A couple of good reads I’ve encountered in the last month or so that cover things I’ve thought myself, but are written much better than I would have: The Beginner’s Creed - something I’ll probably keep in my notebook in perpetuity. Small Functions Considered Harmful - related to my DRY Isn’t Free post. I’m an Idiot The Wrong Abstraction. If you’re a programmer/software engineer/whatever, read them, they’re well worth your time.

(see here for the full Agile Organizer series) I’ve now been using my agile organizer system for now going on three years, with a few adjustments, but the main principles firmly in place. I did however switch form factor from letter sized to junior sized paper (5.5” x 8.5”, or the half-letter-sized) and 2x2 sized stickies rather than the standard 3x3. As not everything winds up on stickies, as I keep a running log of what I’m doing, notes, etc.

(see here for all the posts about using a diver’s bezel) I previously wrote about things that you can do with a divers watch bezel. Since then I’ve figured out a few things. It occurred to me that most of the techniques I spoke about in the previous post work best when you have a fully transferred minutes bezel (i.e. a marker on the bezel at every minute), like you find on just about all Seiko Divers, the Rolex DeepSea, newer Omega Planet Oceans, Omega Semaster 300Ms, Fortis divers, as well as many others.

a.k.a. The Suprising Utility of a Diver’s Bezel (see here for all the posts about using a diver’s bezel) I’ve worn a diver’s watch for years, and initially, I got one because I wanted a durable watch that I didn’t have to think too much about. The bezel on the watch was more of a decorative curiosity than something I planned much to use. Then I learned a few things.

I’ve been using this now for a bit, and now that I’ve not made any changes to it in a few months, and after a failed pitch at selling it to a publisher, I’ve decided to release this into the wild. I figure it’s useful to me and at least one other person, it may be useful to others. The essence of it is that instead of the usual tome of a chord dictionary that most are, this one plots the chord tones across 17 frets of a guitar neck, using note numbers instead of names.

Back at the end of December, I posted 17 Frets Chords, a concise chord dictionary. I had been working on a scale encyclopedia too, but hadn’t put the finishing touches on it. It’s mostly where I want it, but there are some places where it’s not as good as I want, but I figure, might as well release it now. 17 Frets Scales shows the major scale families and their modes, in addition to including available chords for most scales.

Since it’s related to my day job, it’s over on Medium.

For Christmas last year, my wife bought me a Seiko SKX-009 which I absolutely love. Even though I love it, I looked at a bunch of higher end Swiss watches but found that even though many of them look really great (I came pretty close to buying an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chrono), but realized that when it came to the features I use on the SKX, the number of Swiss watches that actually fulfil them is very few.

I’ve been interested in timekeeping devices for many years, and have generally been facinated with watches, and in the last year or so, I’ve become I big fan of mechanical ones. I’ve been particularly interested in the Seiko automatics. I’ve not seen a better quality automatic watch anywhere in the price range, both in terms of the movement, and the case. The Seiko movements have proven, for the two of them that I’ve owned, to be very reliable and satisfyingly accurate.

N.B. Some of this revolves around puppet, but if you know nothing about puppet, you won’t miss anything. I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff in puppet lately. Since my actual puppet runs are inside VMs which I nuke fairly frequently, doing the actual bits of development in the VM is impractical (and somewhat dangerous even). I use git to do my normal version control anyway, so that’s nothing earth shattering, but I also use git to update /etc/puppet in the VM from what’s on my laptop because it works really well.

It’s funny sometimes how when you’ve done something in a particular way for long enough, it’s easy to forget why you do it the way you do. I’ve been a big fan of early return for a long time and was recently challenged on my view. The argument I had received in favor of single return was dubious to me, but it’s always good to recheck why you do something when you’ve forgotten.

It’s been close to a year since I started my shorthand quest in earnest. I did wind up changing systems from Gregg Anniversary Edition to Gregg Shorthand Simplified as I found it better for those, like me, who don’t have an in person teacher. Speed-wise, last I checked I was at something better than 70wpm. I’m probably a bit faster since then which is over six months ago, but either way I’m sufficiently fast for my needs – well above the 30-35wpm longhand I could ever manage.