Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

When you tell your engineers "You're salaried, so 40 hours is the minimum " when you used to promise them comp time if they went over 40 hours, when you constantly work them during nights and weekends, when you text them during morning workouts to sprint home and debug issues:  You're telling us that we don't matter . Our thoughts and feelings don't matter; our lives outside of work don't matter -- we are just expendable cogs.  This does not make us work harder. It just burns out what little spark we have left.  Oh, I still have a spark for code. I love  code. But that's completely decoupled from any toxic environments I may work in.  All the energy is going into my job search and upskilling now. I won't be here for much longer. This chapter is over -- but really, it was over before it even started. The moment they built their app without CI/CD, they doomed it.  Even the most grindy, stressful startups in 2025 have CI/CD. If you don't, your pro...

C++ is my favorite programming language. I still love Java and C#, of course, but man. C++ is king. They will not catch me slipping with pointer logic or stack/heap or value/reference ever again.  I am now an OpenGL master-in-training. I love OpenGL and GLSL. I write it all in C++ and manually compile everything using cmake.  I know fluid sims, graphics and rendering algorithms, shaders, physics, math. I write papers. I publish them. I write original algorithms and implement existing ones, and can talk about them intelligently. I know hardware extremely well, as well as the computer engineering graduates.  I have no issues with software engineering, web, mobile, and computer science fundamentals either. Topics like security and AI (buzzwords aside) are ones that I am familiar with in particular. PC building, IT, networking, I know all of that as well. The computer is my domain.  I'm hardcore into games, especially VR and PC but also mobile and console, and play every...

The only annoyance I have with my Apple Watch Ultra is that it usually thinks I don't go as far indoors as I actually do, based on the treadmill. But I don't think Garmins are any better at this.  Otherwise, I love it.  It's especially weird to see in communities like RunDisney which are usually more casual -- people insisting that Garmin is for "more serious runners" but then their long run is my normal morning mileage? I run 8 miles a day, 16-20 on Saturdays, possibly hitting 21-22 tomorrow. Then these people say they are serious runners because of their Garmins. Okay, seriousness is subjective, but you can't say your Garmin makes you serious and then your long runs are only 8 miles.  I don't know. I am planning to peak at 61-62 miles this week, at least if everything goes according to plan, TBD. I am pretty sure I am a serious runner based on my weekly mileage, and I love my Apple Watch Ultra. I used Garmin when I first started with GPS watches, but I n...

There are only two reasons really.  1. My parents said that trumpets are "too loud" and percussion is filled with slacker bad influence kids (lol) 2. Squidward 

I've always hated them. How am I supposed to sleep when my room keeps lighting up with bright light and I keep hearing loud crackling noises? This post brought to you by "I've been lying awake for an hour"

I love the writing style.  "I want to look him in the eye. Make him bleed the way I've bled. Hurt the way I've hurt... ...anything less will be like a sip of water that turns to lava in my throat."  Hell yeah.  It's filled with this emotive... fire. Sarah A. Parker clearly put her soul into this.  This is what I want to write like. 

I like the Northern Boys 

Hmm. I had no idea. So hypothetically, I could still get an outdoor theme park fix on nicer winter days? This is good to know, for as long as I'm stuck in Utah anyway.  I honestly thought it was abandoned because it sure looked that way when I went there before. But nope, apparently it's back on. 

It's not fun when work pulls a fast one and tells you on Monday, "Oh, by the way, we are working on Sunday night." when we normally only do that once a month (which is still dumb. This is computer science, not IT support. Even IT support is better because you at least know what time you are logging off.)  CI/CD, people. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE USE JENKINS SOMEONE PLEASE I AM SO TIRED OF HAVING TO SHUT DOWN THE SYSTEM AND DEPLOY CODE ON RANDOM NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS. I HAD A CHICAGO TRIP PLANNED.  90s-ass software development. Why. Adobe was not like this. Sling was not like this. BYU ASG wasn't like this. DreamWorks wasn't like this. Even SimpleNexus wasn't like this. All of my previous companies had actual deployment pipes!!!! This is why I am going to be leaving like Jesse McCartney once possible.  THE SUNDAY OF AUGUST THE 24TH 4:30 AM Illinois time wake up after 9.5 hours riding coasters at Six Flags Great America the night before and sleeping just under 6h. Drink...

I love the blue August sky right now. It's pure. There are a few wispy clouds, without the faintest hint of any storm threat. It's 96F, a temperature so hot that not a single snowflake could ever hope to fall.  No black ice, no slipping, no fun activities closed, no being stuck indoors for months. Ahead, there is more fun summer and all the fun fall activities too. The time around Labor Day will be especially exciting. Utah State Fair, Cornbelly's, Lagoon, Ricochet Canyon, all the water parks. You can do almost everything.  But the seasonal FOMO is actually extremely inefficient and counterproductive. It's hard to be a great novelist when you are filled with panic because the sunshine and warmth will be going away soon, so how can you write for hours when the sky is baby blue and all your favorite water parks are running? Even though you love to write, the fear sometimes wins.  And if the fear doesn't win? You regret it anyway, when the skies turn gray and the gates...

I am not where I want to be.  I haven't executed my move to California yet. I'm no longer in the animation industry. My reel and portfolio are not great. My novels are still unfinished and need a lot of work. I don't have most of my target certs. Not many cool published coding projects; no apps or games out yet. Would bomb most Leetcode questions. My paper from my MS is not yet ready to be published. My running speed is improving, but I've been sick on and off since Saturday as a result of my nutritional mistakes, and I've still had to cancel activities and workouts, and will have to until my stomach goes back to normal. My physique is not where it should be. I don't have the schedule space for band right now, and my foreign language skills are barely being kept alive by a certain homicidal green owl. I'm not very active on my favorite communities online, except Reddit, and I'm terrible at texting and messaging people back. My apartment is a mess. I am s...

You can both do fun summer stuff, AND fun fall stuff, assuming places open early enough. Here in Utah, they do. In a few weeks, it'll be Cornbelly's Spanish Fork time. And you'd better believe I've got that sweet, sweet season pass.  It doesn't stop the encroaching feelings of despair from another winter approaching (and yes, I am finally actively trying to move now), but otherwise it's great! Plus, you can still do this:  PERFECT SUMMER SATURDAY 4 am Wake up, study engineering, wordle time 4:30 am Lift 5:15 am drive to Riverwoods 5:30 am Long run, last mile HARDCORE 8:30 am Walk cooldown, breakfast, study security, get ready for the day, 200 mg caffeine (for the body and for the mind), cry in the shower while listening to Vermilion by Slipknot 10:15 am A few roller coasters  10:45 am Water parks! And lunch, maybe a walk  2 pm get back from water parks, shower  2:30 pm Duolingo and music  3 pm art 4 pm reading and writing  5 pm meditation, maybe walk, ...

or, how I almost died alone in a Honey Bucket porta potty (to be fair, if you are not alone in there that is kind of weird) and lost 3/4 of a summer Saturday and 1/4 of Sunday to dying in various toilets but at least got my Elite 100 medal hell yeah See, I couldn't PR because I had to finish in 6:21 pace. For the memes! * So, in June I ran the Timp Half. No issues. 1:23:55. Course PR. I slowed down after the initial smooth downhill out of the canyon, as designed. I felt a calf cramp coming on, so I slowed down just a tad, was fine, and didn't have to plod my way to the finish line. Runtastic Events always does a great job.  Then on Saturday I ran the Hobble Creek Half in 1:23:09 (so 7 seconds off my PR) and almost died. In fact, I am currently still dealing with the after effects of whatever just happened to my body.  Let us see exactly how the wheels came off:  It was BREAKFAST. Yeah, I screwed that up.  What I had: * 180 mg Crystal Light Energy * 1/4 Bucked Up...

For some reason, they love to discourage CS majors from pursuing tech art, telling them to just code and make more money instead.  A certain Tyrian Callows quote that I've recently mentioned comes to mind...but anyway.  There is a bizarre attitude that says that tech artists don't need to learn to code, when tech art is THE career for those of us who love code and art EQUALLY.  I'm watching too much Angela Collier apparently, but this doesn't make any sense and it's very stupid. You are a tech artist, but apparently you do not do anything with tech, and you just do art? OK, that's not what a tech artist does, so you're not a tech artist.  At DreamWorks almost all of us TDs had CS+art hybrid backgrounds. Same with the VFX artists and riggers. So it's kind of a roundabout way of saying it, but people on that subreddit aren't the brightest bulbs in the box and they kind of don't know what they are talking about? But anyway. 

For your perusal at leisure I was doing my nightly C++ review on the Programiz app. I'm not super far along, so a lot of it is super basic Intro CS stuff.  But I actually didn't know about function prototypes. Like, at the time of writing I can't necessarily think of a time in which I would use  them, but it's a cool thing to know.  It is interesting to me how programming languages differ in terms of where you actually have to do your function declarations. 

I do not understand why people get wrapped in cultural wars. Example: complaining about girls being in Boy Scouts or what restroom people use?  I hated Boy Scouts and quit as soon as my parents let me, so I don't care, but that's beside the point I suppose.  Like I could be learning more about neural networks, proving things in math, adding new coding languages to my repertoire, writing, worldbuilding, making art, studying new languages...but apparently I have to sit here instead listening to you complain about random cultural things.  How do you have the mental bandwidth to care? This is not a pointed question. I actually do not  understand the psychology here. It doesn't make any sense. It's so stupid. Like, most days I try to do my 2 hour workout, and I study topics that interest me before and  after that, then I have to go to work. then it's lunch break, but I still have to practice my music. okay, I'm off work now, now time to do creative work, read some fi...

Finally FINALLY  Like I may tweak it, but I'm not creating another google doc or repo. This is it.  Enjoy Having my nerd credentials now fully verified by posting that (that is why they called me NERDVILLE on my mission, okay it was only one guy but still), I just wanted to say that kids start school way too early in the year. Give them a long summer to get lost in play before they have to work. Screw what the studies say. 

"If you're not loving what you're doing, then you're in the wrong field."  -  This psycho from RWBY   He's right tho.

My relationship with hiking: I like it.  It's cross training for me, not a main pursuit.  It cannibalizes a large chunk of your weekend day, meaning that I don't do it often in favor of my true pursuits. I've only hiked a handful of times this year, and that's pretty standard for me.  But I run, lift, walk, do balance board, and do grip/finger training A TON.  So I have the engine to hike well, but not the confidence.  Whitney was fine. So was R2R and Paintbrush Divide. Timp, despite being my second time on the summit, scared the bajeebers out of me. It's that freaking climb. I was going 45 minutes per mile on the 2 saddle/cliff miles. 10.5 freaking hours on that thing in total. Eurgh. Like man, even with getting sick I finished R2R around 3 pm! I, ah, do not know if I'll be doing that a third time. I kept going "mom come pick me up I'm scared" but she was a little ways behind me and just as scared as I was.  Anyway, I think I fulfilled my touching...

Not the image you see, though it's relevant.  Since I do a lot of song lyrics, but not nearly enough literature, let's start with a sweary one.  "You will not break me. You will not break me. Fuck you all."  - Dungeon Crawler Carl  On Wednesday morning I could feel a dip coming. I saw on LinkedIn that Bad Guys 2 -- the movie I dreamed of working on -- had their wrap party and all the old feelings of failure and uselessness were coming back. The thought distinctly came to me: "You have only two choices right now. You can lie down and let this destroy you, or you can use it as fuel to get better."  Then I was told I'm too slow at work and that caused another dip for a few hours that afternoon, where I posted the Ghoste lyrics.  But once again, I had to keep going. 

Quick work break so:  FITNESS Going pretty well. My lifts aren't quite the 70-minute sessions I'd like them to be. I get 45-60 minutes right now. My Saturday sessions can improve.  Running -- weirdly enough, no notes. I'll be peaking at 60mpw this marathon cycle.  ART I'm behind, but I've locked in a daily 1-hour block. I'd prefer  90 minutes, but an hour is still good. This is a non-negotiable. I need to also timebox, not spending too much time on warmups.  I've been watching animation almost every night as well, but I need to add more movies into my rotation. Most of what I watch right now are series.  WRITING Also behind, but I've locked in a daily 45-minute block for reading and writing. I listen to audiobooks while cleaning too; about 60 minutes twice a week.  Ideally, I'd add an extra 10 minutes after dinner and use that for my MVP reading.  CODE This block consists of: CS/SWE, Graphics, Games, IT/Cybersecurity, internet. It is the final blo...

You say I'm a god, but I know I'm not Why do I feel like nothing?  ... When am I gonna learn to give it all up?  Nobody wants you, nobody wants you When am I gonna learn that there's never gonna be a forever for me? A letter to me delivered from me?  ... Count on me to fuck it up, fuck it up yep, Ghostemane again

Angela Collier: Vibe Physics Low Level: the tea app situation just keeps getting worse Juniper Dev: Your Attention Span is Ruining Gaming Lots of good stuff here.