2018 In Review

Great things from 2018 — I turned 30 and moved to North Carolina!

No real order to any of the things listed, inspiration taken from fogus.

Great blogs and articles read

UTC Is Enough for Everyone, Right? - I’m a sucker for a good talk about time and timekeeping, this has become a go-to recommendation for friends working on timekeeping problems.
See No Evil - supply chains fascinate me, so this introspective piece about the role of software and supply chains in society stood out as a pretty fantastic read
Software Disenchantment - likely my favorite read this year. I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt strongly disappointed in the sorry state of modern software. Nikita brings all that out with such perfect clarity.
There is no longer any such thing as Computer Security - I recognize that I have a pretty strong paranoia about software security, it’s pretty closely related to the aforementioned feelings on software disenchantment. Jeff’s points here are strong — and I strongly hope that U2F gets broader support this year.

Programming Language Pragmatics - I’ll admit that I’m far from finished with this book, but every time I pick it back up it challenges my understanding of programming in all new ways; it’s been a genuine joy to read.
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - for a book that came out when I was in high school it’s still referenced and recommended an absurd amount. After getting through it I feel like it really is one of the better explanations and references for enterprise patterns.

Sadly, none.

Chef’s Table on our Carnival cruise - this experience is hard to wrap into words, but the 8 course meal was out of this world.
Rigatoni with Easy Vodka Sauce - I’ve made this probably 4 times now, and it’s definitely my favorite recipe I picked up in 2018.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - I played a lot of games this year, but I never connected with any of them quite like I did KC:D. The challenging gameplay mixed with thoroughly authentic local history was sublime.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey - I was a fan of the older AC games, but Odyssey shifted the series to a very new direction with excellent storytelling and open-world gameplay. I am so excited to see a AAA development team come up with something so great.

Somehow I Manage - a podcast dedicated to watching and talking about one of my favorite TV series, The Office.
Playing For Fun - a show about playing video games, for fun. Good title, really.

Monster of the Week - this was a game played on The Adventure Zone (an Actual Play podcast) and I fell in love with the strong narrative that the game allows for.

Produce more - my theme for the whole year is to get to producing more blogs, code, ideas, anything!
Document my media intake - so many people I follow are able to put concise thoughts together on the movies and shows they watch, but I honestly don’t have a good enough recollection of what I’ve watched.
Read 10 non-technical books
Finish the technical books I’m still in-progress reading

January 4, 2019