All About Appleby
About app.leby.org
This website is generated by Emacs from org files using org-mode's built-in publishing features. Previously, I used a whiz-bang Modern Best Practices(TM) static site generator, but it was a pain in the tuchus, and I am finally learning to embrace my transition from a young, hip programmer to a crusty old Emacs hermit.
About Appleby
Appleby is just a regular Joe who enjoys spending time with his family. Here are some things I like to do when I'm not programming or creating state-of-the-art websites, like this one.
Art
As a kid I believed that the world was divided into people who were "good at" math, science, and engineering and people who were "good at" art, music, and other "creative" things. Furthermore, I believed that I was one of the math/science people, and that this precluded me from being "good at" art1. In the parlance of pop psychology, I had a fixed, rather than a growth, mindset. So I started painting in an attempt to burst that bubble for myself once and for all, and as an experiment to test the theory that persistence and deliberate effort are at least as important as innate ability when learning a new skill. I put in about 8 months of more-or-less daily effort, and I consider the experiment a qualified success. I can draw and paint about as well as your average (but not too talented) 14-year-old. I still paint occasionally, but I don't practice regularly anymore. Ars longa, vita brevis, etc. I like to think I'll return to painting full-time when/if I retire, but future me will probably have other ideas.
Japanese
I started learning Japanese in preparation for a trip to Japan in 2015. What I like about Japanese is that it's so different from English that learning Japanese is like a puzzle. Kind of like programming in Prolog or Haskell. I can read ~500 kanji and ~2,000 words of vocabulary. I can't read real Japanese like websites or newspapers, but I can more-or-less make sense of children's books and beginner-friendly resources like Satori Reader. Occasionally, I ask noob questions on the Japanese Language stackexchange site.
Reading
I can read! Whole books sometimes! I have an account on bookpiles.ca, in case you're looking for book recommendations. Bookpiles is like a simpler version of GoodReads without the ads and gratuitous social features.
Footnotes:
Of course, my childhood mental model was wrong in many ways. Firstly, I was wrong about innate abilities being the most important factor in skill development. Unless you want to surpass Usain Bolt or Mozart or Michaelangelo, how hard you work is more likely to be your limiting factor than genetics or temperament. Secondly, I was wrong about art being "creative" and math and science being "not creative." Real math and science are creative pursuits, and real art requires discipline, structure, and hard thinking (certainly in the learning phases). Finally, I was even wrong about my own innate talents for math and science. I was only good at math and science relative to the other 15 kids in my middle school classes; in the wider world of nerds, I am a dunce.