I’ve just wrapped a 12-week batch at Recurse Center, a self-directed coding retreat that provides an environment for people to become better programmers. I’m a huge fan of RC, and previously did a full batch in the summer of 2017 and a week-long minibatch at the start of 2019. It’s common for people finishing some time at Recurse Center to write up some notes afterwards, which are cutely called “return statements,” and that’s what I’m going to do here.| parker higgins dot net
For a project I’m working on, I wanted to generate an endless looping soundtrack that felt like a sea shanty continuing indefinitely without a fixed melody. This proved to be a fun exercise for both musical and technical reasons, so I thought I’d write up some thoughts on how that came together.| parker higgins dot net
A few weeks again, my friend Malaika Handa nerd-sniped me with an interesting request. She is a very prolific crossword constructor (think: multiple publications a week) and she keeps comprehensive records of those publications in a spreadsheet that is always up to date.1 She wanted a site to display that history in a clean and browsable way. You may know about her 7xwords project, which published crosswords for all the possible 7×7 grids over the course of a year, with 6 posts a week. I mad...| parker higgins dot net