Me · You

The 50/50 Rule and Why I Blog

My blog’s current tag line is “This is not a blog.”

Originally, this site was intended as a way to keep track of links to interesting or useful things, like glorified bookmarks. But since then, it has evolved to serve another purpose: to make me think and communicate about stuff.

See, as I was bookmarking stuff, I found myself adding little bits about why I liked the link or context about how I found it. Over time, I found that when I would link to an article, I would sometimes want to add a summary about the article to help me process it and remember it better.

A better way to learn, process, retain and remember information is to learn half the time, and share half the time.

If I take two seconds to effortlessly save a bookmark, then the information is saved and soon forgotten. If I add even a quick post about it, giving it a title and some context or a summary, then that post is now a part of me. And as a bonus, I get to share it with other people.

So I was happy to see this article, which makes me think I am not wasting my time.

πŸ‘‰ The 50/50 Rule (How to Retain And Remember 90% of Everything You Learn)

It basically says that if you make yourself talk about something, then you come to understand it or appreciate it better. Spend half you time learning and half your time explaining what you learned.

According to the article, I would be serving myself better by writing out my notes by hand. It seems people type too fast for their brain to absorb what they’re doing. And simply by writing that, I now remember that fact. But I’m typing this anyways because you can’t tag, search, and share your paper notebook. πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

And yes, this article is so meta.

Me · Software Dev

WordPress API

The recent discovery of the YNAB API has me visualizing some sort of personal client where I can manage my budget and do everything else in my life from one place. Maybe a command-line tool on my Mac terminal? πŸ˜†πŸ€“ Why not write and edit blog posts from there too? I mean, it’s possible. I might do it just because it’s so nerdy.

πŸ‘‰ WordPress REST API Handbook

Wait, what if I used the WordPress API to write a blog post about the WordPress API. πŸ€―πŸ˜†

Note: there is also a handy interactive API console.

Me · Software Dev

Uploading

As an iOS app developer, there is no better feeling that uploading your build to TestFlight. You’ve done your part, and now it’s time to get the app into people’s hands to try out for real.

Actually, there is one better feeling: pressing the “release” button and publishing your app to the whole world. But that’s one is scarier, sort of like jumping off a cliff. Hopefully fun cliff diving. πŸ˜΅πŸ˜ƒ

Me · Music

Needs a Word… πŸŽ§

There needs to be a word for that feeling when you’re really enjoying a song but you can’t wait for it to be over so that you can listen to the next song because you’re really going to enjoy listening to the next song too.

It’s like you want to be able to fast forward though a song and still enjoy it. πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ