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Archive for the 'Blog' Category

Favorite Books of 2017

19:54 01 Jan 2018

2017 was a much better reading year than 2016, but it didn’t start that way—and maybe it was just Q4 2017 that was good for reading. By the end of June, I’d only read 16 books, and while the next few months picked up a little, the real change happened at the start of October, when I flew to and from the East Coast in a week and read three books on the way out, and two on the way back[1], and that shifted me back towards reading more.

I finished the year having read 84 books, 48 of them in the last three months. And some of the books I read were extremely good.
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Favorite Books of 2016

16:38 31 Dec 2017

That’s not a typo—I really mean 2016. I need to write about last year before I can cover 2017.

2016 wasn’t a great reading year, and 46 books was a low total. I didn’t keep the momentum from 2015 going. I wasn’t reading much at any point in the year, with highs of only seven books in a month, and that only twice. Still, there were some good books in there.
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2017 Goals/2016 Goals Review: A Year of Treading Water

16:10 01 Jan 2017

On every front except work, 2016 was a bad year for me.

Not in big ways; I didn’t have any major setbacks, bad injuries, or dramatic blowups. It just sucked in a low-key but consistent way.

It was bad in terms of the goals I set myself at the start of the year, too.
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Favorite Books of 2015

22:20 02 Jan 2016. Updated: 08:25 04 Jan 2016

I read quite a lot of books in 2015, and while I didn’t rate as many books at 90 as in 2014, it was nonetheless an excellent reading year for me.
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2013–2015 Goals Review/2016 Goals

18:16 01 Jan 2016. Updated: 23:21 01 Jan 2016

I haven’t written about yearly goals since 2013. Time to revive the practice.
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Late Publication: “The Abomination of Corvintown”

17:24 09 Apr 2015

Last year I wrote “The Abomination of Corvintown” as backstory for a D&D character, but held it in the hope that I’d get to tell the story in-game. That didn’t happen, so now I’m making it public. It’s pulpy and grim, and I think it came out very close to how I intended it. Go read it.

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Favorite Books of 2014

20:20 08 Apr 2015

2014 was a good reading year for me. In particular, it included a stretch of reading that brought back to me a joy in reading that had been, if not missing, at least muted.
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Favorite Books of 2013

20:40 13 Feb 2015

After a few years of reading less than I wanted, I managed to make more of an effort in 2013. 2013 was the second year that I made myself rate books after reading them, and thus far the year with the lowest average rating. There were still some gems, however.
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Centered Square Five

12:30 23 Jan 2015

forty-one

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Je Suis Charlie

09:52 07 Jan 2015

je_suis_charlie

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“The Abomination of Corvintown”

20:58 21 May 2014. Updated: 17:26 09 Apr 2015

I was in the Duke’s army for a year, didn’t like it. Shitty food, pay was only a promise, and the officers were all stuck-up bastards. I had to see out my year, and a little more from the stockade. Then I went looking for my brother in the Greymark.
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Hiatus

17:39 27 Oct 2013

I’ve been blogging regularly since 01 August 2006: every day for that first year, five times per week for four years after that, and at least once per week since 01 August 2011. Now it’s time for a break.
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Numberphile on The Pisano Period

23:50 20 Oct 2013

I recently discovered the Numberphile YouTube channel, and have been quite impressed with it. My favorite piece so far is this one:

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Breaking Bad/“Felina”

18:57 13 Oct 2013

This fan-made tribute to the series is excellent. If you haven’t watched the entire series already, don’t click through.
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What I want from Blogging Software

23:03 06 Oct 2013

I’ve grown increasingly unhappy with WordPress, despite the fact that it’s served me fairly faithfully for over seven years. The main reason is performance—this blog is now just too slow to load. There are definitely things I could do to tackle that, but having to do so is a sign that it’s not the right platform. The other reason is philosophical—I no longer think that a web application backed by a database is the best approach for a blog.

I’ve been thinking about writing my own—of course[1]. So first I should establish the requirements.
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KJ Parker on Siege Warfare

22:57 29 Sep 2013

I enjoyed this short treatise on the history of sieges.

Unfortunately I can’t see how to apply its precepts to writing.

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Nadal’s 13th: US Open 2013

20:17 22 Sep 2013

Just under two weeks ago[1], Rafael Nadal defeated Novak Djokovic in the US Open Men’s Final, winning his second US Open and bringing his Grand Slam title count to 13. After two sets it looked like it might be another classic match, but became a relatively straightforward four-set win.
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Discontent/Modern Grail

22:30 15 Sep 2013

For whatever reason, I’m struggling with my writing schedule at the moment, and changes I’m trying to make haven’t worked so far. Thus, this week all I have is another video:

Either I’ll figure it out and proper articles will start appearing regularly again, or I’ll have to reconsider the schedule entirely.

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Triple Cornetto

22:28 08 Sep 2013

Another light week. Have a mixture of Cornetto flavors:

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“The System”: Tropa de Elite

23:27 01 Sep 2013

Tropa de Elite and Tropa de Elite 2 – O Inimigo Agora é Outro[1] are two Brazilian crime/action movies about the drug trade and corruption in Rio de Janeiro. While fictional[2], they clearly draw upon contemporary Brazilian politics. They both follow Roberto Nascimento, who at the start of the first film is a captain in BOPE, an elite unit roughly analogous to the American SWAT squads[3].
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A Century in Beeps

18:24 25 Aug 2013

This is all I have for you this week:

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Guide to How the Web Works II: For Website Owners

21:14 18 Aug 2013

Second in a planned series of five posts about the technical side of the web. The first post covered what every web user should know, and this one is intended for people who own websites—who also need to know what was in the first post.

This is a work in progress, and I welcome feedback.
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More Slate Tweaking

23:38 11 Aug 2013

Following last week’s post, this is about my progress using the OS X window manager Slate. My primary objective is to be able to define a set of window layouts for specific tasks—such as writing a blog post—and then easily invoke them. This is more difficult than it sounds, but I’ve more or less made it work.
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