When I was a boy, I had a ride-on lawnmower with no blades. I’d wanted a ride-on lawnmower for years, ever since my brothers and I found and restored-to-life a John Deere
…
»
Much of what I do, in multiple fields, could be reduced to one skill: troubleshooting.
I’ll define troubleshooting as systematically determining the cause of unwanted behaviour in a system, and fixing it.
…
»
Days, it turns out, are rather easily made.
The time required varies, but trends closer to making the bed, or making a cup of tea, than to making Ravioli. (If you are crazy
…
»
Conferences can be hit-and-miss. It’s easy to go through the motions on autopilot and find the experience lacklustre. Earlier on this summer, I attended one that started out lacklustre, but then became
…
»
This morning I got stuck in the slow lane behind an old man when I was walking down the sidewalk on my way to a Zoom meeting at my neighbourhood coffee shop. Rather
…
»
If you’ve ever splattered your face, shirt, counter, and ceiling with coffee and grounds when trying to operate an Aeropress coffee maker, this is how to prevent it.
Blowouts happen when it
…
»
No matter our position or situation, life will throw challenges our way. These can either knock us off our stride and make us sulk, or be an opportunity to grow.
Depending on my
…
»
Reality is detailed, and attention is finite. As I get older, I find myself noticing less. I think this is partly because adults are socialized not to stare, and to pretend like they
…
»
This is a Patrons-only post. But if you sign up for an Autodidacts membership, read this post and apply the advice, and it doesn’t save you the cost of the first month
…
»
At the risk of stating the obvious even more obviously than I usually do: sometimes the perfect approach involves tolerating imperfection.
Imperfection?! Yes. Specifically, the more macroscopic one’s view becomes, the more
…
»
I play the violin. I started when I was about six, but didn’t get serious until I was nine, when my parents gave me a new instrument as a birthday gift that
…
»
[ Inspired by the strangely-hilarious meme-essay The Grug Brained Developer ]
grug brained writer write million million words and sell about two. grug scratch head to figure why two words become shiny rocks and not
…
»
