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Sometimes I craft a sentence that makes me think I could be a Great Writer. This is a curse. Thinking that you could be great is not an inherently bad thing. It can be genuinely motivating. But it’s a slippery slope from there to thinking that you should be Great, and I’ve never been able to keep my footing on that particular hill. The first time I sense that I might be Great, I begin to assume it’s my right, and if I fail, it’s only because I’m not trying hard enough. This is incredibly self-defeating. Not only does it fail to allow for the kind of practice it takes to develop actual Greatness, it activates a really nasty self-critical part of your brain. ...

The standard-ish Unix shell is a disjointed monstrosity riddled with incongruous features agglomerated from inconsistent design decisions made at various times for unknown reasons by a unknowable multitude of developers. It is also one of the most important pieces of software in the world today. Sure would be nice if it didn’t suck. Digital wizardry Early in my Unix journey, I was in awe of the shell. Watching my friend who had grown comfortable with the shell was like watching a master work with his tools. The data yielded to his precise commands like putty in his hands. The arcane symbols and abstruse output flew by, totally unintelligible to me, but clearly full of meaning for him, as he worked to configure some webserver on a Linux machine. Was he a wizard? No. He was a hacker. I wanted to be one too. ...

Nix N00b Notes Series This is part 1 of a series where I try to learn to use Nix to manage my Mac laptop. Yes, I can think of better things to do with my time, but I enjoy inflicting this specific type of pain on myself. ...