A programmers approach to building a sprinkler system

Published: 08/23/2023

Back in April of 2022 we moved into a new house, giant house, mcmansion really (3400 sq ft across 2 levels). The lot is really massive, probably atleast 10-15,000 sq ft. Both the front and backyards lacked an automatic irrigation system not to mention the landscaping consisted of mostly weeds. Being cheap and very lazy, I set out to do my best to automate systems to care for my massive yard without the hassle of hiring a contractor and having them build a crappy system.

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thoughts on the golden rule

Published: 03/27/2023

As an avid reader with ADHD, I find paper books difficult to read due to my mind wandering. Therefore, audio books are the best option for me. Recently, while listening to a science fiction novel about post-humanity after a nuclear war, I came across a fascinating debate. The characters were debating whether the “administrator” of the system was truly a god. During this discussion, I picked up on something interesting about the three different rules: the iron rule, the silver rule, and the golden rule. Although I am not sure about their origin, I thought it would be worth sharing them here.

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A quick look at data tables and Material UI

Published: 03/15/2023

A couple weeks ago I set-out to build a prototype for some friends of their web application ideas. They already had a design built partially in Material UI. In the past I’ve found most CSS frameworks and libraries to be a colossal pain, but after poking around I decided that MUI is a pretty awesome tool that I get to work with. It has led me to believe that if you’re building a component library for your own needs, you’re wasting time and the companies time (unless you want to do it for fun).

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The FDIC should bailout the SVB

Published: 03/11/2023

Y-Combinator, a leading US private equity investment firm, is asking people (CEOs/Founders) to sign a petition to lobby the FDIC into backing the depositors of the SVB bank to ensure that they can access more then the $250,000 FDIC limit on deposit insurance.

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Writers block

Published: 03/10/2023

I should be doing something other then writing a blog post, I could be doing anything but I want to say something. The trouble is I don’t know what to say. Over the last year I’ve started but not finished over a half a dozen blog posts. I’ve lost the desire to complete the posts and get it out. So, I’m going to break that spell today. I will publish this post, even if its a crappy post.

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Wordle Exposed

Published: 02/16/2022

Today, I was teaching my highschool computer class. (I volunteer teach a Wednesday CS class) I wanted to build a Wordle solver so we took a JSON file containing all words in the English language, filtering all 5 letter words out of the file then using it to figure out suggestions for today’s Wordle based on letters included, excluded and positions. We got lost, some highschoolers couldn’t download files.. It was a hot mess. But it was a neat idea. Finally one kid was like, are the words in the JS file? We dug through the source code and found all the Wordle words.

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Building for the future

Published: 02/15/2022

In my early days of professional programming, I had an internship at my university’s rec center. I was a web developer and I was tasked with building an employee certification tracking system. New to the idea of reusability and building for the future I was pretty nervous and did not understand what the implications where to implementing 15 column table, 3 columns for each certification. The certification then mapped into the UI and each field was manually generated. I stored the date certified, date expires and some other meta data in the 3rd column.

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AG-Grid and React Hooks

Published: 02/10/2022

A coworker of mine is trying to integrate his UI code with my GraphQL Resolver code. What he wanted to do was on each button push make a call to the backend, to add a row item to a list. The trouble with this approach is that this is a CRUD type API call. It’s a wizard that collects a bunch of required attributes up front than at the end calls an API to create the record with all required attributes.

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On teaching others

Published: 02/09/2022

It’s Wednesday afternoon in sunny Golden, Colorado. Presently a high of 50 degrees with a light wind from a westerly heading. As I sit in my wife’s office, I relax at the sound of children screaming, pianos being played poorly and most of all, an ever present fear of the virus; the covid 19 virus coming from the cesspool that is a public school.

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Why I wanted to be a developer

Published: 02/08/2022

I started programming when I was 13 years old. I stole my brothers HTML and Javascript book and built some simple web forms. I had no idea that a backend was needed or even what a backend was. I just knew I had some gray buttons on the screen and it did things. I went on to play with some web forum software, launching my own unsuccessful internet forum.

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Ethical Programming

Published: 01/30/2022

I type this from my cushy home office, both dogs are in the office with me sleeping off their bunny chasing induced haze. Seriously, I have a damn good life. I get to work the hours I want (mostly) from an office where I have literally no coworkers or bosses shoulder surfing. It’s great, I love it.

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Functional Programming: tap

Published: 01/03/2022

Happy 2022! Life is new, it’s a new year and I’ve started a new job… ish. More on that here. I’ve been at my current job for nearly 4 years all as an happy independent contractor! Well, after a tremendously hard year personally, I’m back at it. I’ve dropped the security assessor role and moved back into full time development role. Luke is now 2 and a half and growing like a weed. We’re hunting for a new house and have put in several offers. Hoping this one is the house we get.

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Personal Statement

Published: 08/19/2021

I’ve decided to apply to the University of Denver for my Masters. I’m going to study in the Information and Communications Technology with a concentration in Cybersecurity Management. That is assuming I get in; hence why I’m applying. They are waving the application fee for the next few months, so lets see if they will take my money and admit me into the program!

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Garden Madness

Published: 05/14/2021

Ever since I went vegan last November I’ve had this desire to grow my own food. Sitting in-front of 160 sq ft of space and 67 packets of seeds, I may have done something beyond crazy. Or could be a delicious adventure.

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Magic on the web

Published: 05/12/2021

I was reading hacker news at lunch today and I came across a really cool feature of browsers that Mozilla and Chrome have been rolling out, CSS Houdini. Basically it exposes some rendering engine APIs that allow you to do amazing things using Javascript, web components and css. Its really amazing and you need to checkout the video below.

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mushroom risotto

Published: 04/08/2021

I’m a foodie. I eat and I love to cook. It’s my biggest passion next to family and work. It’s an inspiring and delicious way to live. Today, I’m going to walk you through how I make Risotto. It could be plain risotto, it could be mushroom, asparagus or even just onion garlic risotto; the steps are the same, just pick your favorite mix-ins and enjoy the process

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Saas sucks: we can do better

Published: 03/09/2021

SAAS – Software as a “Service”, ahem Subscription, sucks. It’s really good for software companies and for the engineers that build the systems but as an end user it totally sucks. I’m going to talk about why, and what we can do better as an industry.

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Using plain javascript to espace HTML

Published: 03/02/2021

At work I’ve spent the last 6 months working on security issues. From jQuery updates to React, Angular and bootstrap and every possible framework in between. I’m going to show you a little trick you can use from the DOM to sanitize output without bringing in a library.

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Day 55: An update on eating like a weirdo

Published: 01/21/2021

It’s been 55 days since I started going Vegan. I’m still only 37 pounds down at my lowest. I feel frustrated and annoyed at that reality. I’m going to do something about it.

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Help! My ssh is still prompting for a password

Published: 01/11/2021

Recently, after 3 years of prodding, begging and asking I was assigned a Macbook Pro at work. Normally, when I work at a company, they hand developers a useful computer, not this client. This client I work for, gave me a Brand New To Me Dell Laptop on my first day. Welp, warm welcome. They didn’t care it took almost a month to setup the machine. Welp, 3 years of nagging has shown me that finally good things come to those who are persistent enough.

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