Microes on Brady Hurlburt

Untitled for Wesley

Thu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Another song on the baritone ukulele that my dad built for me. Raw link

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Tabs (GuitarPro)

Tabs (PDF)

Due Midnight AOE

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“Due Midnight AOE”

A song about having a newborn.

Video shot by Bearded Science Guy.

I wish I had a friend on Baker Island
So when it’s late at night here I could call them
Anywhere on Earth is just a timezone
We’re up here humming Eno, the rest is ocean

We’ve got walls caked with white noise
It disappears in its way
I guess it’s fair that I missed you
but I’m sure I don’t know all the right things to say

We started taking drives that you would sleep through
We learned it just made sense to: the house was danger.
In the waiting room they called you by your first name
(Don’t know nobody says James)
You call em neighbors

It makes no sense that I’d missed you
Gets better day after day 
And skin to skin breaks the pattern
And I promise that we’re gonna leave the house soon, okay?

I said there’re things I should teach you
Before the night passes by 
Like how you’d never think you really have to 
try so hard to tell the truth all the time

video, song, tabs (guitarpro), tabs (pdf)

How We Think

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000

How We Think by John Dewey. 🎧

Dewey equates intelligence with the ability to suspend judgement instead of accepting dogma immediately. Thinking, then entails waiting to make a final conclusion while alternating between inducing to deducing – moving from particulars to ideas to particulars again. Here’s his example:

A commonplace illustration may enforce the points of this formula. A man who has left his rooms in order finds them upon his return in a state of confusion, articles being scattered at random. Automatically, the notion comes to his mind that burglary would account for the disorder. He has not seen the burglars; their presence is not a fact of observation, but is a thought, an idea. Moreover, the man has no special burglars in mind; it is the relation, the meaning of burglary—something general—that comes to mind. The state of his room is perceived and is particular, definite,—exactly as it is; burglars are inferred, and have a general status. The state of the room is a fact, certain and speaking for itself; the presence of burglars is a possible meaning which may explain the facts.

Invisible Women

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. 🎧

You’d think that car safety ratings include testing woman-sized crash dummies in the driver’s seat, right? Nope.

Ian Bogost talks about children having to live in world not designed for them. It turns out this world was also not designed for women either.

Classical Music for My Kids

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 13:58:39 +0000

Want to help your kids experience classical music, but don’t know what to play? These are some of my favorites:

What’s good for bedtime/wind-down/cleanup?
- Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major, 2nd Movement. (Pro-tip: The second movements are always the soft, pretty ones.)
What’s good for morning wakeup?
- Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue No. 7 from Opus 87
But aren’t they supposed to listen to Baroque/polyphonic music?
What about modern/minimalist music?
- Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports

This is heavy on piano music (what I know the most about). It’s missing big symphonic moments, but I’ve found that those can be a little much to have on in the house.

The Bible Tells Me So

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:26:13 +0000

The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns

Enns argues that most of the Old Testament is not actually trying to get the historical events right: it is a narrative designed to help exiled Israel and doesn’t necessarily recount what happened or what God said or did. I find his arguments convincing. But, he says the Bible is still valuable for meeting God through the stories of how others met God. I’m not sure how to do that through stories that don’t always relay true things about God.

White Noise

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:19:45 +0000

White Noise by Don Delillo

Since this is the first post-modern fiction I’ve read, I can’t tell if the theme of this book is that you can’t know anything for sure, or if that’s just all post-modern books. The public-health-communication context hit pretty hard, though.

Also, I think this Adam Driver movie is going to be great. It’s basically a thriller.

Jack Antonoff

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:29:01 +0000

There should be a “Jack Antonoff Ruined My Favorite Band” club. How do I start a Facebook group?

Family Trello

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 18:50:53 +0000

I’m about to start a family Trello board. God help us.

Hot Laptop

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 13:19:01 +0000

I left an IntelliJ debugger running yesterday, so this morning I pulled my laptop out of my bag hot, fan running, and out of battery and all I could think was “same.”

Mom instsgram

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 19:56:00 +0000

In Mom Instsgram, slicing bananas with a plastic knife is the new reading.

Pork Belly

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 19:54:33 +0000

Pork belly is the cream cheese of meats.

Attitude of Work

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 18:21:29 +0000

In How We Think, Dewey says that a shift from an attitude-of-play to an attitude-of-work is not a shift in interest in activities for their own sake to an interest in results and products. Instead, it is only a change in the type of activity the child is interested in: she declines those that are moved forward by whim in favor of those that move toward a product. She can be interested in an activity for its own sake and prefer that activity because it leads to a product.

The Authority of the Bible

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 01:26:13 +0000

I’m still working my way through The Authority of the Bible by C. H. Dodd, but here’s a highlight so far:

Dodd claims that no one has ever honestly believed that all the parts of the Bible are equally as important.

Dewey Vital Activities

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 16:21:48 +0000

From John Dewey’s How We Think:

Direct immediate discharge or expression of an impulsive tendency is fatal to thinking. Only when the impulse is to some extent checked and thrown back upon itself does reflection ensue. It is, indeed, a stupid error to suppose that arbitrary tasks must be imposed from without in order to furnish the factor of perplexity and difficulty which is the necessary cue to thought. Every vital activity of any depth and range inevitably meets obstacles in the course of its effort to realize itself—a fact that renders the search for artificial or external problems quite superfluous.

First post from web client

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 16:07:09 +0000

This is my first post via my little HTML posting web client and a Rails API on Heroku! It has been pleasant developing.

Test again

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 15:21:36 +0000

Here we go again.

Brown Sugar

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 15:46:59 +0000

Brown sugar is like, whole-wheat sugar, right?

Post CLI

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 14:43:25 +0000

This is my first post from the Ruby client I just wrote. I can now post quickly from the CLI. Look for quality to take a sharp downturn.

Love Wins

Sun, 01 May 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Love Wins by Rob Bell.

Why did nobody tell me ten years ago that Love Wins is just a Great Divorce study guide? American Evangelicals making any claim on C.S. Lewis is ridiculous, because The Gospel Coalition blog would immediately declare him a wolf.

The final chapter is a telling of the Gospel that is indistinguishable from (and accredited to) Tim Keller’s. It wasn’t weakened by following the “we all eventually turn away from Hell” chapter; on the contrary, I felt it more powerfully than I have anything in a long time.

Democracy and Education

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Democracy and Education by John Dewey. 🎧

There’s so much in this book, but I lived in “Chapter 23: Vocational Aspects of Education” for a while. (Emphasis below is mine.)

There is a standing danger that education will perpetuate the older traditions for a select few, and effect its adjustment to the newer economic conditions more or less on the basis of acquiescence in the untransformed, unrationalized, and unsocialized phases of our defective industrial regime. Put in concrete terms, there is danger that vocational education will be interpreted in theory and practice as trade education: as a means of securing technical efficiency in specialized future pursuits. Education would then become an instrument of perpetuating unchanged the existing industrial order of society, instead of operating as a means of its transformation. The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. It signifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in something which makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordingly makes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible—which breaks down the barriers of distance between them. It denotes a state of affairs in which the interest of each in his work is uncoerced and intelligent: based upon its congeniality to his own aptitudes. It goes without saying that we are far from such a social state; in a literal and quantitative sense, we may never arrive at it. But in principle, the quality of social changes already accomplished lies in this direction. There are more ample resources for its achievement now than ever there have been before. No insuperable obstacles, given the intelligent will for its realization, stand in the way.

After Evangelicalism

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 01:26:13 +0000

After Evangelicalism by David P. Gushee

Gushee says that he’s found his “church” in a combination of a Jewish synagogue, Catholic Mass, and a really good home group. That’s disappointing: I was hoping he’d make it easy and recommend some denomination.

My cynical theory is that TGC crushed Rob Bell so hard that progessive Christians don’t start churches anymore; they just start podcasts.

For Common Things

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 17:00:00 +0000

For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy.

On living unironically (emphasis mine):

In all of these ways, West Virginia meant perfect confidence in the reality of things. I developed one of our hillside springs, digging out a natural seep, filling it with filtering gravel, and ditching out a pipe-run between it and our house, more than a hundred yards below. I drilled the boreholes that brought sap from the living wood of our maples. Although I never pulled the trigger when we slaughtered our steers, I helped to skin and gut a few that I had named. When we spoke about these things, there, we could be confident that our words sat squarely on things that we knew in common. Maybe because so much of our talk had to do with these stable, certain, solid things, West Virginia was not an ironic place. There was not much talk of trust, hope, or reliance; but there was a great deal of each of those, so thoroughly present that there was no need to name them. They were bound up in the things we did name.

The Society of the Spectacle

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 17:00:00 +0000

The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.

I think about this a lot when my company gives us “Wellness Days” off:

Due to the very success of this separate production of separation, the fundamental experience that in earlier societies was associated with people’s primary work is in the process of being replaced (in sectors near the cutting edge of the system’s evolution) by an identification of life with nonworking time, with inactivity. But such inactivity is in no way liberated from productive activity. It remains dependent on it, in an uneasy and admiring submission to the requirements and consequences of the production system. It is itself one of the products of that system. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle activity is nullified – all real activity having been forcibly channeled into the global construction of the spectacle. Thus, what is referred to as a “liberation from work,” namely the modern increase in leisure time, is neither a liberation within work itself nor a liberation from the world shaped by this kind of work. None of the activity stolen through work can be regained by submitting to what that work has produced.

Untitled for Wesley

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A song on the baritone ukulele that my dad built for me. Raw link

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Tabs (GuitarPro)

Tabs (PDF)

Introduction to the Philosophy of History

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:00:00 +0000

Introduction to the Philosophy of History by Hegel. 🎧

About the only thing I remember from this is something like “history is the physical working out of reason.” Even so, that’s helping me out with the Marx stuff.

Benefits Enrollment

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 18:31:00 +0000

The “I forgot to submit my assignment” dreams have been replaced with “I forgot to submit my benefits enrollment” dreams.

Autocomplete

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 18:31:00 +0000

I think text autocomplete is low-grade mind control, so I made a little app to try to demonstrate it. I copied a Google RNN tutorial, and I got to use Svelte for the first time!

Taking God at His Word

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 01:26:13 +0000

Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung

This book convinced me that it would be great* if the Bible were innerrant, infallible, complete, and clear from a basic reading. It did not convince me that it actually is.

* for some people

Five Hour Energy

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 02:31:00 +0000

My 5HE is turning off Eye Saver on my monitor at around 2pm.

To Save Everything, Click Here

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:51:00 +0000

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov.

The first half of the book covers three points:

Not all problems are simply issues of efficiency. Some “problems” are in fact necessary tensions between contrasting philosophies and are not something technologists should try to erase.
There’s nothing about the structure of “the Internet” or “Technology” that’s prescriptive for how we should set up our societies.

Communist Manifesto and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 17:00:00 +0000

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. 🎧

Socialism: Scientific and Utopian by Engels. 🎧

I didn’t know that Marxism was all about the effects of the Industrial Revolution. “Everyone deserves to feel connected to the products and outcomes of their work” is what stuck with me.

Leetcode

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:10:00 +0000

I’m setting a goal for this year to become brave enough to open leetcode.com in my web browser.

Covid Songs

Tue, 25 Aug 2020 20:10:00 +0000

What stage of quarantine is looping Jack’s Mannequin and Flyleaf?

Building Successful Online Communities

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 17:00:00 +0000

Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design by Paul Resnick, Robert E. Kraut, and Sara Kiesler

A comprehensive book applying basic economic and psychological principals to community design. I learned there are two types of affective commitment people can have to a group – identity-based and bond-based – and that turning knobs on your site that encourage one may hurt the other.

Divided by Faith

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 17:00:00 +0000

Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson

White Evangelicals’ tendency to individualize issues and dismiss systemic explanations is not happenstance; rather, it follows naturally and inevitably from their (our? my?) defining religious beliefs. When the only thing that matters is a personal saving relationship with Jesus, it’s difficult to view anything outside of the lens of accountable freewill individualism.

Hendrick on Growth Mindset

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:31:00 +0000

Carl Hendrick in Aeon on our apparent failure to form growth mindset theory into an effective intervention:

In their book Effective Teaching (2011), the UK education scholars Daniel Muijs and David Reynolds note: ‘At the end of the day, the research reviewed has shown that the effect of achievement on self-concept is stronger that the effect of self-concept on achievement.’

Many interventions in education have the causal arrow pointed the wrong way round. Motivational posters and talks are often a waste of time, and might well give students a deluded notion of what success actually means. Teaching students concrete skills such as how to write an effective introduction to an essay through close instruction, specific feedback, worked examples and careful scaffolding, and then praising their effort in getting there, is probably a far more effective way of improving confidence than giving an assembly about how unique they are, or indeed how capable they are of changing their own brains. The best way to achieve a growth mindset might just be not to mention the growth mindset at all.

Not a Cluster

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 00:31:00 +0000

You know, the not-a-cluster cluster.

Composition Over Inheritance

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 14:10:00 +0000

I can’t tell if I’m not grokking “composition over inheritance” or if Go just really needs better mocking tools.

Baby Lyrics

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 14:10:00 +0000

The Mayo Clinic parenting book doesn’t say at what age the baby can understand Phoebe Bridgers lyrics.

Zoom Interruption

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 15:25:00 +0000

I’m pretty sure a bot could derive our company’s org chart based only on listening to who resumes talking after two people accidentally try to start talking at the same time on a Zoom call.

Drafting Handwriting

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 20:31:00 +0000

My dad gave me his old architectural lettering textbook. It’s tough, but I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made in a pretty short time so far.

Just Barely Work

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 20:31:00 +0000

It’s important to remember that most of your electronic devices just barely work.

Play Anything

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 17:24:00 +0000

Play Anything by Ian Bogost

First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things. Then allow their structure, form, and nature to set the limits for the experiences you derive from them. By refusing to ask what could be different, and instead allowing what is present to guide us, we create a new space.

… creativity reveals itself to have far less to do with our own desires and vision and imaginations, and more to do with the world outside us, and how seriously we are willing to take it.

My Analytics

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 21:28:00 +0000

No.

Platform Capitalism

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 19:51:00 +0000

Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek

Set in context, the lean platform economy ultimately appears as an outlet for surplus capital in an era of ultra-low interest rates and dire investment opportunities rather than the vanguard destined to revive capitalism.

Read Code Out Loud

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 17:28:00 +0000

This tidbit from the Elm guide makes me happy, and reminds of me of Felienne’s work on the effectiveness of reading code out load when learning to code.

Font for Christmas

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 19:38:00 +0000

I just asked for a font for Christmas.

Comment Argument

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 13:31:00 +0000

I just submitted my last exam for my last class in OMSCS. I’m done.

numpy

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 13:43:00 +0000

Sometimes I think numpy ruined a perfectly good language.

intersection = ((pixels_0 < 255) & (pixels_1 < 255)).sum()

Deep Cut

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 17:24:00 +0000

If you struggle to concentrate in a meeting about your company’s acquisition because the coffee shop is playing a deep cut by your favorite band, then being a CEO may not be for you.

And you = me.

CSCW 2019

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 13:54:00 +0000

CSCW 2019 was “Champion Sponsored” by Facebook, and their closing keynote was from an EFF rep. 🤔

Comment Argument

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 00:34:00 +0000

I’m reading an article comparing ant colonies to the human brain for class. The article is fine; the comment section is GOLD. Pure, too-bad-about-the-Internet gold. I want ReplyAll to find these two guys and interview them.

This goes for PAGES. ReplyAll mid-episode plot twist: they’re the same dude.

Unhealthy

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 15:26:00 +0800

Not sure if it’s more unhealthy to write little quips with the possibility that no one ever reads them or to write little quips with the hope that millions of people of who didn’t ask for them read them.

Red Line Pub Crawl Tracker

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Ok, so it wasn’t an original idea. So what? When me, my wife, and a few friends sat down at Garfield Brewing near a stop of Indianapolis’ brand-new Red Line rapid transit system, we were beginning what we called the “Red Line Pub Crawl”. And… so were the folks at the table next to us.

An IndyGo Red Line Bus. CC BY-SA 4.0 Momoneymoproblem

Inevitably, we had friends that couldn’t come for the entire crawl but wanted to meet us later along the way. So they wouldn’t have to call us, I made a little app so that we could post our location with a timestamp.

Rovercode Educational Design Principles

Fri, 03 May 2019 00:10:00 +0000

These are the design principles that I try to use to guide decisions at Rovercode

We are not gamifying an otherwise dull activity. We are not wrapping a shiny layer of “fun” around a chore. We are creating a playground in which students learn about code by exploring and embracing its constraints and peculiarities. We can’t and shouldn’t try to make writing a reflection journal a delight, but we should make sure that it’s a safe, purposeful, and rewarding experience. Further reading: Ian Bogost’s Play Anything.
We design for great teachers. While we hope that Rovercode will be effective for solo learners and students in understaffed schools, we are not afraid to design experiences that require a skilled and active teacher. We do not shy away from activities that require the adult to devise student groups or find open gym space. We recognize that the most authentic positive feedback comes within the real-life learning environment the teacher has already established. A positive call home is usually more powerful than a fake badge in a web app.
Remix culture does not preclude authentic assessment. We take a step back and assess the student’s entire process and their ability to communicate their own unique ideas using code. Further reading: Boud, Cohen & Sampson and Carter.
Learning coding is not fundamentally different than learning other things. Many strategies that work for teaching other subjects (especially other languages) also work well for teaching programming. While we’ll also provide opportunities for higher-level problem solving, we are not afraid of quizzing on basic syntax or doing code read-aloud exercises. Further reading: anything by Felienne.