I remember when Eragon by Christopher Paolini blew up. I was in college. I remember friends and family telling me I must read this book. They told me it was written by a teenager. They said it was better fantasy than even seasoned authors were writing. They were wrong. At … Continue reading →

After reading Marie Kondō’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was a bit motivated to begin my journey into a tidier and more peaceful life. At first, I made a plan to simply throw out a bag of stuff each day to get myself started. However, I quickly realized … Continue reading →

Artemis, by Andy Weir, follows a foul-mouthed, 20-something Saudi woman named Jazz. The story takes place in the only city on the moon, from which the book is named. She grew up without a mother, spent her childhood around welders and other laborers, and lives in the dregs of the … Continue reading →

I knew one of my New Year goals was going to be to get rid of some of the clutter I’ve accumulated over the years. As fate would have it, a Kindle deal popped up a few days ago and shined light upon the path that I should take. I … Continue reading →

It’s Brandon Sanderson. Need I say anything else to convince you to read it? Mistborn: The Final Empire is unlike your traditional fantasy. There are no dragons to slay. No elves and dwarves. No long, arduous journeys crossing continents. Most of the story takes place within one city and follows … Continue reading →

It’s hard to believe that it’s the start of a new year. That’s what we say every year, right? A new year always gives you a fresh slate on life, to a degree. There’s new possibilities. There’s hope for something greater than the year before. It’s an exciting time where … Continue reading →

It happened last night. I’d felt the rumblings of it on occasion in the past couple of weeks. It’s that moment when you realize there’s something you’d simply rather be doing than the thing that you’re doing. It was just past 9 p.m. I’d spent most of the night switching … Continue reading →

A review of Skyward, the heroic adventure of young Spensa as she overcomes her family brand of cowardice and becomes a warrior for her people.

Far too often when doing code reviews, I see developers lean too heavily on sanitize_text_field(), using it as a sort of catchall for sanitizing data. That’s usually not a good idea. Data should be sanitized based on what sort of data you’re expecting. In this tutorial, I’m going to cover … Continue reading →

There’s an ongoing joke about that one drunk uncle everyone must tolerate during the holidays at family gatherings. Everyone has one of these, right? Now, imagine playing a game where said uncle was forced to prance like a reindeer across the living room floor to exchange gifts during a thrilling … Continue reading →