I slice, dice, and transform documents often enough that I rely frequently on pandoc and pdftk. I often use pandoc to turn Markdown, HTML, wiki syntax, reStructuredText, etc. into each other or into LibreOffice, MS …
Want to become a better programmer? Join the Recurse Center! In the virtual PyCon hallway track, a newcomer to the industry said he'd like to get into contributing to open source, and asked for my …
Sometimes I exercise with friends via videocall, but when I want to exercise by myself, I often listen to stuff. I like having a mix of things to concentrate on and things I can half-listen …
Will I go to PyCon in person this year? Today is the day I decided whether to go; I had booked plane tickets and a hotel room, and was running out of time to cancel …
A few suggestions to help you nurture volunteers in your projects. (Expanded from some advice I recently gave Ms. Boba, founder of BobaBoard -- she's a coaching client of mine.)Live Tour As First Draft: Extract …
In the last few days, two people have asked me for book recommendations. First: someone looking to use up an employer subsidy for books related to management and software engineering.VERY HIGH REC: Making Software: What …
In a conversation with Sigrid Ellis, the topic of the traditional "how bad is the pain, on a scale from 1 to 10" doctor's office/hospital question came up, as did its flaws. Sigrid said something …
Some advice, deceptively, sounds great at first but then reveals itself to be maladaptive as one slides into different contexts.When I was young, I got the idea into my head that I should not brag …
An Ask MetaFilter question about cooking mustard greens included this note from the poster, on the provenance of their olive oil and their confidence that it was legitimate:The batch I use all the time, from …
COVID-19 is airborne. That means that good ventilation in buildings reduces transmission. So when I'm thinking about going to an in-person event,* I want to know whether the hotel, restaurant, or convention venue has improved …
