The Nothingness of Scott

creative

Pro Tip: Steal Like an Artist

I was speaking with a colleague at a different company yesterday, and she gave me some advice that I thought was really interesting. It involves stealing ideas legitimately.

docker

Containers, Composers, and Orchestrators

Containerization a difficult concept to wrap one's head around, simply because of the commonality of the different terms involved. To remedy this problem, I recently decided to solidify some of this terminology with an analogy.

git

How I Write a Commit Message

You spend all day (or multiple days) getting your feature/bug fix mapped out, writing the code, debugging said code, writing tests to verify that nothing is broken in the future, and then, after all of that, you have to craft your commit(s).

wasm

Rust and Wasm Side-by-Side

Background At my work, we're considering using WebAssembly (hereafter abbreviated as WASM) because it allows us to cross-compile just about any language for use on the web. WebAssembly is a

kung-fu

Creed of the Sinking Moon

At the Sinking Moon School of Kung Fu, we've developed the a creed that identifies what we believe and unifies us as being travelers along the same path

bisect

git bisect: A Gentle Introduction

You're a software developer who's just been assigned a ticket. It's a bug. This is a _regression_, which means that the app used to correctly render quadrilaterals, and now it's rendering them as triangles.

kung-fu

Let Go of the Hilt

The idea is that, instead of continuing down a path that isn't working, it's better to change your strategy swiftly and suddenly, even if it means giving your opponent the upper hand temporarily.

software

Rebasing Toward Independence

Introduction One of the things I will usually do when reviewing code is to verify that every commit within a pull request at least compiles. Since I learned a lot of my craft from developing and reviewing patches, rather than pull requests, this typically

fighting-sioux

Linesman Night

Immediately at the beginning of the game, the radio host started talking about wondering if it was going to be "linesman night" again at the Broadmoore World Arena.

development

Quick Filtration with RxAndroid

If you're not using RxAndroid, you should consider adding it as a dependency to your Android project. It makes life significantly easier when working with REST API calls. However, once

software

git transfusion

Motivation: Poor Judgement (and lack of patience) Recently, I've been working a lot with git, a version control system. My current company decided that it would be useful to switch

software

(Hopefully) Easier Firefox Building with JMozTools

Introducing JMozTools One of the things I learned when I first started at Mozilla a little over a year ago is that there's this kind-of unwritten 'rite of passage', so

firefox

Prototyping Refloz (Reflow on Zoom)

As part of the Readability 2.0 project, we're trying a few different approaches to making text beautiful and easily readable on a mobile device in Firefox for Android. When

software

Font Inflation, Fennec, and You

The Need for Readability Many people in the world now use mobile devices to browse the web. It's fast, convenient, and absolutely indispensable when you absolutely have to prove that

kung-fu

Now YOU Have a Friend in the Kung Fu Business

Almost two years ago, my friend Ryan Carden started a martial arts school here in Burnsville, MN, and was kind enough to ask me to assist him in teaching. Since then, we've grown quite a bit, but we're always looking for new students. During

cosmic-dice

The Lifecycle of Demons

I just finished reading In the Company of Ogres, by A. Lee Martinez[1]. The essential plot line follows an individual named Ned (called 'Never Dead Ned'), who is probably

mythology

Let the Games End

I recently finished the book Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins[1], which is the last in a trilogy including both The Hunger Games[2] and Catching Fire[3]. I was warned,

cosmic-dice

Omnipotent and Omniscient

Introduction Recently, I've finished the book The Magician King[1], by Lev Grossman. It's an interesting book, although, in my opinion, not as interesting as his first book in the series, The Magicians. The series is like a combination of Harry Potter and Narnia,

software

Foxes, Monsters, and Dinosaurs, Oh My!

During June and July, I was out in Mountain View, CA, at the Mozilla Corporation (and Foundation) headquarters, learning all I could about the process of creating Mozilla products. In June of this year, I chose to leave General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems to

philosophy

Mysterious February

Today just happens to be my one year anniversary working for my current employer. (I won't mention the name of the company, but I will say it bears a striking

philosophy

Decisive Moments

A photograph is a single, frozen moment in time. The person or people who view that photograph do so out of context - there is no possibility of viewing that time either before or after that single moment. Just that single millisecond.

college

Stand Up and Weep

So this past Thursday, April 8, 2010, the North Dakota Board of Higher Education voted to retire the nickname of the University of North Dakota, the Fighting Sioux[1]. For

blog

An Update on the Title

So, I originally chose to title this blog "The Nothingness of Software." However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that software is only a small part of what I'd like to write about. I enjoy mythology (yay Lost)

blog

A Bit of Philosophy

I figured I'd start this blog with a bit of philosophy. Why did I call it 'The Nothingness of Software'[1]? Well, there are two reasons. The first is that