Matt

  • Programming Momentum

    Writing code everyday has been an interesting challenge. In 2015 I started to work towards a long streak on GitHub which eventually capped out at 250 days. The questions I wanted to answer was: Can I apply ‘deliberate practice‘ to programming and get better? Can ‘free coding’ (like free writing) be effective way to push…

  • Deploying a Python Flask App on Amazon Lightsail with Dokku

    One of the welcome additions to Amazon’s AWS offerings is a simplified server provisioning service to compete directly with Digital Ocean called Lightsail.  Lightsail provides a nicer web UI for launching instances, many quick launch options for common apps like WordPress or GitLab and simplified billing (yay!).  With Lightsail you don’t need to pre-pay for Reserved…

  • Programmatic Models

    Recently I’ve been interested in finding a business investment – something like a B&B that allows me to put some of my retirement savings into a business that I have some control over its success.  The normal process for something like this would be to write a business plan or at least do some back of the…

  • Small Projects

    There’s nothing quite like the feeling of starting a new project idea and seeing it all the way through to finished and published.  It’s a feather in your cap that you can look back on and say “I built that”.  Regardless of if it is a big hit or not, it will make you a…

  • Applying Machine Learning Lessons to Humans

    The more that I learn about Deep Learning and other Machine Learning concepts the more intrigued by the idea that we could apply some of things we learn about how these ML models behave back onto human psychology.  This is not something I have heard discussed yet. They were, after all, roughly modelled on how…

  • Finding Appropriate Side Projects

    Time is our one major limited resource and so it’s important how we decide to use it.  One of the biggest questions we ask ourselves as developers is often what kind of cool stuff could we do on evenings and weekends. Here are my considerations for any side projects that I feel are worth saying…

  • Goals and Processes

    A goal without a process to back it up is just an idea.  It is the process which actually will help you reach that goal and it’s more important to focus on developing on an actionable process than to have the best idea or goal. A business idea is worthless unless you do something with…

  • Passion for Productivity

    Personal passion is an undervalued driver of productivity. Experience has taught me that when you work on something that you are passionate about it becomes easier to focus, you care more about the quality and are less distracted. If you can find your passion, it means you will never have a job – Richard Branson…

  • Summer Recap

    With summer coming to an end I thought I would recap all the things we managed to get done in our first Ontario summer. The general theme for the summer was HOT!  Right from the start we had one heat wave after another.  Particularly memorable was that while I was in Mexico, it was hotter…

  • Web Design Fallacies and the Failure of CSS

    Having the experience now of building dozens of different web sites over the years I have come to the conclusion that there are some major flaws in how web design is done and the underlying assumptions have proved inadequate to make web design better. The first of these is the about CSS.  The goal of…