June 2020 Micro-Posts

Introducing the new Micro posts for this website.

Today marks the second month since I started (trying to) publish a ‘micro post’ every day. You can read more about why I’m doing that by clicking here.

In short, I’m trying to publish something - anything - every day. Broadly speaking, the goal is to be more frequent with my uploads and to gradually get better at writing too. If anything, it’s just good to exercise the ‘finishing muscle’.

As promised, because this is the end of the month, I’m publishing a round-up post that includes links to all of this month’s micro posts. You can find the links below the text, as well as a small excerpt.

So how am I doing?

Frequency

By my count, I wrote 23 micro posts this month, which means I missed about a week’s worth of posts! That’s much worse than May, where I only missed 1 day.

That said, I also wrote my Climbing the Bali Mountains post, which took long enough to write that I didn’t feel like I needed to write a micro post on that day. The post was effectively the length of several micro posts!

So all told, I’m pleased with my results this month. There are a few posts which feel a bit ranty and that I’m not exactly proud of, but that probably just means I needed to get something out of my system. I’m still publishing posts that don’t necessarily meet my mark because that’s the whole point of my micro posts. Publishing helps me keep up a momentum.

Maybe publishing just to publish seems inane to you, but by starting many things, I believe I’m able to find the things that I really want to write about.

Quality

Has my quality of writing improved?

Hard to say, but my gut feeling is no; two months probably isn’t long enough.

My stranger in a strange land post started as a comment on hacker news. People there seemed to really like what I wrote. I think my artistic language managed to tap into people’s own feelings and emotions (and probably nostalgia, given that almost nobody is travelling right now).

So I’d say that I can be pretty good at writing feelings-driven prose. The posts where I felt most passionate are certainly the ones that are most interesting to re-read, at least for me.

I’m not sure if I’m capable of that with my longer-form posts, as I get burned out quickly and I’m not sure that I’m maintaining my reader’s interest all the way through…

Staying Up Late

I often end up in a weird sleep cycle where I sleep at a very late time and wake up during the late morning or even during the afternoon. This usually isn’t because I “work better at night” - I actually feel like I probably work worse at night. Or... read more

Programmatically Merging SVG files

Sometimes, we might want to programmatically merge two or more SVG files to product a single SVG file. Perhaps we’re adding a logo to every file, or want every file to be on a given background. My first instinct was to use imagemagick’s composite for this, but it mangled by... read more

Running Without Music: Day One

I find it much easier to run whilst listening to music, or a podcast, or an audiobook. It’s easier to ignore the pain, and ignore the fact that - for me - running isn’t a very fun activity. These days, I do most of my training whilst listening to something.... read more

Starting Many Things

My friend Pat wrote an article yesterday titled ‘A lot about a little’, in which he talks about how he is currently trying to avoid starting new things. He says that if he focuses on mastering just a few things, he would be happier, and have more success. He also... read more

Beat Your Best

Perhaps this is a bit trite, but one of the most satisfying things for me is when I compete against myself and manage to beat my personal best / high score / whatever. This could be besting your personal race time, or holding your breath for longer than ever before,... read more

Disturbed Productivity

In my experience, there are two emotional states that can disturb productivity more than any other. The first is a stressed and anxious emotional state. In this state, there’s something on your mind and you can’t stop thinking about it or worrying about it. It’s worse when you can’t really... read more

Move all untracked git files to their own directory

I’ve been writing to this website from the same computer/install for almost two and a half years. Over the years, I’ve had drafts or ideas of posts that I intended to finish, but that I eventually gave up on or lost interested in, relegated to be finished at another time.... read more

Doing Something That You Put Off

If you’re anything like me, you sometimes put something off that is crucially important. If I encounter something I’m not sure about how to do, I might put it off for a while. Then I keep putting it off, until it gets to the point where I’m thinking about doing... read more

A Guide to PIC Microcontroller Paging

When your program grows long enough on a simple PIC microcontroller, you will eventually reach a point where your code no longer fits on a single page. I’m writing this to explain the problem and hopefully What is it, and how can we work around it?help you avoid some of... read more

Hacker News Front Page

Last week, I wrote a post titled “Starting Many Things”, which was a reply to my friend Pat’s post called “A Lot About A Little”. I felt that it was an article deserving of a response, and rather respond to him directly, I thought it could be fun to lay... read more

Live Another Sol

I just finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir a few days ago. I’d previously watched the film a few times, but hadn’t picked up the book yet. I rewatched the film this weekend to refresh my memory, and now I’m happy to compare the two. This brief article is... read more

Don't Waste Your Willpower

Have you ever tried to resist an urge to do something really hard, but then end up failing? For me, I get this with food. If I know my cupboard is filled with lots of delicious, pre-packed, ready to eat food, I’ll struggle to resist eating it. It’ll be there... read more

Stranger in a Strange Land

This website lets you experience a car driving through cities while listening to local radio stations. For many, that’s roughly the same experience that you get when visiting a new place or city for the first time. You might take a cab from the airport to your room, and he’s... read more

The Other

In my teens, I came to realise that there were some people in the world who have diametrically opposed views to mine. I saw and was taught about tragedies all around the world like poaching of endangered species, or the burning of the rainforest, or factory farming. I learned about... read more

Taken for Granted

Last week, my glasses broke; the arm snapped off completely, and I was unable to mend it successfully. You see, without my glasses, I can’t see any further than a few feet in front of me. Not being able to see is a huge detriment, and I get headaches from... read more

This Too Shall Pass

One of my favourite proverbs is “This too shall pass”. It’s essentially highlighting that change is inevitable. But that doesn’t really cover what I like about it. From a human centric perspective, we can read it like this: If you’re going through a hard time, don’t worry. It will end.... read more

Coping

This pandemic has been going for long enough now that it’s possible that some or all of the systems that you designed to keep you happy, well, and fit have failed without you noticing or doing anything about it. Like when you forget about your new years resolution after a... read more

Doubt

Sometimes, I see myself as a problem solver. Someone who can find a way out of any problem or technical hurdle, usually in clever and unique ways. Other times, I see myself as a failure whose code has bugs and struggles with even simple things. This past few weeks, I’ve... read more

Getting Organised

My organisation system has been really lacking recently. I used to have a little black book that I wrote notes into; it was neatly organised and I roughly knew where everything was. I even kept a contents page up to date in the back few pages! But then I lost... read more

Heat

This might be a weird thing to write about, given that I spent roughly half of the last two years abroad in hot countries in Asia, but I’m struggling with this recent heatwave. Today was the hottest day of the year (so far) in the UK, though in my area... read more

Telling your story

Who are you, that do not know your history? – Ulysses One of the things that we often fail to do properly is documenting our story. The main reasons that I started this blog wasn’t for any delusions that I could become famous or have a huge number of readers,... read more

Learning Indonesian

I’ve been learning Indonesian for a year and a few months now, and recently passed 150 consecutive days practising the language on the Duolingo app. I thought it could be fun to write a few paragraphs in Indonesian as a kind of log of how I’m doing with the language... read more

You only have to be good enough

Large organisations need specialists. They’re at the scale where the few extra percent that a specialist can eke out of their business can be worth the cost of paying the specialist. Small organisations don’t have those luxuries. For them, it’s better if an employee or consultant can complete many tasks... read more

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