9 Things I learned reading DFW's Consider the Lobster for the first time
Something doesn't seem right about the way we eat them.
Everything
Literally every post that exists on this blog, listed in reverse chronology for easy cmd/ctrl + f search.
Dude, no, you can't just take over being primary caregiver
So please, stop claiming you can.
How to defeat iPhone overstimulation and claim your time back
Two tactics you can implement right now and see instant results.
How to raise a confident child
As long as it's not likely to be fatal, let them do it.
Proud of the wrong things
One of the reasons I'm happy to live abroad, away from Singapore.
Explained: The web is 'stateless'
It's independent requests all the way down.
How immersion helped me learn these 15 Spanish words (with stories)
There's a big difference between Pollos and Pollón.
We should want for ourselves what we want for our children
Cha Cha Real Smooth.
A simple 3-step morning reset
Going from anxious in the morning to calm for the rest of the day.
The post-it incident
Little things matter.
SQL in 90 seconds (for busy entrepeneurs)
Use this as your starting point.
10 things kids learn when on a road trip
a.k.a. 10 ways driving is better than flying, if you can afford the time.
How I'm using AI to learn German (as a foreigner living in Germany)
Could this be the beginning of ultra-accelerated language learning?
Today I finally began investing
It's not just to beat inflation.
What finally makes fitness a priority in my life
No Plan B, only a solid purpose to fulfil Plan A and build a strong body now.
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks
'Storyworthy' explores the essentials of compelling personal storytelling, focusing on honesty, vulnerability, and emotional impact. With practical advice like 'Homework for Life,' Dicks offers a guide to turning everyday moments into engaging narratives.
This question made me realise I need to slow down
A simple realisation to improve both productivity and relationships.
4 Reasons to prefer recorded over live demos
Can you see my screen?
How to quickly (in)validate assumptions about your team
It just takes 5 minutes and a little initiative!
How to lose trust fast
Illustrated with my own triple foible in a single day.
Creating something every day
Why and how
Practising idea packaging
There's an art to packaging ideas for consumption.
How compounding growth works with stocks
Cash in the bank compounds in interest. Stocks in an account compounds in... what exactly?
Back to a free Gatsby blog (bye bye Ghost!)
A quick explanation for why I switched to Ghost and back to Gatsby in 5 months.
1 Year with my Tesla: A review
(Contains a Tesla Referral Code for $1,000 off.) One year in, I have a lot to share with you to help you decide for and against one.
The career ladder is a game
You have to decide to play it, or you'll be played with anguish.
Let the dataset change your mindset
12 Learnings from my Trip to Singapore in 2024
My superpower is a short Time to Prose
Includes a list of examples that illustrate the benefits of this superpower, and a speculation of where it originates.
A framework for prioritising workchunks?
You are responsible for delivering a project. Prioritise the work in such a way that will maximise the chances of its success. Go.
How to combine images and PDFs into a single PDF (using macOS Preview)
Some bureaucratic prick demands you combine all your documents neatly into a single PDF to make their life easier and yours a living hell? I got you. MacOS Preview can do this for you.
Put a timer on your WiFi router already
The simplest way to automatically snap out of junk internet content binges.
Tesla: As good as they are made out to be
My honest review after 2 weeks of owning a new Tesla Model Y Long Range.
Read to know what next
A counter to my own argument to always default to writing instead of reading when you have free time.
ChatGPT use cases for Software Engineers
A growing list of use cases of AIs, including ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot.
3 reasons I bought a Tesla
I may just be reasoning backwards but I thought I'd try and rationalise the purchase anyway
Buying a projector screen: Good decision?
Can a projector screen help me watch less TV? Conclusion: Yes. Get one, and move your TV out of your damned bedroom now!
My 2023 Annual Review
What went well in 2023? What did not go so well? What did I learn?
Hello you
1, 2, 3, logged.
How to log your life's moments, observations, and thoughts like a pro
Learning German with ChatGPT: Reverse engineering a spoken sentence
Using Large Language Models to learn languages makes perfect sense.
How to slay boredom with boredom
Boredom is, surprisingly, both the problem and the solution to getting shit done
Paying for my own work tools
The most effortless period of my writing life
It was when I was learning to code.
First thoughts in Düsseldorf
Hopes for Düsseldorf
Will I find my people in this city?
How to write tests during live coding interviews
Quicksort explained
Futile!!
How I feel about attempting to write 30 essays in 30 days
The burglar in the house
Nothing seems obvious anymore
These days, people call this first principles thinking. I call it thinking for yourself.
The People's Champion
Failure, success, and the next thing and the nex thing.
This is not a personal blog anymore
I no longer wish to write to be understood... I wish to write to understand.
What is the place of soulful writing in culture?
Fiction?
Parenthood and Work
Once we become parents, our lives start revolving around our children’s needs rather than our own. This is the biggest distinction between life before and after kids.
The compatibility of parenthood and a new job
Why do some of us wonder if becoming a parent (newly minted or an old timer) is compatible with having a new job?
Almost didn't have a baby
This version of me would be so sad for that if we really didn't have her.
Respect the cannotness
YAGBEM - Ya ain't gonna be Elon Musk
The story of my almost-catastrophic encounter with ambition.
Despite inconvenience
More fun, surprising, fulfilling, rewarding, and memorable experiences await us.
No more mechanical keyboards for me
I had unthinkingly been buying and using mechanical keyboards to signal something else. I admit that it is time to stop it.
Please stop saying feedback is a gift
Be the person everyone wants to teach
I've consciously taken a new approach to learning to do my job, and it's by doing one simple thing very deliberately - always teach what I learn
Why I removed dates from my blog post URLs
I no longer see my blog posts as static after publication. They're
Your remote meeting superpower
You can now leave without social repercussions; don't waste this, and don't waste time.
Engineers not developers
My 2021 Annual Review
Write quicker tests with console.assert and blocks
What the duck is Duck Typing?
How URL shorteners generate 3 trillion unique URLs with just 7 characters
The answer is elegant: count up to 62 with base 62 counting!
Counting up in Binary
Not knowing how to count up in binary is not a big deal. But it is nice to know the ground you're standing on as an application developer!
What is a cache? What is an example use case?
What is a cache? What is an example use case? Explained with a video
Choose friends like your foods
Food can be healthy and enjoyable. So should your friends.
Labeling things properly in a digital garden
Labeling posts by their maturity will help readers browse the digital garden with the right mindset, and so will you as you continue to create more posts.
How to implement an LRU cache in JavaScript
Prioritise regularity over quality
Because it's impossible to not improve at something that you keep doing regularly.
Technical or not, the hardest part of blogging is still writing
Why I'm active on Instagram again
What I learned asking 120 people about my writing
Stop thanking me for what I ought to be doing as a father
Employment sweet spot
Symbiosis comes from overlapping competitive advantage, true motivation, and impact for the businesses.
Specialist or Generalist?
6 Things I’ve Learned from my Second Year Living in Berlin (away from Singapore)
Two years already! I still love living in Berlin, a city of history and openness.
The newborn bubble
Retreat
I'm retreating from social media.
9 Questions for 1-1s
We all know 1-1s are useful, but not everyone sees it that way. Here is a list of 9 questions that may help guide and make your next 1-1 more useful.
Types of Notes in a PKM explained with a Gardening Analogy (Part II)
Using a PKM requires reframing the goal from creating notes to creating connections, and a good place to start is to look at the types of notes in a PKM. Part 2 of 2.
Types of Notes in a PKM explained with a Gardening Analogy (Part I)
Using a PKM requires reframing the goal from creating notes to creating connections, and a good place to start is to look at the types of notes in a PKM. Part 1 of 2.
Dear Charlotte
A short letter to my soon to be born daughter.
What is your suspicion?
Any good troubleshooter should always ask about suspected causes, because no list can realistically cover all possible scenarios
Why I took the longer route to give away things for free
You may feel, intuitively, that people undervalue free things. Me too. And it's because people are more likely to consume a product when they are aware of its costs.
Convince yourself before speaking
Do it for the sake of better group meetings.
7 Signs that my Knowledge Management process is broken
One word: discovery. Without a solid knowledge management process in place, I can still live. But with one, I think life could be more interesting because I would discover & understand much more.
8 Hard Things about providing High Quality Customer Support
Lessons from 3 years of providing, organising, and building tools for Customer Support
Home is where you can truly rest
Reflecting on my career in tech: 5 years in
A deep reflection about my career in software engineering and what's next
Purchasing convenience (and justifying it)
Stop to think
What the contrast between quarantine and daily socialisation helped me realise.
Macbook slow and laggy after upgrading to macOS Sierra / Big Sur
Ulcer
I bit myself and developed an ulcer for the hundredth time. What's wrong?
How I was nudged to drive better
Nudge theory in action in a car dashboard.
Ideas for a more thoughtful web
Disable comments, don't disseminate on social media, and always attribute credit.
How a Daily Note fixed my note taking process
The biggest trouble with a digital note taking system is when you have to fumble and think where to put your idea down.
What is a callback? An analogy with tea
A callback is programming concept that you are already using in your daily life.
Raising a newborn in Berlin vs Singapore
This is speculative since our newborn hasn't yet arrived. But I believe we will be a happier family in Berlin.
How to compress PDFs for free using Ghostscript
Faced with a limited file size upload? Compress your file for free using the copyleft licensed software Ghostscript.
Hard work is hard work
It's not the sweat and blood. Hard work is often hardest in terms of sacrifices.
My biggest fear
Am I going to have time to pursue creative work when I become a dad?
Visiting and evaluating Singapore
I'm going home for a visit and I will be evaluating everything with a brand new, outsider's perspective.
What I learned from Grizzly Man
He appears mad, but I love that he knew what he loved.
Free time default activity
My default activity when I have free time is to write.
"Dad, have you always wanted to be a software engineer?"
One of many hard questions I'm imagining my daughter asking me in the future...
Showing up in the cellar
I showed up this morning, of all places, in the cellar to write my novel.
Notes from Show Your Work by Austin Kleon (Part 1)
As someone who feels like he does not qualify as an artist but wants to be one, I'm keeping this book close by.
Problems and solutions
Many problems in life have more than one solution, but among those solutions, one is probably more effective than the other.
Blank page
It's not you, it's me.
The only reason you need to keep a blog
That singularly important reason why I keep showing up to write and publish articles is simple.
Whenever you think you are not good at something, ask yourself this
I have a tendency to evaluate myself too early. So I ask myself, have I put in time to get good at it?
Obsidian? Roam? Why I am staying with Bear as my PKM
The tool does not need to be sophisticated. Your note-taking workflow does.
Software bugs and trash
Software bugs are in many ways analogous to everyday trash.
Face a new direction
If you are distracted at home, just sitting facing a different direction could fix it.
Stop saying 'I hope'
Saying 'I hope' does nothing but set yourself up for anticipation and disappointment.
To make a message stick, repeat it
We say most things just once. To make a message a signal above the noise, we need to repeat it a few more times.
Two simple adjustments to protect your eyes from eyestrain for computer workers
The solution is really simple - place your external monitor farther and enlarge the system's font size.
Focus on understanding, not on what is right
When you focus exclusively on understanding instead of what is right, you grow your understanding of the world while keeping your relationships healthy.
Notes from The Courage to Be Disliked by Kishimi and Koga
Nick's notes from reading The Courage to Be Disliked.
From shock to love: How the closed-on-Sunday law in Germany improved my life
Germany has had a law since the 1950s that bans most shops from selling on Sundays, and it has given me a new lease on my time.
What needs evaluating here?
Always judge a book strictly by its contents. If the author is an alcoholic and misogynist, it should not matter in your consideration of his ideas.
My 2020 Annual Review
He said, She said, But You Decide
The Untouchable Space Between Stimulus and Response
Why You Might Want to Disengage From Politics
Language should be a joy
Are we not all scientists?
Writing a book during NaNoWriMo 2020
Not interested in mastery
Do your best not to obfuscate
Learning in public
7 Things I’ve Learned from my First Year Living in Berlin (away from Singapore)
Notes from When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Life on a Campervan
Notes from Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
Enjoying a cuppa on the hedonic treadmill
You are not buying that with money
Why I love the seasons
German word drawings
The rollercoaster ride of a side project
Reflecting on 100 days of daily meditation
Notes from The Year Without Pants by Scott Berkun
The magic of a light touch
Not now
What is a Personal Knowledge Management system (PKM)?
Word rafting
Mental gymnastics
Flexitarianism
What is the most valuable thing you got from this session?
Notes from watching 13th (documentary)
Direct feedback
Why I moved to Berlin
Why I migrated my blog from WordPress to Gatsby
Marketing feels dirty
Be whacky and compel feedback
Learn to solve
Technical understanding helps to solve problems, sometimes without involving any code at all.
Bad timing vs poor decisions
My digital garden
By changing the label I use to refer to this website from "blog" to "digital garden", I am hoping to change the things I produce and publish here.
What I learned from teaching colleagues how to code
An in-house technical bootcamp is highly valuable to the business, the employees who are participants, and the teacher (me).
Words matter
Inspired by a book and an article, I decided to write!