can’t do so again until it finishes a long rest. }}
```

## Conclusion

This should hopefully introduce enough core concepts of Roll20 macros to allow you to build your own characters. I have a few more [macros here](https://github.com/lhansford/roll20-macros/blob/main/player.md) that you can use, and I'd love to hear what macros you're using in your own games!

An intro to using Roll20 macros when playing Dungeons & Dragons 5E.

Roll20 macros for Dungeons & Dragons 5E


Over the last few years I've started to default to using [Github Actions](https://github.com/features/actions) when it comes to CI. I've worked with a number of different offerings in the past, most noticeable AWS's suite of CI tools and Gitlab, but I've found Github Actions to be the best combination of simplicity and power for my purposes.

In this post I'll share my basic template for getting CI into a Javascript project. It presupposes that your projects already has processes for running linting, tests, and builds, and that you're somewhat familiar with [Github Actions syntax.](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions)

```yml
name: CI
on: [push]
```

To start off we're going to run this action on any push event to the repository. Depending on your git workflow you may want to exclude your default branch as you might be doing redundant runs of your CI.

```yml
jobs:
  install:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: 16
        cache: 'npm'
     - run: npm ci
```

Next we have our first job, `install`. The `install` job will checkout the repository code using `actions/checkout@v3`(this is repeated on each job). We're then setting up node using `actions/setup-node@v3`. We specify a node version, but the import parameter is `cache`. This will maintain a cache of our `node_modules`. We then run `npm ci` to install our production dependencies, which will all go into our new cache.

```yml
lint:
  needs: install
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest

  steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v3
  - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
    with:
      node-version: 16
      cache: 'npm'
  - run: npm ci
  - run: npm run lint
```

Our next job is `lint`, and you might notice it's almost exactly the same as the `install` job. We have two additional lines: `needs: install` tells the job to wait until after `install` is complete before starting, and `npm run lint` runs our actual linting process. The rest of the code performs a nice trick. As we're again setting up the cache with `actions/setup-node@v3`, when `npm ci` is called it's going to find that all the dependencies it needs to install are already in the cache and immediately jump to our linting step!

```yml
unit-test:
  needs: install
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  
  steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v3
  - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
    with:
      node-version: 16
      cache: 'npm'
  - run: npm ci
  - run: npm run test
  
build:
  needs: install
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest

  steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v3
  - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
    with:
      node-version: 16
      cache: 'npm'
  - run: npm ci
  - run: npm run build
```

Our last two jobs, `unit-test` and `build` repeat the same thing as `lint` did, just running their own particular processes. So why is it useful to structure the jobs this way? Well you might have noticed that all three jobs have `install` as a dependency. This means we can run our `install` job first, and then `unit-test`, `lint`, and `build` can run in parallel, reducing our CI time to the length of whatever our slowest job is.

This set up is a very basic configuration and hopefully something you might find useful for getting started with Github Actions. You can [view the full code example here](https://github.com/lhansford/perm-cli/blob/5991b8f588dc1f62c8f6be654a73e3b54cd8e073/.github/workflows/ci.yml).

My basic template for getting CI into a Javascript project.

Simple Github Actions CI for Javascript projects


I've long been a productivity nerd and over the years I've leaned into using [Todoist](https://todoist.com/) as my daily driver. This article describes the process I've come up with for using Todoist as an Engineering Manager.

## Personal work only

Before taking a look at my set up, I should point out a rule I have that overrides everything else: all shared work goes into Jira/Trello/Asana/<INSERT_YOUR_COMPANYS_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT_SOLUTION>. Siloed knowledge is not fun for anyone.

## One project for everything

This is the most unorthodox part of my set up. I often have multiple ongoing projects at any time, as well as numerous tasks that are standalone. Sectioning tasks into Todoist projects would mean I would lose visibility of all the parallel work I have going on, so instead I assign everything to one "Work" project.

![A view of my Todoist setup](https://lukehansford.me/images/todoist.png)

## Kanban board view

A couple of years ago Todoist introduced [a Kanban board view](https://blog.doist.com/kanban-board/) for projects, and that's what I stick to for my work. In both software engineering and management, tasks often have more than the two states of not done and done. In my setup I have the following states:

### Backlog

This is the default home for tasks.

### On hold

Sometimes I have tasks that aren't currently actionable, but will be at some future point in time or once some criteria is met. These I keep in an "On Hold" column. I prefix the task name with the criteria for it to be actionable, for example `[December] Review P&P checklist`.

### Time-sensitive

This is the backlog for tasks that have some sort of time sensitivity to them. For example a task such as `Give feedback to Jane` has a certain expiry date for how useful it would be.

As an aside, I don't use Todoist's due dates at all as I find very little of my work has an actual deadline.

### Blocking someone

This is the backlog for tasks that I know are blocking someone else from doing something. The titles for these tasks are prefixed with the name of the person being blocked, e.g. `[John] Followup with our conversation in last ML sync`.

### In progress

This column contains tasks I'm actively working on. I try to apply a Work In Progress (WIP) limit of 3 here.

### Blocked

This column contains tasks that I can't continue with due to some external blocker. In the task description I set the first line to describe what the specific reason for being blocked is, e.g. `WF: Feedback on the proposal` (WF being "waiting for").

### Needs reviewing

Sometimes tasks become stale or didn't have enough information to begin with. I place tickets like these here so I can review and update them later on.

## Labels

I use two labels, "high-impact" and "deep-work". High impact tasks are for those that I consider to be, unsurprisingly, high impact. Tasks without these label are considered to be low impact. The deep work label is applied to tasks that I might need a few hours of concentrated time to complete. Labelling these makes it easier for me to schedule that deep work ahead of time.

## Priorities and prioritising

I sparingly use the "Priority 1" tag in Todoist for tasks, specifically those that I have to get done ASAP (e.g. making a hiring decision or something similarly urgent). No other priority level is used to determine the priority of a task, however I do use other indicators to prioritise what I work on. The metadata I add to tasks allow me to form a pseudo-[Eisenhower Matrix](https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eisenhower-matrix) with the "high-impact" label standing in for "Important" and the "Time Sensitive" and "Blocking Someone" Kanban columns standing in for "Urgent".

## Working with projects

For work that has multiple parts to it, I mark it as "Priority 3" and use sub-tasks to track the different aspects of the project. The priority label is just used to denote a project - I don't treat it as an actual priority.

This is probably the weakest part of my set up. The main issue I come up against is that sub-tasks of a project might be in different states at the same time, for example one might be blocked, one might be blocking someone, and another might be in progress. This could be solved by using multiple projects in Todoist, however I still like the trade-off of using a single project and having more visibility of all my work.

## Conclusion

This is by no means a "final version" of this process. I try to have an agile approach to my workflows and constantly update them to better suit me as I change and as the work I'm doing changes. However I hope this gives you some ideas on how to work with Todoist. Feel free to leave a comment and share your own approach!

A look at the process I've come up with for using Todoist as an Engineering Manager.

How I use Todoist as an Engineering Manager



Following up from 2022's [year of habits](/posts/2022-the-year-of-habits), I am for 2023 to be my "year of health". This one is quite open-ended, but also with a pretty clear metric - do I feel healthier at the end of the year than I did at the start? Ideally in the process I'm making some good long-term choices and establishing long lasting habits. For this one I don't want to establish a bunch of goals at the start, but rather continue to revisit it over the course of the year and see what I can focus more on to improve my health. That said, I do have a few particular things in mind that I would like to achieve:

- Lose weight
- Eat healthier, ideally vegetarian
- Continues to care of my teeth
- Limit caffeine intake, drink more water
- Meditate more often

A dive into my yearly theme for 2023 - health.

2023: The year of health


Well well, it's been almost a year since I last posted on my blog (kind of, more about that later on), so it seems time for a yearly review. 2022 was an odd one for me. I had a big change in moving to Thailand, but otherwise it felt quite a flat year overall. Let's get into what happened.

## Year of habits

Early on I decided 2022 was going to be my [year of habits](/posts/2022-the-year-of-habits). It was a little bit of a cheat as you can make habits about anything really, but it was more the meta of my not being very god at forming and keeping habits (at least in the personal realm). So how did I go? Overall I'd say average some things I managed to make a habit of, others not so much. I listed a few priorities in my original post, so let's see how I went on each of them:

### Good dental hygiene

I did pretty decent on this one. I've been going to the dentist, and will take the time to brush my teeth with my daughter in the morning before she goes to school. Evenings are harder as I didn't really nail my sleep scheduling and would frequently just go straight to bed exhausted.

### Exercise

No success on this. This is a real problem for me and will feature a lot in my next yearly theme.

### Language study

I was doing well on this, but made a conscious choice to stop learning Thai a month or two in. I've learnt languages before, and while I'm a bit snooty about expats who live in a country and don't pick up the language, the cost-benefit analysis for continuing to learn Thai just didn't make sense for me - we don't intend to stay here for more than a few years, it's quite easy to get by with just English in Phuket, and I'd rather use that time to focus on other things.

### Regular sleep schedules

Having an alarm clock in the guise of a three year old made waking up at the same time each morning quite simple, so check on that one. But going to sleep at a consistent time? Well that was a failure, but I can chalk that up to the next priority I had...

### Reduced time playing games

And here we get to the crux of it. 2022 is the year that I fully realised I might have a problem with computer games. For years I've felt I spent too much time playing games. Never so much that it would impact my relationships or work, but when it came to downtime my overwhelming urge was to play video games. And so I aimed to limit myself to an hour a day. Yet each time my timer would ring after 60 minutes I would make some excuse up or say to myself "let's just finish the level".

My gaming impacted taking up these other habits too. Hard to sleep on time when you're gaming late into the night, ditto reading, and forget about exercise. I tried approaches like "bundling" or rationing my play time in different ways, but as I reached November I came to the bitter conclusion that I needed to fully quit computer games. It's now been almost 3 months without gaming, minus one or two relapse says (I was not prepared for 3 weeks of time-off from work), so we can maybe say this was a success if I can keep it going.

### Getting regular haircuts

Haha, nope.

### Reading

Like I said in the original post, "this is tied to regular sleeping times". I failed that, so I failed this too.

### Writing

This one was a qualified success. More often than not I sit down to write for 30 minutes a day. I love it and I feel off on days when I don't get to it. But you might also notice a distinct lack of blog posts in 2022. What I have been writing ends up in [the Notes section](https://lukehansford.me/notes) of my website - that is more unfinished and personal thoughts, not polished longer pieces of writing. In 2023 I'd like to consciously make space for the latter form of writing.

### Drink more water

Another qualified success. When I moved to Thailand I started drinking a lot of soft drinks to try and combat the heat. After a few months I realised that this was getting to be a pretty bad habit, so I started drinking straight soda water instead. Probably too much still, and it would be better to drink straight water, but I think it's an alright compromise. I'll sneak a sugary drink once a week or so, but nowhere near as much as I previously would have.

### Regularly talk to friends

I haven't been good at doing this in 2022.

## Weekly experiments

I started doing [weekly experiments](/notes/weekly-experiments) about halfway though the year. I quite enjoy doing this, but have also realised that I don't want to do it every week as sometimes my mind is elsewhere. This is okay and I'll try to embrace that in 2023!

## Moving to Thailand

Back to the tropics! This has been the main story of my life in 2022. I have mixed feelings on it. The decision to move was based on a career opportunity for my wife, which I was (and am) super happy to support. At the same time though I can say that Phuket is one of my least favourite places that I have lived - I'm not a beach or sun person, I miss the culture of a big city, and Thai food is a bit hit and miss for me (peanut and seafood allergies admittedly limit my choices here). I've warmed up to it over the year though and am trying to embrace the positives. There are two things  that I've struggled with more though: working remotely in a different timezone than my colleagues and living in a location which makes living "green" difficult.

In regards to the former, I've generally been starting work at 1pm and finishing at 9pm, though that schedule would change day to day based on things I needed to do in my personal life (swimming classes for my daughter, being the family taxi driver, going to the market to get dinner, etc.) and the needs of my colleagues (I have a few colleagues in the Americas so late night meetings happen from time to time). From this I had a few realisations that I need to grapple with in the coming year:

- I like working in the morning, it's when I'm most productive. I now don't have that at all.
- I have less time with my family as I'm working in the evening.
- I don't like splitting up my working day - it makes the work feel longer than it is.
- Once I finish work I tend to have a residual tenseness (not stress, not quite energy, more just an inability to fully relax). Which means I can't usually go to sleep straightaway if I have a later meeting, which then in turn messes with my sleep schedule.

The other thing I've struggled with in Phuket is how hard it makes it to live in an environmentally friendly way. The first realisation we had when we got here was that we would need to buy a car, as there's no public transport, the taxis charge an extortionate rate, and during the wet season cycling is not really an option. An electric car wasn't an option either as we didn't have the infrastructure to support it. The house we stayed in got almost no breeze, so air-con was required most of the time (thankfully we've moved and the new place is well ventilated). And the amount of plastic packaging used by restaurants, etc is quite shocking. Living in Sweden has made being environmentally friendly almost a default action, and so I've struggled to live this year in a way that doesn't feel hypocritical. When it comes to [climate change](/notes/climate-emergency) I'm much more of a "focus on the systems and corporation" guy, than an "individual action" one, but that doesn't mean I don't want to try my best to reduce my carbon footprint as well.

## Dungeons and Dragons

At the start of the year I joined an online D&D game hosted by the fantastic [DM Eric V](https://www.dmericv.com/). It's been a revelatory experience for as it combines the problem-solving challenges I like from computer games with a creative outlet and a chance to chat shit with a bunch of people once a week.

A look back at how things went for me in 2022.

2022 in review


2022 is going to be my "year of [habit](/notes/habits)". My yearly theme will be to start and keep habits - a pretty simple concept, but something I've not had a real hood track record with in the past. Having a theme is a departure from a set in stone [goal](/notes/goals) as it allows me to fail and try again without the mental burden of not having reached my initial goal. This idea is inspired by both [Mike Crittenden](https://critter.blog/2020/12/30/2021-the-year-of-courage/) and [CGP Grey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE).

At the end of the year I'd like to look back and say that I've started some new habits and dropped some bad ones. Below are a few that I'd like to prioritise for now, but I'd also like to think I can find some new ones to attempt as the year progresses.

## Good dental hygiene

I've always had pretty good teeth, but this has been from pure luck rather than diligent care (which drives my wife insane). I'm aware though that I'm really pushing that luck at this point, so I'd like to make it a habit of brushing, flossing, etc. twice a day and getting a checkup every 6 months.

## Exercise

This is an important one for me. I've never been a big exerciser, but over the last few years I've lost a lot of the ambient exercise I was getting (mainly walking and cycling a lot). I'd like to pick up running and using an exercise bike regularly (the balance is a little dependent on how well I acclimatise to the Phuket weather!).

## Language study

For the last 15 years I've been almost always studying a language (Chinese, Malay, Swedish, and now Thai). There's no secret to learning a language well, it just takes regular study and practice, so I'd like to make it a habit to do 30 minutes of language study a day. It's not enough time to get fluent fast, but good enough to make regular gains.

## Regular sleep schedules

I used to be okay with this, but since having a kid my sleep patterns have been pretty erratic, even after my daughter stopped waking up in the middle of the night. I'd like to return to getting up and sleeping at a regular time (including some sort of routine for getting ready to sleep every night).

## Reduced time playing games

I have a bad habit of losing track of time when gaming, so I'm going to limit myself to a max of 1 hour a day.

## Getting regular haircuts

I could blame the pandemic, but I've always had a bad habit of waiting too long to get my hair cut. This year I aim to stop traumatising hairdressers and get my hair trimmed when its still manageable.

## Reading

This is tide to regular sleeping times. I'd like to read for at least 30 minutes before sleeping every day.

## Writing

I'd like to get write for 30 minutes a day too. Just anything - notes, blog posts, newsletters.

## Drink more water

I'm not sure how much "more" actually is, but I'm going to try and track my water intake every day and see where I'm at. Might be a good replacement for a least one cup of coffee every day too (I'm not quite ready to make "less coffee" one of my goals though!).

## Regularly talk to friends

I'm not really great at keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances. I'd like to push myself a bit more on this.

A dive into my yearly theme for 2022 - habits.

2022: The year of habits


I've being using [ZSH](https://www.zsh.org/) as my default shell for probably about 6 or 7 years now. I've been carting around a `.zshrc` config file for about that long. I store it in Dropbox and symlink it to the home directory on the machines I use. This has generally worked quite well, but recently I've run into a particular issue.

In the past I've always shared a computer for work and personal use, but I'm in the process of setting up a new computer for personal use only so I can have a stricter separation between work and personal life.  When it came to syncing my `.zshrc` file however, I noticed that there were certain things in the file such as AWS credentials for work that I didn't really want to have on my personal machine. The solution was pretty straightforward, however. I split my config file into three files: `zshrc_personal`, `zshrc_work`, and `zshrc_shared`. The first two files would contain any config commands specific to those contexts and then one line of the special source (pun intended 😜):

```sh
source ~/Dropbox/config/ohmyzsh/zshrc_shared
```

This line imports the contents of `zshrc_shared`, so I can share config commands between both environments. Very handy!

A quick guide to splitting up a .zshrc file.

Splitting up a .zshrc file


Performance is one of things that we know we should pay attention to as developers, but in practice it can often take a backseat to just getting the thing you're building done. Recently at Fishbrain we redesigned [our Species pages](https://fishbrain.com/species/SCQyR-cP/largemouth-bass). The new version looks great, but when I popped open the network tab in Chrome I was a bit shocked to see that it was transferring over 10mb of data, most of which were images not even visible to the user on initial render.

This article lists a few techniques we used to reduce that payload and provide a better user experience.

## Properly size images

This is usually going to be the quickest win — don't serve images that are larger than a user will ever see them. Most of our images are coming from APIs which provide the ability to define the image dimensions, so that tends to be straightforward ([see "Contentful Image API" below](#contentful-image-api) for more info on that). We also have a handful of static images that we directly serve. For these I just manually resized them using [Squoosh](https://squoosh.app/).

## Losslessly optimise images

![Imageoptim](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/2N5HNgdzQTlVbJHP7ihGNl/3b834e2635bbebcce6c1ea156ac15ceb/imageoptim.png?h=300)

"Optimising" the images is another low hanging fruit. Images tend to accumulate metadata and other cruft, so running them through a tool like [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/mac) can lead to some surprisingly large gains.

## Lazy load images

Lazy loading images used to require a finicky Javascript solution, but these days it's part of the HTML specification and [readily available in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge](https://caniuse.com/loading-lazy-attr). All that's needed is to add a `loading` attribute:

```html
<img src="species.jpg" loading="lazy" />
```

For unsupported browsers this will be ignored, but there exists polyfills that can enable it for Safari or Internet Explorer.

## Placeholder images

Lazy loading is great for decreasing network payloads, but on a slow connection it can lead to a less than optimal user experience as you may get images popping up unexpectedly on the page. To get around this we implemented placeholder images — low resolution images that can be downloaded initially and displayed until the real image is fetched. Creating a blurred image of <10kb size is easy enough to do in an image editing tool, but the process is pretty labour intensive. Thankfully at Fishbrain we use [Thumbor](https://thumbor.readthedocs.io/) for processing user-created images. Thumbor allows us to append [filters](https://thumbor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/filters.html) to an image URL that will process the image on demand.

With a reduced size image in hand, we can set that as a background on our image element. When our real image loads it will cover up the placeholder image. The code ends up looking something this:

```css
.placeholder {
  background-image: url(/filters:quality(50):blur(50)/species.jpg);
  background-size: cover;
}
```

```html
<img src="species.jpg"  loading="lazy" classname="placeholder" />
```

![Blurred image](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/4keb2cg7ynbJNlwMP7Inut/7e85df83da81742314a7f73a1633aef7/blurred.jpeg?h=300)

For comparison this is the original image:

![Original image](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/CyP8j27tLazruCyH064GC/09218b78e374b8cd8a69759d993905c0/original.jpeg?h=300)

## Using WebP & AVIF

We can also make significant reductions in network payload by changing the format of the images we display. WebP is a good option as [it's supported by most modern browsers](https://caniuse.com/webp). And here we can again enlist the help of Thumbor which provides [a format option](https://thumbor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/format.html). For even larger gains we can use the AVIF format (Jake Archibald has [a great article about the advantages of AVIF](https://jakearchibald.com/2020/avif-has-landed/)). Unfortunately the support here is [only Chrome](https://caniuse.com/avif), but that's still a decent slice of our users covered.

## Contentful Image API

Some images on our page are fetched from a [Contentful](https://www.contentful.com/) CMS instance. Thankfully [Contentful provides an API](https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/references/images-api/) similar to Thumbor that allows us to resize and reformat our images as needed. It doesn't have a blur capability, which means we can't use placeholder images here, but they do allow reformatting to the Progressive JPEG format, which can have a similar effect.

## Results

Before making these changes our most visited page downloaded 8.4MB of images - regardless of whether you scrolled to view all the images or not. After the changes an initial render would download 963kB of images, with 1.5MB fetched if you scrolled to the end of the page. This should hopefully lead to a much improved user experience!

A look at some techniques we used at Fishbrain to improve image performance and provide a better user experience.

Improving images on fishbrain.com


[Check out my previous post about a Digital Detox](http://lukehansford.me/posts/digital-detox)

The detox continues, and I definitely notice myself being less drawn to pulling out my phone or switching over to Firefox for some mindless browsing. Unfortunately I'm noticing that I've replaced that time mostly with work and reading (the latter may seem harmless, but I've burned through 6 books in two week - when I read I tend to get a little obsessive!). Next week I'm going to try and rectify this by having something of a schedule for how I spend most of my free time and see if that helps.

Digital detox - week 2


[Check out my previous post about a Digital Detox](http://lukehansford.me/posts/digital-detox).

I've now been doing the digital detox for eight days and it's been an enlightening experience. I'd say I've managed to keep mostly on track. I didn't completely drop podcasts, and I spent a little time today watching Youtube, but other than those two I've stuck closely to my goals.

It's probably been a more difficult experience than it should have been due to my current circumstances. In his book Cal Newport recommends having particular projects to default too when feeling the urge to browse Twitter or read the news or whatever the particular habit is. I had these in place as I had a week's vacation planned for last week.

Unfortunately it coincided with my daughter getting sick and having to stay home from kindergarten, and I was able to spend much time working on those projects. It was still a fruitful week though, as I was able to observe some of the habits and patterns I had (most noticeably the habit of pulling out my phone at a moment's silence or boredom).

Digital detox - week 1


Recently I've been reading the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, and in it he proposes the concept of a "digital detox", wherein a person would refrain from any optional digital activities for a month. The goal is not necessarily to quit those things, but to help identify which activities add value to your life and which ones are unnecessary bad habits that have accrued over the years.

As I'm about to start a weeks vacation this feels like a good opportunity to try the concept out. My plan is to give up the following activities for the next 30 days:

-   Reading news websites. To be honest I don't think this is something I'll give up after the detox period - my educational background is in political science and keeping up to date on political affairs is something important to me, and the whiplash of the news cycle doesn't affect me as much as it does some people. The one exception I'll have to this rule is to check up on the current Covid-19 situation in Sweden (for which I use [thelocal.se](thelocal.se)).
-   Blogs. There's a bunch of websites that I cycle through when I have some downtime. The Verge, Rock Paper Shotgun, Factmag, AV Club, etc. These are gone.
-   Video streaming (e.g. Youtube, Netflix). Two exceptions to this one are that I'll allow myself to watch things with others (no way my wife is going to allow us to stop watching Schitt's Creek), and to stream live music performances while I do other activities.- Video games. This is going to be the hardest of the lot! I haven't even started and I can feel myself getting antsy about it. The exception to this is that I'll allow myself to continuing playing Ring Fit (which has a nice built in time limit due to my lack of fitness).
-   Facebook (not including Messenger which I use to stay in touch with my family).- Slack (outside of work hours).
-   Instagram
-   Reddit
-   Podcasts. This will be another difficult one. I've been spending the last hour making up elaborate rules for podcasts that would allow me to listen to them sometimes, but at the end of the day I think I'll be better just going cold turkey.
-   Discord
-   RSS feeds
    

I'm hoping to share an update next weekend with how it's been going!

Digital detox


Well, obviously that didn't go as expected! This post is going to focus on the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year and how I went with them. There's plenty that happened in 2020 that I'm not going to cover but the two main themes were "baby" and "pandemic" 🤷‍♂️.

## A new approach to goals

I really don't recall what inspired the approach to goals I took in 2020 - in hindsight I should have recorded my thoughts on the matter - but it essentially breaks down like this:

-   A focus area (e.g. guitar, swedish)
-   A final outcome. This is my end goal with the focus areas. For example for Swedish the outcome I'd wanted was "to be at a point where I can express myself clearly in Swedish and learn without resorting to another language".
-   2020 milestones. These were specific things I wanted to achieve in the focus area in 2020. For guitar my aim was "to be able to play and sing 6 songs from memory, with at least 3 of songs being of intermediate difficulty."
-   Next steps. These were individual, short-term tasks/goals to reach the 2020 milestones. My intention was that they would be very achievable - as an example for my Fitness focus area my first task was to "go for a run". Achieving one task would then require the creation of a new task that would get me closer to the associated milestone, e.g. "go for a run 3 times in 1 week".

For the milestones and next steps I tried my best to follow the [SMART criteria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria) for goal setting. Some focus areas had no final outcome as they were something I'd like to be a lifelong process (e.g. getting better at guitar). I also had one focus area - Improve the World - that had no 2020 milestone, as I was uncertain of what path it would take and how I might measure it.

## Outcomes

I'd say I had mixed success with this system. I don't think I reached my milestones for any of the focus areas, and yet for some I did find myself making regular progress. I'm going to stick with the system in 2021 I think.

Let's delve a bit more into how each focus area and how I'd like to continue with it in 2021:

### Guitar

This is the one I'd say I had the most progress with, at least for the first half of the year. My milestone was "to be able to play and sing 6 songs from memory, with at least 3 of songs being of intermediate difficulty." I'm not quite there, but I'm not far off I'd say. Two things made this pretty easy to progress with. First was having very clear and linear next steps, i.e. "Learn to play song X without reading a tab". The second was having a young daughter who really enjoyed sitting and listening to guitar. The latter, however, started to backfire once she started moving and wanted to hold both the guitar and phone I was using to learn the songs with!

In 2021 I'm going to change my focus here to be less on rote memorisation and more about learning the fundamentals of guitar/music theory - concepts like chord progressions, keys, etc. My initial milestone will be to finish the [Intermediate level of Justin Sandercoe's guitar lessons](https://www.justinguitar.com/site-map-and-lesson-structure). I say initial as I'm a little uncertain what I may already know so it's hard to gauge the time I'll need to put in.

### Electronic Music

My milestone was to "release an EP or something equivalent of music that I'm proud of and would listen to if made by another artist". I utterly failed at this, not even completing a single "next step". I'd like to keep the same milestone for 2021, but I'll need to work on how I can create smaller goals for myself to help me get there.

### Electronics

I had three goals here:

-   Be regularly building things
-   Work on a larger project
-   Build something of my own design

I'd say I've kind of accomplished the latter two, but it's more of a coincidence as a recently got interested in [Cyberdecks](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/) and have started constructing my own. My initial intention for this though was to focus on creating musical instruments with electronics, and I haven't done a lot with that. I'm a little uncertain if I want to actually keep this as a focus area for 2021. I'm going to leave it as a maybe for now.

### Swedish

My milestones here were "to be able to speak Swedish for daily errands like ordering food, etc." and "to be able to read a magazine article or short story with reasonable comprehension without using a dictionary". The first one I'm kind of there, though there's not a lot of outside communication in these pandemic times, so that's more theoretical than anything. The second milestone I've definitely not reached though. I don't think I'll change much here for 2021, though I need to think more about how I can be more consistent in striving for this one.

### Fitness

My milestone was "run 365km in 2020". I didn't come anywhere close to this 😅. I'm not good at motivating myself to do exercise, however one thing I discovered in 2020 that I found worked better was [Ring Fit Adventure](https://ringfitadventure.nintendo.com/). So for 2021 I'm going to structure my fitness goals around that!

### Improve the world

As mentioned previously I didn't have a milestone for this one as I wasn't really sure where I wanted this to go. Instead I had one next action which was to attend meetups in Stockholm in the hope of gaining inspiration for how I could use my skills to do something better for the world. The pandemic threw a spanner in the works on that one. The other main action I took in this direction was to donate more to charities. I think this focus suffered the most from not having clearly defined goals, so that's something I'd like to change for 2021. I still don't think I'm going to box myself in by defining a milestone here, but I'll aim to make the next steps as actionable as possible.

2020 in Review


One thing I've been struggling with recently working on [fishbrain.com](https://fishbrain.com) is the high cost of hydrating server rendered React. While server-side rendering brings us a lot of benefits, it does take a fair amount of time to hydrate, which can be particularly frustrating if you're hydrating elements of the page that the user is not immediately going to interact with, or even possibly see.

One potential work around is to use the Idle-Until-Urgent pattern. Philip Walton does a far better job than I can explaining the details of the pattern in [his blog post on the matter](https://philipwalton.com/articles/idle-until-urgent/), so I'd recommend checking that out, but the basic gist of the pattern is:

-   to delay the execution of code until the browser not executing any code (this is the 'idle').
-   allow some sort of trigger to execute the code before the idle stage if needed (this is the 'urgent').

What this means for our React use case, is that we would delay hydration of a component either until the browser stops executing code, or, if the user interacts with the unhydrated element, we can hydrate it on demand. My implementation was initially based on [another great article from Kumar Swapnil](https://dev.to/uzumakinarut0/optimizing-react-performance-part-i-n83).

## The code

This a component that will wrap around another React component to make it use the idle-until-urgent pattern:

```javascript
import React, { useState, ReactNode, useEffect } from 'react';
// This is a simple library we use to tell us if the code is running in Node or in a browser.
import isNode from 'detect-node';

export const IdleUntilUrgent = ({ children, htmlElement }) => {
  const [callbackId, setCallbackId] = useState(null);
  const [renderChild, setRenderChild] = useState(false);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (!isNode) {
      if (typeof window.requestIdleCallback !== 'undefined') {
        // https://caniuse.com/#search=requestIdleCallback
        setCallbackId(
          window.requestIdleCallback(() => {
            setRenderChild(true);
          }),
        );
      } else {
        setTimeout(() => {
          setRenderChild(true);
        });
      }
    }
  }, []);

  if (!isNode && !renderChild) {
    // eslint-disable-next-line react/no-danger-with-children
    return React.createElement(
      htmlElement,
      {
        dangerouslySetInnerHTML: { __html: '' },
        suppressHydrationWarning: true,
        onClick: () => setRenderChild(true),
      },
      null,
    );
  }

  // Cancel the already scheduled render, if any
  if (!isNode && callbackId) {
    window.cancelIdleCallback(callbackId);
  }

  return children;
};
```

In use it would look something like this:

```jsx
<IdleUntilUrgent htmlElement="button">
  <button>Click me</button>
</IdleUntilUrgent>
```

## Breaking it down

First we store the two bits of state we need. A callback ID (so we can cancel the callback if needed), and a flag telling us if the child should be rendered or not.

```javascript
const [callbackId, setCallbackId] = useState(null);
const [renderChild, setRenderChild] = useState(false);
```

Next we use a `useEffect` hook, triggered only once, that will set a callback using the `requestIdleCallback` API. This will trigger whenever the browser is idle. As it is not supported in all browsers, we have a backup option of using a timeout, which will trigger on the next event loop.

```javascript
useEffect(() => {
  if (!isNode) {
    if (typeof window.requestIdleCallback !== 'undefined') {
      // https://caniuse.com/#search=requestIdleCallback
      setCallbackId(
        window.requestIdleCallback(() => {
          setRenderChild(true);
        }),
      );
    } else {
      setTimeout(() => {
        setRenderChild(true);
      });
    }
  }
}, []);
```

If we're rendering in the browser, and we're still waiting for our idle or urgent callback, we want to skip hydration. This is possible by returning a react element with `dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: '' }}` .One thing to note is `onClick: () => setRenderChild(true)`. This is our "Urgent" part of the pattern - if a user clicks the element we want to hydrate the component immediately. Another important thing to note is that this will only work if we're rendering the same type of HTMLelement - a pitfall I ran into by initially writing something like: `<div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: '' }}><button>click me</button></div>`.

```javascript
if (!isNode && !renderChild) {
  // eslint-disable-next-line react/no-danger-with-children
  return React.createElement(
    htmlElement,
    {
      dangerouslySetInnerHTML: { __html: '' },
      suppressHydrationWarning: true,
      onClick: () => setRenderChild(true),
    },
    null,
  );
}
```

The last part is pretty straightforward. Either we're in Node, and we want to render as normal, or `renderChild` is true, meaning that idle callback was triggered or the user clicked on the element, so it's time to hydrate (cleaning up our callback along the way).

```javascript
if (!isNode && callbackId) {
  window.cancelIdleCallback(callbackId);
}

return children;
```

## Performance impact

We opted to test this out on one of our most heavily visited pages on fishbrain.com - the waters pages ([here's an example of one such page](https://fishbrain.com/fishing-waters/Icur1OcV/brisbane-river)). This is what the flamegraph for the React render looked like:

![Flamegraph before changes](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/3sju5mH8RgsAFCuNmP0CPS/8288ce017e97ab4f643d3647bc707c03/initial.png?h=300)

Some of the components run so deep that they wouldn't fit on the screen. A particularly bad offender was the Tabs component:

![Tabs flamegraph](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/7tPu8fdu0RnNT1QbZMbub0/e5dd817f5980c46c5a269b6b692d08fa/tabs.png?h=300)

From this we we're able to identify 4 particular components that were taking a long time to hydrate while not being something that need render immediately for any user benefit. Wrapping these components led to a decreased from approximately 450ms to hydrate to <100ms!

![Flamegraph after applying IdleUntilUrgent](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/58Tys8f11U8Yi6TjbRx6tV/fff046e7125df773d4cd15db7c575593/with-idle-until-urgent.png?h=300)

We also found that the IdleUntilUrgent components would hydrate pretty quickly after the initial hydration (usually less than 0.5s), so only an extremely quick user would be able to interact with an idled component.

## Conclusion

All of the above being said, this is not a pattern we're going to be using this all over the place.As is usual with these kind of performance hacks, it's something we only want to use in particular cases, but for those cases it's an impressively useful tool.

The Idle-Until-Urgent Pattern in React


## Reading

### [An Honest Review of Gatsby](https://cra.mr/an-honest-review-of-gatsby/)

I kind of wish I'd read this article from Sentry before trying to migrate the Fishbrain tech blog from Medium to Gatsby. While there are some cool aspects of Gatsby, the whole "everything is Graphql" approach feels way overkill for a blog.

### [City of Amsterdam Algorithm Register](https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/ai-register/)

I love this concept of an algorithm registry that the City of Amsterdam has. Algorithms are a bit of a boogeyman, but at the end of the day its just a way of rearranging and transforming data. I'd be curious if anyone knows of apps that do something similar? I'd love to see something like a Facebook or Amazon algorithm registry!

### [On Call Shouldn’t Suck: A Guide For Managers](https://charity.wtf/2020/10/03/on-call-shouldnt-suck-a-guide-for-managers/)

Charity Majors is a continual font of knowledge for an inexperienced engineering manager such as myself. While I'm not directly involved in my company's on call setup, I am tangentially involved, and I found this article enlightening. I can definitely see how a poor on call situation could easily death spiral an engineering team. As Charity puts it:

> And if your on call experience is mandatory and severely life-impacting, and if you don’t take this dead seriously and fix it ASAP? I hope your team will leave you, and go find a place that truly values their time and sleep.

## Listening

### [Autechre - SIGN](https://autechre.bandcamp.com/album/sign)

It's Autechre, so you can't go too wrong! It starts off in the vein of their NTS Sessions form a few years back, but pretty quickly dives into ambient-is tunes that I wouldn't necessarily associate the group with. It's lovely stuff though.

### https://din.org.uk/album/an-ascent-din63[Scanner - An Ascent](https://din.org.uk/album/an-ascent-din63)

I'm mostly familiar with Scanner via his appearances on a bunch of music tech webcasts and his early 90s IDM tracks. His recent work that I'd listened to seemed to be more towards the performance art side of things - something which I appreciate but don't tend to return to much. _An Ascent_, however, is an amazing collection of ambient soundscapes. I'm all the more impressed that this is done completely on modular.

One thing I've noticed as I've built out my own modular system over the years is that my ears have become trained to identify how sounds were made, thus removing some of the air of mystery that electronic music has. This album, however, is by no means obvious in it's construction, and I think that's why it appeals to me so much at this point in time.

Ephemera - 17th October, 2020


## Reading

### [Former employees accuse Cards Against Humanity of a racist and sexist office culture](https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/23/21300435/cards-against-humanity-max-temkin-report)

This article goes into the accusations of racism and sexism at Cards Against Humanity, specifically regarding co-founder Max Temkin. While CAH definitely hasn't aged well and I probably wouldn't feel super comfortable playing it these days, this hit me a little hard because for the last few years one of my favourite podcasts has been [Do By Friday](http://dobyfriday.com/), of which Temkin was a co-host.

I'm not one to wring hands too much when a cultural figure is exposed for their wrongdoings - in a world overwhelmed with quality music, film, and other forms of media I don't really see why anyone feels the need to argue that there's nothing wrong with enjoying a R Kelly song or Louis CK bit. But there's something more personal about podcasts that made this hit home a little for me. It was interesting to hear Temkin's co-hosts grapple with the situation in the episode after the revelation (it seems as if he is ghosting everyone?), and I'm glad they addressed it upfront and honestly.

### [When Friends Fuck Up, and So Do I](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/06/25/when-friends-fuck-up-and-so-do-i/)

Sci-fi author John Scalzi wrote this raw and honest post about his possible complicity/complacency in the above situation and a few other similar ones.

### [Twitter thread on writing processes](https://twitter.com/mikeduncan/status/1273261668315824134)

Author/podcaster/historian Mike Duncan lays out his process for writing his books and podcast episodes in this Twitter thread. Basically it boils down to breaking everything into atomic ideas, from book, to chapters, down to paragraphs. I'm looking forward to reading his biography of the Marquis de Lafayette with potential paragraphs such as "Eligible Bachelor!", "Army is fucked", "I'll buy a boat", and "Fuck the Frenchies". For those of you unfamiliar with Mike Duncan, his [Revolutions Podcast](https://www.revolutionspodcast.com) is my vote for the best history podcast out there.

## Listening

### [Juneteenth Bandcamp list by Surgeon](https://buymusic.club/list/surgeon-bandcamp-juneteenth-list)

Techno artist Surgeon shares some of his favourite music from Black artists on Bandcamp. The techno recommendations are great (I picked up releases by Claude Young Jr and Robert Hood), but there's some other classics here like Kamasi Washington's 'The Epic', A Guy Called Gerald's 'Black Secret Technology', and Actress' collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra.

## Watching

### [How Barker built a plate reverb for percussive experiments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9-qpMqhuPU&t=127s)

Barker has been one of my favourite electronic musicians of the last few years. This video goes in to some of his production techniques, specifically the use of physical reverb modelling which seems to be one of secrets behind his unique sound.

## Giving To

This is a new section for my Ephemera posts. I'm trying to make more of an effort to donate to charities and contribute to society in other ways (I might write an article about that some time), and I thought it'd be nice to share a little about it here.

### [Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT)](https://www.alsnswact.org.au/)

The BLM uprisings in the US recently inspired similar action around the world, including in Australia where deaths in custody has long been an issue for Aboriginal Australians. While I'd like to imagine I'd be marching in support if I was back in Australia, I'm currently on the other side of the world. My small contribution has been to give to the ALS (NSW/ACT), the pioneering organisation providing legal support to the Aboriginal community.

Ephemera - 28th June, 2020


A couple of years ago I started working with a Ruby on Rails codebase and was stunned by how more well thought out the test were in comparison to Javascript codebases I'd worked with. In particular I loved that the axiom of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) applied to testing - something that seems obvious to do in hindsight.

Over time I've been picking up the parts of Ruby testing that I found particular useful and applying them to JS testing. A common pattern I run into is having to test a basic functionality that might apply across a whole category of component or function types. This post is going to show a small of example of how we can do this in Javascript.

Let's start with a non-DRY test. The following test suite is for a BlogPost component, and we want to test that it has HTML metadata (i.e. a title and a description). For this example we're using [Jest](https://jestjs.io/) and [React Testing Libary](https://testing-library.com/docs/react-testing-library/intro), but the concept should be applicable to whichever testing framework you use.

```javascript
import { render } from '@testing-library/react';

describe('BlogPost' , () => {
  render(<BlogPost />);

  it('Renders metadata', () => {
    expect(document.title).toEqual(title);
    expect(document.querySelector("meta[name='description']")).toHaveAttribute(
      'content',
      description,
    );
  });
});
```

If our app has other pages, then HTML metadata is probably a useful thing to test for on those as well. Making our test reusable is as simple as moving it to it's own function that accepts as arguments the values we want to test for.

```javascript
import { render } from '@testing-library/react';

function itHasMetadata({ title, description }) {
  it('Renders metatags', () => {
    expect(document.title).toEqual(title);
    expect(document.querySelector("meta[name='description']")).toHaveAttribute(
      'content',
      description,
    );
  });
}

describe('BlogPost' , () => {
  render(<BlogPost />);

  itHasMetadata({ title: 'Blog', description: 'Some description' });
});

describe('Homepage' , () => {
  render(<Homepage />);

  itHasMetadata({ title: 'Home', description: 'Some description' });
});
```

Our metadata test is now DRY! Refactoring our test like this also allows us to compose them. Let's say our `BlogPost` and `Homepage` components share multiple similar tests - we can roll them into one function that applies those tests together.

```javascript
export function itBehavesLikeAPage(title, description, url) {
  itHasMetadata(metadata);
  itHasAHeading();
  itHasACanonicalUrl();
}

describe('BlogPost' , () => {
  render(<BlogPost />);

  itBehavesLikeAPage({ title: 'Blog', description: '...' });
});

describe('HomePage' , () => {
  render(<Homepage />);

  itBehavesLikeAPage({ title: 'Home', description: '...' });
});
```

One added benefit of writing our tests in this way is that it makes jumping into Test Driven Development (TDD) a lot easier. I personally gain a lot from doing TDD, but I often find myself skipping past the tests because I just want to get my hands dirty coding a solution instead of spending the time writing a new test. But when writing that test is as simple as importing my reusable test I don't have any excuse not to do proper TDD!

DRY unit tests in Javascript


## Reading

[How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real#)

[Thinking in React Hooks](https://wattenberger.com/blog/react-hooks)

Ephemera - 15th December, 2019


I've been a little sporadic with these posts this year. Maybe next year I can be more consistent...or maybe not.

## Reading

### [Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi's India](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india)

I was aware of Modi's political history, but not quite to the extent that this article lays out. It's quite terrifying to me that this has become a somewhat normal political situation around the globe in recent years (I'm thinking of the mass imprisonment of Uighurs and other minorities in China, the extra-judicial killings that occur in the Philippines, and police brutality and state sponsored violence occurring in numerous countries at the moment, among other issues).

### [52 things I learned in 2019](https://medium.com/fluxx-studio-notes/52-things-i-learned-in-2019-8ee483e6c816)

I know Tom Whitwell through the Eurorack world for his work as the behind [Music Thing Modular](https://musicthing.co.uk/),but I've also grown to love his yearly round up of weird things he learnt in the previous year.

A few favourites:

> The goal of walking 10,000 steps per day may have originated when a Japanese pedometer manufacturer noticed that the 万 symbol (which means 10,000) looks a little like someone walking. The actual health merits of that number ‘have never been validated by research.’

> mobile phones became mainstream in the US in the early 1990s, the murder rate fell sharply. Street drug dealing became less popular, so gang-related turf wars were less common.

> Drunk shopping could be a $45bn /year industry, and only 6% of people regret their drunk purchases.

Ephemera - 8th December, 2019


## Reading

### [TypeScript 3.0: The unknown Type](https://mariusschulz.com/blog/typescript-3-0-the-unknown-type)

I'm immediately going to start using the `unknown` type in my TypeScript projects after learning about it in this post from @mariusschulz. No more using `any` when I'm a little unsure of how to type data coming from the server!

### [const assertions are the killer new TypeScript feature](https://blog.logrocket.com/const-assertions-are-the-killer-new-typescript-feature-b73451f35802)

"killer new feature" generally feels too hyperbolic for me, but in this case I kind of agree. We've been using const assertions at work while building a component library and it massively reduces the number of interfaces we'd usually write.

### [Building that admin dashboard](https://medium.com/fishbrain/building-that-admin-dashboard-9a24c5fe569)

Building admin tools can be surprisingly hard! One of my colleague's at Fishbrain has written a great blog post on some of the challenges we've faced doing just that.

## Listening

### Steevio - Forgotten Futures

A Eurorack hero of mine. Steevio's jazzy techno tunes are all the more impressive for knowing that they're being constructed on the fly.

## Watching

### [Fun with React Hooks - Michael Jackson and Ryan Florence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jWS7cCuUXw)

I really came away from these two talks with a much more comprehensive understanding of React hooks, plus some great new ideas on how I could use them in my own work.

Ephemera - 30th May, 2019


## Reading

### [Gradually, Then Suddenly](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gradually-suddenly-tim-o-reilly/)

Tim O'Reilly reviews 10 areas of technology that he expects to see breakthroughs in overcoming years. It's a quick read, but one that'll probably inspire you in one way or another. I'm particularly intrigued by the agricultural technologies he discusses, and that's rabbit hole I'm now currently going down.

## Listening

### [Demdike Stare - Stitch By Stitch Tape 4](https://soundcloud.com/modernlove/demdike-stare-stitch-by-stitch-tape-4)

Turns out that Demdike Stare put out four tape mixes of dark dubby drones last year(on top of the excellent album Passion). It's been my work soundtrack all week.

### [Various - Life & Death On The New York Dance Floor 1980-1983 Part I & II](https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23381)

> I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan" - LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

The 80s NY disco scene is a musical era I'd heard spoken of before, but not one I'd ever explored much besides the peripheries were it crossed over into New Wave or other 80s electronic movements. This compilation definitely make me want to learn more about it though. The sounds here really bridge the gap between New York new/no wave bands of the same time and the kind of music that was soon to be made for the clubs of Detroit and Chicago (and later, Manchester).

Ephemera - 1st February, 2019


## Reading

### [We have the techno-logy: building a Eurorack system for live techno]](https://www.noiseengineering.us/blog/2019/1/4/we-have-the-techno-logy-building-a-eurorack-system-for-live-techno)

Noise Engineering has put together an overview of what you need in a Eurorack system to make banging techno (with two Basimilus Iteritas Alters of course!). I'm going to be cribbing some ideas for my setup from here over the coming week.

### [Assorted novels from Robert Jackson Bennett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jackson_Bennett)

Over the holiday period I read 4 novels from American fantasy author Robert Jackson Bennett. I started with _Foundryside_, which plays out as a fantasy story parsed through a cyber-punk heist caper. It's a truly intriguing story and I'm pretty keen to read the next entry in the series later this year.

After that I went back and read Bennett's _The Divine Cities_ trilogy. The world-building here was also fascinating, delving into elements of colonialism and religion. While the pacing was as tight as in _Foundryside_, I still found it an enjoyable read.

Ephemera - 19th January, 2019


## Watching

### [Building Impossible Programs](https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/09/18/build-impossible-programs/)

Julia Evans does a great talk about building a Ruby profiler. It's a nice reminder that just because an app/tool/program doesn't exist, doesn't mean that it can't be built!

Ephemera - 1st October, 2018


## Reading

### [How To Deal with Dirty Side Effects in Your Pure Functional Javascript](https://jrsinclair.com/articles/2018/how-to-deal-with-dirty-side-effects-in-your-pure-functional-javascript/)

This is a great intro to a more intermediate level of functional programming in JS (and maybe just FP in general). Functors, monads, and general removal of side effects. The tie in with Tensorflow at the end is nice too! I've started a new job in the last month were the main language I write in is Ruby. While there are touches of functional programming style, it is mostly classic OOP, and it's made me very quickly appreciate how suited Javascript could be for functional programming if you use a little bit of coding discipline.

Ephemera - 23rd September, 2018


## Reading

### [Annoyed by Restaurant Playlists, a Master Musician Made His Own](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/dining/restaurant-music-playlists-ryuichi-sakamoto.html)

This article feels like peak-Ryuichi Sakamoto. Good background music will make me return to an average restaurant or bar every time. And that playlist is ace - it warms my heart to know he's a fan of both Aphex Twin and Oneohtrix Point Never.

### [The mysterious heart of the Roland TR-808 drum machine](http://secretlifeofsynthesizers.com/the-strange-heart-of-the-roland-tr-808/)

I often thought of electronics as being made up of stolid, identical components, but over the last year I've learnt how different two instances of the same IC can be. Turns out the classic TR808 drum machine uses these "defective" ICs to its advantage

## Watching

### [WHY WE BLEEP 006: SCANNER](https://www.whywebleep.com/whywebleep/2018/30/whywebleep006)

This interview was not exactly what I expected. A lot less music tech geekery and a lot more in the way of philosophies on life. I've been trying to journal ever since watching it, though to be honest I haven't been doing very well!

Ephemera - 2nd September, 2018


## Reading

## [Memorizing these three statistics will help you understand the world](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Max-Roser-three-facts-everyone-should-know)

The title is a little clickbait-y (though that's pretty run-of-the-mill these days), but the article itself is still worthy. Essentially it's a bunch of statistics, and pretty well known ones at that, but it is nice to have a condensed reminder of the positive changes humanity has made in the last century and offset the general pessimism that seems to be the trend at the moment.

Ephemera - 1st July, 2018


## Reading

### [What He Does With What He Has: Blawan Interviewed](http://thequietus.com/articles/24794-blawan-jamie-roberts-interview)

Like most people I became familiar with Blawan after hearing 'Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage', and his subsequent disappearance from the musical landscape always left me wanting more. This interview with The Quietus explains where he went to, and how he evolved from the frantic horror-dubstep of his earlier releases to the oddly-organic minimal techno he's making nowadays.

### [The radical lessons of a year reporting on knife crime](https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2018/jun/21/radical-lessons-knife-crime-beyond-the-blade)

A fascinating look into the facts and perceptions of knife crime in the UK. Particularly interesting are the parallels between violence and infectious disease, and how treating crime as a public health issue can yield results.

## Listening

### Blawan - Wet Will Always Dry

See the reading recommendation above! Excellently tailored minimal/industrial techno.

Ephemera - 24th June, 2018


## Reading

### [UTC is enough for everyone...right?](https://zachholman.com/talk/utc-is-enough-for-everyone-right)

A great article and great web design is always a killer combo. Also a timely (yeah, pun intended) reminder of why time is one of the more complex areas of computer science.

### [Friday Facts #246 - The GUI update (Part 3)](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-246)

I've not played Factorio before, but even so I loved this deep dive into the surprisingly complicated issue of button placement in application UIs. The [Hacker News conversation](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17269938) about this article is equally informative

Ephemera - 17th June, 2018


Today I've got a bunch of short recommendations as I've been procrastinating compiling them for the last few weeks.

## Reading

### [How referendums break democracies by Tim Harford](http://timharford.com/2018/03/how-referendums-break-democracies/)

Tim Harford is an economics author who I keep returning to as a small dose of sanity in the chaotic political atmosphere of the last few years.

### [How to Write a Git Commit Message by Chris Beams](https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/)

Sage advice for the coders among you. I revisited this article while rewriting the code quality guideline for the company I work for. Commits messages are a simple thing on the face of it, but doing them correctly can make a massive difference to communication in a development team.

### [What I Don't Like About Capitalism (Part I) by Dave Rupert](https://daverupert.com/2018/04/what-i-don-t-like-about-capitalism-part-i/)

Written from a tech workers perspective. I'm only partially on board with the thesis as I believe the denigration "low-quality goods and services" can be an overly simplified argument that ignores economic imbalances on a global scale, but I still think Dave make a generally good point in the article.

### [A Taxonomy of Technical Debt](https://engineering.riotgames.com/news/taxonomy-tech-debt)

This article is no fucking joke. I immediately forwarded it to the entire tech team at my office. The author has, in my opinion, nailed the nebulous concept that is technical debt.

### [An Engineer's Bill of Rights (And Responsibilities) by Charity Majors](https://charity.wtf/2018/03/30/an-engineers-bill-of-rights-and-responsibilities/)

Not much to say on this other than give it a read if you're a software engineer.

### https://work.qz.com/1254663/job-interviews-for-programmers-now-often-come-with-days-of-unpaid-homework/[The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework](https://work.qz.com/1254663/job-interviews-for-programmers-now-often-come-with-days-of-unpaid-homework/)

Oh man, this article hit me hard. I'm currently sitting on both sides of the fence of this "trend", having experienced such requests in my current job search, while also giving out such assignments while trying to hire for my current company. I have to admit that I haven't previously thought to hard on how requesting chunks of time from a job applicant can make the playing field uneven, and, after reading this article (and the Hacker News discussion around it) I'm definitely going to be working on changing our hiring process in my current job before I move on.

### [Estimation Is a Core Competency by Gina Trapani](https://trackchanges.postlight.com/estimation-is-a-core-competency-36dfc1dfdea3)

Gina Trapani calls out the bullshit "estimation is impossible" argument that every dev has been guilty of making at some point in time (myself included).

Ephemera - 6th May, 2018


Well I broke the chain again, though to be honest it was more just to a lack of anything to talk about rather than procrastinating/forgetting to write something like usual.

## Reading

### [Provenance by Ann Leckie](https://www.amazon.com/Provenance-Ann-Leckie-ebook/dp/B06XW6YTKV/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

I spotted this on this year's Hugo Awards shortlist; I had no idea that Leckie has a new book out already, so it was a pleasant surprise. I'm only about halfway through it, but Provenance is so far proving to be of the same calibre as the Ancillary series, with the same world-building that has a way of making you question your own preconceptions about society.

### [All rise and no fall: how Civilization reinforces a dangerous myth](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/15/all-rise-and-no-fall-how-civilization-reinforces-a-dangerous-myth/)

As a strategy game fiend and someone who sits very much on the political left, this article hit very close to home for me. A lot of historical strategy games ascribe strongly to the "great men" view of history, paving over the realities of the eras they're set in. But it's of course a tricky situation for developer who must balance historicity with fun, and it seems to be a rather large challenge simulating the fall of a player's empire. As an aside, the article offer Crusader Kings 2 as a good example of an alternative to Civilization's growth at all costs mentality, but I'd suggest another game from Paradox, Victoria 2 as a better example - it's simulation of communist or fascist uprisings, or the brutality of an economic depression show a path where a player can lose almost all they've built up but still have the opportunity to turn it around and "win" the game.

### [Stephen Hawking (1942–2018)](https://jacobinmag.com/2018/03/stephen-hawking-obituary-als-nhs-bds)

There were lots of great obituaries for the great scientist Stephen Hawking, but I found this one particularly interesting due to it's insight into Hawking's political activism, an area of his life that I was unaware of.

Ephemera - 5th April, 2018


I missed a few weeks there - Chinese New Year has a tendency to disrupt my routines - but I'm back at it now!

## Reading

### [The 100-year capitalist experiment that keeps Appalachia poor, sick, and stuck on coal](https://qz.com/1167671/the-100-year-capitalist-experiment-that-keeps-appalachia-poor-sick-and-stuck-on-coal/)

I find the economics and politics of the United States endlessly fascinating. It's such a kaleidoscope of views, opinions, and histories. This article targets the political history of the Appalachian region of the US. If you find this interesting check out the book "Dreamland" by Sam Quinones. It focuses on the ongoing opioid epidemic in the US, but similar themes as found in this article pop up all over the place.

[Bandcamp](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/02/12/the-bandcamp-2017-year-in-review/)

Yay for Bandcamp! For me it's the one major web company that has only had a purely positive impact on the communities it is involved with (feel free to prove me wrong, I'm sure I'm forgetting some other companies). It's great to see them continuing to grow.

### [The Donkey Kong Timeline Is Truly Disturbing](https://kotaku.com/the-donkey-kong-timeline-is-truly-disturbing-1823035151)

Some people have too much time on their hands, and I'm very glad for that.

## Listening

### [A.A.L. (Against All Logic) - 2012-2017](https://www.discogs.com/artist/3754267-AAL-Against-All-Logic)

I can't remember the last time I felt this way listening to house music. A.A.L. (bka Nicolas Jaar) has tapped into the rawness at the core of house, a rawness that has been missing from most house musicI've heard in the last decade (with the big caveat that I don't listen to much house).

Ephemera - 5th March, 2018


## Reading

[The Rise of China and the Fall of the ‘Free Trade’ Myth](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/magazine/the-rise-of-china-and-the-fall-of-the-free-trade-myth.html)

Pankaj Mishra is an author I always love to read so it was nice to stumble upon this NY Times Magazine article from him. It's a divisive but intriguing take on the economic rise of the great nations. From my on the ground experience in China I feel like he might be paving over some of the more free-wheeling capitalistic tendencies that can be found in China at the moment or in the last two decades, but in general I'd agree with his main assertions.

[Principles of Adult Behaviour](https://gist.github.com/hernamesbarbara/c647b18411157205edffcb94db0bcea8)

With the passing this week of John Perry Barlow, this list of "life lessons" seemed quite apt.

## Watching

### [Altered Carbon](https://www.netflix.com/title/80097140)

Damn this show was awesome. The story is a little weak at some points, but they absolutely nailed the cyber-punk aesthetic and the acting is pretty top notch all around. Highly recommended.

[EEVblog #186 - Soldering Tutorial Part 3 - Surface Mount](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9FC9fAlfQE&app=desktop)

Just a great video on how to surface mount solder. I've got a Hot Air Rework station sitting in my workshop ready for its first use and I've been feeling a bit nervous about it. This tutorial has definitely helped to allay some of those worries.

Ephemera - 12th February, 2018


## Reading

### [How I review code](https://engineering.tumblr.com/post/170040992289/how-i-review-code)

A Tumblr engineer walks through his process for code reviews. I found this pretty instructive as I'm currently in the middle of trying to come to grips with formalising code reviews in my own company.

## Listening

### Lab Rat XL - Mice Or Cyborg

This 2003 album just got a re-release and I've been listening to it all week while coding. Lab Rat XL was a side project of Detroit Techno legends Drexciya, and this release was one of their last before the passing of James Stinson, one half of the duo. The tracks slot in nicely to the Drexciya ouvre of minimal-ish afrofuturist techno.

Ephemera - 5th February, 2018

[_Part One_](https://lukehansford.me/posts/big-muff-eurorack-conversion-part-1/)

[_Part Two_](https://lukehansford.me/posts/big-muff-eurorack-conversion-part-2/)

## Switching the switch / Converting the power to Eurorack format

![The new switch](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/6r0iUgEwDvBfYHrDP4MVnj/93c9e5445edcc13e835f9c59eec00c28/lfKEt4B.jpg?h=300)

Foot switches are, understandably, a little hard to press down. They're built to withstand the unsubtle kicks of a guitarist in motion, but applying that much pressure to the Big Muff as it sits in my Eurorack case make me worry it'll do damage to the case (doubly so as my case is made out of cardboard!).

So the next task in my Big Muff Eurorack conversion was to replace the foot switch with a toggle switch. The original switch was a 3PDT switch (a less common variation of switch, but one that allows for proper signal bypass), so it was just a matter of tracking down a 3PDT toggle switch ([I used these ones](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MYLB-AC-250V-2A-125V-5A-ON-ON-2-Position-3PDT-Toggle-Switch/32746132468.html)) and switching over the wires.

![Not quite right](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/3u0tkPKBaIok4AySSTBp0N/704d7f385dfa01778bdaaf334f349403/IynmfWK.jpg?h=300)

As you can see, it technically worked, but I forgot to account for the size of the hole in the panel. My current hack solution is to duct tape it in while I think of a more long-term fix.

![The step-down circuit prior to soldering](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/3730pAll5K6rSVOnl11ehd/3058ed9fae3fe3ecf0f1c4e28acf2775/VnUhfmB.jpg?h=300)

My next step was to get the pedal running off my eurorack case's power supply. This involved adding a shrouded 10-pin header for connecting to the power bus board, and then adding a circuit to drop the 12v power provided by the case's power supply down to the 9v level expected by the Big Muff.

![The step-down circuit post soldering and attaching to the PCB](https://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/5oFfvHuESl43J190w0tRxZ/f64495a611e5219922e6194a67711139/pIpXr2j.jpg?h=300)

The circuit utilises an LM7809 component to drop the voltage down to 9v, and is based on some of the talk in [this thread over at Muff Wiggler](https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=115780). I soldered the components on to some perfboard and attached that to the Big Muff's PCB using a standoff. It's a bit wobbly, and the whole board is just hanging from wires attached to the front panel, but for now its doing the trick. My next goal is to add CV to the tone and sustain potentiometers (possibly volume as well, though I'm not certain yet).

Big Muff Eurorack Conversion, Pt. 3


## Reading

### [The Line 6 DL4 Is Quietly the Most Important Guitar Pedal of the Last 20 Years](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-line-6-dl4-is-quietly-the-most-important-guitar-pedal-of-the-last-20-years/)

A really interesting article on a guitar pedal I always dismissed as plastic trash. For some reason Line6 products have always put me off, but apparently a lot of my favourite artists knew better. Battles have used over a dozen of them!

### [On being an Engineering Manager](http://codeplease.io/2018/01/15/on-being-an-engineering-manager/)

I'm not quite an engineering manager - being one member of a team of two makes that a little hard - however over the last year I have been transitioning into a role that includes certain responsibilities that an engineering manager would need to take on. Rui Peres has also been making that transition and he gives some nice insights into the trials and tribulations that can pop up.

### [The Real Future of Work](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/04/future-work-independent-contractors-alternative-work-arrangements-216212)

This article makes the argument that the gig economy is just another step in the ongoing erosion of worker's rights and is in itself nothing particularly new. An in-depth look into an issue that is likely going to be one of the defining social changes of the 21st century.

## Watching

### [Why We Bleep Podcast 001: Tom Whitwell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N18ro8nxXI4)

Oh yes! Mylar Melodies, one of my favourite synth YouTubers, has just started a long-form interview series talking to the people behind electronic instruments. The first episode features the wonderful Tom Whitwell aka Music Thing Modular.

### [How to Make a Eurorack Module](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fWPu4BjRM4&t=13s)

Another one from the Mylar Melodies YouTube channel, though this one is just a recording of a talk given by James Carruthers of NoBots. The talk walks through the process of designing and shipping a Eurorack module and I think it may have planted a seed in me to do one myself some day.

Ephemera - 29th January, 2018



[_Check out part one first!_](https://lukehansford.me/posts/big-muff-eurorack-conversion-part-1/)

## New Potentiometers

![New pots](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/6e8wXX45Ih6AUaZjtkKqYL/b33fcd98feb7e6f322c850259d4f5363/T4oexNa.jpg?h=300)

The reason for my Big Muff not being used in the first place was the real old potentiometers making a lot of unneeded noise when using it. Unfortunately replacement pots of the same size are really hard to come by. Instead I decided to use the standard size pots (you can see the difference in the pic above) and just make the panel holes bigger to accommodate them.

![First pot replaced](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/66keepritGoEJvyjApZraN/0695fde2cf297d2d695abbd7d53e003b/tFJoQKY.jpg?h=300)

Replacing the pots was simple enough - cut the wires, solder on the new ones, done.

![-](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/4tfc3gqCHiXurfxnOJZww7/c5b04a1ea41d82ef4e7a22afd7966a1d/KHGZwn4.jpg?h=300)

The only outlier was that yellow wire - I have no idea what it's supposed to connect too! Regardless, it worked out fine. Check out the crunchy results in the clip below.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Po1nA8cZj4" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Part 3: Changing the switch and connecting to a Eurorack power supply](https://lukehansford.me/posts/big-muff-eurorack-conversion-part-3/)

Big Muff Eurorack Conversion, Pt. 2


_First up, a caution: this is my first non-guided DIY modular synth project and I'm probably do any number of things incorrectly, so take all of this with a grain of salt._

Last year I bought a Swollen Pickle pedal to replace my ailing old Russian Big Muff. I probably could have gotten the Big Muff repaired, but I was kind of keen to try something new. Not wanting to let it go to waste though, and also with the hope of adding a bit more colour to my Eurorack setup, I've decided to have a go at converting the Big Muff to something that can be used in a Eurorack system.

This will mean doing the following:

-   Changing the inputs from the 6.35mm inputs used by guitars to the 3.5mm ones used in Eurorack.
-   Replacing the potentiometers (not really needed for the conversion, but needed to fix my old Big Muff).
-   Replacing the foot switch with something more comfortable to use by hand.
-   Converting the pedal to run off a Eurorack power supply.
    
With some possible further additions being:

-   Changing the signal levels to play nicer with synth levels (I'm not certain that this will be necessary
-   Adding CV to the tone and sustain knobs (and maybe the volume knob).
-   Adding dry/wet control.
    
## Replacing the Jacks

![Starting position](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/7bVGkbSTFyIfu50eGb76JL/9edec131272d794967dff7d1c8b04698/nLKKHHF.jpg?h=300)

My first step was to change the 6.35mm jacks for 3.5mm ones. This turned out to be a much easier process than I expected. First I removed the enclosure (which required hooking up a new LED as the original LED is actually embedded into the pedal case), followed by desoldering the old jacks (which I'll definitely be keeping as they seem pretty solid).

![After desoldering the first jack](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/13qvFZTsrwzuI2FiYwaHcB/63dec39f5cc8f6882b88ac0863c10d14/rW8qIAh.jpg?h=300)

The jacks on the Big Muff originally came out the back of the case, however as I'm going to need them to be on the front panel I soldered them on with a bit of connecting wire (I haven't yet decided where they'll be positioned on the front panel).

![First jack soldered on](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/7jxPIBX1l1hu0Wy2koY8TW/59f6978370a755142c479ea1f3c7c629/QMLoSkQ.jpg?h=300)

You'll notice two differences between the jacks I soldered on. First is that I soldered the first one on the wrong side of the panel! I'm hoping it won't be too much of a hassle in the future, but if it is then it's pretty easy to fix anyway. The other difference is the extra wire coming off the second jack (the input jack). This connection is important for triggering the LED on when a cable is plugged in, so make sure to get that one in if you're following along at home.

![Second jack soldered](http://images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/7MbMSGbidMXEWzdnrqRi08/51464f1d8a06e7635bcdd088eab1bfdb/pECMryD.jpg?h=300)

Amazingly it worked right off the bat! Well kind of - even prior to opening it up my Big Muff can barely have been considered to have been "working right". So my next task is to rectify that and return it to its original distorted glory.

[Next step, changing the potentiometers](https://lukehansford.me/posts/big-muff-eurorack-conversion-part-2/)

Big Muff Eurorack Conversion, Pt. 1


It's been a while since I've done an entry here. I'm going to start dipping a toe back into blogging, beginning with writing these old weekly round-ups! I doubt anyone is reading at the moment, but it's a nice little thing to do for posterity's sake.

## Reading

### [The 25 best reissues and retrospectives of 2017](http://www.factmag.com/2017/12/10/best-reissues-2017/)

January is always reserved for listening to year ends lists for me, and the Factmag ones this year are killer. Top picks from this list for me are Midori Takada's _Through The Looking Glass,_ Metro Area's self-titled release, and number one pick _Noir Et Blanc_.

### [Make: Analog Synthesizers](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Analog-Synthesizers-Electronic-Synth-DIY/dp/1449345220)

I've been picking up some DIY electronics skills over the last few months, and I've decided to dive into building my own synthesizer with this book as a guide. I'm still waiting on the parts to arrive so I can get started, but in the meantime it's a wonderful introduction into the inner workings of an electronic instrument.

Ephemera - 15th January, 2018


So at this point in time my new year resolutions have kind of fallen by the wayside. Some of them are unlikely to happen by the end of the year, while others I've lost interest in. I'm not going to hold my self to the latter as there's no point doing something I'd rather not do. The tattoo thing I'm on the fence about (mainly I don't know what I would get), the candles thing is over (Ikea candles work just fine), and I've been too preoccupied to work on maps or do much writing.

Two things I have been doing in the last month is working on a new Frequency Asia project, which I guess could be considered an app, and getting in contact with people a lot more often. I've also started playing around with [this method](http://www.fastcompany.com/3053036/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/the-simple-technique-to-fit-a-40-hour-work-week-into-167-h) to better manage my time. I like how it's going so far.

The State of My Resolutions, November 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a write up at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I started to study a bit more in July, but it has been more about catch up then learning anything new.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

No progress, but I've started to write a bit more in July, which will hopefully lead to something more substantial.

## Make a book

No progress.

## Release an app

Not much progress. I've been working on a wiki-style website for music resources and am contemplating a OS X app, but with no solid plan at the moment.

## Make candles

I no longer intend to complete this project.

## Be debt free

A little bit spent, a little paid, I'm probably back at where I was at the beginning of the month.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

I purchased some gear (Volca Sampler, DI) to try making some electronic music on my own. Nothing solid put down yet though.

## Get in touch with people

Still not doing this as frequently as I'd like.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Did pretty terribly at this in July (mostly because Evelyn is back in Malaysia).

## Make maps

Only worked on this a couple of times in July.

The State of My Resolutions, August 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a write up at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I haven't really studied much Malay in the last month. I need to get in the swing of doing it when I wake up.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

I'm doing a bit of writing about the Atom editor, with the idea of compiling the articles into an E-book once I have written enough.

## Make a book

No progress.

## Release an app

Back to square one again. I'm stuck in the cycle of trying to identify a killer app, or at the very least something I'd want to use.

## Make candles

I no longer intend to complete this project.

## Be debt free

A wee bit of progress on this one.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

Good progress on this one. I've released two tracks under the Dallol moniker this month. I'm far from being able to perform live, but I'm getting there hopefully.

## Get in touch with people

Doing a bit better on this this month, though I'm starting to realise that half the problem is that my friends are too much like me in this regards.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

A mixed month in relation to this goal. I haven't been sleeping well as of late, so maybe I need to double down on this.

## Make maps

No progress.

The State of My Resolutions, September 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a writeup at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I did almost no study in June. I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to get back on that horse.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

No progress.

## Make a book

I've finished the design work, but I've been delaying on researching printing options.

## Release an app

No progress. I'm currently working on a new website project called cassette.space.

## Make candles

I no longer intend to complete this project.

## Be debt free

Money has been tight this month, and probably will be next month as well. I've started to keep a proper budget so that I can keep track of how much I'm spending.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

No progress.

## Get in touch with people

Didn't really do well at this in April.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

I've taken to reading more often before I sleep (on my Nexus 7 tablet though).

## Make maps

No progress.

The State of My Resolutions, July 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a writeup at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I've really fallen behind on studying Malay. The key to getting back at it will be to start waking up at 6 again and working on it.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

No progress.

## Make a book

I've done a bit of design work on this in the last week or so. Hopefully I can get it polished off by the end of this month.

## Release an app

No progress.

## Make candles

No progress.

## Be debt free

A little progress.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

No progress.

## Get in touch with people

Still not doing this as frequently as I'd like.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Still failing.

## Make maps

I've been able to do a lot more of this in the last week. I've been collecting language data and am close to finishing off the Americas.

The State of My Resolutions, June 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a writeup at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I had dengue fever in April, so I fell of the wagon with my Malay study. The last few days though I've been getting a reasonable amount of time in.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

No progress.

## Make a book

No progress.

## Release an app

No progress.

## Make candles

No progress.

## Be debt free

Slightly negative progress.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

No progress.

## Get in touch with people

Didn't really do well at this in April.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Pretty much failed at this.

## Make maps

No progress.

The State of My Resolutions, May 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a write up at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I only missed nine days of study this month. My week point seems to be the weekends, as I missed almost all of them in March.

## Get a tattoo

No progress.

## Write a book

No progress.

## Make a book

No progress.

## Release an app

Back to square one on this. Rethinking whether I want to spend time working on Android stuff.

## Make candles

No progress.

## Be debt free

Paid off a chunk of my credit, still a way to go though.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

No progress.

## Get in touch with people

Been doing much better this month, with the aim of chatting with someone different everyday.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Not doing so well on this. I tried to start meditating before sleep, but I'm not too great at meditation it seems. My aim is start getting at least 15 minutes of meditation in every night.

## Make maps

No progress.

The State of My Resolutions, April 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a writeup at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

I dropped off a bit last month with my Malay study - I'd wager that I only studied around 50% of the days in February.

## Get a tattoo

Still undecided on what to get for this.

## Write a book

No progress.

## Make a book

No progress.

## Release an app

I've worked a little bit on a todo.txt app, but I'm not sure if I still want to follow through on it.

## Make candles

No progress.

## Be debt free

Negative progress, but I have the intention of paying off some in the next week.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

No progress.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

No progress.

## Get in touch with people

No progress.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

No progress.

## Make maps

No progress.

The State of My Resolutions, Mar 2015


In order to keep tabs on the progress of my resolutions for 2015, I'm going to try and do a writeup at the end of each month to see how I've gone.

## Learn Malay

This resolution if going very well. I've managed to put in at least 30 minutes ofstudy for 4 out of 5 days in January, and my word count is at about 250.

## Get a tattoo

Haven't got a tattoo yet - I'm still dwelling on what to get (and where).

## Write a book

No progress on this yet, though I have some concepts for a story floating aroundin my head.

## Make a book

This is coming along pretty well. The content of the book I'm putting together is about 75% done.

## Release an app

I've been hemming and hawing over this one. Today I'm going to have another crack at getting started.

## Make candles

No progress.

## Be debt free

Definitely no progress in this. I'm still awaiting my first pay day for my new job.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

Same as above, waiting for pay to purchase a bike.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

I've been playing guitar, but yet to start playing with other people.

## Get in touch with people

Nope nope nope, failing hard on this one. I'm going to start thoroughly trackingthis in the hopes I've getting better at it.

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Not to great at this. Sometimes I do, but I would say it's only 25% of the time.

## Make maps

No progress on this.

The State of My Resolutions, Feb 2015


I've been letting this slide for the last few weeks, so time for a roundup of what I've been consuming and enjoying .

## Reading

### [Ten Years of Podcasting: Fighting Human Nature by Matt Haughey](https://medium.com/technology-musings/ten-years-of-podcasting-fighting-human-nature-1bf2de96d6e4)

Great commentary on the state of podcasting a decade in. Matt Haughey has a number of suggestions for how we can improve the technological aspects or podcasts, most of which I, as a podcaster, completely agree with. My hope is that we start to see some of these appear soon. Haughey also wrote a nice follow up article to this one, so give that a go to.

### The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Alternate history is not usually in my wheelhouse (actual history is compelling enough for me), but Robinson's epic tale of a world where Europe is wiped out by the Black Plague is much more than your standard alternate history novel. With the Buddhist concept of reincarnation at its core, _The Years of Rice and Salt_ follows a number of characters through different reincarnations over the centuries. Each life allows Robinson to play with the form of his writing and inject cutting social, religious, and political commentary into the story, making for a enjoyable, if difficult at times, read.

## Listening

### Twerps - Range Anxiety

Labelled dolecore by some commentators, Twerps to me are tapping in to a uniquely antipodean vein of music with forbearers in the Go-Betweens or the Dunedin bands of the 1980s. Range Anxiety is a really strong second album from this Melbourne band, and while I've only had it a day or two I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Ephemera - 1st February, 2015


There hasn't been a lot of new things to see, read, or hear in the last few weeks, being the holiday season and all. Here is what I scrounged up.

## Reading

### The Martian - Andy Weir

This self-published novel is possibly the best book I read in 2014. I had just finished up Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, which were also excellent reads,and was lucky to have The Martian waiting next to keep my Mars bender going. Andy Weir takes the Robinson Crusoe trope and realistically applies it to an astronaut on Mars. Not only does Weir make it a believable conceit, he manages to make it a compelling read too.

## [The Tragedy of the American Military](http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/)

I'll read anything by James Fallows, but a screed on the role of the armed forces in American society and how a public and political disconnect with them has led to rampant militarism? Sign me up.

## Watching

### [We Built A Drone](http://www.digital-democracy.org/blog/we-built-a-drone/)

Using drones to empower citizens in indigenous communities in Guyana. It's nice to have this as a counterpoint to the use of drones for warfare.

Ephemera - 4th January, 2015


I used to be a cynic in regards to new year resolutions. My line of thought was that if you really wanted to accomplish something you would just go ahead and do it, not wait until an arbitrary date to begin. Good in theory, but I think I was missing the point. Although January 1st truly is arbitrary, time itself is a rather nebulous concept, and having a set date to reflect and gather one's thoughts is a valuable opportunity.

2014 was a rather good year for me. I earned a Master's degree, got my first job in the IT industry, moved to Singapore, started a podcast, and travelled to Vietnam, Penang, and Melbourne for the first time. I already had ideas for the coming year before sitting down to write this. I'd like to keep growing Frequency Asia, and travel if I have the chance. I also want to keep pushing my software development skills and succeed in my new job.

But I also wanted to expand my horizons into some new areas - things I've dreamed of accomplishing (or even just attempting) over the years. I decided to make 12 resolutions for 2015; ostensibly one for each month, but some of them will take a lot more than a month to achieve, while others might take a much shorter time. I tried to avoid vague resolutions and stick to more solid goals, so that by the end of the year I will be able to look back and give a firm yes or no on whether I had completed that resolution.

## Learn Malay

This is the only resolution I'm making that doesn't have a discrete goal state. Having lived in China for 5 years, I often get asked the question if I am fluent in Mandarin, to which I usually awkwardly reply that I can get by in China. I don't feel comfortable assessing my own language ability (ironic given that I worked as a language teacher for those 5 years, and that my girlfriend is also a language teacher), so instead this resolution will consist of spending each morning studying Malay for 30 minutes. I might not be fluent by the end of the year, but hopefully I will have put in enough effort to converse in Malay.

## Get a tattoo

I'm reserving the right to back out of this one, but it's something I've been considering for a while. I've always joked that I would never get a tattoo due to my fear of needles, but that was just to cover up a deeper concern - indecisiveness. My fear is that I would immediately regret any tattoo I got. Let's see if I can kill that fear.

## Write a book

A novel, a short story, something non-fiction, it just has to qualify as a book. It's a pretty big undertaking, but I imagine it'll be worth it.

## Make a book

Yes, this is different from the previous resolution. I want to physically bind a book. I plan to make a compilation of interesting articles I read in 2014, print them, then bind them as a book. I'll post more information about this project in the next week or two.

## Release an app

And make money from it. Capitalistic, yes, but I'd like to see if I could do it. It doesn't need to be a lot, and the app itself could be huge or tiny.

## Make candles

This is a DIY project I've been considering for a while. My last room in Beijing was tiny and had little ventilation, so I took to using candles to make it smell a little nicer. Ikea had a range of candles that smelt just like donuts to me. Candles tend to come with more feminine scents, so I'd like to try making candles with some interesting, more stereotypically masculine flavours such as bacon, whiskey, or sawdust.

## Be debt free

I got so close to paying off my credit card when I moved back to Australia, but the reality of being a uni student set in and the debt started to rise again. It's not a lot of money to be honest, but it's still a good goal to accomplish.

## Go on a long-distance cycling trip

I'm going to be vague on the terms of this one as I'm not really sure of my capabilities. This would likely be a trip from Singapore to somewhere Malaysia, possibly Malacca. The general objective though will be to ride somewhere far enough away from home that I need to get a hotel room.

## Start a band, play shows, release music

I really miss playing guitar in a band, so I hardly even need to make it a resolution. So I've upped the ante to include playing shows and releasing music. That'll keep me on my toes.

## Get in touch with people

I'm slack when it comes to communicating to people, so I'm going to try and email/message an old friend I haven't spoken to in a while each week of the year (or possibly more).

## Don't use electronics thirty minutes before I sleep

Apparently they're killing me.

## Make maps

I've always loved maps. For the last 8 years or so that passion has been channeled into the computer games produced by Paradox Interactive. They make historical grand strategy games such as the Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings series. I've played A LOT of them (between CKII and EUIV I've clocked 1000 hours), so much that I had to delete Steam and swear of games. I still have a map-shaped desire somewhere deep in my cerebral cortex though, so to try and satiate it I want to try and make maps. Like big, wood framed, hang on your wall, maps. My brain is in overdrive just thinking about it (yeah I know, I'm odd).

Resolutions for 2015


Short and sweet as I'm going to Vietnam in a few hours. I most likely won't be able to post anything for two weeks, so you'll have to subsist on end of year lists in the mean time.

## Reading

### [The New Republic: An Appreciation by Ta-Nehisi Coates](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-new-republic-an-appreciation/383561/)

I've only ever read New Republic articles here and there, so I wouldn't say that I'm affected by the troubles occurring with the publication these days. I'm even less troubled having read the ever brilliant Coates' skewering of the magazine and its record in regards to race.

### [Qassem Suleimani by Martin Chulov](http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/dec/07/qassem-suleimani-middle-east-mastermind-islamic-state)

A great profile on the leader of Iranian military efforts in the Middle East. I feel that it's rare to see articles in mainstream publications that address the realpolitik involved in the region and not collapse into apocalyptic rhetoric.

### [In Conversation With Chris Rock by Frank Rich](http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html)

An impressive interview with an impressive man.

## Viewing

### [XKCD 1411](http://xkcd.com/1411/)

The story of my life.

![XKCD 1411](//images.ctfassets.net/b33qhnjgjtbo/4ha2Z1DvQ5AlCq7Q4wLJCr/c5daba47f7a02ee0a67e02ee215e8707/loop.png?h=300)

### [Supernormal Stimuli by Stuart McMillen](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/supernormal-stimuli/)

Just a nice comic reminding me that I have a lizard brain sometimes.

### [2014: The Year in Photos, September-December by Alan Taylor](http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/12/2014-the-year-in-photos-september-december/100870/)

Part 3 in a round up of photos from 2014. It's good to have such a vivid refresher on what happened in the last 12 months.

## Listening

### [The Podcast Method](http://podcastmethod.co/)

Dan Benjamin of 5by5 has just started a new podcast about how to podcast. Meta. I'm 13 episodes in to my own podcast, [Frequency Asia](http://frequency.asia), so I'm finding it fantastically useful so far.

Ephemera - 14th December, 2014


Well this undertaking has not been as weekly as I would have liked. To try to make up for that, this entry covers two weeks of reading and listening (I watched things, but nothing special enough to recommend).

## Reading

[New Atheism, Old Empire by Luke Savage - _Jacobin_](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/new-atheism-old-empire/)

As an atheist, I was attracted to Richard Dawkins' _The God Delusion_ when it was released. I picked it up but couldn't get through it. There was something about it that was, ironically, "holier than thou" when it came to addressing religion - the key trait that put me off organised religion in the first place. Luke Savage addresses this and the inherent racism/islamophobia present in some of the key works of the New Atheism movement. To me, the best way to further the atheist movement is to make it a more attractive option, not to try and tear down its competitors (a tactic that will often come off as petty). I'm sure there are writers out there that achieve this, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. If you have a recommendation in this regard, I'd love to hear it! In the mean time I'll keep reading the fantastic _Jacobin_.

Also related:

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	border=0
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	height=650
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	src="https://twitframe.com/show?url=https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/539467697411883011">
</iframe>

### [Because Reading is Fundemental by Jeff Atwood - Coding Horror](http://blog.codinghorror.com/because-reading-is-fundamental-2/)

Jeff Atwood, a.k.a _Coding Horror_, is the best there is when it comes to analysing and building for online communities. For proof look no further than the [Stack Exchange](https://stackexchange.com) network he founded. In this article he argues for changing the metric for good online commenters from number of comments to time spent reading, or at the very least incentivising people to spend more time reading before posting.

## Listening

### [Rustie - Green Language](https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Rustie_Green_Language?id=Bcvjixyaj4luml2n6nuweojvrd4)

I was listening to this a lot when it first came out in August, but I'm also listening to it now while writing this blog post, so I figured a recommendation was in order. I love electronic music, but I there's no way I'll ever be able to keep up with the ever proliferating array of subgenres. I think Rustie is considered "Maximalist Dubstep". Influences are present - I personally hear Air, 808 State, The Bug, and Skream, among others - but rather than taking small aspects of each, Rustie takes the whole thing and melds them together to create a sound that is big, but always coherent.

### [Startup Podcast](http://gimletmedia.com/)

I'd been hearing about the Startup podcast for a while now. The premise, a podcast detailing the creating of a podcast network, was intriguing to me. I'm currently a dozen episode into [my own podcast](http://frequency.asia), and harbour secret/evil dreams of transforming it into a network of podcasts in the vein of Radiotopia or 5by5. But I was hesitant to add another podcast to my already overly large regime. One day I'm going to have more podcasts then time to listen to them.

I eventually gave in, and it was well worth. Alex Blumberg is extremely candid and transparent in his coverage of the creation of Gimlet Media. While the creation of a new media network is the core topic, the podcast veers into areas such as startup culture, the creative process, and the feelings and thoughts of people taking great leaps of faith. Not only have I added this podcast to the myriad of others I listen to, if the other podcasts they plan on releasing are of this quality then I'm definitely going to be listening to them too. Crap.

Ephemera - 7th December, 2014


[NaNoCroSoMo](https://nanocrosomo.herokuapp.com/) (National Novel Crowd Sourcing Month) is my take on [NaNoWriMo](http://nanowrimo.org/) inspired by the work of those mentioned in the [recent Verge article](http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7276157/nanogenmo-robot-author-novel) covering the work of a number of programmers trying to use algorithms to generate novels. My implementation meets somewhere in the middle of these two. Every thirty seconds a computer generated word is added to the story. This word is selected using n-grams taken from the Google Books corpus. To add a human element, however, anyone can add their own word. Simply type a word and hit enter to add it to the story.

So far the results are mixed. There's no narrative from the computer-generated words, as they are only selected based on the previous two words. I've also come across cases where the language randomly changes (usually at the start of a new sentence). Despite these issues, however, the sentences being produced are somewhat legible. I'm more interested to see what could happen if numerous people are editing it at the same time. Hopefully the web gets a hold of it!

NaNoCroSoMo


This the first of (hopefully) many weekly roundups of the content I consume. While I'm pleased to share this, I'm also starting to become more interested in storing my activities so I can recall them long into the future. This is one way of doing that.

## Reading

### [The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/good-game)

A nice long article on pro-gaming from the New Yorker. A really nuanced take on the subject (I think, my gaming skills are less than leet).

### [A Print Magazine for Hackers](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/print-magazine-hackers)

Another techy article from the New Yorker, this time profiling the hacker magazine/bible, 2600.

### [What papers should I definitely read as a computer science undergraduate?](http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/2jzjh7/what_papers_should_i_definitely_read_as_a/)

A reddit question that keeps on giving. As a computer science student this is an invaluable resource.

### [Molly Crabapple's 15 rules for creative success in the Internet age](http://boingboing.net/2014/11/04/molly-crabapples-rules-for-c.html)

I can't get more descriptive than the article's title. Artist Molly Crabapple gives some tips that are pretty spot on. I wish I'd had something like this before I started traversing the music industry.

## Watching

### The Flash

My brother had been urging me to get into [Arrow](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193021/) for a while, and I finally got the chance to while flying to Singapore last week. Cue intense binge watching and the search for more. More came in the form of another superhero show based in the same DC universe - [The Flash](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3107288/). The whole concept of the Flash as a superhero felt a little lacking to me at first, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how well the creators have done on this show. It switches Arrow's constant brooding for a bit more humour and some really excellent special effects, while keeping the better bits such as the flashback stories.

## Listening

### Parquet Courts - Content Nausea

The latest release from Parquet Courts, [Content Nausea](https://play.google.com/music/m/Bxrpgmypli632vdxvrg6sx2fec4) has the usual balance of raucousness and hooks I've come to expect from the Texan band. The title track is particularly good.

### Fugazi - First Demo

I don't usually truck with demoes, outtakes, and the like. Music is a craft and releasing half finished work is anathema to me. Having said that, I was surprised at how enjoyable it was to listen to [First Demo](https://play.google.com/music/m/Bmvwiwr2flzwnxdvh4k7indgeze). Fugazi are one of my favourite bands, and to hear them in action before they'd nailed down their sound is intriguing. The songs are still great, but the trainspotting to be done here for Fugazi fans is the selling point.