because adulthood is lonely

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#180 — Feb 21, 2026 by Evan Chen

Answering emails at my desktop feels like clearing a field.

Like, I imagine I'm outside surrounded by grass that's taller than me, and I'm holding this farmer scythe (Vim + Mutt). And I just keep swinging it around wildly, until the emails are all cleared away and I can see in front of me again.


#179 — Feb 21, 2026 by Evan Chen

Look, kids, "I'm just being honest" is not an excuse for being mean. Believe me, I can tell the difference between someone who is being honest because they're trying to help, versus someone looking for an excuse to be mean.


#178 — Feb 18, 2026 by Evan Chen

One of the most surprising things you'll discover, if you start writing essays, is that people who disagree with you rarely disagree with what you've actually written. Instead they make up something you said and disagree with that.

Yeah, that sounds like what I remember on the few occasions I see people talking about math contests on Reddit.


#177 — Feb 17, 2026 by Evan Chen

Messenger.com won't be available after April 14, 2026

fml


#176 — Feb 16, 2026 by Evan Chen

TIL I learned that 않다 is a contraction for 아니하다, so -지 않다 is another example of a grammar pattern in Korean that is actually just the composition of simpler principles. I think that's the thing I find really nice about Korean grammar… so many constructions are actually composed from other ones.


#175 — Feb 13, 2026 by Evan Chen

oh wait I did not know that sl even has command line options. that's cute.


#174 — Feb 13, 2026 by Evan Chen

I'm going to miss having access to eduroam.


#173 — Feb 12, 2026 by Evan Chen

If anyone wants to follow the T-Mobile struggle bus, here's the link. I think at some point I'll make it into a blog post just for comedic effect.


#172 — Feb 10, 2026 by Evan Chen

I finally got around to cleaning up INSTALL.sh in my dotfiles and it feels so much better. That file was an utter mess for the longest time.


#171 — Feb 8, 2026 by Evan Chen

EWD 854 and EWD 1036 talk about the dangers of trying to make predictions about the future by using analogies to the past. Actually I feel like I haven't heard many other people say the same thing.

What happens if I tune out all predictions about radically new territory which are justified with a comparison to the past? Is that ignoring history?


#170 — Feb 8, 2026 by Evan Chen

TIL the story of Čech and higher homotopy groups. Bit of a sad story.


#169 — Feb 8, 2026 by Evan Chen

Nobody told me about tmux being able to detach (like nohup). I'd always assumed it was just something like a window manager inside the terminal. Glad to learn something new.


#168 — Feb 6, 2026 by Evan Chen

Achievement unlocked: file complaint with FCC.gov.


#167 — Feb 6, 2026 by Evan Chen

i thought i had no meetings today what a fool i was


#166 — Feb 6, 2026 by Evan Chen

Anguilla winning the TLD game:

"In the years before the real breakthrough of AI, revenue from .ai domains made up less than 1% of our state income, by 2025 it will be around 47%," explained Jose Vanterpool, Minister of Infrastructure and Communications (MICUHITES), in an interview with BBC.


#165 — Feb 5, 2026 by Evan Chen

The name "AxiomProver" seems like kind of an oxymoron.


#164 — Feb 5, 2026 by Evan Chen

Advertisement I enjoyed:

Boxaroo enjoys answering some of the world's hardest questions, like, "how do I get out of this room?" and "is this a puzzle?".


#163 — Feb 4, 2026 by Evan Chen

I could write a whole blog post about how mad I am T-mobile right now, but I'm so hosed I don't have the time right now.


#162 — Feb 2, 2026 by Evan Chen

I turned my Anki retention for Korean back to 88%, and it actually feels better somehow… fewer feelings of idiocy? But also 30% more reviews.

You get what you paid for, I guess.


#161 — Feb 1, 2026 by Evan Chen

TIL that "braille" should not be capitalized. Never knew that, actually.