Parking Tickets Wrapped 2024
Embarrassingly, I got enough parking tickets in 2024 to warrant a Parking Tickets Wrapped. April 25 Amount: $30 Reason: Parking facing the wrong direction near Davis Square in Somerville. My Defense: The street is so narrow that you can't even
Website redesign, December 2024
I seem to redesign my website 2-3 times per year. I do it at all times of the year, but I always seem to be redesigning around Christmas: in 2021, 2022, 2023, and now. December 2021 December 2022 December 2
Winter break project list [2024]
A year ago, I wrote a list of the projects I wanted to get done over winter break. Now that we've reached my final winter break ever (!!), I have made another list. For myself: A first version of War Room v2 Planning how we'll build JumboSmash 2025
FileCopy
One of my favorite assignments this semesterāof my entire college career, in factāwas a recent one in CS 117: Internet-scale Distributed Systems. It was called FileCopy, and the objective was to copy a folder of files from one computer to another. Y
How ChatGPT spoiled my semester
Every semester, I see a bit more ChatGPT being used in classes. This semester, the most obvious occurrences are in my Engineering Psychology classes. Engineering Psychology is a second major that I'm doing ā it's the study of how humans interact wit
AI is an impediment to learning web development
Some thoughts on AI and LLMs, based on being Head of Engineering for JumboCode, a club of 180 students at Tufts University that builds software for non-profits. For context, almost all of our developers are learning web development (TypeScript, Reac
Donating forks to the dining hall
A year and a half ago, the dining hall would run out of forks every evening. My roommates and I would inevitably have to eat with spoons. Finally, I decided to do something about it: I bought 180 forks. But I had to make sure that my altruism wou
Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped
Two weeks ago, Jerome and I won Tufts' first hackathon in 5 years! We built Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped, a Spotify Wrapped for your meal plan (that also demonstrates that meal plans are a scam), and got over 500 students to use it. The final product Fi
Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album
For Christmas, I gave my parents this e-ink picture frame (built from an old e-reader) that cycles through photos from a shared iCloud photo album: It's a re-worked version of a gift that I gave to my girlfriend in October, except that one was in
2023 in review
This is the first time I've done a year in review. I've really never thought to do it, but I figure it may be interesting to look back on ā here goes: Work In January, Justin asked if I'd like to go from irregular/flexible freelancing for Buttondow
5% of things go wrong
Of the things you do in life, 5% are guaranteed to go wrong. I don't know if it's 5%. Maybe more, maybe less. But some percentage of things will go wrong. Sometimes you step out of the house and slip on a patch of ice and rip your pants. Sometimes
Winter break project list
I finished my semester yesterday! After a busy whirlwind of a semester, I'm excited to throw myself into some projects over winter break. While I was supposed to be studying for my finals, I put together a list of projects I want to ship over this b
How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace
A few weeks ago, I got scammed buying a camera on Facebook Marketplace. I bought the camera from a profile that was created in 2017. They had some other things for sale, too. The account looked legit ā lots of family photos and comments from family
Ben Forms
I wanted to build an ask-for-help form into an app that my JumboCode team built, in case the client had questions after we handed it off: But in true fashion, I decided to over engineer it. I thought, What if I had a little site that I could use t
Prototyping an AI-powered note-taking app
Greetings from Croatia! Iām on vacation here with my parents. But in the airport, in the car, and in the evenings, Iāve been tinkering with building a note-taking app. The idea was for a note-taking app where you can ask an AI assistant questions
JumboCode+
This is an idea for JumboCode (__What is JumboCode?_) that is not a particularly good idea, and JumboCode should probably not do it, but I thought itās interesting nonetheless._ JumboCode builds these free apps for non-profits each school year, but
What is JumboCode?
JumboCode is a club at Tufts that builds apps for non-profits. Theyāre letting me be the Head of Engineering for it next year! So I figured Iād write one short blog post about what it is, so every time I write about it I can link back here. The clu
Stickies: Spatial note-taking
For the past few days, Iāve been building an app for myself called Stickies. Itās highly inspired by macOSā own Stickies app, which allows you to place sticky notes physically around your desktop. Iāve always really loved the idea of being able t
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
JumboCode is a club at Tufts that Iāve written about before. They form about a dozen teams of 10ish developers, and spend the year building an app for a non-profit. Most of the developers donāt have a lot of experience building apps (mostly for the
The real reason for my multiple majors
A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about my recent decision to: Major in Computer Science (this was not a recent decision) Major in Engineering Psychology Minor in German The main reasons I gave were: Lots of free space in my schedule (Computer
Learnings from JumboCode
This year, Iām involved in a club called JumboCode at Tufts. Itās a club that spends the year building a web or mobile app for a non-profit for free, and at the end hands it off to them. Iām a tech lead for a team that consists of: 1 project manage
War Room: Expansion features
My favorite features that Iāve added to War Room over the past year are expansion features, features thatāve allowed people (and me) to use War Room more. Dividers You used to have one continuous list of tasks. I was ālimitedā to about 20 tasks, be
War Room āBibā
Itās been a long-standing request in War Room to be able to add a task directly into a ādivider,ā instead of creating it and then dragging it into the right divider. I was thinking of ways to do it without cluttering up the interface and adding butt
War Room āĀ using the native date picker
A couple months ago, I finally added the ability to set due dates for tasks in War Room. I built my own modal with a calendar-style date picker when I did that, but recently I decided to replace it with a nicer implementation that felt more lightwei
Planning my week
Last semester, when things were getting stressful with schoolwork and freelance work, my girlfriend Trisha took my computer and made a note for planning out my tasks for the upcoming week. It was just seven headings, one for each day of the week, an
Majoring in more
This past semester at Tufts, I added a second major: Engineering Psychology. So the current plan is to major in Computer Science and Engineering Psychology, with a minor in German. Up until this semester, my plan was to major in Computer Science and
No Dessert Challenge
Before this past semester I decided to put myself to a challenge: no dessert from the dining halls for the entire semester. I even made a spreadsheet to track it! And I did it! I made it for the entire semester without getting any dessert from dini
Publishing my Fall 2022 class notes
For a long time Iāve had the idea of publishing class notes on my website. I wanted to motivate myself to keep good notes (and an audience would motivate me to do that), and I wanted to have something to look back at a few years later (when I had in
Semester 3
At the end of my freshman year at Tufts, I wrote a recap entitled year 1. Although weāre only halfway through year 2, the time feels right for a halfway recap. I ended last year with a feeling that I had made less friends than I had expected. In se
Website redesign, December 2022
Why a redesign? Last summer I had the idea to move away from writing daily blog posts, and to instead create one-off creative āpostsā (like this one about a trip to Pittsburgh). A few months later, I realized that it wasnāt working: I just wasnāt f
Brief: AI-summarized news
Like a lot of people, Iāve been going down the rabbit hole of playing with the ChatGPT AI recently. I realized that itās pretty good at summarizing news articles, so I decided to build a website that shows 10 NYTimes articles and short summaries of
Building henrynitzberg.com
As the first website that uses Superadmin, I built my roommate a portfolio for his art! Itās live at henrynitzberg.com. To get it working smoothly, I made a few changes to Superadmin: Being able to do one-off pages, instead of a collection of ent
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
Iāve spent the past two days trying to gain confidence that Kiwi will perform at scale (and tearing my hair out in the process). The largest classes that Kiwi will be used in have around 350 students. At worst, these students will all have the main
New in Superadmin: styling, images, rich text
For the past few days Iāve been churning out new features on Superadmin, a CMS I built for my own projects and websites I make for people. It started with styling the entire interface ā I built it September, but havenāt had the inspiration to style
āyou have a lack of deadlinesā
Thereās this tweet I came across a while ago: i guarantee you have a lot more ideas in you than you think. you don't have a lack of ideas, you have a lack of deadlines. I think thatās one of the biggest things Iāve learned by writing daily blog
Apple Credit Card Rewards
I signed up for an Apple Card credit card a couple months ago because I truly am an Apple fanboy (and the Wallet app is very slick). You get 2% āDaily Cashā rewards on purchases, and Apple directs them onto your Apple Cash card in the Wallet app,
Automatic Dark Mode Colors Donāt Work
When building dark mode into a website, itās tempting to invert the gray color scale across the site. Everything thatās white becomes black, and the in-between shades flip. This makes sense: light gray text on a white background (barely visibl
Why I Love Laravel
My favorite way of building web apps is to use Laravel, a PHP framework. I learned Laravel in the summer of 2020, but since then Iāve had phases of being on and off of it many times. I keep getting this feeling that other tools out there might be
Why I Love Tailwind CSS
Iām a really big fan of Tailwind CSS, a framework for styling websites. It took me a couple tries to get into Tailwind. Iād seen it around, but finally around two years ago I tried it again and it stuck. I think that the intimidating thing for
Bagel Institute
Bagel Institute is an app that I built for my dad. Heās a math professor, and in the summer of 2020 we were thinking about how to incorporate the nice aspects of online teaching back into the physical classroom. My dad was using Zoomās whiteboard
IKEA Backpack
I bought a new backpack for college. I didnāt mean to buy a new backpack, but I was strolling through IKEA with Trisha last summer when I found a $20 backpack. I bought it and strapped it into the back of the car for a safe ride home. A couple
Thumbs up for Six Flags
When I went to Six Flags a month ago (the āThrill Capital of New England,ā as numerous announcements will remind you), I for some reason fixated on the hand signals that all the ride operators were doing. So I impulsively asked one of the ride ope
One Year Ago Email
Every morning, I get an email from a bot that I created. The bot sends me links to my journal entries in past years. When I check my email first thing in the morning, these are some of the first things I read. Theyāre pretty short, and it feel
First Name Usernames
Iām really jealous of people who can get their first name as a username. For obvious reasons, itās a bit difficult for me. The only thing that I can remember that I have ben as the username for is my username for Glow, the crypto wallet Iām workin
Productivity YouTubers
YouTubers who make videos about how to be productive all have the same job: being a YouTuber. I guess itās an inevitability, right? You probably start off making videos in your free time, and then if you become popular you quit your job to make Yo
Novel Food
Iām a person who has settled favorite foods in different cuisines. Pad Thai at Thai restaurants, Saag Paneer at Indian restaurants, and Caterpillar Maki at Japanese restaurants. But Trisha tells me that I need to try new things. And sheās right, e
Three People Talking
When two people talk, they take turns talking about each other. When three people talk, they talk about āthird things.ā Itās a generalization, of course, and completely based on my experiences. But Iāve found that itās way more comfortable to talk
Driving School Corruption
The driving school that I went to āĀ the one that practically everyone at my high school went toĀ ā felt corrupt. I took my driving test at 6:15am on a Tuesday in the spring of my sophomore year of high school. I was scheduled for the previous Satur
Bubble Tea Snobbery
I used to not understand when people said that they preferred one storeās bubble tea over another. To me, there were two tiers: good and awful. The awful stuff was made by stores that werenāt bubble tea stores, and everything else was good. Then I
Basecamp Talks to You
Basecamp is the project management tool made by the people who made HEY, the email app that I use that Iāve blogged about before. I know Iāve fawned over this company before, but forgive me. One thing that Iāve always admired about Basecampās apps
Professorship Bias
My dad is a math professor, and Iāve talked a lot with him about the disconnect between professors and their students. One significant disconnect seems to stem from the fact that professors are highly interested in their subject, while the student
Bronze, Silver, Gold
I was talking with Trisha about a new project. We were thinking of making the ratings for this project on a five-star scale. But I just didnāt love the idea of a five-star scale. But then Trisha had a fantastic idea (I canāt take any credit for it
Muted
Was the original idea of Zoom that youād spend most of the meeting muted? The more that I think about it, I think the answer is no. The mute button just existed if you had to step off camera, burp, or your kid walked into the room. But when we
Reading with RSS
Iāve used RSS to subscribe to blogs for around two years. For those who havenāt come across RSS, itās a standard format for websitesā content. A website can spit out a page in RSS format that lists all its blog posts, and then āreaderā apps that s
Schmooze
Thereās this new dating app called Schmooze that had people advertising on Tuftsā campus a couple months ago. The idea is that you āswipe memes, not people.ā Instead of seeing pictures of the person youāre potentially matching with, you see memes
Iām a Sucker for the Brand
Trisha makes fun of me because Iām drawn to brand-name stuff. Like I think all of my cases for my Apple devices are stupidly overpriced Apple cases. And lately Iāve been considering which add-on to use for a clientās website, and I have a choice b
5 Pages a Day
In recent weeks, Iāve tried to make it a daily habit to read 5 pages each day. And itās worked pretty well! Almost every day, Iāve read 5 pages. Iām currently reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, which this habit took from about-halfwa
Late Night Sprints
Thereās this wonderful feeling that hits when Iām working past midnight. Itās the quiet all around, the stillness, and maybe the urgency that I have run out of hours in the day to procrastinate. It feels like Iām able to sprint through open air to
Pebble Presentation
In middle school, I really wanted this smartwatch called the Pebble Time. I mean, look at this beauty: I donāt quite remember why, but I had to pitch my parents on letting me get it. Perhaps they were going to pay for it. But I remember mak
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
Have you noticed that things seem to always go to shit after youāre through them? Iām talking about schools, summer camps, and the like. Whenever you hear about how theyāre doing things nowadays, itās always worse than when you were there. Iām
Stories for College Applications
While doing college applications, I kept telling two storylines about myself: I had spent the previous summer calling random friends who I didnāt know as well out of the blue and trying to get to know them better. I really enjoy doing personal pr
Software Seems Resilient
From the outside, apps seem resilient. You assume that things will work, and most often they just do. Altogether, things seem fine. But when youāre building software, it seems anything but resilient. You know where all the rough edges are and wher
Dark Sky
One of the first apps I really liked was Dark Sky. Itās a weather app with hourly forecasts for days into the future. I used it for years, and it was my favorite weather app. In 2020, Apple acquired Dark Sky. They discontinued the Android v
Are My Technical Posts Worth It?
Iāve been writing technical blog posts since October of 2019. At this point, Iāve written 177 blog posts on programming topics. Some of them are basic, and some are more involved. In a good month, they bring 15,000 unique visitors to my website. T
Customer Rewards Programs
I realized while buying a new pair of shoes with Trisha today that my instinct is to refuse when offered to sign up for a storeās rewards program in exchange for a discount. But as I was checking out, I realized that my instinct to refuse is proba
Habit Toddler
I recently watched a great video about the science behind habit-forming. The gist of it is that you can imagine a toddler in your brain that makes in-the-moment decisions, without regard to their future consequences. Thereās also a part of your br
Gerald R. Gill Papers
Today, I got an email from Tufts about their Juneteenth Observance Ceremony next week. As part of it, theyāre displaying the new Gerald R. Gill Papers Exhibit. Gill was a History professor at Tufts until he passed away in 2007. His daughter donate
Daily Habits
At the moment, Iāve accumulated a list of aspirational daily habits: Publish a daily blog post, like this one. Publish a technical blog post. Read 3 articles that Iāve saved for reading later (I use Feedbin). Read 5 pages of a physical book (cu
The Web is a Superpower
Thereās something insane about creating apps for the web. Itās the fact that your creation is immediately available to practically anybody, anywhere around the world, without needing them to download anything. Sure, native phone apps are often smo
An Eye for Design
I think I have an eye for design. Unfortunately, this is different from being able to design. That is something that Iām not really able to do. I find it difficult to come up with new and novel designs. Or to design things that look completely
How You Perceive the World
A few years ago, I watched a video that mentioned how itās been found that people with depression perceive more neutral interactions as negative. The brain literally goes into defense mode, altering your perception of the world. I donāt think Iāve
Cheating on Field Notes
Thereās this brand of pocket notebooks called Field Notes. They release a new notebook every quarter, and I like their designs very much. Just handling their notebooks brings me a lot of joy. I first got into their notebooks in the beginning of hi
Writing Tasks Down
Thereās a funny thing about my to-do list: when I write something down on my list, it generally gets done. Contrast this to when I just try to remember it: it generally doesnāt get done. Thereās something about writing a task down that suddenly
Your Feelings Are Not Unique
One of my favorite mantras in life is: Your feelings are not unique. Itās the idea that, whatever youāre feeling, other people feel the same way. Thereās no way that youāre the only way that feels that way. And if you feel like youāre the only on
Recording Screencasts
My internship this summer at Glow has made me realize how much I love recording screenshots. They have a habit of attaching a short screen recording to batches of code that they want reviewed by other engineers, where they show what theyāve change
Current Self and Going to Libraries
I often feel like my past self and my current self are different people. My past self has big, healthy plans. My current self has lazy, short-sighted plans. My past self was worried about spending the entire summer working remotely from home, and
Security Questions
One thing about me is that I make up answers to security questions. What was the name of your childhood pet? Pear. What was the name of the street you grew up on? Recessed Lighting. I just put in any word that pops into my mind as Iām creati
Class Council: āBrutally Honestā
On March 2nd, 2021 ā over a year ago ā I was stressed out of my mind. In the fall of senior year, my friends and I all won Class Council positions. We had managed to snag every single position ā president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and
Girl Talk: All Day
Years ago, I heard CGP Grey recommend the album All Day by Girl Talk as music that he plays in the background to get work done. Itās a 70-minute album thatās meant to be listened to as one long song, which samples over 300 songs from other artists
My Stress is an Inside Job
When I was applying to college, I imagined my future stress levels in college. There would be no more schooling to apply for (since I probably wasnāt going to apply for graduate school), and needing to do well in college admissions was the source of
Teaching Enthusiasm
I had a thought the other day: maybe one of the things that makes a teacher good is that they have enthusiasm for the subject, and convey it to their students. This idea came from thinking about my Chinese professor last semester, whom I liked ver
HEYās Fun Names
I use an email app called HEY. I like the workflow that it gives me, and a bunch of features add up to me enjoying email more because of the app. Thatās beside the point. One thing that I really like about HEY is that they come up with fun names f
Punctuation
In middle and high school, I was really good at the mechanics of writing. I found it easy to memorize the mechanics of capitalization and punctuation āĀ that book titles were italicized and poem titles were written in quotation marks; that the peri
Kid Money
When I was a kid, my parents let me spend my own money. Whereād that money come from? To be honest, Iām not quite sure. A sizable portion of it probably came from my $5/week allowance, and then birthdays and Chinese New Year added up. But the r
ā21ā by Patrick Roche
Iām not a big fan of poetry. My exposure to poetry has consisted of poetry units in English classes over the years, which Iāve disliked. For me, poetry has been something to get through as quickly and painlessly as possible. Sometimes the teachers
Music at 20%
A couple days ago, I saw someone on Twitter say that they always listen to music at 20% volume in the background to occupy the small part of their brain that wants to be distracted. They said that it helps them focus. I started doing that a couple
Public Radio Stories
I was reminded today about how good the storytelling in public radio stories is. By that, I mean a tightly edited and heavily researched episode with lots of sound clips. Like This American Life or 99% Invisible or The New York Timesā The Daily.
Website Rewrite 2
Two weeks ago, I rewrote my personal website again. This time, I rewrote it using Laravel. My theory is that Laravel is super flexible and will let me do anything I want, so maybe Iāll stick with the framework this time. Of course, thatās been
Hands Occupied
In the summer of 2020, I spent a lot of time calling my friends. On the phone, too āĀ not even facetime. I hadnāt done that before. But I just started calling different people out of the blue, and seeing whether theyād pick up. My idea was that
Not Developer Enough
Iāve had this idea for a week or so that I should create an app called Black Hole. It would be a web app that I keep as a pinned tab in my browser, and then I dump all of my thoughts into it and have them for future searchable reference. Iāve been
School But Online
37signals co-founder Jason Fried often writes about how we shouldnāt transplant in-person work directly into remote work. When a company goes remote (which was admittedly much more common in 2020), you shouldnāt continue to have the same meetings wit
Listserv
I read an idea a year ago that I still think of fairly often. After graduating college, this guy created a Listserv for his college friends. (I am too young to know what Listserv is, but it seems like it was software for creating email lists for grou
tmrw
Last month, I built myself a new to-do list app that I called ātmrwā. The novel idea was that each task could have a duration and time attached to it, and then you could see your tasks for the next few days laid out on a calendar. It was mo
I Used All of My Meal Swipes!
At the beginning of the semester four months ago, I set a goal to use all 400 of my meal swipes by the end of the semester. Tufts forces freshmen to be on its most expensive and overkill meal plan for their first year, so I figured I would put that m
Sunk Cost Chinese
This semester I decided that, after eight years of taking Chinese classes, Iām not going to continue taking them next year. Iām honestly not quite sure why. Iāve heard that the next level of Chinese is significantly more difficult, and Iām not one
Is Advice Flawed?
Iāve started wondering whether a lot of advice is flawed. Hereās the thing: advice is about telling people things before theyād naturally learn it. One person gets to the end of a journey and has a realization, and then wants to share it with peop
Why Do I Care About Grades?
There have been many times in the past year that Iāve asked myself: why do I care about my grades? Because I do. I have a strong urge to get good grades, and I stress about grades. I stress about not being able to finish assignments or doing suffi
Doubly Parasocial Relationships
Thereās this idea of parasocial relationships, where you feel like you have a relationship with someone but they donāt know who you are. Itās most often with famous people on the internet, where you feel like you know them because youāve been given a
Strong Hobbies
For most of the life that I can remember, Iāve had a strong hobby. In elementary and middle school I was obsessed with magic tricks āĀ mostly card tricks. The first reason I ever had to use YouTube was to subscribe to YouTube channels that would te
I Donāt Get Getir
Seeing Getir (an app for grocery delivery in 10-15 minutes) everywhere has gotten me thinking: I donāt understand this type of delivery app. There seems to be an abundance of apps that will deliver groceries to you in various promises of 10, 15, o
Charlesā Sandwiches
In freshman year of high school, my friend Christian and I made friends with a sandwich guy at school named Charles. We were new to the school, and so was he. We noticed that he was getting trained at the beginning of the year. So we started strik
Portal
For my girlfriend and Iās anniversary recently, I decided to build a gift I called the Portal. It consists of two iPhone 5Sās (purchased for cheap on Facebook Marketplace), sitting on metal charging docks (the charging dock style is one that Apple
Getir Colors
Thereās this new grocery delivery app called Getir thatās been taking Boston by storm. They promise to deliver groceries to you in 10-15 minutes, using warehouses placed throughout the city and riders on electric bikes and mopeds. After spendi
Draft Now, Publish Later
Recently, Iāve been writing my blog posts in batches. To let you in on a little secret: this is the third blog post that Iām writing on April 30th. I didnāt write it today. But I did polish it back up today. I write these blog posts in little batc
Lessons Learned from Hanging Posters
Over the past couple weeks, Iāve hung a lot of posters at Tufts to advertise 3Blue1Brown coming to speak. Iāve learned two things about hanging posters at Tufts: 1) Donāt hang posters on the first floor of Cummings. The Joyce Cummings Center i
3blue1brown.elk.sh
Recently, the Tufts Math Department invited Grant Sanderson (creator of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel) to speak. My dad, whoās a professor at Tufts, organized the talk. And two weeks before the talk came around, I decided to make my own extra at
I Miss Google Classroom
Now that Iām in college and we use Canvas, I deeply miss Google Classroom from middle and high school. Google Classroom was so good and I didnāt realize it until it was gone. You could write a Google Doc or make a presentation in Google Slides, atta
On āIncrementally Correct Personal Websitesā
A couple years ago, Brian Lovin wrote about āincrementally correct personal websites.ā Itās the idea that we put dates on blog posts and feel pressure that each blog post will be the final word on a topic, but that instead things should be iterative
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
In junior and senior years of high school, I ran a schedule app that ~2,100 students and teachers used. Itās a story Iāve written about before. But in the end, I decided to shut it down instead of passing it down to another student or continuing to
gerp
We just wrapped up our final project for CS 15: Data Structures, which was called gerp. Itās based on the Linux tool grep, and allows searching for a specific word in a folder of text files. I think this is the project where I learned the most this
Pictures as Memories
I used to roll my eyes when people took tons of pictures on trips. Precious moments ruined by trying to make it look good for later, I thought. But last summer, I became the person I used to roll my eyes at. At the beginning of the summer, I impulsi
Welcome to TikTok
Last summer I kept deleting and re-downloading TikTok. Iād go in phases of realizing how much time I was wasting on it, and then want some entertainment again so Iād re-download it. But every time I opened TikTok for the first time, I noticed the sam
Google Won the Kids
The last time I had to use Microsoft Word was elementary school. Weād type up our āessaysā in Word, then save them onto a flash drive to keep working at home. Those were the days when ā8GB flash driveā was included on my school supplies list at the b
Bin System
Last summer, I devised the Bin System that I would use to store things in my dorm. Iāve mostly forgotten that it existed as the year has gone on, but I recently realized that I really like the system. Allow me to explain the system. I realized that
Stubborn Consistency [100 daily blog posts]
This is my 100th day writing a blog post every day. I started on January 13th, when I was on winter break from college, and now the semester has almost passed. I think itās an example of something Iāve discovered I can be good at: stubborn consisten
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
I realized this morning that the English idiom, You can't have your cake and eat it too doesnāt make any sense to me. Why canāt I? If I have a cake, wouldnāt I be entitled to eating it too? It seems to me that the only reason to have a cake is to
Instagramās Lifespan
Me and the people around me got Instagram in middle or high school. The custom is to follow and be followed by almost everybody in your grade and even other grades, so most of us seemed to have amassed 400-700 followers through middle school and high
Twitter Not Found
Two weeks ago, I downloaded an app on my phone that makes me to do a slow deep breath every time I want to open specific apps. I set it up on Twitter, TikTok, and my email. I can still get into these apps. Itās just a lot more of a pain. But then,
Batching
I listened to a podcast today where the hosts were talking about how they batch creating podcasts and videos. They sit down every Monday morning and record at least two episodes of the podcast for the week, and over the summers they record enough in
RealMoji
I started using BeReal recently. Itās an app where everybody gets a push notification once a day, and then you have two minutes to post a picture of what youāre doing in that moment. One part of the app I thought was really interesting were what the
Hash Tables [explained for anyone]
In CS 15, we recently learned about a way of storing data called hash tables. Weāre now working on an assignment that uses themĀ āĀ a search tool for finding a word across thousands of books. I wanted to make an attempt at explaining how hash tables wo
year 1
Itās beginning to set in that the end of freshman year at Tufts is in sight. About eight months ago, on the day I moved into my dorm, I wrote this in my journal entry: Hopefully Iāll look back at today and think about how it all went better than I e
The Day Should End at 3am
Iāve always found it strange that itās so easy to stay up until the next day. Like staying up until midnight isnāt that crazy, so itās quite easy to find yourself in āhaha itās now the next day!ā territory. But itās not really true. The day really e
Tufts & Change Makers
My roommate brought up the idea last night that Tufts often says they want you to become a change maker in the world, but that they donāt really want you to be a change maker if that change creates an existential threat to the university. If you bec
The Content Machine
Iāve been thinking lately about what I want the Ben Content Machine to be like. I know thatās a bit crass and self-important, but itās an interesting thing for me to think about especially since Iāve started writing every day on this blog. Iām sorry
Date Picker Details
I was building a date picker last night, and I decided to structure it as three select boxes: Iām sure thereās nicer date pickers, but this was quick and easy. But then, I wanted to add more information to the day picker: an asterisk to indicate
Pluto was 2006??
Pluto as seen from the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 at a distance of 476,000 miles We all know the uproar around Pluto not being a planet anymore. A poor planet, disbanded of its planetary status to become a middling dwarf planet. I have this ve
The TikTok Peer Group
On TikTok, it feels like everybodyās in your peer group. Maybe itās because TikTok hand-picks content that you like to see, and often thatās from people in a similar place in life to you. It feels like most everybody whose videos youāre seeing are q
Trash Bags in the Laundry Room
This one isnāt deep, but itās just a thought I had: there should be trash bags in the laundry room. The worst part of communal laundry is having to move other peopleās laundry out of the washer or dryer when itās done but they arenāt coming to move
Waking up Early
I had a thought this morning, as I was getting ready at 7:30am for a morning class: I think that waking up early makes me happy. Then, I corrected myself: I think that waking up late makes me unhappy. I think thatās the distinction. I donāt real
How I Sent Texts for Assassins
At the end of senior year of high school, some friends and I ran the yearly senior tradition of Assassins. Itās a game where everybody pays $10 to play and is assigned a secret target, with the goal of eliminating their target with a water gun. The l
elk.sh
A lot of my projects are under the domain elk.sh. When I donāt want to buy a new domain for a project, I stick it as a subdomain under elk.sh ā you can even see all the projects under that domain. Itās really all about having something as short as p
The Cost of Building an Idea
I usually use a framework called Laravel to build web apps for my side projects. One nice thing about Laravel is that the team behind the free framework also built Laravel Vapor, a paid app that helps you host Laravel apps. Itās purpose-built for La
Website Like a Library
I want my website to be more like a library. Not in the sense that itās huge and that you can look anything up. But more in the sense that it contains lots of twists and turns, and holds a record of things thatāve happened in the past. And I want it
Publishing Class Notes
Last summer, the summer before freshman year of college, I had this idea that Iād keep really detailed notes on my classes and then publish them somehow on a website Iād make. It was a way to flip the activity: from doing work for the class, to doin
How /swipes Works
I have a page of my website at benborgers.com/swipes that tracks my progress towards using all 400 of my meal swipes this semester. When I rewrote my website a couple months ago, I tweaked the way that the page works, and I thought itād be interesti
Designing Posters for Humans
Thereās a lot of posters up on campus, trying to get you to come to things or apply for things or do things. And sometimes I see them, and wish that I had an opportunity to design a poster too, to see whether I could make one that successfully attrac
CS 15: Data Structures
One thing I enjoy about my current Tufts CS class, CS 15: Data Structures, is that Iām learning the things Iāve felt like I should know but didnāt. There was a certain class of concepts that Iād hear and not understand. When I heard people mention l
Formulaic Classes
Iāve got to say, my enthusiasm for Chinese class is waning again. For the past couple weeks, Iāve been finding that the class is crawling by more and more slowly. I check my watch and itās only been 15 minutes, with another hour to go. I find mysel
5 Weeks Left
Iām back at Tufts after spring break today, and realized that there are only 5 weeks left of school. Only 25 days remainĀ āĀ so few that I wrote out 25 numbers on a sheet of paper and hung it up, so my roommate and I can cross them out day by day. I f
Half a Slice of Apple Pie
Three weeks ago, I went to get dessert in the dining hall. Three weeks ago, I saw one slice of apple pie left. Three weeks ago, there was one guy in front of me in line. I had just missed it. But instead, the guy in front of me cut the last slice in
Un-figure-out-able Software
I donāt really remember a time before smartphones and the internet. I grew up completely inside that world, and itās completely intuitive to me. How to quickly scan and navigate buttons; when to refresh a website or restart an app; how to bounce betw
Covid Test Instructions
Iāve taken a couple rapid Covid tests over the past couple days, and (although this is weird) I really loved the instructions that came with the BinaxNOW tests. The aforementioned BinaxNOW test, which looks like a lollipop once youāre finished. S
Personal Software
Since I know how to make web apps, the urge to create personal software for myself and the people around me is huge. Whenever I see a problem that I or someone else wants solved, my first instinct is that I can build an app to solve that problem. It
Do You Subvocalize?
Years ago, I heard about the concept of subvocalization on the Hello Internet podcast. Itās the idea that you hear a voice reading to you in your head while you read something thatās been written out. Apparently, thereās theories that itās part of t
Read the Dang Thing Out Loud
There are people who enjoy the process of editing their writing. I am not one of those people. Itās really hard for me to sit down and actually edit my own writing. I think it comes from a place of impatience; a place of not wanting to spend more ti
Web of Thoughts
The new thing for note-taking apps is that you can link your notes together with ābi-directional linksāĀ āĀ if you link from one note to another note, the other note also indicates that it was linked to by the first note. Thatās the idea behind apps l
Preschooler > AI
My dad told me an interesting idea about AI that I havenāt been able to shake since. The idea is that if you want an AI to be able to distinguish between cats and dogs, you probably have to show it a hundred examples. Then, eventually, it will be ab
The Code That Keeps Me Alive
In December, MSCHF released a project called Tontine. Itās a game where everybody pays $10 to play, and then you have to come back each day and indicate that youāre still alive. If you donāt do that for a day, you die in the game. And the last perso
iPad Impatience
My new iPad was supposed to arrive today, but instead UPS pushed the delivery date back until next week. Whatās interesting was that I immediately felt like Iād been wronged. Like theyād promised me itād come today, and Iād been looking forward to i
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
In yesterdayās blog post, I linked to an op-ed about how kids should be allowed to be bored more often. The article raises an interesting point that I think I agree with, but it also had some bits that made my blood boil: Life isnāt meant to be an e
Thinking in Silence
At home, I listen to a podcast or music while showering. But in college, in a communal shower, Iāve decided that Iād rather not treat everybody in the bathroom to the wonderful voices of CGP Grey and Myke Hurley. But listening to podcasts finds its
Did MCAS Matter?
Starting in third grade, we took the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System testĀ āĀ the MCAS. It was an important affair. In the preceding weeks, we would prep for it in English and Math class. We were usually told that we already knew the con
Pi
In elementary school, I learned 60 digits of pi by memory. Iām not sure why āĀ I think I was just the type of kid who would do that kind of thing (perhaps I still am the type of kid who would do that kind of thing), so I decided to do it. Itās a bit
The Land of Endless Socialization
College feels a bit like the land of endless socialization. A place where, if you donāt hang out with people for a day, your life feel like itās going wrong. A place where every meal feels like it should be shared with a friend, and every piece of ho
Best Type of Bathroom Lock
Traits of a good bathroom lock: Itās completely clear whether itās currently locked or unlocked. Testing whether itās locked or unlocked from the inside doesnāt cause it to unlock itself. Bonus: you can tell from the outside whether itās locked or u
Heart Reacts
Heart reacts have got to be one of the best inventions in modern text-based communication. By that, I mean the ability on any platform (iMessage, Messenger, Instagram, Discord, and scores of others) to react to a message with a heart: I love hear
It Does Have to Be Every Day
I wrote a couple weeks ago about how It Doesnāt Have to Be Every Day. But there are a lot of times when doing something every day is immensely helpful. It catalyzes me to do things that I otherwise wouldnāt find time to do. For example: this blog.
Tufts Meal Plans Are a Scam
Today, I did a bit of investigative journalism. Freshmen are required to be on the Premium meal plan, which gives us more than four meal swipes a day. But thatās an entirely unrealistic number of meal swipes to need, so I wanted to figure out what m
The Redemption Arc Is Coming
When humans tell stories, they like to tell them with a redemption arc. A happy ending. In fact, I learned in middle school that you canāt have a story without a conflict. The character starts out okay, goes through some sort of conflict with someon
Couch Guy
Do you remember Couch Guy? If you donāt have TikTok account, probably not. If thatās you, I shall explain: In September, a girl posted a video on TikTok surprise-visiting her long-distance boyfriend. People were quick to point out a lukewarm reactio
Overwhelmed
I think that one of my biggest problems is that I get overwhelmed easily. I guess a lot of us do. But every time I notice myself stressing out, itās always that the situation is overwhelming me. Sometimes I have a lot of long-term assignments coming
October 5th, 1582
A cool fact that I came across on Twitter this morning: October 5th, 1582, never existed. In fact, the Gregorian calendar (the one we use today) skips from October 4th, 1582 directly to October 15th, 1582. Turns out that the Julian calendar, which w
It's Fun to Do Things with Care
In CS 15 (Data Structures), weāre currently doing the second of two back-to-back projects. This one is āCalcYouLaterā, whereas the previous one was āMetroSimā. Iāll admit that I half-assed MetroSim to some extent. It ended up pretty fine, but my tes
r/AskReddit
I read a lot of r/AskReddit as a middle schooler. Itās a subreddit (forum) where people ask random questions, and then other people answer. The questions on the front page of the subreddit are generally quite interesting, because thousands of other p
Am I a Gym Bro Now?
Before last August, I would have recoiled at the idea of going to the gym. And then in August, my friend Kyuho and I decided late one night that weād get our acts together and start going. I downloaded an app Iād heard of before called Fitbod, which
App Identity
I bounce around productivity apps, and I donāt like that. I bounce from Notion to Craft to Goodnotes to Obsidian to something-I-built-myself and back again. I canāt stick to one thing. My notes are fragmented across apps. Things arenāt all in one p
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
In November of senior year, I added a Chick-fil-A tab to Blocks, the schedule app I built for my high school. Hereās how that came to be. In the year above me at Lexington High School we had Samuel Jefferson Andrews, who had amassed 2 million TikTok
60 kHz
Thereās a radio station in Colorado that broadcasts the time. Itās WWVB, the station that the National Institute of Standards and Technology uses to broadcast the current time, tuned to the 60 kHz frequency. Day and night, this station diligently co
Social Jealousy
Isn't it surprising how little it takes to trigger social jealousy? Someoneās snapchat story. A passing comment. Seeing peopleās shared location. Just a tiny spark can get your brain sprinting ahead, jumping to conclusions. And the biggest conclusio
I Misjudged My Chinese Professor
A month ago, I wrote a scathing account of my first Chinese class. Which is trueĀ ā that first class went quite poorly. So poorly, in fact, that of the nine students only six remained for the following class, which was mercifully in-person. But I wan
Understanding CalcYouLater Subconsciously
We got our next Computer Science project yesterday, named CalcYouLater (get it? Calculator?). I opened the instructions PDF last night, and saw that it was 29 pages long. I decided to go to bed instead. But this morning I read through the instructio
A Sixth Sense for Errors
Iāve been seeing at a lot of errors lately in my code for CS 15: Data Structures. My errors, my friendsā errors, error error error. Thereās always lots of cryptic errors. C++ is not a forgiving language, and would rather not tell you why itās soiled
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
My dormās communal showers are already quite good. Theyāve got this two-curtain design, which allows you to go into the first āairlockā compartment, get undressed and leave your clothes/towel/other prized possessions hanging, and then go into the sec
Information Distribution
College is full of people who have information that they think is very important to you. And usually, it comes in the form of an email. For Tufts Residential Life, this information is a description of how the housing selection process for next year
It Doesnāt Have to Be Every Day
You might have noticed that I have an affinity for doing things every day. This blog, for example, is something that I write every day. Iāve also written a journal entry about my day for every day since December of 2019, and Iām very proud of having
My Guilt for Useless Things
For some reason, I find it super difficult to keep things around when theyāre useless. Thatās a bit vague. Let me given an example. The first time I noticed this was when I was a kid, bringing a portable power bank with me in the car on a day trip
Cornflakes
I think that one of the first web apps I ever created was an app for sending email newsletters. I stitched together Google Sheets and Google Apps Script to create an āappā, which would allow people to send email newsletters to subscribers. I think i
Gamelan Music
My dadās always described the experience of listening to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, a Austrian-American 20th century composer who composed famously dissonant sounding ātwelve-toneā music, like this: At first, it just sounds like a bunch of nois
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
When I moved these blog posts over to my personal website, I added something new: a small counter that reports, for the whole world to see, how many days in a row Iāve been writing these blog posts for. This one will be the 35th day in a row. The
Ben-Edit
Last September, I built a project of mine that I called āben-editā. Itās a simple way of enabling people Iāve built websites for to edit content on their website. For those who are programming-interested, itās a git-backed headless Content Managemen
Work-Life Separation in College
Over the summer, with infinite ignorance and optimism, I laid out a guideline for myself: Iād try to stick to doing work outside of my dorm room, like at the library, to maintain work-life balance. That way, my dorm room would be for fun things and s
Website Rewrite
Iāve rewritten my personal website! Thatās something I tend to do a lot, but this time I wanted to do a quick rundown of the new site. The Look New design for the homepage. New design for blog posts. Iāve kept the rose-colored accents from my
Fancy Quotation Marks
Thereās three different types of double and single quotation marks. Hereās an image, for your viewing pleasure: Behold. The first is a straight quote, and the next two are curly quotes (or slanted quotes, or āfancyā quotes). Youāre technically
Meaningful Conversation
I think that meaningful conversation almost exclusively happens one-on-one. Meaningful conversation is conversation where you feel like youāre getting to know someone better. Not just getting to know their day better, or how they feel about it bette
3:00 a.m. Radio
Tufts has a radio station called WMFO, and my impression is that they have a ton of one-hour broadcasting slots to fill each week, so they have a ton of students coming into to each fill an hour of airtime. 24 hours a day, 7 hours a week. I learned
Gimme Back My Headphones
I sent my AirPods to Apple for repair on Friday, so Iāve been going for the past week with no headphones. (In my infinite technological optimism and refusal to pack bloat, I didnāt bring any other pairs of headphones to college.) Itās been a minor i
Weāre All Powered by Electric Meat
Hereās something I try to remind myself when I get stressed over school. Our brains, the most important thing humans possess, are just meat that has electricity running through it. Isnāt that insane? Electric meat powers everything that humans can
College CS Classes Are Tragically Dull
When I started exploring code in freshman year of high school, I wouldāve called it coding. Perhaps even programming. But it wasnāt computer science. What I now major in is computer science ā a similar sounding but utterly different thing. Itās a bi
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
I just got the urge yesterday to re-write my personal website, benborgers.com. Yet again. At this point, Iāve made almost 1,500 discrete changes to my personal website over the past couple years. I think Iāve re-written the code for it about ten tim
A Small Life Radius
My first house was in Arlington, Massachusetts. Two years later, my family moved one town over to Lexington. The schools were better. And plus, Iād learned to walk, much to the chagrin of our grumpy downstairs neighbor. Now, Iām a freshman at Tufts
Mornings Set the Tone
I did not have a good morning today. I woke up with a headache, stayed in bed for too long because of that (putting off going downstairs to get water to take Tylenol with), and then got caught up in a stressful frenzy of re-writing a client project.
The Brain Can Observe Itself
Iāve been using a spaced repetition app to practice Chinese vocabulary for class almost every day since September. (For those curious, the app is Mochi, recommended by Benedict. Thanks Benedict!) Usually these sorts of studying habits donāt stick, b
Locked Posts on Ghost
Last night I built a feature on Ianās blog so that he can lock certain posts behind a passphrase, so more private posts arenāt publicly accessible on the internet. I wanted to do a quick write-up of how the feature works, mostly for my own future re
Good Software Has a Clear Geography
I think that one of the most important things when building good software is that the user always knows where they are, relative to the appās geography. For me, not knowing where I am in an appās navigational structure is disorienting and overwhelmi
Everyoneās Asking for Tips Now
Youāve definitely noticed it too: every single one of those fancy tablets that you use to check out in cafes and bubble tea shops seems to have started demanding a tip. Theyāre called a Point of Sale terminal, or POS terminal, which could be a fittin
Thereās No Personal Space in College
One thing I didnāt realize before going to college was how quickly you lose your access to personal space, and along with it your alone time. If you have a roommate, no space that you occupy is your own. Every space that you occupy either has other
Is It Worth It to Be Passive Aggressive?
We use Piazza for Computer Science classes. Itās a kind of forum for classes, where students can ask questions and other students or instructors can answer. And boy do people ask questions. Piazza famously spams everybody with more emails than theyā
I Run My Life on Reminders
I recently passed a weighty milestone: 2,000 tasks in Appleās default Reminders app checked off! It goes back about 2Ā½ years, which comes out to a little over two reminders each day. Why so many? Iāve written before about how I believe that my me
The Beginning of College Sucks
To start: this post is written for an imaginary audience of high school seniors. Youāre probably not one of those. If you are, I hope this is somewhat comforting. If you are not, Iād be interested to hear whether it resonates in some way. The beginn
My Office Makes Me Feel Stupid
As you may know, I rented an office near Tufts as an experiment. Itās a place for me to do work quietly and without distractions, and the half-hour walk to and from the office could also serve as nice exercise and putting myself in the right frame of
How Recurring Tasks in War Room Work
I just built a feature into War Room that allows people to define recurring tasks, which are re-added to their to-do list every day. For example, a task could be automatically added to your to-do list at midnight on weekdays. War Roomās interface
I Love Email
I love email. You should send me one! (Whether I know you or not! benborgers@hey.com) Here are some reasons: I feel in control. With texts, I use unread statuses to make sure I donāt miss texts. Iām very careful not to mark a message as read until
The Magic of the Common Room
Iām currently sitting in the otherwise empty common room of my dorm on a Saturday night. I love this place. For a bit of background: I live in Houston Hall, which has an unexpectedly fantastic common room setup. First, the room itself is stocked wi
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
Every morning I fire up Snapchat and reply to a built-up pile of everybodyās snaps from the past 24 hours or so. Itās a completely meaningless activity: I open up a couple dozen photos of peopleās faces, which I cannot see again after this one time
Friday, January 21, 2022
Good morning! Happy Friday. A painful first class The first meeting of my Chinese class yesterday started with a bad sign: another professor from the department was on the Zoom call, discretely telling my professor in Chinese how many students he h
Thursday, January 20, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! It's 7:18am and Iām sitting in bed. Remember what happened at
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! Iām writing this from my twin XL bed at Tufts. Itās 7:06am, so
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! Ian wrote a very nice blog post yesterday about the blog I set
Monday, January 17, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! This time, itās raining and the wind is howling. The blogs ar
An emoji picker epiphany
I created this app called War Room where my friends and I can see each otherās to-do lists, and completed tasks go on a public feed for all your friends to see. You can react to peopleās completed tasks with emojis, but for a while Iāve been frustrat
Sunday, January 16, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! Iām sitting in bed in 7 ĀŗF Lexington, MA. How did yesterdayās
I want to use all of my ridiculously many meal swipes
Tufts University requires all freshmen to be on its āØPremiumāØ meal plan, which includes 400 meal swipes per semester. Divided out, thatās 3.5 a day. But using them all is a challenge ā thereās many weekends last semester when I would eat one or two
Saturday, January 15, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! Or actually, itās 4pm. We drove back from the cabin in New Ham
Friday, January 14, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. Good morning! Iām writing this from a nice little cabin in New Hampshire. W
Thursday, January 13, 2022
š Iām trying the idea of morning pages, where I write three pages in the morning of whateverās on my mind. Itās mostly for me, but Iām publishing them too because why not. All-hands-on-deck this morning A couple days ago I built an API for a clien
War Room
Iāve started gathering in study rooms in the library at Tufts and doing work at night with friends. Out of this idea came War Room, a shared to-do list app with friends. You have your own to-do list in the middle, a list of everybody else on the
Blocks recap
Blocks is a school schedule app that I created in the summer before junior year of high school, and ran for my junior and senior years. It was born from my high school switching to a six-day rotating schedule, which would be harder to memorize. Bui