• Life

    Easter Egg Hunt for Toddlers

    April 18, 2022 - By 

    At 14 months, Young Sophie does not have the height to reach interesting hiding places. Fortunately, she, too, can participate in egg hunting by picking eggs off of the grass. She surprised us all by picking us her basket and taking it to the eggs. We had thought we would have to carry the basket for her. I bought 2T and 3T outfits when she was a few months old thinking they would be good for growing into. The dress is 2T sized and fits fine now that she can walk. I actually had laid out a white onesie for…

  • Finance

    BTC

    March 27, 2022 - By 

    I was not an extremely early adopter of Bitcoin, but I owned some a long time ago. When the price rose to about $10 per BTC, I bought myself a collection of 1 gram metals from Amagi Metals. The collection is no longer sold— but now I can show off my 1 gram of lead and 1 gram of aluminum and 1 gram of… well, moving on. I unfortunately had some Bitcoin on MtGox when it fell. I still occasionally receive emails in Japanese to the email I registered with the site. A private wallet with a fraction of a…

  • Fashion

    Mommy Propaganda Clothes

    December 8, 2021 - By 

    Young Sophie cannot yet read. Were she able to, she would know that she sometimes bears what my husband calls “Mommy Propaganda”. He refers to the common “I love mommy” quotes printed on babies’ bibs, footies, socks, and more. There are many variations of this. (I did not buy any of these clothes. They were all gifted.) “Do you want to wear your Mommy Propaganda shirt?” he asked our grinning infant as she lay on her back, beaming after a diaper change. “Oh, look, it’s your Mommy Propaganda bib!” he would exclaim while grabbing the topmost bib from the clean…

  • Life

    How can I look like a more appealing candidate for a developer position?

    June 27, 2021 - By 

    I am going to graduate from college in a year. How can I look like a more appealing candidate for a developer position? From what I am told, I had two traits that led to great popularity: I ended with a 4.0 GPA in Computer Science and I am female. Just like that, I was inundated with interview opportunities! My brother, who studied Computer Engineering and did not grow up to be (and did not start out as) a woman, was not nearly as popular. If you have the misfortune of not being like me, do you have time to…

  • Life

    How To Look More Important: Huawei Edition

    June 25, 2021 - By 

    When it comes to contributions to open source software, the quantity of patches a company or individual adds clearly affects how important of a contributor the company appears to be. Contributors usually agree that they want to focus on the quality instead of quantity. A Linux Kernel maintainer wrote a somewhat adversarial message directed at people associated with Huawei about numerous submissions they have made which are not very substantial. Basically, Huawei employees submitted many individual small changes— including insignificant spelling corrections or minor cleanup. While one might argue that those are still useful changes, consider that Huawei could have…

  • Finance

    How I Added to the Mountains of Lost Bitcoin and You Can, Too!

    June 2, 2021 - By 

    An estimated 21 million Bitcoin is irretrievably lost. I have contributed to that number. I first began using Bitcoin in 2012 when a college friend insisted that it was the future and tried to get everyone else he was friends with to use Bitcoin, only send signed and encrypted emails, and to use Tor for any sort of web browsing. I think everyone else eventually gave up or refused to do some of the things. I was in Bitcoin early enough that I was with MtGox— and lost some Bitcoin in the MTGox hack. Anyway, my only retail transaction was…

  • Finance - Life

    The Cost of Childbirth

    May 21, 2021 - By 

    What is the cost of giving birth? How much does childbirth cost in a hospital? I looked up these and other similar terms after deciding I wanted children and again after getting pregnant, but very few pages actually explained the breakdown of their bills and what sort of insurance they had. I am sharing my costs in case there are others who were trying to read more about the same things. My insurance for this childbirth was Cigna Open Access Plus In-Network with HRA. There is a $4000 deductible and $4000 Out-of-Pocket (OoP) per person, with an $8000 family Out-of-Pocket. The…

  • Life

    Postpartum Care Down There, or Perineum Things

    April 19, 2021 - By 

    I ended my first childbirth with a 2nd degree tear, which the doctor described as “normal”. This meant that I had skin and muscle damage, but not such that it extended all the way to the back. From my internet research, I knew this meant stitches— which was what I got. A few hours after giving birth in the Labor and Delivery Ward at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, I was moved to the Family Centered Care Unit. (Those are two long mouthfuls!) In the second location, the nurse told me that a postpartum woman should urinate every 2-3 hours and…

  • Uncategorized

    93 Days

    April 19, 2021 - By 

    I recently stumbled on 93 Days, which is based on the real story of how Nigeria managed to keep their 2014 outbreak of Ebola minimal despite initial political pressure and through good management. I personally enjoyed it: The human element made it moving, the quiet desperation made it exciting, and the sensible actions helped to find a relatively happy ending for a story about an illness that, as one doctor puts it, “kills 8 out of 10”. I was surprised that multiple Amazon reviews complained of how “vanilla and unrealistic” this “feel-good” movie was. Given this is based on a…

  • Life

    My Baby’s Nose-Picking Tweezers

    April 7, 2021 - By 

    Before I needed to pick a baby’s nose, I would not have thought about designating a pair of tweezers to be “nose-picking tweezers”. However, one finds oneself saying and doing different things in life, especially when one adds a baby! My baby sometimes gets hardened mucus particles in her nose. Although she is occasionally able to sneeze them out on her own, they sometimes stay in for a few days. Baths only help loosen her clogged nostrils so much and mucus wipes marketed for babies do not seem to help me get very far inside her nose. Young Sophie’s grandfather…