a blog by basepi

Two years ago, I had lunch with a friend. This friend expressed that they were having doubts about the religion that he and I shared. His doubts were specifically about the way that the church treated LGBTQ+ people. He and I were a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You probably know it as the Mormon church. The Mormon church teaches that we can love our LGBTQ friends and family, but that if they enter loving relationships that aren’t heterosexual, they are breaking the commandments of God and won’t be able to enter heaven....

I’ve recently been on a real scaling-back-digital-distractions kick. Most recently, I read Deep Work and Digital Minimalism (both by Cal Newport) back to back. I highly recommend them. They confirmed and validated my efforts to cull distractions in my life and to live more intentionally. After finishing up Digital Minimalism, I happened to find my Bullet Journal that I had purchased a few months ago when I stumbled across that system....

In recent years, I have struggled with my attention. I have struggled to focus on much of anything in my life. I haven’t been able to read books quickly or effectively; I have struggled to get into that superfocused programming state at work. I assumed that perhaps I had undiagnosed ADHD. Who knows, that may even be true. But increasingly I think it’s more likely that I’ve done this to myself....

I was on FLOSS Weekly today talking about HubbleStack! Here’s the Overcast link. And if you really want to see my ugly mug, there are video options as well on the episode page: FLOSS Weekly 485 HubbleStack If you have questions about HubbleStack or want to get involved, tweet at me!

Recently an ex-Google recruiter sued Google for wrongful termination due to his complaints about hiring practices he claimed were discriminatory against white and Asian men. Many of us have been in positions where hiring for diversity has been a focus. There might be a temptation to say that this is discriminatory. “We’re passing up more qualified candidates for diverse ones!” But diversity is about more than skin color or gender – it’s also about the different ideas and points of view that come from different life experiences....

At the risk of joining the echo chamber, I want to talk for a moment about gun violence. But I don’t want to talk about criminal gun violence. Start here. Click through that graph. See the red dots? Those are suicides. Two-thirds of the 33,000 gun deaths annually in America are suicides. That’s more than 20,000 people killing themselves annually. This is why I want to talk about gun control. I believe it would also reduce gun-related homicides and accidental gun deaths, a result that would also be amazing....

I like hacks. I like tweaks. I like setting things up just to my specifications. I mean, I use an Ergodox Infinity, a CST Trackball and I’m an avid Vim user. But these hacks and tweaks are not without their disadvantages. When macOS Sierra came out, it severely broke support for a key app in my setup: Karabiner. I was using Karabiner for three very specific, very important hacks, all inspired by Steve Losh’s “A Modern Space Cadet” blog post from 2012:...

Today I found out that a good friend of mine quit Facebook. I was astounded – he had just been filled with such righteous indignation about the election, and big ideas about the change that we needed to bring about. How could he bring about that change if he removed the best tool for talking to people? But the more we talked, the more convinced I was that he had it right....

Trump gave a surprisingly presidential victory speech: I mean, she fought very hard. Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people....

Tonight I am embarrassed to be an American. For much of my life I identified as a Republican. In the last few years I’ve found myself identifying less and less with that party. Not to say I’m a Democrat; both parties have serious problems. This year I voted for Hillary. Not because she was the lesser of two evils. She’s far from perfect, and I don’t agree with her on everything....