Craft By Zen

👋🏽 Hi! This is Jeremy's Craft by Zen


  • 2024 Week 15 - Weekly Notes
    Posted

    Film finds, SunoAI, Boeing and the Suicide Mission, Debugger's Toolkit, and OJ.

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing
  • Elicit UX
    Posted

    I got a chance to play around with Elicit and was reading through Adam Wiggin’s Tweet. I think I might make a quick web app trying multi-column queries about a particular topic and allow more of a computational style of conversational chat.

    Computational style of conversational AI using Elicit
    Computational style of conversational AI using Elicit
    Filed: 🚰 Stream
    🔖 ux   LLMs
  • Setting up SVGR with Jest
    Posted

    I was getting some errors in my unit test output because I converted my SVGs to React components using SVGR. As such, I needed to re-configure Jest accordingly.

    1. Create the mock file
    export default "svgr-div"; // This is the kebab case that jest is looking for
    export const ReactComponent = "div";
    
    // @see https://react-svgr.com/docs/jest/ for setup
    
    1. Configure jest in package.json
    {
      "jest": {
        "moduleNameMapper": {
          "\\.svg": "<rootDir>/PATH_TO_FOLDER/svg.js"
        }
      }
    }
    
    Filed: 🚰 Stream
  • Open Office Hours
    Posted

    In practice, you try to eliminate task barriers that require back and forth communication by setting dedicated block of time to meet. An office hour, reminiscent of your professor’s office hours, means you broadcast to your working network you are available in this block of time to chat about open loops.

    The problem this solves is eliminating the number of unknowns in your work, whether that be client feedback, questions about a design contract, or ambiguous bug tickets. These tasks become open loops are require external help in order to uncover what tasks you have to do next. It also lowers the communication gap with your work network or team and bridge that gap of understanding. The end goal is it helps with end output and/or goals.

    Championed by Cal Newport and highlighted in his book, Slow Productivity.

  • VSCode Fuzzy Search
    Posted

    In VSCode, open your palette, and type %, you get a fuzzy search across your files. And you can use navigational keybindings like cmd+up or cmd+down .

    Fuzzy search screenshot
    Fuzzy search screenshot
  • Context Archival
    Posted

    I periodically try to dump all of my mental contexts into my notes. I noticed this comes in a few different flavors.

    • Safari Tabs on my iPhone and iPad: Goes into daily notes
    • Random thoughts - go into drafts and get processed daily
    • Shopping - including groceries, bills, and things I would like but not need. Those all go into a task manager
    • Dangling tasks - gets reviewed in the task manager inbox weekly
    • Personal thoughts - journaling every two weeks, although I want to do this more often
    • Events I have not logged - go into my calendar.
    • Downloads folder - weekly processed into other folders.
      • Long-term storage in Dropbox and backup drive.
      • Short-term in Inbox folder
    • Photos - place special ones in folders. Select shots in favorites.

    I am trying to think of other things that I purge. I used to write in a notepad and write on the page of everything I was thinking about. I used to write about people I have not spoken to in a long time that I should reach out to, mantras I came up with, or completely random thoughts.

    Tiago Forte recommends putting all unused files into an Archive folder. This This activity helps remove our digital file mess and stops us from immediately organizing everything.

  • 2024 Week 14 - Weekly Notes
    Posted

    April Fools Round-up, primer on .xz hack, the web dev market, Taiwan's earthquake, and the sad stories about the A's move.

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing
  • Introducing the Stream
    Posted

    My personal stream of thoughts, ideas, and inspiration.

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing
  • OODA Loop
    Posted

    Stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (“OODA”) Loop. It’s an iteration because it feeds back into itself. Initially applied for military use, but has since been used for business decision-making and personal development.

    • Observe the situation and mentally note any key data points.
    • Orient by placing data in the context of existing knowledge and mental maps to create a picture of the current situation.
    • Make a decision on how to act in light of that situation.
    • Act and assess for any necessary adjustments.

    Source: Sahil Bloom - The Curiosity Chronicle

    Filed: 🚰 Stream
  • RSS Feed Clean-up
    Posted

    I’m finally cleaning up my RSS feeds because it’s too untenable. In my Readwise Reader, my inflow is far greater with things I know I won’t read over things that I know I’ll read later. Hence trapping me in a cycle of scrolling over reading. I’m going to unsubscribe from a bunch of things.

    Filed: 🚰 Stream
  • Introducing Inspirations
    Posted

    Inspirations draw from all over the place. I share some of the work where others have inspired this blog and me 💡.

  • 2024-04-04

    📍 Location: San Jose, CA

    I’ve slowed down on the website updates and have focused more on projects and writing. I think there’s always a balance to strike with what more I could do versus what really matters.

    We have a little over a month until the wedding. The final details are being looked at. When people tell me wedding planning is no joke, I can echo that sentiment.

    Brooklyn Nine-Nine Promo
    Brooklyn Nine-Nine Promo

    We bought the Brooklyn Nine-Nine boxset and have been watching through the series. Netflix has the first four seasons, but there wasn’t enough closure for the remaining seasons, and iTunes or Apple TV had a sale, so we’ve been putting that in the background while we work on the wedding. It’s nice to have something grounding.

    As for books, I’ve been wondering if I should read “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro. It’s a monster of a book about Robert Moses. I was listening to 99% Invisible’s mini-series about the book, and it sounds intense.

    I’ve been slowly making my way through Cal Newport’s new book, “Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout” as well as Emily Nagoski’s new book, “Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections”.

    My partner is starting to use Capacities, and I set up an account to also try it out in tandem. There’s a lot of good ideas in that app, but I’m not sure I’m going to covert from Obsidian. I’m used to my tool, and I’m probably going to stick with it for now.

    Filed: ⌚ Now
  • 🗒️ March 2024 Updates
    Posted

    Newsletter updates for March 2024

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing
  • 2024 Week 13 - Weekly Notes
    Posted

    On Robert Caro, Obits, people ruining the Internet (thanks SEO), Facebook and Netflix were in bed with your DMs, and the Baltimore Bridge fiasco.

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing
  • Chrome Extension: Webpage as Markdown Link
    Posted

    This Chrome Extension allows me to quickly copy the current webpage's title and URL in Markdown format.

  • 2024 Week 12 - Weekly Notes
    Posted

    Gleam, Salon style intellectual conversations, OpenAI's response to Elon, Raw Milk as a conservative signal, and a collection of design engineers.

    Filed: ✍🏼 Writing

I'm currently leading application development at Clear Labs.

I write essays on eclectic topics, from programming, cooking, and strange habit of collecting obituaries.


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Newsletter Series

I have put back together my newsletter after years of absense! These are primarily updates on my blog, "Craft By Zen", and maybe some highlights to the new articles I've written. There might be some life updates as well. I'm doing away with the old format of weekly longform essays, and trying some new things with my newsletter.

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