What I Learned from Collecting 10,000 MTG Cards
After nearly completing my initial collection of 100 Swamp cards, I was already into the Scryfall API, and was pondering how to utilize it to build a collection management and reporting toolkit. I also kept thinking about methods for visual guidance that could be used in an effort to collect all Swamp cards.
Let’s clean up with some of the pointless early concerns first.
I spent way too much time thinking about binder layouts.
What I Learned from Collecting 100 MTG Cards
The trading card game Magic: The Gathering has been around for a while. I started playing it back in 1995, and lost interest somewhere early 1999. I sold most of my collection on eBay, and only kept a single deck and a few individual cards.
Back then, I thought it was really fancy if you had a variety of different land cards in your deck, compared to just having all the same cards from, for example German Fourth Edition. At least having a few Foreign Black Border versions, ideally in other languages than German or English, was always a goal.
How I built a Time Machine (with GraphViz)
How I built a Time Machine (with GraphViz) This is part of the story of how I built an actual, real time machine.1 Beyond the story part, it focuses on the visual guidance system of the time machine, which relies on GraphViz using the dot layout engine.
No E-Mail is trustworthy
No E-Mail is trustworthy I have worked in IT for 20+ years. I’ve set up and managed SMTP infrastructure on the public internet. Let me share my amazing knowledge with you! Episode 5.
Have you ever heard someone complain about e-mail not being encrypted and “insecure”? How often do you encrypt an e-mail though, if ever? And, if it’s so insecure, where is your security compromised? Who are these people that are apparently reading all your unencrypted e-mail?
Deprogramming Yourself from Smartphone Dependency
Deprogramming Yourself from Smartphone Dependency I have worked in IT for 20+ years. I’ve grown up without smartphones, and have since built mobile applications for the web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Let me share my amazing knowledge with you! Episode 4.
If you believe the smartphone was the greatest invention of the modern age (before AI was invented, obviously), and the idea of not using or owning a smartphone, sounds to you as unrealistic as it sounds comically misguided, or your smartphone is your only internet-enabled computing device, then you can skip this post.
Your Phone (Number) is not your Friend
Your Phone (Number) is not your Friend I have worked in IT for 20+ years. I have messed with telcom systems before the iPhone was invented. Let me share my amazing knowledge with you! Episode 3.
No. This is not a post about super-hackers from China hacking into your smartphone. This is about phone calls, SMS, and just your plain old phone number.
Cloud is not cheap
Cloud is not cheap I have worked in IT for 20+ years. I have deployed web-scale applications on the cloud. Let me share my amazing knowledge with you! Episode 2.
The cloud is not cheap. It is powerful.
There’s a reason that we started calling the actual cloud “hyperscalers”. Once people started thinking that they could just run their “OwnCloud” on a RaspberryPi, it had to be made clear that cloud computing is not about just putting your tiny workload on a remote VM.
S3 is public
S3 is public I have worked in IT for 20+ years. I have deployed web-scale applications on the cloud. Let me share my amazing knowledge with you! Episode 1.
The name of your AWS S3 Bucket is a globally unique identifier that everybody can address.
Yarn 3 Monorepo Project Template
yarn3-monorepo Project Template I’ve taken the learnings from the previously created project templates and merged them into a monorepo.
Check it out: https://github.com/oliversalzburg/yarn3-monorepo
Key Features The project repository and dependencies are to be managed with modern Yarn (Berry/v2/v3).
Kitten Scientists 2.0 Auto-Build
Kitten Scientists 2.0 Auto-Build The 2.0 rewrite of Kitten Scientists now has development builds created on each push and produces an installable userscript for direction consumption.