Race Conditions and Semaphores in WordPress
I recently came across a case of race conditions in a WordPress site: two processes, running the same piece of code at the same time, causing unexpected results. In this post I will detail what went wrong, and how I am trying to resolve it.
Using Visual Studio Code for editing Drupal 8
After seeing many people use VSCode as their code editor, I’m starting to use it myself at work. So far I have been using vim, but with the move to Drupal 8 I think having code completion and an explorer pane would be helpful. Time to check it out!
Taking care of myself first
When I started this website and my company, I had an idealistic vision. I would create websites and software for people who couldn’t afford it, instead giving it to them as a loan. In case the project worked, I got a share of the profit until that loan was paid off. In case it didn’t work they didn’t have to pay anything, placing the risk on of the website on me. This was the kind of business I dreamed of: sharing effort, sharing profit, sharing risk. Yet here I am, almost a year later, and my money is coming from a regular job.
On science
I am a scientist. Not by profession (I don’t get paid to do research) but by nature. And a bit because I have a fancy piece of paper with my name on it that says “Master of Science”, but mostly by nature. And because of this, I want to share my view on science, and why I love it.
Productivity
I have not been very productive since the previous update. I had a lot of stuff planned, and a lot less stuff happened. Every part of my work suffered, because of a lack of productivity. However, I recently found a tool that is helping me get more productive. (more…)
Coming up
The downside of launching early: there are still things I want to add to this website that did not make it to this first version. I am glad I did go live, though; I’m afraid it otherwise would have taken several more weeks before this website was finally online.
So, what is coming up in the coming weeks? (more…)
When to launch?
As I am writing this blog post, this website is almost ready to launch. Or maybe I am almost ready to launch this website, depending on your perspective. The theme is finished and there is some content on each page. But am I satisfied enough with it to show it to the public?
Part of me wants to craft the perfect website before launch. Have some more articles. Refine the text until every word is just right. But when is that? Funnily enough, the answer came from a YouTube video by WheezyWaiter, called You Should Set Limits.
A Potluck World?
As you know, I like sharing. A great example of sharing is a potluck lunch or dinner. If you don’t know it: a potluck meal is a meal where everybody brings their own dish, and shares it with everybody. Every share is appreciated. Everyone brings something of their own speciality, of their own ability. This creates a large variety of delicious food.
Can we expand this concept to the world? Can we make a potluck world? (more…)
Rebuilding my Website
It is again time to rebuild my website. Luz has designed a wonderful new layout, which is one of the reasons I am excited again to work on this. The second reason is that this time, I created my website in WordPress. This is not so much exciting (although it is interesting to discover a new platform) as it reduces my inhibition to be excited. In other words: it is now far easier to write: I can write posts and it just works. In the previous version, it was a bit more work and fiddling around to make a post look decent.
So, why did I choose WordPress instead of another platform?
(more…)
DuckDuckGo
Google currently is the most successful search engine. In fact, the verb “google” has made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. The reason for its success it quite simple: it is fast, it has a clean interface and it almost always gives you the results you are looking for. Compared to the alternatives when it started (1998), google was by far the best.
But now it is 2011, and times have changed. Google has evolved, and so have the competitors. And, more importantly, new alternatives have arrived. One of these alternatives is DuckDuckGo. And I like it.