Time to Change the Interface of This Blog

I think my blog has too much content in regards to my notes (despite the vastness of topics not covered), and I think the time has come to restructure it.

When I first made this site, it was with the idea of sharing my notes, then sprinkle some other stuff in, like my training log. So I made the headlines of the site resemble all of the various subtopics and topics of notes I scanned & uploaded. With few notes in the beginning, this was not a problem. But as the number of those grew, the interface is no longer optimal. And along with my training log, the site has become a site where I upload a lot of “other things” (also known as my manic projects of the day/month/period).

A barely exhaustive list of sections for the notes on both desktop and mobile

A very long scroll in the “Other” section on the desktop

On mobile the whole menu heirarchy is expanded and displayed on tapping, making the navigation very dissatisfying with a lit of scrolling and not knowing where you are

In the future, I will probably reorganize the headlines and have the notes be accessible only via the current “Index” page, renaming it to “Notes”. And maybe I need to look into another template altogether (though I do like the simplicity of this one). Accessing specific notes from the front page will no longer be possible, but the interface will be much cleaner.

Regarding Getting the Masters Copy

It’s been soooo long since I last updated this blog, and that disappoints me. I wonder if it’s worth keeping it online as it takes money, money I need. But I’ve already paid for another year…So yeah.

Anyways, I’d like to take a moment and address reader feedback (yay). So this reader from India asked if he can get a PDF compilation of my notes. I asked him to download the JPEG from the site instead, and there’s a few reasons for this.

1. My modern handwritten notes are scanned at very high resolution, higher than what a human retina can process: 600 dpi. Kinda like music masters. Thus the filesizes are huge for the relatively small content. My full stash of notes currently sits at…5 GB

2. The JPEG’s have been processed to 220 dpi on the site, and it is JPEG’s that this site uses to render the images and not PDF pages. This is the around the same value as the DPI of a Retina MacBook. It’s smaller than the DPI’s of say the top smartphones, but I think this is a good compromise. I have actually been trying to downsize the scans to 460 (ala top smartphones), but PDFPen broke what was a working feature related to this, and I’ve given up since. Maybe in the future I’ll just scan at 460 dpi.

Now if someone wants to pay me for my stuff, that’s a different issue altogether! This site is more in the red than a non-profit!

Random Thoughts (15/3/18)

1) Toys R Us is closing down in the states. 800 stores. 33000 jobs. Lost childhood memories.

2) 20 years blogging (or anything that consistent) is no mean feat. With such a timeline, you really get to see your growth. And yes, I do cringe at my past (notes and everything else). Just like Jason Kottke:

“I’ve been reading back through the early archives (which I wouldn’t recommend), and it feels like excavating down through layers of sediment, tracing the growth & evolution of the web, a media format, and most of all, a person. On March 14, 1998, I was 24 years old and dumb as a brick. Oh sure, I’d had lots of book learning and was quick with ideas, but I knew shockingly little about actual real life. I was a cynical and cocky know-it-all. Some of my older posts are genuinely cringeworthy to read now: poorly written, cluelessly privileged, and even mean spirited. I’m ashamed to have written some of them.”

3) I've started taking magnesium supplementation. It's more than a supplement; it's a drug (and hey, even IV fluids should be thought of as drugs and not something completely benign). It helps with insomnia (a byproduct of my pharmacologically revved up lifestyle) and sleep quality. It helps with blood pressure and sugars (more studies are needed). It even boosts testosterone levels (and yes, I'm not on roids). It's one of the best utilitarian drugs in anesthesia and ICU (used to manage pain, blood pressure, anesthetic requirements (especially with TIVA vs inhalational anesthesia), rhythm abnormalities, general ICU outcomes, effects on other electrolytes (especially managing hypokalemia), everything). Let's see if it improves my overall well-being. And I've done the calcuation: 1 tablet of this is equivalent to 15 mmol of magnesium. And I take it for immediate effect rather than a slow release: I slowly chew on it with water in my mouth (don't try it yourself unless if you are a masochist) right before bed.