i-hate-toast-blog

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A little junctional making me less functional

I’ve had premature ventricular contractions (PVC) since at least my mid-20s. That’s when I passed out while cycling and was wired up for a few days. I can feel my heart do its skippity-flips. It feels like someone rolling their knuckles on the inside of my rib cage. It doesn’t hurt; it just feels weird. Fast (or slow) forward to the Apple Watch days, and here I am with my own ECGs to play with…

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My Coronavirus Logo I heard that some corporations redesigned their logos to emphasise social distancing, and then there's this fantastic guy…

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COVID-19 casualty

And so it begins. Today I was made redundant at my current job along with many others. I have no ill feelings. This is what it is. If anything, this gives me a bizarre freedom. I no longer have to WFH when there’s no work and just wondering what they want me to learn, spread myself thin trying to guess what might be coming our way, and getting nothing done. I now have my own schedule and boss.…

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COVID-19: first post in this new normal

Long before COVID-19 was a hashtag, work had been slow. To keep my tech up and skills relevant, I’d play (learn!) at work on Free Code Camp or with various tutorial. As work for our group continued to not show its head, I girded my loins and started rebuilding my portfolio. My original one was, bless its heart, just basic HTML and CSS. I liked keeping it around. It is a great reminder why we use…

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Learning how to learn ... again

Learning how to learn … again

I have learned many things. I have also forgotten many things. To avoid the latter, I pay attention to how I do the former.

One of the hardest things to learn how to learn is programming. German? Study. Flip those 1990 3×5 flash cards. Flip through that Duden. Do a junior year abroad in Germany and Austria. Read texts in German. Write to German-speaking friends. Workbooks. Texts. You know.…

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750 words: Stop with the tech-is-bad bs!

750 words: Stop with the tech-is-bad bs!

Possible ageism trigger warning. I’m going to complain about older people. By older people, I also include people my age (50). It’s not about their age, but the generation and exposure to tech those generations had.

In 1987, I got my first Macintosh. At the time, I thought there’s be other apples to choose from. I was hoping I’d upgrade to a Granny Smith or Honey Crisp; however, Apple did not…

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750 Words: Practice, Habits, Learning

750 Words: Practice, Habits, Learning

(750words.com entry for today: 911 words, including metadata list,  stats)

To learn something (anything), one has to practice. The comic artist Sarah Andersen of Sarah’s Scribbles has a widely shared strip about what makes her great. It’s practice. No matter what anyone tells you, it’s practice. Practice is closely related to habit.

If I want to improve upon a skill, I need to practice often and…

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Gitty up with baby steps

Gitty up with baby steps

I just read this article by Ariel Camus on FreeCodeCamp about becoming a Git Master. While I understand the need to have branches when working with others, I have been slack to adopt that process when working on my own projects. That is changing.

Slowly. Slowly because I have to remember to do it, not because I am resistant. Swiss cheese for brains.

I returned to one of my early assignments. I…

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My Brain Hurts: recursion with factorials

My Brain Hurts: recursion with factorials

With pencil and paper in hand, I have no problem with recursive patterns. Fibonacci schmibbo-hotsytotsy. Factorials schmacks-Oreos.

“Write a recursive function to …” blah mork loopy loo let me leave the interview now so you can continue with someone better, and I can drown my sorrows in two scoops of ImNotWorthy.

It is that whole “snake eating it’s tail” that was throwing me. I could not see what…

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Ok to be the good-enough dev? Yepsilon.

Ok to be the good-enough dev? Yepsilon.

Oh, I just know that would raise some hackles. “Good enough” sounds like one is lowering the bar. If I want to be just good enough dev, then I’m ok with bugs, sloppy code, side-effects, untested code. But what is the next level up from good-enough? Better enough? Hardly. Not if you care about spoken and written language. Best? Who is best? Perfect? Riiiight. You keep telling yourself that, tiger.…

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CodePen Challenge: details

This week’s CodePen Challenge: details and her little bestie summary. I had no idea they existed, so chalk another one up to benefits of a challenge.

Confession time: I did not research too much about how to style the accordion function or even if I could. I did not find any need to with what I had chosen. Not this time. When I use detailsin a project, I’ll probably wonder more about the styling.…

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Pure CSS Images: Now what

Pure CSS Images: Now what

Here I am so far. (I am using screenshots because my version is not responsive.)

Original by Kerry Beary and my wip. (I believe she spells it -mellows and not -mallows because she’s punny.)

In terms of what is left to do that is furniture or furnishings, I have the lamp and interior of the pod. I can do those and stay pretty true to the original; however, when it’s time to do the cats …

What do I…

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CodePen Challenge: del & ins tags

CodePen Challenge: del & ins tags

This is my first CodePen challenge, and the topic is using the del and ins tags.

Screenshot of my del and ins attempt

My applied creativity level was low for this one. I have never used del and ins and had to figure out what their default styles were and how I could alter them. The examples found on CodePen are fanbloodytastic. I’d like to play more with del and ins and include animations like th…

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Checkers did my head in

Checkers did my head in

My current Pure CSS Image attempt is this gem from Kerry Beary.

I cannot tab in my code snippet, so just deal with it. (It even hurts my own eyes.)

@for $i from 1 through 7{ .#{rectangle-band}-#{$i}{ margin-left: 0px; @if $i % 2 == 0 { @for $i from 0 through 3{ .#{square}-#{$i}{ margin-left: $i*60px; @if $i % 2 == 1 { background: $evenband; } } } } @if $i % 2 == 1 { @for $i from 0 through 3{ .#{sq…

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Sometimes I rant on Facebook

Sometimes I rant on Facebook

Like today:

I don’t think subjects and verbs should agree all of the time. I mean, what if they’ve grown apart? What maybe verb doesn’t always want to go along with what subject says because it’s always about subject, subject is all, like, totally “It’s all about me”, which is interesting because “me” is an object. It can’t even talk about itself because “itself” is reflective (unlike the ever…

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So I made a thing So I made this thing: See the Pen Charley Harper Calculator (no fcn) by Katy Cassidy (

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Saying good-bye to a great man

Saying good-bye to a great man

Just a few words in this post. I’m on my way to San Antonio to say goodbye to and remember Paul Erwin. The entire Erwin family is inspiring to me. Paul started The Winston School, a school for kids with average and above intelligence who struggled in mainstream schools because of their learning differences. His first wife was my English and language arts teacher. She always reminded me of what I…