Category: Writing
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Two memorable quotes from Ira Glass’s interview
While perusing Aaron’s Swartz’s blog, I stopped and read his post titled “Writing A Book: Part 2”. In this post, Aaron swoons over Ira Glass’s unparalleled storytelling skills. Wanting to learn more about Ira, I whipped out my iPhone, opened up my YouTube app, and loaded a (podcast) interview where Ira Glass shares his thoughts…
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Reader expectations and three dimensions for emphasizing writing
Fred the dog beater Look at the above example, the four sentences. Now, take each of those sentences and imagine you poll an audience of 100 people, asking them the following question: “Does the author want you [the reader] to give Fred either a thumbs up or thumbs up?” How do you think the audience…
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You should NOT always prefer active over passive voice
Like many other aspiring authors, I’m always sharpening my writing skills, dozens of writing books (including one of my favorites: On Writing by Stephen King) lined up on my bookshelf. Almost all these books share the same stance when comparing the active and passive voices. They strongly prefer the active voice over the passive voice.…
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Want to improve your craft of writing? Imitate!
There are no shortcuts to becoming a great writer. As Stephen King says, great writers need to read a lot and write a lot. But that’s not enough. Nope. I’d argue you need to take writing one step further: imitate good writing. Imitating great tennis players When I was a young boy, about 8 or…
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A short review on Zettlr (open source Zettelkasten app)
I serendipitously stumbled on another Zettelkasten desktop application called Zettlr. Perusing the online forum over at Zettelkasten.de, I had noticed that at least three of four members repping the app in their signatures. Naturally, I was curious so I followed the scent on the trail and loaded up the Zettlr website in my browser. After…
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Neil Strauss’s 3 pass writing technique
Three passes World class writers sit down and pour out beautiful prose in a single sitting, right? That’s the image I image I held in mind for many years and this belief is not only far from the truth but this belief crippled me as a writer. I would sit down to type and proceed…
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Free E-book: Advanced operating systems (AOS) refresher course – summary and study guide
Click here to download “Advanced OS refresher course – summary and study guide” I compiled my various blog posts from the advanced operating systems refresher course and bundled them together into a nicely packed e-book. So, if you are about to enroll in Georgia Tech’s advanced operating system course (AOS) and want to step through…
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30 different ways to write paragraphs – series introduction
This blog post is the first in the series on the different ways to write powerful paragraphs, inspired by Victor Pellgrino’s book “A writer’s guide to powerful paragraphs”. According to Victor Pelligrino, a paragraph is a unit of thought that expresses a single idea, communicated through related sentences. And although there are many ways to…
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Weekly Review – Week ending in 2020/11/01
No Halloween this year I used to love Halloween growing up, not so much the dressing up part but the knocking on doors and getting handed fist fulls of candy. Now, as an adult, I love returning the favor and always think about giving out larger than average candy and chocolate. But not this year,…
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Being paged out of bed at 3 AM …
Sadly I didn’t get to start the day off with writing, my morning routine, since my phone paged me out of bed at 3 AM due to an operational issue from work that lasted about about three hours. Because of this, I know that I’ll feel “off” the rest of the day given that I’ve…
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Learning how to build a personal brand (two books I picked up)
I want to learn how to better market myself and what it means to create my own personal brand and how I might be able to apply these marketing skills in my career (as a software developer and computer scientist) and as a writer. Because I do wonder what sort of impact and influence I…
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Finally clean air & Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/18
Hooray! Today is the first day in a couple weeks that air quality is considered good, at least according to the EPA. I’m so pleased and so grateful for clean air because my wife and daughter have not left the house since the wild fires started a week ago (or was it two weeks —…
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On letting go & Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/17
With working remote and establishing a (somewhat) daily routine (that has become pretty monotonous), it’s sometimes easy to forget that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. But that reality is amplified because of the recent wild fires, forcing those of us living in the pacific north west (PNW) — and those living in…
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Crashing and burning during lunch & Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/16
I had mentioned yesterday that I slept horribly, waking up early and starting day off at around 03:45 AM. That wake up time was brutal and as a result, I crashed and burned in the afternoon, leveraging those precious 30 minutes of my lunch to nap in my wife’s / daughter’s bedroom (a room with…
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Tired like a zombie & Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/15
Today is going to be rough. I slept horribly, waking up multiple times throughout the night. Ultimately, I rolled out of my tri-folding foam mattress (a temporary bed while my daughter and wife sleep on the mattress in a separate room as to not wake me up: that parent life) at 03:45 AM this morning.…
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Honoring my body’s internal alarm clock & Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/14
This morning my body woke me up later than usual. After a few blinks, I squeezed the corner of my Casio G-Shock watch, the green background lighting up and shining the time: 05:55 AM. Ugh. About an hour later than I wanted to wake up. On one hand, I’m bummed because I won’t be able…
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Remembering September 11 & Daily Review (day ending on 09/11/2020)
Yesterday was September 11. On this day, every year, Americans grieve and we are all reminded of the unforgettable day back in 2001 when the New York twin towers collapsed to the ground after being struck by the hijacked planes. I sure remember the day. I was about 12 years old at the time and…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/10
We often talk about work life balance, separating the two major parts of our lives. On some level, I agree with the philosophy, believe that work is work and life is life. But at least for me, what happens at work bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa. When I have a shitty day…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/09
After freeing a spider into the front yard, I noticed that the coffee mug (in which I trapped the spider in) was decorated with a beautiful web that the spider must’ve spun overnight. Almost every other day, I spot a spider dancing across the white walls of my bedroom. Instead of squishing them to death…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/08
The most interesting side effect of writing these daily reviews is that they stir up meaningful conversations with my wife. Apparently, much of what words I set on paper never make their way out of my mouth (despite thinking that I did verbally share them). Surely this situation of my brain tricking me into thinking…
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Quotes from “My life story” by Veritasium
During some down time this evening, I watched the below YouTube video clip filmed and produced by Veritasium and I absolutely loved hearing about his journey, especially about how becoming a father has fundamentally changed the way he views his time. Because I’m in a similar boat: My life looks nothing like it did a…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/07
Yesterday Writing Blogged and published an entry describing my naive scheduler for project 1 Emotions I disassociated and my mind wandered into its “own world” after my wife Jess asked me to watch Elliott later that afternoon. I think part of the reason why I got so worked up had less to do with her…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/04
Yesterday Writing Blogged and published an entry for my daily review Blogged and published an entry explaining the libvrt’s bit map data structures that map virtual CPUs to physical CPUs Music Noodled around on the guitar, playing chords in a minor key up the neck (need to start structuring and mixing up my practice sessions…
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Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/09/03
Writing Blogged and published an entry for my daily review Blogged and published an entry on L3 Microkernel Mental and Physical Health At the park, ran around in circles while holding Elliott in my arms … that sort of counts as exercise, right? Music Nothing at all Graduate School Migrated from my Virtualbox environment to…