Peter Cresswell

JetBrains Mono Font

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

JetBrains has recently introduced a new font called Mono and I love it. It’s intelligent in its considerations (ILlo0O all look distinctly different) and its ligatures are perfect for developers (see -> or ### for examples).

Just for fun, I’ve switched my entire blog over to using it. Overkill? You bet. But why not show it off.

If you’re writing code, I strongly encourage you to have a look. Read more from JetBrains.

On Fasting

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently listened to a podcast with Peter Attia and Jason Fung on the topic of fasting. I’ve been a fan of Peter Attia’s for a bit now but I have not read or listened to his work lately. While Peter is still a big advocate of low carb diets, he’s also evolving to include time restricted eating patterns into his framework.

He put together a great summary of his framework. I strongly encourage you to watch it.

Failing To Deploy

Sun, 28 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

At DoctorCare we’re a believer in the simplicity and value of continuous delivery. We try and avoid long lived branches. All pull requests go to master and master always ships.

In fact, there’s no way not to ship master once a PR is merged (outside of stopping the build mind you).

For the most part, we’re OK at this. Not great. But ok. We’re running a django application using Bitbucket Pipelines for deployments into AWS Beanstalk with a Postgresql RDS backend. That’s a pretty vanilla deployment if ever there was one and we’re happy to keep it simple.

Leading Software Teams

Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A year ago, the software team at DoctorCare was a team of one. Just me.

Since then, I have added two developers to the team, both junior. In previous positions, I’ve lead teams of up to 20 developers but in the past 5 years or so of working as a contractor and, in the past year, as a full time employee again, I haven’t had to play the team lead role. With this new growth of the team, I’m back to leading developers again.

Price Is Not Progress

Sun, 07 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

There was a great tweet by @sassal0x about the progress that Ethereum has made since 2017 when it first hit the price of $150. What’s different since we last hit this price? A lot.

Ether first hit $150 on May 22nd 2017 - how has the Ethereum network grown since then? pic.twitter.com/woggzoXLkk
— Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) April 5, 2019

Price is not progress. Progress is progress. And by many different measures, Ethereum is showing great progress.

Brave Browser

Sat, 06 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a long time user of the safari browser. Chrome always seemed like a great deal but lately it’s been getting too close to google. But my employer is a big GSuite user which means that I need a Chrome compatible browser for Google Hangout meetings (now called Meet and soon to be called something else I’m sure).

So Safari doesn’t quite cover me.

Enter the Brave Browser

Oddly, I heard about Basic Attention Token well before I understood that they had a browser. But they do. And it’s really good.

Wild Day in Ethereum Land

Mon, 12 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Today was a wild day for the crypto currency markets. At this point, swings of $100 USD for Ether are starting to become more common which is bonkers since the price of Ether at “closing” today was about $400 or so.

Ethereum is starting to bite into Bitcoin’s market share, both in the financial sense and in the attention space. Even Vladimir Putin seems to be getting interested.

I’ve been a huge believer (and decent ETH holder) in the project since I heard about it a few years back. It’s going to radically change the world (side note; I’ve never said this about other projects before so I’m not some kool aid drinker by heart). Today’s volatility can be gut wrenching to watch in real time and I’ve certainly stepped back from the console on a couple of occasions to avoid motion sickness. But if you ask yourself if Ether will be worth more 5 years from now the answer is certainly a huge “Yes”.

Why We Get Fat

Wed, 10 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The answer to the question “Why we get fat?” can be answered in the superficial and wrong way - “Because you eat too much” - or it can be answered in the literal, medical sense - “Because your fat cells are getting fat”. Whereas the first approach has jumped to the conclusion, the latter begs for follow up inquiry. Following that line of investigation leads to some really important discussions.

One Massive Mistake

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Home Capital Group has been in the news lately, mostly due to its stock crashing over 60% in one day. I guess that sort of thing will get you in the news. The cause of the crash? HCG announced that it had secured a $2 billion loan with terms that would make the most predatory loan shark blush.

Home Capital said the credit line is intended to “mitigate” a sharp drop in Home Trust’s high-interest savings account balances, which sank by $591 million from March 28 to April 24, at which point the total balance was $1.4 billion. Home Capital warned on Wednesday that further outflows are anticipated.

Introducing TUL Application

Wed, 26 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re really interested in getting my attention, the phrase “Do the exact opposite” is a good place to start. Now it’s not just enough to say it. There needs to be a lot to back up that statement. But on the rare occasions when there actually is great support for it, that sentence has led me down some really incredible paths.

The most recent path has led me to a complete rethink of everything I know about fitness. And in this case, it wasn’t a person that told me I was doing everything backwards. It was a book.

Toronto Housing Changes

Sat, 22 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Toronto housing market is in the middle of a complete core meltdown at the moment with housing prices rising some 30% or more across the city year over year. That’s insane and clearly has nothing to do with the meager wage increases people may have recently seen.

At the same time, the Ontario Liberals have been in power for what seems like forever at this point to most in Ontario. The leader, Kathleen Wynne, has an approval rating that is orders of magnitude less than Trump. Mostly that’s a reflection of Ontario’s desire for change at this point since Kathleen really hasn’t been leader of the party long enough to justify that kind of thrashing.

An Evening with Vitalik

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I went to An Evening with Vitalik which sounds a like a cheap 1990s porno or something if we’re being honest instead of what it really was; a basic series of speakers topped off with a rundown of what is crypto-economics given by Vitalik himself.

The room was reasonably full - perhaps some 300 or so people were there. It was impossible not to notice the lack of women in the room. If there is a lack of women in technology and coding, there appears to be an extreme lack of women in the crypto/ethereum space. That’s a real shame.

Punished by Rewards

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I often find myself explaining incentives and rewards to people for some reason. This story from the classic work Punished By Rewards captures the essence well. It’s a story I keep at my fingertips. Very useful.

An old joke captures this phenomenon as well as any study could. It is the story of an elderly man who endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds each day as they passed his house on their way home from school. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid and ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. “Do the same tomorrow,” he told them, “and you’ll get twenty-five cents for your trouble.” The kids thought that was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first catcall, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. “From now on,” he announced, “I can give you only a penny for doing this.” The kids looked at each other in disbelief. “A penny?” they repeated scornfully. “Forget it!” And they never came back again.

Toronto Housing Bubble

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Toronto housing situation - the great, big bubble staring everyone in the face (or, at least, all those who aren’t paid to ignore it) is starting to show signs of its age. Predicting the exact moment of it’s potentially explosive demise is a fool’s game. But the symptoms are piling up.

Here are just a few of them that have come to mind recently.

The rich are nervous and frustrated

One of my clients works in the health care space directly with well paid individuals. Mostly doctors. It’s not uncommon for conversations to turn to housing and what my client hears is mostly groans about a lack of affordable options and constantly being outbid in bidding wars.

About Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Peter Cresswell. Welcome to my world. It’s a small and simple one but maybe you’ll enjoy hearing about it.

I’m a programmer by trade. I make things. Hopefully useful things. But sometimes not. You can find me on Github if you’re into those things.

I blog (rarely but sometimes) about technology, travel, financial markets, programming and lifestyle.

If you’re wondering what a flaneur is, you’ll find more about it here

Gustave Caillebotte, “Paris Street; Rainy Day” (1877). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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