Slims Blog

I Went To New Mexico

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I went to New Mexico for a few days for a friends wedding. Here are a few photos.

For all its faults, New Mexico is just so damn beautiful, and I think I might have taken that for granted. Tortillas are something I miss eating daily, and am so grateful for my sister teaching me how to make them, even if they are “easy”.

New Mexico and Japan life have pretty stark contrasts. I value many aspects from both sides and it has put me in this weird state were I am not sure what I value most, and what I am willing to sacrifice (I can’t have my cake and eat it too, I.e. have awesome public transportation in New Mexico, or fresh Tortillas in Japan). I don’t know how financially doable it is to frequently travel between the locations, and frankly, I am starting to hate that long flight.

Hello, World, Blog

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, World, and Blog.

And suddenly, a new blog appears! I’ve been diddling and daddling with many different blog formats over the years. I’ve tried templates, I’ve tried paid services, I’ve tried designing my own “edgy” design…and here I am daddling into yet another blog. Hopefully this one sticks, but no promises.

This blog is built with Astro, with my own hands and absolutely no AI involvement. Well, nothing on my own volition. Please tell me what is badly done here at the repository source.

Naruko Onsen

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This last weekend I visited Naruko Onsen with a few of my friends, and felt compelled to write a bit about my thoughts about it.

Naruko Onsen (鳴子温泉) is a quaint little village in northern Miyagi known for its hot springs. It has an abundance of hot spring baths, some very nice and some very…sad.

I like it a lot though. As is very common in small Japanese towns, there are shut down and abandoned shops and buildings here and there. The majority of the population is an elder population. There is a strong smell of sulfur in the air. Even the grandiose hot spring hotels have this strong sense of pre-bubble Japan, with outdated signs and remnants of a bygone era.

When I visit Naruko Onsen, I often find myself in a weird state of melancholy that I somewhat have come to like and occasionally yearn. I always end up thinking, how will these places continue to survive in the future? Or really more, what will Japan look like in 30 years?

I particularly love hot-springs and the culture around it. When visiting the nicer hotels, you get a sense that they’ll be alright.

But when visiting the small “mom and pop shops”, you start to gain a different perspective.

To my surprise, I noticed a new cafe opened in the little town. Modern and stylish, I was delighted. But again, I wondered of the economical hardships they might have to endure. Maybe they thought about it before hand? Maybe they have a plan for it? I wanted to support them, so of course we had lunch there, and it was quite nice! (The cafe in question: Cafe Gutto)

So it was a lovely time. The hot springs, despite the state of some of them, are still great to get into.

On The Browser Company of New York

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Who Is The Browser Company of New York?

The Browser Company of New York, is a company, in New York, that makes web browsers. They came into the scene a few years ago as a startup with investment money and a really compelling product, the Arc Browser. What made this Chrome based product different was the UX and UI decisions the team made when building. Instead of copying the general visual structure that most browsers have, they tried to approach every feature differently, by thinking how it could actually help the user, and how it could solve actual problems that users had when using everyday browsers. Some particular examples that I like are:

Tabs get “archived” after some preset time (default 24 hours), making users who like to hoard be more mindful of their tabs.
Tab organizing feature- organize your tabs automatically be context into relevant folders.
Being able to “peek” into a link, for sites you don’t really want to open a tab for.
Split screen- quickly and easily move any tab into a split screen with other tabs.

There are many other features that I didn’t incorporate into my own workflow, but I think many people were fans of them.

The Arc browser quickly became very popular amongst a devoted crowd. It was genuinenly an exciting time to see what new features are introduced with every new release. Unfortunately however, the company still saw the Arc Browser as too niche of a product, and could not devise a path to profitbility, despite the fanbase. I suppose they had taken far too much money in VC funding, and were needing a big payout someway or another.

So, the company did something rather bizarre, and decide they will no longer develop any new features for the Arc Browser, and will instead start from scratch and build a new browser, called Dia, with a focus on AI and making it the “browser for everyday people”, or something along those lines. That’s pretty much the gist of that, they had tons of other marketing fluff around the browser, but it was seriously misguided and completely tonedef. No one was happy.

Why Do I Care?

Simply beacuse I enjoy and like their products. But I suspect that will change soon.

As of late, The Browser Company of New York announced that they were acquired by Atlassian, so they finally got their big exit that they were looking for, probably.

I genuinely enjoy using the Arc Browser. For many, the fact that you have to register would put them off, and it would normally for me too, but I admire the craft a lot and I think it actually makes my working days better, so it’s worth it.

I have been giving Dia a try for a few months now. The browser is OK, but I can’t help but think the company’s ethos has been lost. With Arc, many of the features they introduced felt like they were solving real problems, even if some of them didn’t solve my problems, I could recognize that a lot of other people did get value from it. The same can’t be said for Dia, and it’s why I think it’s entirely a misguided product.

What their marketing tells me is that their goal is to get the the browser to browse for you. I don’t know if that’s what I want? I don’t think that solves a particular problem for me? And you might say- maybe I don’t understand the vision. But up until now, the features they’ve added do not spark any confidence.

They push features such as “skills”, which are just a list of prompts to give an LLM. I’ve tried to apply them to my workflow, but either I am incredibly uncreative (possibly true), or they are just so useless (or also possible true). Even so, this is supposed to be “the browser for the masses”, so if I don’t get the value of such a feature, why would anyone else’s grandmother?

I like Dia because of two things. The UX/UI interactions & feel of Arc, and the AI sidebar. But mostly the former. The thing is, the polish that the team introduces to the browser is what brings value to me. I need the browser to be a polished, well thought out piece of software that adapts to my browsing needs. I need particular features that make me enjoy browsing more, or make things quicker for me in an intuitive way. I am worried about the trajectory of these browsers, and with the newly added influence of Atlassian, I am afraid most of what I liked about the products will soon dissapear.

But really, this is all a disguised complaint about the trajectory of applications with AI. What puts me off about products like Dia is how their attempts to provide value is just adding more “prompts” or “context” to the LLM and make it sound like it’s world changing. Another example: products like Claude Code would talk about “sub-agents”, sounds incredible! Looking into it, it’s the same LLM just using a different “prompt”. And that’s what product development feels like nowadays.

Anyways, I’ve lost the gas to continue this post. Check out Arc & Dia, and let me know what you think.

Remembered, Yet Forgotten

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I didn’t know it yet at the time, but studying abroad in Germany would significantly impact the direction of my life. I remember riding the way, not thinking much of the butterfly effects in life. Of all its repecurscsions, one has stood with me for some time and makes me happy but sad, and that is remembering a great friend that I made.

During my time abroad, I met a lot of people who left a lasting impression, but in particular, I had made an incredible friend with whom I had a genuine connection with. As we moved on to our lives- me moving back to the US-, this person stayed in my heart, and I tried my best to stay in contact with them.

After almost 10 years, we finally met up again, in Japan, and it was an amazing time. It was incredible seeing them again, the rush of feelings I got remembering all the fun times we had, all the long discussions. I felt like I was transferred back to the times.

But unfortunately, I started to question if the person shared the same opinion of the connection that I thought we had. They had never initiated any contact with me, and even a year after meeting, I never received another message again. Remembered, yet forgotten.

It makes me wonder how many people I’ve left a lasting impression on, but have not been able to remember and contact. Maybe none, or maybe a few. I am not angry, and I am sad to some degree, but I can never blame them. One lives their lives as they do. How could I expect them to reserve mental space for me? But it still saddens me, perhaps because I yearn to be back in those days, and they are my only lasting connections to it.

Remembered, yet forgotten

2024 In Review

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

2024 was a relatively eventful year. As usual I had a list of goals I wanted to try and accomplish, but didn’t even come close.

Goals

I made a post about my goals for 2024 here

Call my loved ones everyday: I didn’t really keep track very well, but it could certainly have been much better.
Achieve weight of 65kg: Nope, at 74.25 now. Hopefully it’s all muscle :o
Get 5 paying users for some product offering: currently sitting at 0.
1000 hours of guitar practice: also didn’t keep track of this, and also, this probably could have been better.
Achieve 16 kyu rank in the game “Go”: pretty much gave up on the serious studying I was doing for Go, and ended up playing Chess far more.
12 books (3 in Japanese): fell quite short of this. I only got through 4 books in English, and maybe half of two books in Japanese. I did however read a lot of Manga in Japanese, but I don’t entirely count it towards the goal.

However, in the honorable mentions I did ok:

Blog once a month: I did blog a lot more, so I was happy with that.
Make more friends: I certainly got to meet more people and make more friends, so I’m pretty happy about that too.
Stay off my phone more: This one might be measurable, but based on feeling alone, I tried my best to stay off the phone by managing my tasks and calendar from my Hobonichi instead.
Swim once a week: in the summer, I discovered that I can workout well with swimming in the summer without dying from itch, so I went swimming far more often. I didn’t swim every week though, especially once it got cooler.

Given how random and unconcise these goals were, I think I really want to be a bit more focused, and precise for the following year…stay tuned.

Notice for the sections below: I “squooshed” some images so they aren’t as heavy and it really messed with the colors - just a warning.

January

I started off my year how we all should - by feeding the capitalist machine, and experiencing the Japanese tradition that is New Years sale. The deals are OK. There are certainly good things to be found, and I told myself I certainly should wait to buy any electronic until this time.

My first time in Kusatsu. We stayed two nights, and had a wonderful time. The hot springs/onsens were tremendous, and the surrounding area is very nice too. I hope to go again when theres more snow to be able to hit the ski slopes.

February

Despite it being a poor snow season - I still got a good amount of turns in, and I’m grateful for that. The above is a picture from Eboshi ski resort.

March

In march, friends of mine and I booked a trip to Europe. We stopped in London to watch some football and it was phenomenal. I truly miss being able to watch the sport I love with great friends. Below is Craven Cottage in Fulham, the team that Marcus Aurelius would support.

After that we took a nice flight over to Geneva, transferred over to Chamonix, and skiied one of the most amazing mountains I’ve ever gotten to ski on. I am being quite serious when I think this experience changed my life. I’ve never been the same.

After coming back, I thought I didn’t have enough of traveling and decided I should catch a quick flight to Seoul, since I’ve never been there.

While Seoul just feels like Tokyo to me, the food was phenomenal, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lastly, to end an eventful month, I wanted to catch some more turns at Geto Kogen ski resort, maybe catch the small glimpses of powder. Unfortunately while there was powder the day before, it rained in the evening giving a really unfortunate skiing environment. Still had fun!

April

In April, for golden week, we got to explore Aomori, a northern prefecture from where I live. Needless to say, I fell in love. I can imagine my next few country side trips will be to Aomori.

The above is a picture from Osorezan, or Mount Osore, more specifically from the temple, which is renowed for the monks being able to talk to the dead and it being an entrance to the Underworld. You can definitely understand why when visiting as the entire place has a very powerful feeling to it. Wholeheartedly recommend.

From the temple, about a 2 hour drive you can reach a beautiful rock formation, Hotokegaura.

May

As temperatures reached perfect, I got to do an amazing hike near Akiu, one of which I’ll never forget!

June

Temperatures starting going up, so I didn’t go out very much, but did get the chance to do some fun stuff, such as plant sweet potatoes.

July

Despite it being quite humid and hot, we did get to see the beautiful Yamadera with some friends.

Got to see Doctor Yellow in Nagoya:

August

Finally, with August being the worst month (I think) in terms of temperature, I tried my best by not going out at all. I was unfortunately forced (not really) into a local countryside event were they walk in traditional footware from the olden times:

September

Got to stay in a very expensive onsen in Yamagata. There’s a video about it: https://youtu.be/xYmiU5PSyE0

Family got to come over, and we collected Sunny Angels

October

October, perhaps the most uneventful month, still got to see some action. We saw things melt because of the temperature:

And we got to hike the renowed nipple mountain of Sendai

November

Got to partake in an Imonikai…

…and watch my local team win to get into the J1 playoffs!

December

And to end the year as everyone should…by feeding the capitalist machine! Just kidding, by hitting the slopes:

This was in Yamagata.

Looking forward to an eventful 2025. Thank you for reading!

Idea and motivation from acook and brian

Debugging GPG Key Issues

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The other day, I started panicking when I received an error just as I was ready to push a good chunk of work to my remote repo. It was regarding my GPG key. The solution was simple ( my key had expired, and I just had to renew it), but in my research I had found this nice Github Gist explaining a bit about what to do if you get errors when commiting:

How to understand the gpg failed to sign the data problem in git

Problem

You have installed GPG, then tried to commit and suddenly you see this error message after it:

error: gpg failed to sign the data
fatal: failed to write commit object

Debug

For understanding what’s going on, first check what git is doing, so add GIT_TRACE=1 at the beginning of the command you used before (git commit or git rebase):

GIT_TRACE=1 git commit

With that you can see what GPG is doing: Probably you will see something like this

10:37:22.346480 run-command.c:637       trace: run_command: gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key>

(Check if your GPG key is correct)

Execute that gpg command again in the command line:

gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key>

👆🏻 With this now you could see what happened in detail!

Solutions

We can have many problems, but I list what I found:

It could be that the GPG key was expired: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47561300/532912
Another thing could be that the secret key was not set properly (In my case the message said gpg: signing failed: No secret key as it can be see in the image below). It means that is not finding the key that was set. You would need to set up the GPG key in Git (again):
- List the secret keys available in GPG.
```
gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long
```
- Copy your key
- Set your key for your user in git
```
git config --global user.signingkey <your key>
```
Another popular solution that could help was shared here by @NirajanMahara: https://gist.github.com/paolocarrasco/18ca8fe6e63490ae1be23e84a7039374?permalink_comment_id=3767413#gistcomment-3767413
You can see in the thread of this gist other ways to find the solution to other problems. I recommend to read the Github guide for signing commits with GPG.

Hope it helps!

Software discoveries

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Here are a few pieces of software I’ve started using and really wanted to share.

Exercism

I rediscovered a very nice piece of software that I decided to donate to, since I’ve been using it heavily for the past few weeks. That software, or website, is called Exercism. It’s a platform that lets you learn many programming languages with exercises. The exercises are not as ho-hum as just doing LeetCode problems, and the platform has a very nice gamified feel to it all. What I like most about it is that most problems take a good 15-30 minutes depending on difficulty, and that’s just perfect for days that I can’t dedicate several hours to programming, but still want to get my fingers moving a bit.

Qutebrowser

A major Arc browser vulnerability was discovered by a security researcher, and it has been the talk of the town. More worryingly for me though was that I am an Arc browser user. Reading this didn’t sit well with me, and I thought that yeah, maybe I don’t need to use this, that its features aren’t really all that great.

So I am giving my favorite browser another shot: Qutebrowser. That might sound weird, but Qutebrowser has a lot of issues that were hard for me to overcome, but about a week in, I am feeling hopeful.

New Reeder

My favorite RSS app came out with its new version, and I am loving it. While I find it unfortunate that its a subscription based product, the pricing is really lovely and I don’t mind paying for it at that price range. In truth, I found the older Reeder version a bit difficult to grasp. The UI was nice but a lot of the actions were not intuitive to me. This new one feels like its going in the right direction.

On Personal Productivity

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been quite overwhelmed with the amount of tool options one has for personal productivity and how many of them appeal to me. Taking most of them aside, I’m trying my best to stick to ones that I am already using, however they are kind of at odds.

About a month and a half ago, I decided to stick to using my Hobonichi journal/planner. I decided to do so because of my unwavering addiction to my phone. In the past, I was a major user of Things. I love the app, and own both the iOS and Mac version. The issue was that every time I opened my phone to check my tasks, I ended up doing something else either before or after, and often times would end up wasting several minutes when I should have closed my phone much earlier. Basically, I want one less reason to look at my phone. Already, I do feel it has helped quite a bit. Unfortunately, going fully analog has its problems, especially when working at a tech company that values its digital calendar.

The most recent annoyance of mine is what to do with Obsidian. I love the software, but find trouble finding a good balance of its usage with my analog planning. While I treat Obsidian mostly as a location for notes, which is what it initially was meant for, its “planning features” are hard for me to ignore, and it’s entirely too easy to make tasks that I need to check later.

Instagram

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Instagram is such a double edged sword and some days I regret wielding it. I have a 15 minute time limit set on it, which I sometimes break, but for the most part honor. And for good reason.

Instagrams arguably worst feature is the feed of things you didn’t ask for, paired with the brain rotting “reels”. I can’t deny that the content Instagram feeds you can be highly entertaining and engaging. Feeds is exactly the right verb here though, because it’s not really things you asked for. And this hyper-engaging, short form content brings a slew of negatives. For one, and I’m sure many can relate, is the absolute time wasted on them, or at the very least the feeling of time wasted. Second, and I think this one is the worst and least talked about, but there are plenty of awful things fed to you. From awful, racist or plain horrible comments to reactionary content (examples include people slandering things you like, people doing very crazy things, near death experiences). I do enjoy a few reels related to football or sports, but in general I am always left with a sour taste in my mouth. What’s worse is that you can’t really explicitly tell Instagram to “feed” you only this and that, you can pretty much just say “I don’t like this” and let the algorithm find more stuff you didn’t really want.

Instagram is a great tool for staying in contact with your friends. It’s the modern Facebook, and it’s the only platform a good portion of my friends are active on. This is a great positive, and being able to share pictures of your life is a wonderful feature for me.

But the rest is horrible. One day, perhaps, something like Pixelfed will take off, although I hope it never decides to adopt short form content.

Mundane Things

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Everyone has their “little things”. It’s always about the little things, once you’re at a certain age at least.

One of them for me is that small, 2 to 3 seconds of my espresso machine pouring in that sweet, nectar of the gods.

Is it an addiction? Perhaps. Although I’m proud to say that I keep my coffee intake relatively low these days.

Nuxt Auto Imports

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been working with Nuxt for a few weeks now, and was wondering exactly how the auto imports work. Luckily for me, I found a really nice (free!) resource on Nuxt that explains exactly how.

https://learnnuxt.co/free/introduction/nuxt-auto-imports

It’s essentially a small tutorial that would take you no less than 5-10 minutes. I recommend it.

I don’t know where I stand on auto imports, but as of now at the beginning of a project, I am certainly enjoying it. It makes files very clean. But I understand it’s a different matter when you end up with 15+ imports. Luckily though, at that point I think you’d then want to just start doing the imports explicitly, so really, it feels like there is a best of both worlds here.

Setting up Zed with eslint only formatting

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I was trying to set up the Zed editor with ESLint only formatting yesterday, and to save future someone some time, I wanted to post this. In my path to reducing dependencies, I wanted to explore formatting options with other than ESLint. I have always opted for Prettier and had no real opinions on how formatting should behave, but was easily convinced otherwise after looking at Anthony Fu’s ESLint configuration and the formatting rules that come along with it.

However at the time of writing in Zed, you can’t set it such that only eslint formatting runs, and so you have to set it such that the default formatter is an external one that does nothing, and then have it run ESLint’s fix command after. In other words:

"languages": {
	"Vue.js": {
		"formatter": {
			"external": {
				"command": "cat << EOF",
				"arguments": []
			}
		},
		"code_actions_on_format": {
			"source.fixAll.eslint": true
		}
	}
}

Tech Is Sometimes Fun

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Tech is fun…sometimes. When I mean tech, I mostly mean talking to people or reading about things about tech online is sometimes fun. But it can be a lot.

The thing about tech is that people have opinions. And I have always taken pride in being someone who likes to listen to most if not all opinions, even if they are goofy or ridiculous, at least I get a laugh. But with tech it’s no joke. This is further aggravated by the fact that like with many things, it is not black and white.

Take for example a current internal battle that I am having with myself that is fueled by thought published online: the JavaScript vs. anti-JavaScript battle. It’s hard to summarize this “battle”, but essentially, the deficiency of the programming language has spurred some people to think it is the worst thing in humanity, while others have embraced its shortcomings and propelled it to be the most used programming language in the world.

There are countless articles and videos talking about its faults and how we should move away from it:

People create clever workarounds, and some claim its the fault of capitalism that we are where we are. But at the same time, you could argue that we have never been so empowered as we are now, thanks to the incredible amount of resources in the JavaScript world. Not to mention the business opportunities…

Frankly, I don’t know where to stand on this. I enjoy making things with JavaScript, but at the same time, I also believe there is something to be said about its overuse. Hopefully my uncertainty in this regard can improve as my working skill as a software developer improves.

A small project idea

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I typically write project ideas on Obsidian and keep it private. But for some reason, I wanted to write about this one. Possibly because it is essentially a social network.

The Idea

A social network for those to share recycling tips.

That’s it.

I often find myself thinking, how could I recycle more. What can I do to throw away less, and re-use. A small, example: I often drink ice coffee from Lawson, and instead of always using their cups that I just end up throwing away, I just come with my tumbler and they let me use it! I have read that Family Mart and 7-11 may not let you, but I haven’t tried.

Anyways, it’s a small thought. I also wonder how many cups I’m saving from using my tumbler.

I am not looking forward to summer

Sun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

In the past I used to associate winter with depression, mainly because of days with less daytime and in the case of snowy locations, less sunlight. Now it’s completely opposite. I am dreading summer. Summer in Japan is horrible, and to be honest, it is probably horrible in most other places too. First is the humidity. This is my main complaint, because anything above 70% has me sweating at all times, which in turn is very bad for my eczema-ridden skin, and I’m also not entirely convinced it is just because I sweat a lot, but also because fauna and dust mites thrive under these circumstances and my body reacts very poorly to them. This in turn typically starts a horrible cycle that I don’t really get to see the end of until December or January. My skin itches and so I have trouble sleeping, which then in turn makes skin worse and my sleeping worse. This cycle is only offset somedays by being so tired I can actually fall asleep but then it just restarts. How I have managed is beyond me, but typically it goes somewhere along the lines of: be generous with the air conditioner and medicine (typically steroid cremes…).

This horrible cycle has actually horrible consequences in that I have trouble focusing at work, have trouble finding motivation and energy to exercise, and overall keeps me in a poor mood. Last summer might have been the best summer despite the heat, but I sacrificed exercise hard for it. I refrained from moving at all, keeping sweat at a minimum. Second is the rainy season. This shouldn’t require much discussion but I want to mention how much I hate it’s variability and how it affects me skin. Some days during rain my skin feels fine whereas other days I feel like I want to die. It’s completely insane to me how hard it is for me to find any degree of interrelation between weather patterns and my skin. Lastly, the lack of things to do in the summer near me underwhelm me. In the winter, I’m heavily invested in skiing, a fun and relatively safe way to have fun at high speeds. It brings me joy thinking when I will get to skiing next. But in the summer, the available options feel so lackluster. Mountain biking is nearly non-existent despite there being perfectly good resorts and potential trails. Road cycling, while an OK endeavor, really only is fun in certain conditions that in my opinion, rare. Good roads, gorgeous views and almost no cars seems very difficult to find, but I can admit I can look further. Hiking, is okay, I do enjoy it, but also feel its immensely popular (too many people) which often ruins many nice trails, but here too I think there is room for improvement.

Overall I still am not looking forward to summer. It’s a big issue I need to overcome, somehow. Either by moving, or changing my environment such that I can survive enough inside.

Reflecting on Habits

Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about habits. I was so adamant that they are the key to a good life, or at least to a life with more options. For example, if you are able to create a habit of studying every morning, or running every evening, you’ll be able to improve your career or join races of all kinds. Maybe even better said, the general ability of being able to maintain habits is the key to a good life. I think it’s terribly obvious to everyone that it’s not that easy. Because of this we have a wide array of self help books pertaining to habits that could have all easily been a blog post, but even despite this, I found the book “Atomic Habits” to be good and felt what it had to say very informative. I even took what it had to say as dogma.

Basically the book lists a few tips and tricks to keep your habits and built on top of ones you already have. It feels to me that most of these are based on pure grit. And as of recent I’ve been thinking this is completely wrong. We are not naturally meant to just easily develop habits. They need to be inherently fun. People that are able to do something daily is because they enjoy it. Even when it gets hard, they still find enjoyment from it. So I think if you want to develop habits you need to find a way to make it fun. Otherwise, the minute you break the habit you’ll lose it.

It reminds me something a good friend of mine said, to first get good at running you must enjoy it, and if that requires you running 1km a day at a super slow pace then that’s totally fine. Run as slow and as little as possible, if that’s what makes you enjoy running.

Not Panicking

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Somehow Douglas Adam has managed to capture me in a way that I find myself always thinking about something from his books, and as of recent, this fun quote:

A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough

While extremely satirical every time I travel I find myself happy to have brought a towel. To add on, you can use it to clean things, use it as a pillow or blanket, dry your hands off when washing (particular important as I don’t like to use the air dryers in the public bathrooms), express yourself if you buy a towel with some motif or team, use it to protect something fragile in your suitcase, and of course, dry yourself :)

Overcoming the Japanese plateau

Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I took the decision to learn Japanese almost 8 years ago and have progressed a good amount since then. I first began studying the basic lettering system, Hiragana and Katakana on my free time while living in the USA and then after that took some beginner courses while studying abroad in Germany. This was slow progress and my Japanese didn’t really take off until I entered the “Shinkansen course” at Tohoku University about 2 years later. This course was an intensive, 3 months course of daily 6 hour days of Japanese study. This immersive experience really put me on another level and to this day I find myself thinking a lot about what was taught during that time.

However, this course has brought me to what I like to call the Japanese plateau, a common state for really any technical endeavor (music, sports, language). You’ve reached a good level but you’re not significantly advancing in your skill despite still giving effort in studying. So, I’ve reached a level where more time effort is needed to reach a higher level.

More concretely, I lack the ability to read effectively. Along with the aforementioned writing systems Hiragana and Katakana, Kanji (adapted Chinese characters) is a major hindrance to most western foreigners because they require a lot of of time to learn, and really there is no other way around it. There are no tricks other than pure rote memorization (there are a few tricks but they only prove to be slightly helpful).

I often wonder if I would have gained a much higher fluency in other languages such as Portuguese or Norwegian had I committed the same amount of time to them and if I should regret my decision. But even despite that, I do not. Japanese is a wonderful language that’s very fun to use and learn, and the ability to read and understand the way of thinking via literature is a goal that I don’t mind dedicated several more years of my life to.

The question though is, HOW. Unfortunately dear reader, I leave the answer to this for another post. My current ideas revolve around more material consumption paired with some other tools. Let’s see how it goes.

Reflecting on my trip to Europe

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Soon approaching May, I thought it was ample timing to write about my trip to Europe, which happened in last month, early March. The itinerary went as follows: Bus to Tokyo, Tokyo to Shanghai, Shanghai to London, stay 2 days in London, London to Geneva, drive to Chamonix, spend a night, ski, take train to near Stuttgart via Zürich, spend a few days in Germany, Stuttgart to London, spend a night in London, London to Shanghai, Shanghai to Tokyo, take bullet train home.

Both in hindsight and before the trip, I realized it was going to be (and was) a tiring affair. But yet, it was bareable and worth it in the end, despite my hatred for overnight flights and my lack of ability to sleep anywhere that isn’t a flat surface.

In the following weeks, I felt that the trip had a lasting impact on me, and because of it I’ve reassessed my values, my goals and what I want in my life. I am still lost as always, but feel that the fog has cleared up a bit more than previously before. There’s a lot of feelings involved here, so I want to unpack them while going through what I did.

London

I have been to London once in my life, and that was with my family when I was very young. I still have fond memories of the trip. Despite that I never really found London to be a prime destination for me. It’s big, expensive and rainy. But it does have one very important thing going for it: The English Premier League. The home of the strongest (not the best) football league in the world, and that is enough for me to disregard all its faults. Plus, my friends wanted to go there.

The time in London was short, but wonderful nonetheless. I got to meet with some of my childhood friends as well as make new ones, and was able to watch my very first Premier League match live, namely Fulham vs. Brighton. Living in Japan, I was hoping I would get to see action from Mitoma, but unfortunately he was injured and could not play.

I was ecstatic to be here. While the atmosphere wasn’t top notch (when compared to the Bundesliga…), it still felt great. I certainly had a grea time, and the football was really great. I was always curious what the reality of a Premier League match was, and Fulham as a comparatively small team did not dissapoint. How I would rate Fulham:

Atmosphere: 6/10 - While it was better than I expected, I still hoped that Fulham would have fostered a closer community that would have fans, “ultras” as they’re called sometimes, which help typically with this.
Food: 3/10 - Easy loss here for Fulham. I had a “meatpie” with a beer which was OK - but that was basically all there was, and here’s the kicker though, you’re not allowed to drink alcohol in the stands.
Stadium: 8/10 - Craven Cottage is a beautiful stadium. I’m a sucker for these smaller, more traditional stadiums. With CC you can feel the history and sit very close to the field, which all contributes to its high score.
Football: 7/10 - Fulham played a strong match versus quiet Brighton. The pace was incredible, exactly what you’d expect of a Premier League match. There was chances on both ends, but for goods parts of the match both teams were relatively timid.

What really stood out this trip was not exactly the football, but the connection with my friends. I did not know how much I yearned again that comfortable feeling you have with friends you’ve known for years. I really believe now that once you enter your adult years, whenever those are, you really lose the ability to make any true, good friends. And it’s not that you don’t lack the will, but rather the time. It’s hard to create friendships that last when so much of it is forced. At a young age, everything is natural and you form a bond that is pretty much impossible to replicate in your adult years. It doesn’t mean you can’t make friends, but I bet you wouldn’t feel as comfortable with them as you would with your childhood friends.

These feelings are further exacerbated when I think about making friends in a foreign country. I used to think it was challenge making friends in Europe vs. in the US, but now I find it less of a challenge when you compare it to making friends in Asia. In general, the cultural difference is far too large that even if you have surpassed the language barrier, things such as cultural references still hinder the process more than you’d think. And even though Japan and the US share many similar cultural matters (like anime), the way they are consumed and discussed are still quite different. Of course, it’s not imposssible, but very difficult.

Given these thoughts, I felt even closer to my friends now, despite not having seen them for a while.

Chamonix

This section…still needs to be written.

Germany

This section…still needs to be written.

London, and then Home

This section…still needs to be written.

Post trip blues

This section…still needs to be written.

Some Tips to potential happiness

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Drink coffee, orange juice and a lot of water everyday.
Love your family, call them, text them, fight with them, apologize, love them.
Listen to music, a lot of it. Dance. Make music.
Climb mountains. A lot of them.
Run. Run a lot.
Sleep, sleep most of your time.
Read random books, articles, magazines.

Recent; Whats Happened February

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

February kicked off with a rough start for me but is coming to a positive end. The theme of this month has been “low temperatures”. I had planned on getting a lot skiing done now that I have a car, but the temperatures have been very unfavorable to the local ski resorts. Looking at past temperature readings, you wouldn’t think it has changed much, but last did not have the best conditions either. This year however the increase in temperature feels more noticeable as many of the local resorts struggle to stay open. It’s a worrying fear of mine that snowfall will continue to decrease such that the mountains will be quite bare during the winter in the next 10 years. Given that temperatures are increasing overall, it’s a good possibility, but I hope that at least some odd weather patterns emerge and we get years with a lot of snow.

On Japan’s version of craiglist I was able to find someone who likes to play chess and meet up with him. This was a big win for me as I primarily play chess online and was yearning for more over the board interactions. My opponent played at about the same level as me, just missing a bit of the instinct as his primary game is Shogi. We’ve been able to meet up twice already and I’m happy for that. Having met him has also had me learn that there is a small chess presence in Sendai, and there are even talks of a formidable French opponent which I’m looking forward to playing against.

In February, I’ve started to for the first time, enjoy and understand the Phoenix Elixir framework. Elixir is a functional programming language and Phoenix is a web framework for Elixir. I was introduced to it about two years ago at my previous employer and have been overly curious about it as there is a lot of fervor for the language and its ecosystem. Because of this I’ve been slowly taking the time to learn and Elixir and understand what it is about it that so many developers rage about it. This is the first month I’ve found joy using this language, and I’m starting to understand its appeal a bit more.

Books I’m Reading

Clockwork Boys - I’ve started reading this as a suggestion from a friend. It’s an enjoyable book, it feels somewhat Young Adultish, but that’s no issue at all.
きらきらひかる (Kira Kira Hikaru) - A Japanese novel that I was told was a relative easy read for Japanese-as-a-second-language readers. It indeed has been a pleasant read.

What I’m Watching/Watched

Love & Death (HBO) - I binged this true story drama in a few days. It was okay, enjoyable. I liked the the way the film was able to really depict the 1980’s life in somewhat rural Texas.

Pieces I’m Working On

Capriche Arabe

Somethings That Have Stuck

A particular quote I saw somewhere:

The less I have the happier I am

After having read this quote I was inspired to try and adapt it in my life. I too often find myself wanting things were in many cases I think it can bring less happiness.

Speaking of things to want, I still do believe there are times when having more can be beneficial to you and in this particular instance I am talking about a pillow. My wife has a Tempur-pedic pillow (that’s only sold in the Japanese market, for some reason) that is incredible and is something that has influenced me tremendously. In the rare cases that I was allowed to sleep on that pillow, I felt this may be the only pillow for me. The unfortunate thing here though is that it is a pillow that costs ¥33,000, or $219 and so I have been in search of a pillow just as a good but for at least half the price. The search continues, however…

My 2024 Goals

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

There’s a true tragedy to listing my goals every year, and that is that I always inevitably list way too much for me to actually accomplish. I’m going to try to keep it a bit more focused this year, but I’m also not going to make any promises. Without further ado:

Call My Loved Ones Everyday

I try to do this already, but I want to make it a habit.

65kg

I don’t find myself entirely overweight, but I am at 73kg now, and I’ve gained about 6kg in the last year (partly due to meniscus surgery). My meniscus and knee are ok, and I’m eating like a triathlete, but not training like one. So 65kg.

5 paying users

Maybe a modest goal for some, but it’s been a long goal of mine to start my own business. 5 paying users would signify to me that I have it in me, to provide value to people. So this is my career goal for the year.

1000 hours

I’ve been playing classical guitar for a while now, and I’m not getting any younger. I want to get to a level where I can play the pieces I want to play at a very high level, and that means putting in the hours. I’m going to try to get to 1000 hours of practice this year, which is about 2.5 hours a day.

16 kyu

I’m not sure about this one, but I’ve lately been playing a lot of Go (Baduk, 囲碁) and I’ve thought about trying to get formally rated. 16k is not strong at all, but considering I’ve only just started, maybe its a worthy goal.

12 books (3 in Japanese)

I have many books I want to read. Also I have many books I have bought that need to be read.

Honorable Mentions

Blog once a month
Make more friends
Stay off my phone more
Ride my bike more
Swim once a week
Ski and hike more
Ride my bike to the beach and back before work
Go surfing and skiing in the same day

Recent (September)

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Link-a-roo

Here are some links that I found cool/interesting:

https://learngitbranching.js.org/ : interactive and visual way of learning Git. Much easier to approach than git’s documentation.
https://100.atnfu.me : from the legend himself, Anthony Fu’s 100 day challenge of making fun, cool and sometimes interactive visuals.
https://withblue.ink/2020/05/17/how-and-why-to-sign-git-commits.html : nice explanation of how & why you should sign your git commits.
https://andybrewer.github.io/mvp/ : a plug & play stylesheet. No classes!
https://alexanderell.is/posts/websockets-from-scratch/ : “writing a websocket server from scratch”. I dream that I someday have the time and patience to write one myself in Zig.

MATH

This is a trivial topic for many, but let’s say you want to “map” the range 0 to 1500, to a range of -1 to 1. How would you do that? Let’s make it a bit more “interesting”, but let’s say you don’t want a linear mapping but rather something more smooth.

This is a long winded way of saying that I truly appreciate simple calculus mathematics. The above can be done with a sigmoid function. Again, a bit trivial, but at times it seems like magic.

Here’s an example of when you might want to use a sigmoid function. Let’s say you want to map the coordinates of your mouse to some sort of element transform or value. Often these are not as big as the value of the mouses’ x position (which can be in the thousands). Using a simple function like:

  function sigmoid(z) {
    return (5 / (1 + Math.exp((z-750)/50))) - 1;
  }

Would allow you essesntially transform the mouses x-coordinate (or y) values to something more suitable for HTML/CSS properties, and not in a linear pattern that can sometimes be disorienting with animations.

Git

Gitting gud is one of my developer goals. Here’s an awesome squasher:

  git reset --soft HEAD~3 &&
  git commit

No git rebase or git merge --squash! Wonderful. Taken from this Stackoverflow thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5189560/how-do-i-squash-my-last-n-commits-together

Games

Splatoon 3 was released this last week and with me trying to keep up with the times, I decided to purchase it. Not being a regular gamer, Splatoon was challenging right off the bat. Unlike some other other shooters I am used to, Splatoon & its players recommend you use the controllers gyroscope to aim rather than just the right joy stick. I’ve been trying to “stick” to this, but it’s pretty challenging and I still have yet to see the benefits. The game is still very fun however.

Recent (August)

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve finally been able to have a long overdue extended break that has allowed me to clear my mind. In particular, it’s very nice to step away from active coding and I really believe it’ll help me in the long run. Here are a few things I’ve been looking at as of recent:

Books

Quantum Enigma

This book is real fun and has me remembering all my physics courses in Uni.

Mamita Yunai

Articles/Magazines

I have a subscription with Wired Magazine (that’s soon to expire, but am considering renewing) that’s always a joy to read. I think I’d like to have another subscription of a monthly magazine, but unsure whether to do something international (New Yorker, The Atlantic, Der Spiegel) or something local (tons of JP magazines), or something kinda niche (11Freunde), but definitely something. It’s nice to stay away from the computer and actually read something in print.

Some random thoughts

Recently I’ve been torn as to what messaging app to suggest to people. I haven’t really explored any others other than Telegram & Signal, so my gripe is just between those two. I like Signal a lot for the type of organization it is (almost open-source, non-profit), and its’ end-to-end encryption by default feature, but Telegram is a lot more polished and to my surprise more enjoyable to use, I guess I really like small, thoughtful animations. But I really dislike that Telegram actively tries to keep you from using e2ee, and according to Pavel the CEO, its for the better. I still haven’t made my mind up on that because I just don’t know enough. And speaking of Pavel, while I do understand this is a bit disingenuous, I’m still wary of his background and his true motives. He’s a billionaire after all, and I have trouble trusting billionaires.

Cooking/Baking

My father taught me how to make the best bread in the world “Laugenbrötchen” (also referred to as Laugenweckle, Lye Bread, Pretzel).

So now I have an active challenge of re-creating this in Japan and that starts with the ingredients. For those who don’t know, “Lye Bread” uses, well, Lye, which is referred to as sodium hydroxide or 火星ソーダ (kasei so-da) in Japanese. I know I can buy this in the drug store, but since it’s usually used to make soap or clean your kitchen sink pipes, I’m unsure if this is still safe to use. Typically in Germany or in the US you can purchase a food grade version, and what the difference is I’m not sure. I’ll write up a more detailed post on it once I find out what I find out. Another challenge is finding good lard, which is a top secret ingredient my uncle who has worked in a bakery has told me. The lard I found in the states is in a big block, and needs to keep refrigerated whereas the lard here comes in a tube that looks like mayonnaise. I don’t know how much that will affect things. More to come.

Getting Bored

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been evident for several years that we are in peak time were your attention is worth a lot to social media companies, and other related companies. Data privacy aside, a lot of these applications do an incredible job of keeping me “entertained”, and I bet that most of anyone who has an online presence feels the same way. However, it’s also clear to me how out of hand it has gotten.

Algorithms deployed by these institutions are well designed machines that take advantage of the human psych, always slowly improving themselves to know exactly what would keep you on the platform as long as possible. It’s really an astounding invention when you think about it.

But it’s been very, very apparent to me how negatively it affects me. The particular offender for me has been YouTube and Twitter, with YouTube taking the largest effect on me. YouTube as an entertainment platform is very good, with literally an infinite amount of content available to its users, something that I’m sure broadcasters like Comcast and what-not could only dream about. Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, etc. all share similar powers. Some effects that are particular concerning to me is the constant need of wanting to get back on the platforms. In the mornings, I’m often craving intellectual material, or something interesting and maybe even profound. For the most part, news (such as New York Times, The Economist, Japan Times, etc) does a good job and I’d like to read more news in theory. However my mind always wanders to the darn platform that is YouTube, seeking that small dopamine rush I get when discovering an interesting video. This also not only happens in the mornings, but often throughout the day, and I often feel powerless. Not only that- but I’m convinced, no rather, I know that always having a constant feeling of dopamine worsens my ability to do things that I want to do and that matter far more. I wholeheartedly believe staying dopamine-injected impairs your ability to become motivated on things like work.

So before I continue this nonsense-less rant, I am here to say that I would like to get bored.

In particular, get off & away from all these platforms, if possible forever, and focus on things that will last.

Language Documentation

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Over the years I’ve learned about the importance of (official) documentation, and in fact it’s my preferred method of learning something programming related.

It’s very obvious though, that some frameworks and languages’ documentation are not all created equal.

This might be a hot take, but I think Python’s documentation are poor (docs.python.org). Often times, I have found the documentation for most modules to be very poorly structured, and it almost felt as if you had to read the entire documentation page to really make any sense of it. An example of what good Python documentation should be like is from “Real Python” (https://realpython.com/). Usually I’d go there for a good overhead view of a particular technique/module, then dive into Python’s docs.

But for Python being such a great language for beginners, I find the documentation not so, and it’s a pity because beginners should learn to read documentation as soon as possible in my humble opinion. Unless I’m reading the wrong docs, please point me to some more well structured and clearly written Python docs.

I’ve been reading and learning some Phoenix LiveView recently, and I think for the most part I do appreciate hexdocs (https://hexdocs.pm/), especially for the main modules used in Phoenix.

Another set of docs that I particularly liked reading, are the Nextjs and Remix docs (https://nextjs.org/docs/getting-started and https://remix.run/docs/en/v1 respectively). Especially the Remix docs, as I really enjoy the aesthetic appeal of the docs page. Of course it’s a bit different scope and context than Python & Elixir (framework vs language).

To end this post with another side-thought: some say the best documentation should be the code, and more and more I appreciate this when working with JavaScript (more specifically Typescript) because I rely heavily on the language server to point me to the actual source code of a particular library or node module. I actually love this so much, I feel like its been a big hit on my productivity on my Phoenix/LiveView journey as the language server I’m using with Neovim doesn’t seem to be working as well.

In any case, let’s keep reading docs everyone.

Motivation to blog

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Two posts that really stood out to me today are Rach Smiths’ post on just writing, and Nolan Lawson’s post on quitting Twitter. They’re not entirely related, but they really motivate me to work on this blog rather than waste my time on social networks like Twitter, YouTube and GitHub (just kidding, or, am I..?).

More related to Rach’s blog post (which I read from Chris Choyiers post today, a lot of blogs that I look at always contain amazing, well thought out and very informative information, giving me a sense of the authors true self: sensible, thoughtful, deliberate… just to name a few adjectives I pulled from the thesaurus.

But like most things in the web (and corporate world), they are obscured by the true reality of a human. That’s not to say well structured, “good” posts don’t say something about the author, it’s just that I think I enjoy reading more “wholesome” and “real” posts on a daily basis.

Initially I thought I’d work really hard on writing “good posts” for this blog, but after getting really into RSS feeds and the idea of quitting Twitter overall, I think I’ll pivot to more casual writing, with hopefully things that I’ve learned here and there.

Plus, it’s just a lot more fun.

On Quitting Anki

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

TL;DR: Anki is a great software, but its’ UI is poor and hard to use.

Last week I decided to no longer continue to use Anki, the flashcard learning application that is so dear to me. I’ve probably been using Anki for over 4 years now, and while I was never “every-day” consistent, I did use it at least every 3 days a week.

I used to think that Anki would be the center piece of my learning system, and that everything should and will revolve around Anki. After all, there are so many great resources for it, and a decent community behind it.

But its clunkiness really made using Anki not fun.

I’ve been using Mochi for a few weeks now. What makes this app better is:

Great UI (and ultimately UX) right out of the box.
Make cards with Markdown (!)
Linking (referencing) other cards is a breeze.

The last point is really great and I never thought I’d love it as much as I do. When I add a new Japanese word/phrase with characters I’m not familiar with, I’ll reference the “Remembering the Kanji” entry for each character, thus giving me more useful context and applying the learnings you get from RTK:

And then allowing me to view that characters card:

I’ve been using the same feature for my AWS studies as I prepare for a certificate exam.

The only thing I miss from Anki is the ability to import directly from Yomichan, but that comes with a positive aspect: I usually imported far too many words from Yomichan and ended up with huge decks that I’d never finish. Plus, inputting in yourself is always better as it reinforces the learning.

Using indeces as keys in React

Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction

Using the index of an array as a key in React is considered to be an anti-pattern and is not recommended.

The Problem

This article by Robin Pokorny explains it well.

The key is how React knows if something is unique or not in a list. By looking at the key, it can understand if it exists, or where it should be positioned.

However, the indeces “never change” when swapping items. Let’s say you want to swap two items in a list and you’re using indeces as keys. What’s the difference then, between [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ] and [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ] ? Essentially that’s what React sees. But if you use more unique keys that are actually tied to the underlying object, you can see why this makes sense:

Before update: [ "title1_1646", "title2_9913", "title4_8135", "title3_0013", "title5_1224" ]

After update: [ "title1_1646", "title2_9913", "title3_0013", "title4_8135", "title5_1224" ]

From this you can clearly see the swap change, and are then able to render optimally. Remember, a lot of React is about comparing before & after states.

Software I Use

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most most fun things about software is the seemingly endless options of software that are available for you to choose.

I spent admittedly too much time always looking for the next thing or exploring new tech & tools, but some do stay and I’d like to list those. This post is somewhat inspired by a blog post by a developer that I had recently just stumbled upon: Cam Little’s Tools.

I hope for those who are always looking for something new or better to try, that this list might help you do just that 🙂.

Editors

Neovim with Neovide
Nova by Panic

I used to use VSCode and I occasionally do, but there are a few things that I absolutely love about the above editors that VSCode lacks:

Not being fully keyboard driven.
Not a true Mac app.
Not fun.

On the third one, let me explain. VSCode is a great editor. It’s free, it has all the extensions one could ever need. But it’s not fun. Creating your own plugins for it is not fun. The settings on it is not fun. And if I’m going to spend tons of time on an IDE, I want to use one thats fun, but that’s just me.

Neovim is really great, and when you add it together with a cool GUI like Neovide, it is really fun. I’ve been exploring the Nova IDE by Panic, and while it has a lot of bugs & quirks that irk me, I really love it’s macness. It’s fun (when it’s not buggy).

Here are my “dotfiles” for neovim, if you’re interested: link

Browser

LibreWolf with these important plugins: Tridactyl vim keybindings and Yomichan (JP dictionary look up)
Qutebrowser

I actually really love Qutebrowser, but it sometimes has problems with some sites & it lacks good plugin support, which I really only want for Yomichan (although there is a userscript Yomichad), so I mostly use LibreWolf.

Learning

Anki

Productivity

Things 3 (todo list app)
Flow (pomodoro timer)

I’ve been trying out “Daily” time tracker app, and I kind of like it so I might stick with it.

Misc

Dash (offline docs)
Swinsian (music)

On the music app: I must be one of the only people in the world who really loved iTunes. I loved many of the features (aside from the awful sync experience with the iPod) and I was really yearning for that experience I had with it. Until I recently found out about Swinsian, which is like iTunes. It’s really great.

Notable Mentions

Sublime Merge: When I’m not flying and speeding away in Neovim, I use the Sublime Merge client.

On the topic of notes: I’ve tried a million notes app ranging from Bear to Obsidian to InkDrop and I realized that notes are not for me. So I mostly just VimWiki as a diary log, and/or an actual notebook to handwrite on. I save snippets on Dash.

That’s it for my first blog post! If you liked this and want to recommend any software to me, please feel free to shoot me an email!

What I Want To Learn In 2022

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Ben Awad used to always write down a list of things that he wanted to learn every year and then always re-visits it at the end of said year. I always liked that and thought I’d start that myself.

List of things I want to learn in 2022:

Definitely

iOS App Development
- ARKit
Elixir (Backend)
- Phoenix
Svelte

Music

Milonga de Taco
Virgilio

Maybe

Django Framework

Music

Shamisen

Probably Not

Rust Programming