Invidious Musings

Edit: This was a hit on HackerNews and I received a ton of valuable feedback.

Traditional photo libraries like Amazon or Google Photos will sell and use my media to build an AI and advertising profile on my family, and they can refuse me access to my photos.

Over the past 11 years, the software engineering world has been disrupted with the widespread adoption of GraphQL from companies like Github, Shopify, and Yelp.

Recently, I discovered n8n, a workflow automation tool targeted as an open source and cheaper alternative to Zapier.

After developing software for small and large teams, I’ve learned lessons I wish I knew starting out.

The first five days of my trip to Scandinavia were great.

Upon movie theatres declaring bankruptcy, I would experience immense schadenfreude.

I took some notes for my introductory classes at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) I thought I’d share instead of tossing or uploading them to a paywalled platform like CourseHero.

I’ve most likely sent you this post because you asked “why did you pause your university education?”

I edit my posts constantly, and only post when I think they’re “good enough.”

Who am I?

Mr.

Image by Tyler Scagliarini I was in the living room, living, when I saw an airborne butter knife.

As an autodidact, I hate time dilation and relativity.

Looking back 5 months later, this headline sucks.

If you’re someone who likes learning for fun, I highly recommend Steven Strogatz’s Infinite Powers.1 I finished this book last night at a bar in downtown Waterloo with blaring music at 11 PM.

Information is beautiful wonderfully summarizes the factual accuracy for historical dramas/biopics from The Wolf of Wall Street, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge, etc.

This post is aimed at those looking to have kids and who have fully considered the climate changed, potential nuclear doomsday wasteland, incorporated, militarized dystopia they are potentially subjecting them too.

There are too many fonts, so much so that I usually choose the Braille Institute’s Atkinson Hyperlegible for everything from my browser’s sans-serif default, to Obsidian notes, to my personal blog.

Wilfred Laurier University’s Financial Accounting course: BU127, had me at odds with the reality of learning.

After being indoctrinated by the Reddit and then Lemmy hive minds pushing socialism and "eating the rich" I've taken a pretty negative view of corporate power as a result of the free market system, but I've also seen how stupid governments can be in regul…

“Are you sleep deprived, occasionally depressed, lethargic, exhausted/depleted, and don’t feel like getting up in the morning?”

In 2024, I see a surge of enschittification, so much so that the word might as well be Merriam Webster's word of the year.

Bill (Stormrider) Wear’s article on The Quiet Art of Attention got me thinking about my understanding of efficiency.

“Someday?

The goal behind my "word of the day" posts was to learn words, but I realized it's as useless as Duolingo.

Sporadic refers to an expected behaviour occurring inconsistently.

This guide is for my own reference on learning through a textbook, whether it be studying for an exam or catching up on lectures I most definitely missed. 📖 Flip through all of the pages to understand how long the chapter is and what stands out to you 🤔 R…

Dan Luu’s post on looking stupid struck me on a a personal note.

Nabeel S.

As soon as I hit "publish" on this draft, it is immediately out of date as my setup evolves.

The Question Would a hypothermic person feel the same way about a slightly colder pizza as a properly heated pizza would feel to a normal person?

Over the past few months, I've come across a lot of articles and posts with life advice.

"Blogging is fun and therapeutic.

I don't tend to hear much jargon from software developers, but rather from managers or products.

Alacrity: brisk and cheerful readiness So that's why it's called the Alacritty terminal.

The 2016 MacBook Pro is one of the most abysmal abominations known to personal computing; its reveal trailer is an ironic comparison of Apple's blunders and successes.

To drastically improve query performance on transaction aggregations, Neo Financial1 implemented an online analytics processing (OLAP) database solution: Rockset.

Chutzpah is best defined by its synonyms: Nerve, gall, balls, audacity, and guts.

Tact: the sense of what to do or say to maintain good relations with others or to avoid offending them.

"To tease something desirable, but keep it constantly out of reach."

Traditional Piracy A pirate is synonymous with a robber.

Before we get into the horseshit procedural indoctrination that leads us to include text in slide decks, let's consider whether slideshow presentations are necessary.

Ontology is defined in the study of philosophy and metaphysics as the study of being and existence.

I recently migrated to a self-hosted blog because Hashnode stores blog posts in JSON instead of Markdown, giving me less control over my work.

Preface I'm in 🇨🇦 Canada and source all my parts from here.

I'm not a fan of introductions or TL;DRs because they give you a summary of what you're going to learn, but you can summarize the key takeaways with AI these days.

I'm always looking for ways to do less while delivering more to increase my value.

I've been keeping my dotfiles private for some time now because I don't want to remove secret information and create a PR for every change.

It's a lot of hard work, pressure, and uncertainty.