At the end of a calendar year, many people create New Year's resolution, a
flimsy goal that rarely lasts beyond January. Instead, I follow an idea called a
Yearly Theme. A resolution like "exercise more", for a goal that is supposed to
last an entire year, is simultaneously oddly specific (there is more than just
exercise in your life) and overly vague (what counts as exercise? what counts as
more?). On the other hand, because themes are purposefully broad, they can
influence many different aspe
Super Smash Brothers Melee is a strange passion of mine. Despite never playing
the game competitively, I am very fond of its competitive scene. I can tell you
exactly where I was when Hungrybox came back on Armada at EVO 2016. I could
write an essay about how crazy it was that Mew2King won 3-0 over Armada at Smash
Summit 2. Yet, despite my love of the game, I've had my ups and downs. Most
recently, I watched Zain, my current favorite player, have a heartbreaking loss
at last weekend's LACS3. Fee
There are some days where I feel like I'm not making progress. I feel like how I
did yesterday which is how I felt the day before which is like how I felt the
day before... Will now ever be enough? Heather Havrilesky has a book called
"What if this were Enough?" Despite never reading it, I ask myself that question
all the time. What if right now where all I would ever have? I wouldn't be too
upset. My sources of food, shelter, and income are all reliable. I know tons of
pleasant people who enjoy
Believe me, I care about you. I want to be there with you through it all.
Believe me when I say that I love you
Believe me, I am here now, even though I was in the jungle for two months
without internet signal and fighting for my own survival.
Believe me when I say that I'm okay now. It's just that sometimes I'm a broken
DVD player and you don't even know what a DVD is. Sometimes I'm a spilled bottle
of pills you are scared of taking. But I'm fixed now. The DVDs are playing the
movie. I put t
Everyone wishes they got in early. Investors with they got on Apple before the
iPhone. Influencers wish they were on YouTube back in 2008.
Those who got in early were either lucky, or able to recognize something special
that most people can't.
Opportunities like YouTube or the iPhone come once in a lifetime. Just like you.
For your whole time on Earth, you'll be the only you that you know.
If there's something special about you, something only you have or not everyone
can recognize (you proba
sits in the classroom.
beams from the windows
reflect the warm Memory.
closes eyes.
the laughs, the Uncertainty, the Joy,
watches it all unfold
with tender
soft
attention
as they blossom
opens once more.
same laughs, same uncertainty,
the joy is there, too,
but the faces
the words
the offset textures of their petals
inform the slant difference
they evolve
as yet — still —
sits in the classroom.
I stand in front of the door, the mirror. In my hand I hold a key, a lamp, a
lottery ticket. Choose one wish. What do you want? What do you desire? What is
it that is missing? What is the shape of the hole?
But first I must know what is I. I am eclectic mix. I contain wild tangents,
cast-away seeds that grew before I realized it. No one branch belongs to any
school of thought. I merely take what I like and leave the rest to the
followers. Never have I applied for residency, since I always knew
I didn't realize before my aunt asked me at a Christmas party, "So, what is it
that coders do?" how strange programming is to most people. While I couldn't
answer my aunt back then, I have an answer now.
I'll start with something most people now, the movies. There is a trope of the
hacking wizard; a nerdy-looking, glasses-wearing (usually white) guy staring
intensely at a screen while blasting at a keyboard like a sewing machine. In
reality, I only write a few lines of code per hour. It's not a
To many, maintaining a personal website seems like a relic of a bygone internet.
However, doing so now is vital in communicating your unique interests and ideas.
To understand the flaws in our current communication methods, we first have to
look at where we are.
Over the past two decades, platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube have amassed an enormous amount of creative energy and human attention.
Anyone, from a kid down the block to the president of the United States, that
At one point or another, you wanted to become a better programmer. Your reasons
for doing so may very. Developers make a lot of money. Software can improve the
lives of its user. Whatever the reason, increasing the quality of code would get
you there. Realizing this now, what do you do?
First, you might focus on the code you're writing. You run your code through
linters. You write more documentation. You remove duplicate code. You make more
descriptive functions. You apply every good idea and b
