Programming insights to Storytelling, it's all here.
I have the bad habit of reaching for my phone the very instant I wake up. I start straight with emails, where I get replies from coworkers or companies I work with. They respond to my emails from the evening before, ask for status reports, or schedule meetings. I read and respond from bed before starting my day. But last week, I realized something that has gone unnoticed for a while. I had no new emails from my coworkers, but my screen was full of unread messages. In fact, I had read all messages that mattered, yet there were more in my inbox. I pulled the left navigation and looked at my spam folder. It was empty.
A CSS reset is a tool that reconciles the differences in rendering between different browsers. In the old days, each browser was its own beast. They each came with their own default styles. Internet Explorer had different rules for your un-styled H1 tags vs Chrome or Firefox. Every browser set their defaults to what they thought was a good starting point. There were no predefined rules that they all followed. It was more of a culture than a standard. Fast forward to today, and each web browser had complete overhaul. Yet we see more consolidation.
When I wrote the code that would run this blog, there was no way I could have left out an RSS feed. Early on, before I wrote any valid HTML, I made sure that each post I write was first available through RSS. If I had stayed a year without posting, the day I do, you'd see a new update on your favorite RSS reader.
It was 2012 when everyone gathered around a cubicle, carefully trying not to step on each other's toes. “So sorry!” one would say. “It's fine.” another would answer. It was an important day in tech and stepping on someone's toes to get a look at the dual monitors was only a minor offense. But the monitors were not the main attraction. It was what they displayed. The manager opened two browser windows. One on each screen and scrolled one at a time to allow everyone to see it.
There is a special feeling I get on a Sunday evening. Sunday is the weekend and I am home relaxing with my family after a well deserved break. But Sunday evening is the end of the weekend, the end of that pleasant break. I have to go back to work the next day. This is the time I like to sit by the kitchen table by myself, thinking about a better future. One where I don't have to obey the traditional rules of work. I don't want to put my life on pause on a weekly basis and dedicate the time to my employer for a modest fee.
If you told me that on Black Friday, I could get a 75 inch TV for the price of a smartphone, I'd say that it must be a top of the line smartphone. But it is not price of smartphones that skyrocketed to reach that of TVs. It's the price of TVs that went down to an almost ridiculous number.
In 2006 at around 4 am, a man appears at the door of a security booth in Downtown Los Angeles. He slowly opens the door, being careful not to be noticed. He grabs the key attached to a small crowbar hanging by the door, then slowly heads back to his truck. 45 minutes later, he comes back the same way and drops the key off then leaves the premises.
An asylum stood in a recluse town that bordered the coast. The winds came from the west and washed the shore with some pacific waves. Everyday, the asylum's staff walked along the coast with their assigned patients. The serene sounds soothed troubled minds and brought them peace, even if it was for a moment.
In college, my English class required reading a novel. I was only interested in college to learn a practical skill. The skill would allow me to get out of the classroom and make a living. Programming classes taught me just that. English classes? Not so much. The novel in question was The Assistant by Bernard Malamud. I didn't buy the book. Well, I was broke. I could barely afford signing up for class, and the re-sell value of a novel is negligible. Instead, I borrowed the book from a classmate and read it in its entirety in one night.
On August of 2018, I publicly announced that I am writing a book. Saying it out loud was a relief. It wasn't the first time I make this decision. In fact I even have a couple books written and filed in the bottom of a dusty box inside an obscure closet. From time to time, I mention them in passing only to dismiss the whole work as a hobby. There is a reason why I can't publish those books. I can never remember what they are about until I start reading them over.
