
<figure>
![🌅 🌸](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/sketches-2024-09-20.jpg)

<figcaption>_Blue Sky Thinking — [09/20/24](/sketches-2024-09-20)_</figcaption>
</figure>

I had a blast spending time [creating digital paintings](/blog/chris%20Learns%20Digital%20Painting) this year!

A couple of years ago, I was overcome with the desire to _really_ learn to draw. I made crude comics as a kid, but I was itching to really figure out how it's done. And so I did, and [I learned a lot about art and creativity from it](/lessonsfromdrawing2023)!

This year I turned my focus to the world of color and texture through digital painting. It was quite the leap! From single toned, line driven analog art making in a sketchbook — over to color and shape based painting through a digital medium.

Much of what I have to say this year is a revisiting of ideas I came across last year. Only this time the context has changed. A bit of a variation on a theme!

<figure>
![💡](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/sketches-2024-05-04.jpg)
<figcaption>_Still Life — [5/4/24](/sketches-2024-05-04)_</figcaption>
</figure>

## Changing the Way You See the World

> I also love to listen to skaters talk about how they see the world. Skateboarding seems to reconfigure your molecules and changes the way you look and the kind of attention you pay to the world. (Exactly what we hope for when practicing any art.)
>
> — [Austin Kleon](https://austinkleon.com/2022/11/07/drawing-at-the-skate-park/)

Drawing with line art, especially in a stylized way, involves a great deal of abstraction and reduction. I spent time simplifying a form to only a few strokes and basic shapes. It changed how I saw the world. But more in a way of capturing shorthand. I was looking for the simplified essence.

Learning to see color through painting had the _exact opposite effect_! When I started studying color and light as well as doing direct-painting still lifes, it's as if I was starting to see for the first time.

A pot is just "orange" until you take a closer look at the texture, the lighting, the chips and smudges across its surface. There's a humbling amount of color in everyday life that gets simplified and overlooked.

Miranda and I went to a couple of art museums this year. Paintings are already captivating when you're not an artist. They're then astonishingly rich and awe inspiring once you know the attention to detail that goes into them!

The process of painting is great fun. Though, my favorite takeaway from picking up the craft is now how I see the world. You won't believe how something as simple as looking into someone's eyes will bring out a world of beauty hiding in plain sight!

<figure>

![Sweet little Lucy loving on this pretty sky](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/sketches-2024-03-09.jpg)

<figcaption>_Pup at Twilight — [3/9/24](/sketches-2024-03-09)_</figcaption>

</figure>

## Balancing Projects with Play

After a few years, I've largely gotten better about balancing [play and study](https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/2). The boundary for me has become really clear since painting has been an entirely new medium requiring _lots_ of study, master copies, and reading up on how the brush engine works.

Even still — When I work on a digital painting project for myself, I'd call it play. But it's not entirely in that category. I realized something was missing.

It wasn't until I picked my physical sketchbook back up and started fooling around that things clicked into place. Unsurprisingly, having an analog, private, free space with no large end goal helped keep my spirit up when I returned to the digital canvas.

I've since deviated from needing a hard boundary, a la [the 50% rule](https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/2/50percent). These days my energy level is a good indicator of whether today is painting day or a fool around in the sketch book day.

If I were to package this up into advice: Be mindful of the project driven work, study, and time
spent fooling around.

Actually, that lines up nicely with Robertryan Cory's recommended routine for artists from [his CalArts lecture](https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.833375406677877): "Educational, Disciplinary, Experimental. Drawing should be divided into a sustainable work routine."

<figure>

![🌅 🌸](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/sketches-2023-09-24.jpg)

<figcaption>_An early swing at digital painting — [09/24/23](/sketches-2023-09-24)_</figcaption>

</figure>

## In Pursuit of Truth

In music, the major scale is derived from the harmonic series: a natural occurring phenomena that represents mathematical divisions of any given frequency. (For one of the best demonstrations of this, look no further than [the Bernstein Norton Lectures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HjEAtJXssc&ab_channel=LeonardBernstein).)

It's a major reason why tonal music is universal. It's what makes music a pursuit of Truth. [In Harmonic Experience](/bookshelf#HarmonicExperience), W. A. Mathieu walks readers through singing exercises where you experience the balance of these sounds firsthand. It's an eye opening journey.

I'm not as well-read on light as I am acoustics, but I know this much: colors themselves are different wavelengths of light. Violet is a short wavelength, red a long one.

It's one thing to know that intellectually. And a wholly other thing to experience it.

At some point, after working at a still life, spending an hour closely trying to match the color of a dull pot, I stepped outside. It was a clear day, mid afternoon. A rich blue sky, I observed. High in saturation today.

As my gaze came downward, I saw the leaves on the tree. And while it's hard to explain in writing — a resonance occurred. I started seeing the green of the leaves as a continuation of the blue in the sky. Not in an intellectual way, but on something much more deep and personal.

In the same way that each tone of music contains a multitude of different sounds, I made the connection that light was working in that same way. Obvious to some, I'm sure, but a revelation to me.

There are plenty of reasons to paint. Maybe one of the most worthwhile, though, is that — just like studying sound — you spend time with another Truth in the world. This time, through color and light.

<figure>
![🌳🌳🌳](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/sketches-2024-07-06.jpg)

<figcaption>_Campion Trail – [07/06/24](/sketches-2024-07-06)_</figcaption>
</figure>


Lessons From a Year of Painting



I came across Maggie Appleton's tremendous post ["A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden"](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history)! 

I've heard of the publishing philosophy in passing and found the term itself to resonate. A counter to high-production, corporate leaning purposes for owning a domain name, a digital garden assumes work in progress, a broad spectrum of topics and interests, and an ever evolving space online where ideas and things of beauty can blossom. _Lovely!_

There are a few patterns that show up with folks that have taken on the spirit of digital gardening. One that caught my eye was "Topography over Timelines." 

> Gardens are organized around contextual relationships and associative links; the concepts and themes within each note determine how it's connected to others.
> 
> This runs counter to the time-based structure of traditional blogs: posts presented in reverse chronological order based on publication date.
> 
> Gardens don't consider publication dates the most important detail of a piece of writing. Dates might be included on posts, but they aren't the structural basis of how you navigate around the garden. Posts are connected to other by posts through related themes, topics, and shared context.
> 
> One of the best ways to do this is **through Bi-Directional Links** – links that make both the destination page and the source page visible to the reader. This makes it easy to move between related content.
> 
> Because garden notes are densely linked, a garden explorer can enter at any location and follow any trail they link through the content, rather than being dumped into a "most recent” feed.


_Love it!_ My favorite discoveries are with sites that link well. It's a blast hopping around, continuing the conversation from page to page. Wikis are the prime example of this. Tough, some bloggers like [Austin Kleon](https://austinkleon.com/) also do this particularly well.

So! Why only be bound by linking in one chronological direction? I took to the idea and whipped up a script to employ this myself!

## Developing Bi-Directional Linking

[This site uses markdown](/parsemd) for posts. So doing this job is largely about text parsing. Much of the logic, in fact, is similar to [how I parse my posts to display an art grid](/artgrid).


I'll start by writing the function to actually get the url value from my links. The regex is looking for the value with parenthesis in the typical markdown shorthand for links: `![alt text](link)`

```JavaScript
// api.js

export const getInternalLinksFromMarkdown = (md) => {
  const regex =
    /(?:__|[*#])|\[(.*?)\]$\/(.*?)$/g;
  return Array.from(md.matchAll(regex)).map((res) => {
    if (res && res.length > 1) {
      return res[2];
    }
  });
};

```

The value of index 2 of the array will give me the capture group I've targeted because that's [how it's done in Node](/noderegex)!

From here, I'll then pass in my posts and systematically generate an object that grabs both the targeted url as well as the current post url.

```JavaScript
// api.js

export function getAllPostRefs(
  fields = ['content', 'slug', 'title'],
  options = {}
) {
  const slugs = getPostSlugs();
  let posts = slugs
    .map((slug) => getPostBySlug(slug, fields))
    // Filter false values (.DS_STORE)
    .filter((post) => post)
    // sort posts by date in descending order
    .sort((post1, post2) => (post1.date > post2.date ? -1 : 1));

  const links = {}
  posts.forEach((post) => {
    const postLinks = getInternalLinksFromMarkdown(post.content);
    postLinks.forEach((src) => {
      if (src && !src.includes('/')) {
        if (!links[src]) {
          links[src] = [];
        }
        if (!links[src].find(entry => entry.slug === post.slug))
        links[src].push({
          slug: post.slug,
          title: post.title,
        })
      }
    });
  })

  return links;
}

```

A Set data structure would be ideal for keeping duplicates out of the list, but we'll be converting this to JSON, and I'd rather avoid the hassle of bringing in a library for the conversion.

Finally, I'll call this function and save the results to a JSON file for refference.

```JavaScript
biDirectionalLink.js

import { getAllPostRefs } from "./api"
const FileSystem = require("fs");

export const getRefs = () => {
	const links = getAllPostRefs();
	FileSystem.writeFile('_cache/backlinks.json', JSON.stringify(links), (error) => {
    if (error) throw error;
  });
}

```

Here's an snippet of what it generates:

```
{
	"30": [
		{
			"slug": "2022",
			"title": "2022"
		},
		{
			"slug": "iwataonpeople",
			"title": "Iwata on Creative People"
		},
		{
			"slug": "transcience",
			"title": "Transience"
		},
		{
			"slug": "web2000",
			"title": "A Love Letter to 2000s Websites"
		}
	],
	"2022": [
		{
			"slug": "testingandwriting",
			"title": "Testing Software for the Same Reason You Write Notes"
		}
	],
	
	...
}
```

Voilà! Now I have the data of pages that are referenced. I can now call this method anytime the site regenerates and use this as the source of truth for back-linking.

To consume this in Next.js, I'm going to read the file in `getStaticProps` (or in an RSC if I were using the App Router)

```
// [slug].js

export async function getStaticProps({ params }) {
  if (post) {
    const file = await fs.readFile(process.cwd() + '/_cache/backlinks.json', 'utf8');
    const backlinks = JSON.parse(file);
    let pagesLinkingBackTo = null;

    if (backlinks[params.slug]) {
      pagesLinkingBackTo = backlinks[params.slug];
    }
```

And, following some prop drilling, I can now programmatically display these on matching pages:

```
// backLinkSection.js

import React from 'react';
import NextLink from './NextLink';

const BacklinksSection = ({pagesLinkingBackTo}) => {
	if (!pagesLinkingBackTo) return <></>
	return (
		<aside>
			<h4>
				Pages referencing this post:
				<ul>

				{pagesLinkingBackTo.map(link => (
					<li><NextLink href={link.slug}>{link.title}</NextLink> </li>
				))}
				</ul>
			</h4>
		</aside>
	);
};

export default BacklinksSection;
```

Assuming I haven't link to this page yet, you can see this in action at the bottom of my [Parsing Mardkown in Node](/parsemd) post. Now with handy links to click and explore related topics.

I'm excited to keep tending the garden! I've already seen themes emerge through the regular tags I use. Here's to a great harvest someday!

Generating Back Links For Optimal Digital Gardening

Jimmy Van Heusen – Polka Dots and Moonbeams


![🌱](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/art/pratchettonenglishgardens.jpg)

I revisited a passage from Sir Terry Pratchett's ["A Slip of the Keyboard."](https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/books/a-slip-of-the-keyboard/) The essay "Magic Kingdoms" illustrates the English dedication to maintaining a garden in any environment. Pratchett uses this as an exemplification for how the garden is a portal to another world, and a widespread fascination with planting a garden is why fantasy is part of the fabric of the culture. 

> I remember a back garden I used to see from the train. It was a very small garden for a very small house, and it was sandwiched between the thundering railway line, a billboard, and a near-derelict factory.
> 
> I don't know what a Frenchman or an Italian would have made of it. A terrace, probably, with a few potted plants and some trellis to conceal the worst of postindustrial squalor. But this was an Englishman's garden, so he'd set out to grow, if not Jerusalem, then at least Jerusalem artichokes. There was a rockery, made of carefully placed concrete lumps (the concrete lump rockery is a great British contribution to horticulture, and I hope one is preserved in some outdoor museum somewhere) There was a pond; the fish probably had to get out to turn around. There were roses. There was a tiny greenhouse made of old window frames nailed together (another great British invention). Never was an area so thoroughly gardened, in fact, as that patch of cat infested soil. 
> 
> No attempt had been made to screen off the dark satanic mills, unless the runner beans counted. To the gardener, in the garden, they did not exist. They were in another world. 

For me there's another comfort in the scene. Even if we're not nurturing plants, we all have the means to cultivate our own creative gardens. A sketchbook, journal, blog, a song. And it doesn't matter how humble! A jar of soil and basil goes a long way for bringing life to a space. So it is with strumming strings and moving the pencil.



Pratchett on English Gardens


That equation feels right.

This comes from the legendary Disney animator and teacher Walt Stanchfield (A lead character animator for the Aristocats, to name one.) I've written before about how Walt Describes [the curious act of performing with no audience](/stanchfield). This equation come in context from [his handouts for gesture drawing](https://ia601302.us.archive.org/15/items/Gesture_Drawing_for_Animation/Gesture_Drawing_for_Animation.pdf):

(Here, Walt is talking about the benefits of staying healthy enough to have the energy to create, another juicy point)

> You must create. The injunction of life is to create or perish. Good physical and mental
> conditioning are necessary to do this. Remember this: the creative energy that created the
> Universe, created you and its creative power is in you now, motivating you, urging you on -
> always in the direction of creative expression. I have a formula: "Impression minus expression
> equals depression". This is especially applicable to artists. We have trained ourselves to be
> impressed (aware) of all the things around us, and in the natural course of our lives those
> impressions cry out to be expressed - on paper, on canvas, in music, in poetry, in an
> animated film. So shape up.

Ain't that the truth?

It's still worth the reminder. When you do professionally creative work (like animation or software!) you are still constantly taking in the world and are falling in love with all sorts of things - books, music, stories, and technologies.

The best way to express that love is through getting down to business and making something.


Impression Minus Expression Equals Depression


I don't always find the inspiration I'm looking for from the bios and stories of full time artists. Those select few who can spend most of their week in the studio. Winston Churchill, who was surprisingly an enthusiastic, self proclaimed hobby painter, can speak much more clearly to the situation of having to find time to be creative in the nooks and crannies of the day.

![And a surprisingly sensitive painter, at that!!](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/churchillpainting_Large.jpg)

I've been rattling in my mind all the different reasons I like drawing/piano/guitar/writing music/blogging, and why someone else might like to do them too.

To Churchill, it was no contest comparing painting to more typical leisure activities:

> Even at the advanced age of Forty! It would be a sad pity to shuffle or scramble along through one's playtime with golf and bridge, pottering, loitering, shifting from one heel to the other, wondering what on earth to do – as perhaps is the fate of some unhappy beings – when all the while, if you only knew, there is close at hand a wonderful new world of thought and craft, a sunlit garden gleaming with light and colour of which you have the key in your waistcoat pocket. Inexpensive independence, a mobile and perennial pleasure apparatus, new mental food and exercise, the old harmonies and symmetries in an entirely different language, an added interest to every common scene, an occupation for every idle hour, an unceasing voyage of entrancing discovery – these are high prizes.

A particularly sobering passage acknowledges that, as a hobbyist, you won't reach the same great heights of technique as the life-long, full time painters. It's a problem I find myself wrestling with frequently, but Churchill brings it up so matter-of-factly and without much concern:

> But if, on the contrary, you are inclined – late in life though it be – to reconnoitre a foreign sphere of limitless extent, then be persuaded that the first quality that is needed is Audacity. There really is no time for the deliberate approach. Two years of drawing-lessons, three years of copying woodcuts, five years of plaster casts – these are for the young. They have enough time to bear. And this thorough grounding is for those who, hearing the call in the morning of their days, are able to make painting their paramount lifelong vocation. The truth and beauty of line and form which by the slightest touch or twist of the brush a real artist imparts to every feature of his design must be founded on long, hard, persevering apprenticeship and a practice so habitual that it has become instinctive. We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paintbox. And for this Audacity is the only ticket.

![These trees ❤️](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/winston-churchill-art-collection-pr-0518-1600x800.jpg)

It's still worth the pursuit all the same. The rewards for that Audacity are many:

> I have written in this way to show how varied are the delights which may be gained by those who enter hopefully and thoughtfully upon the pathway of painting; how enriched they will be in their daily vision, how fortified in their independence, how happy in their leisure. Whether you feel that your soul is pleased by the conceptions or contemplation of harmonies, or that your mind is stimulated by the aspect of magnificent problems, or whether you are content to find fun in trying to observe and depict the jolly things you see, the vistas of possibility are limited only by the shortness of life. Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

So beautifully said. It all rings true for me:

- Playing with shapes and sound, their interaction with one another, is fun unto itself
- Creation is largely puzzle solving. Even playing piano is a finger puzzle
- There's no better way to express love for the world than to try to recapture it as you see it
- Progress, itself, is a joy! Learning an instrument more intimately or refining a line stroke, they all lead to small victories
- There are infinite paths to explore. None right or wrong, only guided by your curiosity and interest

And why wait? The time to plant a garden is now:

> Try it, then, before it is too late and before you mock at me. Try it while there is time to overcome the preliminary difficulties. Learn enough of the language in your prime to open this new literature to your age. Plant a garden in which you can sit when digging days are done. It may be only a small garden, but you will see it grow. Year by year it will bloom and ripen. Year by year it will be better cultivated. The weeds will be cast out. The fruit-trees will be pruned and trained. The flowers will bloom in more beautiful combinations. There will be sunshine there even in the winter-time, and cool shade, and the play of shadow on the pathway in the shining days of June.

While the earlier, the better for overcoming the initial hurdle of learning the vocabulary, it's never too late. Thankfully, the barrier to entry is not technique or years of experience. Just Audacity!

![☁️](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/churchillpainting.jpg)


Winston Churchill on Painting as a Pastime

Phone Lines

Goose Creek

Hike

Cloud Covered Mountains

Cycling

You sense the opening...

You've traversed to this space several times now.
Instead of becoming more familiar, it's only deepened in mystery.
It's in equal parts awe and curiosity that you decide...
to step into the realm.

---

Getting lost in the atmosphere of Liquid Drum and Bass... 💎🌊

Largely inspired by Seba, as well as Tayla, LTJ Bukem, and Wax Doctor.

🔮 Visit Amethyst (Interactive Short Story)

Amethyst

Rosewood

⋆.˚🐠‧₊ _Frutiger Aero inspired music!_ ˚✩ ₊˚🫧⊹♡

Late 2000s tech had a unique vibrancy that made it feel almost magical. A new wave of color and light, glowing portals that illuminated worlds imagined and real. It was truly alive, how you interacted with it was so novel. More intuitive than ever before.

The anticipation for this promised future was at it's strongest as you began to load up that new system you brought home. Powering it on. Walking through the startup process. Being greeted to something wholly new...

SkyBox

Installation

Mostly Sunny

Cool guitar driven music for hot summer days.

Largely inspired by the great Masayoshi Takanaka.

Snow Cones

Watermelon

Raspberry

Video Game inspired Drum and Bass! Influenced by Soichi Terada and Jun Chikuma.

Space Cowboy Forrest Frog pilots his galaxy F-5 aircraft in search of the Hyper Fragment — a now rare material used to power warp speed travel. A group called the Black Hole Herons has aggressively taken control over the mines in the Lake Lenticular Galaxy, and there's only one gunman for the job!

Space Frog 64

Lily Pad Sector

Hyper Fragment


I'm dipping my toes into the rabbit hole of Home Labbing (or, perhaps, am tripping down the loose gravel that is rapidly dropping me down into the vast expanse of it!)

I've seen discourse around Synology setups, home NAS systems, and really sophisticated data back up stragies. This just seemed right up my alley — the intersection of managing apps, data, and oh — by the way — that data can include all sorts of stuff I care about: my ripped CDs from the 2000s, my collection of ebooks, _and_ pictures from all of my vacations??

I'll hit the highlights — my _laughably minimal setup_ as I'm just getting started, the apps I'm running, and my two cents on the experience so far.

## The Setup — Keeping It Simple

So far, the number of people who care about this in my household is 1 — me. I have little need for the N in NAS (Network-Attached Storage) and am having fun setting things up on my laptop.

That said, a DAS (Direct-attached Storage) box is out of the budget while I'm just experimenting. A NAS can run $1,000, while a DAS trails behind _slightly_. Not the price point for a maiden voyage.

Those deeply entrenched in this hobby may scoff at this, but my current solution is — drum roll please — _an external hard drive_. I simply slap this into my computer directly, run all my apps on my machine, and then access them on the same machine.

This skips over a lot of what looks fun for a maturing setup: building a machine, ordering parts, setting up the network, getting an Uninterruptible Power Supply, etc. But I was starting to get educated with all of this only to realize it was keeping me from getting started in the first place.

So yes, I'm excited to eventually have hardware to talk about and neat networking approaches at a later time. But for now, keeping it simple is keeping me moving.

Worth saying: I have employed for [a while now](/databackup) the [3-2-1 backup strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup). I have a primary drive, a mirrored drive, and have the primary backed up to the cloud via [BackBlaze](https://www.backblaze.com/). Wes Bos gives a great pitch for [why he uses BackBlaze on Syntax](https://syntax.fm/show/220/the-synology-show-backups-and-home-server).

Now is also a good time to shout out [FreeFileSync](https://freefilesync.org/), a handy bit of OSS that I've used since 2010. This helped with migrating files and currently makes keeping drives in sync painless. It's manual, but it still works wonderfully. I've also picked up [DaisyDisk](https://daisydiskapp.com/) for getting a visual on what's taking up how much space on any given drive.

## Apps!

Pretty much all of these are run as Docker Containers on my machine, keeping themselves contained and incredibly simple to set up. I'm just wrapping up getting each populated with data, and for the most part, all you need to do is point it to the directory you want data pulled from, and then you're done. There was no issue with having the app on my machine and the data on another drive, so long as it's connected, of course.

Here's what I've got so far:

- **[📸 Immich](https://immich.app/)**: _The_ alternative for Apple Photos and Google Photos. I've enjoyed it so far. The face-detection AI for grouping photos by person is a slick feature.
- **[📺 Tube Archivist](https://www.tubearchivist.com/)**: Designed for backing up YouTube videos. I was previously doing this manually with yt-dlp, but this app sits on top and enables a very clever way of managing multiple downloads with plenty of automation baked in. Includes an interface for watching, as well. One of my favorites!
- **[🪼 Jellyfin](https://jellyfin.org/)**: Plex is the popular choice for media streaming, but I was interested in going forward on all OSS, so Jellyfin was the pick for hosting movies, shows, and my music library. In addition to the web client, it comes with native mobile apps that support downloading locally. I... don't actually watch a ton of movies or shows. But it's been great for hosting my music library!
- **[📖 Kavita](https://www.kavitareader.com/)**: I gave [BookLore](https://github.com/herraristotle/BookLore) a try, but it seems to be collapsing rapidly. As a comics enjoyer, I liked the looks of Kavita. It groups books within a series rather nicely. And, of course, handles books of words just as well.
- **[🐼 Monica](https://www.monicahq.com/)**: Monica is a CRM for friends and family. Having a personal database is a great container for keeping track of the people that matter most in your life. For a while now, I've taken [Derek's advice](https://sive.rs/dbt) on this practice, and Monica is actually one of his recommended solutions. Have only used it lightly so far, but it's been the most fulfilling hands down.

## How It's Going So Far

This has been supremely enjoyable on many fronts!

Parsing data, collecting it, reorganizing it, and digging deep into my own personal archive has been naturally nostalgic. Plenty of "wow, I forgot all about this!" arose along the way. This goes for my personal photos, [music collection](/alifetimeofmusiclistening), and even YouTube series that I previously enjoyed. [Tending the garden](/makingtagpages) allows us to "live twice," enjoying the highlights all over again.

Data loss is something I've been burned by before. Growing up, my own technical experiments pushed our Windows 98 machine to breaking a few times, to the point where the only solution was a clean install. On the subject of YouTube in particular, I've been frustrated to see videos disappear for one reason or another. Setting up this homelab of sorts only further solidified my own backup strategy, and now more easily facilitates backing up other ephemeral media.

On top of that — I'm much more likely to actually engage with what's stored as well! These apps provide an enjoyable interface that actual keeps me coming back. A huge improvement from finder!

And, of course, as a technologist, the setup is the most fun part. Along the way, I've spun up Docker Containers, written migration scripts, used new CLI apps, and just had a ball on the computer! It's exciting (daunting? terrifying?) that there's much more to do in the realm of hardware in this space, and I'm looking forward to branching out that way when the time comes!

I share this not to impress anyone with how tricked out my setup is (clearly), but to encourage you. If you're looking to get going, you don't have to wait for hardware. Roll up your sleeves and start tinkering!


Forays Into Home Lab Apps


<figure className="reset">
  <video
    autobuffer
    loop
    type="video/mp4"
    playsInline
    controls
    className="full-width"
  >
    <source
      src="https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/video/FaberPhantomOfTheKeys480p.mp4"
      type="video/mp4"
    />
  </video>
</figure>

Nothing says spooky like the chromatic scale!


Faber — Phantom of the Keys


I've been seeing great gains in one open window for AI coding assistant like Claude Code, but then heard that the _real_ productivity boost was to have multiple in-flight. The velocity gains seemed exciting, and there was ample downtime between prompt and response. So I decided to give it a whirl over a couple of weekends.

I tried this with terminal tabs first, then dabbled in UI's that build around this philosphy such as [Conductor](https://docs.conductor.build/), and even ogled at the wildness that is [Gas Town](https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16dd04). ([Maggie Appleton](https://maggieappleton.com/gastown) is recommended reading on this wild speculative experiment towards agent orchestration).

If you haven't given this workflow a go, I have to warn you that it is initially _exhilarating_. The jumping back and forth between tasks and typing into being solutions and features is addictive. There's an intoxication to see work that took ages being trivialized in parallel.

Naturally, though, this way of working has tremendous tradeoffs. First — throughput becomes the priority over quality. When there are other tasks waiting to be addressed, a given task that requires pause leads to impatience, making it all the more tempting to skim code generated, gloss over details, and obviously make mistakes. So more is done, but worse than before.

There's, of course, our mental wiring as well. There is plenty of research out there supporting that our minds are terrible multitaskers. We do not truly run multiple threads — it's all one thread, but with the ability to be interrupted and switch tasks quickly to give the illusion of multitasking. This can be stimulating (hello social media), but it is also incredibly expensive. So this mode of working is actually more demanding, not less — a complete reversal to how AI products get marketed. This means being absolutely _exhausted_ quickly. But, because the next prompt always contains the chance of a high reward with low effort, you want to keep going. Then, much like above, you are pressured into poor choices and skimming because of the fatigue on top of the throughput prioritization.[^1]

I found myself especially susceptible to this — when looking for more to put in flight, I ended up adding tasks and features that were low impact. So I might have a medium-priority task in flight, and be working on a smaller feature on the side. But, eventually, that small feature that was only supposed to take a few minutes ballooned into a larger problem that spiraled. Now I'm stuck working on both, and that additional feature likely didn't even need to be on my plate in the first place. The cost to onramp is low, so the complexities were underestimated against the more trivial priority.

So, when working with AI coding agents in this way, I was developing brittle features and fixes, spending more time on low-priority tasks that took away from my high-priority ones, _and_ I was more exhausted than ever before from development. This experiment was clearly a failure.

A major concern many engineers have around developing with AI assistance is a less thorough understanding of what they are developing. Hence the term vibe coding. This approach only exacerbates the issue. Forget being rusty with JavaScript — I wasn't retaining the attributes of the features I was working on as a result of this practice. A scary position!

This is not all that different from work modes before agentic coding tools. Monotasking and Deep Work are long-advocated principles that have always worked, and the introduction of the shiny new tool makes no difference here.

The alternate title to this would be "I Tried Multitasking Developing With Claude Code So You Don't Have To". So beware the temptation! The time when the tools are processing your prompt is better spent thinking further on the problem. These tools, while trying to lead with generation, are still most useful to me when I spend ample time using them to [think more deeply and efficiently](/claudecodeusage) around a problem rather than over-delegating to them.

Even further still — it's better to ignore the hype of 10X productivity that's seen buzzing around, and instead aim for _just a bit_ more efficient for greater sanity and ownership over the work at hand.

---

[^1] Steve Yegge, developer of Gas Town, returns to warn of this exact thing in [The AI Vampire](https://steve-yegge.medium.com/the-ai-vampire-eda6e4f07163).


Monotasking with AI Agents


There's an idea that's tickled me lately — the idea that a queueing problem can sometimes be tackled by employing... _more queues!_

Looking at the world around us, in a small retail store, one cashier and one queue can suffice. But in a grocery store, that is typically insufficient. During peak hours, it takes multiple cashiers to check out customers with their own individual queues.

Interestingly, they are also self-organizing thanks to individual customers having autonomy in the line that they chose. A customer can look at all open cashiers at a glance, see how many people are in line, and even further — can see which ones are being clogged up (by customers with large baskets, customers paying cash vs card, customers searching glacially for all the coupons they clipped that morning).

Most stores have an element of prioritization based on the workload as well. Cashiers are great at handling shoppers purchasing food for the week. Self-checkout, which has its own queue, is best suited for those with < 15 items. There is an entirely separate queue for these shoppers.

You could get granular here — each shopper within their cart ultimately constructs a queue of items that are scanned in an arbitrary order.

There's even a dead-letter queue in many humble grocery stores! My local stores have a customer service desk where you can communicate with a manager who has the ability to review your order, what went wrong, and has extra permissions to resolve an issue.

---

This all, of course, maps to software.

In terms of systems:

- A food item is a task
- Shoppers are a collection of tasks that are scanned via queues
- Cashiers (and self-checkout machines) are workers
- Individual cashier lines are queues
- Human cashiers vs self checkout represents prioritization queues
- Customer Service is, as mentioned, a dead-letter queue

Is it overly obvious that I thought about this while standing, perhaps too long, in line at the store this weekend?


Queues of Queues at the Grocery Store


<figure>
  ![Sheets strewn about with studies of the head](https://padilla-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/PlanesOfTheHeadStudies.png)
  <figcaption>Studies!</figcaption>
</figure>

Giving my +1 for [Marco Bucci's Understanding & Painting The Head](https://www.marcobucciartstore.com/courses/understandingandpaintingthehead)! Thorough without being bogged down in the weeds, classic Bucci teaching. Learned a lot from it!


Studying Planes of the Head


And why making with or without it takes courage:

> You're expected to make art that's intimately (perhaps even painfully) personal — yet alluring and easily grasped by an audience that has likely never known you personally.
>
> When the work goes well, we keep such inner distractions at bay, but in times of uncertainty or need, we begin listening. We abdicate artistic decision-making to others when we fear that the work itself will not bring us the understanding, acceptance and approval we seek. For students in academic settings, this trouble is a near certainty; you know (and you are correct) that if you steer your work along certain paths, three units of "A" can be yours. Outside academia, approval may be clothed in loftier terms — critical recognition, shows, fellowships — but the mechanism remains the same.
>
> With commercial art this issue is often less troublesome since approval from the client is primary, and other rewards appropriately secondary. But for most art there is no client, and in making it you lay bare a truth you perhaps never anticipated: that by your very contact with what you love, you have exposed yourself to the world. How could you _not_ take criticism of that work personally?


Hey, I'm Chris!

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