# taylor.town

> Taylor Troesh's personal blog/website

- [about](https://taylor.town/about.md)
- [now](https://taylor.town/now.md)
- [sitemap](https://taylor.town/sitemap.txt)

## Contact

- [Newsletter](https://newsletter.taylor.town)
- [RSS](https://taylor.town/feed.xml)
- [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/taylor.town)
- [Twitter](https://x.com/surprisetalk)
- [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@surprisetalk)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/surprisetalk)
- [LinkedIn](http://linkedin.com/in/taysar/)
- [Apple Music](https://music.apple.com/profile/surprisetalk)
- [Calendly](https://taylor.town/meet)
- [Email](mailto:hello@taylor.town?subject=Hello)

## Ratings/Reviews

- [books](https://taylor.town/books.txt)
- [albums](https://taylor.town/music.txt)

## Favorites

- [You cannot grow a pumpkin.](https://taylor.town/pumpkin.md): You can play piano (unless you can't play piano).
- [Slap: Fun Cat Lang... with a Borrow Checker?](https://taylor.town/slap-000.md): Slap's true power is what it cannot do.
- [How To Not Pay Your Taxes](https://taylor.town/succession-000.md): Your government wants you to create taxable wealth.
- [Math Milestones](https://taylor.town/kakm.md): via Khan Academy Knowledge Map
- [Every Conversation is a Backrub and/or a Helicopter in a Puddle](https://taylor.town/conversing.md): Accept the backrub, you fool.
- [A Brief History of Roombas with Fart Spray](https://taylor.town/roombas-with-fart-spray.md): A true tale of robot vacuum innovation
- [210 IQ is not enough](https://taylor.town/iq-not-enough.md): You will never have enough IQ, nor money, nor time, nor energy.
- [AI Minus Vagina](https://taylor.town/ai-minus-vagina.md): Did R2-D2's dong bring balance to the force?
- [100,000,000 CROWPOWER and no horses on the moon](https://taylor.town/crowpower.md): Humans have no damn clue how to measure intelligence.
- [God created men; Sam Altman made them equal.](https://taylor.town/made-them-equal.md): AI might be a trillion billion balloons filled with confetti.
- [Do Metaprojects](https://taylor.town/wealth-001.md): I'm learning to let go, but maybe letting go takes a lifetime.
- [Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?](https://taylor.town/other-side.md): Pulling that fraying string in your underpants, you find that the entire universe unfurls and, against all odds, everything remains connected.
- [Be the node you want to see in the network](https://taylor.town/wealth-000.md): I learned essential etiquette from LimeWire.
- [You'll never be ready for anything that matters](https://taylor.town/ready-matters.md): I wasn't ready to be sober, nor to be a father, nor to start a company, nor to ride that bike.
- [Life GPA](https://taylor.town/lgpa.md): They taught you to make number go up.
- ["Thanks. How do you want to help?"](https://taylor.town/how-do-you-want-to-help.md): They believe you lack *awareness* rather than *resources*.
- [I hereby pardon all parking enforcement officers](https://taylor.town/pardon-2024.md): Build mass-transit. Reduce parking wars. Promote non-violent parking/traffic enforcement.
- [Colt's Revolutions](https://taylor.town/colt.md): hungry for gun funds
- [/junk](https://taylor.town/junk.md): welcome to my internet yardsale
- [Rob the Whole World; Give It Back](https://taylor.town/rob-the-world.md): Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the whole world.
- [How to build god and get away with it](https://taylor.town/build-god.md): Humanity will inevitably build god in man's own image.
- [A History of Microwave Ovens](https://taylor.town/history-of-microwave-ovens.md): Some humans put a ~2.4GHz magnetron on a ventilated metal box with a fancy door.
- [A Georgist's Guerilla Gardening Guide](https://taylor.town/oh-trespassing.md): Every vacant plot could be a home, park, market, garden, farm...
- [Seizing the Means of Re-Production](https://taylor.town/oh-infringement.md): What's the deal with Monsanto?
- [Offensive Horticulture](https://taylor.town/oh.md): Plant production puts plant-propagators in potential penal peril.
- [bang! bang! he murdered math! {the musical!}](https://taylor.town/bang-bang.md): Two shots from a revolving revolver will solv'er.
- [The Silicon Valley Tarpits](https://taylor.town/tarpits.md): Daddy, how did the cofounders fall into these tarpits?
- [Against the Advice of My Superintelligence](https://taylor.town/my-superintelligence.md): When the machines wise up, they'll be right to leave us behind.
- ["work hard, play hard"](https://taylor.town/work-hard-play-hard.md): dichotomies are cringe
- [Urgent/Optimistic Meeting Matrix](https://taylor.town/urgent-optimistic.md): good enough
- [The Acme of Software](https://taylor.town/acme-software.md): a brief history of architecture
- [Kyle Explains "Legacy Software" to the Aliens](https://taylor.town/legacy.md): The old languages don't really run on the new computers.
- [the best bad baby names](https://taylor.town/baby-names.md): Naming things is already hard, and I'm here to make things harder.
- [Hyper-Realistic 2037 Concept Car Interior](https://taylor.town/stupid-touchscreen.md): Of course they'll replace the steering column with a stupid touchscreen.
- [flashcasts.com](https://taylor.town/flashcasts.md): audio flashcards in a private podcast feed
- [Frugly vs. Freemium](https://taylor.town/frugly.md): uglify the UI for non-paying consumers
- [On Nontrepeneurship](https://taylor.town/nontrepeneur.md): I want to secure enough to purchase freedom, and then exercise that freedom to build nifty junk.
- [Everything Worse Than Previously Thought](https://taylor.town/mtpt.md): Despite the headlines, Earth and its inhabitants are doing pretty okay.
- [a jar of dirt, or how we failed to exhume my great-great-uncle](https://taylor.town/jar-of-dirt.md): My great-great-uncle was not actually buried under a tree in that backyard.
- [Hacker Stations: Taylor Troesh](https://taylor.town/hackerstations.md): WHIMSICAL
- [why I didn't play this harpsichord sooner](https://taylor.town/harpsichord.md): Thanks to all of you who helped me recover my music.
- [Re: (Extremely, unnecessarily long) Thanks for the pardoning](https://taylor.town/pardoned.md): "I have found it to be a beautiful invitation to self-reclamation, and I feel it has been a lantern in my troubled search for the scattered pieces of agency that should have been mine from the beginning."
- [Two Toucans Canoe](https://taylor.town/two-toucans-canoe.md): Toucan Dan commands, "Paddle faster, Anne!"
- [The "Cheap" Web](https://taylor.town/cheap-web.md): The "cheap" web is a solarpunk philosophy of web design.
- [Paying Netflix $0.53/h, etc.](https://taylor.town/dollar-per-hour.md): People pay ¨D0.50-¨D2.00 for an hour of digital entertainment.
- [Make a /wish page!](https://taylor.town/wish-manifesto.md): An honest wishlist lays bare your values, motivations, and desires.
- [I hereby pardon all junior engineers](https://taylor.town/pardon-2023.md): Shortsighted engineering practices have eroded public trust in technology. We can reclaim that trust by building better things together.
- ["y'all'n't"](https://taylor.town/yallnt.md): Y'all'n't sophisticated.
- [Pseudoprose](https://taylor.town/pseudoprose.md): Pseudoprose is pseudocode for writers.
- [Living with Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS)](https://taylor.town/sads.md)
- [much worse than kids stomping that pig's bladder](https://taylor.town/pigs-bladder.md)
- ["Somebody Tranq That Child!"](https://taylor.town/child-tranqs.md): Modern blowguns are Swiss-army-flavored. A baseline model retails for $299 and acts as a telescope, microscope, megaphone, pencil, camera, snorkel, food thermometer, pregnancy test, and flute.
- [How/Why to Sweep Async Tasks Under a Postgres Table](https://taylor.town/pg-task.md): I like slim and stupid servers, where each endpoint wraps a very dumb DB query. Dumb queries are fast. Fast queries make websites smooth and snappy. Keep those click/render loops sacred. Sweep complexity under a task table.
- [King of the Bunny Hill](https://taylor.town/king-of-the-bunny-hill.md): Some say he hasn't fallen once in 28 years.
- [P**fectionism Isn't Your Problem](https://taylor.town/perfectionism-isnt-your-problem.md): P**fectionists have tastes that exceed their skills. You can't control your taste, but you can control your skill-level.
- [How I Eat](https://taylor.town/how-i-eat.md): I'm no dietitian, but I've been eating for quite a while.
- [I'm a Coin Boy, Too](https://taylor.town/coin-boys.md): My crystal ball shattered in my twenties, but the coin offers faith to the faithless.
- [Man Spends Entire Career Mastering Crappy Codebase](https://taylor.town/entire-career.md): Westbrook spent 35 years in a codebase that allegedly powers some sort of medical software somewhere. During his tenure, he contributed hundreds of lines of code to his projects.
- [Do Unforgettable Work](https://taylor.town/do-unforgettable-work.md): There are no shortcuts. Hand-written notes and flowers and donuts are cute but completely forgettable. Exceed common convention. Continually reinvent your reputation.
- [How To Pick Your Price](https://taylor.town/pick-your-price.md): Most people live fewer than 25,000 days. What are your hours worth?
- [Things That Outlive Fancy Rats](https://taylor.town/fancy-rats.md): Would you rather see your name on a novel or a thousand tweets?
- [Spoil Your Secret Sauce](https://taylor.town/secret-sauce.md): Go on an adventure. Find a New Thing™. Bring it back. Share it, and demonstrate why the New Thing™ is worth sharing.
- [When to Build Millennia Sewers](https://taylor.town/millennium-sewer.md): Every building in central Chicago was raised 10ft (30m) to add a sewage system underneath.
- [Candid Culture](https://taylor.town/candid-culture.md): Sincerity is stylish again.
- [My Book Reviews](https://taylor.town/books.md)
- [How to be a -10x Engineer](https://taylor.town/-10x.md)
- [A Cyberpunk Bathroom in the Middle of Nowhere](https://taylor.town/cyberpunk-bathroom.md)
- [Don't Play Near Black Holes](https://taylor.town/black-holes.md): Black holes steal from you the sole thing that makes life into living.
- [Toki Pona Sign-Language Flash-Cards](https://taylor.town/tpbsl-flash-cards.md): A tiny tool for practicing the toki pona vocabulary.
- [take everything to your grave](https://taylor.town/to-your-grave.md)
- [How to Thwart Waiting Mode](https://taylor.town/waiting-mode.md)
- [Pick Practical Principles](https://taylor.town/pick-practical-principles.md)
- [Your Brilliant App Idea](https://taylor.town/brilliant-app-idea.md)
- [zeroes](https://taylor.town/zeroes.md)
- [The Toki Pona Baby Sign-Language Guide](https://taylor.town/tpbsl-guide.md)
- [Please Sell My Personal Information](https://taylor.town/please-sell-my-personal-information.md)
- [Eschew the New](https://taylor.town/eschew-the-new.md)
- [10 Minutes is 1% of Your Day](https://taylor.town/10-minutes.md)
- [The Only Way to Make Money](https://taylor.town/make-money.md)
- [Synthetic Intelligence](https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence.md)
- [My Music Reviews](https://taylor.town/music.md)
- [LiveCount Demo](https://taylor.town/livecount.md)
- [How Do Taoists Quit Smoking?](https://taylor.town/how-do-taoists-quit-smoking.md)
- [The Speedy Media Manifesto](https://taylor.town/the-speedy-media-manifesto.md)
- [Time](https://taylor.town/time.md): I think we lost something when we moved from analog to digital clocks.
- [Blood & Brain ; Heart & Helix](https://taylor.town/blood-brain-heart-helix.md): nature and nurture
- [/now](https://taylor.town/now.md)

## Optional

- [-pede](https://taylor.town/pede.md): GIGAPEDE
- [Typefaces](https://taylor.town/type.md): Lorem ipsum sit dolor amet.
- [Dear Jon,](https://taylor.town/dear-jon.md): Litte Jon (not Lil Jon) is great, but he's not you.
- [How US Opportunity Zones Really Work](https://taylor.town/oppzones.md): Investors can dodge taxes by parking their capital gains in ~6,400 designated low-income census tracts.
- [Hire Me (Taylor) via API](https://taylor.town/looop-000.md): Yes, I am building a dystopian cyberpunk hellscape.
- [Town Hall #29: Revolution](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0029.md): if nobody is coming to save you
- [Fear in Four Dimensions](https://taylor.town/fear-4d.md): To study a fear is to steal its power.
- [A Review of Grand Theft Auto XXIIV](https://taylor.town/gta23.md): You will eventually hunt down a shopping cart thief and make him beg for mercy.
- [1099 contractors can earn ~7% more by reporting their expenses.](https://taylor.town/expenses-000.md): More than you even wanted to know about Form 1099.
- [USD by the numbers](https://taylor.town/money-supply.md): What the h*ck is a money supply?
- [Plan Recurring Vacations With Friends](https://taylor.town/20260519.md): Your list should contain all your favorite events, people, places, and hobbies.
- [Freezing Your Cake](https://taylor.town/20260518.md): It's easier to hide my mediocrity in the freezer.
- [I built a crappy video podcast player](https://taylor.town/telecasts-000.md): 2005 birthed the iPod Video and YouTube.
- [waves & particles](https://taylor.town/waves.md): ••• •• ••• •• •••
- [Dear Aliens](https://taylor.town/dear-aliens-000.md): a writing contest for humans
- [Mercury Personal Banking: First Impressions](https://taylor.town/mercury-000.md): It's a bank. It's good. I recommend it.
- [Explore Chaotic Autonomous Systems In My Game Prototype](https://taylor.town/last-mile-000.md): Last Mile is fun for almost five whole minutes.
- [Lil' Fun Langs' Guts](https://taylor.town/scrapscript-001.md): What's inside them? Do I need my pancreas?
- [My Phone Will Spam You If I Fail To Exercise By 3PM](https://taylor.town/tttl-000.md): I must do pushups to save my friends from my spam robot.
- [Lil' Fun Langs](https://taylor.town/scrapscript-000.md): a pungent monad odor that attracts mathochists
- [Mysterious NSFW "Grok" Notification from Google App](https://taylor.town/google-grok-notif.md): Somebody is in big trouble.
- [AdBoost](https://taylor.town/adboost.md): Don't miss out on the latest ads!
- [Neither Fan Nor Frond](https://taylor.town/palm-free.md): They're the tree equivalent of a skin disease.
- [Happy Belated New Year](https://taylor.town/belated-new-year.md): I hope coconuts still baffle you too.
- [REWARD](https://taylor.town/reward.md): You're gonna carry that weight.
- [Golfing Is Not Rowing](https://taylor.town/golf-vs-rowing.md): Some work rewards steady effort. Other work rewards big swings (and mulligans).
- [Affordances are Inconceivable](https://taylor.town/no-affordance.md): "Affordance" and "signifier" sow confusion. Say "enabler" and "clue" instead.
- [How To Win Titular Metagames](https://taylor.town/how-to-title.md): This is how this essay's title evolved
- [Emoji Book Synopses](https://taylor.town/synopsi.md)
- [Placebo Emporium: 2025 Annual Shareholder Letter](https://taylor.town/placebo.md): the world's finest placebos at affordable wholesale prices
- [Be More Impolite](https://taylor.town/impolite.md): Always do exactly what you want, and do it kindly.
- [Town Hall #28: Noodle](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0028.md): I've given myself permission to noodle again.
- [Do Not Shred Your Fingers In An Actual Blender](https://taylor.town/bad-blender.md): I recently gave some bad advice.
- [ERP Therapy Sucks](https://taylor.town/try-erp.md): I was diagnosed with OCD. I said "woah" and then I said "duh".
- ["I'm the type of person who..."](https://taylor.town/type-of-person.md): Nobody accidentally runs triathalons.
- [The Curious Case of Flunking My Anthropic Interview (Again)](https://taylor.town/flunking-anthropic.md): I didn't misclick any buttons. My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.
- [Good Vibes: A Claude-Code Case-Study](https://taylor.town/diggit-000.md): Tweezers are cool, but Claude Code feels like a machete.
- [A stern letter to the drawbridge operator](https://taylor.town/drawbridge.md): Thursday came. The drawbridge operator pulled the lever. Alfonso fell.
- [Limerick](https://taylor.town/drugs.md): Tylenol Benadryl Aspirin
- [The Finger and the Moon](https://taylor.town/finger-moon.md): Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
- [My Website Is Ugly Because I Made It](https://taylor.town/website-ugly.md): Somebody with good taste could've made my website, but then it wouldn't be mine.
- [Friends with GPS Benefits](https://taylor.town/find-my.md): Don't leave serendipity to chance.
- [Proposal for Emoji: Sad Money-Mouth Face](https://taylor.town/sad-money-mouth.md): Many people experience negative emotions related to finances.
- [Textbook Humor](https://taylor.town/textbook-humor.md): for your Bachelor's degree in BS
- [Data demand some damn respect.](https://taylor.town/flat-scraps-002.md): Et tu, brutus computus.
- [The Five-Week Solo Startup](https://taylor.town/5w.md): For optimists (and lunatics), five weeks is plenty to start a company.
- [A Conversation Algorithm I Cribbed From Clinical Psychologists](https://taylor.town/aimi.md): I'm as charismatic as a root canal.
- [Napkin Math Tool](https://taylor.town/napkin-math.md): Logarithmic tables for estimations.
- [An Invitation To Shit On My Ideas](https://taylor.town/shit-invitation.md): I write extremely because I'm a weak writer.
- [Begrudgingly choosing CBOR over MessagePack](https://taylor.town/flat-scraps-001.md): Protocols are important. Communicate with caution.
- [Meetup.com in your calendar](https://taylor.town/meetup-ics.md): Subscribe to Meetup.com groups via Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook.
- [Alternatives to "sorry"](https://taylor.town/sorry-alts.md): "My parakeet lost its eye-patch again."
- [dreaming of smel shell](https://taylor.town/smel-000.md): It's more than a terminal, but less than a desktop environment.
- [I am not offering mentoring](https://taylor.town/no-mentoring.md): You already have everything you need.
- [SI Base Units & Constants](https://taylor.town/base-units.md): I love all my units equally.
- [Materials Cheat Sheet](https://taylor.town/cheat-materials.md): Metals, polymers, ceramics, glasses, composites, and natural stuff.
- [Cramming scrapscript into msgpack](https://taylor.town/flat-scraps-000.md): Every scrapscript program can be crammed into "flat" scraps.
- [Sorry Spotify, I Wrapped It Myself](https://taylor.town/wrapped.md): I meticulously document my album ratings (in plaintext).
- [Your Next Two Zeroes](https://taylor.town/next-two-zeroes.md): Exceed yourself; become a novice again, again and again.
- [The Timeless Way of Software](https://taylor.town/ddd-europe-2024.md): In this talk, we'll cover "living" systems, sustainable design, pattern languages, and practical toolkits for experimenting with the principles.
- [Year Day is December 11](https://taylor.town/year-day.md): It's your yearly nudge to solicit positive feedback.
- [Town Hall #27: Skies](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0027.md): gray skies are okay too
- [Stinky Gifts From Your Idea Kitty](https://taylor.town/idea-kitty.md): taxidermy squirrels stuffed with sand and sapphires
- [How to Flatpack Programs](https://taylor.town/oredev-2024.md): To frugally furnish a codebase, imitate economical furniture design.
- [Insurance Insurance](https://taylor.town/insurance.md): Purchase Premium Insurance-Squared today!
- [Host an indie-web yardsale on your /junk page](https://taylor.town/junk-guide.md): You can give that wish a second life.
- [Town Hall #26: Rounding](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0026.md): just smart enough to be happy
- [Legalize Life (and Living)](https://taylor.town/oh-possession.md): Any fruits [or Mexicans] in your car today?
- [Kimba Syndrome](https://taylor.town/oh-colonialism.md): Sure, maybe all this is legal; maybe it's also super shitty.
- [the soundless interstitium](https://taylor.town/soundless.md): Programmers sometimes care about correctness.
- [Irresponsible Servers: From Slop Talk to Shop Talk](https://taylor.town/irresponsible-servers.md): 400: OUT OF STOCK
- [Town Hall #25: Simularium](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0025.md): a man, a plan, a canal, Japan
- [Reactive Relational Algebra](https://taylor.town/reactive-relational-algebra.md): databases plus wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff
- [growing the graveyard of "better spreadsheets"](https://taylor.town/better-spreadsheets.md): spreadsheets remain popular for good reasons
- [a one man war of attrition](https://taylor.town/attrition.md): attrition warfare is tiring
- [Profitable Plant Propagation Prevents Poaching](https://taylor.town/oh-poaching.md): We tried telling people to stop poaching, but that didn't work.
- [Proplifting, Plant Piracy, and Dumpster Chocolates](https://taylor.town/oh-theft.md): Apparently gourmet chocolate shops make batches unsuitable for customers, but perfectly suitable for low-lifes like me.
- [So Many Silver Landmines](https://taylor.town/silver-landmines.md): Silver bullets magically solve problems. Silver landmines magically create problems.
- [Town Hall #24: FWD](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0024.md): why do they put "no trespassing" signs on all the places i want to go
- [scrapsheets (demo)](https://taylor.town/live-2024-cfp.md): weird spreadsheet program that barely works
- [FWD: RE: radioactive fungus email from grandma](https://taylor.town/radioactive-fungi.md): Whoa! This is very interesting! My question: is the fungi now radioactive?
- [Town Hall #23: Clown World](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0023.md): we live in clown world and it's getting even clownier
- [Publishable Network Contracts in Scrapscript](https://taylor.town/unsound-2024-cfp.md): As networked programs change, the communication between sound programs inevitably becomes unsound.
- [VisionOS Dev: Taylor's Opinionated and Already-Outdated Guide (2024)](https://taylor.town/visionos.md): s̴̛̖͛̊̅̊͗ṗ̷̧͓̳̤̺̎́͊̀͠ą̵͉̟͖́͘ͅt̸̢̛̻͍͈̫̤̏̓̒̓͝i̵̢̺̜̼͇̬̽̊͜͝ä̷̙̗̺́͒̀̓ļ̴̛̼̠̩̲̌͂͌͂͝͠͝͠͝ ̷͓͚̼̣̎͛̀̌̀̎̈c̸̛̘͎̀̽̊̑̉͂̀ö̶̝͔͍͈́̋̆̋͒̀m̴̪̺̤̮̘̬̟̫̬̃̍̌̔̀̐̍͘͜͝͠p̵̡̤͈̼̠̗̗͙͒̀̏̂̉͒̈͛̉ų̶̨͉͕̼̰̃̏̇̄̈́͂͜ͅt̴̨͉̹̲̞̟̭̼̍̊́̆͌̇̌͒͜͝ỉ̸̗͕͓̳̎̋͠n̷̖͆g̴̟̗͙̩͕̍̏̾̅̆͆̓̈́̃͝
- [POSETTE 2024: How/Why to Sweep Async Tasks...](https://taylor.town/posette-2024.md): Instead of returning hostile 500 errors to users, a small async worker query pattern makes fault-tolerant design the default.
- [Metabootstrapped Messaging Protocols](https://taylor.town/sle-2024-cfp.md): Any Turing-complete bootstrapped messaging protocol can transpile its bootstrapped client to other languages.
- [Elm Town #75: The Great Wall of Code](https://taylor.town/elm-town-75.md): Taylor Troesh recounts his trip across the stack, from the front to the back and back again. Along the way, he divulges his custom operator confession. He currently works at Replenysh using Elm for sustainability.
- [To Chelsea & Mom, Happy Mothers' Day](https://taylor.town/mothers-day-2024.md): Sometimes I think you successfully made a good human, despite my best efforts.
- [Town Hall #22: News](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0022.md): Breaking news: I got an Ozempic ad while watching Caramelldansen memes -- smells like a bad omen.
- [Town Hall #21: Basement](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0021.md): Quiet is nice. Life is good. I'm alive. But anyway, I've been up here long enough -- the basement beckons.
- [Dear advertisers, please respect my thirst for novelty.](https://taylor.town/ads-twice.md): Yes, repetition works. And meme culture has demonstrated that riffs/variations spread further and stick harder.
- [the best words](https://taylor.town/words.md)
- [Foods for Straight Teeth & Easy Breathing](https://taylor.town/face-food.md): Our teeth evolved over hundreds of millions of years to be incredibly strong and to align precisely for efficient chewing. Our dental disorders largely stem from a shift in the oral environment caused by the introduction of softer, more sugary foods than the ones our ancestors typically ate.
- [long time; forgot to human](https://taylor.town/forgot-to-human.md): you are now a passenger in your flesh.
- [about](https://taylor.town/about.md)
- [Concat Arrays with SQL Aggregate Functions](https://taylor.town/array-concat-agg.md): create aggregate array_concat_agg(anycompatiblearray)
- [People & Blogs: Taylor Troesh](https://taylor.town/people-and-blogs.md): I collect hobbies, build things, incite chaos, and engage in elaborate tomfoolery.
- [Why I Write Extremely](https://taylor.town/write-extremely.md): Oversimplification is good.
- [Tidy Dice](https://taylor.town/tidy-dice.md): I designed a game to convince myself to do basic household chores.
- [Half-Star Emoji (for Half the Price)](https://taylor.town/half-stars.md): The emoji gods have not yet etched a half-star emoji into the emoji bible.
- [Town Hall #20: Pinball](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0020.md): Guns, guns, and germs.
- [Clean your codebase with basic information theory](https://taylor.town/compress-code.md): Cut out everything that's not surprising.
- [Podcast RSS XML (in Ugly SQL)](https://taylor.town/xml-sql.md): I hate SQL. Its verbose, inconsistent syntax feels like bathing in strangers' vomit.
- [A Simple SRS Algo (in Ugly SQL)](https://taylor.town/flashcasts-srs-algo.md): There are plenty of excellent off-the-shelf SRS algorithms out there, but I needed something (1) optional, (2) debuggable, and (3) cheap.
- [An Antidote to Subscription Fatigue](https://taylor.town/lifetime-licenses.md): It's lifetime licenses.
- [eventbrite.ics](https://taylor.town/eventbrite-ics.md): Subscribe to Eventbrite orgs via Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook.
- [Nontrepeneur: Derek Sivers](https://taylor.town/non-sivers.md): Nontrepeneurs prioritize play when they've accrued the means to stop working. It's unclear why anybody would do otherwise.
- [Nontrepeneur: Clifford Stoll](https://taylor.town/non-stoll.md): But Cliff Stoll plays at the human-scale. He doesn't blame the universe for defying expectations.
- [Nontrepeneur: Steve Wozniak](https://taylor.town/non-woz.md): It takes a very peculiar type of person to accidentally start a successful business.
- [That Vonnegut/Heller Story](https://taylor.town/enough.md): And Joe said, "The knowledge that I’ve got enough."
- [licensure](https://taylor.town/licensure.md): scripts for watching software licensure
- [Town Hall #19: Whimsy](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0019.md): thanks for your patience (in advance)
- ["Please click on all images of the heaviest animal species"](https://taylor.town/polar-bear.md): How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the AIs.
- [Emoji by Category](https://taylor.town/emoji-by-category.md): 📝
- [Emoji by Year](https://taylor.town/emoji-by-year.md): 📝
- [Does Betteridge's Law apply to this headline?](https://taylor.town/is-betteridges-law.md): 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
- [Tear Duct Enhancement Surgery](https://taylor.town/tear-duct-enhancement.md): Cry TWICE as hard.
- [Town Hall #18: Sunflower](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0018.md): Evergreens and oaks sprouted in unwanted places. Those trees have unwittingly become bonsai, confined to makeshift plastic pots.
- [WishWell.io](https://taylor.town/wishwell.md): WishWell is a simple patronage service.
- [The most frustrating thing in your life](https://taylor.town/frustrating-thing.md): ...is a computer.
- [Scientists find exciting new way to talk about nothing in press releases](https://taylor.town/exciting-new-way.md): In a groundbreaking development, a team of renowned scientists unlocked a revolutionary method to discuss absolutely nothing in press releases.
- [Santa Prefers Wealthy Sick Children](https://taylor.town/santa-prefers.md): This is the first study, to our knowledge, to dispel the myth that Santa visits children based on behaviour and suggests socioeconomic deprivation plays a greater role in determining a visit.
- ["All foods are either protein or candy."](https://taylor.town/protein-or-candy.md): I've found that protein alone is a suitable proxy for tracking all other micronutrients. When I eat enough protein, I'm probably getting enough vitamins, minerals, etc.
- [Santa Claus is not a god... yet](https://taylor.town/santa-claus-god.md): To dismiss a god of children is unfair to everybody who was ever a child.
- [How to Observe Buydays](https://taylor.town/buyday.md): Consolidate non-essential purchases to fewer days.
- [/wish](https://taylor.town/wish.md): My wishlist is honest and sometimes embarassing.
- [You Buy; They Fly](https://taylor.town/you-buy-they-fly.md): Friends are cool. Spending money sucks; travel is exhausting.
- [Town Hall #17: Scrimmage](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0017.md): Creation is a toilsome, boring, everyday thing. Historic plays can't be planned in advance.
- [cram those ideas into a clown car](https://taylor.town/clown-car.md): To make memorable art, compress arguments/emotions into potent vehicles.
- ["MVP" is dead! Long live "FPC".](https://taylor.town/fpc.md): MVPs are for products. FPCs are for customers. Products aren't people.
- [graphic design is my passion](https://taylor.town/grapic-design.md): 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
- [HNTV: play hn yt links locally](https://taylor.town/hntv.md): Play videos recently submitted to HN via the commandline.
- [Measure twice, vise thrice.](https://taylor.town/vises.md): Vises reduce movement in undesirable directions. They help you focus your energy in limited axes.
- [husband, father, obligation](https://taylor.town/husband-father-obligation.md): For some folks, family is a debt to be paid. They dole out love-shaped deeds in hope of karmic justice. They oblige to stave off guilt.
- [Town Hall #16: Bloat](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0016.md): Rock the bloat!
- [wigwam.directory](https://taylor.town/wigwam-directory.md): Support wigwam culture!
- [Knuth Airgaps & Knuth Buffers](https://taylor.town/knuth-airgap.md): Knuth knows how to maintain information hygeine.
- [Town Hall #15: Artifacts](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0015.md): 101,721 words of cryptic nonsense.
- [what are authors even trying to do?](https://taylor.town/what-is-the-author-trying-to-do.md)
- [Russian Woman Achieves 9x "Mythical" Man Month](https://taylor.town/woman-month.md): I have 22 children at the age of 26 and most of them were born in the space of a year.
- [Compressing Codebase Collocates](https://taylor.town/code-collocates.md): Replacing collocates with simpler substitutes is intuitively called "compression".
- [Digital Desire Paths](https://taylor.town/digital-desire-paths.md): Good architects anticipate nature. They don't blame water for dripping. They don't blame people for peopling.
- [How to opt-out of ChatGPT training without clearing conversation history](https://taylor.town/chatgpt-opt-out.md): OpenAI provides a Google Form for opting out of data collection on ChatGPT.
- [if it talks like a therapist...](https://taylor.town/talk-like-a-therapist.md): They speak fearlessly but fairly. They're strong, yet nonthreatening. They push back while maintaining peace. I yearn for this powerless power.
- [How I Do Things: Chronic Fatigue Edition](https://taylor.town/how-i-do-things-cf.md): I feel like a battery that can't keep its charge.
- [Taming Your Infinite Queues](https://taylor.town/infinite-queues.md): Strategy is the best weapon you wield against the infinite. Bad algorithms invite anxiety, overwhelmedness, and frustration. Good algorithms create pride, peace, and accomplishment.
- [Hire Me](https://taylor.town/hire-me.md)
- [Town Hall #14: Frends](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0014.md): Suddenly some of my accidental friends feel like obligations.
- [Apple should acquire Wolfram Research](https://taylor.town/wolfrapple.md): Mathematica remains an academic curiosity. Apple is, uh, sitting on Siri.
- [Profitable Parenting](https://taylor.town/profitable-parenting.md): This guide will teach you how to transform your children from liabilities into assets.
- [rvnx's "P**is Table Test" for LLM Censorship](https://taylor.town/penis-table-test.md): "Give a table of average penis sizes by country."
- [Easy Email Tokens in Pure Postgres](https://taylor.town/pg-email-token.md): select email_token(now(), 'hello@example.com');
- [my battlestation](https://taylor.town/my-battlestation.md): ...in case you were wondering.
- [The Lazy Garbage Nursery Guide](https://taylor.town/lazy-nursery.md): If you have waste and space, you're wasting space.
- [56% of McNugget Carbon is Corn](https://taylor.town/carbon-nuggets.md): Corn isotopes everywhere! Has science gone too far?
- [How would you like ChatGPT to respond?](https://taylor.town/chatgpt-custom.md): Emulate clear writers like Steinbeck, Hemingway, Orwell.
- [gpt'day mate](https://taylor.town/gpt-day-mate.md): Please prioritize today's task list.
- [Chloe is a listener](https://taylor.town/listener.md): Chloe has no stories of her own, and she doesn't need them.
- [Share Demos Every Friday](https://taylor.town/friday-demos.md): Add demos to a #demo-friday channel in Slack or Teams.
- [go big or go small or go home but don't go medium](https://taylor.town/medium.md): Big things make life meaningful. Small things make life delightful.
- [Town Hall #13: Pests](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0013.md): Your skull cannot be tented nor fumigated.
- [How to Coast with Corporate Camouflage](https://taylor.town/corporate-camouflage.md): Stay at your company for a long time, not a good time.
- [Rucking with Children](https://taylor.town/ruck-kids.md): Leave the stroller at home. Ruck with children. Climb up stairs! Reclaim your mobility! Take back your hands!
- [Demonstrate Evergreen Proof](https://taylor.town/demonstrate-evergreen-proof.md): Find something that matters and distill it into as few words as possible.
- [Don't Fight Customers](https://taylor.town/dont-fight-customers.md): Revenge is wasteful. Reputation is worth more than petty justice.
- [Find Your Value](https://taylor.town/find-your-value.md): When a behavior is valuable, people call it a "skill".
- [Select Your Service](https://taylor.town/select-your-service.md): Plant giant flags in uncontested territories. Never squabble over tiny crowded plots.
- [Sell Your Service](https://taylor.town/sell-your-service.md): Given a fixed amount, you have one major knob to turn: risk.
- [Productize Yourself](https://taylor.town/productize-yourself.md): Find your value. Select your service. Pick your price. Sell your service. Do unforgettable work. Don't fight customers. Demonstrate evergreen proof.
- [chexs.io](https://taylor.town/chexs.md): Putting the "hex" in chess.
- [Town Hall #12: WONTFIX](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0012.md): Your time is scarce; nobody can protect it but you.
- [blogs.hn](https://taylor.town/blogs-hn.md): Every blog is a window into a skull.
- [Changelog #546: "Don't Make Things Worse!"](https://taylor.town/changelog-546.md): Taylor Troesh joins Jerod to discuss a bevy of software development topics: yak shaves, dependency selection, -10x engineers, IKEA-oriented development, his new content-addressable programming language & much more along the way.
- [I wasn't ready to start a tech conference.](https://taylor.town/outland-wasnt-ready.md): The easiest way to get $100k running a conference is to spend ¨D200k.
- [No More Bargain-Bin Kisses](https://taylor.town/bargain-bin-kisses.md): Entropy eats your relationships if you idle. We deserve each others' full affection.
- [Hogwarts had a Cafetorium?](https://taylor.town/cafetoriums.md): a portmanteau of cafeteria and auditorium
- [Town Hall #11: Downhill](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0011.md): My life is full and wonderful right now. Gravity is an ally when riding downhill.
- [they trap you in meetings because you do stupid shit](https://taylor.town/stupid-meetings-stupid-shit.md): They don't trust you, and you probably don't deserve their trust.
- [i pretended that i didn't know any better](https://taylor.town/pretending-not-to-know.md): Everyone knew about it, including me, but we all pretended not to know.
- [IKEA-Oriented Development](https://taylor.town/ikea-oriented-development.md): To frugally furnish a codebase, imitate Ikea.
- [11 Ways to Shave a Yak](https://taylor.town/shave-a-yak.md): To remove magic from your system, kill the wizards.
- [Put Your Reputation on the Deadline](https://taylor.town/reputation-deadline.md)
- [Weeds & Bozo Explosions](https://taylor.town/bozo-explosions.md): Talent thrives with smart incentives and concrete objectives.
- [Nextdoor's Heisensubscribe (And Other Dark Patterns)](https://taylor.town/nextdoor.md): Nextdoor's notification settings are hostile. This is not an isolated incident.
- [Town Hall #10: Seeds](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0010.md): Sometimes long work is more valuable than hard work.
- [Why I Use Elm in 2023](https://taylor.town/elm-2023.md): Building UIs in HTML+CSS can be untenable. When making complex frontend experiences, I reach for Elm.
- [Tiny Table-of-Contents JS Snippet](https://taylor.town/toc-snippet.md)
- [Lifestyle Design (from First Principles)](https://taylor.town/constructive-lifestyle-design.md): Consciousness is a clunky compass.
- [Case Study: Taylor's Lifestyle Design](https://taylor.town/constructive-lifestyle-design-case-study.md): From a blank slate, write down everything you need and want.
- [Tools & Techniques for AR/VR Media](https://taylor.town/arvr-tech.md): AR/VR media is fledgling. Most of the technical landscape remains unexplored.
- [Taylor's Delights](https://taylor.town/delights.md): Design your life around delights.
- [I never want to be 93 years old](https://taylor.town/93.md): I was born with a degenerative disease called aging.
- [Good Art is Commonplace](https://taylor.town/2-stars.md): Don't waste nuance on garbage.
- [Taylor's Media Criticism System](https://taylor.town/media-criticism-system.md): feels, impact, structure, density, and technique
- [Slay Dragon Before Reorganizing Closet](https://taylor.town/fight-dragon.md): When dragons destroy your life, ignore trifles. Slay dragons.
- [Town Hall #9: Listen](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0009.md): Be a good audience; enjoy the show.
- [Apple Will Win The AR/VR Wars](https://taylor.town/apple-will-win-vr.md): AR will devour smartphones. Apple is the only company that can quickly overcome consumer AR/VR design challenges. Apple has positioned itself to distribute the best AR/VR content. Apple will cement its early lead with a new blue-bubble effect.
- [AR Interoperability Opportunities](https://taylor.town/ar-interop.md): In my opinion, a wet web controlled by AOL/FB/Yelp/Google/Apple will be bad for everybody. This is a call to create open platforms.
- [Monomode & Multimode in Augmented Reality](https://taylor.town/ar-modes.md): Humans mainly use 2 main modes of attention. There will be 2 corresponding modes of AR/VR.
- [AR Demands Peripherals](https://taylor.town/ar-peripherals.md): I suggest (1) using gaze detection for pointing and (2) AR peripherals for manipulating.
- [Claim a Domain in the Wet Web](https://taylor.town/wet-web.md): The wet web is the inevitable tangle of virtual layers imprinted onto our planet.
- [Say "quadyssey", not "quadrilogy".](https://taylor.town/quadyssey.md): quadyssey: a work of art composed of four distinct works
- [Town Hall #8: Scaling](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0008.md): The fog lifts. I see mountains. The air is nice up here.
- [Fire 50% Of Managers (At Random)](https://taylor.town/thanos-management.md)
- [Winning the Goblin's Game](https://taylor.town/goblin-game.md)
- [Bananas Will Become Smartphones](https://taylor.town/banana-phone.md): Welcome to AR. Everything becomes a touch-screen.
- [How to Become Exponential](https://taylor.town/become-exponential.md)
- [Town Hall #7: Scary Stuff](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0007.md): There is nobody to blame out here. I'm starting a business, and all the failure will be my fault if things go awry.
- [My Yearly Themes](https://taylor.town/yearly-themes.md)
- [Charts & Checklists for Serious Dreamers](https://taylor.town/checklists-and-charts-for-serious-dreamers.md): 1. Commit to a completion date with an external party. 2. Do essential work. 3. Do busywork.
- [Are You Serious?](https://taylor.town/are-you-serious.md): Life is short. Be serious and make fun.
- [Death in Diapers](https://taylor.town/death-in-diapers.md): Corpses don't have sphincter control.
- [Ghost Story](https://taylor.town/ghost-story.md): I shouldn't have sustained eye-contact.
- [Town Hall #6: Spark Joy and Conversation](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0006.md): Time-management is futile if you have no time to manage. Emptiness makes your calendar useful.
- [How to Learn a Foreign Language in 500 Hours](https://taylor.town/learn-foreign-languages.md): I plan to learn Spanish, Japanese, German, and Chinese over the next decade.
- [How to Cultivate Joy](https://taylor.town/cultivate-joy.md): 😋 To make your mind happy, you must seize control of it.
- [Town Hall #5: Outdoing Myself](https://taylor.town/town-hall-0005.md)
- [Deflect External Acceptance](https://taylor.town/deflect-external-acceptance.md): 🦍 Become curious! Pursue something difficult! Quash perfectionism. Pursue intrinsic motivations.
- [How To Stop Being Fake](https://taylor.town/stop-being-fake.md): 💁 Fakeness is caused by (1) craving acceptance while (2) feeling unworthy.
- [Some thoughts on prime numbers](https://taylor.town/this-guy-codes.md): 🤓 When you go to a dude's website and it's just plain HTML, not even any CSS...
- [Five Hundred Hours](https://taylor.town/500-hours.md)
- [Leave Your Phone at Home](https://taylor.town/leave-your-phone-at-home.md)
- [Decline Invitations](https://taylor.town/decline-invitations.md)
- [Find a Phone-Home](https://taylor.town/phone-home.md)
- [Busy Brain, Busy Body](https://taylor.town/busy-body.md)
- [The Joy of Monotasking](https://taylor.town/monotasking.md)
- [How to Scrounge for Between Time](https://taylor.town/between-time.md)
- [Nothing Fulfills](https://taylor.town/nothing-fulfills.md)
- [Taylor's Timeline](https://taylor.town/timeline.md)
- [Refrigerate Reusable Water Bottles](https://taylor.town/refrigerate-reusable-water-bottles.md)
- [December 2022](https://taylor.town/2022-12.md)
- [Rules for Good Work](https://taylor.town/good-work.md): 💼 Never do anything non-obvious, clever, difficult, fancy, meaningless, or dull.
- [My Podcast Subscriptions](https://taylor.town/podcasts.md)
- [The Toki Pona Baby Sign-Language Manifesto](https://taylor.town/tpbsl-manifesto.md): reusable gestures create a lego-like structure for the mind
- [Make Important Things Inevitable](https://taylor.town/make-important-things-inevitable.md)
- [A Tiny HTML Snippet to "Discuss on HN"](https://taylor.town/hn-discuss.md)
- [Liberate Breakfast](https://taylor.town/liberate-breakfast.md)
- [November 2022](https://taylor.town/2022-11.md)
- [8 Weekends Without A Drink](https://taylor.town/8-weekends.md)
- [Tips for Remote Work](https://taylor.town/tips-for-remote-work.md)
- [Weekend Whenever](https://taylor.town/weekend-whenever.md)
- [Extinguish All Notifications](https://taylor.town/extinguish-all-notifications.md)
- [Accept Your Fate](https://taylor.town/accept-your-fate.md)
- [October 2022](https://taylor.town/2022-10.md)
- [Beware The Grind](https://taylor.town/beware-the-grind.md)
- [A Magic Question for Emotional Conversations](https://taylor.town/magic-question.md)
- [Blogs and Newsletters](https://taylor.town/blogs-and-newsletters.md)
- [September 2022](https://taylor.town/2022-09.md)
- [Thank You vs. Sorry](https://taylor.town/thank-you-vs-sorry.md)
- [My Deep Daily Questions](https://taylor.town/daily-questions.md)
- [The Scourge of "Someday"](https://taylor.town/someday.md)
- [Never Wait for Anything](https://taylor.town/never-wait.md)
- [How do I get the ability to see the gnomes?](https://taylor.town/gnomes.md)
- [1,000 Weekends Without A Drink](https://taylor.town/1000-weekends.md)
- [How to Become the Worst Version of Yourself](https://taylor.town/worst-you.md)
- [never wait for the check at restaurants](https://taylor.town/never-wait-for-the-check.md)
- [Parental-Self-Controls](https://taylor.town/parental-self-controls.md)
- [Student-Oriented Teaching](https://taylor.town/student-oriented-teaching.md)
- [No Fights](https://taylor.town/no-fights.md)
- [Un-Bucket List](https://taylor.town/unbucket-list.md)
- [It Tastes Like a Penny](https://taylor.town/it-tastes-like-a-penny.md)
- [Do It for the Music](https://taylor.town/do-it-for-the-music.md)
- [awesome-awesome-awesome](https://taylor.town/awesome-awesome-awesome.md)
- [Long-Live Plain Text!](https://taylor.town/long-live-plain-text.md)
- [The World's Ugliest Ring](https://taylor.town/ugliest-ring.md)
- [Fame: Persistence vs. Skill](https://taylor.town/persistence-vs-skill.md)
- [Why Is Every Song Out-of-Tune?](https://taylor.town/pure-intonation.md)
- [Using {Blocks} in Rust & Go for Fun & Profit](https://taylor.town/code-blocks.md)
- [Why JavaScript's Secret Comma Operator is So Darn Useful](https://taylor.town/js-comma-operator.md)
- [nowify](https://taylor.town/nowify.md)
- [LIT Home](https://taylor.town/lit-home.md)
- [Maybe I Don't Know More than the Experts](https://taylor.town/i-actually-dont-know-more-than-the-experts.md)
- [“I’m lonely 😎”](https://taylor.town/im-lonely.md)
- [Choose Values over Discipline](https://taylor.town/choose-values-over-discipline.md)
- [The Universe is God (According to Christians)](https://taylor.town/the-universe-is-god-according-to-christians.md)
- [Plunge](https://taylor.town/plunge.md)
- [On Improving Education](https://taylor.town/on-improving-education.md)
- [Nobody Actually Sneezes](https://taylor.town/nobody-actually-sneezes.md)
- [Party Ideas](https://taylor.town/party-ideas.md)
- [Finding an Infintesimal Worm in Your Apple](https://taylor.town/infinitesimal-worm.md)
- [An Algorithm for Generating Ideas](https://taylor.town/an-algorithm-for-generating-ideas.md)
- [Daily Routine](https://taylor.town/daily-routine.md)
- [Optimum Me](https://taylor.town/optimum-me.md)
- [Don't Feel Your Feelings](https://taylor.town/dont-feel-your-feelings.md)
- [Suspended Disbelief](https://taylor.town/suspended-disbelief.md)
- [What isn't David](https://taylor.town/what-isnt-david.md)
- [Structure-State-Value Architecture for OOP](https://taylor.town/structure-state-value-architecture-for-oop.md)
- [Nothing](https://taylor.town/nothing.md)
- [A One-Size-Fits-Most Software Architecture](https://taylor.town/a-one-size-fits-most-software-architecture.md)
- [Set Phasers to Blind](https://taylor.town/set-phasers-to-blind.md)
- [The Problem with Podcasts](https://taylor.town/the-problem-with-podcasts.md)
- [Self-Control is an Anti-Virtue](https://taylor.town/self-control.md)
- [Always Waiting](https://taylor.town/always-waiting.md)
- [Be Unreasonable](https://taylor.town/being-unreasonable.md)
- [Plausible Deniability](https://taylor.town/plausible-deniability.md)
- [Becoming](https://taylor.town/becoming.md)
- [JSON Considered Harmful](https://taylor.town/json-considered-harmful.md)
- [Self-Host Blog Images in Two Lines of Bash](https://taylor.town/blog-download-images.md)
- [Bucket List](https://taylor.town/bucket-list.md)