Eryn Wells

2024

Thirty Six

227 words

We Beat Tetris?

153 words

2023

Hello Chess Friend

I started building a chess engine in Rust. Here it is.

Less Instagram, More Blog

Resolving, yet again, to blog more and social media less.

What Should I Blog About?

I came across this handy list of things to blog about when you don’t know what to blog about. As someone who often doesn’t know what to blog about, it’s nice to have a list of ideas for what to blog about.

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour

I thought this book was a lesbian romance – and it is – but it’s so much more too. It’s the story of two women and the difficult pasts they emerge out of. I really enjoyed how LaCour wove together their processing of that trauma with growing into young women, making questionable choices, finding themselves, and ultimately each other. It’s heavy at times, but also beautiful. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Tess, for the gift. ❤️

Get it at Folio in San Francisco, or on Bookshop.org.

Chess

I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately. Tess and I have been watching Slow Horses on Apple TV+, and there was a recent episode in which a chess game between two characters is a key plot beat. That got me thinking about playing again.

I learned chess as a kid. My dad taught me. I played in chess clubs in elementary and middle school. I was really into it for a while!

I have a Chess.com account now: erynrwells. I’m also on lichess.org: I’m erynrwells there too. Send me a friend request or challenge? :)

Guide to Computing

I really enjoyed looking through the images on Docubyte’s Guide to Computing. It depicts machines from the early days of modern computing – think IBM mainframes, PDP-1’s, and lots of midcentury modern design – in a way I found really intriguing.

Mastodon Icon

I finally got around to replacing the Twitter icon in the site’s header with a link to my Mastodon page. It was surprisingly tricky because of how I styled and layed out those icons. I was able to clean up the SVGs a little bit too.

These days I have way too many social media accounts. I’m mostly on Mastodon and Instagram.

Atom Feed Bug Fixes

A kind reader pointed out to me that my Atom feed was incorrect. There were two problems. First, I was specifying an incorrect URL in the feed’s <link rel="self"> – it was pointing to a nonexistant feed.xml file. Second, I was omitting a <link> tag from the entries entirely.

Thunderbird didn’t like this. With no <link> for an entry, it would show the feed’s <link> in it’s UI. And that link left users at a 404 page.

I pushed a fix this morning. You might have to refresh or resubscribe to pick up the changes.

Netscape Meteors: Retrospective

Someone shared my Netscape Meteors post on the Orange Website, causing it to be moderately viral for a few days. Here’s an update on the web traffic my server received.

Netscape Meteors

I went on a hunt to find the "Meteors" loading animation from Netscape back in the 90s, and wrote up my adventure.

Pajaro Dunes

Tess, EJ, and I took a weekend trip down the coast over Memorial Day weekend this year to stay in a beachside condo in Pajaro Dunes, just west of Watsonville. We enjoyed hanging out on the beach, playing music and games, building Kiwi Crates, and just generally being together. I took a couple photos too. :)

Pajaro Dunes Sunset over Pajaro Dunes

Trip to Japan

At the beginning of April, Tess and I took a trip to Japan for two weeks. She had a work meeting to attend in Tōkyō, and we were lucky to be able to extend the trip to take some vacation before her meeting.

This was my first trip to Japan. I had been wanting to travel there since I was a kid playing Pokémon Red on my OG Game Boy. To say I was excited is a bit of an understatement.

You can read all about our trip on my travel log page. Tess also wrote about it on her website.

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars by Kate Greene

A brief book report.

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

I checked out Dave Grohl’s new memoir from the San Francisco Public Library as an audiobook after a friend recommended it to me. Broadly, it’s a series of anecdotes from his life, many of which include famous celebrities and musicians.

Dave seems like a really genuine person. Throughout the book he expresses his gratitude for the people who’ve supported him along the way. He’s been through many challenging experiences too, and reflects on them with a positive attitude. I enjoyed his humor and humility, and the pearls of wisdom he’d earned from those experiences.

SFPL

Nethack Illustrated Guide

While browsing r/nethack, I came across a post from someone sharing a collection of AI-generated images that illustrate the story arc of a game of Nethack. Between the images and the prose they added around it, I thought they did a fantastic job of capturing the mood of the game.

2022

My Best Nethack Game (So Far)

A summary of my best-to-date game of Nethack.

Where Am I

In the wake of Elon Musk taking control of Twitter, a lot of folks have decided it’s not as welcoming a place as it once was. In my circles, there’s been a huge movement of people to Mastodon and cohost mainly. I have accounts on all of those places, though I haven’t quite figured out where I’ll land yet. If you’re interested in following me anywhere else on the internet, I made a handy list.

Week of Soup

Tess and I were both sick this week and had a hankering for soup. We ended up eating soup for lunch every day. (What can I say, we like soup.) All of these places are excellent.

Lunar Eclipse 🌝

A quick note about the upcoming lunar eclipse in the morning of 2022-11-08.

Hugo's Dictionary API

I’ve found Hugo’s API for collections to be difficult to understand. Here’s my attempt to summarize it’s quirks.

Making an Audio Scope with P5.js

A writeup of a small JavaScript waveform visualizer I made with P5.js.

Roguelikes I Like

Some roguelikes I’ve enjoyed recently.

Oh Dear, She Got Hooked on Nethack Again

In which I get hooked on that one roguelike (God help me)

Profiling ZSH

In which I learn about how to profile my ZSH init files.

Colorado Modular Synth Society Three Module Challenge

In which I submit a video of me playing a small Eurorack system to CMSS

2021

PNW Reunion Trip

In which I travel to the Pacific Northwest with some high school friends, and have a lot of warm fuzzy feelings about it.

日本町

A quick staycation getaway to San Francisco's Japantown with Tess.

Oskitone Scout

A timelapse video of me building an Oskitone Scout set to music produced using the Scout itself.

2020

Booting a Raspberry Pi Over TFTP

A writeup of how I set up a Raspberry Pi to boot over TFTP to facilitate an operating system development project.