Author Archives: Mathias

I’m finally (again) working on replacing my home office chair. This one has really lasted quite a while, since my dorm room days on January 19, 2001. I had tried to replace it once in the late aughts, but that … Continue reading →

Right after coming back from Finland, my next oncall shift started at work. And on the second day of it, my keyboard started producing just garbage when I typed. I have had some form of Microsoft Natural Keyboard for over … Continue reading →

Part 4 of the trip report of our journey to Iceland and Finland. The last, and longest, part of our summer trip was a long stay in Finland, where my mom grew up. As stated earlier, this was my first … Continue reading →

Part 3 of the trip report of our journey to Iceland and Finland. The next day, we departed Vik and headed towards Reykjavik, via a couple of amazing waterfalls and the rift valley. The first waterfall was probably the most … Continue reading →

Part 2 of the trip report of our journey to Iceland and Finland. After our scramble of Kristianartindar, Jenny and I returned to our hotel to find that Kate and Mummu have had a great time. They had a relaxed … Continue reading →

Early this June, Jenny and I, along with our friends Sam, Chris, Sharon, and Nigel, attempted to climb Mount Rainier again. We had trained for the last few months, felt pretty strong, we had permits, and the weather looked good. … Continue reading →

I’m experimenting with Home Assistant for home automation and adding a voice assistant to it, using Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. I had Home Assistant installed in a VM from a while ago, when I was trying to have some … Continue reading →

Yesterday, we went to see the 2025 production of “The Magic Flute” at the Seattle Opera. This was a relatively new production that was originally created in 2012 by Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade for Komische Oper in Berlin. Featuring seamless … Continue reading →

I completed my collection of Depeche Mode albums the other day by adding “Sounds of the Universe” (2009) and “Delta Machine” (2013) — which I had both somehow skipped — as well as “Memento Mori” (2023). None of them are … Continue reading →

The books I’ve read in 2024: Chip War (recommended) Dune Denali’s Howl Dry Gormenghast How Not to Die (highly recommended) Myth America (recommended) Number Go Up Of Mice and Men The Death of Ivan Ilyich The End of Reality (highly … Continue reading →

Happy new year! Both 2024 and 2023. And 2022. I don’t think I wrote anything here in 2022 or 2023. Oops. 2023 was a pretty good reading year. Lessons in Chemistry Expanse: Leviathan Falls The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy … Continue reading →

I’ve been exclusively working from home now for over a year. The last day I was at the office was Friday, February 28, 2020. At that point, I decided the risk of getting on public transportation and being around hundreds … Continue reading →

I listened to Moshe Vardi’s World Logic Day talk “From Aristotle to the iPhone” (recording to be released later). The chain of influences was quite illuminating. That made me think of how I fit into the world of mathematics. I … Continue reading →

Over the holidays, I migrated from 1&1 to DreamHost, and I got almost everything to work. The only thing that didn’t work anymore were the email notifications from my Buffalo LinkStation NAS. Normally, they report once a day that everything … Continue reading →

I moved the blog from 1and1 to DreamHost. Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

A little while ago, we installed a Ring alarm system in our house. We like it quite a bit. The initial installation hurdle was the need for three range extenders; then, two motion detectors were unreliable, but that turned out … Continue reading →

On Friday, I went on my first solo hike this year. It’s truly a different year. I had never been in the Mowich Lake area of Mount Rainier National Park, and it looked like there were a number of good-looking … Continue reading →