Ideas

By devin, 4 February, 2022

Gradle doesn't really expose an option for you to run your build without running tests. We were able to make this work by looking for an environment variable:

By devin, 7 October, 2021

I'd like to make this into a full-featured post at some point, but for now I'm just writing down the essentials for getting a working ipv4 openvpn setup to work using ipv6. There are two steps:

By devin, 18 January, 2020

Last December, I needed to do a long drive across Southern Ontario to pick up my girlfriend. This was meant to be a 12 hour round trip by car covering roughly 1000km.

View of my route from Elora to Pembroke and back on Google Maps

By devin, 12 May, 2019

I love thinking about human psychology. In particular, I love thinking about things humans do that are non-obvious, but pervasively drive their behaviour.

I can think of two general principles that drive a great deal of human behaviour, yet are non-obvious.

By devin, 26 March, 2019

I have to start this post with some self-reflection. It's easy to believe that only stupid people get swept up in cults. I heard a few years ago, however, that in fact intelligent people are in fact more likely to join a cult (article, reference).

As a practising Christian, I've therefore spent a lot of time considering whether I'm just another naive cult member.

By devin, 15 December, 2018

When I was younger I believed in the Internet. I believed the Internet was a brave place, where knowledge and culture was disseminated freely. I saw it as a place where you could tap into unparalleled knowledge and improve yourself.

By devin, 5 October, 2018

I love the feeling of reading a great Bible passage and having that chilling realization that I've still got so much to learn in life. It's called being "convicted". I associate it with positive feelings by now, since I know that if I follow the train of thought, and make some changes in my life, I'll feel so much better later.

By devin, 26 July, 2018

I am a dishonest debater.

I remember being around 7 years old and arguing with my brother. Some adult had told us in the past not to run when crossing the road, and I agreed. My brother, a little older and a little more rebellious, still wanted to run across the road. One day, he did, and I confronted him.

"Don't run across the road" I (proudly) stated.

"Why not?" he (reasonably) asked.

By devin, 17 January, 2018

At some point in my life, I started going to meetings, and slowly started gathering good and bad experiences. Also, for some reason, during university I actually studied how to have productive meetings, and I’ve kept a few tidbits of wisdom from that course.

I hold this truth to be self evident: most meetings are a waste of time.

But there’s a corollary: it’s also hard to identify which of your meetings are a waste of time, and why. It’s hard to predict in advance whether a meeting will be productive.